I“S o you’ve turned up again like a bad penny,” said Miss Ramsbottom.
Lance grinned at her. “Just as you say, Aunt Effie.”
“Humph!” Miss Ramsbottom sniffed1 disapprovingly3. “You’ve chosen a nice time to do it. Your father got himselfmurdered yesterday, the house is full of police poking4 about everywhere, grubbing in the dustbins, even. I’ve seenthem out of the window.” She paused, sniffed again, and asked: “Got your wife with you?”
“No. I left Pat in London.”
“That shows some sense. I shouldn’t bring her here if I were you. You never know what might happen.”
“To her? To Pat?”
“To anybody,” said Miss Ramsbottom.
Lance Fortescue looked at her thoughtfully.
“Got any ideas about it all, Aunt Effie?” he asked.
Miss Ramsbottom did not reply directly. “I had an inspector5 here yesterday asking me questions. He didn’t getmuch change out of me. But he wasn’t such a fool as he looked, not by a long way.” She added with some indignation:
“What your grandfather would feel if he knew we had the police in the house—it’s enough to make him turn in hisgrave. A strict Plymouth Brother he was all his life. The fuss there was when he found out I’d been attending Churchof England services in the evening! And I’m sure that was harmless enough compared to murder.”
Normally Lance would have smiled at this, but his long, dark face remained serious. He said:
“D’you know, I’m quite in the dark after having been away so long. What’s been going on here of late?”
Miss Ramsbottom raised her eyes to heaven.
“Godless doings,” she said firmly.
“Yes, yes, Aunt Effie, you would say that anyway. But what gives the police the idea that Dad was killed here, inthis house?”
“Adultery is one thing and murder is another,” said Miss Ramsbottom. “I shouldn’t like to think it of her, Ishouldn’t indeed.”
Lance looked alert. “Adele?” he asked.
“My lips are sealed,” said Miss Ramsbottom.
“Come on, old dear,” said Lance. “It’s a lovely phrase, but it doesn’t mean a thing. Adele had a boyfriend? Adeleand the boyfriend fed him henbane in the morning tea. Is that the setup?”
“I’ll trouble you not to joke about it.”
“I wasn’t really joking, you know.”
“I’ll tell you one thing,” said Miss Ramsbottom suddenly. “I believe that girl knows something about it.”
“Which girl?” Lance looked surprised.
“The one that sniffs,” said Miss Ramsbottom. “The one that ought to have brought me up my tea this afternoon, butdidn’t. Gone out without leave, so they say. I shouldn’t wonder if she had gone to the police. Who let you in?”
“Someone called Mary Dove, I understand. Very meek6 and mild—but not really. Is she the one who’s gone to thepolice?”
“She wouldn’t go to the police,” said Miss Ramsbottom. “No—I mean that silly little parlourmaid. She’s beentwitching and jumping like a rabbit all day. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ I said. ‘Have you got a guilty conscience?’
She said: ‘I never did anything—I wouldn’t do a thing like that.’ ‘I hope you wouldn’t,’ I said to her, ‘but there’ssomething worrying you now, isn’t there?’ Then she began to sniff2 and said she didn’t want to get anybody intotrouble, she was sure it must be all a mistake. I said to her, I said: ‘Now, my girl, you speak the truth and shame thedevil.’ That’s what I said. ‘You go to the police,’ I said, ‘and tell them anything you know, because no good evercame,’ I said, ‘of hushing up the truth, however unpleasant it is.’ Then she talked a lot of nonsense about she couldn’tgo to the police, they’d never believe her and what on earth should she say? She ended up by saying anyway shedidn’t know anything at all.”
“You don’t think,” Lance hesitated, “that she was just making herself important?”
“No, I don’t. I think she was scared. I think she saw something or heard something that’s given her some ideaabout the whole thing. It may be important, or it mayn’t be of the least consequence.”
“You don’t think she herself could’ve had a grudge7 against Father and—” Lance hesitated.
Miss Ramsbottom was shaking her head decidedly.
