I found Brenda Leonides sitting exactly where I had left her. She lookedup sharply as I entered.
“Where’s Inspector1 Taverner? Is he coming back?”
“Not just yet.”
“Who are you?”
At last I had been asked the question that I had been expecting all themorning.
I answered it with reasonable truth.
“I’m connected with the police, but I’m also a friend of the family.”
“The family! Beasts! I hate them all.”
She looked at me, her mouth working. She looked sullen2 and frightenedand angry.
“They’ve been beastly to me always—always. From the very first. Whyshouldn’t I marry their precious father? What did it matter to them?
They’d all got loads of money. He gave it to them. They wouldn’t have hadthe brains to make any for themselves!”
She went on:
“Why shouldn’t a man marry again—even if he is a bit old? And hewasn’t really old at all—not in himself. I was very fond of him. I was fondof him.” She looked at me defiantly3.
“I see,” I said. “I see.”
“I suppose you don’t believe that—but it’s true. I was sick of men. Iwanted to have a home—I wanted someone to make a fuss of me and saynice things to me. Aristide said lovely things to me—and he could makeyou laugh—and he was clever. He thought up all sorts of smart ways to getround all these silly regulations. He was very, very clever. I’m not gladhe’s dead. I’m sorry.”
She leaned back on the sofa. She had rather a wide mouth; it curled upsideways in a queer, sleepy smile.
“I’ve been happy here. I’ve been safe. I went to all those posh dress-makers—the ones I’d read about. I was as good as anybody. And Aristidegave me lovely things.” She stretched out a hand, looking at the ruby4 on it.
Just for a moment I saw the hand and arm like an outstretched cat’sclaw, and heard her voice as a purr. She was still smiling to herself.
“What’s wrong with that?” she demanded. “I was nice to him. I madehim happy.” She leaned forward. “Do you know how I met him?”
She went on without waiting for an answer.
“It was in the Gay Shamrock. He’d ordered scrambled5 eggs on toast andwhen I brought them to him I was crying. ‘Sit down,’ he said, ‘and tell mewhat’s the matter.’ ‘Oh, I couldn’t,’ I said. ‘I’d get the sack if I did a thinglike that.’ ‘No, you won’t,’ he said, ‘I own this place.’ I looked at him then.
Such an odd little man he was, I thought at first—but he’d got a sort ofpower. I told him all about it … You’ll have heard about it all from them, Iexpect—making out I was a regular bad lot—but I wasn’t. I was broughtup very carefully. We had a shop—a very high-class shop—art needle-work. I was never the sort of girl who had a lot of boy friends or madeherself cheap. But Terry was different. He was Irish—and he was goingoverseas … He never wrote or anything—I suppose I was a fool. So there itwas, you see. I was in trouble — just like some dreadful little servantgirl….”
Her voice was disdainful in its snobbery6.
“Aristide was wonderful. He said everything would be all right. He saidhe was lonely. We’d be married at once, he said. It was like a dream. Andthen I found out he was the great Mr. Leonides. He owned masses of shopsand restaurants and night clubs. It was quite like a fairy tale, wasn’t it?”
“One kind of a fairy tale,” I said drily.
“We were married at a little church in the City — and then we wentabroad.”
She looked at me with eyes that came back from a long distance.
“There wasn’t a child after all. It was all a mistake.”
She smiled, the curled-up sideways, crooked7 smile.
“I vowed8 to myself that I’d be a really good wife to him, and I was. Iordered all the kinds of food he liked, and wore the colours he fancied andI did all I could to please him. And he was happy. But we never got rid ofthat family of his. Always coming and sponging and living in his pocket.
Old Miss de Haviland—I think she ought to have gone away when he gotmarried. I said so. But Aristide said, ‘She’s been here so long. It’s her homenow.’ The truth is he liked to have them all about and underfoot. Theywere beastly to me, but he never seemed to notice that or to mind about it.
Roger hates me—have you seen Roger? He’s always hated me. He’s jeal-ous. And Philip’s so stuck up he never speaks to me. And now they’re try-ing to pretend I murdered him—and I didn’t—I didn’t!” She leaned to-wards me. “Please believe I didn’t.”
I found her very pathetic. The contemptuous way the Leonides familyhad spoken of her, their eagerness to believe that she had committed thecrime—now, at this moment, it all seemed positively9 inhuman10 conduct.
She was alone, defenceless, hunted down.
“And if it’s not me, they think it’s Laurence,” she went on.
“What about Laurence?” I asked.
