Fortune favoured her, for she fell in with Roger not far from the house.
“Hullo,” he said. “You’re back early from London.”
“I wasn’t in the mood for London,” said Frankie.
“Have you been to the house yet?” he asked. His face grew grave. “Nich-olson, I find, has been telling Sylvia the truth about poor old Henry. Poorgirl, she’s taken it hard. It seems she had absolutely no suspicion.”
“I know,” said Frankie. “They were both together in the library when Icame in. She was—very upset.”
“Look here, Frankie,” said Roger. “Henry has absolutely got to be cured.
It isn’t as though this drug habit had a real hold on him. He hasn’t beentaking it so very long. And he’s got every incentive1 in the world to makehim keen on being cured—Sylvia, Tommy, his home. He’s got to be madeto see the position clearly. Nicholson is just the man to put the thingthrough. He was talking to me the other day. He’s had some amazing suc-cesses—even with people who have been slaves for years to the beastlystuff. If Henry will only consent to go to the Grange—”
Frankie interrupted.
“Look here,” she said. “There’s something I want to ask you. Just a ques-tion. I hope you won’t think I’m simply frightfully impertinent.”
“What is it?” asked Roger, his attention arrested.
“Do you mind telling me if you took a photograph out of that man’spocket—the one who fell over the cliff at Marchbolt?”
She was studying him closely, watching every detail of his expression.
She was satisfied with what she saw.
Slight annoyance2, a trace of embarrassment—no flash of guilt3 or dis-may.
“Now, how on earth did you come to guess that?” he said. “Or did Moiratell you—but, then, she doesn’t know?”
“You did, then?”
“I suppose I’ll have to admit it.”
“Why?”
Roger seemed embarrassed again.
“Well, look at it as I did. Here I am, mounting guard over a strange deadbody. Something is sticking out of his pocket. I look at it. By an amazingcoincidence it’s the photograph of a woman I know—a married woman—and a woman who I guess is not too happily married. What’s going to hap-pen? An inquest. Publicity4. Possibly the wretched girl’s name in all the pa-pers. I acted on impulse. Took the photo and tore it up. I daresay I actedwrongly, but Moira Nicholson is a nice little soul and I didn’t want her toget landed in a mess.”
Frankie drew a deep breath.
“So that was it,” she said. “If you only knew—”
“Knew what?” said Roger puzzled.
“I don’t know that I can tell you just now,” said Frankie. “I may later. It’sall rather complicated. I can quite see why you took the photograph, butwas there any objection to your saying you recognized the man? Oughtn’tyou to have told the police who he was?”
“Recognized him?” said Roger. He looked bewildered.
“How could I recognize him? I didn’t know him.”
“But you’d met him down here—only about a week before.”
“My dear girl, are you quite mad?”
“Alan Carstairs—you did meet Alan Carstairs?”
“Ah, yes! Man who came down with the Rivingtons. But the dead manwasn’t Alan Carstairs.”
“But he was!”
They stared at each other, then Frankie said with a renewal5 of suspi-cion:
“Surely you must have recognized him?”
“I never saw his face,” said Roger.
“What?”
“No. There was a handkerchief spread over it.”
Frankie stared at him. Suddenly she remembered that in Bobby’s firstaccount of the tragedy he had mentioned putting a handkerchief over theface of the dead man.
“You never thought of looking?” went on Frankie.
“No. Why should I?”
“Of course,” thought Frankie, “if I’d found a photograph of somebody Iknew in a dead person’s pocket, I should simply have had to look at theperson’s face. How beautifully incurious men are!”
“Poor little thing,” she said. “I’m so terribly sorry for her.”
“Who do you mean—Moira Nicholson? Why are you so sorry for her?”
“Because she’s frightened,” said Frankie slowly.
“She always looks half-scared to death. What is she frightened of?”
“Her husband.”
“I don’t know that I’d care to be up against Jasper Nicholson myself,” ad-mitted Roger.
“She’s sure he’s trying to murder her,” said Frankie abruptly6.
“Oh, my dear!” He looked at her incredulously.
“Sit down,” said Frankie. “I’m going to tell you a lot of things. I’ve got toprove to you that Dr. Nicholson is a dangerous criminal.”
“A criminal?”
Roger’s tone was frankly7 incredulous.
“Wait till you’ve heard the whole story.”
She gave him a clear and careful narrative8 of all that had occurred sincethe day Bobby and Dr. Thomas had found the body. She only kept back thefact that her accident had not been genuine, but she let it appear that shehad lingered at Merroway Court through her intense desire to get to thebottom of the mystery.
She could complain of no lack of interest on the part of her listener. Ro-ger seemed quite fascinated by the story.
“Is this really true?” he demanded. “All this about the fellow Jones beingpoisoned and all that?”
“Absolute gospel truth, my dear.”
“Sorry for my incredulity—but the facts do take a bit of swallowing,don’t they?”
He was silent a minute, frowning.
“Look here,” he said at last. “Fantastic as the whole thing sounds, I thinkyou must be right in your first deduction9. This man, Alex Pritchard, orAlan Carstairs, must have been murdered. If he wasn’t there seems nopoint in the attack upon Jones. Whether the key word to the situation isthe phrase ‘Why didn’t they ask Evans?’ or not doesn’t seem to me to mat-ter much since you’ve no clue to who Evans is or as to what he was tohave been asked. Let’s put it that the murderer or murderers assumedthat Jones was in possession of some knowledge, whether he knew it him-self or not, which was dangerous to them. So, accordingly, they tried toeliminate him, and probably would try again if they got on his track. Sofar that seems sense—but I don’t see by what process of reasoning you fixon Nicholson as the criminal.”
“He’s such a sinister10 man, and he’s got a dark-blue Talbot and he wasaway from here on the day that Bobby was poisoned.”
“That’s all pretty thin as evidence.”
“There are all the things Mrs. Nicholson told Bobby.”
She recited them, and once again they sounded melodramatic and un-substantial repeated aloud against the background of the peaceful Englishlandscape.
Roger shrugged11 his shoulders.
“She thinks he supplies Henry with the drug—but that’s pure conjecture,she’s not a particle of evidence that he does so. She thinks he wants to getHenry to the Grange as a patient—well, that’s a very natural wish for adoctor to have. A doctor wants as many patients as he can get. She thinkshe’s in love with Sylvia. Well, as to that, of course, I can’t say.”
“If she thinks so, she’s probably right,” interrupted Frankie. “A womanwould know all right about her own husband.”
“Well, granting that that’s the case, it doesn’t necessarily mean that theman’s a dangerous criminal. Lots of respectable citizens fall in love withother people’s wives.”
“There’s her belief that he wants to murder her,” urged Frankie.
Roger looked at her quizzically.
“You take that seriously?”
“She believes it, anyhow.”
Roger nodded and lit a cigarette.
“The question is, how much attention to pay that belief of hers,” he said.
“It’s a creepy sort of place, the Grange, full of queer customers. Livingthere would be inclined to upset a woman’s balance, especially if she wereof the timid nervous type.”
“Then you don’t think it’s true?”
“I don’t say that. She probably believes quite honestly that he is trying tokill her—but is there any foundation in fact for that belief? There doesn’tseem to be.”
Frankie remembered with curious clearness Moira saying, “It’s justnerves.” And somehow the mere12 fact that she had said that seemed toFrankie to point to the fact that it was not nerves, but she found it difficultto know how to explain her point of view to Roger.
Meanwhile the young man was going on:
“Mind you, if you could show that Nicholson had been in Marchbolt onthe day of the cliff tragedy that would be very different, or if we could findany definite motive13 linking him with Carstairs, but it seems to me you’reignoring the real suspects.”
“What real suspects?”
“The—what did you call them—Haymans?”
“Caymans.”
“That’s it. Now, they are undoubtedly14 in it up to the hilt. First, there’s thefalse identification of the body. Then there’s their insistence15 on the pointof whether the poor fellow said anything before he died. And I think it’slogical to assume, as you did, that the Buenos Aires offer came from, orwas arranged for, by them.”
“It’s a bit annoying,” said Frankie, “to have the most strenuous16 effortsmade to get you out of the way because you know something—and not toknow yourself what the something you know is. Bother—what a mess onegets into with words.”
“Yes,” said Roger grimly, “that was a mistake on their part. A mistakethat it’s going to take them all their time to remedy.”
“Oh!” cried Frankie. “I’ve just thought of something. Up to now, you see,I’ve been assuming that the photograph of Mrs. Cayman was substitutedfor the one of Moira Nicholson.”
“I can assure you,” said Roger gravely, “that I have never treasured thelikeness of a Mrs. Cayman against my heart. She sounds a most repulsivecreature.”
“Well, she was handsome in a way,” admitted Frankie. “A sort of bold,coarse, vampish way. But the point is this: Carstairs must have had herphotograph on him as well as Mrs. Nicholson’s.”
Roger nodded.
“And you think—” he suggested.
“I think one was love and the other was business! Carstairs was carryingabout the Cayman’s photograph for a reason. He wanted it identified bysomebody, perhaps. Now, listen—what happens? Someone, the male Cay-man perhaps, is following him and, seeing a good opportunity, steals upbehind him in the mist and gives him a shove. Carstairs goes over the cliffwith a startled cry. Male Cayman makes off as fast as he can; he doesn’tknow who may be about. We’ll say that he doesn’t know that AlanCarstairs is carrying about that photograph. What happens next? The pho-tograph is published—”
“Consternation in the Cayman ménage,” said Roger helpfully.
“Exactly. What is to be done? The bold thing—grasp the nettle17. Whoknows Carstairs as Carstairs? Hardly anyone in this country. Down goesMrs. Cayman, weeping crocodile tears and recognizing body as that of aconvenient brother. They also do a little hocus pocus of posting parcels tobolster up the walking tour theory.”
“You know, Frankie. I think that’s positively18 brilliant,” said Roger withadmiration.
“I think it’s pretty good myself,” said Frankie. “And you’re quite right.
We ought to get busy on the track of the Caymans. I can’t think why wehaven’t done so before.”
This was not quite true, since Frankie knew quite well the reason —namely that they had been on the track of Roger himself. However, shefelt it would be tactless, just at this stage, to reveal the fact.
“What are we going to do about Mrs. Nicholson?” she asked abruptly.
“What do you mean—do about her?”
“Well, the poor thing is terrified to death. I do think you’re callous19 abouther, Roger.”
“I’m not, really, but people who can’t help themselves always irritateme.”
“Oh! but do be fair. What can she do? She’s no money and nowhere togo.”
Roger said unexpectedly:
“If you were in her place, Frankie, you’d find something to do.”
“Oh!” Frankie was rather taken aback.
“Yes, you would. If you really thought somebody was trying to murderyou, you wouldn’t just stay there tamely waiting to be murdered. You’drun away and make a living somehow, or you’d murder the other personfirst! You’d do something.”
Frankie tried to think what she would do.
“I’d certainly do something,” she said thoughtfully.
“The truth of the matter is that you’ve got guts20 and she hasn’t,” said Ro-ger with decision.
Frankie felt complimented. Moira Nicholson was not really the type ofwoman she admired and she had also felt just slightly ruffled21 by Bobby’sabsorption in her. “Bobby,” she thought to herself, “likes them helpless.”
And she remembered the curious fascination22 that the photograph had hadfor him from the start of the affair.
“Oh, well,” thought Frankie, “at any rate, Roger’s different.”
Roger, it was clear, did not like them helpless. Moira, on the other hand,clearly did not think very much of Roger. She had called him weak andhad scouted23 the possibility of his having the guts to murder anyone. Hewas weak, perhaps—but undeniably he had charm. She had felt it fromthe first moment of arriving at Merroway Court.
Roger said quietly:
“If you liked, Frankie, you could make anything you chose of a man. .?.?.”
Frankie felt a sudden little thrill—and at the same time an acute embar-rassment. She changed the subject hastily.
“About your brother,” she said. “Do you still think he should go to theGrange?”
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
incentive
|
|
| n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
annoyance
|
|
| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
guilt
|
|
| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
publicity
|
|
| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
renewal
|
|
| adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
abruptly
|
|
| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
frankly
|
|
| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
narrative
|
|
| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
deduction
|
|
| n.减除，扣除，减除额；推论，推理，演绎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
sinister
|
|
| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
shrugged
|
|
| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
motive
|
|
| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
undoubtedly
|
|
| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
insistence
|
|
| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
strenuous
|
|
| adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
nettle
|
|
| n.荨麻；v.烦忧，激恼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
positively
|
|
| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
callous
|
|
| adj.无情的，冷淡的，硬结的，起老茧的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
guts
|
|
| v.狼吞虎咽，贪婪地吃，飞碟游戏（比赛双方每组5人，相距15码，互相掷接飞碟）；毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的第三人称单数 )；取出…的内脏n.勇气( gut的名词复数 )；内脏；消化道的下段；肠 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
ruffled
|
|
| adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
fascination
|
|
| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
scouted
|
|
| 寻找，侦察( scout的过去式和过去分词 )； 物色（优秀运动员、演员、音乐家等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |