The day after the inquest I went to see Major Phillpot and I told him point-blank that I wanted his opinion. Someone whom the old peat-cutting manhad taken to be Mrs. Esther Lee had been seen going up towards thewoods that morning.
“You know the old woman,” I said. “Do you actually think that shewould have been capable of causing an accident by deliberate malice1?”
“I can’t really believe so, Mike,” he said. “To do a thing like that youneed a very strong motive2. Revenge for some personal injury caused toyou. Something like that. And what had Ellie ever done to her? Nothing.”
“It seems crazy, I know. Why was she constantly appearing in thatqueer way, threatening Ellie, telling her to go away? She seemed to have agrudge against her, but how could she have had a grudge3? She’d nevermet Ellie or seen her before. What was Ellie to her but a perfectly4 strangeAmerican? There’s no past history, no link between them.”
“I know, I know,” said Phillpot. “I can’t help feeling, Mike, that there’ssomething here that we don’t undertand. I don’t know how much yourwife was over in England previous to her marriage. Did she ever live inthis part of the world for any length of time?”
“No, I’m sure of that. It’s all so difficult. I don’t really know anythingabout Ellie. I mean, who she knew, where she went. We just — met.” Ichecked myself and looked at him. I said, “You don’t know how we cameto meet, do you? No,” I went on, “you wouldn’t guess in a hundred yearshow we met.” And suddenly, in spite of myself, I began to laugh. Then Ipulled myself together. I could feel that I was very near hysteria.
I could see his kind patient face just waiting till I was myself again. Hewas a helpful man. There was no doubt about that.
“We met here,” I said. “Here at Gipsy’s Acre. I had been reading the no-tice board of the sale of The Towers and I walked up the road, up the hillbecause I was curious about this place. And that’s how I first saw her. Shewas standing5 there under a tree. I startled her—or perhaps it was she whostartled me. Anyway, that’s how it all began. That’s how we came to livehere in this damned, cursed, unlucky place.”
“Have you felt that all along? That it would be unlucky?”
“No. Yes. No, I don’t know really. I’ve never admitted it. I’ve neverwanted to admit it. But I think she knew. I think she’s been frightened allalong.” Then I said slowly, “I think somebody deliberately6 wanted tofrighten her.”
He said rather sharply, “What do you mean by that? Who wanted tofrighten her?”
“Presumably the gipsy woman. But somehow I’m not quite sure aboutit…She used to lie in wait for Ellie, you know, tell her this place wouldbring her bad luck. Tell her she ought to go away from it.”
“Tcha!” He spoke7 angrily. “I wish I’d been told more about that. I’d havespoken to old Esther. Told her she couldn’t do things like that.”
“Why did she?” I asked. “What made her?”
“Like so many people,” said Phillpot, “she likes to make herself import-ant. She likes either to give people warnings or else tell their fortunes andprophesy happy lives for them. She likes to pretend she knows the future.”
“Supposing,” I said slowly, “somebody gave her money. I’ve been toldshe’s fond of money.”
“Yes, she was very fond of money. If someone paid her—that’s whatyou’re suggesting—what put that idea into your head?”
“Sergeant8 Keene,” I said. “I should never have thought of it myself.”
“I see.” He shook his head doubtfully.
“I can’t believe,” he said, “that she would deliberately try to frightenyour wife to the extent of causing an accident.”
“She mayn’t have counted on a fatal accident. She might have donesomething to frighten the horse,” I said. “Let off a squib or flapped a sheetof white paper or something. Sometimes, you know, I did feel that she hadsome entirely9 personal grudge against Ellie, a grudge for some reason thatI don’t know about.”
“That sounds very far-fetched.”
“This place never belonged to her?” I asked. “The land, I mean.”
“No. Gipsies may have been warned off this property, probably morethan once. Gipsies are always getting turned off places, but I doubt if theykeep up a life-long resentment10 about it.”
“No,” I said, “that would be far-fetched. But I do wonder if for somereason that we don’t know about—she was paid—”
“A reason we don’t know about—what reason?”
I reflected a moment or two.
