Twelve

Twelve
“Let’s buy a peacock,” said Mrs. Oliver suddenly and unexpectedly. She did not open her eyes asshe made this remark, and her voice was weak though full of indignation.
Three people brought startled eyes to bear upon her. She made a further statement.
“Hit on the head.”
She opened badly focused eyes and endeavoured to make out where she was.
The first thing she saw was a face entirely¹ strange to her. A young man who was writing in anotebook. He held the pencil poised² in his hand.
“Policeman,” said Mrs. Oliver decisively.
“I beg your pardon, Madam?”
“I said you were a policeman,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Am I right?”
“Yes, Madam.”
“Criminal assault,” said Mrs. Oliver and closed her eyes in a satisfied manner. When she openedthem again, she took in her surroundings more fully³. She was in a bed, one of those rather highhygienic-looking hospital beds, she decided⁴. The kind that you shoot up and down and round andabout. She was not in her own house. She looked round and decided on her environment.
“Hospital, or could be nursing home,” she said.
A sister was standing⁵ with an air of authority at the door, and a nurse was standing by her bed.
She identified a fourth figure. “Nobody,” said Mrs. Oliver, “could mistake those moustaches. Whatare you doing here, M. Poirot?”
Hercule Poirot advanced towards the bed. “I told you to be careful, Madame,” he said.
“Anyone might lose their way,” said Mrs. Oliver, somewhat obscurely, and added, “My headaches.”
“With good cause. As you surmise⁶, you were hit on the head.”
“Yes. By the Peacock.”
The policeman stirred uneasily then said, “Excuse me, Madam, you say you were assaulted by apeacock?”
“Of course. I’d had an uneasy feeling for some time—you know, atmosphere.” Mrs. Oliver triedto wave her hand in an appropriate gesture to describe atmosphere, and winced⁷. “Ouch,” she said,“I’d better not try that again.”
“My patient must not get overexcited,” said the sister with disapproval⁸.
“Can you tell me where this assault occurred?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea. I’d lost my way. I was coming from a kind of studio. Very badlykept. Dirty. The other young man hadn’t shaved for days. A greasy⁹ leather jacket.”
“Is this the man who assaulted you?”
“No, it’s another one.”
“If you could just tell me—”
“I am telling you, aren’t I? I’d followed him, you see, all the way from the café—only I’m notvery good at following people. No practice. It’s much more difficult than you’d think.”
Her eyes focused on the policeman. “But I suppose you know all about that. You have courses—in following people, I mean? Oh, never mind, it doesn’t matter. You see,” she said, speakingwith sudden rapidity, “it’s quite simple. I had got off at The World’s End, I think it was, andnaturally I thought he had stayed with the others—or gone the other way. But instead, he came upbehind me.”
“Who was this?”
“The Peacock,” said Mrs. Oliver, “and he startled me, you see. It does startle you when you findthings are the wrong way round. I mean he following you instead of you following him—only itwas earlier—and I had a sort of uneasy feeling. In fact, you know, I was afraid. I don’t know why.
He spoke¹⁰ quite politely but I was afraid. Anyway there it was and he said ‘Come up and see thestudio’ and so I came up rather a rickety staircase. A kind of ladder staircase and there was thisother young man—the dirty young man—and he was painting a picture, and the girl was acting¹¹ asmodel. She was quite clean. Rather pretty really. And so there we were and they were quite niceand polite, and then I said I must be getting home, and they told me the right way to get back tothe King’s Road. But they can’t really have told me the right way. Of course I might have made amistake. You know, when people tell you second left and third right, well, you sometimes do it thewrong way round. At least I do. Anyway, I got into a rather peculiar¹² slummy part quite close tothe river. The afraid feeling had gone away by then. I must have been quite off my guard when thePeacock hit me.”
“I think she’s delirous,” said the nurse in an explanatory voice.
“No, I’m not,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I know what I’m talking about.”
The nurse opened her mouth, caught the sister’s admonitory eye and shut it again quickly.
“Velvets and satins and long curly hair,” said Mrs. Oliver.
“A peacock in satin? A real peacock, Madam. You thought you saw a peacock near the river inChelsea?”
“A real peacock?” said Mrs. Oliver. “Of course not. How silly. What would a real peacock bedoing down on Chelsea Embankment?”
Nobody appeared to have an answer to this question.
“He struts,” said Mrs. Oliver, “that’s why I nicknamed him a peacock. Shows off, you know.
Vain, I should think. Proud of his looks. Perhaps a lot of other things as well.” She looked atPoirot. “David something. You know who I mean.”
“You say this young man of the name of David assaulted you by striking you on the head?”
“Yes I do.”
Hercule Poirot spoke. “You saw him?”
“I didn’t see him,” said Mrs. Oliver, “I didn’t know anything about it. I just thought I heardsomething behind me, and before I could turn my head to look—it all happened! Just as if a ton ofbricks or something fell on me. I think I’ll go to sleep now,” she added.
She moved her head slightly, made a grimace¹³ of pain, and relapsed into what appeared to be aperfectly satisfactory unconsciousness.

1 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

2 poised   

a.摆好姿势不动的

参考例句：

• The hawk poised in mid-air ready to swoop. 老鹰在半空中盘旋，准备俯冲。
• Tina was tense, her hand poised over the telephone. 蒂娜心情紧张，手悬在电话机上。

3 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

4 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

5 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

6 surmise   

v./n.猜想，推测

参考例句：

• It turned out that my surmise was correct.结果表明我的推测没有错。
• I surmise that he will take the job.我推测他会接受这份工作。

7 winced   

赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He winced as the dog nipped his ankle. 狗咬了他的脚腕子，疼得他龇牙咧嘴。
• He winced as a sharp pain shot through his left leg. 他左腿一阵剧痛疼得他直龇牙咧嘴。

8 disapproval   

n.反对，不赞成

参考例句：

• The teacher made an outward show of disapproval.老师表面上表示不同意。
• They shouted their disapproval.他们喊叫表示反对。

9 greasy   

adj. 多脂的，油脂的

参考例句：

• He bought a heavy-duty cleanser to clean his greasy oven.昨天他买了强力清洁剂来清洗油污的炉子。
• You loathe the smell of greasy food when you are seasick.当你晕船时，你会厌恶油腻的气味。

10 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：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

11 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

12 peculiar   

adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的

参考例句：

• He walks in a peculiar fashion.他走路的样子很奇特。
• He looked at me with a very peculiar expression.他用一种很奇怪的表情看着我。

13 grimace   

v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭

参考例句：

• The boy stole a look at his father with grimace.那男孩扮着鬼脸偷看了他父亲一眼。
• Thomas made a grimace after he had tasted the wine.托马斯尝了那葡萄酒后做了个鬼脸。