Once more Hercule Poirot stood on the cliff overlooking the rocks below and the sea breakingagainst them. Here where he stood the bodies of a husband and wife had been found. Here, threeweeks before that a woman had walked in her sleep and fallen to her death.
“Why had these things happened?” That had been Superintendent1 Garroway’s question.
Why? What had led to it?
An accident first—and three weeks later a double suicide. Old sins that had left long shadows. Abeginning that had led years later to a tragic2 end.
Today there would be people meeting here. A boy and a girl who sought the Truth. Two peoplewho knew the truth.
Hercule Poirot turned away from the sea and back along the narrow path that led to a houseonce called Overcliffe.
It was not very far. He saw cars parked against a wall. He saw the outline of a house against thesky. A house that was clearly empty—that needed repainting. A house agent’s board hung there—announcing that “this desirable property” was for sale. On the gate the word Overcliffe had a linedrawn over it and the name Down House replaced it. He went to meet two people who werewalking towards him. One was Desmond Burton-Cox and the other was Celia Ravenscroft.
“I got an order from the house agent,” said Desmond, “saying we wanted to view it or howeverthey put it. I’ve got the key in case we want to go inside. It’s changed hands twice in the last fiveyears. But there wouldn’t be anything to see there now, would there?”
“I shouldn’t think so,” said Celia. “After all, it’s belonged to lots of people already. Somepeople called Archer3 who first bought it, and then somebody called Fallowfield, I think. They saidit was too lonely. And now these last people are selling it too. Perhaps they were haunted.”
“Do you really believe in haunted houses?” said Desmond.
“Well now, of course I don’t think so really,” said Celia, “but this might be, mightn’t it? I mean,the sort of things that happened, the sort of place it is and everything. .?.?.”
“I do not think so,” said Poirot. “There was sorrow here and Death, but there was also Love.”
A taxi came along the road.
“I expect that’s Mrs. Oliver,” said Celia. “She said she’d come by train and take a taxi from thestation.”
Two women got out of the taxi. One was Mrs. Oliver and with her was a tall, elegantly dressedwoman. Since Poirot knew she was coming he was not taken by surprise. He watched Celia to seeif she had any reactions.
“Oh!” Celia sprang forward.
She went towards the woman and her face had lit up.
“Zélie!” she said, “it is Zélie? It is really Zélie! Oh, I am so pleased. I didn’t know you werecoming.”
“Monsieur Hercule Poirot asked me to come.”
“I see,” said Celia. “Yes, yes, I suppose I see. But I—I didn’t—” she stopped. She turned herhead and looked at the handsome boy standing4 beside her. “Desmond, was it—was it you?”
“Yes. I wrote to Mademoiselle Meauhourat—to Zélie, if I may still call her that.”
“You can always call me that, both of you,” said Zélie. “I was not sure I wanted to come, I didnot know if I was wise to come. That I still do not know, but I hope so.”
“I want to know,” said Celia. “We both want to know. Desmond thought you could tell ussomething.”
“Monsieur Poirot came to see me,” said Zélie. “He persuaded me to come today.”
Celia linked her arm in Mrs. Oliver’s.
“I wanted you to come too because you put this in hand, didn’t you? You got Monsieur Poirotand you found out some things yourself, didn’t you?”
“People told me things,” said Mrs. Oliver, “people whom I thought might remember things.
Some of them did remember things. Some of them remembered them right and some of themremembered them wrong. That was confusing. Monsieur Poirot says that that does not reallymatter.”
“No,” said Poirot, “it is just as important to know what is hearsay5 and what is certainknowledge. Because from one you can learn facts even if they are not quite the right facts or hadnot got the explanation that you think they had. With the knowledge that you got from me,madame, from the people whom you designated elephants—” he smiled a little.
“Elephants?!” said Mademoiselle Zélie.
“It is what she called them,” said Poirot.
