Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Eight
IM iss Marple smoothed over the top of her suitcase, tucked in an end of woolly shawl and shut the lid down. Shelooked round her bedroom. No, she had left nothing behind. Crump came in to fetch down her luggage. Miss Marplewent into the next room to say goodbye to Miss Ramsbottom.
“I’m afraid,” said Miss Marple, “that I’ve made a very poor return for your hospitality. I hope you will be able toforgive me someday.”
“Hah,” said Miss Ramsbottom.
She was as usual playing patience.
“Black knave¹, red queen,” she observed, then she darted² a shrewd, sideways glance at Miss Marple. “You foundout what you wanted to, I suppose,” she said.
“Yes.”
“And I suppose you’ve told that police inspector³ all about it? Will he be able to prove a case?”
“I’m almost sure he will,” said Miss Marple. “It may take a little time.”
“I’m not asking you any questions,” said Miss Ramsbottom. “You’re a shrewd woman. I knew that as soon as Isaw you. I don’t blame you for what you’ve done. Wickedness is wickedness and has got to be punished. There’s abad streak⁴ in this family. It didn’t come from our side, I’m thankful to say. Elvira, my sister, was a fool. Nothingworse.
“Black knave,” repeated Miss Ramsbottom, fingering the card. “Handsome, but a black heart. Yes, I was afraid ofit. Ah, well, you can’t always help loving a sinner. The boy always had a way with him. Even got round me . . . Told alie about the time he left me that day. I didn’t contradict him, but I wondered . . . I’ve wondered ever since. But he wasElvira’s boy—I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. Ah well, you’re a righteous woman, Jane Marple, and rightmust prevail. I’m sorry for his wife, though.”
“So am I,” said Miss Marple.
In the hall Pat Fortescue was waiting to say good-bye.
“I wish you weren’t going,” she said. “I shall miss you.”
“It’s time for me to go,” said Miss Marple. “I’ve finished what I came here to do. It hasn’t been—altogetherpleasant. But it’s important, you know, that wickedness shouldn’t triumph.”
Pat looked puzzled.
“I don’t understand.”
“No, my dear. But perhaps you will, someday. If I might venture to advise, if anything ever—goes wrong in yourlife—I think the happiest thing for you would be to go back to where you were happy as a child. Go back to Ireland,my dear. Horses and dogs. All that.”
Pat nodded.
“Sometimes I wish I’d done just that when Freddy died. But if I had”—her voice changed and softened—“I’dnever have met Lance.”
Miss Marple sighed.
“We’re not staying here, you know,” said Pat. “We’re going back to East Africa as soon as everything’s cleared up.
I’m so glad.”
“God bless you, dear child,” said Miss Marple. “One needs a great deal of courage to get through life. I think youhave it.”
She patted the girl’s hand and, releasing it, went through the front door to the waiting taxi.
II
Miss Marple reached home late that evening.
Kitty—the latest graduate from St. Faith’s Home—let her in and greeted her with a beaming face.
“I’ve got a herring for your supper, miss. I’m so glad to see you home—you’ll find everything very nice in thehouse. Regular spring cleaning I’ve had.”
“That’s very nice, Kitty—I’m glad to be home.”
Six spider’s webs on the cornice, Miss Marple noted⁵. These girls never raised their heads! She was none the lesstoo kind to say so.
“Your letters is on the hall table, miss. And there’s one as went to Daisymead by mistake. Always doing that, aren’tthey? Does look a bit alike, Dane and Daisy, and the writing’s so bad I don’t wonder this time. They’ve been awaythere and the house shut up, they only got back and sent it round today. Said as how they hoped it wasn’t important.”
Miss Marple picked up her correspondence. The letter to which Kitty had referred was on top of the others. A faintchord of remembrance stirred in Miss Marple’s mind at the sight of the blotted⁶ scrawled⁷ handwriting. She tore it open.
Dear Madam,
I hope as you’ll forgive me writing this but I really don’t know what to do indeed I don’t and I never meant noharm. Dear madam, you’ll have seen the newspapers it was murder they say but it wasn’t me that did it, not really,because I would never do anything wicked like that and I know as how he wouldn’t either. Albert, I mean. I’mtelling this badly, but you see we met last summer and was going to be married only Bert hadn’t got his rights, he’dbeen done out of them, swindled by this Mr. Fortescue who’s dead. And Mr. Fortescue he just denied everythingand of course everybody believed him and not Bert because he was rich and Bert was poor. But Bert had a friendwho works in a place where they make these new drugs and there’s what they call a truth drug you’ve read about itperhaps in the paper and it makes people speak the truth whether they want to or not. Bert was going to see Mr.
Fortescue in his office on Nov. 5th and taking a lawyer with him and I was to be sure to give him the drug atbreakfast that morning and then it would work just right for when they came and he’d admit as all what Bert saidwas quite true. Well, madam, I put it in the marmalade but now he’s dead and I think as how it must have been toostrong but it wasn’t Bert’s fault because Bert would never do a thing like that but I can’t tell the police becausemaybe they’d think Bert did it on purpose which I know he didn’t. Oh, madam, I don’t know what to do or what tosay and the police are here in the house and it’s awful and they ask you questions and look at you so stern and Idon’t know what to do and I haven’t heard from Bert. Oh, madam, I don’t like to ask it of you but if you could onlycome here and help me they’d listen to you and you were always so kind to me, and I didn’t mean anything wrongand Bert didn’t either. If you could only help us. Yours respectfully,Gladys Martin.
P. S.—I’m enclosing a snap of Bert and me. One of the boys took it at the camp and give it me. Bert doesn’tknow I’ve got it—he hates being snapped. But you can see, madam, what a nice boy he is.
Miss Marple, her lips pursed together, stared down at the photograph. The pair pictured there were looking at eachother. Miss Marple’s eyes went from Gladys’s pathetic adoring face, the mouth slightly open, to the other face—thedark handsome smiling face of Lance Fortescue.
The last words of the pathetic letter echoed in her mind:
You can see what a nice boy he is.
The tear rose in Miss Marple’s eyes. Succeeding pity, there came anger—anger against a heartless killer⁸.
And then, displacing both these emotions, there came a surge of triumph—the triumph some specialist might feelwho has successfully reconstructed an extinct animal from a fragment of jawbone and a couple of teeth.

1 knave   

n.流氓；（纸牌中的）杰克

参考例句：

• Better be a fool than a knave.宁做傻瓜，不做无赖。
• Once a knave,ever a knave.一次成无赖，永远是无赖。

2 darted   

v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔

参考例句：

• The lizard darted out its tongue at the insect. 蜥蜴伸出舌头去吃小昆虫。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The old man was displeased and darted an angry look at me. 老人不高兴了，瞪了我一眼。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 inspector   

n.检查员，监察员，视察员

参考例句：

• The inspector was interested in everything pertaining to the school.视察员对有关学校的一切都感兴趣。
• The inspector was shining a flashlight onto the tickets.查票员打着手电筒查看车票。

4 streak   

n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动

参考例句：

• The Indians used to streak their faces with paint.印第安人过去常用颜料在脸上涂条纹。
• Why did you streak the tree?你为什么在树上刻条纹？

5 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

6 blotted   

涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干

参考例句：

• She blotted water off the table with a towel. 她用毛巾擦干桌上的水。
• The blizzard blotted out the sky and the land. 暴风雪铺天盖地而来。

7 scrawled   

乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I tried to read his directions, scrawled on a piece of paper. 我尽量弄明白他草草写在一片纸上的指示。
• Tom scrawled on his slate, "Please take it -- I got more." 汤姆在他的写字板上写了几个字：“请你收下吧，我多得是哩。”

8 killer   

n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者

参考例句：

• Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
• The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。