The Naked Nuns

Начало книги

The signature was Pake.

       Telegraphic communications were so rare nowadays that no one at Flaxborough Post Office could remember whose job it was supposed to be to ride out on the red motor cycle that was propped gathering dust in a corner of the mail van garage. So telegrams, as a general rule, were treated as letters and delivered on the next regular round, with perhaps an extra knock or ring to signify urgency.

       Here, though, was a wire that had come all the way from America and, queer as its phrasing was, implied big business dealing of some kind. The Postmaster, appealed to for a decision, ruled that immediate action was warranted, and one of the counter clerks, who lived not far from the Floradora Country Club, was instructed to deliver the cable when he went home for his tea.

       Unfortunately, that happened to be a time of day when neither Mr Hatch nor anyone to whom he had deputed authority was on the club premises. The wire was accepted reluctantly by a Miss Ryland, spinster and temporary telephonist of this parish, who said that she would hand it to Mr Hatch’s secretary the moment he returned at six o’clock.

Читать дальше →