“Everything I say will just sound fantastic. Let’s say that, as Keene sug-gested, someone paid her to do the things she did. What did that someonewant? Say they wanted to make us both go away from here. They concen-trated on Ellie, not on me, because I wouldn’t be scared in the way Elliewould be. They frightened her to get her—and through her both of us—toleave here. If so, there must be some reason for wanting the land to comeon the market again. Somebody, shall we say, for some reason wants ourland.” I stopped.
“It’s a logical suggestion,” Phillpot said, “but I know of no reason whyanyone should.”
“Some important mineral deposit,” I suggested, “that nobody knowsabout.”
“Hm, I doubt it.”
“Something like buried treasure. Oh, I know it sounds absurd. Or—well,say the proceeds of some big bank robbery.”
Phillpot was still shaking his head but rather less vehemently11 now.
“The only other proposition,” I said, “is to go one step farther back asyou did just now. Behind Mrs. Lee to the person who paid Mrs. Lee. Thatmight be some unknown enemy of Ellie’s.”
“But you can’t think of anyone it would be likely to be?”
“No. She didn’t know anyone down here. That I’m sure of. She had nolinks with this place.” I got up. “Thank you for listening to me,” I said.
“I wish I could have been more helpful.”
I went out of the door, fingering the thing that I was carrying in mypocket. Then, taking a sudden decision, I turned on my heels and wentback into the room.
“There’s something I’d like to show you,” I said. “Actually, I was going totake it down to show Sergeant Keene and see what he could make of it.”
I dived into my pocket and brought out a stone round which waswrapped a crumpled12 bit of paper with printed writing on it.
“This was thrown through our breakfast window this morning,” I said.
“I heard the crash of the glass as I came down the stairs. A stone wasthrown through the window once before when we first came here. I don’tknow if this is the same person or not.”
I took off the wrapping paper and held it out for him. It was a dirty,coarse bit of paper. There was some printing on it in rather faint ink. Phill-pot put on his spectacles and bent13 over the piece of paper. The message onit was quite short. All it said was, “It was a woman who killed your wife.”
Phillpot’s eyebrows14 went up.
“Extraordinary,” he said. “Was the first message you got printed?”
“I can’t remember now. It was just a warning to go away from here. Ican’t even remember the exact wording of it now. Anyway, it seems prettycertain that that was hooligans. This doesn’t seem quite the same.”
“Do you think it was thrown in by someone who knew something?”
“Probably just a bit of silly cruel malice in the anonymous15 letter class.
You get it, you know, a good deal in villages.”
He handed it back to me.
“But I think your instinct was right,” he said, “to take it to SergeantKeene. He’ll know more about these anonymous things than I should.”
I found Sergeant Keene at the police station and he was definitely inter-ested.
“There’s queer things going on here,” he said.
“What do you think it means?” I asked.
“Hard to say. Might be just malice leading up to accusing some particu-lar person.”
“It might be just accusing Mrs. Lee, I suppose?”
“No, I don’t think it would have been put that way. It might be—I’d liketo think it was—it might be that someone saw or heard something. Hearda noise or a cry or the horse bolted right past someone, and they saw ormet a woman soon afterwards. But it sounds as though it was a differentwoman from the gipsy, because everyone thinks the gipsy’s mixed up inthis anyway. So this sounds as though another, an entirely different wo-man was meant.”
“What about the gipsy?” I said. “Have you had news of her, found her?”
He shook his head slowly.
“We know some of the places she used to go when she left here. EastAnglia, that way. She’d friends there among the gipsy clan16. She’s not beenthere, they say, but they’d say that anyway. They clam17 up, you know. She’sfairly well known by sight in those parts but nobody’s seen her. All thesame, I don’t think she’s as far away as East Anglia.”
There was something peculiar18 about the way he said the words.
“I don’t quite understand,” I said.
“Look at it this way, she’s scared. She’s got good reason to be. She’s beenthreatening your wife, frightening her, and now, say, she caused an acci-dent and your wife died. The police’ll be after her. She knows that, soshe’ll go to earth, as you might say. She’ll put as big a distance betweenherself and us as she possibly can. But she won’t want to show herself.
She’d be afraid of public transport.”
“But you’ll find her? She’s a woman of striking appearance.”
“Ah yes, we shall find her eventually. These things take a little time.
That is, if it was that way.”
“But you think it was some other way.”
“Well, you know what I’ve wondered all along. Whether somebody waspaying her to say the things she did?”
“Then she might be even more anxious to get away,” I pointed19 out.
“But somebody else would be anxious too. You’ve got to think of that,Mr. Rogers.”
“You mean,” I said slowly, “the person who paid her.”
“Yes.”
“Supposing it was a—a woman who paid her.”
“And supposing somebody else has some idea of that. And so they startsending anonymous messages. The woman would be scared too. Sheneedn’t have meant this to happen, you know. However much she got thatgipsy woman to frighten your wife away from this place she wouldn’thave meant it to result in Mrs. Rogers’ death.”
“No,” I said. “Death wasn’t meant. It was just to frighten us. To frightenmy wife and to frighten me into leaving here.”
“And now who’s going to be frightened? The woman who caused the ac-cident. And that’s Mrs. Esther Lee. And so she’s going to come clean, isn’tshe? Say it wasn’t really her doing. She’ll admit even that she was paidmoney to do it. And she’ll mention a name. She’ll say who paid her. Andsomebody wouldn’t like that would they, Mr. Rogers?”
“You mean this unknown woman that we’ve more or less postulatedwithout even knowing there’s any such person?”
“Man or woman, say someone paid her. Well, that someone would wanther silenced pretty quickly, wouldn’t they?”
“You’re thinking she might be dead?”
“It’s a possibility, isn’t it?” said Keene. Then he made what seemed quitean abrupt20 change of subject. “You know that kind of Folly21 place, Mr. Ro-gers, that you’ve got up at the top of your woods?”
“Yes,” I said, “what of it? My wife and I had it repaired and fixed22 up abit. We used to go up there occasionally but not very often. Not lately cer-tainly. Why?”
“Well, we’ve been hunting about, you know. We looked into this Folly. Itwasn’t locked.”
“No,” I said, “we never bothered to lock it. There was nothing of value inthere, just a few odd bits of furniture.”
“We thought it possible old Mrs. Lee had been using it but we found notraces of her. We did find this, though. I was going to show it to you any-way.” He opened a drawer and took out a small delicate gold- chasedlighter. It was a woman’s lighter23 and it had an initial on it in diamonds.
The letter C. “It wouldn’t be your wife’s, would it?”
“Not with the initial C. No, it’s not Ellie’s,” I said. “She hadn’t anything ofthat kind. And it’s not Miss Andersen’s either. Her name is Greta.”
“It was up there where somebody had dropped it. It’s a classy bit ofgoods—cost money.”
“C,” I said, repeating the initial thoughtfully. “I can’t think of anyonewho’s been with us whose initial is C except Cora,” I said. “That’s my wife’sstepmother. Mrs. van Stuyvesant, but I really can’t see her scrambling24 upto the Folly along that overgrown path. And anyway she hasn’t been stay-ing with us for quite a long time. About a month. I don’t think I’ve everseen her using this lighter. Perhaps I wouldn’t notice anyway,” I said.
“Miss Andersen might know.”
“Well, take it up with you and show it to her.”
“I will. But if so, if it’s Cora’s, it seems odd that we’ve never seen it whenwe’ve been in the Folly lately. There’s not much stuff there. You’d noticesomething like this lying on the floor—it was on the floor?”
“Yes, quite near the divan25. Of course anybody might use that Folly. It’s ahandy place, you know, for a couple of lovers to meet any time. The localsI’m talking about. But they wouldn’t be likely to have an expensive thingof this kind.”
“There’s Claudia Hardcastle,” I said, “but I doubt if she’d have anythingas fancy as this. And what would she be doing in the Folly?”
“She was quite a friend of your wife’s, wasn’t she?”
“Yes,” I said, “I think she was Ellie’s best friend down here. And she’dknow we wouldn’t mind her using the Folly any time.”
“Ah,” said Sergeant Keene.
