Poirot sat down, stretched out his legs and said: “Ah! that is better.”
“Take your shoes off,” said Mrs. Oliver, “and rest your feet.”
“No, no, I could not do that.” Poirot sounded shocked at the possibility.
“Well, we’re old friends together,” said Mrs. Oliver, “and Judith wouldn’t mind if she came outof the house. You know, if you’ll excuse me saying so, you oughtn’t to wear patent leather shoesin the country. Why don’t you get yourself a nice pair of suède shoes? Or the things all the hippy-looking boys wear nowadays? You know, the sort of shoes that slip on, and you never have toclean them—apparently1 they clean themselves by some extraordinary process or other. One ofthese laboursaving gimmicks2.”
“I would not care for that at all,” said Poirot severely3. “No, indeed!”
“The trouble with you is,” said Mrs. Oliver, beginning to unwrap a package on the table whichshe had obviously recently purchased, “the trouble with you is that you insist on being smart. Youmind more about your clothes and your moustaches and how you look and what you wear thancomfort. Now comfort is really the great thing. Once you’ve passed, say, fifty, comfort is the onlything that matters.”
“Madame, chère Madame, I do not know that I agree with you.”
“Well, you’d better,” said Mrs. Oliver. “If not, you will suffer a great deal, and it will be worseyear after year.”
Mrs. Oliver fished a gaily4 covered box from its paper bag. Removing the lid of this, she pickedup a small portion of its contents and transferred it to her mouth. She then licked her fingers,wiped them on a handkerchief, and murmured, rather indistinctly:
“Sticky.”
“Do you no longer eat apples? I have always seen you with a bag of apples in your hand, oreating them, or on occasions the bag breaks and they tumble out on the road.”
“I told you,” said Mrs. Oliver, “I told you that I never want to see an apple again. No. I hateapples. I suppose I shall get over it some day and eat them again, but—well, I don’t like theassociations of apples.”
“And what is it that you eat now?” Poirot picked up the gaily coloured lid decorated with apicture of a palm tree. “Tunis dates,” he read. “Ah, dates now.”
“That’s right,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Dates.”
She took another date and put it in her mouth, removed a stone which she threw into a bush andcontinued to munch5.
“Dates,” said Poirot. “It is extraordinary.”
“What is extraordinary about eating dates? People do.”
“No, no, I did not mean that. Not eating them. It is extraordinary that you should say to me likethat—dates.”
“Why?” asked Mrs. Oliver.
“Because,” said Poirot, “again and again you indicate to me the path, the how do you say, thechemin that I should take or that I should have already taken. You show me the way that I shouldgo. Dates. Till this moment I did not realize how important dates were.”
“I can’t see that dates have anything to do with what’s happened here. I mean, there’s no realtime involved. The whole thing took place what—only five days ago.”
“The event took place four days ago. Yes, that is very true. But to everything that happens therehas to be a past. A past which is by now incorporated in today, but which existed yesterday or lastmonth or last year. The present is nearly always rooted in the past. A year, two years, perhaps eventhree years ago, a murder was committed. A child saw that murder. Because that child saw thatmurder on a certain date now long gone by, that child died four days ago. Is not that so?”
“Yes. That’s so. At least, I suppose it is. It mightn’t have been at all. It might be just somementally disturbed nut who liked killing6 people and whose idea of playing with water is to pushsomebody’s head under it and hold it there. It might have been described as a mental delinquent’sbit of fun at a party.”
“It was not that belief that brought you to me, Madame.”
“No,” said Mrs. Oliver, “no, it wasn’t. I didn’t like the feel of things. I still don’t like the feel ofthings.”
“And I agree with you. I think you are quite right. If one does not like the feel of things, onemust learn why. I am trying very hard, though you may not think so, to learn why.”
“By going around and talking to people, finding out if they are nice or not and then asking themquestions?”
“Exactly.”
“And what have you learnt?”
