In next to no time Taverner and I were racing1 in a fast police car in thedirection of Swinly Dean.
I remembered Josephine emerging, from among the cisterns2, and herairy remark that it was “about time for the second murder.” The poorchild had had no idea that she herself was likely to be the victim of the“second murder.”
I accepted fully3 the blame that my father had tacitly ascribed to me. Ofcourse I ought to have kept an eye on Josephine. Though neither Tavernernor I had any real clue to the poisoner of old Leonides, it was highly pos-sible that Josephine had. What I had taken for childish nonsense and“showing off” might very well have been something quite different.
Josephine, in her favourite sports of snooping and prying4, might have be-come aware of some piece of information that she herself could not assessat its proper value.
I remembered the twig5 that had cracked in the garden.
I had had an inkling then that danger was about. I had acted upon it atthe moment, and afterwards it had seemed to me that my suspicions hadbeen melodramatic and unreal. On the contrary, I should have realizedthat this was murder, that whoever had committed murder had en-dangered their neck, and that consequently that same person would nothesitate to repeat the crime if by that way safety could be assured.
Perhaps Magda, by some obscure maternal6 instinct, had recognized thatJosephine was in peril7, and that may have been what occasioned her sud-den feverish8 haste to get the child sent to Switzerland.
Sophia came out to meet us as we arrived. Josephine, she said, had beentaken by ambulance to Market Basing General Hospital. Dr. Gray wouldlet them know as soon as possible the result of the X-ray.
“How did it happen?” asked Taverner.
Sophia led the way round to the back of the house and through a door ina small disused yard. In one corner a door stood ajar.
“It’s a kind of washhouse,” Sophia explained. “There’s a cat hole cut inthe bottom of the door, and Josephine used to stand on it and swing to andfro.”
I remembered swinging on doors in my own youth.
The washhouse was small and rather dark. There were wooden boxes init, some old hose pipe, a few derelict garden implements9, and some brokenfurniture. Just inside the door was a marble lion doorstop.
“It’s the doorstopper from the front door,” Sophia explained. “It musthave been balanced on top of the door.”
Taverner reached up a hand to the top of the door. It was a low door,the top of it only about a foot above his head.
“A booby trap,” he said.
He swung the door experimentally to and fro. Then he stooped to theblock of marble but he did not touch it.
“Has anyone handled this?”
“No,” said Sophia. “I wouldn’t let anyone touch it.”
“Quite right. Who found her?”
“I did. She didn’t come in for her dinner at one o’clock. Nannie was call-ing her. She’d passed through the kitchen and out into the stable yardabout a quarter of an hour before. Nannie said, ‘She’ll be bouncing herball or swinging on that door again.’ I said I’d fetch her in.”
Sophia paused.
“She had a habit of playing in that way, you said? Who knew aboutthat?”
Sophia shrugged10 her shoulders.
“Pretty well everybody in the house, I should think.”
“Who else used the washhouse? Gardeners?”
Sophia shook her head.
“Hardly anyone ever goes into it.”
“And this little yard isn’t overlooked from the house?” Tavernersummed it up. “Anyone could have slipped out from the house or roundthe front and fixed11 up that trap ready. But it would be chancy….”
He broke off, looking at the door, and swinging it gently to and fro.
“Nothing certain about it. Hit or miss. And likelier miss than hit. But shewas unlucky. With her it was hit.”
Sophia shivered.
He peered at the floor. There were various dents12 on it.
“Looks as though someone experimented first … to see just how it wouldfall … The sound wouldn’t carry to the house.”
“No, we didn’t hear anything. We’d no idea anything was wrong until Icame out and found her lying face down — all sprawled13 out.” Sophia’svoice broke a little. “There was blood on her hair.”
“That her scarf?” Taverner pointed14 to a checked woollen muffler lyingon the floor.
“Yes.”
Using the scarf he picked up the block of marble carefully.
“There may be fingerprints,” he said, but he spoke15 without much hope.
“But I rather think whoever did it was—careful.” He said to me: “What areyou looking at?”
I was looking at a broken- backed wooden kitchen chair which wasamong the derelicts. On the seat of it were a few fragments of earth.
“Curious,” said Taverner. “Someone stood on that chair with muddyfeet. Now why was that?”
He shook his head.
“What time was it when you found her, Miss Leonides?”
“It must have been five minutes past one.”
“And your Nannie saw her going out about twenty minutes earlier. Whowas the last person before that known to have been in the washhouse?”
“I’ve no idea. Probably Josephine herself. Josephine was swinging on thedoor this morning after breakfast, I know.”
