LILY KEEPS AN APPOINTMENT
I“W ell, I’m damned,” exclaimed Giles.
He had just torn open a letter that had arrived by the after-lunch post and was staring in complete astonishment1 atits contents.
“What’s the matter?”
“It’s the report of the handwriting experts.”
Gwenda said eagerly: “And she didn’t write that letter from abroad?”
“That’s just it, Gwenda. She did.”
They stared at each other.
Gwenda said incredulously: “Then those letters weren’t a fake. They were genuine. Helen did go away from thehouse that night. And she did write from abroad. And she wasn’t strangled at all?”
Giles said slowly: “It seems so. But it really is very upsetting. I don’t understand it. Just as everything seems to bepointing the other way.”
“Perhaps the experts are wrong?”
“I suppose they might be. But they seem quite confident. Gwenda, I really don’t understand a single thing about allthis. Have we been making the most colossal2 idiots of ourselves?”
“All based on my silly behaviour at the theatre? I tell you what, Giles, let’s call round on Miss Marple. We’ll havetime before we get to Dr. Kennedy’s at four thirty.”
Miss Marple, however, reacted rather differently from the way they had expected. She said it was very nice indeed.
“But darling Miss Marple,” said Gwenda, “what do you mean by that?”
“I mean, my dear, that somebody hasn’t been as clever as they might have been.”
“But how—in what way?”
“Slipped up,” said Miss Marple, nodding her head with satisfaction.
“But how?”
“Well, dear Mr. Reed, surely you can see how it narrows the field.”
“Accepting the fact that Helen actually wrote the letters—do you mean that she might still have been murdered?”
“I mean that it seemed very important to someone that the letters should actually be in Helen’s handwriting.”
“I see … At least I think I see. There must be certain possible circumstances in which Helen could have beeninduced to write those particular letters … That would narrow things down. But what circumstances exactly?”
“Oh, come now, Mr. Reed. You’re not really thinking. It’s perfectly3 simple, really.”
Giles looked annoyed and mutinous4.
“It’s not obvious to me, I can assure you.”
“If you’d just reflect a little—”
“Come on, Giles,” said Gwenda. “We’ll be late.”
They left Miss Marple smiling to herself.
“That old woman annoys me sometimes,” said Giles. “I don’t know now what the hell she was driving at.”
They reached Dr. Kennedy’s house in good time.
The doctor himself opened the door to them.
“I’ve let my housekeeper5 go out for the afternoon,” he explained. “It seemed to be better.”
He led the way into the sitting room where a tea tray with cups and saucers, bread and butter and cakes was ready.
“Cup of tea’s a good move, isn’t it?” he asked rather uncertainly of Gwenda. “Put this Mrs. Kimble at her ease andall that.”
“You’re absolutely right,” said Gwenda.
“Now what about you two? Shall I introduce you straight away? Or will it put her off?”
Gwenda said slowly: “Country people are very suspicious. I believe it would be better if you received her alone.”
“I think so too,” said Giles.
Dr. Kennedy said, “If you were to wait in the room next door, and if this communicating door were slightly ajar,you would be able to hear what went on. Under the circumstances of the case, I think that you would be justified6.”
“I suppose it’s eavesdropping7, but I really don’t care,” said Gwenda.
Dr. Kennedy smiled faintly and said: “I don’t think any ethical8 principle is involved. I do not propose, in any case,to give a promise of secrecy—though I am willing to give my advice if I am asked for it.”
He glanced at his watch.
“The train is due at Woodleigh Road at four thirty-five. It should arrive in a few minutes now. Then it will take herabout five minutes to walk up the hill.”
He walked restlessly up and down the room. His face was lined and haggard.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “I don’t understand in the least what it all means. If Helen never left that house, if herletters to me were forgeries9.” Gwenda moved sharply—but Giles shook his head at her. The doctor went on: “IfKelvin, poor fellow, didn’t kill her, then what on earth did happen?”
“Somebody else killed her,” said Gwenda.
