Dr. MacMaster was an old man with bushy eyebrows1, shrewd grey eyesand a pugnacious2 chin. He leaned back in his shabby armchair and stud-ied his visitor carefully. He found that he liked what he saw.
On Calgary’s side also there was a feeling of liking3. For the first time al-most, since he had come back to England, he felt that he was talking tosomeone who appreciated his own feelings and point of view.
“It’s very good of you to see me, Dr. MacMaster,” he said.
“Not at all,” said the doctor. “I’m bored to death since I retired4 frompractice. Young men of my own profession tell me I must sit here like adummy taking care of my groggy5 heart, but don’t think it comes natural tome. It doesn’t. I listen to the wireless6, blah—blah—blah—and occasionallymy housekeeper7 persuades me to look at television, flick8, flick, flick. I’vebeen a busy man, run off my feet all my life. I don’t take kindly9 to sittingstill. Reading tires my eyes. So don’t apologize for taking up my time.”
“The first thing I’ve got to make you understand,” said Calgary, “is whyI’m still concerning myself over all this. Logically speaking, I suppose, I’vedone what I came to do—told the unpalatable fact of my concussion10 andloss of memory, vindicated11 the boy’s character. After that, the only saneand logical thing to do would be to go away and try to forget about it all.
Eh? Isn’t that right?”
“Depends,” said Dr. MacMaster. “Something worrying you?” he asked inthe ensuing pause.
“Yes,” said Calgary. “Everything worries me. You see, my news was notreceived as I thought it would be.”
“Oh, well,” said Dr. MacMaster, “nothing odd in that. Happens everyday. We rehearse a thing beforehand in our own minds, it doesn’t matterwhat it is, consultation12 with another practitioner13, proposal of marriage toa young lady, talk with your boy before going back to school—when thething comes off, it never goes as you thought it would. You’ve thought itout, you see; all the things that you are going to say and you’ve usuallymade up your mind what the answers are going to be. And, of course,that’s what throws you off every time. The answers never are what youthink they will be. That’s what’s upset you, I suppose?”
“Yes,” said Calgary.
“What did you expect? Expected them to be all over you?”
“I expected”—he considered a moment—“blame? Perhaps. Resentment14?
Very likely. But also thankfulness.”
MacMaster grunted15. “And there’s no thankfulness, and not as much re-sentment as you think there ought to be?”
“Something like that,” Calgary confessed.
“That’s because you didn’t know the circumstances until you got there.
Why have you come to me, exactly?”
Calgary said slowly:
“Because I want to understand more about the family. I only know theacknowledged facts. A very fine and unselfish woman doing her best forher adopted children, a public- spirited woman, a fine character. Setagainst that, what’s called, I believe, a problem child—a child that goeswrong. The young delinquent16. That’s all I know. I don’t know anythingelse. I don’t know anything about Mrs. Argyle herself.”
“You’re quite right,” said MacMaster. “You’re putting your finger on thething that matters. If you think it over, you know, that’s always the inter-esting part of any murder. What the person was like who was murdered.
Everybody’s always so busy inquiring into the mind of the murderer.
You’ve been thinking, probably, that Mrs. Argyle was the sort of womanwho shouldn’t have been murdered.”
“I should imagine that everyone felt that.”
“Ethically,” said MacMaster, “you’re quite right. But you know”— herubbed his nose—“isn’t it the Chinese who held that beneficence is to beaccounted a sin rather than a virtue17? They’ve got something there, youknow. Beneficence does things to people. Ties ’em up in knots. We allknow what human nature’s like. Do a chap a good turn and you feelkindly towards him. You like him. But the chap who’s had the good turndone to him, does he feel so kindly to you? Does he really like you? Heought to, of course, but does he?
“Well,” said the doctor, after a moment’s pause. “There you are. Mrs.
Argyle was what you might call a wonderful mother. But she overdid18 thebeneficence. No doubt of that. Or wanted to. Or definitely tried to do so.”
“They weren’t her own children,” Calgary pointed19 out.
“No,” said MacMaster. “That’s just where the trouble came in, I imagine.
