Mr. Waterhouse, hovering1 uncertainly on the steps of 18, Wilbraham Crescent, looked backnervously at his sister.
“You’re quite sure you’ll be all right?” said Mr. Waterhouse.
Miss Waterhouse snorted with some indignation.
“I really don’t know what you mean, James.”
Mr. Waterhouse looked apologetic. He had to look apologetic so often that it was practically hisprevailing cast of countenance2.
“Well, I just meant, my dear, considering what happened next door yesterday….”
Mr. Waterhouse was prepared for departure to the solicitors’ office where he worked. He was aneat, grey-haired man with slightly stooping shoulders and a face that was also grey rather thanpink, though not in the least unhealthy looking.
Miss Waterhouse was tall, angular, and the kind of woman with no nonsense about her who isextremely intolerant of nonsense in others.
“Is there any reason, James, because someone was murdered in the next door house that I shallbe murdered today?”
“Well, Edith,” said Mr. Waterhouse, “it depends so much, does it not, by whom the murder wascommitted?”
“You think, in fact, that there’s someone going up and down Wilbraham Crescent selecting avictim from every house? Really, James, that is almost blasphemous3.”
“Blasphemous, Edith?” said Mr. Waterhouse in lively surprise. Such an aspect of his remarkwould never have occurred to him.
“Reminiscent of the Passover,” said Miss Waterhouse. “Which, let me remind you, is HolyWrit.”
“That is a little farfetched I think, Edith,” said Mr. Waterhouse.
“I should like to see anyone coming here, trying to murder me,” said Miss Waterhouse withspirit.
Her brother reflected to himself that it did seem highly unlikely. If he himself had beenchoosing a victim he would not have chosen his sister. If anyone were to attempt such a thing itwas far more likely that the attacker would be knocked out by a poker4 or a lead doorstop anddelivered over to the police in a bleeding and humiliated5 condition.
“I just meant,” he said, the apologetic air deepening, “that there are—well—clearly undesirablecharacters about.”
“We don’t know very much about what did happen yet,” said Miss Waterhouse. “All sorts ofrumours are going about. Mrs. Head had some extraordinary stories this morning.”
“I expect so, I expect so,” said Mr. Waterhouse. He looked at his watch. He had no real desire tohear the stories brought in by their loquacious6 daily help. His sister never lost time in debunkingthese lurid7 flights of fancy, but nevertheless enjoyed them.
“Some people are saying,” said Miss Waterhouse, “that this man was the treasurer8 or a trusteeof the Aaronberg Institute and that there is something wrong in the accounts, and that he came toMiss Pebmarsh to inquire about it.”
“And that Miss Pebmarsh murdered him?” Mr. Waterhouse looked mildly amused. “A blindwoman? Surely—”
“Slipped a piece of wire round his neck and strangled him,” said Miss Waterhouse. “Hewouldn’t be on his guard, you see. Who would be with anyone blind? Not that I believe it myself,”
she added. “I’m sure Miss Pebmarsh is a person of excellent character. If I do not see eye to eyewith her on various subjects, that is not because I impute9 anything of a criminal nature to her. Imerely think that her views are bigoted10 and extravagant11. After all, there are other things besideseducation. All these new peculiar12 looking grammar schools, practically built of glass. You mightthink they were meant to grow cucumbers in, or tomatoes. I’m sure very prejudicial to children inthe summer months. Mrs. Head herself told me that her Susan didn’t like their new classrooms.
Said it was impossible to attend to your lessons because with all those windows you couldn’t helplooking out of them all the time.”
“Dear, dear,” said Mr. Waterhouse, looking at his watch again. “Well, well, I’m going to bevery late, I’m afraid. Good-bye, my dear. Look after yourself. Better keep the door on the chainperhaps?”
Miss Waterhouse snorted again. Having shut the door behind her brother she was about to retireupstairs when she paused thoughtfully, went to her golf bag, removed a niblick, and placed it in astrategic position near the front door. “There,” said Miss Waterhouse, with some satisfaction. Ofcourse James talked nonsense. Still it was always as well to be prepared. The way they let mentalcases out of nursing homes nowadays, urging them to lead a normal life, was in her view fraughtwith danger to all sorts of innocent people.
Miss Waterhouse was in her bedroom when Mrs. Head came bustling13 up the stairs. Mrs. Headwas small and round and very like a rubber ball — she enjoyed practically everything thathappened.
