Chapter 4 Dinner With Eric（1）

Chapter 4 Dinner With Eric
I
‘Do you mind if I tell you something, old man?’ said Eric Pugh.
Sir Stafford Nye looked at him. He had known Eric Pugh for a goodmany years. They had not been close friends. Old Eric, or so Sir Staffordthought, was rather a boring friend. He was, on the other hand, faithful.
And he was the type of man who, though not amusing, had a knack¹ ofknowing things. People said things to him and he remembered what theysaid and stored them up. Sometimes he could push out a useful bit of in-formation.
‘Come back from that Malay Conference, haven’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Sir Stafford.
‘Anything particular turn up there?’
‘Just the usual,’ said Sir Stafford.
‘Oh. I wondered if something had–well, you know what I mean. Any-thing had occurred to put the cat among the pigeons.’
‘What, at the Conference? No, just painfully predictable. Everyone saidjust what you thought they’d say only they said it unfortunately at rathergreater length than you could have imagined possible. I don’t know why Igo on these things.’
Eric Pugh made a rather tedious remark or two as to what the Chinesewere really up to.
‘I don’t think they’re really up to anything,’ said Sir Stafford. ‘All theusual rumours², you know, about the diseases poor old Mao has got andwho’s intriguing³ against him and why.’
‘And what about the Arab-Israeli business?’
‘That’s proceeding⁴ according to plan also. Their plan, that is to say. Andanyway, what’s that got to do with Malaya?’
‘Well, I didn’t really mean so much Malaya.’
‘You’re looking rather like the Mock Turtle,’ said Sir Stafford Nye. ‘“Soupof the evening, beautiful soup.” Wherefore this gloom?’
‘Well, I just wondered if you’d–you’ll forgive me, won’t you?–I mean youhaven’t done anything to blot⁵ your copybook, have you, in any way?’
‘Me?’ said Sir Stafford, looking highly surprised.
‘Well, you know what you’re like, Staff. You like giving people a joltsometimes, don’t you?’
‘I have behaved impeccably of late,’ said Sir Stafford. ‘What have youbeen hearing about me?’
‘I hear there was some trouble about something that happened in aplane on your way home.’
‘Oh?’ Who did you hear that from?’
‘Well, you know, I saw old Cartison.’
‘Terrible old bore. Always imagining things that haven’t happened.’
‘Yes, I know. I know he is like that. But he was just saying that somebodyor other–Winterton, at least–seemed to think you’d been up to something.’
‘Up to something? I wish I had,’ said Sir Stafford Nye.
‘There’s some espionage⁶ racket going on somewhere and he got a bitworried about certain people.’
‘What do they think I am–another Philby, something of that kind?’
‘You know you’re very unwise sometimes in the things you say, thethings you make jokes about.’
‘It’s very hard to resist sometimes,’ his friend told him. ‘All these politi-cians and diplomats⁷ and the rest of them. They’re so bloody⁸ solemn. You’dlike to give them a bit of a stir up now and again.’
‘Your sense of fun is very distorted, my boy. It really is. I worry aboutyou sometimes. They wanted to ask you some questions about somethingthat happened on the flight back and they seem to think that you didn’t,well–that perhaps you didn’t exactly speak the truth about it all.’
‘Ah, that’s what they think, is it? Interesting. I think I must work that upa bit.’
‘Now don’t do anything rash.’
‘I must have my moments of fun sometimes.’
‘Look here, old fellow, you don’t want to go and ruin your career just byindulging your sense of humour.’
‘I am quickly coming to the conclusion that there is nothing so boring ashaving a career.’
‘I know, I know. You are always inclined to take that point of view, andyou haven’t got on as far as you ought to have, you know. You were in therunning for Vienna at one time. I don’t like to see you muck up things.’
‘I am behaving with the utmost sobriety and virtue⁹, I assure you,’ saidSir Stafford Nye. He added, ‘Cheer up, Eric. You’re a good friend, butreally, I’m not guilty of fun and games.’
Eric shook his head doubtfully.
It was a fine evening. Sir Stafford walked home across Green Park. As hecrossed the road in Birdcage Walk, a car leaping down the street missedhim by a few inches. Sir Stafford was an athletic¹⁰ man. His leap took himsafely on to the pavement. The car disappeared down the street. Hewondered. Just for a moment he could have sworn that that car had delib-erately tried to run him down. An interesting thought. First his flat hadbeen searched, and now he himself might have been marked down. Prob-ably a mere¹¹ coincidence. And yet, in the course of his life, some of whichhad been spent in wild neighbourhoods and places, Sir Stafford Nye hadcome in contact with danger. He knew, as it were, the touch and feel andsmell of danger. He felt it now. Someone, somewhere was gunning forhim. But why? For what reason? As far as he knew, he had not stuck hisneck out in any way. He wondered.
He let himself into his flat and picked up the mail that lay on the floorinside. Nothing much. A couple of bills and copy of Lifeboat periodical. Hethrew the bills on to his desk and put a finger through the wrapper of Life-boat. It was a cause to which he occasionally contributed. He turned thepages without much attention because he was still absorbed in what hewas thinking. Then he stopped the action of his fingers abruptly¹². Some-thing was taped between two of the pages. Taped with adhesive¹⁴ tape. Helooked at it closely. It was his passport returned to him unexpectedly inthis fashion. He tore it free and looked at it. The last stamp on it was thearrival stamp at Heathrow the day before. She had used his passport, get-ting back here safely, and had chosen this way to return it to him. Wherewas she now? He would like to know.
He wondered if he would ever see her again. Who was she? Where hadshe gone, and why? It was like waiting for the second act of a play. Indeed,he felt the first act had hardly been played yet. What had he seen? An old-fashioned curtain-raiser, perhaps. A girl who had ridiculously wanted todress herself up and pass herself off as of the male sex, who had passedthe passport control of Heathrow without attracting suspicion of any kindto herself and who had now disappeared through that gateway¹⁵ into Lon-don. No, he would probably never see her again. It annoyed him. But why,he thought, why do I want to? She wasn’t particularly attractive, shewasn’t anything. No, that wasn’t quite true. She was something, orsomeone, or she could not have induced him, with no particular persua-sion, with no overt¹⁶ sex stimulation¹⁷, nothing except a plain demand forhelp, to do what she wanted. A demand from one human being to anotherhuman being because, or so she had intimated, not precisely¹⁸ in words, butnevertheless it was what she had intimated, she knew people and she re-cognized in him a man who was willing to take a risk to help another hu-man being. And he had taken a risk, too, thought Sir Stafford Nye. Shecould have put anything in that beer glass of his. He could have beenfound, if she had so willed it, found as a dead body in a seat tucked awayin the corner of a departure lounge in an airport. And if she had, as nodoubt she must have had, a knowledgeable¹⁹ recourse to drugs, his deathmight have been passed off as an attack of heart trouble due to altitude ordifficult pressurizing– something or other like that. Oh well, why thinkabout it? He wasn’t likely to see her again and he was annoyed.
Yes, he was annoyed, and he didn’t like being annoyed. He consideredthe matter for some minutes. Then he wrote out an advertisement, to berepeated three times. ‘Passenger to Frankfurt. November 3rd. Please com-municate with fellow traveller to London.’ No more than that. Either shewould or she wouldn’t. If it ever came to her eyes she would know bywhom that advertisement had been inserted. She had had his passport,she knew his name. She could look him up. He might hear from her. Hemight not. Probably not. If not, the curtain-raiser would remain a curtain-raiser, a silly little play that received late-comers to the theatre and diver-ted them until the real business of the evening began. Very useful in pre-war times. In all probability, though, he would not hear from her againand one of the reasons might be that she might have accomplishedwhatever it was she had come to do in London, and have now left thecountry once more, flying abroad to Geneva, or the Middle East, or to Rus-sia or to China or to South America, or to the United States. And why,thought Sir Stafford, do I include South America? There must be a reason.
She had not mentioned South America. Nobody had mentioned SouthAmerica. Except Horsham, that was true. And even Horsham had onlymentioned South America among a lot of other mentions.
On the following morning as he walked slowly homeward, after hand-ing in his advertisement, along the pathway across St James’s Park his eyepicked out, half unseeing, the autumn flowers. The chrysanthemums²⁰ look-ing by now stiff and leggy with their button tops of gold and bronze. Theirsmell came to him faintly, a rather goatlike smell, he had always thought,a smell that reminded him of hillsides in Greece. He must remember tokeep his eye on the Personal Column. Not yet. Two or three days at leastwould have to pass before his own advertisement was put in and beforethere had been time for anyone to put in one in answer. He must not missit if there was an answer because, after all, it was irritating not to know–not to have any idea what all this was about.
He tried to recall not the girl at the airport but his sister Pamela’s face. Along time since her death. He remembered her. Of course he rememberedher, but he could not somehow picture her face. It irritated him not to beable to do so. He had paused just when he was about to cross one of theroads. There was no traffic except for a car jigging²¹ slowly along with thesolemn demeanour of a bored dowager. An elderly car, he thought. Anold-fashioned Daimler limousine²². He shook his shoulders. Why stand herein this idiotic²³ way, lost in thought?
He took an abrupt¹³ step to cross the road and suddenly with surprisingvigour the dowager limousine, as he had thought of it in his mind, acceler-ated. Accelerated with a sudden astonishing speed. It bore down on himwith such swiftness that he only just had time to leap across on to the op-posite pavement. It disappeared with a flash, turning round the curve ofthe road further on.
‘I wonder,’ said Sir Stafford to himself. ‘Now I wonder. Could it be thatthere is someone that doesn’t like me? Someone following me, perhaps,watching me take my way home, waiting for an opportunity?’

1 knack   

n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法

参考例句：

• He has a knack of teaching arithmetic.他教算术有诀窍。
• Making omelettes isn't difficult,but there's a knack to it.做煎蛋饼并不难，但有窍门。

2 rumours   

n.传闻( rumour的名词复数 )；风闻；谣言；谣传

参考例句：

• The rumours were completely baseless. 那些谣传毫无根据。
• Rumours of job losses were later confirmed. 裁员的传言后来得到了证实。

3 intriguing   

adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心

参考例句：

• These discoveries raise intriguing questions. 这些发现带来了非常有趣的问题。
• It all sounds very intriguing. 这些听起来都很有趣。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 proceeding   

n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报

参考例句：

• This train is now proceeding from Paris to London.这次列车从巴黎开往伦敦。
• The work is proceeding briskly.工作很有生气地进展着。

5 blot   

vt.弄脏（用吸墨纸）吸干；n.污点，污渍

参考例句：

• That new factory is a blot on the landscape.那新建的工厂破坏了此地的景色。
• The crime he committed is a blot on his record.他犯的罪是他的履历中的一个污点。

6 espionage   

n.间谍行为，谍报活动

参考例句：

• The authorities have arrested several people suspected of espionage.官方已经逮捕了几个涉嫌从事间谍活动的人。
• Neither was there any hint of espionage in Hanley's early life.汉利的早期生活也毫无进行间谍活动的迹象。

7 diplomats   

n.外交官( diplomat的名词复数 )；有手腕的人，善于交际的人

参考例句：

• These events led to the expulsion of senior diplomats from the country. 这些事件导致一些高级外交官被驱逐出境。
• The court has no jurisdiction over foreign diplomats living in this country. 法院对驻本国的外交官无裁判权。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 bloody   

adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染

参考例句：

• He got a bloody nose in the fight.他在打斗中被打得鼻子流血。
• He is a bloody fool.他是一个十足的笨蛋。

9 virtue   

n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力

参考例句：

• He was considered to be a paragon of virtue.他被认为是品德尽善尽美的典范。
• You need to decorate your mind with virtue.你应该用德行美化心灵。

10 athletic   

adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的

参考例句：

• This area has been marked off for athletic practice.这块地方被划出来供体育训练之用。
• He is an athletic star.他是一个运动明星。

11 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

12 abruptly   

adv.突然地，出其不意地

参考例句：

• He gestured abruptly for Virginia to get in the car.他粗鲁地示意弗吉尼亚上车。
• I was abruptly notified that a half-hour speech was expected of me.我突然被通知要讲半个小时的话。

13 abrupt   

adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的

参考例句：

• The river takes an abrupt bend to the west.这河突然向西转弯。
• His abrupt reply hurt our feelings.他粗鲁的回答伤了我们的感情。

14 adhesive   

n.粘合剂；adj.可粘着的，粘性的

参考例句：

• You'll need a strong adhesive to mend that chair. 你需要一种粘性很强的东西来修理那把椅子。
• Would you give me an adhesive stamp?请给我一枚带胶邮票好吗？

15 gateway   

n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法

参考例句：

• Hard work is the gateway to success.努力工作是通往成功之路。
• A man collected tolls at the gateway.一个人在大门口收通行费。

16 overt   

adj.公开的，明显的，公然的

参考例句：

• His opponent's intention is quite overt.他的对手的意图很明显。
• We should learn to fight with enemy in an overt and covert way.我们应学会同敌人做公开和隐蔽的斗争。

17 stimulation   

n.刺激，激励，鼓舞

参考例句：

• The playgroup provides plenty of stimulation for the children.幼儿游戏组给孩子很多启发。
• You don't get any intellectual stimulation in this job.你不能从这份工作中获得任何智力启发。

18 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

19 knowledgeable   

adj.知识渊博的；有见识的

参考例句：

• He's quite knowledgeable about the theatre.他对戏剧很有心得。
• He made some knowledgeable remarks at the meeting.他在会上的发言颇有见地。

20 chrysanthemums   

n.菊花( chrysanthemum的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The cold weather had most deleterious consequences among the chrysanthemums. 寒冷的天气对菊花产生了极有害的影响。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The chrysanthemums are in bloom; some are red and some yellow. 菊花开了， 有红的，有黄的。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

21 jigging   

n.跳汰选，簸选v.（使）上下急动( jig的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• They were jigging up and down to the music. 他们随着音乐的节拍轻快地上下跳着。 来自互联网
• She hopped about on stage, jigging her feet. 她在舞台上用脚跳来跳去。 来自互联网

22 limousine   

n.豪华轿车

参考例句：

• A chauffeur opened the door of the limousine for the grand lady.司机为这个高贵的女士打开了豪华轿车的车门。
• We arrived in fine style in a hired limousine.我们很气派地乘坐出租的豪华汽车到达那里。

23 idiotic   

adj.白痴的

参考例句：

• It is idiotic to go shopping with no money.去买东西而不带钱是很蠢的。
• The child's idiotic deeds caused his family much trouble.那小孩愚蠢的行为给家庭带来许多麻烦。