When Hercule Poirot had taken his leave and departed, Jeremy Fullerton sat before his deskdrumming gently with his fingertips. His eyes, however, were far away—lost in thought.
He picked up a document in front of him and dropped his eyes down to it, but without focusinghis glance. The discreet1 buzz of the house telephone caused him to pick up the receiver on hisdesk.
“Yes, Miss Miles?”
“Mr. Holden is here, sir.”
“Yes. Yes, his appointment, I believe was for nearly three quarters of an hour ago. Did he giveany reason for having been so late?…Yes, yes. I quite see. Rather the same excuse he gave lasttime. Will you tell him I’ve seen another client, and I am now too short of time. Make anappointment with him for next week, will you? We can’t have this sort of thing going on.”
“Yes, Mr. Fullerton.”
He replaced the receiver and sat looking thoughtfully down at the document in front of him. Hewas still not reading it. His mind was going over events of the past. Two years—close on twoyears ago—and that strange little man this morning with his patent leather shoes and his bigmoustaches, had brought it back to him, asking all those questions.
Now he was going over in his own mind a conversation of nearly two years ago.
He saw again, sitting in the chair opposite him, a girl, a short, stocky figure—the olive brownskin, the dark red generous mouth, the heavy cheekbones and the fierceness of the blue eyes thatlooked into his beneath the heavy, beetling2 brows. A passionate3 face, a face full of vitality4, a facethat had known suffering—would probably always know suffering—but would never learn toaccept suffering. The kind of woman who would fight and protest until the end. Where was shenow, he wondered? Somehow or other she had managed—what had she managed exactly? Whohad helped her? Had anyone helped her? Somebody must have done so.
She was back again, he supposed, in some trouble-stricken spot in Central Europe where shehad come from, where she belonged, where she had had to go back to because there was no othercourse for her to take unless she was content to lose her liberty.
Jeremy Fullerton was an upholder of the law. He believed in the law, he was contemptuous ofmany of the magistrates5 of today with their weak sentences, their acceptance of scholastic6 needs.
The students who stole books, the young married women who denuded7 the supermarkets, the girlswho filched8 money from their employers, the boys who wrecked9 telephone boxes, none of them inreal need, none of them desperate, most of them had known nothing but overindulgence inbringing up and a fervent10 belief that anything they could not afford to buy was theirs to take. Yetalong with his intrinsic belief in the administration of the law justly, Mr. Fullerton was a man whohad compassion11. He could be sorry for people. He could be sorry, and was sorry, for OlgaSeminoff though he was quite unaffected by the passionate arguments she advanced for herself.
“I came to you for help. I thought you would help me. You were kind last year. You helped mewith forms so that I could remain another year in England. So they say to me: ‘You need notanswer any questions you do not wish to. You can be represented by a lawyer.’ So I come to you.”
“The circumstances you have instanced—” and Mr. Fullerton remembered how drily and coldlyhe had said that, all the more drily and coldly because of the pity that lay behind the dryness of thestatement “—do not apply. In this case I am not at liberty to act for you legally. I am representingalready the Drake family. As you know, I was Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe’s solicitor12.”
“But she is dead. She does not want a solicitor when she is dead.”
“She was fond of you,” said Mr. Fullerton.
“Yes, she was fond of me. That is what I am telling you. That is why she wanted to give me themoney.”
“All her money?”
“Why not? Why not? She did not like her relations.”
“You are wrong. She was very fond of her niece and nephew.”
“Well, then, she may have liked Mr. Drake but she did not like Mrs. Drake. She found her verytiresome. Mrs. Drake interfered13. She would not let Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe do always what sheliked. She would not let her eat the food she liked.”
“She is a very conscientious14 woman, and she tried to get her aunt to obey the doctor’s orders asto diet and not too much exercise and many other things.”
“People do not always want to obey a doctor’s orders. They do not want to be interfered with byrelations. They like living their own lives and doing what they want and having what they want.
She had plenty of money. She could have what she wanted! She could have as much as she likedof everything. She was rich—rich—rich, and she could do what she liked with her money. Theyhave already quite enough money, Mr. and Mrs. Drake. They have a fine house and clothes andtwo cars. They are very well-to-do. Why should they have any more?”
“They were her only living relations.”
“She wanted me to have the money. She was sorry for me. She knew what I had been through.
She knew about my father, arrested by the police and taken away. We never saw him again, mymother and I. And then my mother and how she died. All my family died. It is terrible, what Ihave endured. You do not know what it is like to live in a police state, as I have lived in it. No, no.
You are on the side of the police. You are not on my side.”
