Free The Gabriel Hounds by Mary Stewart Page A

for herself? I take it she doesn’t know I’m here yet? Or will Jassim have got that across to her?’
    ‘He hasn’t seen her yet, he came straight to me. As a matter of fact, he gets more across than you’d think, but he didn’t get your name. I wasn’t sure who you were myself, till I spoke to you. I admit he isn’t so hot as a messenger – you might call him one of your aunt’s charities, like me – but he’s pretty useful as a staller-off at the gate, and we can’t get anyone much to stay here nowadays. There isn’t much money, you know.’
    There was something about the way he said this, looking at me steadily with those curiously unfocused eyes. I noticed that the whites were bloodshot, and he looked as if he didn’t get enough sleep, but he seemedrelaxed enough now, his long spare frame slack on the marble seat as if this were thick with silk cushions and Persian rugs. He was dressed in grey lightweight trousers and a blue beach shirt, neither of them expensive, but he wore on his wrist a really magnificent gold watch, bought no doubt in Beirut. I found myself remembering what Charles had said about Great-Aunt Harriet’s penchant for young men, and some other corner of my mind came up with the phrase ‘undue influence’. But this I ignored; it was after all irrelevant. If Aunt H. could get a young man to run her ramshackle palace for her and give her the kind of company she liked, so much the better. Especially if it was true that there was very little money left. I wondered just how true this was, and if Mr Lethman looked on the sudden interruption of a relative as a threat to his own position
vis-à-vis
the ‘Lady Harriet’. In which case my good-looking cousin Charles might be even less welcome than I. I decided not to mention Charles till I saw Aunt H. herself.
    John Lethman was saying ‘Jassim wouldn’t have been able to see your aunt yet, in any case. She usually sleeps a good deal during the day. She’s a nightbird, you know, like her original. So if you could wait a little longer, then I can go and ask her about it? Halide usually goes in to wake her at about six.’
    ‘Of course I’ll wait,’ I said. ‘That is, if you don’t mind, Hamid?’
    ‘Not at all,’ said Hamid without moving.
    There was a slight pause. Lethman glanced from Hamid to me and back, then consulted his watch.‘Well, that’s fine, it won’t be long now, and we’ll see.’ Another pause. He cleared his throat. ‘I suppose I ought to warn you … Of course I’ll do all I can, but I can’t guarantee anything. She’s old, and sometimes forgetful, and – well, let’s call it “difficult”. And some days are worse than others.’
    ‘And today’s been a bad one?’
    He made a rueful mouth. ‘Not too good.’
    ‘Well, if she really doesn’t feel up to seeing me, then that’s that, isn’t it? But tell her I’ll come back any time she says, when she’s feeling better. I’m in Beirut till at least mid-week, and I could stay on. I was going to ring up soon to tell my people what I was planning, and it’d be rather nice if I could give them news of her. In fact, Daddy might just be ringing up himself this evening.’
    ‘“This evening”? Hadn’t you understood? I meant it literally when I said she was a nightbird. She usually seems to wake up and be at her best at something between ten and midnight, and after that she’s quite often up all night. If she receives anyone at all, that’s when she sees them.’
    ‘Good heavens, she does play it for real, doesn’t she? Do you mean that if I’m to see her, I’ve got to my stay here all night?’
    ‘Until pretty late, at all events. Could you?’
    ‘I could, but I can hardly keep my driver here until the early hours of the morning. Could you put me up? Have you a room?’ I meant ‘a room that’s fit to sleep in’, so the question wasn’t as absurd as it might have sounded. Mr Lethman seemed to be considering thequestion on its merits. There was