“A couple of gentlemen want to see you,” said Mrs. Head with avidity. “Leastways,” she added,“they aren’t really gentlemen—it’s the police.”
She shoved forward a card. Miss Waterhouse took it.
“Detective Inspector14 Hardcastle,” she read. “Did you show them into the drawing room?”
“No. I put ’em in the dinin’ room. I’d cleared away breakfast and I thought that that would bemore proper a place. I mean, they’re only the police after all.”
Miss Waterhouse did not quite follow this reasoning. However she said, “I’ll come down.”
“I expect they’ll want to ask you about Miss Pebmarsh,” said Mrs. Head. “Want to knowwhether you’ve noticed anything funny in her manner. They say these manias15 come on verysudden sometimes and there’s very little to show beforehand. But there’s usually something, someway of speaking, you know. You can tell by their eyes, they say. But then that wouldn’t hold witha blind woman, would it? Ah—” she shook her head.
Miss Waterhouse marched downstairs and entered the dining room with a certain amount ofpleasurable curiosity masked by her usual air of belligerence16.
“Detective Inspector Hardcastle?”
“Good morning, Miss Waterhouse.” Hardcastle had risen. He had with him a tall, dark youngman whom Miss Waterhouse did not bother to greet. She paid no attention to a faint murmur17 of“Sergeant18 Lamb.”
“I hope I have not called at too early an hour,” said Hardcastle, “but I imagine you know what itis about. You’ve heard what happened next door yesterday.”
“Murder in one’s next door neighbour’s house does not usually go unnoticed,” said MissWaterhouse. “I even had to turn away one or two reporters who came here asking if I hadobserved anything.”
“You turned them away?”
“Naturally.”
“You were quite right,” said Hardcastle. “Of course they like to worm their way in anywherebut I’m sure you are quite capable of dealing19 with anything of that kind.”
Miss Waterhouse allowed herself to show a faintly pleasurable reaction to this compliment.
“I hope you won’t mind us asking you the same kind of questions,” said Hardcastle, “but if youdid see anything at all that could be of interest to us, I can assure you we should be only toograteful. You were here in the house at the time, I gather?”
“I don’t know when the murder was committed,” said Miss Waterhouse.
“We think between half past one and half past two.”
“I was here then, yes, certainly.”
“And your brother?”
“He does not come home to lunch. Who exactly was murdered? It doesn’t seem to say in theshort account there was in the local morning paper.”
“We don’t yet know who he was,” said Hardcastle.
“A stranger?”
“So it seems.”
“You don’t mean he was a stranger to Miss Pebmarsh also?”
“Miss Pebmarsh assures us that she was not expecting this particular guest and that she has noidea who he was.”
“She can’t be sure of that,” said Miss Waterhouse. “She can’t see.”
“We gave her a very careful description.”
“What kind of man was he?”
Hardcastle took a rough print from an envelope and handed it to her.
“This is the man,” he said. “Have you any idea who he can be?”
Miss Waterhouse looked at the print. “No. No … I’m certain I’ve never seen him before. Dearme. He looks quite a respectable man.”
“He was a most respectable-looking man,” said the inspector. “He looks like a lawyer or abusiness man of some kind.”
“Indeed. This photograph is not at all distressing20. He just looks as though he might be asleep.”
Hardcastle did not tell her that of the various police photographs of the corpse21 this one had beenselected as the least disturbing to the eye.
“Death can be a peaceful business,” he said. “I don’t think this particular man had any idea thatit was coming to him when it did.”
“What does Miss Pebmarsh say about it all?” demanded Miss Waterhouse.
“She is quite at a loss.”
“Extraordinary,” commented Miss Waterhouse.
“Now, can you help us in any way, Miss Waterhouse? If you cast your mind back to yesterday,were you looking out of the window at all, or did you happen to be in your garden, say any timebetween half past twelve and three o’clock?”
Miss Waterhouse reflected.
“Yes, I was in the garden … Now let me see. It must have been before one o’clock. I came inabout ten to one from the garden, washed my hands and sat down to lunch.”
“Did you see Miss Pebmarsh enter or leave the house?”
“I think she came in—I heard the gate squeak22—yes, some time after half past twelve.”
“You didn’t speak to her?”
“Oh no. It was just the squeak of the gate made me look up. It is her usual time for returning.
She finishes her classes then, I believe. She teaches at the Disabled Children as probably youknow.”
“According to her own statement, Miss Pebmarsh went out again about half past one. Wouldyou agree to that?”
