Fifteen EUGENE AND ROSENTELLE, HAIR STYLISTS AND BEAUTICIANS

Fifteen EUGENE AND ROSENTELLE, HAIR STYLISTS AND BEAUTICIANS
Mrs. Oliver looked at Cheltenham with approval. As it happened, she had never been toCheltenham before. How nice, said Mrs. Oliver to herself, to see some houses that are really likehouses, proper houses.
Casting her mind back to youthful days, she remembered that she had known people, or at leasther relations, her aunts, had known people who lived at Cheltenham. Retired¹ people usually. Armyor Navy. It was the sort of place, she thought, where one would like to come and live if one hadspent a good deal of time abroad. It had a feeling of English security, good taste and pleasant chatand conversation.
After looking in one or two agreeable antique shops, she found her way to where she wanted—or rather Hercule Poirot wanted her—to go. It was called The Rose Green Hairdressing Saloons.
She walked inside it and looked round. Four or five people were in process of having things doneto their hair. A plump young lady left her client and came forward with an enquiring² air.
“Mrs. Rosentelle?” said Mrs. Oliver, glancing down at a card. “I understand she said she couldsee me if I came here this morning. I don’t mean,” she added, “having anything done to my hair,but I wanted to consult her about something and I believe a telephone call was made and she saidif I came at half past eleven she could spare me a short time.”
“Oh yes,” said the girl. “I think Madam is expecting someone.”
She led the way through a passage down a short flight of steps and pushed a swing door at thebottom of it. From the hairdressing saloon they had passed into what was obviously Mrs.
Rosentelle’s house. The plump girl knocked at the door and said, “The lady to see you,” as she puther nose in, and then asked rather nervously³, “What name did you say?”
“Mrs. Oliver,” said Mrs. Oliver.
She walked in. It had a faint effect of what might have been yet another showroom. There werecurtains of rose gauze and roses on the wallpaper and Mrs. Rosentelle, a woman Mrs. Oliverthought of as roughly her own age or possibly a good many years older, was just finishing whatwas obviously a cup of morning coffee.
“Mrs. Rosentelle?” said Mrs. Oliver.
“Yes?”
“You did expect me?”
“Oh yes. I didn’t quite understand what it was all about. The lines are so bad on the telephone.
That is quite all right, I have about half an hour to spare. Would you like some coffee?”
“No, thank you,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I won’t keep you any longer than I need. It is justsomething that I want to ask you about, that you may happen to remember. You have had quite along career, I understand, in the hairdressing business.”
“Oh yes. I’m quite thankful to give over to the girls now. I don’t do anything myself thesedays.”
“Perhaps you still advise people?”
“Yes, I do that.” Mrs. Rosentelle smiled.
She had a nice, intelligent face with well-arranged, brown hair, with somewhat interesting greystreaks in it here and there.
“I’m not sure what it’s all about.”
“Well, really I wanted to ask you a question about, well, I suppose in a way about wigsgenerally.”
“We don’t do as much in wigs⁶ now as we used to do.”
“You had a business in London, didn’t you?”
“Yes. First in Bond Street and then we moved to Sloane Street but it’s very nice to live in thecountry after all that, you know. Oh yes, my husband and I are very satisfied here. We run a smallbusiness but we don’t do much in the wig⁵ line nowadays,” she said, “though my husband doesadvise and get wigs designed for men who are bald. It really makes a big difference, you know, tomany people in their business if they don’t look too old and it often helps in getting a job.”
“I can quite imagine that,” said Mrs. Oliver.
From sheer nervousness she said a few more things in the way of ordinary chat and wonderedhow she would start on her subject. She was startled when Mrs. Rosentelle leant forward and saidsuddenly, “You are Ariadne Oliver, aren’t you? The novel writer?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Oliver, “as a matter of fact —” she had her usual somewhat shamefacedexpression when she said this, that was habitual⁷ to her—“yes, I do write novels.”
“I’m so fond of your books. I’ve read a lot of them. Oh, this is very nice indeed. Now tell me inwhat way can I help you?”
“Well, I wanted to talk about wigs and about something that happened a great many years agoand probably you mayn’t remember anything about it.”
“Well, I rather wonder—do you mean fashions of years ago?”
“Not exactly. It’s a woman, a friend of mine—actually I was at school with her—and then shemarried and went out to Malaya and came back to England, and there was a tragedy later and oneof the things I think that people found surprising after it was that she had so many wigs. I thinkthey had been all supplied by you, by your firm, I mean.”
“Oh, a tragedy. What was her name?”
“Well, her name when I knew her was Preston- Grey, but afterwards her name wasRavenscroft.”
“Oh. Oh yes, that one. Yes, I do remember Lady Ravenscroft. I remember her quite well. Shewas so nice and really very, very good-looking still. Yes, her husband was a Colonel or a Generalor something and they’d retired and they lived in—I forget the county now—”
“—And there was what was supposed to be a double suicide,” said Mrs. Oliver.
“Yes. Yes, I remember reading about it and saying, ‘Why that’s our Lady Ravenscroft,’ andthen there was a picture of them both in the paper, and I saw that it was so. Of course, I’d neverseen him but it was her all right. It seemed so sad, so much grief. I heard that they discovered thatshe had cancer and they couldn’t do anything about it so this happened. But I never heard anydetails or anything.”
“No,” said Mrs. Oliver.
“But what is it you think I can tell you?”
“You supplied her with wigs and I understand the people investigating, I suppose the police,thought four wigs was quite a lot to have, but perhaps people did have four wigs at a time?”
“Well, I think that most people had two wigs at least,” said Mrs. Rosentelle. “You know, one tosend back to be serviced, as you might say, and the other one that they wore while it was away.”
“Do you remember Lady Ravenscroft ordering an extra two wigs?”
“She didn’t come herself. I think she’d been or was ill in hospital, or something, and it was aFrench young lady who came. I think a French lady who was companion to her or something likethat. Very nice. Spoke⁸ perfect English. And she explained all about the extra wigs she wanted,sizes and colours and styles and ordered them. Yes. Fancy my remembering it. I suppose Iwouldn’t have except that about—oh it must have been a month later—a month, perhaps more, sixweeks—I read about the suicide, you know. I’m afraid they gave her bad news at the hospital orwherever she was, and so she just couldn’t face living anymore, and her husband felt he couldn’tface life without her—”
Mrs. Oliver shook her head sadly—and continued her enquiries.
“They were different kinds of wigs, I suppose.”
“Yes, one had a very pretty grey streak⁴ in it, and then there was a party one and one for eveningwear, and one close-cropped with curls. Very nice, that you could wear under a hat and it didn’tget messed up. I was sorry not to have seen Lady Ravenscroft again. Even apart from her illness,she had been very unhappy about a sister who had recently died. A twin sister.”
“Yes, twins are very devoted⁹, aren’t they,” said Mrs. Oliver.
“She’d always seemed such a happy woman before,” said Mrs. Rosentelle.
Both women sighed. Mrs. Oliver changed the subject.
“Do you think that I’d find a wig useful?” she asked.
The expert stretched out a hand and laid it speculatively¹⁰ on Mrs. Oliver’s head.
“I wouldn’t advise it—you’ve got a splendid crop of hair—very thick still—I imagine—” a faintsmile came to her lips—“you enjoy doing things with it?”
“How clever of you to know that. It’s quite true—I enjoy experimenting—it’s such fun.”
“You enjoy life altogether, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do. I suppose it’s the feeling that one never knows what might be going to happen next.”
“Yet that feeling,” said Mrs. Rosentelle, “is just what makes so many people never stopworrying!”

