T HE L ETTERS
I“S orry to worry you again, Mrs. Haymes.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Phillipa coldly.
“Shall we go into this room here?”
“The study? Yes, if you like, Inspector1. It’s very cold. There’s no fire.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not for long. And we’re not so likely to be overheard here.”
“Does that matter?”
“Not to me, Mrs. Haymes. It might to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think you told me, Mrs. Haymes, that your husband was killed fighting in Italy?”
“Well?”
“Wouldn’t it have been simpler to have told me the truth—that he was a deserter from his regiment2.”
He saw her face grow white, and her hands close and unclose themselves.
She said bitterly:
“Do you have to rake up everything?”
Craddock said dryly:
“We expect people to tell us the truth about themselves.”
She was silent. Then she said:
“Well?”
“What do you mean by ‘Well?,’ Mrs. Haymes?”
“I mean, what are you going to do about it? Tell everybody? Is that necessary—or fair—or kind?”
“Does nobody know?”
“Nobody here. Harry”—her voice changed—“my son, he doesn’t know. I don’t want him to know. I don’t wanthim to know—ever.”
“Then let me tell you that you’re taking a very big risk, Mrs. Haymes. When the boy is old enough to understand,tell him the truth. If he finds out by himself some day—it won’t be good for him. If you go on stuffing him up withtales of his father dying like a hero—”
“I don’t do that. I’m not completely dishonest. I just don’t talk about it. His father was—killed in the war. After all,that’s what it amounts to—for us.”
“But your husband is still alive?”
“Perhaps. How should I know?”
“When did you see him last, Mrs. Haymes?”
Phillipa said quickly:
“I haven’t seen him for years.”
“Are you quite sure that’s true? You didn’t, for instance, see him about a fortnight ago?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“It never seemed to me very likely that you met Rudi Scherz in the summerhouse here. But Mitzi’s story was veryemphatic. I suggest, Mrs. Haymes, that the man you came back from work to meet that morning was your husband.”
“I didn’t meet anybody in the summerhouse.”
“He was hard up for money, perhaps, and you supplied him with some?”
“I’ve not seen him, I tell you. I didn’t meet anybody in the summerhouse.”
“Deserters are often rather desperate men. They often take part in robberies, you know. Hold-ups. Things of thatkind. And they have foreign revolvers very often that they’ve brought back from abroad.”
“I don’t know where my husband is. I haven’t seen him for years.”
“Is that your last word, Mrs. Haymes?”
“I’ve nothing else to say.”
II
Craddock came away from his interview with Phillipa Haymes feeling angry and baffled.
“Obstinate4 as a mule,” he said to himself angrily.
He was fairly sure that Phillipa was lying, but he hadn’t succeeded in breaking down her obstinate denials.
He wished he knew a little more about ex-Captain Haymes. His information was meagre. An unsatisfactory Armyrecord, but nothing to suggest that Haymes was likely to turn criminal.
And anyway Haymes didn’t fit in with the oiled door.
Someone in the house had done that, or someone with easy access to it.
He stood looking up the staircase, and suddenly he wondered what Julia had been doing up in the attic5. An attic, hethought, was an unlikely place for the fastidious Julia to visit.
What had she been doing up there?
He ran lightly up to the first floor. There was no one about. He opened the door out of which Julia had come andwent up the narrow stairs to the attic.
There were trunks there, old suitcases, various broken articles of furniture, a chair with a leg off, a broken chinalamp, part of an old dinner service.
He turned to the trunks and opened the lid of one.
Clothes. Old-fashioned, quite good-quality women’s clothes. Clothes belonging, he supposed, to Miss Blacklock,or to her sister who had died.
He opened another trunk.
Curtains.
He passed to a small attaché-case. It had papers in it and letters. Very old letters, yellowed with time.
He looked at the outside of the case which had the initials C.L.B. on it. He deduced correctly that it had belongedto Letitia’s sister Charlotte. He unfolded one of the letters. It beganDearest Charlotte.
Yesterday Belle6 felt well enough to go for a picnic. R.G. also took a day off. The Asvogel flotation hasgone splendidly, R.G. is terribly pleased about it. The Preference shares are at a premium7.
He skipped the rest and looked at the signature:
Your loving sister, Letitia.
He picked up another.
Darling Charlotte.
I wish you would sometimes make up your mind to see people. You do exaggerate, you know. It isn’tnearly as bad as you think. And people really don’t mind things like that. It’s not the disfigurement youthink it is.
He nodded his head. He remembered Belle Goedler saying that Charlotte Blacklock had a disfigurement ordeformity of some kind. Letitia had, in the end, resigned her job, to go and look after her sister. These letters allbreathed the anxious spirit of her affection and love for an invalid8. She had written her sister, apparently9, longaccounts of everyday happenings, of any little detail that she thought might interest the sick girl. And Charlotte hadkept these letters. Occasionally odd snapshots had been enclosed.
Excitement suddenly flooded Craddock’s mind. Here, it might be, he would find a clue. In these letters there wouldbe written down things that Letitia Blacklock herself had long forgotten. Here was a faithful picture of the past andsomewhere amongst it, there might be a clue that would help him to identify the unknown. Photographs, too. Theremight, just possibly, be a photograph of Sonia Goedler here that the person who had taken the other photos out of thealbum did not know about.
Inspector Craddock packed the letters up again, carefully, closed the case, and started down the stairs.
Letitia Blacklock, standing10 on the landing below, looked at him in amazement11.
“Was that you up in the attic? I heard footsteps. I couldn’t imagine who—”
“Miss Blacklock, I have found some letters here, written by you to your sister Charlotte many years ago. Will youallow me to take them away and read them?”
She flushed angrily.
“Must you do a thing like that? Why? What good can they be to you?”
“They might give me a picture of Sonia Goedler, of her character—there may be some allusion—some incident—that will help.”
“They are private letters, Inspector.”
“I know.”
“I suppose you will take them anyway … You have the power to do so, I suppose, or you can easily get it. Takethem—take them! But you’ll find very little about Sonia. She married and went away only a year or two after I beganto work for Randall Goedler.”
Craddock said obstinately12:
“There may be something.” He added, “We’ve got to try everything. I assure you the danger is very real.”
She said, biting her lips:
“I know. Bunny is dead—from taking an aspirin13 tablet that was meant for me. It may be Patrick, or Julia, orPhillipa, or Mitzi next—somebody young with their life in front of them. Somebody who drinks a glass of wine that ispoured out for me, or eats a chocolate that is sent to me. Oh! take the letters—take them away. And afterwards burnthem. They don’t mean anything to anyone but me and Charlotte. It’s all over—gone—past. Nobody remembersnow….”
Her hand went up to the choker of false pearls she was wearing. Caddock thought how incongruous it looked withher tweed coat and skirt.
She said again:
“Take the letters.”
III
It was the following afternoon that the Inspector called at the Vicarage.
It was a dark gusty14 day.
Miss Marple had her chair pulled close to the fire and was knitting. Bunch was on hands and knees, crawling aboutthe floor, cutting out material to a pattern.
She sat back and pushed a mop of hair out of her eyes, looking up expectantly at Craddock.
“I don’t know if it’s a breach15 of confidence,” said the Inspector, addressing himself to Miss Marple, “but I’d likeyou to look at this letter.”
He explained the circumstances of his discovery in the attic.
“It’s rather a touching16 collection of letters,” he said. “Miss Blacklock poured out everything in the hopes ofsustaining her sister’s interest in life and keeping her health good. There’s a very clear picture of an old father in thebackground — old Dr. Blacklock. A real old pig- headed bully17, absolutely set in his ways, and convinced thateverything he thought and said was right. Probably killed thousands of patients through obstinacy18. He wouldn’t standfor any new ideas or methods.”
“I don’t really know that I blame him there,” said Miss Marple. “I always feel that the young doctors are only tooanxious to experiment. After they’ve whipped out all our teeth, and administered quantities of very peculiar19 glands,and removed bits of our insides, they then confess that nothing can be done for us. I really prefer the old-fashionedremedy of big black bottles of medicine. After all, one can always pour those down the sink.”