“Elephants can remember,” explained Mrs. Oliver. “That was the idea I started on. And peoplecan remember things that happened a long time ago just like elephants can. Not all people, ofcourse, but they can usually remember something. There were a lot of people who did. I turned alot of the things I heard over to Monsieur Poirot and he—he has made a sort of—oh, if he was adoctor I should call it a sort of diagnosis7, I suppose.”
“I made a list,” said Poirot. “A list of things that seemed to be pointers to the truth of whathappened all those years ago. I shall read the various items to you to see perhaps if you who wereconcerned in all this, feel that they have any significance. You may not see their significance oryou may see it plainly.”
“One wants to know,” said Celia. “Was it suicide, or was it murder? Did somebody—someoutside person—kill both my father and my mother, shoot them for some reason we don’t knowabout, some motive8? I shall always think there was something of that kind or something else. It’sdifficult, but—”
“We will stay here, I think,” said Poirot. “We will not go into the house as yet. Other peoplehave lived in it and it has a different atmosphere. We will perhaps go in if we wish when we havefinished our court of enquiry here.”
“It’s a court of enquiry, is it?” said Desmond.
“Yes. A court of enquiry into what happened.”
He moved towards some iron seats which stood near the shelter of a large magnolia near thehouse. Poirot took from the case he carried a sheet of paper with writing on it. He said to Celia:
“To you, it has got to be that way? A definite choice. Suicide or murder.”
“One of them must be true,” said Celia.
“I shall say to you that both are true, and more than those two. According to my ideas, we havehere not only a murder and also a suicide, but we have as well what I shall call an execution, andwe have a tragedy also. A tragedy of two people who loved each other and who died for love. Atragedy of love may not always belong to Romeo and Juliet, it is not necessarily only the youngwho suffer the pains of love and are ready to die for love. No. There is more to it than that.”
“I don’t understand,” said Celia.
“Not yet.”
“Shall I understand?” said Celia.
“I think so,” said Poirot. “I will tell you what I think happened and I will tell you how I came tothink so. The first thing that struck me was the things that were not explained by the evidence thatthe police examined. Some things were very commonplace, were not evidence at all, you’d think.
Among the possessions of the dead Margaret Ravenscroft, were four wigs10.” He repeated withemphasis. “Four wigs.” He looked at Zélie.
“She did not use a wig9 all the time,” said Zélie. “Only occasionally. If she travelled or if she’dbeen out and got very dishevelled and wanted to tidy herself in a hurry, or sometimes she’d useone that was suitable for evening wear.”
“Yes,” said Poirot, “it was quite the fashion at that particular date. People certainly when theytravelled abroad usually had a wig or two wigs. But in her possession were four wigs. Four wigsseemed to me rather a lot. I wondered why she needed four. According to the police whom I asked,it was not that she had any tendency to baldness, she had the ordinary hair a woman of her agewould have and in good condition. All the same, I wondered about those. One of the wigs had agrey streak11 in it, I learnt later. It was her hairdresser who told me that. And one of the wigs hadlittle curls. It was the latter wig she was wearing the day she died.”
“Is that significant in any way?” asked Celia. “She might have been wearing any of them.”
“She might. I also learnt the housekeeper12 told the police that she had been wearing thatparticular wig almost all the time for the last few weeks before she died. It appeared to be herfavourite one.”
“I can’t see—”
“There was also a saying that Superintendent Garroway quoted to me—‘Same man, differenthat.’ It gave me furiously to think.”
Celia repeated, “I don’t see—”
Poirot said, “There was also the evidence of the dog—”
“The dog—what did the dog do?”
“The dog bit her. The dog was said to be devoted13 to its mistress—but in the last few weeks ofher life, the dog turned on her more than once and bit her quite severely14.”
“Do you mean it knew she was going to commit suicide?” Desmond stared.
“No, something much simpler than that—”
“I don’t—”
Poirot went on—“No, it knew what no one else seemed to know. It knew she was not itsmistress. She looked like its mistress—the housekeeper who was slightly blind and also deaf saw awoman who wore Molly Ravenscroft’s clothes and the most recognizable of Molly Ravenscroft’swigs—the one with little curls all over the head. The housekeeper said only that her mistress hadbeen rather different in her manner the last few weeks of her life—‘Same man, different hat,’ hadbeen Garroway’s phrase. And the thought—the conviction—came to me then. Same wig—different woman. The dog knew—he knew by what his nose told him. A different woman, not thewoman he loved—a woman whom he disliked and feared. And I thought, suppose that womanwas not Molly Ravenscroft—but who could she be? Could she be Dolly—the twin sister?”
“But that’s impossible,” said Celia.
“No—it was not impossible. After all, remember, they were twins. I must come now to thethings that were brought to my notice by Mrs. Oliver. The things people told her or suggested toher. The knowledge that Lady Ravenscroft had suggested to her. The knowledge that LadyRavenscroft had recently been in hospital or in a nursing home and that she perhaps had knownthat she suffered from cancer, or thought that she did. Medical evidence was against that, however.
She still might have thought she did, but it was not the case. Then I learnt little by little the earlyhistory of her and her twin sister, who loved each other very devotedly15 as twins do, did everythingalike, wore clothes alike, the same things seemed to happen to them, they had illnesses at the sametime, they married about the same time or not very far removed in time. And eventually, as manytwins do, instead of wanting to do everything in the same fashion and the same way, they wantedto do the opposite. To be as unlike each other as they could. And even between them grew acertain amount of dislike. More than that. There was a reason in the past for that. AlistairRavenscroft as a young man fell in love with Dorothea Preston-Grey, the elder twin of the two.
But his affection shifted to the other sister, Margaret, whom he married. There was jealousy16 then,no doubt, which led to an estrangement17 between the sisters. Margaret continued to be deeplyattached to her twin, but Dorothea no longer was devoted in any way to Margaret. That seemed tome to be the explanation of a great many things. Dorothea was a tragic figure. By no fault of herown but by some accident of genes18, of birth, of hereditary19 characteristics, she was always mentallyunstable. At quite an early age she had, for some reason which has never been made clear, adislike of children. There is every reason to believe that a child came to its death through heraction. The evidence was not definite, but it was definite enough for a doctor to advise that sheshould have mental treatment, and she was for some years treated in a mental home. Whenreported cured by doctors, she resumed normal life, came often to stay with her sister and went outto Malaya at a time when they were stationed out there, to join them there. And there, again, anaccident happened. A child of a neighbour. And again, although perhaps there was no very definiteproof, it seems again Dorothea might have been responsible for it. General Ravenscroft took herhome to England and she was placed once more in medical care. Once again she appeared to becured, and after psychiatric care it was again said that she could go once more and resume anormal life. Margaret believed this time that all would be well, and thought that she ought to livewith them so that they could watch closely for any signs of any further mental disability. I don’tthink that General Ravenscroft approved. I think he had a very strong belief that just as someonecan be born deformed20, spastic or crippled in some way, she had a deformity of the brain whichwould recur21 from time to time and that she would have to be constantly watched and saved fromherself in case some other tragedy happened.”
“Are you saying,” asked Desmond, “that it was she who shot both the Ravenscrofts?”
“No,” said Poirot, “that is not my solution. I think what happened was that Dorothea killed hersister, Margaret. They walked together on the cliff one day and Dorothea pushed Margaret over.
The dormant22 obsession23 of hatred24 and resentment25 of the sister who, though so like herself, was saneand healthy, was too much for her. Hate, jealousy, the desire to kill all rose to the surface anddominated her. I think that there was one outsider who knew, who was here at the time that thishappened. I think you knew, Mademoiselle Zélie.”
“Yes,” said Zélie Meauhourat, “I knew. I was here at the time. The Ravenscrofts had beenworried about her. That is when they saw her attempt to injure their small son, Edward. Edwardwas sent back to school and I and Celia went to my pensionnat. I came back here—after seeingCelia settled in. Once the house was empty except for myself, General Ravenscroft and Dorotheaand Margaret, nobody had any anxiety. And then one day it happened. The two sisters went outtogether. Dolly returned alone. She seemed in a very queer and nervous state. She came in and satdown at the tea table. It was then General Ravenscroft noticed that her right hand was coveredwith blood. He asked her if she had had a fall. She said, ‘Oh no, it was nothing. Nothing at all. Igot scratched by a rosebush.’ But there were no rosebushes on the downs. It was a purely26 foolishremark and we were worried. If she had said a gorse bush, we might have accepted the remark.
General Ravenscroft went out and I went after him. He kept saying as he walked, ‘Something hashappened to Margaret. I’m sure something has happened to Molly.’ We found her on a ledge6 alittle way down the cliff. She had been battered27 with a rock and stones. She was not dead but shehad bled heavily. For a moment we hardly knew what we could do. We dared not move her. Wemust get a doctor, we felt, at once, but before we could do that she clung to her husband. She said,gasping for breath, ‘Yes, it was Dolly. She didn’t know what she was doing. She didn’t know,Alistair. You mustn’t let her suffer for it. She’s never known the things she does or why. She can’thelp it. She’s never been able to help it. You must promise me, Alistair. I think I’m dying now. No—no, we won’t have time to get a doctor and a doctor couldn’t do anything. I’ve been lying herebleeding to death—and I’m very close to death. I know that, but promise me. Promise me you’llsave her. Promise me you won’t let the police arrest her. Promise me that she’ll not be tried forkilling me, not shut up for life as a criminal. Hide me somewhere so that my body won’t be found.
Please, please, it’s the last thing I ask you. You whom I love more than anything in the world. If Icould live for you I would, but I’m not going to live. I can feel that. I crawled a little way but thatwas all I could do. Promise me. And you, Zélie, you love me too. I know. You’ve loved me andbeen good to me and looked after me always. And you loved the children, so you must save Dolly.
You must save poor Dolly. Please, please. For all the love we have for each other, Dolly must besaved.’?”
“And then,” said Poirot. “What did you do? It seems to me that you must in some way betweenyou—”
“Yes. She died, you know. She died within about ten minutes of those last words, and I helpedhim. I helped him to hide her body. It was a place a little further along the cliff. We carried herthere and there were rocks and boulders28 and stones, and we covered her body as best we could.
There was no path to it really, or no way. You had to scramble29. We put her there. All Alistair saidagain and again was—‘I promised her. I must keep my word. I don’t know how to do it, I don’tknow how anyone can save her. I don’t know. But—’ Well, we did do it. Dolly was in the house.
She was frightened, desperate with fright—but at the same time she showed a horrible kind ofsatisfaction. She said, ‘I always knew, I’ve known for years that Molly was really evil. She tookyou away from me, Alistair. You belonged to me—but she took you away from me and made youmarry her and I always knew. Now I’m frightened. What’ll they do to me—what’ll they say? Ican’t be shut up again. I can’t, I can’t. I shall go mad. You won’t let me be shut up. They’ll takeme away and they’ll say I’m guilty of murder. It wasn’t murder. I just had to do it. Sometimes I dohave to do things. I wanted to see the blood, you know. I couldn’t wait to see Molly die, though. Iran away. But I knew she would die. I just hoped you wouldn’t find her. She just fell over the cliff.
People would say it was an accident.’”
“It’s a horrible story,” said Desmond.
“Yes,” said Celia, “it’s a horrible story, but it’s better to know. It’s better to know, isn’t it? Ican’t even feel sorry for her. I mean for my mother. I know she was sweet. I know there was neverany trace of evil in her—she was good all through—and I know, I can understand, why my fatherdidn’t want to marry Dolly. He wanted to marry my mother because he loved her and he hadfound out by then that there was something wrong with Dolly. Something bad and twisted. Buthow—how did you do it all?”
