“Good-morning, Gipsy girl, sit down here by me. You look as though you hadn’t slept well.”
“Why do you call me that?” I asked, as I sat down obediently.
“Do you mind? It suits you somehow. I’ve called you that in my own mind from the beginning. It’s the gipsy element in you that makes you so different from any one else. I decided1 in my own mind that you and Colonel Race were the only two people on board who wouldn’t bore me to death to talk to.”
“That’s funny,” I said, “I thought the same about you—only it’s more understandable in your case. You’re—you’re such an exquisitely2 finished product.”
“Not badly put,” said Mrs. Blair, nodding her head. “Tell me all about yourself, Gipsy girl. Why are you going to South Africa?”
I told her something about Papa’s life work.
“So you’re Charles Beddingfeld’s daughter? I thought you weren’t a mere3 provincial4 Miss! Are you going to Broken Hill to grub up more skulls5?”
“I may,” I said cautiously. “I’ve got other plans as well.”
“What a mysterious minx you are. But you do look tired this morning. Didn’t you sleep well? I can’t keep awake on board a boat. Ten hours’ sleep for a fool, they say! I could do with twenty!”
She yawned, looking like a sleepy kitten. “An idiot of a steward6 woke me up in the middle of the night to return me that roll of films I dropped yesterday. He did it in the most melodramatic manner, stuck his arm through the ventilator and dropped them nearly in the middle of my tummy. I thought it was a bomb for a moment!”
“Here’s your Colonel,” I said, as the tall soldierly figure of Colonel Race appeared on the deck.
“He’s not my Colonel particularly. In fact he admires you very much, Gipsy girl. So don’t run away.”
“I want to tie something round my head. It will be more comfortable than a hat.”
I slipped quickly away. For some reason or other I was uncomfortable with Colonel Race. He was one of the few people who were capable of making me feel shy.
I went down to my cabin and began looking for a broad band of ribbon, or a motor-veil, with which I could restrain my rebellious8 locks. Now I am a tidy person, I like my things always arranged in a certain way and I keep them so. I had no sooner opened my drawer than I realized that somebody had been disarranging my things. Everything had been turned over and scattered9. I looked in the other drawers and the small hanging cupboard. They told me the same tale. It was as though some one had been making a hurried and ineffectual search for something.
I sat down on the edge of the bunk10 with a grave face. Who had been searching my cabin and what had they been looking for? Was it the half-sheet of paper with scribbled11 figures and words? I shook my head, dissatisfied. Surely that was past history now. But what else could there be?
I wanted to think. The events of last night, though exciting, had not really done anything to elucidate12 matters. Who was the young man who had burst into my cabin so abruptly13? I had not seen him on board previously14, either on deck or in the saloon. Was he one of the ship’s company or was he a passenger? Who had stabbed him? Why had they stabbed him? And why, in the name of goodness, should Cabin No. 17 figure so prominently? It was all a mystery, but there was no doubt that some very peculiar16 occurrences were taking place on the Kilmorden Castle.
I counted off on my fingers the people on whom it behoved me to keep a watch.
Setting aside my visitor of the night before, but promising17 myself that I would discover him on board before another day had passed, I selected the following persons as worthy18 of my notice.
(1) Sir Eustace Pedler. He was the owner of the Mill House and his presence on the Kilmorden Castle seemed something of a coincidence.
(2) Mr. Pagett, the sinister-looking secretary, whose eagerness to obtain Cabin 17 had been so very marked. N.B. Find out whether he had accompanied Sir Eustace to Cannes.
(3) The Rev15. Edward Chichester. All I had against him was his obstinacy19 over Cabin 17, and that might be entirely20 due to his own peculiar temperament21. Obstinacy can be an amazing thing.
But a little conversation with Mr. Chichester would not come amiss, I decided. Hastily tying a handkerchief round my rebellious locks, I went up on deck again, full of purpose. I was in luck. My quarry22 was leaning against the rail, drinking beef tea. I went up to him.
“I hope you’ve forgiven me over Cabin 17,” I said, with my best smile.
“I consider it unchristian to bear a grudge,” said Mr. Chichester coldly. “But the purser had distinctly promised me that cabin.”
“Pursers are such busy men, aren’t they?” I said vaguely23. “I suppose they’re bound to forget sometimes.”
Mr. Chichester did not reply.
