Читаем A Dangerous Fortune (1994) полностью

"Thank God. How did you know I was here?"

"You wrote to me."

"Oh, yes."

Danny looked like a Turkish warrior with his curly beard and flashing eyes, but he was dressed like a clerk, in a well-worn black suit and a bowler hat, and he appeared to have walked a long way, for he had muddy boots and a weary expression. Kingo looked at him askance, but Solly rose to the occasion with his usual social grace. He shook Danny's hand and said: "How are you, Robinson? This is my friend the duke of Kingsbridge. Kingo, allow me to present my brother-in-law Dan Robinson, general secretary of the Working Men's Welfare Association."

Many men would have been dumbstruck to be introduced to a duke, but not Danny. "How do you do, Duke?" he said with easy courtesy.

Kingo shook hands warily. Maisie guessed he was thinking that being polite to the lower classes was all very well up to a point, but it should not be taken too far.

Then Solly said: "And this is our friend Hugh Pilaster."

Maisie tensed. In her anxiety about Mama and Papa she had forgotten that Hugh was behind her. Danny knew secrets about Hugh, secrets Maisie had never told her husband. He knew that Hugh was the father of Bertie. Danny had once wanted to break Hugh's neck. They had never met, but Danny had not forgotten. What would he do?

However, he was six years older now. He gave Hugh a cold look, but shook hands civilly.

Hugh, who did not know he was a father and had no inkling of these undertones, spoke to Danny in a friendly way. "Axe you the brother who ran away from home and went to Boston?"

"I sure am."

Solly said: "Fancy Hugh knowing that!"

Solly had no idea how much Hugh and Maisie knew about one another: he did not know that they had spent a night together telling one another their life stories.

Maisie felt bewildered by the conversation: it was skating over the surface of too many secrets, and the ice was thin. She hastened to get back onto firm ground. "Danny, why are you here?"

His weary face took on an expression of bitterness. "I'm no longer the secretary of the Working Men's Welfare Association," he said. "I'm ruined, for the third time in my life, by incompetent bankers."

"Danny, please!" Maisie protested. He knew perfectly well that both Solly and Hugh were bankers.

But Hugh said: "Don't worry! We hate incompetent bankers too. They're a menace to everyone. But what exactly has happened, Mr. Robinson?"