I“G irl! You, girl! Come in here.”
Lucy turned her head, surprised. Old Mr. Crackenthorpe was beckoning1 to her fiercely from just inside a door.
“You want me, Mr. Crackenthorpe?”
“Don’t talk so much. Come in here.”
Lucy obeyed the imperative2 finger. Old Mr. Crackenthorpe took hold of her arm and pulled her inside the door andshut it.
“Want to show you something,” he said.
Lucy looked round her. They were in a small room evidently designed to be used as a study, but equally evidentlynot used as such for a very long time. There were piles of dusty papers on the desk and cobwebs festooned from thecorners of the ceiling. The air smelt3 damp and musty.
“Do you want me to clean this room?” she asked.
Old Mr. Crackenthorpe shook his head fiercely.
“No, you don’t! I keep this room locked up. Emma would like to fiddle4 about in here, but I don’t let her. It’s myroom. See these stones? They’re geological specimens5.”
Lucy looked at a collection of twelve or fourteen lumps of rock, some polished and some rough.
“Lovely,” she said kindly6. “Most interesting.”
“You’re quite right. They are interesting. You’re an intelligent girl. I don’t show them to everybody. I’ll show yousome more things.”
“It’s very kind of you, but I ought really to get on with what I was doing. With six people in the house—”
“Eating me out of house and home… That’s all they do when they come down here! Eat. They don’t offer to payfor what they eat, either. Leeches7! All waiting for me to die. Well, I’m not going to die just yet—I’m not going to dieto please them. I’m a lot stronger than even Emma knows.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“I’m not so old, either. She makes out I’m an old man, treats me as an old man. You don’t think I’m old, do you?”
“Of course not,” said Lucy.
“Sensible girl. Take a look at this.”
He indicated a large faded chart which hung on the wall. It was, Lucy saw, a genealogical tree; some of it done sofinely that one would have to have a magnifying glass to read the names. The remote forebears, however, were writtenin large proud capitals with crowns over the names.
“Descended from Kings,” said Mr. Crackenthorpe. “My mother’s family tree, that is—not my father’s. He was avulgarian! Common old man! Didn’t like me. I was a cut above him always. Took after my mother’s side. Had anatural feeling for art and classical sculpture—he couldn’t see anything in it—silly old fool. Don’t remember mymother—died when I was two. Last of her family. They were sold up and she married my father. But you look there—Edward the Confessor—Ethelred the Unready—whole lot of them. And that was before the Normans came. Before theNormans—that’s something isn’t it?”
“It is indeed.”
“Now I’ll show you something else.” He guided her across the room to an enormous piece of dark oak furniture.
Lucy was rather uneasily conscious of the strength of the fingers clutching her arm. There certainly seemed nothingfeeble about old Mr. Crackenthorpe today. “See this? Came out of Lushington—that was my mother’s people’s place.
Elizabethan, this is. Takes four men to move it. You don’t know what I keep inside it, do you? Like me to show you?”
“Do show me,” said Lucy politely.
“Curious, aren’t you? All women are curious.” He took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door of the lowercupboard. From this he took out a surprisingly new-looking cash box. This, again, he unlocked.
“Take a look here, my dear. Know what these are?”
He lifted out a small paper-wrapped cylinder8 and pulled away the paper from one end. Gold coins trickled9 out intohis palm.
“Look at these, young lady. Look at ’em, hold ’em, touch ’em. Know what they are? Bet you don’t! You’re tooyoung. Sovereigns—that’s what they are. Good golden sovereigns. What we used before all these dirty bits of papercame into fashion. Worth a lot more than silly pieces of paper. Collected them a long time back. I’ve got other thingsin this box, too. Lots of things put away in here. All ready for the future. Emma doesn’t know—nobody knows. It’sour secret, see, girl? D’you know why I’m telling you and showing you?”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want you to think I’m a played-out sick old man. Lots of life in the old dog yet. My wife’s beendead a long time. Always objecting to everything, she was. Didn’t like the names I gave the children—good Saxonnames—no interest in that family tree. I never paid any attention to what she said, though—and she was a poor-spirited creature—always gave in. Now you’re a spirited filly—a very nice filly indeed. I’ll give you some advice.
Don’t throw yourself away on a young man. Young men are fools! You want to take care of your future. You wait…”
His fingers pressed into Lucy’s arm. He leaned to her ear. “I don’t say more than that. Wait. Those silly fools think I’mgoing to die soon. I’m not. Shouldn’t be surprised if I outlived the lot of them. And then we’ll see! Oh, yes, then we’llsee. Harold’s got no children. Cedric and Alfred aren’t married. Emma—Emma will never marry now. She’s a bitsweet on Quimper—but Quimper will never think of marrying Emma. There’s Alexander, of course. Yes, there’sAlexander… But, you know, I’m fond of Alexander… Yes, that’s awkward. I’m fond of Alexander.”
He paused for a moment, frowning, then said:
“Well, girl, what about it? What about it, eh?”
“Miss Eyelesbarrow….”
Emma’s voice came faintly through the closed study door. Lucy seized gratefully at the opportunity.
“Miss Crackenthorpe’s calling me. I must go. Thank you so much for all you have shown me….”
“Don’t forget…our secret….”
“I won’t forget,” said Lucy, and hurried out into the hall not quite certain as to whether she had or had not justreceived a conditional10 proposal of marriage.
II
Dermot Craddock sat at his desk in his room at New Scotland Yard. He was slumped11 sideways in an easy attitude, andwas talking into the telephone receiver which he held with one elbow propped12 up on the table. He was speaking inFrench, a language in which he was tolerably proficient13.
“It was only an idea, you understand,” he said.
“But decidedly it is an idea,” said the voice at the other end, from the Prefecture in Paris. “Already I have setinquiries in motion in those circles. My agent reports that he has two or three promising16 lines of inquiry17. Unless thereis some family life—or a lover, these women drop out of circulation very easily and no one troubles about them. Theyhave gone on tour, or there is some new man—it is no one’s business to ask. It is a pity that the photograph you sentme is so difficult for anyone to recognize. Strangulation it does not improve the appearance. Still, that cannot behelped. I go now to study the latest reports of my agents on this matter. There will be, perhaps, something. Au revoir,mon cher.”
As Craddock reiterated18 the farewell politely, a slip of paper was placed before him on the desk. It read:
Miss Emma Crackenthorpe.
To see Detective-Inspector19 Craddock.
Rutherford Hall case.
He replaced the receiver and said to the police constable20:
“Bring Miss Crackenthorpe up.”
As he waited, he leaned back in his chair, thinking.
So he had not been mistaken—there was something that Emma Crackenthorpe knew—not much, perhaps, butsomething. And she had decided14 to tell him.
He rose to his feet as she was shown in, shook hands, settled her in a chair and offered her a cigarette which sherefused. Then there was a momentary21 pause. She was trying, he decided, to find just the words she wanted. He leanedforward.
“You have come to tell me something, Miss Crackenthorpe? Can I help you? You’ve been worried aboutsomething, haven’t you? Some little thing, perhaps, that you feel probably has nothing to do with the case, but on theother hand, just might be related to it. You’ve come here to tell me about it, haven’t you? It’s to do, perhaps, with theidentity of the dead woman. You think you know who she was?”
“No, no, not quite that. I think really it’s most unlikely. But—”
“But there is some possibility that worries you. You’d better tell me about it—because we may be able to set yourmind at rest.”
Emma took a moment or two before speaking. Then she said:
“You have seen three of my brothers. I had another brother, Edmund, who was killed in the war. Shortly before hewas killed, he wrote to me from France.”
She opened her handbag and took out a worn and faded letter. She read from it:
“I hope this won’t be a shock to you, Emmie, but I’m getting married—to a French girl. It’s all been very sudden—but I know you’ll be fond of Martine—and look after her if anything happens to me. Will write you all the details inmy next—by which time I shall be a married man. Break it gently to the old man, won’t you? He’ll probably go up insmoke.”
Inspector Craddock held out a hand. Emma hesitated, then put the letter into it. She went on, speaking rapidly.
“Two days after receiving this letter, we had a telegram saying Edmund was Missing, believed killed. Later he wasdefinitely reported killed. It was just before Dunkirk—and a time of great confusion. There was no Army record, as faras I could find out, of his having been married—but as I say, it was a confused time. I never heard anything from thegirl. I tried, after the war, to make some inquiries15, but I only knew her Christian22 name and that part of France had beenoccupied by the Germans and it was difficult to find out anything, without knowing the girl’s surname and more abouther. In the end I assumed that the marriage had never taken place and that the girl had probably married someone elsebefore the end of the war, or might possibly herself have been killed.”
Inspector Craddock nodded. Emma went on.
“Imagine my surprise to receive a letter just about a month ago, signed Martine Crackenthorpe.”
“You have it?”
Emma took it from her bag and handed it to him. Craddock read it with interest. It was written in a slanting23 Frenchhand—an educated hand.
Dear Mademoiselle,
I hope it will not be a shock to you to get this letter. I do not even know if your brother Edmund told youthat we were married.
He said he was going to do so. He was killed only a few days after our marriage and at the same timethe Germans occupied our village. After the war ended, I decided that I would not write to you or approachyou, though Edmund had told me to do so. But by then I had made a new life for myself, and it was notnecessary.
But now things have changed. For my son’s sake I write this letter.
He is your brother’s son, you see, and I— I can no longer give him the advantages he ought to have. Iam coming to England early next week. Will you let me know if I can come and see you? My address forletters is 126 Elvers Crescent, N.10. I hope again this will not be the great shock to you.
I remain with assurance of my excellent sentiments,Martine Crackenthorpe
Craddock was silent for a moment or two. He reread the letter carefully before handing it back.
“What did you do on receipt of this letter, Miss Crackenthorpe?”
“My brother-in-law, Bryan Eastley, happened to be staying with me at the time and I talked to him about it. Then Irang up my brother Harold in London and consulted him about it. Harold was rather sceptical about the whole thingand advised extreme caution. We must, he said, go carefully into this woman’s credentials24.”
Emma paused and then went on:
“That, of course, was only common sense and I quite agreed. But if this girl—woman—was really the Martineabout whom Edmund had written to me, I felt that we must make her welcome. I wrote to the address she gave in herletters, inviting25 her to come down to Rutherford Hall and meet us. A few days later I received a telegram fromLondon: Very sorry forced to return to France unexpectedly. Martine. There was no further letter or news of anykind.”
“All this took place—when?”
Emma frowned.
“It was shortly before Christmas. I know, because I wanted to suggest her spending Christmas with us—but myfather would not hear of it—so I suggested she could come down the weekend after Christmas while the family wouldstill be there. I think the wire saying she was returning to France came actually a few days before Christmas.”
“And you believe that this woman whose body was found in the sarcophagus might be this Martine?”
“No, of course I don’t. But when you said she was probably a foreigner—well, I couldn’t help wondering…ifperhaps….”
Her voice died away.
Craddock spoke26 quickly and reassuringly27.
“You did quite right to tell me about this. We’ll look into it. I should say there is probably little doubt that thewoman who wrote to you actually did go back to France and is there now alive and well. On the other hand, there is acertain coincidence of dates, as you yourself have been clever enough to realize. As you heard at the inquest, thewoman’s death according to the police surgeon’s evidence must have occurred about three to four weeks ago. Nowdon’t worry, Miss Crackenthorpe, just leave it to us.” He added casually28, “You consulted Mr. Harold Crackenthorpe.
What about your father and your other brothers?”
“I had to tell my father, of course. He got very worked up,” she smiled faintly. “He was convinced it was a put upthing to get money out of us. My father gets very excited about money. He believes, or pretends to believe, that he is avery poor man, and that he must save every penny he can. I believe elderly people do get obsessions29 of that kindsometimes. It’s not true, of course, he has a very large income and doesn’t actually spend a quarter of it—or used notto until these days of high income tax. Certainly he has a large amount of savings30 put by.” She paused and then wenton. “I told my other two brothers also. Alfred seemed to consider it rather a joke, though he, too, thought it was almostcertainly an imposture31. Cedric just wasn’t interested—he’s inclined to be self-centred. Our idea was that the familywould receive Martine, and that our lawyer, Mr. Wimborne, should also be asked to be present.”
“What did Mr. Wimborne think about the letter?”
“We hadn’t got as far as discussing the matter with him. We were on the point of doing so when Martine’stelegram arrived.”
“You have taken no further steps?”
“Yes. I wrote to the address in London with Please forward on the envelope, but I have had no reply of any kind.”
“Rather a curious business… Hm….”
He looked at her sharply.
“What do you yourself think about it?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
“What were your reactions at the time? Did you think the letter was genuine—or did you agree with your fatherand brothers? What about your brother-in-law, by the way, what did he think?”
“Oh, Bryan thought that the letter was genuine.”
“And you?”
“I—wasn’t sure.”
“And what were your feelings about it—supposing that this girl really was your brother Edmund’s widow?”
Emma’s face softened32.
