He, like Mr Reiter, was an American.
The last person was Mrs Mercado, and I couldnt have a good look at her because whenever I glanced in her direction I always found her staring at me with a kind of hungry stare that was a bit disconcerting to say the least of it.
You might have thought a hospital nurse was a strange animal the way she was looking at me.
No manners at all!
She was quite young not more than about twenty-five and sort of dark and slinky-looking, if you know what I mean.
Quite nice-looking in a kind of way, but rather as though she might have what my mother used to call a touch of the tar-brush.
She had on a very vivid pullover and her nails matched it in colour.
She had a thin bird-like eager face with big eyes and rather a tight, suspicious mouth.
The tea was very good a nice strong blend not like the weak China stuff that Mrs Kelsey always had and that had been a sore trial to me.
There was toast and jam and a plate of rock buns and a cutting cake.
Mr Emmott was very polite passing me things.
Quiet as he was he always seemed to notice when my plate was empty.
Presently Mr Coleman bustled in and took the place beyond Miss Johnson.
There didnt seem to be anything the matter withhis nerves.
He talked away nineteen to the dozen.
Mrs Leidner sighed once and cast a wearied look in his direction but it didnt have any effect.
Nor did the fact that Mrs Mercado, to whom he was addressing most of his conversation, was far too busy watching me to do more than make perfunctory replies.
Just as we were finishing, Dr Leidner and Mr Mercado came in from the dig.
Dr Leidner greeted me in his nice kind manner.
I saw his eyes go quickly and anxiously to his wifes face and he seemed to be relieved by what he saw there.
Then he sat down at the other end of the table, and Mr Mercado sat down in the vacant place by Mrs Leidner.
He was a tall, thin, melancholy man, a good deal older than his wife, with a sallow complexion and a queer, soft, shapeless-looking beard.
I was glad when he came in, for his wife stopped staring at me and transferred her attention to him, watching him with a kind of anxious impatience that I found rather odd.
He himself stirred his tea dreamily and said nothing at all.
A piece of cake lay untasted on his plate.
There was still one vacant place, and presently the door opened and a man came in. The moment I saw Richard Carey I felt he was one of the handsomest men Id seen for a long time and yet I doubt if that were really so.
To say a man is handsome and at the same time to say he looks like a deaths head sounds a rank contradiction, and yet it was true.
His head gave the effect of having the skin stretched unusually tight over the bones but they were beautiful bones.
The lean line of jaw and temple and forehead was so sharply outlined that he reminded me of a bronze statue.
Out of this lean brown face looked two of the brightest and most intensely blue eyes I have ever seen.
He stood about six foot and was, I should imagine, a little under forty years of age.
Dr Leidner said: This is Mr Carey, our architect, nurse.
He murmured something in a pleasant, inaudible English voice and sat down by Mrs Mercado.
Mrs Leidner said: Im afraid the tea is a little cold, Mr Carey.
He said: Oh, thats quite all right, Mrs Leidner.
My fault for being late.
I wanted to finish plotting those walls.
Mrs Mercado said, Jam, Mr Carey?
Mr Reiter pushed forward the toast.
And I remembered Major Pennyman saying: I can explain best what I mean by saying that they all passed the butter to each other a shade too politely.
Yes, there was something a little odd about it
A shade formal
Youd have said it was a party of strangers not people who had known each other some of them for quite a number of years.
Chapter 6.
First Evening
After tea Mrs Leidner took me to show me my room.
Perhaps here I had better give a short description of the arrangement of the rooms.
This was very simple and can easily be understood by a reference to the plan.
On either side of the big open porch were doors leading into the two principal rooms.
That on the right led into the dining-room, where we had tea. The one on the other side led into an exactly similar room (I have called it the living-room) which was used as a sitting-room and kind of informal workroom that is, a certain amount of drawing (other than the strictly architectural) was done there, and the more delicate pieces of pottery were brought there to be pieced together.