1“Y ou say somebody has been trying to poison me?”
Carrie Louise’s voice held bewilderment and disbelief.
“You know,” she said, “I can’t really believe it….”
She waited a few moments, her eyes half closed.
Lewis said gently, “I wish I could have spared you this, dearest.”
Almost absently she stretched out a hand to him and he took it.
Miss Marple, sitting close by, shook her head sympathetically.
Carrie Louise opened her eyes.
“Is it really true, Jane?” she asked.
“I’m afraid so, my dear.”
“Then everything—” Carrie Louise broke off.
She went on:
“I’ve always thought I knew what was real and what wasn’t …This doesn’t seem real—but it is … so I may bewrong everywhere … but who could want to do such a thing to me? Nobody in this house could want to—kill me?”
Her voice still held incredulity.
“That’s what I would have thought,” said Lewis. “I was wrong.”
“And Christian1 knew about it? That explains it.”
“Explains what?” asked Lewis.
“His manner,” said Carrie Louise. “It was very odd, you know. Not at all his usual self. He seemed—upset aboutme—and as though he was wanting to say something to me—and then not saying it. And he asked me if my heart wasstrong. And if I’d been well lately. Trying to hint to me, perhaps. But why not say something straight out? It’s so muchsimpler just to say straight out.”
“He didn’t want to—cause you pain, Caroline.”
“Pain? But why—Oh I see …” Her eyes widened. “So that’s what you believe. But you’re wrong, Lewis, quitewrong. I can assure you of that.”
Her husband avoided her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” said Mrs. Serrocold after a moment or two. “But I can’t believe anything of what has happened latelyis true. Edgar shooting at you. Gina and Stephen. That ridiculous box of chocolates. It just isn’t true.”
Nobody spoke2.
Caroline Louise Serrocold sighed.
“I suppose,” she said, “that I must have lived outside reality for a long time … Please, both of you, I think I wouldlike to be alone … I’ve got to try and understand….”
2Miss Marple came down the stairs and into the Great Hall to find Alex Restarick standing3 near the large, archedentrance door with his hand flung out in a somewhat flamboyant4 gesture.
“Come in, come in,” said Alex happily and as though he were the owner of the Great Hall. “I’m just thinking aboutlast night.”
Lewis Serrocold, who had followed Miss Marple down from Carrie Louise’s sitting room, crossed the Great Hall tohis study and went in and shut the door.
“Are you trying to reconstruct the crime?” asked Miss Marple with subdued5 eagerness.
“Eh?” Alex looked at her with a frown. Then his brow cleared.
“Oh, that,” he said. “No, not exactly. I was looking at the whole thing from an entirely6 different point of view. Iwas thinking of this place in the terms of the theatre. Not reality, but artificiality! Just come over here. Think of it inthe terms of a stage set. Lighting7, entrances, exits. Dramatis Personae. Noises off. All very interesting. Not all my ownidea. The Inspector8 gave it to me. I think he’s rather a cruel man. He did his best to frighten me this morning.”
“And did he frighten you?”
“I’m not sure.”
Alex described the Inspector’s experiment and the timing9 of the performance of the puffing10 Constable11 Dodgett.
“Time,” he said, “is so very misleading. One thinks things take such a long time, but really, of course, they don’t.”
“No,” said Miss Marple.
Representing the audience, she moved to a different position. The stage set now consisted of a vast, tapestry-covered wall going up to dimness, with a grand piano up L. and a window and window seat up R. Very near thewindow seat was the door into the library. The piano stool was only about eight feet from the door into the squarelobby, which led to the corridor. Two very convenient exits! The audience, of course, had an excellent view of both ofthem….
But last night there had been no audience. Nobody, that is to say, had been facing the stage set that Miss Marplewas now facing. The audience, last night, had been sitting with their backs to that particular stage.
How long, Miss Marple wondered, would it have taken to slip out of the room, run along the corridor, shootGulbrandsen and come back? Not nearly so long as one would think. Measured in minutes and seconds, a very shorttime indeed….
What had Carrie Louise meant when she had said to her husband: “So that’s what you believe—but you’re wrong,Lewis!”
“I must say that that was a very penetrating12 remark of the Inspector’s,” Alex’s voice cut in on her meditations13.
“About a stage set being real. Made of wood and cardboard and stuck together with glue and as real on the unpaintedas on the painted side. ‘The illusion,’ he pointed14 out, ‘is in the eyes of the audience.’”
“Like conjurers,” Miss Marple murmured vaguely16. “They do it with mirrors is, I believe, the slang phrase.”
Stephen Restarick came in, slightly out of breath.
“Hullo, Alex,” he said. “That little rat, Ernie Gregg—I don’t know if you remember him?”
“The one who played Feste when you did Twelfth Night? Quite a bit of talent there I thought.”
“Yes, he’s got talent of a sort. Very good with his hands, too. Does a lot of our carpentry. However, that’s neitherhere nor there. He’s been boasting to Gina that he gets out at night and wanders about the grounds. Says he waswandering round last night and boasts he saw something.”
Alex spun17 round.
“Saw what?”
“Says he’s not going to tell! Actually, I’m pretty certain he’s only trying to show off and get into the limelight.
He’s an awful liar18, but I thought perhaps he ought to be questioned.”
Alex said sharply, “I should leave him for a bit. Don’t let him think we’re too interested.”
“Perhaps—yes I think you may be right there. This evening, perhaps.”
Stephen went on into the library.
Miss Marple, moving gently round the Hall in her character of mobile audience, collided with Alex Restarick as hestepped back suddenly.
Miss Marple said, “I’m so sorry.”
Alex frowned at her, said in an absent sort of way,“I beg your pardon,” and then added in a surprised voice, “Oh, it’s you.”
It seemed to Miss Marple an odd remark for someone with whom she had been conversing19 for some considerabletime.
“I was thinking of something else,” said Alex Restarick. “That boy Ernie—” He made vague motions with bothhands.
Then, with a sudden change of manner, he crossed the Hall and went through the library door shutting it behindhim.
The murmur15 of voices came from behind the closed door, but Miss Marple hardly noticed them. She wasuninterested in the versatile20 Ernie and what he had seen or pretended to see. She had a shrewd suspicion that Ernie hadseen nothing at all. She did not believe for a moment that on a cold raw foggy night like last night, Ernie would havetroubled to use his picklocking activities and wander about in the park. In all probability, he never had got out at night.
Boasting, that was all it had been.
“Like Johnnie Backhouse,” thought Miss Marple who always had a good storehouse of parallels to draw upon,selected from inhabitants of St. Mary Mead21.
“I seen you last night,” had been Johnnie Backhouse’s unpleasant taunt22 to all he thought it might affect.
It had been a surprisingly successful remark. So many people, Miss Marple reflected, have been in places wherethey are anxious not to be seen!
She dismissed Johnnie from her mind and concentrated on a vague something which Alex’s account of InspectorCurry’s remarks had stirred to life. Those remarks had given Alex an idea. She was not sure that they had not givenher an idea, too. The same idea? Or a different one?
She stood where Alex Restarick had stood. She thought to herself, “This is not a real hall. This is only cardboardand canvas and wood. This is a stage scene….” Scrappy phrases flashed across her mind. “Illusion—” “In the eyes ofthe audience.” “They do it with mirrors….” Bowls of goldfish … yards of coloured ribbon … vanishing ladies … Allthe panoply23 and misdirection of the conjurer’s art….
Something stirred in her consciousness—a picture—something that Alex had said … something that he haddescribed to her … Constable Dodgett puffing and panting … panting … something shifted in her mind—came intosudden focus….
“Why of course!” said Miss Marple. “That must be it….”
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收听单词发音
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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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2
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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3
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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4
flamboyant
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| adj.火焰般的，华丽的，炫耀的 | |
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5
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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6
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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7
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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8
inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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9
timing
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| n.时间安排，时间选择 | |
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10
puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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11
constable
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| n.(英国)警察，警官 | |
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12
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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13
meditations
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| 默想( meditation的名词复数 )； 默念； 沉思； 冥想 | |
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14
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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15
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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16
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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17
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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18
liar
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| n.说谎的人 | |
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conversing
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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20
versatile
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| adj.通用的，万用的；多才多艺的，多方面的 | |
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21
mead
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| n.蜂蜜酒 | |
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22
taunt
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| n.辱骂，嘲弄；v.嘲弄 | |
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panoply
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| n.全副甲胄，礼服 | |
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