The Dark Glasses by Francis King

Author:Francis King
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Valancourt Books
Published: 2021-09-11T00:00:00+00:00

3

“Yes, it certainly looks as if the rascal had been cheating you. You must have got more than two million for your oranges—that’s barely fifty pounds. I got eleven million. And I’ve only half your number of trees.” Mrs. Nicolidou put the last spray of almond-blossom into the copper jug and, wiping her large hands, encrusted with their rings, down her apron, said: “That’s pretty, isn’t it?”

“Very pretty.”

“I told you Dino was not to be trusted, didn’t I? But Iris always thinks she knows best. I no longer try to give her advice—I know she’ll never take it. . . . And that bill for paraffin, there’s something wrong there,” she went on. “You can’t have used all that. He’s done a fiddle with old Vlachos.” It was strange to hear the old lady use this last col­loquialism, no doubt the fruit of her enthusiastic reading of English detective novels. “It’s a pity you decided against running the estate yourself—that was the original idea, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, but then Christo seemed to be doing it so well. . . .”

“Ah, Christo!” She made an eloquent gesture, raising both her hands and then letting them fall to her sides. “He was a bailiff in a thousand.”

“What do you think should be done about Dino?”

“You must talk to him,” she replied decisively. “Let’s go out. I must see the stable-boy. . . . Yes, you must talk to him. No use beating about the bush in Greece. Plain speaking, that’s what the Greeks like. Dino will probably be furious to begin with, but in a day or two. . . . Talk to him, that’s what you must do, talk to him.”

“I don’t quite see how I can put it!”

“Be jocular, that’s the best way. Go up to him and say: ‘Look here, you old rascal, you’ve been cheating us all these weeks. Now don’t try to deny it. And it’s time that you stopped.’ Don’t be too serious or stern—say it in the friendliest possible way. Jocularity, that’s the thing, jocularity.”

Patrick had never found it easy to be jocular, and he knew that it would be impossible for him to be so while accusing another man of dishonesty. Unconsciously he decided that this task, too, would have to be left to Iris.

They passed a shed, dark and evil-smelling, inside which animals could be heard moving uneasily; but it was impossible to see what animals they were. Mrs. Nicolidou was picking her way carefully over stones, heaps of manure and puddles which gave off a beautiful iridescent sheen in the early morning sunlight, as she asked: “When is the funeral?”

“Tomorrow.”

“I suppose I’d better come. Will Iris be there?”

“I imagine so.”

She sighed. “It was really better that it ended that way.”

“Yes. Petropoulos says that he would have died in great pain. While like this . . .”

“That was not what I meant.” She stopped at a loose-box, over which a horse, muzzle grey and one eye sealed with a cataract (an image of

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.