IM iss Marple passed out through the french windows of her drawing room, tripped down her neat garden path,through a garden gate, in through the vicarage garden gate, across the vicarage garden, and up to the drawing roomwindow, where she tapped gently on the pane2.
The vicar was busy in his study composing his Sunday sermon, but the vicar’s wife, who was young and pretty,was admiring the progress of her offspring across the hearthrug.
“Can I come in, Griselda?”
“Oh, do, Miss Marple. Just look at David! He gets so angry because he can only crawl in reverse. He wants to getto something and the more he tries the more he goes backwards3 into the coal box!”
“He’s looking very bonny, Griselda.”
“He’s not bad, is he?” said the young mother, endeavouring to assume an indifferent manner. “Of course I don’tbother with him much. All the books say a child should be left alone as much as possible.”
“Very wise, dear,” said Miss Marple. “Ahem, I came to ask if there was anything special you are collecting for atthe moment.”
The vicar’s wife turned somewhat astonished eyes upon her.
“Oh, heaps of things,” she said cheerfully. “There always are.”
She ticked them off on her fingers.
“There’s the Nave4 Restoration Fund, and St. Giles’s Mission, and our Sale of Work next Wednesday, and theUnmarried Mothers, and a Boy Scouts’ Outing, and the Needlework Guild5, and the Bishop’s Appeal for Deep SeaFishermen.”
“Any of them will do,” said Miss Marple. “I thought I might make a little round—with a book, you know—if youwould authorize6 me to do so.”
“Are you up to something? I believe you are. Of course I authorize you. Make it the Sale of Work; it would belovely to get some real money instead of those awful sachets and comic pen-wipers and depressing children’s frocksand dusters all done up to look like dolls.
“I suppose,” continued Griselda, accompanying her guest to the window, “you wouldn’t like to tell me what it’s allabout?”
“Later, my dear,” said Miss Marple, hurrying off.
With a sigh the young mother returned to the hearthrug and, by way of carrying out her principles of stern neglect,butted her son three times in the stomach so that he caught hold of her hair and pulled it with gleeful yells. Then theyrolled over and over in a grand rough-and-tumble until the door opened and the vicarage maid announced to the mostinfluential parishioner (who didn’t like children):
“Missus is in here.”
Whereupon Griselda sat up and tried to look dignified7 and more what a vicar’s wife should be.
II
Miss Marple, clasping a small black book with pencilled entries in it, walked briskly along the village street until shecame to the crossroads. Here she turned to the left and walked past the Blue Boar until she came to Chatsworth, alias“Mr. Booker’s new house.”
She turned in at the gate, walked up to the front door and knocked briskly.
The door was opened by the blonde young woman named Dinah Lee. She was less carefully made-up than usual,and in fact looked slightly dirty. She was wearing grey slacks and an emerald jumper.
“Good morning,” said Miss Marple briskly and cheerfully. “May I just come in for a minute?”
She pressed forward as she spoke8, so that Dinah Lee, who was somewhat taken aback at the call, had no time tomake up her mind.
“Thank you so much,” said Miss Marple, beaming amiably9 at her and sitting down rather gingerly on a “period”
bamboo chair.
“Quite warm for the time of year, is it not?” went on Miss Marple, still exuding10 geniality11.
“Yes, rather. Oh, quite,” said Miss Lee.
At a loss how to deal with the situation, she opened a box and offered it to her guest. “Er—have a cigarette?”
“Thank you so much, but I don’t smoke. I just called, you know, to see if I could enlist12 your help for our Sale ofWork next week.”
“Sale of Work?” said Dinah Lee, as one who repeats a phrase in a foreign language.
“At the vicarage,” said Miss Marple. “Next Wednesday.”
“Oh!” Miss Lee’s mouth fell open. “I’m afraid I couldn’t—”
“Not even a small subscription—half a crown perhaps?”
Miss Marple exhibited her little book.