You’ve only got to look at any normal mother cat. She has her kittens,she’s passionately20 protective of them, she’ll scratch anyone who goes nearthem. And then, in a week or so, she starts resuming her own life. She goesout, hunts a bit, takes a rest from her young. She’ll still protect them ifanyone attacks them, but she is no longer obsessed21 by them, all the time.
She’ll play with them a bit; then when they’re a bit too rough, she’ll turnon them and give them a spank22 and tell them she wants to be let alone fora bit. She’s reverting23, you see, to nature. And as they grow up she caresless and less about them, and her thoughts go more and more to the at-tractive Toms in the neighbourhood. That’s what you might call the nor-mal pattern of female life. I’ve seen many girls and women, with strongmaternal instincts, keen on getting married but mainly, though theymayn’t quite know it themselves—because of their urge to motherhood.
And the babies come; they’re happy and satisfied. Life goes back into pro-portion for them. They can take an interest in their husbands and in thelocal affairs and in the gossip that’s going round, and of course in theirchildren. But it’s all in proportion. The maternal24 instinct, in a purely25 phys-ical sense, is satisfied, you see.
“Well, with Mrs. Argyle the maternal instinct was very strong, but thephysical satisfaction of bearing a child or children, never came. And soher maternal obsession26 never really slackened. She wanted children, lotsof children. She couldn’t have enough of them. Her whole mind, night andday, was on those children. Her husband didn’t count any more. He wasjust a pleasant abstraction in the background. No, everything was the chil-dren. Their feeding, their clothing, their playing, everything to do withthem. Far too much was done for them. The thing she didn’t give themand that they needed, was a little plain, honest-to-goodness neglect. Theyweren’t just turned out into the garden to play like ordinary children inthe country. No, they had to have every kind of gadget27, artificial climbingthings and stepping stones, a house built in the trees, sand brought and alittle beach made on the river. Their food wasn’t plain, ordinary food.
Why, those kids even had their vegetables sieved28, up to nearly five yearsold, and their milk sterilized29 and the water tested and their caloriesweighed and their vitamins computed30! Mind you, I’m not being unprofes-sional in talking to you like this. Mrs. Argyle was never my patient. If sheneeded a doctor she went to one in Harley Street. Not that she often went.
She was a very robust31 and healthy woman.
“But I was the local doctor who was called in to see the children, thoughshe was inclined to think I was a bit casual over them. I told her to let ’emeat a few blackberries from the hedges. I told her it wouldn’t hurt them toget their feet wet and have an occasional cold in the head, and that there’snothing much wrong with a child who’s got a temperature of 99. No needto fuss till it’s over 101. Those children were pampered32 and spoon-fed andfussed over and loved and in many ways it didn’t do them any good.”
“You mean,” said Calgary, “it didn’t do Jacko any good?”
“Well, I wasn’t really only thinking of Jacko. Jacko to my mind was a li-ability from the start. The modern label for him is ‘a crazy mixed-up kid.’
It’s just as good as any other label. The Argyles did their best for him; theydid everything that could have been done. I’ve seen a good many Jackos inmy lifetime. Later in life, when the boy has gone hopelessly wrong, theparents say, ‘If only I’d been stricter with him when he was young,’ or elsethey say, ‘I was too harsh, if only I’d been kinder.’ I don’t think myself itamounts to a penn’orth of difference. There are those who go wrong be-cause they’ve had an unhappy home and essentially33 feel unloved. Andagain there are those who go wrong because at the least stress they’re go-ing to go wrong anyway. I put Jacko down as one of the latter.”
“So you weren’t surprised,” said Calgary, “when he was arrested formurder?”
“Frankly, yes, I was surprised. Not because the idea of murder wouldhave been particularly repugnant to Jacko. He was the sort of young manwho is conscienceless but the kind of murder he’d done did surprise me.
Oh, I know he had a violent temper and all that. As a child he often hurledhimself on another child or hit him with some heavy toy or bit of wood.
But it was usually a child smaller than himself, and it was usually not somuch blind rage as the wish to hurt or get hold of something that he him-self wanted. The kind of murder I’d have expected Jacko to do, if he didone, was the type where a couple of boys go out on a raid; then, when thepolice come after them, the Jackos say ‘Biff him on the head, bud. Let himhave it. Shoot him down.’ They’re willing for murder, ready to incite34 tomurder, but they’ve not got the nerve to do murder themselves with theirown hands. That’s what I should have said. Now it seems,” added the doc-tor, “I would have been right.”
