PASSENGER TO FRANKFURT by Agatha Christie

Author:Agatha Christie
Language: eng
Format: epub

PASSENGER TO FRANKFURT

Chapter 11

THE YOUNG AND LOVELY

After breakfasting on the following morning in a small

breakfast-room downstairs, he found Renata waiting for

him. The horses were at the door.

Both of them had brought riding clothes with them. Everything

they could possibly require seemed to have been intelligently

anticipated.

They mounted and rode away down the castle drive. Renata spoke with the groom at some length.

He asked if we would like him to accompany us but 1 ^d no. I know the tracks round here fairly well.'

I see. You have been here before?'

Not very often of late years. Early in my life I knew this

Place very well'

103

He gave her a sharp look. She did not return it. As sh

rode beside him, he watched her profile--the thin, aquiline

nose, the head carried so proudly on the slender neck. s'he

rode a horse well, he saw that. " ,

All the same, there was a sense of ill ease in his mind rhis

morning. He wasn't sure why ". . .

His mind went back to the Airport Lounge. The wo.iian

who had come to stand beside him. The glass of Pihner

on the table . . . Nothing in it that there shouldn't 1 ;e been--neither then, nor later. A risk he had accepted. \,^y,

when all that was long over, should it rouse uneasiness in

him now?

They had a brief canter following a ride through the trees.

A beautiful property, beautiful Woods. In the distance he

saw homed animals. A paradise for a sportsman, a par&dise

for the old way of living, a paradise that contained--what?

A serpent? As it was in the beginning--with Paradise went

a serpent. He drew rein and the horses fell to a walk. He

and Renata were alone--no microphones, no listening walls--

The time had come for his questions.

'Who is she?' he said urgently. 'What is she?'

It's easy to answer. So easy that it's hardly believable.*

Well?' he said.

'She's oil. Copper. Goldmines in South Africa. Armaments

in Sweden. Uranium deposits in the north. Nuclear

development, vast stretches of cobalt. She's all those things.'

'And yet, I hadn't heard about her, I didn't know her name,

I didn't know--'

'She has not wanted people to know.'

'Can one keep such things quiet?'

'Easily, if you have enough copper and oil and nuclear

deposits and armaments and all the rest of it. Money can advertise, or money can keep secrets, can hush things up.'

'But who actually is she?'

'Her grandfather was American. He was mainly railways.

I think. Possibly Chicago hogs in those times. It's like poin^ back into history, finding out. He married a German wo-an

You've heard of her, I expect. Big Belinda, they use “ christen her. Armaments, shipping, the whole industri, ”:“”

of Europe. She was her father's heiress.'

'Between those two, unbelievable wealth,' said Sir Sia .^-r Nye. 'And so--power. Is that what you're telling roe?'

'Yes. She didn't just inherit things, you know. She maw money as well. She'd inherited brains, she was a big faaanci

in her own right. Everything she touched multiplied itself.

Turied to incredible sums of money, and she invested them.

Taking advice, taking other people's judgment, but in the end

always using her own. And always prospering. Always adding

to her wealth so that it was too fabulous to be believed.

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