“Oh—er—well, yes, I dare say I could manage that.”
The girl looked relieved and turned to hunt in her handbag.
Miss Marple’s sharp eyes were looking round the room.
She said:
“I see you’ve no hearthrug in front of the fire.”
Dinah Lee turned round and stared at her. She could not but be aware of the very keen scrutiny13 the old lady wasgiving her, but it aroused in her no other emotion than slight annoyance14. Miss Marple recognized that. She said:
“It’s rather dangerous, you know. Sparks fly out and mark the carpet.”
“Funny old Tabby,” thought Dinah, but she said quite amiably if somewhat vaguely15:
“There used to be one. I don’t know where it’s got to.”
“I suppose,” said Miss Marple, “it was the fluffy16, woolly kind?”
“Sheep,” said Dinah. “That’s what it looked like.”
She was amused now. An eccentric old bean, this.
She held out a half crown. “Here you are,” she said.
“Oh, thank you, my dear.”
Miss Marple took it and opened the little book.
“Er—what name shall I write down?”
Dinah’s eyes grew suddenly hard and contemptuous.
“Nosey old cat,” she thought, “that’s all she came for—prying around for scandal!”
She said clearly and with malicious17 pleasure:
“Miss Dinah Lee.”
Miss Marple looked at her steadily18.
She said:
“This is Mr. Basil Blake’s cottage, isn’t it?”
“Yes, and I’m Miss Dinah Lee!”
Her voice rang out challengingly, her head went back, her blue eyes flashed.
Very steadily Miss Marple looked at her. She said:
“Will you allow me to give you some advice, even though you may consider it impertinent?”
“I shall consider it impertinent. You had better say nothing.”
“Nevertheless,” said Miss Marple, “I am going to speak. I want to advise you, very strongly, not to continue usingyour maiden19 name in the village.”
Dinah stared at her. She said:
“What—what do you mean?”
Miss Marple said earnestly:
“In a very short time you may need all the sympathy and goodwill20 you can find. It will be important to yourhusband, too, that he shall be thought well of. There is a prejudice in old-fashioned country districts against peopleliving together who are not married. It has amused you both, I dare say, to pretend that that is what you are doing. Itkept people away, so that you weren’t bothered with what I expect you would call ‘old frumps.’ Nevertheless, oldfrumps have their uses.”
Dinah demanded:
“How did you know we are married?”
Miss Marple smiled a deprecating smile.
“Oh, my dear,” she said.
Dinah persisted.
“No, but how did you know? You didn’t—you didn’t go to Somerset House?”
A momentary21 flicker22 showed in Miss Marple’s eyes.
“Somerset House? Oh, no. But it was quite easy to guess. Everything, you know, gets round in a village. The—er—the kind of quarrels you have—typical of early days of marriage. Quite—quite unlike an illicit23 relationship. It hasbeen said, you know (and, I think, quite truly), that you can only really get under anybody’s skin if you are married tothem. When there is no—no legal bond, people are much more careful, they have to keep assuring themselves howhappy and halcyon24 everything is. They have, you see, to justify25 themselves. They dare not quarrel! Married people, Ihave noticed, quite enjoy their battles and the—er—appropriate reconciliations26.”
She paused, twinkling benignly27.
“Well, I—” Dinah stopped and laughed. She sat down and lit a cigarette. “You’re absolutely marvellous!” she said.
Then she went on:
“But why do you want us to own up and admit to respectability?”
Miss Marple’s face was grave. She said:
“Because, any minute now, your husband may be arrested for murder.”
III
For several moments Dinah stared at her. Then she said incredulously:
“Basil? Murder? Are you joking?”
“No, indeed. Haven’t you seen the papers?”
Dinah caught her breath.
“You mean—that girl at the Majestic28 Hotel. Do you mean they suspect Basil of killing29 her?”
“Yes.”
“But it’s nonsense!”
There was the whir of a car outside, the bang of a gate. Basil Blake flung open the door and came in, carrying somebottles. He said:
“Got the gin and the vermouth. Did you—?”
He stopped and turned incredulous eyes on the prim30, erect31 visitor.
Dinah burst out breathlessly:
“Is she mad? She says you’re going to be arrested for the murder of that girl Ruby32 Keene.”
“Oh, God!” said Basil Blake. The bottles dropped from his arms on to the sofa. He reeled to a chair and droppeddown in it and buried his face in his hands. He repeated: “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”
Dinah darted33 over to him. She caught his shoulders.
“Basil, look at me! It isn’t true! I know it isn’t true! I don’t believe it for a moment!”
His hand went up and gripped hers.
“Bless you, darling.”
“But why should they think—You didn’t even know her, did you?”
“Oh, yes, he knew her,” said Miss Marple.
Basil said fiercely:
“Be quiet, you old hag. Listen, Dinah darling, I hardly knew her at all. Just ran across her once or twice at theMajestic. That’s all, I swear that’s all.”
Dinah said, bewildered:
“I don’t understand. Why should anyone suspect you, then?”
Basil groaned34. He put his hands over his eyes and rocked to and fro.
Miss Marple said:
“What did you do with the hearthrug?”
His reply came mechanically:
“I put it in the dustbin.”
Miss Marple clucked her tongue vexedly.
“That was stupid—very stupid. People don’t put good hearthrugs in dustbins. It had spangles in it from her dress, Isuppose?”
“Yes, I couldn’t get them out.”
Dinah cried: “But what are you both talking about?”
Basil said sullenly35:
“Ask her. She seems to know all about it.”
“I’ll tell you what I think happened, if you like,” said Miss Marple. “You can correct me, Mr. Blake, if I go wrong.
I think that after having had a violent quarrel with your wife at a party and after having had, perhaps, rather too much—er—to drink, you drove down here. I don’t know what time you arrived—”
Basil Blake said sullenly:
“About two in the morning. I meant to go up to town first, then when I got to the suburbs I changed my mind. Ithought Dinah might come down here after me. So I drove down here. The place was all dark. I opened the door andturned on the light and I saw—and I saw—”
He gulped36 and stopped. Miss Marple went on:
“You saw a girl lying on the hearthrug—a girl in a white evening dress—strangled. I don’t know whether yourecognized her then—”
Basil Blake shook his head violently.
“I couldn’t look at her after the first glance—her face was all blue—swollen. She’d been dead some time and shewas there—in my room!”
He shuddered37.
Miss Marple said gently:
“You weren’t, of course, quite yourself. You were in a fuddled state and your nerves are not good. You were, Ithink, panic-stricken. You didn’t know what to do—”
“I thought Dinah might turn up any minute. And she’d find me there with a dead body—a girl’s dead body—andshe’d think I’d killed her. Then I got an idea—it seemed, I don’t know why, a good idea at the time—I thought: I’llput her in old Bantry’s library. Damned pompous38 old stick, always looking down his nose, sneering39 at me as artisticand effeminate. Serve the pompous old brute40 right, I thought. He’ll look a fool when a dead lovely is found on hishearthrug.” He added, with a pathetic eagerness to explain: “I was a bit drunk, you know, at the time. It really seemedpositively amusing to me. Old Bantry with a dead blonde.”
“Yes, yes,” said Miss Marple. “Little Tommy Bond had very much the same idea. Rather a sensitive boy with aninferiority complex, he said teacher was always picking on him. He put a frog in the clock and it jumped out at her.
“You were just the same,” went on Miss Marple, “only of course, bodies are more serious matters than frogs.”
Basil groaned again.
“By the morning I’d sobered up. I realized what I’d done. I was scared stiff. And then the police came here—another damned pompous ass1 of a Chief Constable41. I was scared of him—and the only way I could hide it was bybeing abominably42 rude. In the middle of it all Dinah drove up.”
Dinah looked out of the window.
