Patricia Cornwell - Isle of Dogs
Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Patricia Cornwell - Isle of Dogs» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию без сокращений). В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Жанр: Триллер, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.
- Название:Isle of Dogs
- Автор:
- Жанр:
- Год:неизвестен
- ISBN:нет данных
- Рейтинг книги:3 / 5. Голосов: 1
-
Избранное:Добавить в избранное
- Отзывы:
-
Ваша оценка:
- 60
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
Isle of Dogs: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация
Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Isle of Dogs»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.
Isle of Dogs — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком
Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «Isle of Dogs», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.
Интервал:
Закладка:
"This is not Philadelphia and I fail to see why William Penn should be inside the mansion," the governor said. "Since when did that happen?"
Clearly, he had forgotten his wife's fleeting passion for lithographs, if he had ever known about it. The governor sighed as Pony materialized with the coffee pot.
"Good morning, sir," Pony said as he poured.
"No it's not, Pony. No, indeed. The world's going to hell in a handbasket."
"It most certainly is, sir," Pony agreed with a sympathetic nod of the head. "I tell you, I thought the world already went to hell in a handbasket a long time ago, but I was wrong. I sure was. Things is just getting more messed up, that's right. It's enough to make a man want to run down to the church and beg God Hisself to please, please help us out of our misery and forgive our sins and our enemies and make people behave. What wrong with folks anyway?
"You know, the other day when them caters showed up for that big dinner of yours?" Pony went on. "I was minding my own business getting them tea and I heard one of 'em say to the other, 'I wonder if I could take one of these little teacups that's got the Com'wealth of Virginia on it. What you think?' 'I don't know why not,' the other one say. 'You pay tax, don't you?' 'I sure do,' say the other lady cater. 'And nothing in here belong to the Crimm family anyhow. It belong to all of us.' 'Well, if that isn't the God's truth. It belong to us.'
"Then," Pony went on, getting more animated as his tale wore on, "both them caters stuffed their teacups in them big handbags of theirs, can you believe that?"
"Why on earth…?" the First Lady sputtered in shock and disgust. "Why didn't you stop them, for heaven's sake! I certainly hope they didn't take the handleless cups and saucers, those lovely pearlware ones with the Leeds floral design."
"Oh, no, ma'am," Pony assured her. "It was the ones with handles and the Com'wealth logo on 'em in gold."
"You shouldn't be serving tea to caterers, to begin with," Mrs. Crimm reprimanded Pony. "And certainly not in official tea cups. Caterers are common workers, not VIP guests of the mansion, oh dear me." She looked at the governor for support as he slopped coffee on the table cloth and missed the saucer when he set down the cup. "We really must stop being so generous with the public, Bedford. Why, I suppose next thing, some taxi driver or toll collector will show up at the guard gate and demand a private tour which includes tea in official china!"
"The mansion doesn't belong to us," the governor reminded her, and dark thoughts crowded together like unfriendly people on an elevator as the door to his patience slid shut and his mood began to descend. "Any person off the street could come here and ask for a tour, if the truth be known. But that doesn't mean we have to do it or that they can make us. The public doesn't know this is their legal right and I'm not about to tell them. Now read that damn essay to me, Maude."
He was desperately hoping there would be another riddle today that might guide him through the thickets that seemed to be closing in on him from all sides.
"Mummies," she said, peering over reading glasses and scanning the printout. "You know, I've always been rather frightened by mummies, too. I had no idea anyone else felt the same way. But what is all this about Tangier Island? It's the second time Trooper Truth has mentioned it. What's going on out there, Bedford?"
"Would you like grits or hash browns with your eggs?" Pony politely inquired.
"I didn't know we were having eggs," the governor replied.
"I told him poached eggs," Mrs. Crimm informed her husband as she smoothed her dressing gown over her ample lap. "I thought that might be soothing. Nothing like bland food when your submarine's out of sorts."
Governor Crimm's mind, like his constitution, was submerging without any clear direction. He scarcely heard another word his wife said or read as he moved closer to a suspicion that soon enough became a conviction. There was an encrypted message in what Trooper Truth had written about mummies, and Crimm suddenly remembered that as a child, he had called his mother "Mummy."
Lutilla Crimm had conceived her oldest son in a wealthy section of Charlottesville called Farmington during a terrible snowstorm. Crimm dimly conjured up what he could remember hearing about that event, and it seemed that when his father would get annoyed with his wife, he would make snide asides to little Bedford about never allowing a woman to run and ruin his life.
"They're full of mendacity, women are," Bedford's father would say when the two of them were carrying in logs for the wood-burning stove or shoveling snow off the brick sidewalk in front of their imposing brick house that rose before a backdrop of mountains. "They'll sweet-talk you, son, and make you think they're right desperate to have sex with you, then when they've got you wrapped around their fingers and saddled down with kids, guess what?"
"What?" Bedford had begun giving voice to what would become his most frequently asked question.
"What?" echoed his father. "I'll tell you what! They'll suddenly announce that the ceiling needs to be replas-tered or the molding is crumbling or there are cobwebs hanging from the chandelier, right when you're in the middle of…"
"Oh," Bedford replied as he dumped split logs into the bin by the stove.
"Let's just put it this way," his father went on while his wife worked on a needlepoint in her parlor upstairs. "Half of you was scattered over the quilt, son. That's probably why you're a runt with bad eyesight."
"What exactly did Mummy say?" Bedford had to know the truth. "Was she asking about the ceiling or the cobwebs?"
"Neither one. Not that night. She sat straight up in bed and said, 'Why, I don't believe I fed the cat.' "
"Had she?" young Bedford inquired, and he would never forget his dismay at learning that he would forever be visually impaired, short, and homely-all because of a cat. "Why would Mummy suddenly think of the cat at that precise moment?"
"That's exactly what I mean about women, son. They think of all kinds of things at that precise moment because they want to create a diversion." His father shoved a log into the wood stove and sparks flew up in protest. "Your mummy knew exactly what she was doing when she brought up the cat."
Since then, Bedford Crimm not only hated cats, but he also carried a pain in his heart and was deeply insecure because his mummy had committed interruptus during his conception, thus spilling much of his vitality on the quilt. She could not possibly have loved her quickening son much, Bedford mused unhappily as he picked at a poached egg he could scarcely see and groped for the pepper mill and continued to tune out his wife, who was having a stressful conversation with Pony about people who have been struck by lightning. Crimm believed he had put his unfair childhood behind him when he had become powerful in politics, and now Trooper Truth had brought it all back.
A miasma of paranoia and anger leaked through Crimm like a noxious gas, and his submarine went into alert. Somehow Trooper Truth knew the truth about the mighty governor's shameful start in life and the last thing Crimm needed was for others to find out. Oh, of course Trooper Truth knew! He knew everything. Why else would he have mentioned mummies in his essay?
"This is an outrage!" He slammed his fist down on the table and a silver candlestick toppled over into the butter dish.
The breakfast room froze in silence.
After a moment, a startled Maude Crimm said to him, "My goodness! It's a good thing that candle wasn't lit, dear, or the butter might have caught on fire. Real butter is animal fat and will burn just as easily as lighter fluid."
"Not quite as easy as that, ma'am," Pony voiced his opinion. "But don't want to take no chances." He picked up the candlestick and wiped it off with the napkin draped over his arm. "Don't want no fires in the mansion. This place would go up in flames quick as a dried-out broom, old as it is."
Читать дальшеИнтервал:
Закладка:
Похожие книги на «Isle of Dogs»
Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Isle of Dogs» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.
Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Isle of Dogs» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.