1T he next day passed uneventfully to all appearances, yet to Miss Marple it seemed that there were signs of an innertension. Christian1 Gulbrandsen spent his morning with Dr. Maverick2 in going round the Institute and in discussing thegeneral results of the Institute’s policy. In the early afternoon Gina took him for a drive and after that Miss Marplenoticed that he induced Miss Bellever to show him something in the gardens. It seemed to her that it was a pretext3 forensuring a tête-à-tête with that grim woman. And yet, if Christian Gulbrandsen’s unexpected visit had only to do withbusiness matters, why this wish for Miss Bellever’s company, since the latter dealt only with the domestic side ofmatters?
But in all this, Miss Marple could tell herself that she was being fanciful. The only really disturbing incident of theday happened about four o’clock. She had rolled up her knitting and had gone out in the garden to take a little strollbefore tea. Rounding a straggling rhododendron she came upon Edgar Lawson who was striding along muttering tohimself and who nearly ran into her.
He said, “I beg your pardon,” hastily, but Miss Marple was startled by the queer staring expression of his eyes.
“Aren’t you feeling well, Mr. Lawson?”
“Well? How should I be feeling well? I’ve had a shock—a terrible shock.”
“What kind of a shock?”
The young man gave a swift glance past her, and then a sharp uneasy glance to either side. His doing so gave MissMarple a nervous feeling.
“Shall I tell you?” He looked at her doubtfully. “I don’t know. I don’t really know. I’ve been so spied upon.”
Miss Marple made up her mind. She took him firmly by the arm.
“If we walk down this path … there, now, there are no trees or bushes near. Nobody can overhear.”
“No—no, you’re right.” He drew a deep breath, bent4 his head and almost whispered his next words. “I’ve made adiscovery. A terrible discovery.”
“What kind of a discovery?”
Edgar Lawson began to shake all over. He was almost weeping.
“To have trusted someone! To have believed … and it was lies—all lies. Lies to keep me from finding out the truth.
I can’t bear it. It’s too wicked. You see, he was the one person I trusted, and now to find out that all the time he’s beenat the bottom of it all. It’s he who’s been my enemy! It’s he who has been having me followed about and spied upon.
But he can’t get away with it anymore. I shall speak out. I shall tell him I know what he has been doing.”
“Who is ‘he’?” demanded Miss Marple.
Edgar Lawson drew himself up to his full height. He might have looked pathetic and dignified5. But actually he onlylooked ridiculous.
“I’m speaking of my father.”
“Viscount Montgomery—or do you mean Winston Churchill?”
Edgar threw her a glance of scorn.
“They let me think that—just to keep me from guessing the truth. But I know now. I’ve got a friend—a real friend.
A friend who tells me the truth and lets me know just how I’ve been deceived. Well, my father will have to reckonwith me. I’ll throw his lies in his face! I’ll challenge him with the truth. We’ll see what he’s got to say to that.”
And suddenly breaking away, Edgar went off at a run and disappeared in the park.
Her face grave, Miss Marple went back to the house.
“We’re all a little mad, dear lady,” Dr. Maverick had said.
But it seemed to her that in Edgar’s case it went rather further than that.
2Lewis Serrocold arrived back at six thirty. He stopped the car at the gates and walked to the house through the park.
Looking out of her window, Miss Marple saw Christian Gulbrandsen go out to meet him and the two men, havinggreeted one another, turned and paced to and fro, up and down the terrace.
Miss Marple had been careful to bring her bird glasses with her. At this moment she brought them into action. Wasthere, or was there not, a flight of siskins by that far clump6 of trees?
She noted7 as the glasses swept down before rising that both men were looking seriously disturbed. Miss Marpleleant out a little further. Scraps8 of conversation floated up to her now and then. If either of the men should look up, itwould be quite clear that an enraptured9 bird-watcher had her attention fixed10 on a point far removed from theirconversation.
“—how to spare Carrie Louise the knowledge—” Gulbrandsen was saying.
The next time they passed below, Lewis Serrocold was speaking.
“—if it can be kept from her. I agree that it is she who must be considered….”
Other faint snatches came to the listener.
“—Really serious—” “—not justified—” “too big a responsibility to take—” “we should, perhaps, take outsideadvice—”
Finally Miss Marple heard Christian Gulbrandsen say, “Ach, it grows cold. We must go inside.”
Miss Marple drew her head in through the window with a puzzled expression. What she had heard was toofragmentary to be easily pieced together—but it served to confirm that vague apprehension11 that had been graduallygrowing upon her and about which Ruth Van Rydock had been so positive.
Whatever was wrong at Stonygates, it definitely affected12 Carrie Louise.
3Dinner that evening was a somewhat constrained13 meal. Both Gulbrandsen and Lewis were absentminded and absorbedin their own thoughts. Walter Hudd glowered14 even more than usual and, for once, Gina and Stephen seemed to havelittle to say either to each other or to the company at large. Conversation was mostly sustained by Dr. Maverick whohad a lengthy15, technical discussion with Mr. Baumgarten, the occupational therapist.
When they moved into the Hall after dinner, Christian Gulbrandsen excused himself almost at once. He said he hadan important letter to write.
“So if you will forgive me, dear Carrie Louise, I will go now to my room.”
“You have all you want there? Jolly?”
“Yes, yes. Everything. A typewriter, I asked, and one has been put there. Miss Bellever has been most kind andattentive.”
He left the Great Hall by the door on the left which led past the foot of the main staircase and along a corridor, atthe end of which was a suite16 of bedroom and bathroom.
When he had gone out, Carrie Louise said:
“Not going down to the theatre tonight, Gina?”
The girl shook her head. She went over and sat by the window overlooking the front drive and the court.
Stephen glanced at her, then strolled over to the big grand piano. He sat down at it and strummed very softly—aqueer melancholy17 little tune18. The two occupational therapists, Mr. Baumgarten and Mr. Lacy, and Dr. Maverick, saidgood night and left. Walter turned the switch of a reading lamp and with a crackling noise half the lights in the Hallwent out.
He growled19.
“That darned switch is always faulty. I’ll go and put a new fuse in.”
He left the Hall and Carrie Louise murmured, “Wally’s so clever with electrical gadgets21 and things like that. Youremember how he fixed that toaster?”
“It seems to be all he does do here,” said Mildred Strete. “Mother, have you taken your tonic22?”
Miss Bellever looked annoyed.
“I declare I completely forgot tonight.” She jumped up and went into the dining room, returning presently with asmall glass containing a little rose-coloured fluid.
Smiling a little, Carrie Louise held out an obedient hand.
“Such horrid23 stuff and nobody lets me forget it,” she said, making a wry24 face.
And then, rather unexpectedly, Lewis Serrocold said: “I don’t think I should take it tonight, my dear. I’m not sure itreally agrees with you.”
Quietly, but with that controlled energy always so apparent in him, he took the glass from Miss Bellever and put itdown on the big oak Welsh dresser.
Miss Bellever said sharply:
“Really, Mr. Serrocold, I can’t agree with you there. Mrs. Serrocold has been very much better since—”
She broke off and turned sharply:
The front door was pushed violently open and allowed to swing to with a crash. Edgar Lawson came into the bigdim Hall with the air of a star performer making a triumphal entry.
He stood in the middle of the floor and struck an attitude.
It was almost ridiculous—but not quite ridiculous.
Edgar said theatrically25:
“So I have found you, O mine enemy!”
He said it to Lewis Serrocold.
Mr. Serrocold looked mildly astonished.
“Why, Edgar, what is the matter?”
“You can say that to me—you! You know what’s the matter. You’ve been deceiving me, spying on me, workingwith my enemies against me.”
Lewis took him by the arm.
“Now, now, my dear lad, don’t excite yourself. Tell me all about it quietly. Come into my office.”
He led him across the Hall and through a door on the right closing it behind him. After he had done so, there wasanother sound, the sharp sound of a key being turned in the lock.
Miss Bellever looked at Miss Marple, the same idea in both their minds. It was not Lewis Serrocold who hadturned the key.
Miss Bellever said sharply: “That young man is just about to go off his head in my opinion. It isn’t safe.”
Mildred said, “He’s a most unbalanced young man—and absolutely ungrateful for everything that’s been done forhim—you ought to put your foot down, Mother.”
With a faint sigh Carrie Louise murmured:
“There’s no harm in him really. He’s fond of Lewis. He’s very fond of him.”
Miss Marple looked at her curiously26. There had been no fondness in the expression that Edgar had turned on LewisSerrocold a few moments previously27, very far from it. She wondered, as she had wondered before, if Carrie Louisedeliberately turned her back on reality.
Gina said sharply:
“He had something in his pocket. Edgar, I mean. Playing with it.”
Stephen murmured as he took his hands from the keys:
“In a film it would certainly have been a revolver.”
Miss Marple coughed.
“I think, you know,” she said apologetically, “it was a revolver.”
From behind the closed doors of Lewis’ office the sound of voices had been plainly discernible. Now, suddenly,they became clearly audible. Edgar Lawson shouted whilst Lewis Serrocold’s voice kept its even, reasonable note.
“Lies—lies—lies, all lies. You’re my father. I’m your son. You’ve deprived me of my rights. I ought to own thisplace. You hate me—you want to get rid of me!”
There was a soothing28 murmur20 from Lewis and then the hysterical29 voice rose still higher. It screamed out foulepithets. Edgar seemed rapidly losing control of himself. Occasional words came from Lewis—“calm—just be calm—you know none of this is true—” But they seemed not to soothe30, but on the contrary to enrage31 the young man stillfurther.
Insensibly everyone in the Hall was silent, listening intently to what went on behind the locked door of Lewis’
study.
“I’ll make you listen to me,” yelled Edgar. “I’ll take that supercilious32 expression off your face. I’ll have revenge, Itell you. Revenge for all you’ve made me suffer.”
The other voice came curtly33, unlike Lewis’ usual unemotional tones.
“Put that revolver down!”
Gina cried sharply:
“Edgar will kill him. He’s crazy. Can’t we get the police or something?”
Carrie Louise, still unmoved, said softly:
“There’s no need to worry, Gina. Edgar loves Lewis. He’s just dramatising himself, that’s all.”
Edgar’s voice sounded through the door in a laugh that Miss Marple had to admit sounded definitely insane.
“Yes, I’ve got a revolver—and it’s loaded. No, don’t speak, don’t move. You’re going to hear me out. It’s you whostarted this conspiracy34 against me and now you’re going to pay for it.”
What sounded like the report of a firearm made them all start, but Carrie Louise said:
“It’s all right, it’s outside—in the park somewhere.”
Behind the locked door, Edgar was raving35 in a high screaming voice.
“You sit there looking at me—looking at me—pretending to be unmoved. Why don’t you get down on your kneesand beg for mercy? I’m going to shoot, I tell you. I’m going to shoot you dead! I’m your son—your unacknowledgeddespised son—you wanted me hidden away, out of the world altogether, perhaps. You set your spies to follow me—tohound me down—you plotted against me. You, my father! My father. I’m only a bastard36, aren’t I? Only a bastard.
You went on filling me up with lies. Pretending to be kind to me, and all the time—all the time … you’re not fit tolive. I won’t let you live.”
Again there came a stream of obscene profanity. Somewhere during the scene Miss Marple was conscious of MissBellever saying:
“We must do something,” and leaving the Hall.
Edgar seemed to pause for breath and then he shouted out,“You’re going to die—to die. You’re going to die now. Take that, you devil, and that!”
Two sharp cracks rang out—not in the park this time, but definitely behind the locked door.
Somebody, Miss Marple thought it was Mildred, cried out:
“Oh God, what shall we do?”
There was a thud from inside the room and then a sound, almost more terrible than what had gone before, thesound of slow, heavy sobbing37.
Somebody strode past Miss Marple and started shaking and rattling38 the door.
It was Stephen Restarick.
“Open the door. Open the door,” he shouted.
Miss Bellever came back into the Hall. In her hand she held an assortment39 of keys.
“Try some of these,” she said breathlessly.
At that moment the fused lights came on again. The Hall sprang into life again after its eerie40 dimness.
Stephen Restarick began trying the keys.
They heard the inside key fall out as he did so.
Inside, that wild desperate sobbing went on.
Walter Hudd, coming lazily back into the Hall, stopped dead and demanded:
“Say, what’s going on round here?”
Mildred said tearfully,
“That awful crazy young man has shot Mr. Serrocold.”
“Please.” It was Carrie Louise who spoke41. She got up and came across to the study door. Very gently she pushedStephen Restarick aside. “Let me speak to him.”
She called—very softly—“Edgar … Edgar … let me in, will you? Please, Edgar.”
They heard the key fitted into the lock. It turned and the door was slowly opened.
But it was not Edgar who opened it. It was Lewis Serrocold. He was breathing hard as though he had been running,but otherwise he was unmoved.
“It’s all right, dearest,” he said. “Dearest, it’s quite all right.”
“We thought you’d been shot,” said Miss Bellever gruffly.
Lewis Serrocold frowned. He said with a trifle of asperity42:
“Of course I haven’t been shot.”
They could see into the study by now. Edgar Lawson had collapsed43 by the desk. He was sobbing and gasping44. Therevolver lay on the floor where it had dropped from his hand.
“But we heard the shots,” said Mildred.
“Oh yes, he fired twice.”
“And he missed you?”
“Of course he missed me,” snapped Lewis.
Miss Marple did not consider that there was any of course about it. The shots must have been fired at fairly closerange.
Lewis Serrocold said irritably45:
“Where’s Maverick? It’s Maverick we need.”
Miss Bellever said:
“I’ll get him. Shall I ring up the police as well?”
“Police? Certainly not.”
“Of course, we must ring up the police,” said Mildred. “He’s dangerous.”
“Nonsense,” said Lewis Serrocold. “Poor lad. Does he look dangerous?”
At the moment he did not look dangerous. He looked young and pathetic and rather repulsive46.
His voice had lost its carefully acquired accent.
“I didn’t mean to do it,” he groaned47. “I dunno what came over me—talking all that stuff—I must have been mad.”
Mildred sniffed48.
“I really must have been mad. I didn’t mean to. Please, Mr. Serrocold, I really didn’t mean to.”
Lewis Serrocold patted him on the shoulder.
“That’s all right, my boy. No damage done.”
“I might have killed you, Mr. Serrocold.”
Walter Hudd walked across the room and peered at the wall behind the desk.
“The bullets went in here,” he said. His eye dropped to the desk and the chair behind it. “Must have been a nearmiss,” he said grimly.
“I lost my head. I didn’t rightly know what I was doing. I thought he’d done me out of my rights. I thought—”
Miss Marple put in the question she had been wanting to ask for some time.
“Who told you,” she asked, “that Mr. Serrocold was your father?”
Just for a second, a sly expression peeped out of Edgar’s distracted face. It was there and gone in a flash.
“Nobody,” he said. “I just got it into my head.”
Walter Hudd was staring down at the revolver where it lay on the floor.
“Where the hell did you get that gun?” he demanded.
“Gun?” Edgar stared down at it.
“Looks mighty49 like my gun,” said Walter. He stooped down and picked it up. “By heck, it is! You took it out of myroom, you creeping louse you.”
Lewis Serrocold interposed between the cringing50 Edgar and the menacing American.
“All this can be gone into later,” he said. “Ah, here’s Maverick. Take a look at him, will you, Maverick?”
Dr. Maverick advanced upon Edgar with a kind of professional zest51. “This won’t do, Edgar,” he said. “This won’tdo, you know.”
“He’s a dangerous lunatic,” said Mildred sharply. “He’s been shooting off a revolver and raving. He only justmissed my stepfather.”
Edgar gave a little yelp52 and Dr. Maverick said reprovingly:
“Careful, please, Mrs. Strete.”
“I’m sick of all this. Sick of the way you all go on here! I tell you this man’s a lunatic.”
With a bound, Edgar wrenched53 himself away from Dr. Maverick and fell to the floor at Serrocold’s feet.
“Help me. Help me. Don’t let them take me away and shut me up. Don’t let them….”
An unpleasing scene, Miss Marple thought.
Mildred said angrily, “I tell you he’s—”
Her mother said soothingly54,
“Please, Mildred. Not now. He’s suffering.”
Walter muttered,
“Suffering cripes! They’re all cuckoo round here.”
“I’ll take charge of him,” said Dr. Maverick. “You come with me, Edgar. Bed and a sedative—and we’ll talkeverything over in the morning. Now you trust me, don’t you?”
Rising to his feet and trembling a little, Edgar looked doubtfully at the young doctor and then at Mildred Strete.
“She said—I was a lunatic.”
“No, no, you’re not a lunatic.”
Miss Bellever’s footsteps rang purposefully across the Hall. She came in with her lips pursed together and a flushedface.
“I’ve telephoned the police,” she said grimly. “They will be here in a few minutes.”
Carrie Louise cried, “Jolly!” in tones of dismay.
Edgar uttered a wail55.
Lewis Serrocold frowned angrily.
“I told you, Jolly, I did not want the police summoned. This is a medical matter.”
“That’s as may be,” said Miss Bellever. “I’ve my own opinion. But I had to call the police. Mr. Gulbrandsen’s beenshot dead.”
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1
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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maverick
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| adj.特立独行的；不遵守传统的；n.持异议者，自行其是者 | |
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pretext
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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clump
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noted
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scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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enraptured
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fixed
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apprehension
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affected
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constrained
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glowered
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lengthy
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suite
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melancholy
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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growled
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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gadgets
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tonic
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horrid
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wry
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theatrically
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curiously
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previously
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soothing
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hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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soothe
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enrage
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supercilious
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curtly
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conspiracy
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raving
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bastard
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sobbing
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rattling
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assortment
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eerie
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| adj.怪诞的；奇异的；可怕的；胆怯的 | |
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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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asperity
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| n.粗鲁，艰苦 | |
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collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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gasping
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irritably
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| ad.易生气地 | |
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repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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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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sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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49
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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50
cringing
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| adj.谄媚，奉承 | |
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51
zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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52
yelp
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| vi.狗吠 | |
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53
wrenched
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| v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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54
soothingly
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| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
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55
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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