“Is this your first visit to Africa?” I inquired conversationally24.
“To South Africa, yes. But I have worked for the last two years amongst the cannibal tribes in the interior of East Africa.”
“How thrilling! Have you had many narrow escapes?”
“Escapes?”
“Of being eaten, I mean?”
“I didn’t know that cannibalism26 was a sacred subject,” I retorted, stung.
As the words left my lips, another idea struck me. If Mr. Chichester had indeed spent the last two years in the interior of Africa, how was it that he was not more sunburnt? His skin was as pink and white as a baby’s. Surely there was something fishy27 there? Yet his manner and voice were so absolutely it. Too much so perhaps. Was he—or was he not—just a little like a stage clergyman?
I cast my mind back to the curates I had known at Little Hampsly. Some of them I had liked, some of them I had not, but certainly none of them had been quite like Mr. Chichester. They had been human—he was a glorified28 type.
I was debating all this when Sir Eustace Pedler passed down the deck. Just as he was abreast29 of Mr. Chichester, he stooped and picked up a piece of paper which he handed to him, remarking “You’ve dropped something.”
He passed on without stopping, and so probably did not notice Mr. Chichester’s agitation30. I did. Whatever it was he had dropped, its recovery agitated31 him considerably32. He turned a sickly green, and crumpled33 up the sheet of paper into a ball. My suspicions were accentuated34 a hundred-fold.
He caught my eye, and hurried into explanations.
“A—a—fragment of a sermon I was composing,” he said with a sickly smile.
“Indeed?” I rejoined politely.
A fragment of a sermon, indeed! No, Mr. Chichester—too weak for words!
He soon left me with a muttered excuse. I wished, oh, how I wished, that I had been the one to pick up that paper and not Sir Eustace Pedler! One thing was clear, Mr. Chichester could not be exempted35 from my list of suspects. I was inclined to put him top of the three.
After lunch, when I came up to the lounge for coffee, I noticed Sir Eustace and Pagett sitting with Mrs. Blair and Colonel Race. Mrs. Blair welcomed me with a smile, so I went over and joined them. They were talking about Italy.
“But it is misleading,” Mrs. Blair insisted. “Aqua calda certainly ought to be cold water—not hot.”
“You’re not a Latin scholar,” said Sir Eustace, smiling.
“Men are so superior about their Latin,” said Mrs. Blair. “But all the same I notice that when you ask them to translate inscriptions36 in old churches they can never do it! They hem7 and haw, and get out of it somehow.”
“Quite right,” said Colonel Race. “I always do.”
“But I love the Italians,” continued Mrs. Blair. “They’re so obliging—though even that has its embarrassing side. You ask them the way somewhere, and instead of saying ‘first to the right, second to the left’ or something that one could follow, they pour out a flood of well-meaning directions, and when you look bewildered they take you kindly37 by the arm and walk all the way there with you.”
“Is that your experience in Florence, Pagett?” asked Sir Eustace, turning with a smile to his secretary.
“Oh, quite so, yes—er quite so.”
Then with a murmured excuse, he rose and left the table.
“I am beginning to suspect Guy Pagett of having committed some dark deed in Florence,” remarked Sir Eustace, gazing after his secretary’s retreating figure. “Whenever Florence or Italy is mentioned, he changes the subject, or bolts precipitately39.”
“Perhaps he murdered some one there,” said Mrs. Blair hopefully. “He looks—I hope I’m not hurting your feelings, Sir Eustace—but he does look as though he might murder some one.”
“Yes, pure Cinquecento! It amuses me sometimes—especially when one knows as well as I do how essentially40 law-abiding and respectable the poor fellow really is.”
“He’s been with you some time, hasn’t he, Sir Eustace?” asked Colonel Race.
“Six years,” said Sir Eustace, with a deep sigh.
“He must be quite invaluable41 to you,” said Mrs. Blair.
“Oh, invaluable! Yes, quite invaluable.” The poor man sounded even more depressed42, as though the invaluableness of Mr. Pagett was a secret grief to him. Then he added more briskly: “But his face should really inspire you with confidence, my dear lady. No self-respecting murderer would ever consent to look like one. Crippen, now, I believe, was one of the pleasantest fellows imaginable.”
“He was caught on a liner, wasn’t he?” murmured Mrs. Blair.
Our party soon broke up; Mrs. Blair went below to sleep and I went out on deck. Colonel Race followed me.
“I went to bed early,” I explained.
“Are you going to run away to-night too? Or are you going to dance with me?”
“I shall be very pleased to dance with you,” I murmured shyly. “But Mrs. Blair——”
“Our friend, Mrs. Blair, doesn’t care for dancing.”
“And you do?”
“I care for dancing with you.”
I was a little afraid of Colonel Race. Nevertheless I was enjoying myself. This was better than discussing fossilized skulls with stuffy46 old professors! Colonel Race was really just my ideal of a stern silent Rhodesian. Possibly I might marry him! I hadn’t been asked, it is true, but, as the Boy Scouts47 say, Be Prepared! And all women, without in the least meaning it, consider every man they meet as a possible husband for themselves or for their best friend.
I danced several times with him that evening. He danced well. When the dancing was over, and I was thinking of going to bed, he suggested a turn round the deck. We walked round three times and finally subsided48 into two deck-chairs. There was nobody else in sight. We made desultory49 conversation for some time.
“Do you know, Miss Beddingfeld, I think that I once met your father? A very interesting man—on his own subject, and it’s a subject that has a special fascination50 for me. In my humble51 way, I’ve done a bit in that line myself. Why, when I was in the Dordogne region——”
Our talk became technical. Colonel Race’s boast was not an idle one. He knew a great deal. At the same time, he made one or two curious mistakes—slips of the tongue, I might almost have thought them. But he was quick to take his cue from me and to cover them up. Once he spoke52 of the Mousterian period as succeeding the Aurignacian—an absurd mistake for one who knew anything of the subject.
It was twelve o’clock when I went to my cabin. I was still puzzling over those queer discrepancies53. Was it possible that he had “got the whole subject up” for the occasion—that really he knew nothing of archaeology54? I shook my head, vaguely dissatisfied with that solution.
Just as I was dropping off to sleep, I sat up with a sudden start as another idea flashed into my head. Had he been pumping me? Were those slight inaccuracies just tests—to see whether I really knew what I was talking about? In other words, he suspected me of not being genuinely Anne Beddingfeld.
Why?
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
exquisitely
|
|
| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
provincial
|
|
| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
skulls
|
|
| 颅骨( skull的名词复数 )； 脑袋； 脑子； 脑瓜 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
steward
|
|
| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
hem
|
|
| n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
rebellious
|
|
| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
scattered
|
|
| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
bunk
|
|
| n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位；废话 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
scribbled
|
|
| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
elucidate
|
|
| v.阐明，说明 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
abruptly
|
|
| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
previously
|
|
| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
rev
|
|
| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
peculiar
|
|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
promising
|
|
| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
worthy
|
|
| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
obstinacy
|
|
| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
temperament
|
|
| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
quarry
|
|
| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
vaguely
|
|
| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
conversationally
|
|
| adv.会话地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
levity
|
|
| n.轻率，轻浮，不稳定，多变 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
cannibalism
|
|
| n.同类相食；吃人肉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
fishy
|
|
| adj. 值得怀疑的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
glorified
|
|
| 美其名的，变荣耀的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
abreast
|
|
| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
agitation
|
|
| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
agitated
|
|
| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
considerably
|
|
| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
crumpled
|
|
| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
accentuated
|
|
| v.重读( accentuate的过去式和过去分词 )；使突出；使恶化；加重音符号于 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
exempted
|
|
| 使免除[豁免]( exempt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
inscriptions
|
|
| （作者）题词( inscription的名词复数 )； 献词； 碑文； 证劵持有人的登记 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
kindly
|
|
| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
stammered
|
|
| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
precipitately
|
|
| adv.猛进地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
essentially
|
|
| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
invaluable
|
|
| adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
depressed
|
|
| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
rattle
|
|
| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
elusive
|
|
| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
nervously
|
|
| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
stuffy
|
|
| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
scouts
|
|
| 侦察员[机，舰]( scout的名词复数 )； 童子军； 搜索； 童子军成员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
subsided
|
|
| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
desultory
|
|
| adj.散漫的，无方法的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
fascination
|
|
| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
humble
|
|
| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
discrepancies
|
|
| n.差异，不符合（之处），不一致（之处）( discrepancy的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
archaeology
|
|
| n.考古学 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |