II don’t want to write about it at all.
I want, you see, to think about it as little as possible. Hercule Poirot was dead—and with himdied a good part of Arthur Hastings.
I will give you the bare facts without embroidery1. It is all I can bear to do.
He died, they said, of natural causes. That is to say he died of a heart attack. It was the way, soFranklin said, that he had expected him to go. Doubtless the shock of Norton’s death brought oneon. By some oversight2, it seems, the amyl nitrate ampoules were not by his bed.
Was it an oversight? Did someone deliberately3 remove them? No, it must have been somethingmore than that. X could not count on Poirot’s having a heart attack.
For, you see, I refuse to believe that Poirot’s death was natural. He was killed, as Norton waskilled, as Barbara Franklin was killed. And I don’t know why they were killed—and I don’t knowwho killed them!
There was an inquest on Norton and a verdict of suicide. The only point of doubt was raised bythe surgeon who said it was unusual for a man to shoot himself in the exact centre of his forehead.
But that was the only shadow of doubt. The whole thing was so plain. The door locked on theinside, the key in the dead man’s pocket, the windows closely shuttered, the pistol in his hand.
Norton had complained of headaches, it seemed, and some of his investments had been doingbadly lately. Hardly reasons for suicide, but they had to put forward something.
The pistol was apparently4 his own. It had been seen lying on his dressing-table twice by thehousemaid during his stay at Styles. So that was that. Another crime beautifully stage-managedand as usual with no alternative solution.
In the duel5 between Poirot and X, X had won.
It was now up to me.
I went to Poirot’s room and took away the despatch6 box.
I knew that he had made me his executor, so I had a perfect right to do so. The key was roundhis neck.
In my own room I opened the box.
And at once I had a shock. The dossiers of X’s cases were gone. I had seen them there only aday or two previously7 when Poirot unlocked it. That was proof, if I had been needing it, that X hadbeen at work. Either Poirot had destroyed those papers himself (most unlikely) or else X had doneso.
X. X. That damned fiend X.
But the case was not empty. I remembered Poirot’s promise that I should find other indicationswhich X would not know about.
Were these the indications?
There was a copy of one of Shakespeare’s plays, Othello, in a small cheap edition. The otherbook was the play John Fergueson by St. John Ervine. There was a marker in it at the third act.
I stared at the two books blankly.
Here were the clues that Poirot had left for me—and they meant nothing to me at all!
What could they mean?
The only thing I could think of was a code of some kind. A word code based on the plays.
But if so, how was I to get at it?
There were no words, no letters, underlined anywhere. I tried gentle heat with no result.
I read the third act of John Fergueson carefully through. A most admirable and thrilling scenewhere the “wanting” Clutie John sits and talks, and which ends with the younger Fergueson goingout to seek for the man who has wronged his sister. Masterly character drawing—but I couldhardly think that Poirot had left them to improve my taste in literature!
And then, as I turned the leaves of the book over, a slip of paper fell out. It bore a phrase inPoirot’s handwriting.
“Talk to my valet George.”
Well, here was something. Possibly the key to the code—if code it was—had been left withGeorge. I must get hold of his address and go to see him.
But first there was the sad business of burying my dear friend.
Here was the spot where he had lived when he first came to this country. He was to lie here atthe last.
Judith was very kind to me in these days.
She spent a lot of time with me and helped to make all the arrangements. She was gentle andsympathetic. Elizabeth Cole and Boyd Carrington were very kind too.
Elizabeth Cole was less affected8 by Norton’s death than I should have thought. If she felt anydeep grief she kept it to herself.
And so it was all ended. .?.?.
II
Yes, I must put it down.
It must be said.
The funeral was over. I was sitting with Judith, trying to make a few sketchy9 plans for thefuture.
She said then: “But you see, dear, I shan’t be here.”
“Not here?”
“I shan’t be in England.”
I stared at her.
“I haven’t liked to tell you before, Father. I didn’t want to make things worse for you. Butyou’ve got to know now. I hope you won’t mind too much. I’m going to Africa, you see, with Dr.
Franklin.”
I burst out at that. It was impossible. She couldn’t do a thing like that. Everyone would bebound to talk. To be an assistant to him in England and especially when his wife was alive wasone thing, but to go abroad with him to Africa was another. It was impossible and I was going toforbid it absolutely. Judith must not do such a thing!
She didn’t interrupt. She let me finish. She smiled very faintly.
“But, dearest,” she said, “I’m not going as his assistant. I’m going as his wife.”
It hit me between the eyes.
I said—or rather stammered10: “Al—Allerton?”
She looked faintly amused. “There was never anything in that. I would have told you so if youhadn’t made me so angry. Besides, I wanted you to think, well—what you did think. I didn’t wantyou to know it was—John.”
“But I saw him kiss you one night—on the terrace.”
She said impatiently: “Oh, I daresay. I was miserable11 that night. These things happen. Surelyyou know that?”
I said: “You can’t marry Franklin yet—so soon.”
“Yes, I can. I want to go out with him, and you’ve just said yourself it’s easier. We’ve nothingto wait for—now.”
Judith and Franklin. Franklin and Judith.
Do you understand the thoughts that came into my mind—the thoughts that had lain under thesurface for some time?
Judith with a bottle in her hand, Judith with her young passionate12 voice declaring that uselesslives should go to make way for useful ones—Judith whom I loved and whom Poirot also hadloved. Those two people that Norton had seen—had they been Judith and Franklin? But if so—ifso—no, that couldn’t be true. Not Judith. Franklin, perhaps—a strange man, a ruthless man, a manwho if he made up his mind to murder, might murder again and again.
Poirot had been willing to consult Franklin.
Why? What had he said to him that morning?
But not Judith. Not my lovely grave young Judith.
And yet how strange Poirot had looked. How those words had rung out: “You may prefer to say‘Ring down the curtain .?.?.’ ”
And suddenly a fresh idea struck me. Monstrous13! Impossible! Was the whole story of X afabrication? Had Poirot come to Styles because he feared a tragedy in the Franklin ménage? Hadhe come to watch over Judith? Was that why he had resolutely14 told me nothing? Because thewhole story of X was a fabrication, a smoke screen?
Was the whole heart of the tragedy Judith, my daughter?
Othello! It was Othello I had taken from the bookcase that night when Mrs. Franklin had died.
Was that the clue?
Judith that night looking, so someone had said, like her namesake before she cut off the head ofHolofernes. Judith—with death in her heart?
点击收听单词发音
1 embroidery | |
n.绣花,刺绣;绣制品 | |
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2 oversight | |
n.勘漏,失察,疏忽 | |
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3 deliberately | |
adv.审慎地;蓄意地;故意地 | |
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4 apparently | |
adv.显然地;表面上,似乎 | |
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5 duel | |
n./v.决斗;(双方的)斗争 | |
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6 despatch | |
n./v.(dispatch)派遣;发送;n.急件;新闻报道 | |
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7 previously | |
adv.以前,先前(地) | |
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8 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
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9 sketchy | |
adj.写生的,写生风格的,概略的 | |
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10 stammered | |
v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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11 miserable | |
adj.悲惨的,痛苦的;可怜的,糟糕的 | |
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12 passionate | |
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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13 monstrous | |
adj.巨大的;恐怖的;可耻的,丢脸的 | |
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14 resolutely | |
adj.坚决地,果断地 | |
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