“We told a good many lies,” said Zélie. “We hoped the body would not be found so that laterperhaps it might be removed in the night or something like that to somewhere where it could lookas though she’d fallen down into the sea. But then we thought of the sleepwalking story. What wehad to do was really quite simple. Alistair said, ‘It’s frightening, you know. But I promised—Iswore to Molly when she was dying. I swore I’d do as she asked—there’s a way, a possible way tosave Dolly, if only Dolly can do her part. I don’t know if she’s capable of it.’ I said, ‘Do what?’
And Alistair said, ‘Pretend she’s Molly and that it’s Dorothea who walked in her sleep and fell toher death.’
“We managed it. Took Dolly to an empty cottage we knew of and I stayed with her there forsome days. Alistair said Molly had been taken to hospital suffering from shock after the discoverythat her sister had fallen over the cliff whilst walking in her sleep at night. Then we brought Dollyback—brought her back as Molly—wearing Molly’s clothes and Molly’s wig. I got extra wigs—the kind with the curls which really did disguise her. The dear old housekeeper, Janet, couldn’t seevery well. Dolly and Molly were really very much alike, you know, and their voices were alike.
Everyone accepted quite easily that it was Molly, behaving rather peculiarly now and then becauseof still suffering from shock. It all seemed quite natural. That was the horrible part of it—”
“But how could she keep it up?” asked Celia. “It must have been dreadfully difficult.”
“No—she did not find it difficult—she had got, you see, what she wanted—what she had alwayswanted. She had got Alistair—”
“But Alistair—how could he bear it?”
“He told me why and how—on the day he had arranged for me to go back to Switzerland. Hetold me what I had to do and then he told me what he was going to do.
“He said: ‘There is only one thing for me to do. I promised Margaret that I wouldn’t hand Dollyover to the police, that it should never be known that she was a murderess, that the children werenever to know that they had a murderess for an aunt. No one need ever know that Dolly committedmurder. She walked in her sleep and fell over the cliff—a sad accident and she will be buried herein the church, and under her own name.’
“‘How can you let that be done?’ I asked—I couldn’t bear it.
“He said: ‘Because of what I am going to do—you have got to know about it.’
“‘You see,’ he said, ‘Dolly has to be stopped from living. If she’s near children she’ll take morelives—poor soul; she’s not fit to live. But you must understand, Zélie, that because of what I amgoing to do, I must pay with my own life, too—I shall live here quietly for a few weeks with Dollyplaying the part of my wife—and then there will be another tragedy—’
“I didn’t understand what he meant—I said, ‘Another accident? Sleepwalking again?’ And hesaid, ‘No—what will be known to the world is that I and Molly have both committed suicide—Idon’t suppose the reason will ever be known. They may think it’s because she was convinced shehad cancer—or that I thought so—all sorts of things may be suggested. But you see—you musthelp me, Zélie. You are the only person who really loves me and loves Molly and loves thechildren. If Dolly has got to die, I am the only person who must do it. She won’t be unhappy orfrightened. I shall shoot her and then myself. Her fingerprints30 will show on the revolver becauseshe handled it not long ago, and mine will be there too. Justice has to be done and I have to be theexecutioner. The thing I want you to know is that I did—that I still do—love them both. Mollymore than my life. Dolly because I pity her so much for what she was born to be.’ He said,‘Always remember that—’?”
Zélie rose and came towards Celia. “Now you know the truth,” she said. “I promised your fatherthat you should never know—I have broken my word. I never meant to reveal it to you or toanyone else. Monsieur Poirot made me feel differently. But—it’s such a horrible story—”
“I understand how you felt,” said Celia. “Perhaps you were right from your point of view, but I—I am glad to know because now a great burden seems to have been lifted off me—”
“Because now,” said Desmond, “we both know. And it’s something we’ll never mind aboutknowing. It was a tragedy. As Monsieur Poirot here has said, it was a real tragedy of two peoplewho loved each other. But they didn’t kill each other, because they loved each other. One wasmurdered and the other executed a murderer for the sake of humanity so that more childrenshouldn’t suffer. One can forgive him if he was wrong, but I don’t think it was wrong really.”
“She was a frightening woman always,” said Celia. “Even when I was a child I was frightenedof her but I didn’t know why. But I do know why now. I think my father was a brave man to dowhat he did. He did what my mother asked him to do, begged him to do with her dying breath. Hesaved her twin sister whom I think she’d always loved very dearly. I like to think—oh, it seems asilly thing for me to say—” she looked doubtfully at Hercule Poirot. “Perhaps you won’t think so.
I expect you’re a Catholic, but it’s what’s written on their tombstone. ‘In death they were notdivided.’ It doesn’t mean that they died together, but I think they are together. I think they cametogether afterwards. Two people who loved each other very much, and my poor aunt whom I’ll tryto feel more kindly31 about than I ever did—my poor aunt didn’t have to suffer for what she couldn’tperhaps help herself doing. Mind you,” said Celia, suddenly breaking into her ordinary everydayvoice, “she wasn’t a nice person. You can’t help not liking32 people if they’re not nice people.
Perhaps she could have been different if she tried, but perhaps she couldn’t. And if so, one has tothink of her as someone who was very ill—like somebody, for instance, who had plague in avillage and they wouldn’t let her go out or feed her and she couldn’t go amongst other peoplebecause the whole village would have died. Something like that. But I’ll try and be sorry for her.
And my mother and father—I don’t worry about them anymore. They loved each other so much,and loved poor, unhappy, hating Dolly.”
“I think, Celia,” said Desmond, “we’d better get married now as soon as possible. I can tell youone thing. My mother is never going to hear anything about this. She’s not my own mother andshe’s not a person I can trust with this sort of secret.”
“Your adopted mother, Desmond,” said Poirot, “I have good reason to believe was anxious tocome between you and Celia and tried to influence you in the idea that from her mother and fathershe might have inherited some terrible characteristic. But you know, or you may not know and Isee no reason why I should not tell you, you will inherit from the woman who was your realmother and who died not very long ago leaving all her money to you—you will inherit a verylarge sum when you reach the age of twenty-five.”
“If I marry Celia, of course we shall need the money to live on,” said Desmond. “I quiteunderstand. I know my present adopted mother is very keen on money and I often lend her moneyeven now. She suggested my seeing a lawyer the other day because she said it was very dangerousnow that I was over twenty-one, not leaving a Will behind me. I suppose she thought she’d get themoney. I had thought of probably leaving nearly all the money to her. But of course now Celia andI are getting married I shall leave it to Celia—and I didn’t like the way my mother tried to put meagainst Celia.”
“I think your suspicions are entirely33 correct,” said Poirot. “I daresay she could tell herself thatshe meant it all for the best, that Celia’s origin is something that you ought to know if there is arisk for you to take, but—”
“All right,” said Desmond, “but—I know I’m being unkind. After all, she adopted me andbrought me up and all the rest of it and I daresay if there’s enough money I can settle some of it onher. Celia and I will have the rest and we’re going to be happy together. After all, there are thingsthat’ll make us feel sad from time to time but we shan’t worry anymore, shall we, Celia?”
“No,” said Celia, “we’ll never worry again. I think they were rather splendid people, my motherand father. Mother tried to look after her sister all her life, but I suppose it was a bit too hopeless.
You can’t stop people from being like they are.”
“Ah, dear children,” said Zélie. “Forgive me for calling you children because you are not. Youare a grown man and woman. I know that. I am so pleased to have seen you again and to know Ihave not done any harm in what I did.”