Taverner nodded.
“So between then and a quarter to one someone set the trap. You say thatbit of marble is the doorstop you use for the front door? Any idea whenthat was missing?”
Sophia shook her head.
“The door hasn’t been propped16 open all today. It’s been too cold.”
“Any idea where everyone was all the morning?”
“I went out for a walk. Eustace and Josephine did lessons until half pasttwelve—with a break at half past ten. Father, I think, has been in the lib-rary all the morning.”
“Your mother?”
“She was just coming out of her bedroom when I came in from my walk—that was about a quarter-past twelve. She doesn’t get up very early.”
We reentered the house. I followed Sophia to the library. Philip, lookingwhite and haggard, sat in his usual chair. Magda crouched17 against hisknees, crying quietly. Sophia asked:
“Have they telephoned yet from the hospital?”
Philip shook his head.
Magda sobbed18.
“Why wouldn’t they let me go with her? My baby—my funny ugly baby.
And I used to call her a changeling and make her so angry. How could I beso cruel? And now she’ll die. I know she’ll die.”
“Hush, my dear,” said Philip. “Hush.”
I felt that I had no place in this family scene of anxiety and grief. I with-drew quietly and went to find Nannie. She was sitting in the kitchen cry-ing quietly.
“It’s a judgement on me, Mr. Charles, for the hard things I’ve been think-ing. A judgement, that’s what it is.”
I did not try and fathom19 her meaning.
“There’s wickedness in this house. That’s what there is. I didn’t wish tosee it or believe it. But seeing’s believing. Somebody killed the master andthe same somebody must have tried to kill Josephine.”
“Why should they try and kill Josephine?”
Nannie removed a corner of her handkerchief from her eye and gaveme a shrewd glance.
“You know well enough what she was like, Mr. Charles. She liked toknow things. She was always like that, even as a tiny thing. Used to hideunder the dinner table and listen to the maids talking and then she’d holdit over them. Made her feel important. You see, she was passed over, as itwere, by the mistress. She wasn’t a handsome child, like the other two.
She was always a plain little thing. A changeling, the mistress used to callher. I blame the mistress for that, for it’s my belief it turned the child sour.
But in a funny sort of way she got her own back by finding out thingsabout people and letting them know she knew them. But it isn’t safe to dothat when there’s a poisoner about!”
No, it hadn’t been safe. And that brought something else to my mind. Iasked Nannie: “Do you know where she kept a little black book—a note-book of some kind where she used to write down things?”
“I know what you mean, Mr. Charles. Very sly about it, she was. I’veseen her sucking her pencil and writing in the book and sucking her pen-cil again. And ‘don’t do that,’ I’d say, ‘you’ll get lead poisoning’ and ‘oh no,I shan’t,’ she said, ‘because it isn’t really lead in a pencil. It’s carbon,’
though I don’t see how that could be so for if you call a thing a lead pencilit stands to reason that that’s because there’s lead in it.”
“You’d think so,” I agreed. “But as a matter of fact she was right.”
(Josephine was always right!) “What about this notebook? Do you knowwhere she kept it?”
“I’ve no idea at all, sir. It was one of the things she was sly about.”
“She hadn’t got it with her when she was found?”
“Oh no, Mr. Charles, there was no notebook.”
Had someone taken the notebook? Or had she hidden it in her ownroom? The idea came to me to look and see. I was not sure whichJosephine’s room was, but as I stood hesitating in the passage Taverner’svoice called me:
“Come in here,” he said. “I’m in the kid’s room. Did you ever see such asight?”
I stepped over the threshold and stopped dead.
The small room looked as though it had been visited by a tornado20. Thedrawers of the chest of drawers were pulled out and their contentsscattered on the floor. The mattress21 and bedding had been pulled from thesmall bed. The rugs were tossed into heaps. The chairs had been turnedupside down, the pictures taken down from the wall, the photographswrenched out of their frames.
“Good Lord,” I exclaimed. “What was the big idea?”
“What do you think?”
“Someone was looking for something.”
“Exactly.”
I looked round and whistled.
“But who on earth—surely nobody could come in here and do all thisand not be heard—or seen?”
“Why not? Mrs. Leonides spends the morning in her bedroom doing hernails and ringing up her friends on the telephone and playing with herclothes. Philip sits in the library browsing22 over books. The nurse woman isin the kitchen peeling potatoes and stringing beans. In a family that knowseach other’s habits it would be easy enough. And I’ll tell you this. Anyonein the house could have done our little job—could have set the trap for thechild and wrecked23 her room. But it was someone in a hurry, someone whohadn’t the time to search quietly.”
