Calgary had only been gone a few minutes when Dr. MacMaster receiveda second visitor. This one was well known to him and he greeted him withaffection.
“Ah, Don, glad to see you. Come in and tell me what’s on your mind.
There is something on your mind. I always know when your foreheadwrinkles in that peculiar1 way.”
Dr. Donald Craig smiled at him ruefully. He was a good-looking seriousyoung man who took himself and his work in a serious manner. The oldretired doctor was very fond of his young successor though there weretimes when he wished that it was easier for Donald Craig to see a joke.
Craig refused the offer of a drink and came straight to the point.
“I’m badly worried, Mac.”
“Not more vitamin deficiencies, I hope,” said Dr. MacMaster. From hispoint of view vitamin deficiency had been a good joke. It had once taken aveterinary surgeon to point out to young Craig that the cat belonging to acertain child patient was suffering with an advanced case of ringworm.
“It’s nothing to do with the patients,” said Donald Craig. “It’s my ownprivate affairs.”
MacMaster’s face changed immediately.
“I’m sorry, my boy. Very sorry. Have you had bad news?”
The young man shook his head.
“It’s not that. It’s—look here, Mac, I’ve got to talk to someone about itand you know them all, you’ve been here for years, you know all aboutthem. And I’ve got to know too. I’ve got to know where I stand, what I’mup against.”
MacMaster’s bushy eyebrows3 rose slowly up his forehead.
“Let’s hear the trouble,” he said.
“It’s the Argyles. You know—I suppose everyone knows—that HesterArgyle and I—”
The old doctor nodded his head.
“A nice little understanding,” he said approvingly. “That’s the old-fash-ioned term they used to use, and it was a very good one.”
“I’m terribly in love with her,” Donald said simply, “and I think—oh, I’msure—that she cares too. And now all this happens.”
A look of enlightenment came into the older doctor’s face.
“Ah yes! Free pardon for Jacko Argyle,” he said. “A free pardon that’scome too late for him.”
“Yes. That’s just what makes me feel — I know it’s an entirely4 wrongthing to feel, but I can’t help it—that it would have been better if—if thisnew evidence hadn’t come to light.”
“Oh, you’re not the only one who seems to feel that,” said MacMaster.
“It’s felt, as far as I can find out, from the Chief Constable5 through theArgyle family down to the man who came back from the Antarctic andsupplied the evidence.” He added: “He’s been here this afternoon.”
Donald Craig looked startled.
“Has he? Did he say anything?”
“What did you expect him to say?”
“Did he have any idea of who—”
Slowly Dr. MacMaster shook his head.
“No,” he said. “He’s no idea. How could he have—coming out of the blueand seeing them all for the first time? It seems,” he went on, “that nobodyhas any idea.”
“No. No, I suppose not.”
“What’s upset you so much, Don?”
Donald Craig drew a deep breath.
“Hester rang me up that evening when this fellow Calgary had beenthere. She and I were going into Drymouth after the surgery to hear a lec-ture on criminal types in Shakespeare.”
“Sounds particularly suitable,” said MacMaster.
“And then she rang up. Said she wouldn’t be coming. Said there hadbeen news of a peculiarly upsetting type.”
“Ah. Dr. Calgary’s news.”
“Yes. Yes, although she didn’t mention him at the time. But she was veryupset. She sounded—I can’t explain to you how she sounded.”
“Irish blood,” said MacMaster.
“She sounded altogether stricken, terrified. Oh, I can’t explain it.”
“Well, what do you expect?” the doctor asked. “She’s not yet twenty, isshe?”
“But why is she so upset? I tell you, Mac, she’s scared stiff of something.”
“M’m, yes, well—yes that might be so, I suppose,” said MacMaster.
“Do you think—what do you think?”
“It’s more to the point,” MacMaster pointed6 out, “what you are think-ing.”
The young man said bitterly:
“I suppose, if I wasn’t a doctor, I shouldn’t even begin to think suchthings. She’d be my girl and my girl could do no wrong. But as it is—”
“Yes—come on. You’d better get it off your chest.”
“You see, I know something of what goes on in Hester’s mind. She—she’sa victim of early insecurity.”
“Quite so,” said MacMaster. “That’s the way we put it nowadays.”
“She hasn’t had time yet to get properly integrated. She was suffering, atthe time of the murder, from a perfectly7 natural feeling of an adolescentyoung woman — resentment8 of authority — an attempt to escape fromsmother- love which is responsible for so much harm nowadays. Shewanted to rebel, to get away. She’s told me all this herself. She ran awayand joined a fourth-class touring theatrical9 company. Under the circum-stances I think her mother behaved very reasonably. She suggested thatHester should go to London and go to RADA and study acting10 properly ifshe wanted to do so. But that wasn’t what Hester wanted to do. This run-ning away to act was just a gesture really. She didn’t really want to trainfor the stage, or to take up the profession seriously. She just wanted toshow she could be on her own. Anyway, the Argyles didn’t try to coerceher. They gave her a quite handsome allowance.”
“Which was very clever of them,” said MacMaster.
“And then she had this silly love affair with a middle-aged11 member ofthe company. In the end she realized for herself that he was no good. Mrs.
Argyle came along and dealt with him and Hester came home.”
“Having learnt her lesson, as they used to say in my young days,” saidMacMaster. “But of course one never liked learning one’s lessons. Hesterdidn’t.”
Donald Craig went on anxiously:
“She was full, still, of pent-up resentment; all the worse because she hadto acknowledge secretly, if not openly, that her mother had been perfectlyright; that she was no good as an actress and that the man she had lav-ished her affections on wasn’t worth it. And that, anyway, she didn’t reallycare for him. ‘Mother knows best.’ It’s always galling12 to the young.”
“Yes,” said MacMaster. “That was one of poor Mrs. Argyle’s troubles,though she’d never have thought of it like that. The fact was she wasnearly always right, that she did know best. If she’d been one of those wo-men who run into debt, lose their keys, miss trains, and do foolish actionsthat other people have to help them out of, her entire family would havebeen much fonder of her. Sad and cruel, but there’s life for you. And shewasn’t a clever enough woman to get her own way by guile13. She was com-placent, you know. Pleased with her own power and judgment14 and quitequite sure of herself. That’s a very difficult thing to come up against whenyou’re young.”
“Oh, I know,” said Donald Craig. “I realize all that. It’s because I realizeit so well that I feel—that I wonder—” He stopped.
MacMaster said gently:
“I’d better say it for you, hadn’t I, Don? You’re afraid that it was yourHester who heard the quarrel between her mother and Jacko, who gotworked up by hearing it, perhaps, and who, in a fit of rebellion against au-thority, and against her mother’s superior assumption of omniscience,went into that room, picked up the poker15 and killed her. That’s whatyou’re afraid of, isn’t it?”
The young man nodded miserably16.
“Not really. I don’t believe it, but—but I feel—I feel that it could havehappened. I don’t feel Hester has got the poise17, the balance to—I feel she’syoung for her age, uncertain of herself, liable to have brainstorms18. I lookat that household and I don’t feel that any of them are likely to have donesuch a thing until I come to Hester. And then—then I’m not sure.”
“I see,” said Dr. MacMaster. “Yes, I see.”
“I don’t really blame her,” said Don Craig quickly. “I don’t think the poorchild really knew what she was doing. I can’t call it murder. It was just anact of emotional defiance19, of rebellion, of a longing2 to be free, of the con-viction that she would never be free until—until her mother wasn’t thereany longer.”
“And that last is probably true enough,” said MacMaster. “It’s the onlykind of motive20 there is, and it’s rather a peculiar one. Not the kind thatlooks strong in the eyes of the law. Wishing to be free. Free from the im-pact of a stronger personality. Just because none of them inherits a largesum of money on the death of Mrs. Argyle the law won’t consider that theyhad a motive. But even the financial control, I should imagine, was verylargely in Mrs. Argyle’s hands through her influence with the Trustees. Ohyes, her death set them free all right. Not only Hester, my boy. It set Leofree to marry another woman. It set Mary free to look after her husbandin the way she liked, it set Micky free to live his own life in the way hecared about living it. Even little dark horse Tina sitting in her library mayhave wanted freedom.”
“I had to come and talk to you,” said Donald. “I had to know what youthought, whether you thought that—that it could be true.”
“About Hester?”
“Yes.”
“I think it could be true,” said MacMaster slowly. “I don’t know that it is.”
“You think it could have happened just as I say?”
“Yes. I think what you’ve imagined is not far-fetched and has an elementof probability about it. But it’s by no means certain, Donald.”
The young man gave a shuddering21 sigh.
“But it’s got to be certain, Mac. That’s the one thing I do feel is necessary.
I’ve got to know. If Hester tells me, if she tells me herself, then—then it willbe all right. We’ll get married as soon as possible. I’ll look after her.”
“It’s as well Superintendent22 Huish can’t hear you,” said MacMasterdryly.
“I’m a law-abiding citizen as a rule,” said Donald, “but you know verywell yourself, Mac, how they treat psychological evidence in the lawcourts. In my view it was a bad accident, not a case of cold- bloodedmurder, or even hot-blooded murder for that matter.”
“You’re in love with the girl,” said MacMaster.
“I’m talking to you in confidence, mind.”
“I understand that,” said MacMaster.
“All I’m saying is that if Hester tells me, and I know, we’ll live it down to-gether. But she must tell me. I can’t go through life not knowing.”
“You mean, you’re not prepared to marry her with this probability over-shadowing things?”
“Would you want to in my place?”
“I don’t know. In my day, if it happened to me, and I was in love withthe girl, I should probably be convinced she was innocent.”
“It’s not so much the guilt23 or innocence24 that matters, as that I’ve got toknow.”
“And if she did kill her mother, you’re quite prepared to marry her andlive happily ever afterwards, as they say?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you believe it!” said MacMaster. “You’ll be wondering if the bittertaste in your coffee is only coffee and thinking that the poker in the grateis a bit too hefty a size. And she’ll see you thinking it. It won’t do….”
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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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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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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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constable
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| n.(英国)警察，警官 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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galling
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| adj.难堪的,使烦恼的,使焦躁的 | |
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guile
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| n.诈术 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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poise
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| vt./vi. 平衡，保持平衡；n.泰然自若，自信 | |
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brainstorms
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| 脑猝病( brainstorm的名词复数 )； 计上心头； 突来的灵感； 集体研讨 | |
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defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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shuddering
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| v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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superintendent
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| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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