| By experience, he knew to a nicety the moment when his smart patent leather shoes began to press painfully on his feet. It was a lovely summer's day and Poirot looked indulgently on courting nursemaids and their swains, laughing and giggling while their chubby charges profited by nurse's inattention. Dogs barked and romped. Little boys sailed boats. And under nearly every tree was a couple sitting close together... "Ah! Jeunesse, jeunesse," murmured Hercule Poirot, pleasurably affected by the sight. They were chic, these little London girls. They wore their tawdry clothes with an air. Their figures, however, he considered, lamentably deficient. Where were the rich curves, the voluptuous lines that had formerly delighted the eye of an admirer? He, Hercule Poirot, remembered women... One woman, in particular -what a sumptuous creature - a Bird of Paradise - a Venus... What woman was there among these pretty chits nowadays, who could hold a candle to Countess Vera Rossakoff? A genuine Russian aristocrat, an aristocrat to her fingertips! And also, he remembered, a most accomplished thief One of those natural geniuses... With a sigh, Poirot wrenched his thoughts away from the flamboyant creature of his dreams. It was not only, he noted, the little nursemaids and their like who were being wooed under the trees of Regent's Park. That was a Schiaparelli creation there, under that lime tree, with the young man who bent his head so close to hers, who was pleading so earnestly. One must not yield too soon! He hoped the girl understood that. The pleasure of the chase must be extended as long as possible... His beneficent eye still on them, he became suddenly aware of a familiarity in those two figures. | По аллеям сновали и прыгали ребятишки. Почти на каждой скамейке сидели влюбленные парочки. Одна из них показалась Пуаро знакомой. Вот как? |