“But my dear child, if somebody else killed her, why on earth should Kelvin insist that he had done so?”
“Because he thought he had. He found her there on the bed and he thought he had done it. That could happen,couldn’t it?”
Dr. Kennedy rubbed his nose irritably10.
“How should I know? I’m not a psychiatrist11. Shock? Nervous condition already? Yes, I suppose it’s possible. Butwho would want to kill Helen?”
“We think one of three people,” said Gwenda.
“Three people? What three people? Nobody could have any possible reason for killing12 Helen—unless they werecompletely off their heads. She’d no enemies. Everybody liked her.”
He went to the desk drawer and fumbled13 through its contents.
He held out a faded snapshot. It showed a tall schoolgirl in a gym tunic14, her hair tied back, her face radiant.
Kennedy, a younger, happy-looking Kennedy, stood beside her, holding a terrier puppy.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about her lately,” he said indistinctly. “For many years I hadn’t thought about her at all—almost managed to forget … Now I think about her all the time. That’s your doing.”
His words sounded almost accusing.
“I think it’s her doing,” said Gwenda.
He wheeled round on her sharply.
“What do you mean?”
“Just that. I can’t explain. But it’s not really us. It’s Helen herself.”
The faint melancholy15 scream of an engine came to their ears. Dr. Kennedy stepped out of the window and theyfollowed him. A trail of smoke showed itself retreating slowly along the valley.
“There goes the train,” said Kennedy.
“Coming into the station?”
“No, leaving it.” He paused. “She’ll be here any minute now.”
But the minutes passed and Lily Kimble did not come.
II
Lily Kimble got out of the train at Dillmouth Junction16 and walked across the bridge to the siding where the little localtrain was waiting. There were few passengers—a half-dozen at most. It was a slack time of day and in any case it wasmarket day at Helchester.
Presently the train started—puffing its way importantly along a winding17 valley. There were three stops before theterminus at Lonsbury Bay: Newton Langford, Matchings Halt (for Woodleigh Camp) and Woodleigh Bolton.
Lily Kimble looked out of the window with eyes that did not see the lush countryside, but saw instead a Jacobeansuite upholstered in jade18 green….
She was the only person to alight at the tiny station of Matchings Halt. She gave up her ticket and went out throughthe booking office. A little way along the road a signpost with “To Woodleigh Camp” indicated a footpath19 leading upa steep hill.
Lily Kimble took the footpath and walked briskly uphill. The path skirted the side of a wood, on the other side thehill rose steeply covered with heather and gorse.
Someone stepped out from the trees and Lily Kimble jumped.
“My, you did give me a start,” she exclaimed. “I wasn’t expecting to meet you here.”
“Gave you a surprise, did I? I’ve got another surprise for you.”
It was very lonely in among the trees. There was no one to hear a cry or a struggle. Actually there was no cry andthe struggle was very soon over.
A wood-pigeon, disturbed, flew out of the wood….
III
“What can have become of the woman?” demanded Dr. Kennedy irritably.
The hands of the clock pointed20 to ten minutes to five.
“Could she have lost her way coming from the station?”
“I gave her explicit21 directions. In any case it’s quite simple. Turn to the left when she got out of the station and thentake the first road to the right. As I say, it’s only a few minutes’ walk.”
“Perhaps she’s changed her mind,” said Giles.
“It looks like it.”
“Or missed the train,” suggested Gwenda.
Kennedy said slowly, “No, I think it’s more likely that she decided22 not to come after all. Perhaps her husbandstepped in. All these country people are quite incalculable.”
He walked up and down the room.
Then he went to the telephone and asked for a number.
“Hullo? Is that the station? This is Dr. Kennedy speaking. I was expecting someone by the four thirty-five. Middle-aged23 country woman. Did anyone ask to be directed to me? Or—what do you say?”
The others were near enough to hear the soft lazy accent of Woodleigh Bolton’s one porter.