“I’m terribly sorry for Laurence. He’s delicate and he couldn’t go andfight. It’s not because he was a coward. It’s because he’s sensitive. I’vetried to cheer him up and to make him feel happy. He has to teach thosehorrible children. Eustace is always sneering11 at him, and Josephine—well,you’ve seen Josephine. You know what she’s like.”
I said I hadn’t met Josephine yet.
“Sometimes I think that child isn’t right in her head. She has horriblesneaky ways, and she looks queer … She gives me the shivers sometimes.”
I didn’t want to talk about Josephine. I harked back to Laurence Brown.
“Who is he?” I asked. “Where does he come from?”
I had phrased it clumsily. She flushed.
“He isn’t anybody particular. He’s just like me … What chance have wegot against all of them?”
“Don’t you think you’re being a little hysterical12?”
“No, I don’t. They want to make out that Laurence did it—or that I did.
They’ve got that policeman on their side. What chance have I got?”
“You mustn’t work yourself up,” I said.
“Why shouldn’t it be one of them who killed him? Or someone from out-side? Or one of the servants?”
“There’s a certain lack of motive13.”
“Oh, motive! What motive had I got? Or Laurence?”
I felt rather uncomfortable as I said:
“They might think, I suppose, that you and—er—Laurence—are in lovewith each other—that you wanted to marry.”
She sat bolt upright.
“That’s a wicked thing to suggest! And it’s not true! We’ve never said aword of that kind to each other. I’ve just been sorry for him and tried tocheer him up. We’ve been friends, that’s all. You do believe me, don’tyou?”
I did believe her. That is, I believed that she and Laurence were, as sheput it, only friends. But I also believed that, possibly unknown to herself,she was actually in love with the young man.
It was with that thought in my mind that I went downstairs in search ofSophia.
As I was about to go into the drawing room, Sophia poked14 her head outof a door farther along the passage.
“Hallo,” she said. “I’m helping15 Nannie with lunch.”
I would have joined her, but she came out into the passage, shut thedoor behind her, and taking my arm led me into the drawing room, whichwas empty.
“Well,” she said, “did you see Brenda? What did you think of her?”
“Frankly,” I said, “I was sorry for her.”
Sophia looked amused.
“I see,” she said. “So she got you.”
I felt slightly irritated.
“The point is,” I said, “that I can see her side of it. Apparently16 you can’t.”
“Her side of what?”
“Honestly, Sophia, have any of the family ever been nice to her, or evenfairly decent to her, since she came here?”
“No, we haven’t been nice to her. Why should we be?”
“Just ordinary Christian17 kindliness18, if nothing else.”
“What a very high moral tone you’re taking, Charles. Brenda must havedone her stuff pretty well.”
“Really, Sophia, you seem—I don’t know what’s come over you.”
“I’m just being honest and not pretending. You’ve seen Brenda’s side ofit, so you say. Now take a look at my side. I don’t like the type of young wo-man who makes up a hard-luck story and marries a very rich old man onthe strength of it. I’ve a perfect right not to like that type of young woman,and there is no earthly reason why I should pretend I do. And if the factswere written down in cold blood on paper, you wouldn’t like that youngwoman either.”
“Was it a made-up story?” I asked.
“About the child? I don’t know. Personally, I think so.”
“And you resent the fact that your grandfather was taken in by it?”
“Oh, grandfather wasn’t taken in.” Sophia laughed. “Grandfather wasnever taken in by anybody. He wanted Brenda. He wanted to play Coph-etua to her beggar-maid. He knew just what he was doing and it workedout beautifully according to plan. From grandfather’s point of view themarriage was a complete success—like all his other operations.”
“Was engaging Laurence Brown as tutor another of your grandfather’ssuccesses?” I asked ironically.
Sophia frowned.
“Do you know, I’m not sure that it wasn’t. He wanted to keep Brendahappy and amused. He may have thought that jewels and clothes weren’tenough. He may have thought she wanted a mild romance in her life. Hemay have calculated that someone like Laurence Brown, somebody reallytame, if you know what I mean, would just do the trick. A beautiful soulfulfriendship tinged19 with melancholy20 that would stop Brenda from having areal affair with someone outside. I wouldn’t put it past grandfather tohave worked out something on those lines. He was rather an old devil, youknow.”
“He must have been,” I said.
“He couldn’t, of course, have visualized21 that it would lead to murder …And that,” said Sophia, speaking with such vehemence22, “is really why Idon’t, much as I would like to, really believe that she did it. If she’dplanned to murder him—or if she and Laurence had planned it together—grandfather would have known about it. I dare say that seems a bit far-fetched to you—”
“I must confess it does,” I said.
