The Riddle of Sphinx Island Read Online Free PDF Page A

ask me which one. It was some famous American writer.’
    ‘I don’t read as much as I should. I need to improve my mind,’ Maisie said. ‘Oswald keeps recommending books to me.’
    ‘Keeping up with one’s reading can be quite a task.’ Lady Grylls pushed her glasses up her nose. ‘I am now compelled to use a magnifying glass which is rather a bore.’
    ‘Would you like me to read to you sometime?’
    ‘Kind of you to offer, my dear. Yes, why not? Your voice is as clear as a bell. Perhaps you could try to get something racy? Or maybe a murder mystery, of the kind my niece-by-marriage writes?’
    ‘I don’t really like murder mysteries. They scare me.’
    She seemed a genuinely nice gel, Lady Grylls decided. She couldn’t have been anything but an American. There was the earnestness, the simplicity, the complete lack of self-consciousness, the kindness and friendliness, all of which one associated with Americans. Might have been deemed gushing, garrulous and gauche, but, oddly enough, Lady Grylls didn’t for a moment think of her in those terms. And she was so awfully pretty. Didn’t she really see how pretty she was? Hadn’t it occurred to her that her quite exceptional looks might have had something to do with her rapid promotion from nurse to secretary and the great trust her employer had to chosen to put in her?
    At some point Lady Grylls seemed to doze off and she woke up with a start.
    ‘That’s right, my dear, how perfectly extraordinary. What was it you said about the house?’
    ‘It’s very old, isn’t it?’
    ‘No, not all old. It was built in the early 1930 s. There’s nothing special about it, really, though it seems to have generated its own mythology. I believe it was used for something terribly hush-hush during the war, then there was the alien thing.’
    The girl’s eyes had opened wide. ‘The 1930 s is very old . Oswald said he is enthralled by the lullaby the sea waves sing to him at night. Oswald is very romantic, but I think he is worried about something. I am not sure Ella likes it much here. She hasn’t complained or anything, mind. Ella never complains.’
    ‘No, she is not the complaining type.’
    Lady Grylls found herself contemplating the Ramskritt ménage – tragic queen Ella and ingénue Maisie – not a ménage-à-trois , surely? It was curious that Oswald should have brought his very own German medico along. A Doctor Klein. Though of course anyone less kleine one could hardly imagine. His name should have been Grosse, something like that. Each time their orbits intersected, she had the disconcerting feeling she was seeing two people. Doctor Klein’s eyes didn’t seem to belong to Doctor Klein’s body . She didn’t quite know what she meant by that …  Not a well man … Metabolism as sluggish as a frozen Thames. Breathing like a suction pump … One always expected doctors to enjoy perfect health but this one clearly didn’t …
    The girl was telling her something about her parents, elder sister and younger brother who lived in a place called Vermont …
    The drawing room door opened.
    ‘I’d like to see everybody in the library in a couple of jiffies, if poss,’ a voice said. ‘Oh sorry, Lady Grylls. Were you having a nap? I do apologise, but we’ve got very little time and I am not sure we’ve got everything right yet. So let’s put our best foot forward, shall we?’
    Lady Grylls blinked. It was the woman with the pudding-bowl hairdo of course, the dreadful draperies, the smudged make-up and the costume jewellery. A Mrs Garrison-Gore. At the moment she was wearing something else, not the draperies and the jewellery – something in aubergine à la crème d’oursin – Goodness! – clung to her like a uniform – were those epaulettes?
    ‘The good news is that Feversham will be with us very soon. Oswald phoned to say he’d fetched Feversham and they were on their way. I pray to God that Feversham is the right person. We’d be lost if he