She said:
“There’s a car driving up now … there are men in it.”
“The police, I think,” said Miss Marple.
Basil Blake got up. Suddenly he became quite calm and resolute43. He even smiled. He said:
“So I’m for it, am I? All right, Dinah sweet, keep your head. Get on to old Sims—he’s the family lawyer—and goto Mother and tell her everything about our marriage. She won’t bite. And don’t worry. I didn’t do it. So it’s bound tobe all right, see, sweetheart?”
There was a tap on the cottage door. Basil called “Come in.” Inspector44 Slack entered with another man. He said:
“Mr. Basil Blake?”
“Yes.”
“I have a warrant here for your arrest on the charge of murdering Ruby Keene on the night of September 21st last. Iwarn you that anything you say may be used at your trial. You will please accompany me now. Full facilities will begiven you for communicating with your solicitor45.”
Basil nodded.
He looked at Dinah, but did not touch her. He said:
“So long, Dinah.”
“Cool customer,” thought Inspector Slack.
He acknowledged the presence of Miss Marple with a half bow and a “Good morning,” and thought to himself:
“Smart old Pussy46, she’s on to it! Good job we’ve got that hearthrug. That and finding out from the car-park man atthe studio that he left that party at eleven instead of midnight. Don’t think those friends of his meant to commitperjury. They were bottled and Blake told ’em firmly the next day it was twelve o’clock when he left and theybelieved him. Well, his goose is cooked good and proper! Mental, I expect! Broadmoor, not hanging. First the Reeveskid, probably strangled her, drove her out to the quarry47, walked back into Danemouth, picked up his own car in someside lane, drove to this party, then back to Danemouth, brought Ruby Keene out here, strangled her, put her in oldBantry’s library, then probably got the wind up about the car in the quarry, drove there, set it on fire, and got backhere. Mad—sex and blood lust—lucky this girl’s escaped. What they call recurring48 mania49, I expect.”
Alone with Miss Marple, Dinah Blake turned to her. She said:
“I don’t know who you are, but you’ve got to understand this—Basil didn’t do it.”
Miss Marple said:
“I know he didn’t. I know who did do it. But it’s not going to be easy to prove. I’ve an idea that something you said—just now—may help. It gave me an idea—the connection I’d been trying to find—now what was it?”
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1
ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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pane
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| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
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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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nave
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| n.教堂的中部；本堂 | |
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guild
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| n.行会，同业公会，协会 | |
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authorize
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| v.授权，委任；批准，认可 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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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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amiably
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| adv.和蔼可亲地，亲切地 | |
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exuding
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| v.缓慢流出，渗出，分泌出( exude的现在分词 )；流露出对（某物）的神态或感情 | |
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geniality
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| n.和蔼，诚恳；愉快 | |
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enlist
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| vt.谋取(支持等)，赢得；征募；vi.入伍 | |
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scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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fluffy
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malicious
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steadily
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maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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goodwill
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momentary
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flicker
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illicit
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halcyon
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justify
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reconciliations
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| 和解( reconciliation的名词复数 )； 一致； 勉强接受； （争吵等的）止息 | |
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benignly
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| adv.仁慈地，亲切地 | |
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majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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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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prim
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| adj.拘泥形式的，一本正经的；n.循规蹈矩，整洁；adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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erect
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ruby
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| n.红宝石，红宝石色 | |
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darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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sullenly
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gulped
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| v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的过去式和过去分词 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住 | |
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shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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pompous
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的；夸大的；豪华的 | |
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sneering
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| 嘲笑的，轻蔑的 | |
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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constable
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| n.(英国)警察，警官 | |
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abominably
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| adv. 可恶地，可恨地，恶劣地 | |
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resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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solicitor
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| n.初级律师，事务律师 | |
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pussy
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| n.(儿语)小猫，猫咪 | |
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quarry
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| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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recurring
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| adj.往复的，再次发生的 | |
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mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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