J ason Rudd looked up as Gilchrist entered.
“There’s an old dame1 downstairs,” said the doctor; “looks about a hundred. Wants to see you. Won’t take no andsays she’ll wait. She’ll wait till this afternoon, I gather, or she’ll wait till this evening and she’s quite capable, I shouldsay, of spending the night here. She’s got something she badly wants to say to you. I’d see her if I were you.”
Jason Rudd looked up from his desk. His face was white and strained.
“Is she mad?”
“No. Not in the least.”
“I don’t see why I—Oh, all right—send her up. What does it matter?”
Gilchrist nodded, went out of the room and called to Hailey Preston.
“Mr. Rudd can spare you a few minutes now, Miss Marple,” said Hailey Preston, appearing again by her side.
“Thank you. That’s very kind of him,” said Miss Marple as she rose to her feet. “Have you been with Mr. Ruddlong?” she asked.
“Why, I’ve worked with Mr. Rudd for the last two and a half years. My job is public relations generally.”
“I see.” Miss Marple looked at him thoughtfully. “You remind me very much,” she said, “of someone I knewcalled Gerald French.”
“Indeed? What did Gerald French do?”
“Not very much,” said Miss Marple, “but he was a very good talker.” She sighed. “He had had an unfortunatepast.”
“You don’t say,” said Hailey Preston, slightly ill at ease. “What kind of a past?”
“I won’t repeat it,” said Miss Marple. “He didn’t like it talked about.”
Jason Rudd rose from his desk and looked with some surprise at the slender elderly lady who was advancingtowards him.
“You wanted to see me?” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“I am very sorry about your wife’s death,” said Miss Marple. “I can see it has been a great grief to you and I wantyou to believe that I should not intrude2 upon you now or offer you sympathy unless it was absolutely necessary. Butthere are things that need badly to be cleared up unless an innocent man is going to suffer.”
“An innocent man? I don’t understand you.”
“Arthur Badcock,” said Miss Marple. “He is with the police now, being questioned.”
“Questioned in connection with my wife’s death? But that’s absurd, absolutely absurd. He’s never been near theplace. He didn’t even know her.”
“I think he knew her,” said Miss Marple. “He was married to her once.”
“Arthur Badcock? But—he was—he was Heather Badcock’s husband. Aren’t you perhaps—” he spoke3 kindly4 andapologetically— “Making a little mistake?”
“He was married to both of them,” said Miss Marple. “He was married to your wife when she was very young,before she went into pictures.”
Jason Rudd shook his head.
“My wife was first married to a man called Alfred Beadle. He was in real estate. They were not suited and theyparted almost immediately.”
“Then Alfred Beadle changed his name to Badcock,” said Miss Marple. “He’s in a real estate firm here. It’s oddhow some people never seem to like to change their job and want to go on doing the same thing. I expect really that’swhy Marina Gregg felt that he was no use to her. He couldn’t have kept up with her.”
“What you’ve told me is most surprising.”
“I can assure you that I am not romancing or imagining things. What I am telling you is sober fact. These things getround very quickly in a village, you know, though they take a little longer,” she added, “in reaching the Hall.”
“Well,” Jason Rudd stalled, uncertain what to say, then he accepted the position, “and what do you want me to dofor you, Miss Marple?” he asked.
“I want, if I may, to stand on the stairs at the spot where you and your wife received guests on the day of the fête.”
He shot a quick doubtful glance at her. Was this, after all, just another sensation-seeker? But Miss Marple’s facewas grave and composed.
“Why certainly,” he said, “if you want to do so. Come with me.”
He led her to the staircase head and paused in the hollowed-out bay at the top of it.
“You’ve made a good many changes in the house since the Bantrys were here,” said Miss Marple. “I like this.
Now, let me see. The tables would be about here, I suppose, and you and your wife would be standing5—”
“My wife stood here.” Jason showed her the place. “People came up the stairs, she shook hands with them andpassed them on to me.”
“She stood here,” said Miss Marple.
She moved over and took her place where Marina Gregg had stood. She remained there quite quietly withoutmoving. Jason Rudd watched her. He was perplexed6 but interested. She raised her right hand slightly as thoughshaking, looked down the stairs as though to see people coming up it. Then she looked straight ahead of her. On thewall halfway7 up the stairs was a large picture, a copy of an Italian Old Master. On either side of it were narrowwindows, one giving out on the garden and the other giving on to the end of the stables and the weathercock. But MissMarple looked at neither of these. Her eyes were fixed8 on the picture itself.
“Of course you always hear a thing right the first time,” she said. “Mrs. Bantry told me that your wife stared at thepicture and her face ‘froze,’ as she put it.” She looked at the rich red and blue robes of the Madonna, a Madonna withher head slightly back, laughing up at the Holy Child that she was holding up in her arms. “Giacomo Bellini’s‘Laughing Madonna,’” she said. “A religious picture, but also a painting of a happy mother with her child. Isn’t that soMr. Rudd?”
“I would say so, yes.”
“I understand now,” said Miss Marple. “I understand quite well. The whole thing is really very simple, isn’t it?”
She looked at Jason Rudd.
“Simple?”
“I think you know how simple it is,” said Miss Marple. There was a peal9 on the bell below.
“I don’t think,” said Jason Rudd, “I quite understand.” He looked down the stairway. There was a sound of voices.
“I know that voice,” said Miss Marple. “It’s Inspector10 Craddock’s voice, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it seems to be Inspector Craddock.”
“He wants to see you, too. Would you mind very much if he joined us?”
“Not at all as far as I am concerned. Whether he will agree—”
“I think he will agree,” said Miss Marple. “There’s really not much time now to be lost is there? We’ve got to themoment when we’ve got to understand just how everything happened.”
“I thought you said it was simple,” said Jason Rudd.
“It was so simple,” said Miss Marple, “that one just couldn’t see it.”
The decayed butler arrived at this moment up the stairs.
“Inspector Craddock is here, sir,” he said.
“Ask him to join us here, please,” said Jason Rudd.
The butler disappeared again and a moment or two later Dermot Craddock came up the stairs.
“You!” he said to Miss Marple, “how did you get here?”
“I came in Inch,” said Miss Marple, producing the usual confused effect that that remark always caused.
From slightly behind her Jason Rudd rapped his forehead interrogatively. Dermot Craddock shook his head.
“I was saying to Mr. Rudd,” said Miss Marple, “—has the butler gone away—”
Dermot Craddock cast a look down the stairs.
“Oh, yes,” he said, “he’s not listening. Sergeant11 Tiddler will see to that.”
“Then that is all right,” said Miss Marple. “We could of course have gone into a room to talk, but I prefer it likethis. Here we are on the spot where the thing happened, which makes it so much easier to understand.”
“You are talking,” said Jason Rudd, “of the day of the fête here, the day when Heather Badcock was poisoned.”
“Yes,” said Miss Marple, “and I’m saying that it is all very simple if one only looks at it in the proper way. It allbegan, you see, with Heather Badcock being the kind of person she was. It was inevitable12, really, that something ofthat kind should happen some day to Heather.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” said Jason Rudd. “I don’t understand at all.”
“No, it has to be explained a little. You see, when my friend, Mrs. Bantry who was here, described the scene to me,she quoted a poem that was a great favourite in my youth, a poem of dear Lord Tennyson’s. ‘The Lady of Shalott.’”
She raised her voice a little.
“The mirror crack’d from side to side;
‘The Curse is come upon me,’ cried
The Lady of Shalott.
That’s what Mrs. Bantry saw, or thought she saw, though actually she misquoted and said doom13 instead of curse—perhaps a better word in the circumstances. She saw your wife speaking to Heather Badcock and heard HeatherBadcock speaking to your wife and she saw this look of doom on your wife’s face.”
“Haven’t we been over that a great many times?” said Jason Rudd.
“Yes, but we shall have to go over it once more,” said Miss Marple. “There was that expression on your wife’s faceand she was looking not at Heather Badcock but at that picture. At a picture of a laughing, happy mother holding up ahappy child. The mistake was that though there was doom foreshadowed in Marina Gregg’s face, it was not on her thedoom would come. The doom was to come upon Heather. Heather was doomed14 from the first moment that she begantalking and boasting of an incident in the past.”
“Could you make yourself a little clearer?” said Dermot Craddock.
Miss Marple turned to him.
“Of course I will. This is something that you know nothing about. You couldn’t know about it, because nobody hastold you what it was Heather Badcock actually said.”
“But they have,” protested Dermot. “They’ve told me over and over again. Several people have told me.”
“Yes,” said Miss Marple, “but you don’t know because, you see, Heather Badcock didn’t tell it to you.”
“She hardly could tell it to me seeing she was dead when I arrived here,” said Dermot.
“Quite so,” said Miss Marple. “All you know is that she was ill but she got up from bed and came along to acelebration of some kind where she met Marina Gregg and spoke to her and asked for an autograph and was givenone.”
“I know,” said Craddock with slight impatience15. “I’ve heard all that.”
“But you didn’t hear the one operative phrase, because no one thought it was important,” said Miss Marple.
“Heather Badcock was ill in bed—with German measles16.”
“German measles? What on earth has that got to do with it?”
“It’s a very slight illness, really,” said Miss Marple. “It hardly makes you feel ill at all. You have a rash which iseasy to cover up with powder, and you have a little fever, but not very much. You feel quite well enough to go out andsee people if you want to. And of course in repeating all this the fact that it was German measles didn’t strike peopleparticularly. Mrs. Bantry, for instance, just said that Heather had been ill in bed and mentioned chicken pox andnettlerash. Mr. Rudd here said that it was “flu, but of course he did that on purpose. But I think myself that whatHeather Badcock said to Marina Gregg was that she had had German measles and got up from bed and went off tomeet Marina. And that’s really the answer to the whole thing, because, you see, German measles is extremelyinfectious. People catch it very easily. And there’s one thing about it which you’ve got to remember. If a womancontracts it in the first four months of—” Miss Marple spoke the next word with a slight Victorian modesty17 “—of—er—pregnancy18, it may have a terribly serious effect. It may cause an unborn child to be born blind or to be born mentallyaffected.”
She turned to Jason Rudd.
“I think I am correct in saying, Mr. Rudd, that your wife had a child who was born mentally afflicted19 and that shehas never really recovered from the shock. She had always wanted a child and when at last the child came, this was thetragedy that happened. A tragedy she has never forgotten, that she has not allowed herself to forget and which ate intoher as a kind of deep sore, an obsession20.”
“It’s quite true,” said Jason Rudd. “Marina developed German measles early on in her pregnancy and was told bythe doctor that the mental affliction of her child was due to that cause. It was not a case of inherited insanity21 oranything of that kind. He was trying to be helpful but I don’t think it helped her much. She never knew how, or whenor from whom she had contracted the disease.”
“Quite so,” said Miss Marple, “she never knew until one afternoon here when a perfectly23 strange woman came upthose stairs and told her the fact—told her, what was more—with a great deal of pleasure! With an air of being proudof what she’d done! She thought she’d been resourceful and brave and shown a lot of spirit in getting up from her bed,covering her face with makeup24, and going along to meet the actress on whom she had such a crush and obtaining herautograph. It’s a thing she has boasted of all through her life. Heather Badcock meant no harm. She never did meanharm but there is no doubt that people like Heather Badcock (and like my old friend Alison Wilde), are capable ofdoing a lot of harm because they lack—not kindness, they have kindness—but any real consideration for the way theiractions may affect other people. She thought always of what an action meant to her, never sparing a thought to what itmight mean to somebody else.”
Miss Marple nodded her head gently.
“So she died, you see, for a simple reason out of her own past. You must imagine what that moment meant toMarina Gregg. I think Mr. Rudd understands it very well. I think she had nursed all those years a kind of hatred25 for theunknown person who had been the cause of her tragedy. And here suddenly she meets that person face to face. And aperson who is gay, jolly and pleased with herself. It was too much for her. If she had had time to think, to calm down,to be persuaded to relax—but she gave herself no time. Here was this woman who had destroyed her happiness anddestroyed the sanity22 and health of her child. She wanted to punish her. She wanted to kill her. And unfortunately themeans were to hand. She carried with her that well-known specific, Calmo. A somewhat dangerous drug because youhad to be careful of the exact dosage. It was very easy to do. She put the stuff into her own glass. If by any chanceanyone noticed what she was doing they were probably so used to her pepping herself up or soothing26 herself down inany handy liquid that they’d hardly notice it. It’s possible that one person did see her, but I rather doubt it. I think thatMiss Zielinsky did no more than guess. Marina Gregg put her glass down on the table and presently she managed tojog Heather Badcock’s arm so that Heather Badcock spilt her own drink all down her new dress. And that’s where theelement of puzzle has come into the matter, owing to the fact that people cannot remember to use their pronounsproperly.
“It reminds me so much of that parlourmaid I was telling you about,” she added to Dermot. “I only had theaccount, you see, of what Gladys Dixon said to Cherry which simply was that she was worried about the ruin ofHeather Badcock’s dress with the cocktail27 spilt down it. What seemed so funny, she said, was that she did it onpurpose. But the ‘she’ that Gladys referred to was not Heather Badcock, it was Marina Gregg. As Gladys said: She didit on purpose! She jogged Heather’s arm. Not by accident but because she meant to do so. We do know that she musthave been standing very close to Heather because we have heard that she mopped up both Heather’s dress and her ownbefore pressing her cocktail on Heather. It was really,” said Miss Marple meditatively28, “a very perfect murder;because, you see, it was committed on the spur of the moment without pausing to think or reflect. She wanted HeatherBadcock dead and a few minutes later Heather Badcock was dead. She didn’t realize, perhaps, the seriousness of whatshe’d done and certainly not the danger of it until afterwards. But she realized it then. She was afraid, horribly afraid.
Afraid that someone had seen her dope her own glass, that someone had seen her deliberately29 jog Heather’s elbow,afraid that someone would accuse her of having poisoned Heather. She could see only one way out. To insist that themurder had been aimed at her, that she was the prospective30 victim. She tried that idea first on her doctor. She refusedto let him tell her husband because I think she knew that her husband would not be deceived. She did fantastic things.
She wrote notes to herself and arranged to find them in extraordinary places and at extraordinary moments. Shedoctored her own coffee at the studios one day. She did things that could really have been seen through fairly easily ifone had happened to be thinking that way. They were seen through by one person.”
She looked at Jason Rudd.
“This is only a theory of yours,” said Jason Rudd.
“You can put it that way, if you like,” said Miss Marple, “but you know quite well, don’t you, Mr. Rudd, that I’mspeaking the truth. You know, because you knew from the first. You knew because you heard that mention of Germanmeasles. You knew and you were frantic31 to protect her. But you didn’t realize how much you would have to protecther from. You didn’t realize that it was not only a question of hushing up one death, the death of a woman whom youmight say quite fairly had brought her death on herself. But there were other deaths—the death of Giuseppe, ablackmailer, it is true, but a human being. And the death of Ella Zielinsky of whom I expect you were fond. You werefrantic to protect Marina and also to prevent her from doing more harm. All you wanted was to get her safely awaysomewhere. You tried to watch her all the time, to make sure that nothing more should happen.”
She paused, and then coming nearer to Jason Rudd, she laid a gentle hand on his arm.
“I am very sorry for you,” she said, “very sorry. I do realize the agony you’ve been through. You cared for her somuch, didn’t you?”
Jason Rudd turned slightly away.
“That,” he said, “is, I believe, common knowledge.”
“She was such a beautiful creature,” said Miss Marple gently. “She had such a wonderful gift. She had a greatpower of love and hate but no stability. That’s what’s so sad for anyone, to be born with no stability. She couldn’t letthe past go and she could never see the future as it really was, only as she imagined it to be. She was a great actressand a beautiful and very unhappy woman. What a wonderful Mary, Queen of Scots she was! I shall never forget her.”
Sergeant Tiddler appeared suddenly on the stairs.
“Sir,” he said, “can I speak to you a moment?”
Craddock turned.
“I’ll be back,” he said to Jason Rudd, then he went towards the stairs.
“Remember,” Miss Marple called after him, “poor Arthur Badcock had nothing to do with this. He came to the fêtebecause he wanted to have a glimpse of the girl he had married long ago. I should say she didn’t even recognize him.
Did she?” she asked Jason Rudd.
Jason Rudd shook his head.
“I don’t think so. She certainly never said anything to me. I don’t think,” he added thoughtfully, “she wouldrecognize him.”
“Probably not,” said Miss Marple. “Anyway,” she added, “he’s quite innocent of wanting to kill her or anything ofthat kind. Remember that,” she added to Dermot Craddock as he went down the stairs.
“He’s not been in any real danger, I can assure you,” said Craddock, “but of course when we found out that he hadactually been Miss Marina Gregg’s first husband we naturally had to question him on the point. Don’t worry abouthim, Aunt Jane,” he added in a low murmur32, then he hurried down the stairs.
Miss Marple turned to Jason Rudd. He was standing there like a man in a daze33, his eyes faraway.
“Would you allow me to see her?” said Miss Marple.
He considered her for a moment or two, then he nodded.
“Yes, you can see her. You seem to—understand her very well.”
He turned and Miss Marple followed him. He preceded her into the big bedroom and drew the curtains slightlyaside.
Marina Gregg lay in the great white shell of the bed—her eyes closed, her hands folded.
So, Miss Marple thought, might the Lady of Shalott have lain in the boat that carried her down to Camelot. Andthere, standing musing34, was a man with a rugged35, ugly face, who might pass as a Lancelot of a later day.
Miss Marple said gently, “It’s very fortunate for her that she—took an overdose. Death was really the only way ofescape left to her. Yes—very fortunate she took that overdose—or—was given it?”
His eyes met hers, but he did not speak.
He said brokenly, “She was—so lovely—and she had suffered so much.”
Miss Marple looked back against the still figure.
She quoted softly the last lines of the poem:
“He said: ‘She has a lovely face;
God in His mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott.’”
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1
dame
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| n.女士 | |
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intrude
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| vi.闯入；侵入；打扰，侵扰 | |
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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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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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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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perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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peal
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| n.钟声；v.鸣响 | |
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inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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measles
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| n.麻疹，风疹，包虫病，痧子 | |
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modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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pregnancy
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| n.怀孕，怀孕期 | |
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afflicted
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| 使受痛苦，折磨( afflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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obsession
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| n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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sanity
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| n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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makeup
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| n.组织；性格；化装品 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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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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cocktail
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| n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物 | |
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meditatively
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| adv.冥想地 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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prospective
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| adj.预期的，未来的，前瞻性的 | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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daze
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| v.(使)茫然，(使)发昏 | |
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musing
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| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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