“Well, I couldn’t tell you the exact time but—yes, I do remember her passing the gate.”
“I beg your pardon, Miss Waterhouse, you said ‘passing the gate.’”
“Certainly. I was in my sitting room. That gives on the street, whereas the dining room, wherewe are sitting now, gives as you can see, on the back garden. But I took my coffee into the sittingroom after lunch and I was sitting with it in a chair near the window. I was reading The Times, andI think it was when I was turning the sheet that I noticed Miss Pebmarsh passing the front gate. Isthere anything extraordinary about that, Inspector?”
“Not extraordinary, no,” said the inspector, smiling. “Only I understood that Miss Pebmarshwas going out to do a little shopping and to the post office, and I had an idea that the nearest wayto the shops and the post office would be to go the other way along the crescent.”
“Depends on which shops you are going to,” said Miss Waterhouse. “Of course the shops arenearer that way, and there’s a post office in Albany Road—”
“But perhaps Miss Pebmarsh usually passed your gate about that time?”
“Well, really, I don’t know what time Miss Pebmarsh usually went out, or in which direction.
I’m not really given to watching my neighbours in any way, Inspector. I’m a busy woman andhave far too much to do with my own affairs. Some people I know spend their entire time lookingout of the window and noticing who passes and who calls on whom. That is more a habit ofinvalids or of people who’ve got nothing better to do than to speculate and gossip about theirneighbours’ affairs.”
Miss Waterhouse spoke23 with such acerbity24 that the inspector felt sure that she had some oneparticular person in mind. He said hastily, “Quite so. Quite so.” He added, “Since Miss Pebmarshpassed your front gate, she might have been going to telephone, might she not? That is where thepublic telephone box is situated25?”
“Yes. It’s opposite Number 15.”
“The important question I have to ask you, Miss Waterhouse, is if you saw the arrival of thisman—the mystery man as I’m afraid the morning papers have called him.”
Miss Waterhouse shook her head. “No, I didn’t see him or any other caller.”
“What were you doing between half past one and three o’clock?”
“I spent about half an hour doing the crossword26 in The Times, or as much of it as I could, then Iwent out to the kitchen and washed up the lunch. Let me see. I wrote a couple of letters, madesome cheques out for bills, then I went upstairs and sorted out some things I wanted to take to thecleaners. I think it was from my bedroom that I noticed a certain amount of commotion27 next door.
I distinctly heard someone screaming, so naturally I went to the window. There was a young manand a girl at the gate. He seemed to be embracing her.”
Sergeant Lamb shifted his feet but Miss Waterhouse was not looking at him and clearly had noidea that he had been that particular young man in question.
“I could only see the back of the young man’s head. He seemed to be arguing with the girl.
Finally he sat her down against the gatepost. An extraordinary thing to do. And he strode off andwent into the house.”
“You had not seen Miss Pebmarsh return to the house a short time before?”
Miss Waterhouse shook her head. “No. I don’t really think I had looked out the window at alluntil I heard this extraordinary screaming. However, I didn’t pay much attention to all this. Younggirls and men are always doing such extraordinary things — screaming, pushing each other,giggling or making some kind of noise—that I had no idea it was anything serious. Not until somecars drove up with policemen did I realize anything out of the ordinary had occurred.”
“What did you do then?”
“Well, naturally I went out of the house, stood on the steps and then I walked round to the backgarden. I wondered what had happened but there didn’t seem to be anything much to see from thatside. When I got back again there was quite a little crowd gathering28. Somebody told me there’dbeen a murder in the house. It seemed to me most extraordinary. Most extraordinary!” said MissWaterhouse with a great deal of disapproval29.
“There is nothing else you can think of? That you can tell us?”
“Really, I’m afraid not.”
“Has anybody recently written to you suggesting insurance, or has anybody called upon you orproposed calling upon you?”
“No. Nothing of the kind. Both James and I have taken out insurance policies with the MutualHelp Assurance Society. Of course one is always getting letters which are really circulars oradvertisements of some kind but I don’t recall anything of that kind recently.”
“No letters signed by anybody called Curry30?”
“Curry? No, certainly not.”
“And the name of Curry means nothing to you in any way?”
“No. Should it?”
Hardcastle smiled. “No. I really don’t think it should,” he said. “It just happens to be the namethat the man who was murdered was calling himself by.”
“It wasn’t his real name?”
“We have some reason to think that it was not his real name.”
