"Masterton, Graham - The Djinn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Masterton Graham)

She shook her head. "I mustn't drink. I'm afraid to get drunk."

"Come on, Marjorie. A couple of swallows won't hurt you."

She shook her head again. "It's forbidden, you know. They don't allow it."

"Who doesn't allow it?" asked Anna. "What do you mean?"

I held Marjorie's wrist "Don't worry. Just tell us what happened when you went downstairs."

Her voice was almost indistinguishable now. All I could see of her head was the gray-streaked part in her hair as she mumbled her story.

"I went into the hall and he wasn't there. He wasn't in the drawing room, either. It was silent by then, completely silent, and I was terrified. Then I saw the light was on in the kitchen. It was shining from under the door. I opened the door very slowly, and . . ." She stopped talking, and stayed silent and still for almost a whole minute.

"Marjorie," I said gently. "You don't have to..."

But she started speaking again, in the same hushed, whispery voice.

"I thought he was all right at first. I don't know what made me think that He was turned away from me, I suppose, and the first thing I saw was the back of his head. Then I realized what he had done." Again, she stopped.

"What?" Anna asked. "What had he done?"

Marjorie looked up. For the first time that day, there were tears in her eyes, although her voice was almost emotionless. I don't know why, but that calmness made her words even more nauseating.

"I don't quite know how he did it," she said. "He had taken the carving knife from the drawer and cut his face off. His nose, his cheeks, even his lips. He had done it himself."

Anna sat with her mouth open in shock. "Excuse me," she said, leaving the table as quickly as she could. As for me, I just sat there holding Mar-jorie's hand, feeling those lobster tails swimming around and around, fighting like hell to keep them down.









Chapter 2



By the time we got back to Winter Sails, most of the funeral guests had left. There was one old lady who was busy talking to Marjorie's baby-pink companion with the jutting teeth, and a florid-faced oil executive who was sitting with his head between his knees (he had brought his own hip-flask), but apart from those two, the old house was deserted. The guests had left nothing but tire tracks, empty sherry glasses, and dirty ashtrays.

"I think I'm going to have a cup of tea," said Marjorie, leading us to the drawing room. "Will you join me?"

I shook my head. "I don't drink tea. It's bad for the stomach lining. You know, in China, they used to make eunuchs drink hundreds of cups of tea every day, then they cut them open and would use their stomachs for footballs."

Anna gave me a sharp nudge in the ribs.

"I'm sorry," I said. "That wasn't in very good taste."