Calgary stared down at the carpet, a worn carpet with hardly any of itspattern remaining.
“I didn’t know,” he said, “what I was up against. I didn’t realize what itwas going to mean to the others. I didn’t see that it might—that it must—”
The doctor was nodding gently.
“Yes,” he said. “It looks that way, doesn’t it? It looks as though you’ve gotto put it right there amongst them.”
“I think,” said Calgary, “that that’s really what I came to talk to youabout. There doesn’t seem, on the face of it, any real motive35 for any ofthem to have killed her.”
“Not on the face of it,” agreed the doctor. “But if you go a little behindthe face of it—oh, yes, I think there’s plenty of reason why someone mighthave wanted to kill her.”
“Why?” asked Calgary.
“You feel it’s really your business, do you?”
“I think so. I can’t help feeling so.”
“Perhaps I should feel the same in your place … I don’t know. Well, whatI’d say is that none of them really belonged to themselves. Not so long astheir mother—I’ll call her that for convenience—was alive. She had a goodhold of them still, you know, all of them.”
“In what way?”
“Financially she’d provided for them. Provided for them handsomely.
There was a large income. It was divided between them in such propor-tions as the Trustees thought fit. But although Mrs. Argyle herself was notone of the Trustees, nevertheless her wishes, so long as she was alive,were operative.” He paused a minute and then went on.
“It’s interesting in a way, how they all tried to escape. How they foughtnot to conform to the pattern that she’d arranged for them. Because shedid arrange a pattern, and a very good pattern. She wanted to give them agood home, a good education, a good allowance and a good start in theprofessions that she chose for them. She wanted to treat them exactly asthough they were hers and Leo Argyle’s own children. Only of course theyweren’t hers and Leo Argyle’s own children. They had entirely36 differentinstincts, feelings, aptitudes37 and demands. Young Micky now works as acar salesman. Hester more or less ran away from home to go on the stage.
She fell in love with a very undesirable38 type and was absolutely no goodas an actress. She had to come home. She had to admit—and she didn’tlike admitting—that her mother had been right. Mary Durrant insisted onmarrying a man during the war whom her mother warned her not tomarry. He was a brave and intelligent young man but an absolute foolwhen it came to business matters. Then he got polio. He was brought as aconvalescent to Sunny Point. Mrs. Argyle was putting pressure on them tolive there permanently39. The husband was quite willing. Mary Durrant washolding out desperately40 against it. She wanted her home and her husbandto herself. But she’d have given in, no doubt, if her mother hadn’t died.
“Micky, the other boy, has always been a young man with a chip on hisshoulder; he resented bitterly being abandoned by his own mother. He re-sented it as a child and he never got over it. I think, at heart, he alwayshated his adopted mother.
“Then there’s the Swedish masseuse woman. She didn’t like Mrs. Argyle.
She was fond of the children and she’s fond of Leo. She accepted many be-nefits from Mrs. Argyle and probably tried to be grateful but couldn’tmanage it. Still I hardly think that her feelings of dislike could cause her tohit her benefactor41 on the head with a poker42. After all, she could leave atany moment she liked. As for Leo Argyle—”
“Yes. What about him?”
“He’s going to marry again,” said Dr. MacMaster, “and good luck to him.
A very nice young woman. Warm-hearted, kind, good company and verymuch in love with him. Has been for a long time. What did she feel aboutMrs. Argyle? You can probably guess just as well as I can. Naturally, Mrs.
Argyle’s death simplified things a good deal. Leo Argyle’s not the type ofman to have an affair with his secretary with his wife in the same house. Idon’t really think he’d have left his wife, either.”
Calgary said slowly:
“I saw them both; I talked to them. I can’t really believe that either ofthem—”
“I know,” said MacMaster. “One can’t believe, can one? And yet—one ofthat household did it, you know.”
“You really think so?”
“I don’t see what else there is to think. The police are fairly sure that itwasn’t the work of an outsider, and the police are probably right.”
“But which of them?” said Calgary.
MacMaster shrugged43 his shoulders. “One simply doesn’t know.”
“You’ve no idea yourself from your knowledge of them all?”
“Shouldn’t tell you if I had,” said MacMaster. “After all, what have I gotto go on? Unless there’s some factor that I’ve missed none of them seems alikely murderer to me. And yet—I can’t rule any one of them out as a pos-sibility. No,” he added slowly, “my view is that we shall never know. Thepolice will make inquiries44 and all that sort of thing. They’ll do their best,but to get evidence after this time and with so little to go upon —” Heshook his head. “No, I don’t think that the truth will ever be known. Thereare cases like that, you know. One reads about them. Fifty—a hundredyears ago, cases where one of three or four or five people must have doneit but there wasn’t enough evidence and no one’s ever been able to say.”
“Do you think it’s going to be like that here?”
“We-ll,” said Dr. MacMaster, “yes, I do …” Again he cast a shrewd look atCalgary. “And that’s what’s so terrible, isn’t it?” he said.
“Terrible,” said Calgary, “because of the innocent. That’s what she saidto me.”
“Who? Who said what to you?”
“The girl—Hester. She said I didn’t understand that it was the innocentwho mattered. It’s what you’ve just been saying to me. That we shall neverknow—”
“—who is innocent?” The doctor finished for him. “Yes, if we could onlyknow the truth. Even if it doesn’t come to an arrest or trial or conviction.
Just to know. Because otherwise—” He paused.
“Yes?” said Calgary.
“Work it out for yourself,” said Dr. MacMaster. “No—I don’t need to saythat—you already have.”
He went on:
“It reminds me, you know, of the Bravo Case—nearly a hundred yearsago now, I suppose, but books are still being written about it; making out aperfectly good case for his wife having done it, or Mrs. Cox having done it,or Dr. Gully—or even for Charles Bravo having taken the poison in spite ofthe Coroner’s verdict. All quite plausible45 theories—but no one now canever know the truth. And so Florence Bravo, abandoned by her family,died alone of drink, and Mrs. Cox, ostracized46, and with three little boys,lived to be an old woman with most of the people she knew believing herto be a murderess, and Dr. Gully was ruined professionally and socially—“Someone was guilty—and got away with it. But the others were inno-cent—and didn’t get away with anything.”
“That mustn’t happen here,” said Calgary. “It mustn’t!”
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1
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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pugnacious
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| adj.好斗的 | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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groggy
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| adj.体弱的；不稳的 | |
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wireless
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| adj.无线的；n.无线电 | |
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housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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flick
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| n.快速的轻打，轻打声，弹开；v.轻弹，轻轻拂去，忽然摇动 | |
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kindly
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concussion
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vindicated
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| v.澄清（某人/某事物）受到的责难或嫌疑( vindicate的过去式和过去分词 )；表明或证明（所争辩的事物）属实、正当、有效等；维护 | |
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consultation
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| n.咨询；商量；商议；会议 | |
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practitioner
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| n.实践者，从事者；(医生或律师等)开业者 | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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delinquent
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| adj.犯法的，有过失的；n.违法者 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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overdid
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| v.做得过分( overdo的过去式 )；太夸张；把…煮得太久；（工作等）过度 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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passionately
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obsessed
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spank
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| v.打，拍打(在屁股上) | |
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reverting
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| 恢复( revert的现在分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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purely
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obsession
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| n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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gadget
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| n.小巧的机械，精巧的装置，小玩意儿 | |
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sieved
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| 筛，漏勺( sieve的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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sterilized
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| v.消毒( sterilize的过去式和过去分词 )；使无菌；使失去生育能力；使绝育 | |
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computed
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| adj.[医]计算的，使用计算机的v.计算，估算( compute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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pampered
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| adj.饮食过量的，饮食奢侈的v.纵容，宠，娇养( pamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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essentially
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incite
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motive
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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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aptitudes
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| （学习方面的）才能，资质，天资( aptitude的名词复数 ) | |
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undesirable
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| adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子 | |
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permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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benefactor
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| n. 恩人，行善的人，捐助人 | |
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poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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ostracized
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| v.放逐( ostracize的过去式和过去分词 )；流放；摈弃；排斥 | |
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