“No,” Mr. Fullerton said, “I am not on your side. I am very sorry for what has happened to you,but you’ve brought this trouble about yourself.”
“That is not true! It is not true that I have done anything I should not do. What have I done? Iwas kind to her, I was nice to her. I brought her in lots of things that she was not supposed to eat.
Chocolates and butter. All the time nothing but vegetable fats. She did not like vegetable fats. Shewanted butter. She wanted lots of butter.”
“It’s not just a question of butter,” said Mr. Fullerton.
“I looked after her, I was nice to her! And so she was grateful. And then when she died and Ifind that in her kindness and her affection she has left a signed paper leaving all her money to me,then those Drakes come along and say I shall not have it. They say all sorts of things. They say Ihad a bad influence. And then they say worse things than that. Much worse. They say I wrote theWill myself. That is nonsense. She wrote it. She wrote it. And then she sent me out of the room.
She got the cleaning woman and Jim the gardener. She said they had to sign the paper, not me.
Because I was going to get the money. Why should not I have the money? Why should I not havesome good luck in my life, some happiness? It seemed so wonderful. All the things I planned to dowhen I knew about it.”
“I have no doubt, yes, I have no doubt.”
“Why shouldn’t I have plans? Why should not I rejoice? I am going to be happy and rich andhave all the things I want. What did I do wrong? Nothing. Nothing, I tell you. Nothing.”
“I have tried to explain to you,” said Mr. Fullerton.
“That is all lies. You say I tell lies. You say I wrote the paper myself. I did not write it myself.
She wrote it. Nobody can say anything different.”
“Certain people say a good many things,” said Mr. Fullerton. “Now listen. Stop protesting andlisten to me. It is true, is it not, that Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe in the letters you wrote for her, oftenasked you to copy her handwriting as nearly as you could? That was because she had an old-fashioned idea that to write typewritten letters to people who are friends or with whom you have apersonal acquaintance, is an act of rudeness. That is a survival from Victorian days. Nowadaysnobody cares whether they receive handwritten letters or typewritten ones. But to Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe that was discourtesy. You understand what I am saying?”
“Yes, I understand. And so she asks me. She says, ‘Now, Olga,’ she says. ‘These four lettersyou will answer as I have told you and that you have taken down in shorthand. But you will writethem in handwriting and you will make the handwriting as close to mine as possible.’ And she toldme to practise writing her handwriting, to notice how she made her a’s, and her b’s and her l’s andall the different letters. ‘So long as it is reasonably like my handwriting,’ she said, ‘that will do,and then you can sign my name. But I do not want people to think that I am no longer able to writemy own letters. Although, as you know, the rheumatism15 in my wrist is getting worse and I find itmore difficult, but I don’t want my personal letters typewritten.’”
“You could have written them in your ordinary handwriting,” said Mr. Fullerton, “and put anote at the end saying ‘per secretary’ or per initials if you liked.”
“She did not want me to do that. She wanted it to be thought that she wrote the letters herself.”
And that, Mr. Fullerton thought, could be true enough. It was very like Louise Llewellyn-Smythe. She was always passionately16 resentful of the fact that she could no longer do the thingsshe used to do, that she could no longer walk far or go up hills quickly or perform certain actionswith her hands, her right hand especially. She wanted to be able to say “I’m perfectly17 well,perfectly all right and there’s nothing I can’t do if I set my mind to it.” Yes, what Olga was tellinghim now was perfectly true, and because it was true it was one of the reasons why the codicilappended to the last Will properly drawn19 out and signed by Louise Llewellyn-Smythe had beenaccepted at first without suspicion. It was in his own office, Mr. Fullerton reflected, that suspicionshad arisen because both he and his younger partner knew Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe’s handwritingvery well. It was young Cole who had first said,“You know, I really can’t believe that Louise Llewellyn-Smythe wrote that codicil18. I know shehad arthritis20 lately but look at these specimens21 of her own writing that I’ve brought along fromamongst her papers to show you. There’s something wrong about that codicil.”
Mr. Fullerton had agreed that there was something wrong about it. He had said they would takeexpert opinion on this handwriting question. The answer had been quite definite. Separate opinionshad not varied22. The handwriting of the codicil was definitely not that of Louise Llewellyn-Smythe.
If Olga had been less greedy, Mr. Fullerton thought, if she had been content to write a codicilbeginning as this one had done—“Because of her great care and attention to me and the affectionand kindness she has shown me, I leave—” That was how it had begun, that was how it could havebegun, and if it had gone on to specify23 a good round sum of money left to the devoted24 au pair girl,the relations might have considered it overdone25, but they would have accepted it withoutquestioning. But to cut out the relations altogether, the nephew who had been his aunt’s residuarylegatee in the last four wills she had made during a period of nearly twenty years, to leaveeverything to the stranger Olga Seminoff—that was not in Louise Llewellyn-Smythe’s character.
