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.The weekend had passed without incident, his ritual drink with Alec Luria on Saturday evening, the pub as sedate as it had ever been, on Sunday a lunch with old acquaintances out at Richmond.That was all.He had never been fond of the social life, now less than ever.He had nothing to do on the coming day.As he lay dozing, there was a tap, a couple of impatient taps, on the bedroom door.The door opened – ‘Mr Humphrey! Mr Humphrey!’His housekeeper, Mrs Burbridge, was standing beside the bed.She was a woman in her early seventies, blooming, healthy, as a rule unfussed.But she was not unfussed that morning.‘I’m sorry, Mr Humphrey.It’s the foreign girl, Lady Ashbrook’s daily.I can’t make her out much.She’s asking for you.I’m afraid something’s happened to her ladyship.’‘What has happened?’ Humphrey had come full awake.‘I’m afraid she’s dead.’Mrs Burbridge couldn’t tell him more.She found Maria incomprehensible, except that she was asking for Humphrey and seemed to want him to return with her to Lady Ashbrook’s house.Humphrey said that he would soon be ready, and shortly followed Mrs Burbridge downstairs.Maria was standing in the hall, Mrs Burbridge with an arm around her shoulders.Maria was a sturdy young woman, not given to excitement.She wasn’t crying, but her face opened when she saw him and she broke into a stream of her own language.It is horrible, he thought she was saying, and then lost the rest.He had to tell her to speak slowly: he didn’t really understand Portuguese, but he would have to try.‘She has been killed,’ said Maria, and crossed herself.Those words were clear, but Humphrey couldn’t believe it.A stroke he had been expecting, any sort of sudden death.Not this.He questioned Maria, incredulously.How did she know the old lady had been killed? Was she certain? ‘You will see,’ Maria replied phlegmatically.‘It is horrible.Her head.Her head.’By this time, Humphrey had to believe.Suddenly, as with other violent happenings, it became certain, almost banal, like a piece of news, obviously true, which he had heard a long time before.When did Maria discover this? Humphrey looked at his watch: it was nearly eight o’clock.Maria had gone into the drawing-room, to do the morning cleaning.There she was.You will see, Maria told Humphrey again.She had tried to telephone the police.She had got through to the station, but wasn’t sure that she had made them understand.Her English was so bad, she apologised.So she had come to Humphrey.She apologised again for giving so much trouble, but she had to find someone to talk to.She had good nerves, Humphrey thought.Within minutes, after they had walked up the Square, they entered Lady Ashbrook’s drawing-room.Outside the house, the young woman had touched his sleeve and said that he must be prepared.It was a bad spectacle.Inside the room, obliterating all else, was a smell that one didn’t forget.It wasn’t strong.It was sweet and light.If it had been another smell or, rather, a smell from another cause it would have been dominant, maybe, scarcely noticeable.If it had had another cause, it might not even have been nauseous.There were pleasant smells, just as sweet, just as corrupt.Affected by the smell, his first sight of the room was blurred.There was a curtain drawn back, the light was bright, but for an instant his eyes were jarred.Chairs were overturned, drawers gaping, lamps, trays littered on the floor.It deadened him as though he were walking into a party with the noise full on.With peripheral vision he half-realised that some pictures had been torn down.Not the Boudin, not the Vlaminck.Then, or really in the same eye-flash, he saw Lady Ashbrook, and the confusion of the senses cleared away.As he looked, the smell seemed stronger.She was lying in front of her chair, which had been tipped on to its side.Her skirt had run up over the knees, bony knees above the thin fragile legs.Her head was raised higher than her shoulders, with some support, invisible to Humphrey, underneath.There was darkened blood on the carpet.Not much more than if glasses of wine had been spilled.He didn’t realise until later, but there were flecks of blood elsewhere, on furniture and up the wall behind her, pear-shaped drops of blood.There were also scraps of white.He realised none of that, for he was looking only at her head, he could look at nothing else.Her face was turned towards him and the door.The eyes were glaring open, the mouth wide open, too.That was not what transfixed him.In a wound on her temple there was a stirring.Later, he was told that this was a maggot, there already.That didn’t hold his gaze.Along the top of the head, running over hair and forehead, bisecting the forehead between the middle of the ears and projecting nine inches outwards, was a shaft [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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