"Деннис Уитли. The Devil Rides Out (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

toys for Fleur.'
'How like him!' Rex's gargantuan laugh rang suddenly through the
room. 'I might have known the trunkful I brought over would be small
fry if you and Simon have been busy on that child.'
'Well I can only conclude that poor Simon is "in a muddle" as you
say, or he would never treat us all like this.'
'But what sort of a muddle?' Rex brought his leg-of mutton fist
crashing down on the table angrily. 'I can't think of a thing where
he wouldn't turn to us.'
'Money,' suggested the Duke, 'is the one thing that with his
queer sensitive nature he might not care to discuss with even his
closest friends.'
'I doubt it being that. My old man has a wonderful opinion of
Simon's financial ability and he handles a big portion of our
interests on this side. I'm pretty sure we'd be wise to it if he'd
burned his fingers on the market. It sounds as if he'd gone bats
about some woman to me.'
De Richleau's face was lit by his faintly cynical smile for a
moment. 'No,' he said slowly. 'A man in love turns naturally to his
friends for congratulation or sympathy as his fortune with a woman
proves good or ill. It can't be that.'
For a little the two friends sat staring at each other in silence
across the low jade bowl with its trailing sprays of orchids: Rex,
giant shouldered, virile and powerful, his ugly, attractive,
humorous young face clouded with anxiety, the Duke, a slim, delicate-
looking man, somewhat about middle height, with slender, fragile
hands and greying hair, but with no trace of weakness in his fine,
distinguished face. His aquiline nose, broad forehead and grey
'devil's' eyebrows might well have replaced those of the cavalier in
the Van Dyck that gazed down from the opposite wall. Instead of the
conventional black, he wore a claret coloured vicuna smoking suit,
with silk lapels and braided fastenings; this touch of colour
increased his likeness to the portrait. He broke the silence
suddenly.
'Have you by any chance ever heard of a Mr. Mocata, Rex?'
'Nope. Who is he anyway?'
'A new friend of Simon's who has been staying with him these last
few months.'
'What-at his Club?'
'No-no, Simon no longer lives at his Club. I thought you knew. He
bought a house last February, a big, rambling old place tucked away
at the end of a cul-de-sac off one of those quiet residential
streets in St. John's Wood.'
'Why, that's right out past Regent's Park-isn't it? What's he
want with a place out there when there are any number of nice little
houses to let in Mayfair?'
'Another mystery, my friend.' The Duke's thin lips creased into a
smile. 'He said he wanted a garden, that's all I can tell you.'
'Simon! A garden!' Rex chuckled. 'That's a good story I'll say.
Simon doesn't know a geranium from a fuchsia. His botany is limited