“A swindler of some kind, eh?” said Miss Waterhouse.
“We can’t say that till we have evidence to prove it.”
“Of course not, of course not. You’ve got to be careful. I know that,” said Miss Waterhouse.
“Not like some of the people around here. They’d say anything. I wonder some aren’t had up forlibel all the time.”
“Slander,” corrected Sergeant Lamb, speaking for the first time.
Miss Waterhouse looked at him in some surprise, as though not aware before that he had anentity of his own and was anything other than a necessary appendage31 to Inspector Hardcastle.
“I’m sorry I can’t help you, I really am,” said Miss Waterhouse.
“I’m sorry too,” said Hardcastle. “A person of your intelligence and judgement with a faculty32 ofobservation would have been a very useful witness to have.”
“I wish I had seen something,” said Miss Waterhouse.
For a moment her tone was as wistful as a young girl’s.
“Your brother, Mr. James Waterhouse?”
“James wouldn’t know anything,” said Miss Waterhouse scornfully. “He never does. Andanyway he was at Gainsford and Swettenhams in the High Street. Oh no, James wouldn’t be ableto help you. As I say, he doesn’t come back to lunch.”
“Where does he lunch usually?”
“He usually has sandwiches and coffee at the Three Feathers. A very nice respectable house.
They specialize in quick lunches for professional people.”
“Thank you, Miss Waterhouse. Well, we mustn’t keep you any longer.”
He rose and went out into the hall. Miss Waterhouse accompanied them. Colin Lamb picked upthe golf club by the door.
“Nice club, this,” he said. “Plenty of weight in the head.” He weighed it up and down in hishand. “I see you are prepared, Miss Waterhouse, for any eventualities.”
Miss Waterhouse was slightly taken aback.
“Really,” she said, “I can’t imagine how that club came to be there.”
She snatched it from him and replaced it in the golf bag.
“A very wise precaution to take,” said Hardcastle.
Miss Waterhouse opened the door and let them out.
“Well,” said Colin Lamb, with a sigh, “we didn’t get much out of her, in spite of you butteringher up so nicely all the time. Is that your invariable method?”
“It gets good results sometimes with a person of her type. The tough kind always respond toflattery.”
“She was purring like a cat that has been offered a saucer of cream in the end,” said Colin.
“Unfortunately, it didn’t disclose anything of interest.”
“No?” said Hardcastle.
Colin looked at him quickly. “What’s on your mind?”
“A very slight and possibly unimportant point. Miss Pebmarsh went out to the post office andthe shops but she turned left instead of right, and that telephone call, according to MissMartindale, was put through about ten minutes to two.”
Colin looked at him curiously33.
“You still think that in spite of her denial she might have made it? She was very positive.”
“Yes,” said Hardcastle. “She was very positive.”
His tone was noncommittal.
“But if she did make it, why?”
“Oh, it’s all why,” said Hardcastle impatiently. “Why, why? Why all this rigmarole? If MissPebmarsh made that call, why did she want to get the girl there? If it was someone else, why didthey want to involve Miss Pebmarsh? We don’t know anything yet. If that Martindale woman hadknown Miss Pebmarsh personally, she’d have known whether it was her voice or not, or at anyrate whether it was reasonably like Miss Pebmarsh’s. Oh well, we haven’t got much from Number18. Let’s see whether Number 20 will do us any better.”
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hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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blasphemous
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| adj.亵渎神明的，不敬神的 | |
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poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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humiliated
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| 感到羞愧的 | |
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loquacious
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| adj.多嘴的，饶舌的 | |
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lurid
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| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
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treasurer
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| n.司库，财务主管 | |
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impute
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| v.归咎于 | |
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bigoted
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| adj.固执己见的，心胸狭窄的 | |
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extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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bustling
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| adj.喧闹的 | |
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inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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manias
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| n.（mania的复数形式） | |
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belligerence
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| n.交战，好战性，斗争性 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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squeak
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| n.吱吱声，逃脱；v.（发出）吱吱叫，侥幸通过；（俚）告密 | |
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spoke
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| 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 | |
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acerbity
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| n.涩，酸，刻薄 | |
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situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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crossword
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| n.纵横字谜，纵横填字游戏 | |
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commotion
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| n.骚动，动乱 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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curry
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| n.咖哩粉，咖哩饭菜；v.用咖哩粉调味，用马栉梳，制革 | |
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appendage
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| n.附加物 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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