She took the letter that Craddock handed her.
He said: “I want you to read it because I think that that generation is more easily understood by you than by me. Idon’t know really quite how these people’s minds worked.”
Miss Marple unfolded the fragile paper.
Dearest Charlotte,
I’ve not written for two days because we’ve been having the most terrible domestic complications.
Randall’s sister Sonia (you remember her? She came to take you out in the car that day? How I wish youwould go out more). Sonia has declared her intention of marrying one Dmitri Stamfordis. I have only seenhim once. Very attractive—not to be trusted, I should say. R.G. raves20 against him and says he is a crookand a swindler. Belle, bless her, just smiles and lies on her sofa. Sonia, who though she looks so impassivehas really a terrific temper, is simply wild with R.G. I really thought yesterday she was going to murderhim!
I’ve done my best. I’ve talked to Sonia and I’ve talked to R.G. and I’ve got them both into a morereasonable frame of mind and then they come together and it all starts over again! You’ve no idea howtiring it is. R.G. has been making enquiries—and it does really seem as though this Stamfordis man wasthoroughly undesirable22.
In the meantime business is being neglected. I carry on at the office and in a way it’s rather fun becauseR.G. gives me a free hand. He said to me yesterday: “Thank Heaven, there’s one sane23 person in the world.
You’re never likely to fall in love with a crook21, Blackie, are you?” I said I didn’t think I was likely to fall inlove with anybody. R.G. said: “Let’s start a few new hares in the City.” He’s really rather a mischievousdevil sometimes and he sails terribly near the wind. “You’re quite determined24 to keep me on the straightand narrow path aren’t you, Blackie?” he said the other day. And I shall too! I can’t understand howpeople can’t see when a thing’s dishonest—but R.G. really and truly doesn’t. He only knows what isactually against the law.
Belle only laughs at all this. She thinks the fuss about Sonia is all nonsense. “Sonia has her ownmoney,” she said. “Why shouldn’t she marry this man if she wants to?” I said it might turn out to be aterrible mistake and Belle said, “It’s never a mistake to marry a man you want to marry—even if you regretit.” And then she said, “I suppose Sonia doesn’t want to break with Randall because of money. Sonia’s veryfond of money.”
No more now. How is father? I won’t say Give him my love. But you can if you think it’s better to do so.
Have you seen more people? You really must not be morbid25, darling.
Sonia asks to be remembered to you. She has just come in and is closing and unclosing her hands like anangry cat sharpening its claws. I think she and R.G. have had another row. Of course Sonia can be veryirritating. She stares you down with that cool stare of hers.
Lots of love, darling, and buck26 up. This iodine27 treatment may make a lot of difference. I’ve beenenquiring about it and it really does seem to have good results.
Your loving sister,
Letitia.
Miss Marple folded the letter and handed it back. She looked abstracted.
“Well, what do you think about her?” Craddock urged. “What picture do you get of her?”
“Of Sonia? It’s difficult, you know, to see anyone through another person’s mind … Determined to get her ownway—that, definitely, I think. And wanting the best of two worlds….”
“Closing and unclosing her hands like an angry cat,” murmured Craddock. “You know, that reminds me ofsomeone….”
He frowned.
“Making enquiries …” murmured Miss Marple.
“If we could get hold of the result of those inquiries28,” said Craddock.
“Does that letter remind you of anything in St. Mary Mead29?” asked Bunch, rather indistinctly since her mouth wasfull of pins.
“I really can’t say it does, dear … Dr. Blacklock is, perhaps, a little like Mr. Curtiss the Wesleyan Minister. Hewouldn’t let his child wear a plate on her teeth. Said it was the Lord’s Will if her teeth stuck out. ‘After all,’ I said tohim, ‘you do trim your beard and cut your hair. It might be the Lord’s Will that your hair should grow out.’ He saidthat was quite different. So like a man. But that doesn’t help us with our present problem.”
“We’ve never traced that revolver, you know. It wasn’t Rudi Scherz. If I knew who had had a revolver in ChippingCleghorn—”
“Colonel Easterbrook has one,” said Bunch. “He keeps it in his collar drawer.”
“How do you know, Mrs. Harmon?”
“Mrs. Butt30 told me. She’s my daily. Or rather, my twice weekly. Being a military gentleman, she said, he’dnaturally have a revolver and very handy it would be if burglars were to come along.”
“When did she tell you this?”
“Ages ago. About six months ago, I should think.”
“Colonel Easterbrook?” murmured Craddock.
“It’s like those pointer things at fairs, isn’t it?” said Bunch, still speaking through a mouthful of pins. “Go roundand round and stop at something different every time.”
“You’re telling me,” said Craddock and groaned31.
“Colonel Easterbrook was up at Little Paddocks to leave a book there one day. He could have oiled that door then.
He was quite straightforward32 about being there though. Not like Miss Hinchcliffe.”
Miss Marple coughed gently. “You must make allowances for the times we live in, Inspector,” she said.
Craddock looked at her, uncomprehendingly.
“After all,” said Miss Marple. “you are the Police, aren’t you? People can’t say everything they’d like to say to thePolice, can they?”
“I don’t see why not,” said Craddock. “Unless they’ve got some criminal matter to conceal33.”
“She means butter,” said Bunch, crawling actively34 round a table leg to anchor a floating bit of paper. “Butter andcorn for hens, and sometimes cream—and sometimes, even, a side of bacon.”
“Show him that note from Miss Blacklock,” said Miss Marple. “It’s some time ago now, but it reads like a first-class mystery story.”
“What have I done with it? Is this the one you mean, Aunt Jane?”
Miss Marple took it and looked at it.
“Yes,” she said with satisfaction. “That’s the one.”
She handed it to the Inspector.
“I have made inquiries—Thursday is the day,” Miss Blacklock had written. “Any time after three. If thereis any for me leave it in the usual place.”
Bunch spat35 out her pins and laughed. Miss Marple was watching the Inspector’s face.
The Vicar’s wife took it upon herself to explain.
“Thursday is the day one of the farms round here makes butter. They let anybody they like have a bit. It’s usuallyMiss Hinchcliffe who collects it. She’s very much in with all the farmers—because of her pigs, I think. But it’s all a bithush hush36, you know, a kind of local scheme of barter37. One person gets butter, and sends along cucumbers, orsomething like that—and a little something when a pig’s killed. And now and then an animal has an accident and hasto be destroyed. Oh, you know the sort of thing. Only one can’t, very well, say it right out to the Police. Because Isuppose quite a lot of this barter is illegal—only nobody really knows because it’s all so complicated. But I expectHinch had slipped into Little Paddocks with a pound of butter or something and had put it in the usual place. That’s aflour bin38 under the dresser, by the way. It doesn’t have flour in it.”
Craddock sighed.
“I’m glad I came here to you ladies,” he said.
“There used to be clothing coupons39, too,” said Bunch. “Not usually bought—that wasn’t considered honest. Nomoney passes. But people like Mrs. Butt or Mrs. Finch40 or Mrs. Huggins like a nice woollen dress or a winter coat thathasn’t seen too much wear and they pay for it with coupons instead of money.”
“You’d better not tell me any more,” said Craddock. “It’s all against the law.”
“Then there oughtn’t to be such silly laws,” said Bunch, filling her mouth up with pins again. “I don’t do it, ofcourse, because Julian doesn’t like me to, so I don’t. But I know what’s going on, of course.”
A kind of despair was coming over the Inspector.
“It all sounds so pleasant and ordinary,” he said. “Funny and petty and simple. And yet one woman and a man havebeen killed, and another woman may be killed before I can get anything definite to go on. I’ve left off worrying aboutPip and Emma for the moment. I’m concentrating on Sonia. I wish I knew what she looked like. There was a snapshotor two in with these letters, but none of the snaps could have been of her.”
“How do you know it couldn’t have been her? Do you know what she looked like?”
“She was small and dark, Miss Blacklock said.”
“Really,” said Miss Marple, “that’s very interesting.”
“There was one snap that reminded me vaguely41 of someone. A tall fair girl with her hair all done up on top of herhead. I don’t know who she could have been. Anyway, it can’t have been Sonia. Do you think Mrs. Swettenham couldhave been dark when she was a girl?”
“Not very dark,” said Bunch. “She’s got blue eyes.”
“I hoped there might be a photo of Dmitri Stamfordis—but I suppose that was too much to hope for … Well”—hetook up the letter—“I’m sorry this doesn’t suggest anything to you, Miss Marple.”
“Oh! but it does,” said Miss Marple. “It suggests a good deal. Just read it through again, Inspector—especiallywhere it says that Randall Goedler was making inquiries about Dmitri Stamfordis.”
Craddock stared at her.
The telephone rang.
Bunch got up from the floor and went out into the hall where, in accordance with the best Victorian traditions, thetelephone had originally been placed and where it still was.
She reentered the room to say to Craddock:
“It’s for you.”
Slightly surprised, the Inspector went out to the instrument—carefully shutting the door of the living room behindhim.
“Craddock? Rydesdale here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ve been looking through your report. In the interview you had with Phillipa Haymes I see she states positivelythat she hasn’t seen her husband since his desertion from the Army?”
“That’s right, sir—she was most emphatic3. But in my opinion she wasn’t speaking the truth.”
“I agree with you. Do you remember a case about ten days ago—man run over by a lorry—taken to MilchesterGeneral with concussion42 and a fractured pelvis?”
“The fellow who snatched a child practically from under the wheels of a lorry, and got run down himself?”
“That’s the one. No papers of any kind on him and nobody came forward to identify him. Looked as though hemight be on the run. He died last night without regaining43 consciousness. But he’s been identified—deserter from theArmy—Ronald Haymes, ex-Captain in the South Loamshires.”
“Phillipa Haymes’ husband?”
“Yes. He’d got an old Chipping Cleghorn bus ticket on him, by the way—and quite a reasonable amount ofmoney.”
“So he did get money from his wife? I always thought he was the man Mitzi overheard talking to her in thesummerhouse. She denied it flatly, of course. But surely, sir, that lorry accident was before—”
Rydesdale took the words out of his mouth.
“Yes, he was taken to Milchester General on the 28th. The hold-up at Little Paddocks was on the 29th. That letshim out of any possible connection with it. But his wife, of course, knew nothing about the accident. She may havebeen thinking all along that he was concerned in it. She’d hold her tongue—naturally—after all he was her husband.”
“It was a fairly gallant44 bit of work, wasn’t it, sir?” said Craddock slowly.
“Rescuing that child from the lorry? Yes. Plucky45. Don’t suppose it was cowardice46 that made Haymes desert. Well,all that’s past history. For a man who’d blotted47 his copybook, it was a good death.”
“I’m glad for her sake,” said the Inspector. “And for that boy of theirs.”
“Yes, he needn’t be too ashamed of his father. And the young woman will be able to marry again now.”
Craddock said slowly:
“I was thinking of that, sir … It opens up—possibilities.”
“You’d better break the news to her as you’re on the spot.”
“I will, sir. I’ll push along there now. Or perhaps I’d better wait until she’s back at Little Paddocks. It may be rathera shock—and there’s someone else I rather want to have a word with first.”
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inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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emphatic
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| adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的 | |
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obstinate
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attic
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belle
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premium
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invalid
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apparently
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standing
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amazement
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obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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aspirin
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gusty
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breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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touching
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bully
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obstinacy
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peculiar
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raves
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crook
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undesirable
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sane
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determined
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morbid
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buck
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iodine
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inquiries
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mead
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butt
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groaned
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straightforward
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conceal
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actively
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spat
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barter
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| n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件 | |
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39
coupons
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| n.礼券( coupon的名词复数 )；优惠券；订货单；参赛表 | |
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40
finch
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| n.雀科鸣禽(如燕雀，金丝雀等) | |
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41
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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42
concussion
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| n.脑震荡；震动 | |
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43
regaining
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| 复得( regain的现在分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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44
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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plucky
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| adj.勇敢的 | |
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46
cowardice
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| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
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blotted
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| 涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干 | |
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