THREE, FOUR, SHUT THE DOOR 7

VII
Japp put down the telephone receiver. His face, as he turned to Poirot, was rather grim¹.
He said:
“Mr. Amberiotis isn’t feeling very well—would rather not see any one this afternoon.
“He’s going to see me—and he’s not going to give me the slip either! I’ve got a man at the
Savoy ready to trail him if he tries to make a getaway.”
Poirot said thoughtfully²:
“You think Amberiotis shot Morley?”
“I don’t know. But he was the last person to see Morley alive. And he was a new patient.
According to his story, he left Morley alive and well at twenty-five minutes past twelve. That may
be true or it may not. If Morley was all right then we’ve got to reconstruct what happened next.
There was still five minutes to go before his next appointment. Did someone come in and see him
during that five minutes? Carter, say? Or Reilly? What happened? Depend upon it, by half past
twelve, or five-and-twenty to one at the latest, Morley was dead—otherwise he’d either have
sounded his buzzer³ or else sent down word to Miss Kirby that he couldn’t see her. No, either he
was killed, or else somebody told him something which upset the whole tenor⁴ of his mind, and he
took his own life.”
He paused.
“I’m going to have a word with every patient he saw this morning. There’s just the possibility
that he may have said something to one of them that will put us on the right track.”
He glanced at his watch.
“Mr. Alistair Blunt⁵ said he could give me a few minutes at four fifteen. We’ll go to him first.
His house is on Chelsea Embankment. Then we might take the Sainsbury Seale woman on our
way to Amberiotis. I’d prefer to know all we can before tackling⁶ our Greek friend. After that, I’d
like a word or two with the American who, according to you ‘looked like murder.’”
Hercule Poirot shook his head.
“Not murder—toothache.”
“All the same, we’ll see this Mr. Raikes. His conduct was queer⁷ to say the least of it. And we’ll
check up on Miss Nevill’s telegram and on her aunt and on her young man. In fact, we’ll check up
on everything and everybody!”

1 grim   

adj.严酷的，令人害怕的，不愉快的，讨厌的

参考例句：

• I've had a grim day.我过了不愉快的一天。
• His expression was grim when he told them they had lost their jobs.当他告诉他们说他们已被解雇时，他的表情十分冷酷。

2 thoughtfully   

ad.考虑周到地

参考例句：

• She rubbed her chin thoughtfully. 她若有所思地抚摩着下巴。
• The man pulled thoughtfully at his pipe before commenting on our proposal. 那人若有所思地吸了口烟，然后就我们的建议发表自己的见解。

3 buzzer   

n.蜂鸣器；汽笛

参考例句：

• The buzzer went off at eight o'clock.蜂鸣器在8点钟时响了。
• Press the buzzer when you want to talk.你想讲话的时候就按蜂鸣器。

4 tenor   

n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意

参考例句：

• The tenor of his speech was that war would come.他讲话的大意是战争将要发生。
• The four parts in singing are soprano,alto,tenor and bass.唱歌的四个声部是女高音、女低音、男高音和男低音。

5 blunt   

adj.（刀子）钝的，不锋利的，迟钝的，直率的

参考例句：

• The axe is too blunt to cut down the tree.斧头太钝，砍不倒树。
• She is rather blunt in speech.她说话很直率。

6 tackling   

n. 扭住, 抱住, 卷起

参考例句：

• a bottom-up approach to tackling the problem 处理这个问题的自下而上的方法
• There are three essentially different ways of tackling the problem. 解决这个问题有三种根本不同的方法。

7 queer   

adj.奇怪的，异常的，不舒服的，眩晕的

参考例句：

• I heard some queer footsteps.我听到某种可疑的脚步声。
• She has been queer lately.她最近身体不舒服。