“Facts,” said Poirot. “Facts which will have in due course to be anchored in their place by dates,shall we say.”
“Is that all? What else have you learnt?”
“That nobody believes in the veracity7 of Joyce Reynolds.”
“When she said she saw someone killed? But I heard her.”
“Yes, she said it. But nobody believes it is true. The probability is, therefore, that it was nottrue. That she saw no such thing.”
“It seems to me,” said Mrs. Oliver, “as though your facts were leading you backwards8 instead ofremaining on the spot or going forward.”
“Things have to be made to accord. Take forgery10, for instance. The fact of forgery. Everybodysays that a foreign girl, the au pair girl, so endeared herself to an elderly and very rich widow thatthat rich widow left a Will, or a codicil11 to a Will, leaving all her money to this girl. Did the girlforge that Will or did somebody else forge it?”
“Who else could have forged it?”
“There was another forger9 in this village. Someone, that is, who had once been accused offorgery but had got off lightly as a first offender12 and with extenuating13 circumstances.”
“Is this a new character? One I know?”
“No, you do not know him. He is dead.”
“Oh? When did he die?”
“About two years ago. The exact date I do not as yet know. But I shall have to know. He issomeone who had practised forgery and who lived in this place. And because of a little what youmight call girl trouble arousing jealousy14 and various emotions, he was knifed one night and died. Ihave the idea, you see, that a lot of separated incidents might tie up more closely than anyone hasthought. Not any of them. Probably not all of them, but several of them.”
“It sounds interesting,” said Mrs. Oliver, “but I can’t see—”
“Nor can I as yet,” said Poirot. “But I think dates might help. Dates of certain happenings,where people were, what happened to them, what they were doing. Everybody thinks that theforeign girl forged the Will and probably,” said Poirot, “everybody was right. She was the one togain by it, was she not? Wait—wait—”
“Wait for what?” said Mrs. Oliver.
“An idea that passed through my head,” said Poirot.
Mrs. Oliver sighed and took another date.
“You return to London, Madame? Or are you making a long stay here?”
“Day after tomorrow,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I can’t stay any longer. I’ve got a good many thingscropping up.”
“Tell me, now—in your flat, your house, I cannot remember which it is now, you have movedso many times lately, there is room there to have guests?”
“I never admit that there is,” said Mrs. Oliver. “If you ever admit that you’ve got a free guestroom in London, you’ve asked for it. All your friends, and not only your friends, youracquaintances or indeed your acquaintances’ third cousins sometimes, write you letters and saywould you mind just putting them up for a night. Well, I do mind. What with sheets and laundry,pillow cases and wanting early morning tea and very often expecting meals served to them, peoplecome. So I don’t let on that I have got an available spare room. My friends come and stay with me.
The people I really want to see, but the others—no, I’m not helpful. I don’t like just being madeuse of.”
“Who does?” said Hercule Poirot. “You are very wise.”
“And anyway, what’s all this about?”
“You could put up one or two guests, if need arose?”
“I could,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Who do you want me to put up? Not you yourself. You’ve got asplendid flat of your own. Ultra modern, very abstract, all squares and cubes.”
“It is just that there might be a wise precaution to take.”
“For whom? Somebody else going to be killed?”
“I trust and pray not, but it might be within the bound of possibility.”
“But who? Who? I can’t understand.”
“How well do you know your friend?”
“Know her? Not well. I mean, we liked each other on a cruise and got in the habit of pairing offtogether. There was something—what shall I say?—exciting about her. Different.”
“Did you think you might put her in a book some day?”
“I do hate that phrase being used. People are always saying it to me and it’s not true. Not really.
I don’t put people in books. People I meet, people I know.”
“Is it perhaps not true to say, Madame, that you do put people in books sometimes? People thatyou meet, but not, I agree, people that you know. There would be no fun in that.”