“She’s not the kind of girl your father would have taken the least notice of. No man ever will take much notice ofher, poor girl. Ah, well, it’s all the better for her soul, that I dare say.”
Lance took no interest in Glady’s soul. He asked:
“You think she may have run along to the police station?”
Aunt Effie nodded vigorously.
“Yes. I think she mayn’t like to’ve said anything to them in this house in case somebody overheard her.”
Lance asked: “Do you think she may have seen someone tampering8 with the food?”
Aunt Effie threw him a sharp glance.
“It’s possible, isn’t it?” she said.
“Yes, I suppose so.” Then he added apologetically: “The whole thing still seems so wildly improbable. Like adetective story.”
“Percival’s wife is a hospital nurse,” said Miss Ramsbottom.
The remark seemed so unconnected with what had gone before that Lance looked at her in a puzzled fashion.
“Hospital nurses are used to handling drugs,” said Miss Ramsbottom.
Lance looked doubtful.
“This stuff—taxine—is it ever used in medicine?”
“They get it from yewberries, I gather. Children eat yewberries sometimes,” said Miss Ramsbottom. “Makes themvery ill, too. I remember a case when I was a child. It made a great impression on me. I never forgot it. Things youremember come in useful sometimes.”
Lance raised his head sharply and stared at her.
“Natural affection is one thing,” said Miss Ramsbottom, “and I hope I’ve got as much of it as anyone. But I won’tstand for wickedness. Wickedness has to be destroyed.”
II
“Went off without a word to me,” said Mrs. Crump, raising her red, wrathful face from the pastry9 she was now rollingout on the board. “Slipped out without a word to anybody. Sly, that’s what it is. Sly! Afraid she’d be stopped, and Iwould have stopped her if I’d caught her! The idea! There’s the master dead, Mr. Lance coming home that hasn’t beenhome for years and I said to Crump, I said: ‘Day out or no day out, I know my duty. There’s not going to be coldsupper tonight as is usual on a Thursday, but a proper dinner. A gentleman coming home from abroad with his wife,what was formerly10 married in the aristocracy, things must be properly done.’ You know me, miss, you know I take apride in my work.”
Mary Dove, the recipient11 of these confidences, nodded her head gently.
“And what does Crump say?” Mrs. Crump’s voice rose angrily. “ ‘It’s my day off and I’m goin’ off,’ that’s what hesays. ‘And a fig12 for the aristocracy,’ he says. No pride in his work, Crump hasn’t. So off he goes and I tell Gladysshe’ll have to manage alone tonight. She just says: ‘All right, Mrs. Crump,’ then, when my back’s turned out shesneaks. It wasn’t her day out, anyway. Friday’s her day. How we’re going to manage now, I don’t know! Thankgoodness Mr. Lance hasn’t brought his wife here with him today.”
“We shall manage, Mrs. Crump,” Mary’s voice was both soothing13 and authoritative14, “if we just simplify the menua little.” She outlined a few suggestions. Mrs. Crump nodded unwilling15 acquiescence16. “I shall be able to serve thatquite easily,” Mary concluded.
“You mean you’ll wait at table yourself, miss?” Mrs. Crump sounded doubtful.
“If Gladys doesn’t come back in time.”
“She won’t come back,” said Mrs. Crump. “Gallivanting off, wasting her money somewhere in the shops. She’s gota young man, you know, miss, though you wouldn’t think it to look at her. Albert his name is. Going to get marriednext spring, so she tells me. Don’t know what the married state’s like, these girls don’t. What I’ve been through withCrump.” She sighed, then said in an ordinary voice: “What about tea, miss. Who’s going to clear it away and wash itup?”
“I’ll do that,” said Mary. “I’ll go and do it now.”
The lights had not been turned on in the drawing room though Adele Fortescue was still sitting on the sofa behindthe tea tray.
“Shall I switch the lights on, Mrs. Fortescue?” Mary asked. Adele did not answer.
Mary switched on the lights and went across to the window, where she pulled the curtains across. It was only thenthat she turned her head and saw the face of the woman who had sagged17 back against the cushions. A half-eaten sconespread with honey was beside her and her tea cup was still half full. Death had come to Adele Fortescue suddenly andswiftly.
III
“Well?” demanded Inspector Neele impatiently.
The doctor said promptly18:
“Cyanide—potassium cyanide probably—in the tea.”
“Cyanide,” muttered Neele.
The doctor looked at him with slight curiosity.
“You’re taking this hard—any special reason—”
“She was cast as a murderess,” said Neele.
“And she turns out to be a victim. Hm. You’ll have to think again, won’t you?”
Neele nodded. His face was bitter and his jaw19 was grimly set.
Poisoned! Right under his nose. Taxine in Rex Fortescue’s breakfast coffee, cyanide in Adele Fortescue’s tea. Stillan intimate family affair. Or so it seemed.
Adele Fortescue, Jennifer Fortescue, Elaine Fortescue and the newly arrived Lance Fortescue had had tea togetherin the library. Lance had gone up to see Miss Ramsbottom, Jennifer had gone to her own sitting room to write letters,Elaine had been the last to leave the library. According to her Adele had then been in perfect health and had just beenpouring herself out a last cup of tea.
A last cup of tea! Yes, it had indeed been her last cup of tea.
And after that a blank twenty minutes, perhaps, until Mary Dove had come into the room and discovered the body.
And during that twenty minutes—
Inspector Neele swore to himself and went out into the kitchen.
Sitting in a chair by the kitchen table, the vast figure of Mrs. Crump, her belligerence20 pricked21 like a balloon, hardlystirred as he came in.
“Where’s that girl? Has she come back yet?”
“Gladys? No—she’s not back—Won’t be, I suspect, until eleven o’clock.”
“She made the tea, you say, and took it in.”
“I didn’t touch it, sir, as God’s my witness. And what’s more I don’t believe Gladys did anything she shouldn’t.
She wouldn’t do a thing like that—not Gladys. She’s a good enough girl, sir—a bit foolish like, that’s all—notwicked.”
No, Neele did not think that Gladys was wicked. He did not think that Gladys was a poisoner. And in any case thecyanide had not been in the teapot.
“But what made her go off suddenly—like this? It wasn’t her day out, you say.”
“No, sir, tomorrow’s her day out.”
“Does Crump—”
Mrs. Crump’s belligerence suddenly revived. Her voice rose wrathfully.
“Don’t you go fastening anything on Crump. Crump’s out of it. He went off at three o’clock—and thankful I amnow that he did. He’s as much out of it as Mr. Percival himself.”
Percival Fortescue had only just returned from London—to be greeted by the astounding22 news of this secondtragedy.
“I wasn’t accusing Crump,” said Neele mildly. “I just wondered if he knew anything about Gladys’s plans.”
“She had her best nylons on,” said Mrs. Crump. “She was up to something. Don’t tell me! Didn’t cut anysandwiches for tea, either. Oh yes, she was up to something. I’ll give her a piece of my mind when she comes back.”
When she comes back—
A faint uneasiness possessed23 Neele. To shake it off he went upstairs to Adele Fortescue’s bedroom. A lavishapartment—all rose brocade hanging and a vast gilt24 bed. On one side of the room was a door into a mirror-linedbathroom with a sunk orchid-pink porcelain25 bath. Beyond the bathroom, reached by a communicating door, was RexFortescue’s dressing26 room. Neele went back into Adele’s bedroom, and through the door on the farther side of theroom into her sitting room.
The room was furnished in Empire style with a rose pile carpet. Neele only gave it a cursory27 glance for thatparticular room had had his close attention on the preceding day—with special attention paid to the small elegant desk.
Now, however, he stiffened28 to sudden attention. On the centre of the rose pile carpet was a small piece of cakedmud.
Neele went over to it and picked it up. The mud was still damp.
He looked round—there were no footprints visible—only this one isolated29 fragment of wet earth.
IV
Inspector Neele looked round the bedroom that belonged to Gladys Martin. It was past eleven o’clock—Crump hadcome in half an hour ago—but there was still no sign of Gladys. Inspector Neele looked round him. WhateverGladys’s training had been, her own natural instincts were slovenly30. The bed, Inspector Neele judged, was seldommade, the windows seldom opened. Gladys’s personal habits, however, were not his immediate31 concern. Instead, hewent carefully through her possessions.
They consisted for the most part of cheap and rather pathetic finery. There was little that was durable32 or of goodquality. The elderly Ellen, whom he had called upon to assist him, had not been helpful. She didn’t know what clothesGladys had or hadn’t. She couldn’t say what, if anything, was missing. He turned from the clothes and theunderclothes to the contents of the chest of drawers. There Gladys kept her treasures. There were picture postcards andnewspaper cuttings, knitting patterns, hints on beauty culture, dressmaking and fashion advice.
Inspector Neele sorted them neatly33 into various categories. The picture postcards consisted mainly of views ofvarious places where he presumed Gladys had spent her holidays. Amongst them were three picture postcards signed“Bert.” Bert, he took to be the “young man” referred to by Mrs. Crump. The first postcard said—in an illiterate34 hand:
“All the best. Missing you a lot. Yours ever, Bert.” The second said: “Lots of nice-looking girls here but not one that’sa patch on you. Be seeing you soon. Don’t forget our date. And remember after that—it’s thumbs up and living happyever after.” The third said merely: “Don’t forget. I’m trusting you. Love, B.”
Next, Neele looked through the newspaper cuttings and sorted them into three piles. There were the dressmakingand beauty hints, there were items about cinema stars to which Gladys had appeared greatly addicted35 and she had also,it appeared, been attracted by the latest marvels36 of science. There were cuttings about flying saucers, about secretweapons, about truth drugs used by Russians, and claims for fantastic drugs discovered by American doctors. All thewitchcraft, so Neele thought, of our twentieth century. But in all the contents of the room there was nothing to givehim a clue to her disappearance37. She had kept no diary, not that he had expected that. It was a remote possibility.
There was no unfinished letter, no record at all of anything she might have seen in the house which could have had abearing on Rex Fortescue’s death. Whatever Gladys had seen, whatever Gladys had known, there was no record of it.
It would still have to be guesswork why the second tea tray had been left in the hall, and Gladys herself had sosuddenly vanished.
Sighing, Neele left the room, shutting the door behind him.
As he prepared to descend38 the small winding39 stairs he heard a noise of running feet coming along the landingbelow.
The agitated40 face of Sergeant41 Hay looked up at him from the bottom of the stairs. Sergeant Hay was panting a little.
“Sir,” he said urgently. “Sir! We’ve found her—”
“Found her?”
“It was the housemaid, sir—Ellen—remembered as she hadn’t brought the clothes in from where they werehanging on the line—just round the corner from the back door. So she went out with a torch to take them in and shealmost fell over the body—the girl’s body—strangled, she was, with a stocking round her throat—been dead for hours,I’d say. And, sir, it’s a wicked kind of joke—there was a clothes-peg clipped on her nose—”
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收听单词发音
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1
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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sniff
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| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
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disapprovingly
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| adv.不以为然地，不赞成地，非难地 | |
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4
poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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grudge
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| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
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tampering
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| v.窜改( tamper的现在分词 )；篡改；（用不正当手段）影响；瞎摆弄 | |
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pastry
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| n.油酥面团，酥皮糕点 | |
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formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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recipient
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| a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器 | |
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fig
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| n.无花果(树) | |
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soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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authoritative
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| adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的 | |
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unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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acquiescence
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| n.默许；顺从 | |
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sagged
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| 下垂的 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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belligerence
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| n.交战，好战性，斗争性 | |
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pricked
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| 刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛 | |
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astounding
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| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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porcelain
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| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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cursory
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| adj.粗略的；草率的；匆促的 | |
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stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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slovenly
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| adj.懒散的，不整齐的，邋遢的 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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durable
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| adj.持久的，耐久的 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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illiterate
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| adj.文盲的；无知的；n.文盲 | |
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addicted
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marvels
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| n.奇迹( marvel的名词复数 )；令人惊奇的事物（或事例）；不平凡的成果；成就v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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