“I was very fond of Edmund. He was my favourite brother. The letter seemed to me exactly the sort of letter that agirl like Martine would write under the circumstances. The course of events she described was entirely33 natural. Iassumed that by the time the war ended she had either married again or was with some man who was protecting herand the child. Then perhaps, this man had died, or left her, and it then seemed right to her to apply to Edmund’s family—as he himself had wanted her to do. The letter seemed genuine and natural to me—but, of course, Harold pointedout that if it was written by an imposter, it would be written by some woman who had known Martine and who was inpossession of all the facts, and so would write a thoroughly34 plausible35 letter. I had to admit the justice of that—but allthe same….”
She stopped.
“You wanted it to be true?” said Craddock gently.
She looked at him gratefully.
“Yes, I wanted it to be true. I would be so glad if Edmund had left a son.”
Craddock nodded.
“As you say, the letter, on the face of it, sounds genuine enough. What is surprising is the sequel; MartineCrackenthorpe’s abrupt36 departure for Paris and the fact that you have never heard from her since. You had repliedkindly to her, were prepared to welcome her. Why, even if she had to return to France, did she not write again? Thatis, presuming her to be the genuine article. If she were an imposter, of course, it’s easier to explain. I thought perhapsthat you might have consulted Mr. Wimborne, and that he might have instituted inquiries which alarmed the woman.
That, you tell me, is not so. But it’s still possible that one or other of your brothers may have done something of thekind. It’s possible that this Martine may have had a background that would not stand investigation37. She may haveassumed that she would be dealing38 only with Edmund’s affectionate sister, not with hard-headed suspicious businessmen. She may have hoped to get sums of money out of you for the child (hardly a child now—a boy presumably offifteen or sixteen) without many questions being asked. But instead she found she was going to run up againstsomething quite different. After all, I should imagine that serious legal aspects would arise. If Edmund Crackenthorpeleft a son, born in wedlock39, he would be one of the heirs to your grandfather’s estate?”
Emma nodded.
“Moreover, from what I have been told, he would in due course inherit Rutherford Hall and the land round it—veryvaluable building land, probably, by now.”
Emma looked slightly startled.
“Yes, I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Well, I shouldn’t worry,” said Inspector Craddock. “You did quite right to come and tell me. I shall makeenquiries, but it seems to me highly probable that there is no connection between the woman who wrote the letter (andwho was probably trying to cash in on a swindle) and the woman whose body was found in the sarcophagus.”
Emma rose with a sigh of relief.
“I’m so glad I’ve told you. You’ve been very kind.”
Craddock accompanied her to the door.
Then he rang for Detective-Sergeant Wetherall.
“Bob, I’ve got a job for you. Go to 126 Elvers Crescent, N.10. Take photographs of the Rutherford Hall womanwith you. See what you can find out about a woman calling herself Mrs. Crackenthorpe — Mrs. MartineCrackenthorpe, who was either living there, or calling for letters there, between the dates of, say, 15th to the end ofDecember.”
“Right, sir.”
Craddock busied himself with various other matters that were waiting attention on his desk. In the afternoon hewent to see a theatrical40 agent who was a friend of his. His inquiries were not fruitful.
Later in the day when he returned to his office he found a wire from Paris on his desk.
Particulars given by you might apply to Anna Stravinska of Ballet Maritski. Suggest you come over. Dessin,Prefecture.
Craddock heaved a big sigh of relief, and his brow cleared.
At last! So much, he thought, for the Martine Crackenthorpe hare… He decided to take the night ferry to Paris.
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1
beckoning
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| adj.引诱人的，令人心动的v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的现在分词 ) | |
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imperative
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| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
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smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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fiddle
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| n.小提琴；vi.拉提琴；不停拨弄，乱动 | |
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5
specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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6
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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leeches
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| n.水蛭( leech的名词复数 )；蚂蟥；榨取他人脂膏者；医生 | |
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cylinder
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| n.圆筒，柱(面)，汽缸 | |
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9
trickled
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| v.滴( trickle的过去式和过去分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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10
conditional
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| adj.条件的，带有条件的 | |
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slumped
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| 大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的过去式和过去分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下] | |
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propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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proficient
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| adj.熟练的，精通的；n.能手，专家 | |
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14
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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15
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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reiterated
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| 反复地说，重申( reiterate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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constable
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| n.(英国)警察，警官 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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credentials
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| n.证明，资格，证明书，证件 | |
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inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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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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27
reassuringly
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| ad.安心，可靠 | |
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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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obsessions
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| n.使人痴迷的人（或物）( obsession的名词复数 )；着魔；困扰 | |
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30
savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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31
imposture
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| n.冒名顶替，欺骗 | |
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32
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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39
wedlock
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| n.婚姻，已婚状态 | |
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theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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