Deadly Duo: Two Tense Novellas from the Queen of Crime by Margery Allingham

Author:Margery Allingham [Allingham, Margery]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Agora Books
Published: 2016-12-28T00:00:00+00:00

Two

Sir Christopher Perrins walked sadly down the corridor. The house was his own, but he hardly recognised it. Since Zoff had bedevilled it, the familiar atmosphere of sanctuary had disappeared altogether. The angry police inspector at his side was an anachronism if ever he met one.

In his youth Kit Perrins had been one of those happy little men whose round faces and smiling good humour sometimes deceive people into believing that they can have neither brains nor deep feelings. Both in the diplomatic and the elegant sporting circles which revolved round the great houses of those days he had been a great favourite without being a great figure. It was only afterward that his friends, looking back on him, realised how sound he had been and also how nearly the tragic elements in his story must have touched him.

His marriage had been a miserable failure, but he never complained, and no one heard of the bitterness brought into his life by the cold, greedy woman who had shared forty years of it. His fortune dwindled inevitably in the changing years, and a country never generous to the men on whom she relies had rewarded him hardly at all for a lifetime of service. Yet at seventy-odd — he was jocularly evasive about the “odd” — he remained a round and smiling person, old only by his wrinkles and a slight unsteadiness in his freckled hands.

At this instant he was deeply shocked. During his long friendship with Zoff she had provided him with plenty of awkward moments. For nearly fifty years she had retained her ability to startle the wits out of him and on rarer occasions to scandalise his sophisticated soul. Today she had done it again. His round brown eyes were reproachful. This final scene, which had taken place not ten minutes before when she had calmly rescinded all her dreadful accusations of the morning, this really had taken a deal of swallowing. He glanced up at the furious policeman who walked beside him.

“The French are volatile,” he ventured.

“Old ladies are often difficult, you mean.” Inspector Lee spoke bluntly. He was a big man, heavily built, with an intelligent face which normally wore a mild, not to say resigned, expression. But at the moment he was irritated beyond endurance and did not care if he showed it. Kit sighed. There were times when he half wished he had left Zoff to the Hun, but, as always, in the next breath he was ashamed.

“In her own country Madame Zoffany has been a little queen for a great many years.”

“Oh, I understand perfectly, sir.” The inspector cut him short because he could not bear to hear any more of it. When the complaint had arrived at the station it had promised something interesting and it was exasperating to find this explanation. “I understand what you’re telling me. She did it to annoy and now she’s changed her mind. We often get that sort of thing, but usually,” he added spitefully, “in a rather different walk of life.

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