In fact, a plea of undue26 influence could upset such a document anyway. No. She had been greedy,this hot, passionate child. Possibly Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe had told her that some money wouldbe left to her because of her kindness, because of her attention, because of a fondness the old ladywas beginning to feel for this girl who fulfilled all her whims27, who did whatever she asked her.
And that had opened up a vista28 for Olga. She would have everything. The old lady should leaveeverything to her, and she would have all the money. All the money and the house and the clothesand the jewels. Everything. A greedy girl. And now retribution had caught up with her.
And Mr. Fullerton, against his will, against his legal instincts and against a good deal more, feltsorry for her. Very sorry for her. She had known suffering since she was a child, had known therigours of a police state, had lost her parents, lost a brother and a sister and known injustice29 andfear, and it had developed in her a trait that she had no doubt been born with but which she hadnever been able so far to indulge. It had developed a childish passionate greed.
“Everyone is against me,” said Olga. “Everyone. You are all against me. You are not fairbecause I am a foreigner, because I do not belong to this country, because I do not know what tosay, what to do. What can I do? Why do you not tell me what I can do?”
“Because I do not really think there is anything much you can do,” said Mr. Fullerton. “Yourbest chance is to make a clean breast of things.”
“If I say what you want me to say, it will be all lies and not true. She made that Will. She wroteit down there. She told me to go out of the room while the others signed it.”
“There is evidence against you, you know. There are people who will say that Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe often did not know what she was signing. She had several documents of different kinds,and she did not always reread what was put before her.”
“Well, then she did not know what she was saying.”
“My dear child,” said Mr. Fullerton, “your best hope is the fact that you are a first offender30, thatyou are a foreigner, that you understand the English language only in a rather rudimentary form.
In that case you may get off with a minor31 sentence—or you may, indeed, get put on probation32.”
“Oh, words. Nothing but words. I shall be put in prison and never let out again.”
“Now you are talking nonsense,” Mr. Fullerton said.
“It would be better if I ran away, if I ran away and hid myself so that nobody could find me.”
“Once there is a warrant out for your arrest, you would be found.”
“Not if I did it quickly. Not if I went at once. Not if someone helped me. I could get away. Getaway from England. In a boat or a plane. I could find someone who forges passports or visas, orwhatever you have to have. Someone who will do something for me. I have friends. I have peoplewho are fond of me. Somebody could help me to disappear. That is what I needed. I could put on awig. I could walk about on crutches33.”
“Listen,” Mr. Fullerton had said, and he had spoken then with authority, “I am sorry for you. Iwill recommend you to a lawyer who will do his best for you. You can’t hope to disappear. Youare talking like a child.”
“I have got enough money. I have saved money.” And then she had said, “You have tried to bekind. Yes, I believe that. But you will not do anything because it is all the law—the law. Butsomeone will help me. Someone will. And I shall get away where nobody will ever find me.”
Nobody, Mr. Fullerton thought, had found her. He wondered—yes; he wondered very much—where she was or could be now.
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收听单词发音
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1
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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beetling
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| adj.突出的，悬垂的v.快速移动( beetle的现在分词 ) | |
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3
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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5
magistrates
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| 地方法官，治安官( magistrate的名词复数 ) | |
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scholastic
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| adj.学校的，学院的，学术上的 | |
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7
denuded
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| adj.[医]变光的，裸露的v.使赤裸( denude的过去式和过去分词 )；剥光覆盖物 | |
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filched
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| v.偷（尤指小的或不贵重的物品）( filch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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fervent
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| adj.热的，热烈的，热情的 | |
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compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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solicitor
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| n.初级律师，事务律师 | |
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13
interfered
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| v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 )；调停；妨碍；干涉 | |
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14
conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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15
rheumatism
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| n.风湿病 | |
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16
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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codicil
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| n.遗嘱的附录 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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arthritis
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| n.关节炎 | |
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specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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specify
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| vt.指定，详细说明 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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overdone
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| v.做得过分( overdo的过去分词 )；太夸张；把…煮得太久；（工作等）过度 | |
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undue
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| adj.过分的；不适当的；未到期的 | |
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27
WHIMS
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| 虚妄，禅病 | |
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28
vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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offender
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| n.冒犯者，违反者，犯罪者 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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32
probation
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| n.缓刑(期)，(以观后效的)察看；试用(期) | |
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crutches
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| n.拐杖, 支柱 v.支撑 | |
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