“You’re quite right,” said Mrs. Oliver. “You’re really rather good at guessing things sometimes.
It does happen that way. I mean, you see a fat woman sitting in a bus eating a currant bun and herlips are moving as well as eating, and you can see she’s either saying something to someone orthinking up a telephone call that she’s going to make, or perhaps a letter she’s going to write. Andyou look at her and you study her shoes and the skirt she’s got on and her hat and guess her ageand whether she’s got a wedding ring on and a few other things. And then you get out of the bus.
You don’t want ever to see her again, but you’ve got a story in your mind about somebody calledMrs. Carnaby who is going home in a bus, having had a very strange interview somewhere whereshe saw someone in a pastry15 cook’s and was reminded of someone she’d only met once and whoshe had heard was dead and apparently isn’t dead. Dear me,” said Mrs. Oliver, pausing for breath.
“You know, it’s quite true. I did sit across from someone in a bus just before I left London, andhere it is all working out beautifully inside my head. I shall have the whole story soon. The wholesequence, what she’s going back to say, whether it’ll run her into danger or somebody else intodanger. I think I even know her name. Her name’s Constance. Constance Carnaby. There’s onlyone thing would ruin it.”
“And what is that?”
“Well, I mean, if I met her again in another bus, or spoke16 to her or she talked to me or I beganto know something about her. That would ruin everything, of course.”
“Yes, yes. The story must be yours, the character is yours. She is your child. You have madeher, you begin to understand her, you know how she feels, you know where she lives and youknow what she does. But that all started with a real, live human being and if you found out whatthe real live human being was like—well then, there would be no story, would there?”
“Right again,” said Mrs. Oliver. “As to what you were saying about Judith, I think that is true. Imean, we were together a lot on the cruise, and we went to see the places but I didn’t really get toknow her particularly well. She’s a widow, and her husband died and she was left badly off withone child, Miranda, whom you’ve seen. And it’s true that I’ve got rather a funny feeling aboutthem. A feeling as though they mattered, as though they’re mixed up in some interesting drama. Idon’t want to know what the drama is. I don’t want them to tell me. I want to think of the sort ofdrama I would like them to be in.”
“Yes. Yes, I can see that they are—well, candidates for inclusion for another best seller byAriadne Oliver.”
“You really are a beast sometimes,” said Mrs. Oliver. “You make it all sound so vulgar.” Shepaused thoughtfully. “Perhaps it is.”
“No, no, it is not vulgar. It is just human.”
“And you want me to invite Judith and Miranda to my flat or house in London?”
“Not yet,” said Poirot. “Not yet until I am sure that one of my little ideas might be right.”
“You and your little ideas! Now I’ve got a piece of news for you.”
“Madame, you delight me.”
“Don’t be too sure. It will probably upset your ideas. Supposing I tell you that the forgery youhave been so busy talking about wasn’t a forgery at all.”
“What is that you say?”
“Mrs. Ap Jones Smythe, or whatever her name is, did make a codicil to her Will leaving all hermoney to the au pair girl and two witnesses saw her sign it, and signed it also in the presence ofeach other. Put that in your moustache and smoke it.”
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收听单词发音
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1
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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gimmicks
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| n.花招，诡计，骗人的玩意儿( gimmick的名词复数 ) | |
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3
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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munch
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| v.用力嚼，大声咀嚼 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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veracity
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| n.诚实 | |
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backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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forger
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| v.伪造；n.（钱、文件等的）伪造者 | |
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forgery
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| n.伪造的文件等，赝品，伪造（行为） | |
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11
codicil
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| n.遗嘱的附录 | |
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12
offender
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| n.冒犯者，违反者，犯罪者 | |
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13
extenuating
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| adj.使减轻的，情有可原的v.（用偏袒的辩解或借口）减轻( extenuate的现在分词 )；低估，藐视 | |
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14
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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15
pastry
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| n.油酥面团，酥皮糕点 | |
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16
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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