“Anyone in the house, you say?”
“Yes, I’ve checked up. Everyone has some time or other unaccountedfor. Philip, Magda, the nurse, your girl. The same upstairs. Brenda spentmost of the morning alone. Laurence and Eustace had a half hour break—from ten-thirty to eleven—you were with them part of that time—but notall of it. Miss de Haviland was in the garden alone. Roger was in hisstudy.”
“Only Clemency24 was in London at her job.”
“No, even she isn’t out of it. She stayed at home today with a headache—she was alone in her room having that headache. Any of them—any blink-ing one of them! And I don’t know which! I’ve no idea. If I knew what theywere looking for in here—”
His eyes went round the wrecked room….
“And if I knew whether they’d found it….”
Something stirred in my brain—a memory….
Taverner clinched25 it by asking me:
“What was the kid doing when you last saw her?”
“Wait,” I said.
I dashed out of the room and up the stairs. I passed through the left-hand door and went up to the top floor. I pushed open the door of thecistern room, mounted the two steps and bending my head, since the ceil-ing was low and sloping, I looked round me.
Josephine had said when I asked her what she was doing there that shewas “detecting.”
I didn’t see what there could be to detect in a cobwebby attic26 full of wa-ter tanks. But such an attic would make a good hiding-place. I consideredit probable that Josephine had been hiding something there, somethingthat she knew quite well she had no business to have. If so, it oughtn’t totake long to find it.
It took me just three minutes. Tucked away behind the largest tank,from the interior of which a sibilant hissing27 added an eerie28 note to the at-mosphere, I found a packet of letters wrapped in a torn piece of brown pa-per.
I read the first letter.
Oh Laurence — my darling, my own dear love … It waswonderful last night when you quoted that verse of poetry.
I knew it was meant for me, though you didn’t look at me.
Aristide said, “You read verse well.” He didn’t guess whatwe were both feeling. My darling, I feel convinced thatsoon everything will come right. We shall be glad that henever knew, that he died happy. He’s been good to me. Idon’t want him to suffer. But I don’t really think that itcan be any pleasure to live after you’re eighty. I shouldn’twant to! Soon we shall be together for always. How won-derful it will be when I can say to you: “My dear dear hus-band …” Dearest, we were made for each other. I love you,love you, love you—I can see no end to our love, I—There was a good deal more, but I had no wish to go on.
Grimly I went downstairs and thrust my parcel into Taverner’s hands.
“It’s possible,” I said, “that that’s what our unknown friend was lookingfor.”
Taverner read a few passages, whistled and shuffled29 through the vari-ous letters.
Then he looked at me with the expression of a cat who has been fedwith the best cream.
“Well,” he said softly. “This pretty well cooks Mrs. Brenda Leonides’
goose. And Mr. Laurence Brown’s. So it was them, all the time….”
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
racing
|
|
| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
cisterns
|
|
| n.蓄水池，储水箱( cistern的名词复数 )；地下储水池 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
fully
|
|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
prying
|
|
| adj.爱打听的v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的现在分词 )；撬开 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
twig
|
|
| n.小树枝，嫩枝；v.理解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
maternal
|
|
| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
peril
|
|
| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
feverish
|
|
| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
implements
|
|
| n.工具( implement的名词复数 )；家具；手段；[法律]履行（契约等）v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
shrugged
|
|
| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
dents
|
|
| n.花边边饰；凹痕( dent的名词复数 )；凹部；减少；削弱v.使产生凹痕( dent的第三人称单数 )；损害；伤害；挫伤（信心、名誉等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
sprawled
|
|
| v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的过去式和过去分词)；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
spoke
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
propped
|
|
| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
crouched
|
|
| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
sobbed
|
|
| 哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
fathom
|
|
| v.领悟，彻底了解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
tornado
|
|
| n.飓风，龙卷风 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
mattress
|
|
| n.床垫，床褥 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
browsing
|
|
| v.吃草( browse的现在分词 )；随意翻阅；（在商店里）随便看看；（在计算机上）浏览信息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
wrecked
|
|
| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
clemency
|
|
| n.温和，仁慈，宽厚 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
clinched
|
|
| v.（尤指两人）互相紧紧抱[扭]住( clinch的过去式和过去分词 )；解决（争端、交易），达成（协议） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
attic
|
|
| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
hissing
|
|
| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
eerie
|
|
| adj.怪诞的；奇异的；可怕的；胆怯的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
shuffled
|
|
| v.洗（纸牌）( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚步走；粗心地做；摆脱尘世的烦恼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |