Читать книгу Payment Deferred. Psychological Thriller онлайн

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The stranger paused for a moment at the doorway.

‘Good evening,’ he said, a little diffidently.

‘Good evening,’ replied Mr Marble, wondering who on earth he was.

‘I suppose you are my Uncle William,’ said the new arrival. ‘I didn’t expect you to know me.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t.’

‘My mother was Mrs Medland, Mrs Winnie Medland, your sister, sir, I think. I have just come from Melbourne.’

‘Oh, of course. You’re Winnie’s boy? Come on in—no, let’s get your coat off first. Annie, poke up the fire. Winnie, clear that stuff off that chair.’

Mr Marble bustled out into the hall with his guest. His family heard him helping him off with his coat, and then—

‘And how is your mother now?’

There was no immediate answer to this question. The trench coat and the hat had been hung up on the hall-stand and the pair were about to reappear in the dining-room before the listeners there heard the hesitant, almost whispered, reply.

‘She’s dead. She died—six months ago.’

Mr Marble was still muttering the conventional condolences as they re-entered the dining-room, but he changed to clumsy brightness at the earliest possible moment. Truth to tell, he was not particularly interested in his sister Winnie, of whom he probably had not thought for the thirteen and a half years that had elapsed since he had had his daughter christened after her. Also he was feeling a little annoyed with this young man for turning up and interfering with the comfort of his evening. But Mr Marble was not the man to show it. Hostility of any kind—even the instinctive hostility towards strangers—was a feeling to be carefully concealed on every occasion. That was the lesson learned as a result of a lifetime spent in carrying out the orders of other people.