The Speaker of Mandarin Read Online Free PDF Page B

the
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    boy's legs on the floor. He went in, opened the toolbag and helped himself to a pair of pliers.
    Outside the windows a few feeble clusters of light showed. They were passing a village or small town. For a moment the outline of a mountain could be seen and then the darkness closed in once more as the train gathered speed. Wexford stood in the doorway of Lois Knox's compartment. The radio was still on, playing a selection from Swan Lake. Hilda Avory still lay in the lower berth and on the end of it, beside her feet, sat Purbank. He seemed to be addressing them on the very subject which had been the reason for Wexford's visit to China in the first place, crime prevention. Lois's face wore the expression of a woman who has been taught from childhood that men must at all costs be flattered. Hilda's eyes were closed and slightly screwed up.
    'These Communists make a lot of high-flown claims about how they've got rid of crime. Now that's all very well but we know in practice it just isn't true. I mean, where did I have my watch pinched and my Diners Club card and all that currency? Not in Europe, oh, no. In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. And that, mark you, was in a train. Now why should it be any different here? Same lack of material possessions - worse, if anything - so you can bet your life they can't wait to get their hot little hands on rich capitalists' property - and that means yours. So don't leave it in the compartment, carry it with you, and when you . . .'
    Wexford coughed. Lois saw him and jumped up, clasping her hands. In his absence she had put on more lipstick and eyeshadow and had changed into a low-necked dress of thin yellow material with a black pattern on it.
    'Oh, what a fright you gave me! Tony has been scaring us out of our wits with tales of robbery and murder.'
    Purbank gave a very macho, reassuring-the-little-woman haw-haw of a laugh. 'When did I mention murder now? I
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    never said a word about murder. I merely counselled the inadvisability of leaving valuables around.'
    'Quite right too,' said Wexford.
    He groped under the table, got a grip on the broken knob with the pliers and wrenched it anticlockwise. The music stopped.
    'Oh, you wonderful, wonderful man!'cried Lois. 'Listen to the blessed silence. Peace at last! Don't you adore the masterful way he strode into the compartment? You couldn't do that, Tony. All you could do was say we'd have to put up with it all night and get robbed as well.'
    'Give the man a cup of tea,' muttered Hilda into her pillow.
    'I'll give him anything he wants!' She extended the teacup to Wexford, holding it in both hands and bowing over it in what she perhaps thought was the manner of an emperor's concubine. 'Oh, if only you hadn't drunk up all the Scotch, Hilda!'
    But at that moment Mr Yu appeared in the doorway, announced that the restaurant was open and please to follow him. Mindful perhaps of Purbank's warning, Lois gathered up purse, handbag, hand case and what looked like a jewel box. Wexford gulped down the by now lukewarm tea, realizing he was about to be trapped into a foursome with the two women and Purbank. This being China, though, the restaurant would hardly be open for long. Everywhere he had been so far what night life there was came to a halt at about ten. But was there much chance of sleep in this stuffy train? He felt himself being overtaken by those sensations which result from an insufficiency of sleep, not so much tiredness as a lightness in the head and a feeling of unreality.
    They walked down the corridor, Wexford at the rear with Lois immediately in front of him. The boy was still asleep, his head having slid down the wall and come to rest on the table. Wexford slipped in to replace the pliers in the toolbag. Lois hadn't noticed his absence and had gone on
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    in the wake of the others. Wexford stood a moment by the window, trying to make out some indication of the terrain in the darkness that rushed past. He heard a footstep not