“You haven’t done any harm at all and it’s lovely seeing you, dear Zélie.” Celia went to her andhugged her. “I’ve always been terribly fond of you,” she said.
“And I was very fond of you too when I knew you,” said Desmond. “When I lived next door.
You had lovely games you played with us.”
The two young people turned.
“Thank you, Mrs. Oliver,” said Desmond. “You’ve been very kind and you’ve put in a lot ofwork. I can see that. Thank you, Monsieur Poirot.”
“Yes, thank you,” said Celia. “I’m very grateful.”
They walked away and the others looked after them.
“Well,” said Zélie, “I must leave now.” She said to Poirot, “What about you? Will you have totell anyone about this?”
“There is one person I might tell in confidence. A retired34 police force officer. He is no longeractively in the Service now. He is completely retired. I think he would not feel it is his duty tointerfere with what time has now wiped out. If he was still in active service it might be different.”
“It’s a terrible story,” said Mrs. Oliver, “terrible. And all those people I talked to—yes, I can seenow, they all remembered something. Something that was useful in showing us what the truth was,although it was difficult to put together. Except for Monsieur Poirot, who can always put thingstogether out of the most extraordinary things. Like wigs and twins.”
Poirot walked across to where Zélie was standing looking out over the view.
“You do not blame me,” he said, “for coming to you, persuading you to do what you havedone?”
“No. I am glad. You have been right. They are very charming, those two, and they are wellsuited, I think. They will be happy. We are standing here where two lovers once lived. Where twolovers died and I don’t blame him for what he did. It may have been wrong, I suppose it waswrong, but I can’t blame him. I think it was a brave act even if it was a wrong one.”
“You loved him too, did you not?” said Hercule Poirot.
“Yes. Always. As soon as I came to the house. I loved him dearly. I don’t think he knew it.
There was never anything, what you call, between us. He trusted me and was fond of me. I lovedthem both. Both him and Margaret.”
“There is something I would like to ask you. He loved Dolly as well as Molly, didn’t he?”
“Right up to the end. He loved them both. And that’s why he was willing to save Dolly. WhyMolly wanted him to. Which did he love the best of those sisters? I wonder. That is a thing I shallperhaps never know,” said Zélie. “I never did—perhaps I never shall.”
Poirot looked at her for a moment, then turned away. He rejoined Mrs. Oliver.
“We will drive back to London. We must return to everyday life, forget tragedies and loveaffairs.”
“Elephants can remember,” said Mrs. Oliver, “but we are human beings and mercifully humanbeings can forget.”
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
superintendent
|
|
| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
tragic
|
|
| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
archer
|
|
| n.射手，弓箭手 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
hearsay
|
|
| n.谣传，风闻 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
ledge
|
|
| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
diagnosis
|
|
| n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
motive
|
|
| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
wig
|
|
| n.假发 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
wigs
|
|
| n.假发，法官帽( wig的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
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： |
|
|
|
|
12
housekeeper
|
|
| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
devoted
|
|
| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
severely
|
|
| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
devotedly
|
|
| 专心地； 恩爱地； 忠实地； 一心一意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
jealousy
|
|
| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
estrangement
|
|
| n.疏远，失和，不和 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
genes
|
|
| n.基因( gene的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
hereditary
|
|
| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
deformed
|
|
| adj.畸形的；变形的；丑的，破相了的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
recur
|
|
| vi.复发，重现，再发生 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
dormant
|
|
| adj.暂停活动的；休眠的；潜伏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
obsession
|
|
| n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
hatred
|
|
| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
resentment
|
|
| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
purely
|
|
| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
battered
|
|
| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
boulders
|
|
| n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
scramble
|
|
| v.爬行，攀爬，杂乱蔓延，碎片，片段，废料 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
fingerprints
|
|
| n.指纹( fingerprint的名词复数 )v.指纹( fingerprint的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
kindly
|
|
| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
liking
|
|
| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
retired
|
|
| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |