“Excuse me, Ma’am, I wonder if I might speak to you a minute.”
Mrs. Oliver, who was standing1 on the verandah of her friend’s house looking out to see if therewere any signs of Hercule Poirot approaching—he had notified her by telephone that he would becoming round to see her about now—looked round.
A neatly2 attired3 woman of middle age was standing, twisting her hands nervously4 in their neatcotton gloves.
“Yes?” said Mrs. Oliver, adding an interrogation point by her intonation5.
“I’m sorry to trouble you, I’m sure, Madam, but I thought—well, I thought….”
Mrs. Oliver listened but did not attempt to prompt her. She wondered what was worrying thewoman so much.
“I take it rightly as you’re the lady who writes stories, don’t I? Stories about crimes and murdersand things of that kind.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Oliver, “I’m the one.”
Her curiosity was now aroused. Was this a preface for a demand for an autograph or even asigned photograph? One never knew. The most unlikely things happened.
“I thought as you’d be the right one to tell me,” said the woman.
“You’d better sit down,” said Mrs. Oliver.
She foresaw that Mrs. Whoever-it-was—she was wearing a wedding ring so she was a Mrs.—was the type who takes some time in getting to the point. The woman sat down and went ontwisting her hands in their gloves.
“Something you’re worried about?” said Mrs. Oliver, doing her best to start the flow.
“Well, I’d like advice, and it’s true. It’s about something that happened a good while ago and Iwasn’t really worried at the time. But you know how it is. You think things over and you wish youknew someone you could go and ask about it.”
“I see,” said Mrs. Oliver, hoping to inspire confidence by this entirely6 meretricious7 statement.
“Seeing the things what have happened lately, you never do know, do you?”
“You mean—?”
“I mean what happened at the Hallowe’en party, or whatever they called it. I mean it shows youthere’s people who aren’t dependable here, doesn’t it? And it shows you things before that weren’tas you thought they were. I mean, they mightn’t have been what you thought they were, if youunderstand what I mean.”
“Yes?” said Mrs. Oliver, adding an even greater tinge8 of interrogation to the monosyllable. “Idon’t think I know your name,” she added.
“Leaman. Mrs. Leaman. I go out and do cleaning to oblige ladies here. Ever since my husbanddied, and that was five years ago. I used to work for Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe, the lady who livedup at the Quarry9 House, before Colonel and Mrs. Weston came. I don’t know if you ever knewher.”
“No,” said Mrs. Oliver, “I never knew her. This is the first time I have been down to WoodleighCommon.”
“I see. Well, you wouldn’t know much about what was going on perhaps at that time, and whatwas said at that time.”
“I’ve heard a certain amount about it since I’ve been down here this time,” said Mrs. Oliver.
“You see, I don’t know anything about the law, and I’m worried always when it’s a question oflaw. Lawyers, I mean. They might tangle10 it up and I wouldn’t like to go to the police. It wouldn’tbe anything to do with the police, being a legal matter, would it?”
“Perhaps not,” said Mrs. Oliver, cautiously.
“You know perhaps what they said at the time about the codi—I don’t know, some word likecodi. Like the fish I mean.”
“A codicil11 to the Will?” suggested Mrs. Oliver.
“Yes, that’s right. That’s what I’m meaning. Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe, you see, made one ofthese cod—codicils and she left all her money to the foreign girl what looked after her. And it wasa surprise, that, because she’d got relations living here, and she’d come here anyway to live nearthem. She was very devoted12 to them, Mr. Drake, in particular. And it struck people as pretty queer,really. And then the lawyers, you see, they began saying things. They said as Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe hadn’t written the codicil at all. That the foreign pair girl had done it, seeing as she got allthe money left to her. And they said as they were going to law about it. That Mrs. Drake wasgoing to counterset the Will—if that is the right word.”
“The lawyers were going to contest the Will. Yes, I believe I did hear something about that,”
said Mrs. Oliver encouragingly. “And you know something about it, perhaps?”
“I didn’t mean no harm,” said Mrs. Leaman. A slight whine13 came into her voice, a whine withwhich Mrs. Oliver had been acquainted several times in the past.
Mrs. Leaman, she thought, was presumably an unreliable woman in some ways, a snooperperhaps, a listener at doors.
“I didn’t say nothing at the time,” said Mrs. Leaman, “because you see I didn’t rightly know.
But you see I thought it was queer and I’ll admit to a lady like you, who knows what these thingsare, that I did want to know the truth about it. I’d worked for Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe for sometime, I had, and one wants to know how things happened.”
“Quite,” said Mrs. Oliver.
“If I thought I’d done what I oughtn’t to have done, well, of course, I’d have owned up to it. ButI didn’t think as I’d done anything really wrong, you see. Not at the time, if you understand,” sheadded.
“Oh yes,” said Mrs. Oliver, “I’m sure I shall understand. Go on. It was about this codicil.”
“Yes, you see one day Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe—she hadn’t felt too good that day and so sheasked us to come in. Me that was, and young Jim who helps down in the garden and brings thesticks in and the coals, and things like that. So we went into her room, where she was, and she’dgot papers before her there on the desk. And she turns to this foreign girl—Miss Olga we all calledher—and said ‘You go out of the room now, dear, because you mustn’t be mixed up in this part ofit,’ or something like that. So Miss Olga, she goes out of the room and Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe,she tells us to come close and she says ‘This is my Will, this is.’ She got a bit of blotting14 paperover the top part of it but the bottom of it’s quite clear. She said ‘I’m writing something here onthis piece of paper and I want you to be a witness of what I’ve written and of my signature at theend of it.’ So she starts writing along the page. Scratchy pen she always used, she wouldn’t useBiros or anything like that. And she writes two or three lines of writing and then she signed hername, and then she says to me, ‘Now, Mrs. Leaman, you write your name there. Your name andyour address’ and then she says to Jim ‘And now you write your name underneath15 there, and youraddress too. There. That’ll do. Now you’ve seen me write that and you’ve seen my signature andyou’ve written your names, both of you, to say that’s that.’ And then she says ‘That’s all. Thankyou very much.’ So we goes out of the room. Well, I didn’t think nothing more of it at the time,but I wondered a bit. And it happened as I turns my head just as I was going out of the room. Yousee the door doesn’t always latch16 properly. You have to give it a pull, to make it click. And so Iwas doing that—I wasn’t really looking, if you know what I mean—”
“I know what you mean,” said Mrs. Oliver, in a noncommittal voice.
“And so I sees Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe pull herself up from the chair—she’d got arthritis17 andhad pain moving about sometimes—and go over to the bookcase and she pulled out a book andshe puts that piece of paper she’d just signed—in an envelope it was—in one of the books. A bigtall book it was in the bottom shelf. And she sticks it back in the bookcase. Well, I never thoughtof it again, as you might say. No, really I didn’t. But when all this fuss came up, well, of course Ifelt—at least, I—” She came to a stop.
Mrs. Oliver had one of her useful intuitions.
“But surely,” she said, “you didn’t wait as long as all that—”
“Well, I’ll tell you the truth, I will. I’ll admit I was curious. After all, I mean, you want to knowwhen you’ve signed anything, what you’ve signed, don’t you? I mean, it’s only human nature.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Oliver, “it’s only human nature.”
Curiosity, she thought, was a highly component18 part in Mrs. Leaman’s human nature.
“So I will admit that next day, when Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe had driven into Medchester and Iwas doing her bedroom as usual—a bedsitting room she had because she had to rest a lot. And Ithinks, ‘Well, one ought really to know when you’ve signed a thing, what it is you’ve signed.’ Imean they always say with these hire purchase things, you should read the small print.”
“Or in this case, the handwriting,” suggested Mrs. Oliver.
“So I thought, well, there’s no harm—it’s not as though I was taking anything. I mean to say I’dhad to sign my name there, and I thought I really ought to know what I’d signed. So I had a lookalong the bookshelves. They needed dusting anyway. And I found the one. It was on the bottomshelf. It was an old book, a sort of Queen Victoria’s kind of book. And I found this envelope witha folded paper in it and the title of the book said Enquire19 Within upon Everything. And it seemedthen as though it was, sort of meant, if you know what I mean?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Oliver. “It was clearly meant. And so you took out the paper and looked at it.”
“That’s right, Madam. And whether I did wrong or not I don’t know. But anyway, there it was.
It was a legal document all right. On the last page there was the writing what she’d made themorning before. New writing with a new scratchy pen she was using. It was clear enough to read,though, although she had a rather spiky20 handwriting.”
“And what did it say,” said Mrs. Oliver, her curiosity now having joined itself to that previouslyfelt by Mrs. Leaman.
“Well, it said something like, as far as I remember—the exact words I’m not quite sure of—something about a codicil and that after the legacies21 mentioned in her Will, she bequeathed herentire fortune to Olga—I’m not sure of the surname, it began with an S. Seminoff, or somethinglike that—in consideration of her great kindness and attention to her during her illness. And thereit was written down and she’d signed it and I’d signed it, and Jim had signed it. So I put it backwhere it was because I shouldn’t like Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe to know that I’d been poking22 aboutin her things.
“But well, I said to myself, well, this is a surprise. And I thought, fancy that foreign girl gettingall that money because we all know as Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe was very rich. Her husband hadbeen in shipbuilding and he’d left her a big fortune, and I thought, well, some people have all theluck. Mind you, I wasn’t particularly fond of Miss Olga myself. She had a sharp way with hersometimes and she had quite a bad temper. But I will say as she was always very attentive23 andpolite and all that, to the old lady. Looking out for herself, all right, she was, and she got awaywith it. And I thought, well, leaving all that money away from her own family. Then I thought,well, perhaps she’s had a tiff24 with them and likely as not that will blow over, so maybe she’ll tearthis up and make another Will or codicil after all. But anyway, that was that, and I put it back and Iforgot about it, I suppose.
“But when all the fuss came up about the Will, and there was talk of how it had been forged andMrs. Llewellyn-Smythe could never have written that codicil herself—for that’s what they weresaying, mind you, as it wasn’t the old lady who had written that at all, it was somebody else—”
“I see,” said Mrs. Oliver. “And so, what did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything. And that’s what’s worrying me…I didn’t get the hang of things at once.
And when I’d thought things over a bit I didn’t know rightly what I ought to do and I thought,well, it was all talk because the lawyers were against the foreigner, like people always are. I’m notvery fond of foreigners myself, I’ll admit. At any rate, there it was, and the young lady herself wasswanking about, giving herself airs, looking as pleased as Punch and I thought, well, maybe it’s alla legal thing of some kind and they’ll say she’s no right to the money because she wasn’t relatedto the old lady. So everything will be all right. And it was in a way because, you see, they gave upthe idea of bringing the case. It didn’t come to court at all and as far as anyone knew, Miss Olgaran away. Went off back to the Continent somewhere, where she came from. So it looks as thoughthere must have been some hocus-pocus of some kind on her part. Maybe she threatened the oldlady and made her do it. You never know, do you? One of my nephews who’s going to be adoctor, says you can do wonderful things with hypnotism. I thought perhaps she hypnotized theold lady.”
“This was how long ago?”
“Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe’s been dead for—let me see, nearly two years.”
“And it didn’t worry you?”
“No, it didn’t worry me. Not at the time. Because you see, I didn’t rightly see that it mattered.
Everything was all right, there wasn’t any question of that Miss Olga getting away with themoney, so I didn’t see as it was any call for me—”
“But now you feel differently?”
“It’s that nasty death—the child that was pushed into a bucket of apples. Saying things about amurder, saying she’d seen something or known something about a murder. And I thought maybeas Miss Olga had murdered the old lady because she knew all this money was coming to her andthen she got the wind up when there was a fuss and lawyers and the police, maybe, and so she ranaway. So then I thought well, perhaps I ought to—well, I ought to tell someone, and I thoughtyou’d be a lady as has got friends in legal departments. Friends in the police perhaps, and you’dexplain to them that I was only dusting a bookshelf, and this paper was there in a book and I put itback where it belonged. I didn’t take it away or anything.”
“But that’s what happened, was it, on that occasion? You saw Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe write acodicil to her Will. You saw her write her name and you yourself and this Jim someone were boththere and you both wrote your own names yourselves. That’s it, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“So if you both saw Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe write her name, then that signature couldn’t havebeen a forgery25, could it? Not if you saw her write it herself.”
“I saw her write it herself and that’s the absolute truth I’m speaking. And Jim’d say so too onlyhe’s gone to Australia, he has. Went over a year ago and I don’t know his address or anything. Hedidn’t come from these parts, anyway.”
“And what do you want me to do?”
“Well, I want you to tell me if there’s anything I ought to say, or do—now. Nobody’s asked me,mind you. Nobody ever asked me if I knew anything about a Will.”
“Your name is Leaman. What Christian26 name?”
“Harriet.”
“Harriet Leaman. And Jim, what was his last name?”
“Well, now, what was it? Jenkins. That’s right. James Jenkins. I’d be much obliged if you couldhelp me because it worries me, you see. All this trouble coming along and if that Miss Olga did it,murdered Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe, I mean, and young Joyce saw her do it…She was ever so cock-a-hoop about it all, Miss Olga was, I mean about hearing from the lawyers as she’d come into a lotof money. But it was different when the police came round asking questions, and she went off verysudden, she did. Nobody asked me anything, they didn’t. But now I can’t help wondering if Iought to have said something at the time.”
“I think,” said Mrs. Oliver, “that you will probably have to tell this story of yours to whoeverrepresented Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe as a lawyer. I’m sure a good lawyer will quite understandyour feelings and your motive27.”
“Well, I’m sure if you’d say a word for me and tell them, being a lady as knows what’s what,how it came about, and how I never meant to—well, not to do anything dishonest in any way. Imean, all I did—”
“All you did was to say nothing,” said Mrs. Oliver. “It seems quite a reasonable explanation.”
“And if it could come from you—saying a word for me first, you know, to explain, I’d be everso grateful.”
“I’ll do what I can,” said Mrs. Oliver.
Her eyes strayed to the garden path where she saw a neat figure approaching.
“Well, thanks ever so much. They said as you were a very nice lady, and I’m sure I’m muchobliged to you.”
She rose to her feet, replaced the cotton gloves which she had twisted entirely off in heranguish, made a kind of half nod or bob, and trotted28 off. Mrs. Oliver waited until Poirotapproached.
“Come here,” she said, “and sit down. What’s the matter with you? You look upset.”
“My feet are extremely painful,” said Hercule Poirot.
“It’s those awful tight patent leather shoes of yours,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Sit down. Tell me whatyou came to tell me, and then I’ll tell you something that you may be surprised to hear!”
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收听单词发音
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1
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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attired
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| adj.穿着整齐的v.使穿上衣服，使穿上盛装( attire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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intonation
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| n.语调，声调；发声 | |
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6
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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meretricious
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| adj.华而不实的，俗艳的 | |
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8
tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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9
quarry
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| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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codicil
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| n.遗嘱的附录 | |
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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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whine
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| v.哀号，号哭；n.哀鸣 | |
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14
blotting
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| 吸墨水纸 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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16
latch
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| n.门闩，窗闩；弹簧锁 | |
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arthritis
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| n.关节炎 | |
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component
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| n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的 | |
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enquire
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| v.打听，询问；调查，查问 | |
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20
spiky
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| adj.长而尖的，大钉似的 | |
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legacies
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| n.遗产( legacy的名词复数 )；遗留之物；遗留问题；后遗症 | |
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poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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tiff
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| n.小争吵，生气 | |
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25
forgery
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| n.伪造的文件等，赝品，伪造（行为） | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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