“Don’t think as there could be anyone for you, Doctor. Weren’t no strangers on the four thirty-five. Mr. Narracottsfrom Meadows, and Johnnie Lawes, and old Benson’s daughter. Weren’t no other passengers at all.”
“So she changed her mind,” said Dr. Kennedy. “Well, I can offer you tea. The kettle’s on. I’ll go out and make it.”
He returned with the teapot and they sat down.
“It’s only a temporary check,” he said more cheerfully. “We’ve got her address. We’ll go over and see her,perhaps.”
The telephone rang and the doctor got up to answer.
“Dr. Kennedy?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Inspector24 Last, Longford police station. Were you expecting a woman called Lily Kimble—Mrs. LilyKimble—to call upon you this afternoon?”
“I was. Why? Has there been an accident?”
“Not what you’d call an accident exactly. She’s dead. We found a letter from you on the body. That’s why I rangyou up. Can you make it convenient to come along to Longford police station as soon as possible?”
“I’ll come at once.”
IV
“Now let’s get this quite clear,” Inspector Last was saying.
He looked from Kennedy to Giles and Gwenda who had accompanied the doctor. Gwenda was very pale and heldher hands tightly clasped together. “You were expecting this woman by the train that leaves Dillmouth Junction atfour-five? And gets to Woodleigh Bolton at four thirty-five?”
Dr. Kennedy nodded.
Inspector Last looked down at the letter he had taken from the dead woman’s body. It was quite clear.
Dear Mrs. Kimble (Dr. Kennedy had written)
I shall be glad to advise you to the best of my power. As you will see from the heading of this letter I no longerlive in Dillmouth. If you will take the train leaving Coombeleigh at 3.30, change at Dillmouth Junction, and comeby the Lonsbury Bay train to Woodleigh Bolton, my house is only a few minutes’ walk. Turn to the left as you comeout of the station, then take the first road on the right. My house is at the end of it on the right. The name is on thegate.
Yours truly,
James Kennedy.
“There was no question of her coming by an earlier train?”
“An earlier train?” Dr. Kennedy looked astonished.
“Because that’s what she did. She left Coombeleigh, not at three thirty but at one thirty—caught the two-five fromDillmouth Junction and got out, not at Woodleigh Bolton, but at Matchings Halt, the station before it.”
“But that’s extraordinary!”
“Was she consulting you professionally, Doctor?”
“No. I retired25 from practice some years ago.”
“That’s what I thought. You knew her well?”
Kennedy shook his head.
“I hadn’t seen her for nearly twenty years.”
“But you—er—recognized her just now?”
Gwenda shivered, but dead bodies did not affect a doctor and Kennedy replied thoughtfully: “Under thecircumstances it is hard to say if I recognized her or not. She was strangled, I presume?”
“She was strangled. The body was found in a copse a short way along the track leading from Matchings Halt toWoodleigh Camp. It was found by a hiker coming down from the Camp at about ten minutes to four. Our policesurgeon puts the time of death at between two fifteen and three o’clock. Presumably she was killed shortly after sheleft the station. No other passenger got out at Matchings Halt. She was the only person to get out of the train there.
“Now why did she get out at Matchings Halt? Did she mistake the station? I hardly think so. In any case she wastwo hours early for her appointment with you, and had not come by the train you suggested, although she had yourletter with her.
“Now just what was her business with you, Doctor?”
Dr. Kennedy felt in his pocket and brought out Lily’s letter.
“I brought this with me. The enclosed cutting and the insertion put in the local paper by Mr. and Mrs. Reed here.”
Inspector Last read Lily Kimble’s letter and the enclosure. Then he looked from Dr. Kennedy to Giles andGwenda.
“Can I have the story behind all this? It goes back a long way, I gather?”
“Eighteen years,” said Gwenda.
Piecemeal26, with additions, and parentheses27, the story came out. Inspector Last was a good listener. He let the threepeople in front of him tell things in their own way. Kennedy was dry, and factual, Gwenda was slightly incoherent, buther narrative28 had imaginative power. Giles gave, perhaps, the most valuable contribution. He was clear and to thepoint, with less reserve than Kennedy, and with more coherence29 than Gwenda. It took a long time.
Then Inspector Last sighed and summed up.
“Mrs. Halliday was Dr. Kennedy’s sister and your stepmother, Mrs. Reed. She disappeared from the house you areat present living in eighteen years ago. Lily Kimble (whose maiden30 name was Abbott) was a servant (house-parlourmaid) in the house at the time. For some reason Lily Kimble inclines (after the passage of years) to the theorythat there was foul31 play. At the time it was assumed that Mrs. Halliday had gone away with a man (identity unknown).
Major Halliday died in a mental establishment fifteen years ago still under the delusion32 that he had strangled his wife—if it was a delusion—”
He paused.
“These are all interesting but somewhat unrelated facts. The crucial point seems to be, is Mrs. Halliday alive ordead? If dead, when did she die? And what did Lily Kimble know?”
“It seems, on the face of it, that she must have known something rather important. So important that she was killedin order to prevent her talking about it.”
Gwenda cried, “But how could anyone possibly know she was going to talk about it—except us?”
Inspector Last turned his thoughtful eyes on her.
“It is a significant point, Mrs. Reed, that she took the two-five instead of the four-five train from DillmouthJunction. There must be some reason for that. Also, she got out at the station before Woodleigh Bolton. Why? It seemspossible to me that, after writing to the doctor, she wrote to someone else, suggesting a rendezvous33 at WoodleighCamp, perhaps, and that she proposed after that rendezvous, if it was unsatisfactory, to go on to Dr. Kennedy and askhis advice. It is possible that she had suspicions of some definite person, and she may have written to that personhinting at her knowledge and suggesting a rendezvous.”
“Blackmail,” said Giles bluntly.
“I don’t suppose she thought of it that way,” said Inspector Last. “She was just greedy and hopeful—and a littlemuddled about what she could get out of it all. We’ll see. Maybe the husband can tell us more.”
V“Warned her, I did,” said Mr. Kimble heavily. “‘Don’t have nought34 to do with it,’ them were my words. Went behindmy back, she did. Thought as she knew best. That were Lily all over. Too smart by half.”
Questioning revealed that Mr. Kimble had little to contribute.
Lily had been in service at St. Catherine’s before he met her and started walking out with her. Fond of the pictures,she was, and told him that likely as not, she’d been in a house where there’d been a murder.
“Didn’t pay much account, I didn’t. All imagination, I thought. Never content with plain fact, Lily wasn’t. Longrigmarole she told me, about the master doing in the missus and maybe putting the body in the cellar—and somethingabout a French girl what had looked out of the window and seen something or somebody. ‘Don’t you pay no attentionto foreigners, my girl,’ I said. ‘One and all they’re liars35. Not like us.’ And when she run on about it, I didn’t listenbecause, mark you, she was working it all up out of nothing. Liked a bit of crime, Lily did. Used to take the SundayNews what was running a series about Famous Murderers. Full of it, she was, and if she liked to think she’d been in ahouse where there was a murder, well, thinking don’t hurt nobody. But when she was on at me about answering thisadvertisement—‘You leave it alone,’ I says to her. ‘It’s no good stirring up trouble.’ And if she’d done as I telled her,she’d be alive today.”
He thought for a moment or two.
“Ar,” he said. “She’d be alive right now. Too smart by half, that was Lily.”
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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colossal
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perfectly
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mutinous
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housekeeper
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justified
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eavesdropping
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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forgeries
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| 伪造( forgery的名词复数 )； 伪造的文件、签名等 | |
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irritably
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psychiatrist
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| n.精神病专家；精神病医师 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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fumbled
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| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
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tunic
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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junction
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winding
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jade
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footpath
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| n.小路，人行道 | |
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pointed
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explicit
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decided
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middle-aged
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inspector
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retired
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piecemeal
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parentheses
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narrative
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coherence
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maiden
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foul
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delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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rendezvous
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nought
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liars
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