Spider's Web by Agatha Christie Read Free Book Online Page A

across to lean over the back of the sofa and kiss Clarissa.
    “I hardly know where to begin,” she told him. “Have a drink first.”
    “Not just now,” Henry replied, going to the French windows and closing the curtains. “Who's in the house?”
    Slightly surprised at the question, Clarissa answered, “Nobody. It's the Elgins's night off. Black Thursday, you know. We'll dine on cold ham, chocolate mousse, and the coffee will be really good because I shall make it.”
    A questioning “Um?” was Henry's only response to this.
    Struck by his manner, Clarissa asked, “Henry, is anything the matter?”
    “Well, yes, in a way,” he told her.
    “Something wrong?” she queried. “Is it Miranda?”
    “No, no, there's nothing wrong, really,” Henry assured her. “I should say quite the contrary. Yes, quite the contrary.”
    “Darling,” said Clarissa, speaking with affection and only a very faint note of ridicule, “do I perceive behind that impenetrable Foreign Office façade a certain human excitement?”
    Henry wore an air of pleasurable anticipation. “Well,” he admitted, “it is rather exciting in a way.” He paused, then added, “As it happens, there's a slight fog in London.”
    “Is that very exciting?” Clarissa asked.
    “No, no, not the fog, of course.”
    “Well?” Clarissa urged him.
    Henry looked quickly around, as though to assure himself that he could not be overheard, and then went across to the sofa to sit beside Clarissa. “You'll have to keep this to yourself,” he impressed upon her in a very grave tone of voice.
    “Yes?” Clarissa prompted him hopefully.
    “It's really very secret,” Henry reiterated. “Nobody's supposed to know. But, actually, you'll have to know.”
    “Well, come on, tell me,” she urged him.
    Henry looked around again, and then turned to Clarissa. “It's all very hush-hush,” he insisted. He paused for effect, and then announced, “The Soviet Premier, Kalendorff, is flying to London for an important conference with the Prime Minister tomorrow.”
    Clarissa was unimpressed. “Yes, I know,” she replied.
    Henry looked startled. “What do you mean, you know?” he demanded.
    “I read it in the paper last Sunday,” Clarissa informed him casually.
    “I can't think why you want to read these low-class papers,” Henry expostulated. He sounded really put out. “Anyway,” he continued, “the papers couldn't possibly know that Kalendorff was coming over. It's top secret.”
    “My poor sweet,” Clarissa murmured. Then, in a voice in which compassion was mixed with incredulity, she continued, “But top secret? Really! The things you high-ups believe.”
    Henry rose and began to stride around the room, looking distinctly worried. “Oh dear, there must have been some leak,” he muttered.
    “I should have thought,” Clarissa observed tartly, “that by now you'd know there always is a leak. In fact, I should have thought that you'd all be prepared for it.”
    Henry looked somewhat affronted. “The news was only released officially tonight,” he told her. “Kalendorff's plane is due at Heathrow at eight-forty, but actually...” He leaned over the sofa and looked doubtfully at his wife.
    “Now, Clarissa,” he asked her very solemnly, “can I really trust you to be discreet?”
    “I'm much more discreet than any Sunday newspaper,” Clarissa protested, swinging her feet off the sofa and sitting up.
    Henry sat on an arm of the sofa and leaned towards Clarissa conspiratorially. “The conference will be at Whitehall tomorrow,” he informed her, “but it would be a great advantage if a conversation could take place first between Sir John himself and Kalendorff. Now, naturally the reporters are all waiting at Heathrow, and the moment the plane arrives, Kalendorff's movements are more or less public property.”
    He looked around again, as though expecting to find the gentlemen of the press peering over his shoulder, and continued, in a tone of