1 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

2 enquiring   

a.爱打听的，显得好奇的

参考例句：

• a child with an enquiring mind 有好奇心的孩子
• Paul darted at her sharp enquiring glances. 她的目光敏锐好奇，保罗飞快地朝她瞥了一眼。

3 nervously   

adv.神情激动地，不安地

参考例句：

• He bit his lip nervously,trying not to cry.他紧张地咬着唇，努力忍着不哭出来。
• He paced nervously up and down on the platform.他在站台上情绪不安地走来走去。

4 streak   

n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动

参考例句：

• The Indians used to streak their faces with paint.印第安人过去常用颜料在脸上涂条纹。
• Why did you streak the tree?你为什么在树上刻条纹？

5 wig   

n.假发

参考例句：

• The actress wore a black wig over her blond hair.那个女演员戴一顶黑色假发罩住自己的金黄色头发。
• He disguised himself with a wig and false beard.他用假发和假胡须来乔装。

6 wigs   

n.假发，法官帽( wig的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They say that wigs will be coming in again this year. 据说今年又要流行戴假发了。 来自辞典例句
• Frank, we needed more wigs than we thought, and we have to do some advertising. 弗兰克，因为我们需要更多的假发，而且我们还要做点广告。 来自电影对白

7 habitual   

adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的

参考例句：

• He is a habitual criminal.他是一个惯犯。
• They are habitual visitors to our house.他们是我家的常客。

8 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。

9 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

10 speculatively   

adv.思考地，思索地；投机地

参考例句：

• He looked at her speculatively. 他若有所思的看着她。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She eyed It'speculatively as a cruel smile appeared on her black lips. 她若有所思地审视它，黑色的嘴角浮起一丝残酷的微笑。 来自互联网