I looked at him rather hard. “You don’t think Claudia Hardcastle was a—an enemy of Ellie’s do you? That would be absurd.”
“Doesn’t seem any reason why she should be, I agree, but you neverknow with ladies.”
“I suppose—” I began and then stopped because what I was going to saywould seem perhaps rather odd.
“Yes, Mr. Rogers?”
“I believe that Claudia Hardcastle was originally married to an Amer-ican—an American named Lloyd. Actually—the name of my wife’s prin-cipal trustee in America is Stanford Lloyd. But there must be hundreds ofLloyds and anyway it would only be a coincidence if it was the same per-son. And what would it have to do with all this?”
“It doesn’t seem likely. But then—” he stopped.
“The funny thing is that I thought I saw Stanford Lloyd down here onthe day of the—the accident—Having lunch in the George at Bartington—”
“He didn’t come to see you?”
I shook my head.
“He was with someone who looked rather like Miss Hardcastle. Butprobably it was just a mistake on my part. You know, I suppose, that it washer brother who built our house?”
“Does she take an interest in the house?”
“No,” I said, “I don’t think she likes her brother’s type of architecture.”
Then I got up. “Well, I won’t take any more of your time. Try and find thegipsy.”
“We shan’t stop looking, I can tell you that. Coroner wants her too.”
I said good-bye and went out of the police station. In the queer way thatso often happens when you suddenly meet someone you’ve been talkingabout, Claudia Hardcastle came out of the post office just as I was passingit. We both stopped. She said with that slight embarrassment26 that youhave when you meet someone that’s been recently bereaved27:
“I’m so terribly sorry, Mike, about Ellie. I won’t say any more. It’sbeastly when people say things to you. But I have just—just to say that.”
“I know,” I said. “You were very nice to Ellie. You made her feel at homehere. I’ve been grateful.”
“There was one thing I wanted to ask you and I thought perhaps I’d bet-ter do it now before you go to America. I hear you’re going quite soon.”
“As soon as I can. I’ve got a lot to see to there.”
“It was only—if you were putting your house on the market I thought itmight be a thing you’d set in motion before you went away…And if so—ifso, I’d rather like to have the first refusal of it.”
I stared at her. This really did surprise me. It was the last thing I’d ex-pected.
“You mean you’d like to buy it? I thought you didn’t even care for thattype of architecture?”
“My brother Rudolf said to me that it was the best thing he’d done. Idare say he knows. I expect you’ll want a very large price for it but I couldpay it. Yes, I’d like to have it.”
I couldn’t help thinking it was odd. She’d never shown the faintest ap-preciation of our house when she’d come to it. I wondered as I’dwondered once or twice before what her links with her half-brother reallywere. Had she really a great devotion to him? Sometimes I’d almostthought that she disliked him, perhaps hated him. She spoke of him cer-tainly in a very odd way. But whatever her actual emotions were, hemeant something to her. Meant something important. I shook my headslowly.
“I can see that you might think I’d want to sell the place and leave herebecause of Ellie’s death,” I said. “But actually that’s not so at all. We livedhere and were happy and this is the place I shall remember her best. Ishan’t sell Gipsy’s Acre—not for any consideration! You can be quite sureof that.”
Our eyes met. It was like a kind of tussle28 between us. Then hersdropped.
I took my courage in both hands and spoke.
“It’s no business of mine, but you were married once. Was the name ofyour husband Stanford Lloyd?”
She looked at me for a moment without speaking. Then she said ab-ruptly:
“Yes,” and turned away.
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收听单词发音
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1
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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2
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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3
grudge
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| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
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4
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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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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6
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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7
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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8
sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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9
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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12
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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16
clan
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| n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派 | |
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clam
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| n.蛤，蛤肉 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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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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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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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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lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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24
scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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divan
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| n.长沙发；（波斯或其他东方诗人的）诗集 | |
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embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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27
bereaved
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| adj.刚刚丧失亲人的v.使失去（希望、生命等）( bereave的过去式和过去分词)；（尤指死亡）使丧失（亲人、朋友等）；使孤寂；抢走（财物） | |
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28
tussle
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| n.&v.扭打，搏斗，争辩 | |
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