“But then you didn’t know grandfather. He certainly wouldn’t have con-nived at his own murder! So there you are! Up against a blank wall.”
“She’s frightened, Sophia,” I said. “She’s very frightened.”
“Chief-Inspector Taverner and his merry, merry men? Yes, I dare saythey are rather alarming. Laurence, I suppose, is in hysterics?”
“Practically. He made, I thought, a disgusting exhibition of himself. Idon’t understand what a woman can see in a man like that.”
“Don’t you, Charles? Actually Laurence has a lot of sex appeal.”
“A weakling like that,” I said incredulously.
“Why do men always think that a caveman must necessarily be the onlytype of person attractive to the opposite sex? Laurence has got sex appealall right—but I wouldn’t expect you to be aware of it.” She looked at me.
“Brenda got her hooks into you all right.”
“Don’t be absurd. She’s not even really good-looking. And she certainlydidn’t—”
“Display allure23? No, she just made you sorry for her. She’s not actuallybeautiful, she’s not in the least clever—but she’s got one very outstandingcharacteristic. She can make trouble. She’s made trouble, already,between you and me.”
“Sophia!” I cried aghast.
Sophia went to the door.
“Forget it, Charles. I must get on with lunch.”
“I’ll come and help.”
“No, you stay here. It will rattle24 Nannie to have ‘a gentleman in the kit-chen.’”
“Sophia,” I called as she went out.
“Yes, what is it?”
“Just a servant problem. Why haven’t you got any servants down hereand upstairs something in an apron25 and a cap opened the door to us?”
“Grandfather had a cook, housemaid, parlourmaid, and valet-attendant.
He liked servants. He paid them the earth, of course, and he got them.
Clemency26 and Roger just have a daily woman who comes in and cleans.
They don’t like servants—or rather Clemency doesn’t. If Roger didn’t get asquare meal in the City every day, he’d starve. Clemency’s idea of a meal islettuce, tomatoes, and raw carrot. We sometimes have servants, and thenmother throws one of her temperaments27 and they leave, and we havedailies for a bit and then start again. We’re in the daily period. Nannie isthe permanency and copes in emergencies. Now you know.”
Sophia went out. I sank down in one of the large brocaded chairs andgave myself up to speculation28.
Upstairs I had seen Brenda’s side of it. Here and now I had been shownSophia’s side of it. I realized completely the justice of Sophia’s point ofview—what might be called the Leonides family’s point of view. They re-sented a stranger within the gates who had obtained admission by whatthey regarded as ignoble29 means. They were entirely30 within their rights. AsSophia had said: on paper it wouldn’t look well….
But there was the human side of it—the side that I saw and that theydidn’t. They were, they always had been, rich and well established. Theyhad no conception of the temptations of the underdog. Brenda Leonideshad wanted wealth, and pretty things and safety—and a home. She hadclaimed that in exchange she had made her old husband happy. I hadsympathy with her. Certainly, while I was talking with her, I had had sym-pathy for her … Had I got as much sympathy now?
Two sides to the question—different angles of vision—which was thetrue angle … the true angle….
I had slept very little the night before. I had been up early to accompanyTaverner. Now, in the warm, flower- scented31 atmosphere of Magda Le-onides’ drawing room, my body relaxed in the cushioned embrace of thebig chair and my eyelids32 dropped….
Thinking of Brenda, of Sophia, of an old man’s picture, my thoughts slidtogether into a pleasant haze33.
I slept….
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收听单词发音
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1
inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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3
defiantly
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| adv.挑战地，大胆对抗地 | |
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ruby
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| n.红宝石，红宝石色 | |
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scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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snobbery
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| n. 充绅士气派, 俗不可耐的性格 | |
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crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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8
vowed
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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inhuman
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| adj.残忍的，不人道的，无人性的 | |
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sneering
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| 嘲笑的，轻蔑的 | |
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12
hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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14
poked
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| v.伸出( poke的过去式和过去分词 )；戳出；拨弄；与（某人）性交 | |
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15
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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16
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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kindliness
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| n.厚道，亲切，友好的行为 | |
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tinged
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| v.（使）发丁丁声( ting的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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visualized
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| 直观的，直视的 | |
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vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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allure
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| n.诱惑力，魅力；vt.诱惑，引诱，吸引 | |
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rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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clemency
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| n.温和，仁慈，宽厚 | |
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temperaments
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| 性格( temperament的名词复数 )； （人或动物的）气质； 易冲动； （性情）暴躁 | |
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speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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ignoble
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| adj.不光彩的，卑鄙的；可耻的 | |
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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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scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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32
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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