IThe only people who really did justice to Lucy’s excellent lunch were the two boys and Cedric Crackenthorpe whoappeared completely unaffected by the circumstances which had caused him to return to England. He seemed, indeed,to regard the whole thing as a rather good joke of a macabre1 nature.
This attitude, Lucy noted2, was most unpalatable to his brother Harold. Harold seemed to take the murder as a kindof personal insult to the Crackenthorpe family and so great was his sense of outrage3 that he ate hardly any lunch.
Emma looked worried and unhappy and also ate very little. Alfred seemed lost in a train of thought of his own andspoke very little. He was quite a good-looking man with a thin dark face and eyes set rather too close together.
After lunch the police officers returned and politely asked if they could have a few words with Mr. CedricCrackenthorpe.
Inspector5 Craddock was very pleasant and friendly.
“Sit down, Mr. Crackenthorpe. I understand you have just come back from the Balearics? You live out there?”
“Have done for the past six years. In Ibiza. Suits me better than this dreary6 country.”
“You get a good deal more sunshine than we do, I expect,” said Inspector Craddock agreeably. “You were homenot so very long ago, I understand—for Christmas, to be exact. What made it necessary for you to come back again sosoon?”
Cedric grinned.
“Got a wire from Emma—my sister. We’ve never had a murder on the premises7 before. Didn’t want to missanything—so along I came.”
“You are interested in criminology?”
“Oh, we needn’t put it in such highbrow terms! I just like murders—Whodunnits and all that! With a Whodunnitparked right on the family doorstep, it seemed the chance of a lifetime. Besides, I thought poor Em might need a spotof help—managing the old man and the police and all the rest of it.”
“I see. It appealed to your sporting instincts and also to your family feelings. I’ve no doubt your sister will be verygrateful to you—although her two other brothers have also come to be with her.”
“But not to cheer and comfort,” Cedric told him. “Harold is terrifically put out. It’s not at all the thing for a Citymagnate to be mixed up with the murder of a questionable8 female.”
Craddock’s eyebrows9 rose gently.
“Was she—a questionable female?”
“Well, you’re the authority on that point. Going by the facts, it seemed to me likely.”
“I thought perhaps you might have been able to make a guess at who she was?”
“Come now, Inspector, you already know—or your colleagues will tell you, that I haven’t been able to identifyher.”
“I said a guess, Mr. Crackenthorpe. You might never have seen the woman before—but you might have been ableto make a guess at who she was—or who she might have been?”
Cedric shook his head.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree. I’ve absolutely no idea. You’re suggesting, I suppose, that she may have cometo the Long Barn to keep an assignation with one of us? But we none of us live here. The only people in the housewere a woman and an old man. You don’t seriously believe that she came here to keep a date with my revered10 Pop?”
“Our point is—Inspector Bacon agrees with me—that the woman may once have had some association with thishouse. It may have been a considerable number of years ago. Cast your mind back, Mr. Crackenthorpe.”
Cedric thought a moment or two, then shook his head.
“We’ve had foreign help from time to time, like most people, but I can’t think of any likely possibility. Better askthe others—they’d know more than I would.”
“We shall do that, of course.”
Craddock leaned back in his chair and went on:
“As you have heard at the inquest, the medical evidence cannot fix the time of death very accurately11. Longer thantwo weeks, less than four—which brings it somewhere around Christmas-time. You have told me you came home forChristmas. When did you arrive in England and when did you leave?”
Cedric reflected.
“Let me see… I flew. Got here on the Saturday before Christmas—that would be the 21st.”
“You flew straight from Majorca?”
“Yes. Left at five in the morning and got here midday.”
“And you left?”
“I flew back on the following Friday, the 27th.”
“Thank you.”
Cedric grinned.
“Leaves me well within the limit, unfortunately. But really, Inspector, strangling young women is not my favouriteform of Christmas fun.”
“I hope not, Mr. Crackenthorpe.”
Inspector Bacon merely looked disapproving12.
“There would be a remarkable13 absence of peace and good will about such an action, don’t you agree?”
Cedric addressed this question to Inspector Bacon who merely grunted14. Inspector Craddock said politely:
“Well, thank you, Mr. Crackenthorpe. That will be all.”
“And what do you think of him?” Craddock asked as Cedric shut the door behind him.
Bacon grunted again.
“Cocky enough for anything,” he said. “I don’t care for the type myself. A loose-living lot, these artists, and verylikely to be mixed up with a disreputable class of woman.”
Craddock smiled.
“I don’t like the way he dresses, either,” went on Bacon. “No respect—going to an inquest like that. Dirtiest pair oftrousers I’ve seen in a long while. And did you see his tie? Looked as though it was made of coloured string. If youask me, he’s the kind that would easily strangle a woman and make no bones about it.”
“Well, he didn’t strangle this one—if he didn’t leave Majorca until the 21st. And that’s a thing we can verify easilyenough.”
Bacon threw him a sharp glance.
“I notice that you’re not tipping your hand yet about the actual date of the crime.”
“No, we’ll keep that dark for the present. I always like to have something up my sleeve in the early stages.”
Bacon nodded in full agreement.
“Spring it on ’em when the time comes,” he said. “That’s the best plan.”
“And now,” said Craddock, “we’ll see what our correct City gentleman has to say about it all.”
Harold Crackenthorpe, thin-lipped, had very little to say about it. It was most distasteful—a very unfortunateincident. The newspapers, he was afraid… Reporters, he understood, had already been asking for interviews… All thatsort of thing… Most regrettable….
Harold’s staccato unfinished sentences ended. He leaned back in his chair with the expression of a man confrontedwith a very bad smell.
The inspector’s probing produced no result. No, he had no idea who the woman was or could be. Yes, he had beenat Rutherford Hall for Christmas. He had been unable to come down until Christmas Eve—but had stayed on over thefollowing weekend.
“That’s that, then,” said Inspector Craddock, without pressing his questions further. He had already made up hismind that Harold Crackenthorpe was not going to be helpful.
He passed on to Alfred, who came into the room with a nonchalance15 that seemed just a trifle overdone16.
Craddock looked at Alfred Crackenthorpe with a faint feeling of recognition. Surely he had seen this particularmember of the family somewhere before? Or had it been his picture in the paper? There was something discreditableattached to the memory. He asked Alfred his occupation and Alfred’s answer was vague.
“I’m in insurance at the moment. Until recently I’ve been interested in putting a new type of talking machine on themarket. Quite revolutionary. I did very well out of that as a matter of fact.”
Inspector Craddock looked appreciative—and no one could have had the least idea that he was noticing thesuperficially smart appearance of Alfred’s suit and gauging17 correctly the low price it had cost. Cedric’s clothes hadbeen disreputable, almost threadbare, but they had been originally of good cut and excellent material. Here there was acheap smartness that told its own tale. Craddock passed pleasantly on to his routine questions. Alfred seemedinterested—even slightly amused.
“It’s quite an idea, that the woman might once have had a job here. Not as a lady’s maid; I doubt if my sister hasever had such a thing. I don’t think anyone has nowadays. But, of course, there is a good deal of foreign domesticlabour floating about. We’ve had Poles—and a temperamental German or two. As Emma definitely didn’t recognizethe woman, I think that washes your idea out, Inspector, Emma’s got a very good memory for a face. No, if thewoman came from London… What gives you the idea she came from London, by the way?”
He slipped the question in quite casually18, but his eyes were sharp and interested.
Inspector Craddock smiled and shook his head.
Alfred looked at him keenly.
“Not telling, eh? Return ticket in her coat pocket, perhaps, is that it?”
“It could be, Mr. Crackenthorpe.”
“Well, granting she came from London, perhaps the chap she came to meet had the idea that the Long Barn wouldbe a nice place to do a quiet murder. He knows the setup here, evidently. I should go looking for him if I were you,Inspector.”
“We are,” said Inspector Craddock, and made the two little words sound quiet and confident.
He thanked Alfred and dismissed him.
“You know,” he said to Bacon, “I’ve seen that chap somewhere before….”
Inspector Bacon gave his verdict.
“Sharp customer,” he said. “So sharp that he cuts himself sometimes.”
II
“I don’t suppose you want to see me,” said Bryan Eastley apologetically, coming into the room and hesitating by thedoor. “I don’t exactly belong to the family—”
“Let me see, you are Mr. Bryan Eastley, the husband of Miss Edith Crackenthorpe, who died five years ago?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, it’s very kind of you, Mr. Eastley, especially if you know something that you think could assist us in someway?”
“But I don’t. Wish I did. Whole thing seems so ruddy peculiar19, doesn’t it? Coming along and meeting some fellowin that draughty old barn, in the middle of winter. Wouldn’t be my cup of tea!”
“It is certainly very perplexing,” Inspector Craddock agreed.
“Is it true that she was a foreigner? Word seems to have got round to that effect.”
“Does that fact suggest anything to you?” The inspector looked at him sharply, but Bryan seemed amiably21 vacuous22.
“No, it doesn’t, as a matter of fact.”
“Maybe she was French,” said Inspector Bacon, with dark suspicion.
Bryan was roused to slight animation23. A look of interest came into his blue eyes, and he tugged24 at his big fairmoustache.
“Really? Gay Paree?” He shook his head. “On the whole it seems to make it even more unlikely, doesn’t it?
Messing about in the barn, I mean. You haven’t had any other sarcophagus murders, have you? One of these fellowswith an urge—or a complex? Thinks he’s Caligula or someone like that?”
Inspector Craddock did not even trouble to reject this speculation25. Instead he asked in a casual manner:
“Nobody in the family got any French connections, or—or—relationships that you know of?”
Bryan said that the Crackenthorpes weren’t a very gay lot.
“Harold’s respectably married,” he said. “Fish-faced woman, some impoverished26 peer’s daughter. Don’t thinkAlfred cares about women much—spends his life going in for shady deals which usually go wrong in the end. I daresay Cedric’s got a few Spanish se?oritas jumping through hoops27 for him in Ibiza. Women rather fall for Cedric.
Doesn’t always shave and looks as though he never washes. Don’t see why that should be attractive to women, butapparently it is—I say, I’m not being very helpful, am I?”
He grinned at them.
“Better get young Alexander on the job. He and James Stoddart- West are out hunting for clues in a big way. Betyou they turn up something.”
Inspector Craddock said he hoped they would. Then he thanked Bryan Eastley and said he would like to speak toMiss Emma Crackenthorpe.
III
Inspector Craddock looked with more attention at Emma Crackenthorpe than he had done previously28. He was stillwondering about the expression that he had surprised on her face before lunch.
A quiet woman. Not stupid. Not brilliant either. One of those comfortable pleasant women whom men wereinclined to take for granted, and who had the art of making a house into a home, giving it an atmosphere of restfulnessand quiet harmony. Such, he thought, was Emma Crackenthorpe.
Women such as this were often underrated. Behind their quiet exterior29 they had force of character, they were to bereckoned with. Perhaps, Craddock thought, the clue to the mystery of the dead woman in the sarcophagus was hiddenaway in the recesses30 of Emma’s mind.
Whilst these thoughts were passing through his head, Craddock was asking various unimportant questions.
“I don’t suppose there is much that you haven’t already told Inspector Bacon,” he said. “So I needn’t worry youwith many questions.”
“Please ask me anything you like.”
“As Mr. Wimborne told you, we have reached the conclusion that the dead woman was not a native of these parts.
That may be a relief to you—Mr. Wimborne seemed to think it would be—but it makes it really more difficult for us.
She’s less easily identified.”
“But didn’t she have anything—a handbag? Papers?”
Craddock shook his head.
“No handbag, nothing in her pockets.”
“You’ve no idea of her name—of where she came from—anything at all?”
Craddock thought to himself: She wants to know—she’s very anxious to know—who the woman is. Has she feltlike that all along, I wonder? Bacon didn’t give me that impression—and he’s a shrewd man….
“We know nothing about her,” he said. “That’s why we hoped one of you could help us. Are you sure you can’t?
Even if you didn’t recognize her—can you think of anyone she might be?”
He thought, but perhaps he imagined it, that there was a very slight pause before she answered.
“I’ve absolutely no idea,” she said.
Imperceptibly, Inspector Craddock’s manner changed. It was hardly noticeable except as a slight hardness in hisvoice.
“When Mr. Wimborne told you that the woman was a foreigner, why did you assume that she was French?”
Emma was not disconcerted. Her eyebrows rose slightly.
“Did I? Yes, I believe I did. I don’t really know why—except that one always tends to think foreigners are Frenchuntil one finds out what nationality they really are. Most foreigners in this country are French, aren’t they?”
“Oh, I really wouldn’t say that was so, Miss Crackenthorpe. Not nowadays. We have so many nationalities overhere, Italians, Germans, Austrians, all the Scandinavian countries—”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
“You don’t have some special reason for thinking that this woman was likely to be French?”
She didn’t hurry to deny it. She just thought a moment and then shook her head almost regretfully.
“No,” she said. “I really don’t think so.”
Her glance met his placidly31, without flinching32. Craddock looked towards Inspector Bacon. The latter leanedforward and presented a small enamel33 powder compact.
“Do you recognize this, Miss Crackenthorpe?”
She took it and examined it.
“No. It’s certainly not mine.”
“You’ve no idea to whom it belonged?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t think we need worry you anymore—for the present.”
“Thank you.”
She smiled briefly34 at them, got up, and left the room. Again he may have imagined it, but Craddock thought shemoved rather quickly, as though a certain relief hurried her.
“Think she knows anything?” asked Bacon.
Inspector Craddock said ruefully:
“At a certain stage one is inclined to think everyone knows a little more than they are willing to tell you.”
“They usually do, too,” said Bacon out of the depth of his experience. “Only,” he added, “it quite often isn’tanything to do with the business in hand. It’s some family peccadillo35 or some silly scrape that people are afraid isgoing to be dragged into the open.”
“Yes, I know. Well, at least—”
But whatever Inspector Craddock had been about to say never got said, for the door was flung open and old Mr.
Crackenthorpe shuffled36 in in a high state of indignation.
“A pretty pass, when Scotland Yard comes down and doesn’t have the courtesy to talk to the head of the familyfirst! Who’s the master of this house, I’d like to know? Answer me that? Who’s the master here?”
“You are, of course, Mr. Crackenthorpe,” said Craddock soothingly37 and rising as he spoke4. “But we understoodthat you had already told Inspector Bacon all you know, and that, your health not being good, we must not make toomany demands upon it. Dr. Quimper said—”
“I dare say—I dare say. I’m not a strong man… As for Dr. Quimper, he’s a regular old woman—perfectly gooddoctor, understands my case—but inclined to wrap me up in cotton-wool. Got a bee in his bonnet38 about food. Went onat me Christmas-time when I had a bit of a turn—what did I eat? When? Who cooked it? Who served it? Fuss, fuss,fuss! But though I may have indifferent health, I’m well enough to give you all the help that’s in my power. Murder inmy own house—or at any rate in my own barn! Interesting building, that. Elizabethan. Local architect says not—butfellow doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Not a day later than 1580—but that’s not what we’re talking about.
What do you want to know? What’s your present theory?”
“It’s a little too early for theories, Mr. Crackenthorpe. We are still trying to find out who the woman was.”
“Foreigner, you say?”
“We think so.”
“Enemy agent?”
“Unlikely, I should say.”
“You’d say—you’d say! They’re everywhere, these people. Infiltrating39! Why the Home Office lets them in beatsme. Spying on industrial secrets, I’d bet. That’s what she was doing.”
“In Brackhampton?”
“Factories everywhere. One outside my own back gate.”
Craddock shot an inquiring glance at Bacon who responded.
“Metal Boxes.”
“How do you know that’s what they’re really making? Can’t swallow all these fellows tell you. All right, if shewasn’t a spy, who do you think she was? Think she was mixed up with one of my precious sons? It would be Alfred, ifso. Not Harold, he’s too careful. And Cedric doesn’t condescend40 to live in this country. All right, then, she wasAlfred’s bit of skirt. And some violent fellow followed her down here, thinking she was coming to meet him and didher in. How’s that?”
Inspector Craddock said diplomatically that it was certainly a theory. But Mr. Alfred Crackenthorpe, he said, hadnot recognized her.
“Pah! Afraid, that’s all! Alfred always was a coward. But he’s a liar20, remember, always was! Lie himself black inthe face. None of my sons are any good. Crowd of vultures, waiting for me to die, that’s their real occupation in life,”
he chuckled41. “And they can wait. I won’t die to oblige them! Well, if that’s all I can do for you… I’m tired. Got torest.”
He shuffled out again.
“Alfred’s bit of skirt?” said Bacon questioningly. “In my opinion the old man just made that up,” he paused,hesitated. “I think, personally, Alfred’s quite all right—perhaps a shifty customer in some ways—but not our presentcup of tea. Mind you—I did just wonder about that Air Force chap.”
“Bryan Eastley?”
“Yes. I’ve run into one or two of his type. They’re what you might call adrift in the world—had danger and deathand excitement too early in life. Now they find life tame. Tame and unsatisfactory. In a way, we’ve given them a rawdeal. Though I don’t really know what we could do about it. But there they are, all past and no future, so to speak. Andthey’re the kind that don’t mind taking chances—the ordinary fellow plays safe by instinct, it’s not so much moralityas prudence42. But these fellows aren’t afraid—playing safe isn’t really in their vocabulary. If Eastley were mixed upwith a woman and wanted to kill her…” He stopped, threw out a hand hopelessly. “But why should he want to killher? And if you do kill a woman, why plant her in your father-in-law’s sarcophagus? No, if you ask me, none of thislot had anything to do with the murder. If they had, they wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble of planting the body ontheir own back door step, so to speak.”
Craddock agreed that that hardly made sense.
“Anything more you want to do here?”
Craddock said there wasn’t.
Bacon suggested coming back to Brackhampton and having a cup of tea—but Inspector Craddock said that he wasgoing to call on an old acquaintance.
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macabre
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| adj.骇人的，可怖的 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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outrage
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| n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒 | |
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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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inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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dreary
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premises
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questionable
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eyebrows
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revered
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accurately
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disapproving
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remarkable
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grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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nonchalance
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| n.冷淡，漠不关心 | |
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overdone
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gauging
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casually
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peculiar
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liar
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amiably
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vacuous
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animation
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tugged
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speculation
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impoverished
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hoops
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previously
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exterior
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recesses
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placidly
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flinching
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enamel
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briefly
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peccadillo
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shuffled
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soothingly
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bonnet
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infiltrating
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condescend
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41
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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42
prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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