Twenty-three（1）

Twenty-three
I
In his hotel room, Arthur Calgary went over and over the notes he hadmade.
From time to time, he nodded his head.
Yes … he was on the right tack¹ now. To begin with, he had made the mis-take of concentrating on Mrs. Argyle. In nine cases out of ten that wouldhave been the right procedure. But this was the tenth case.
All along he had felt the presence of an unknown factor. If he couldonce isolate² and identify that factor, the case would be solved. In seekingit he had been obsessed³ by the dead woman. But the dead woman, he sawnow, was not really important. Any victim, in a sense, would have done.
He had shifted his viewpoint—shifted it back to the moment when allthis had begun. He had shifted it back to Jacko.
Not just Jacko as a young man unjustly sentenced for a crime he did notcommit—but Jacko, the intrinsic human being. Was Jacko, in the words ofthe old Calvinistic doctrine⁴, “a vessel⁵ appointed to destruction?” He’d beengiven every chance in life, hadn’t he? Dr. MacMaster’s opinion, at any rate,was that he was one of those who are born to go wrong. No environmentcould have helped him or saved him. Was that true? Leo Argyle hadspoken of him with indulgence, with pity. How had he put it? “One ofNature’s misfits.” He had accepted the modern psychological approach. Aninvalid, not a criminal. What had Hester said? Bluntly, that Jacko was al-ways awful!
A plain, childish statement. And what was it Kirsten Lindstrom hadsaid? That Jacko was wicked! Yes, she had put it as strongly as that.
Wicked! Tina had said: “I never liked him or trusted him.” So they allagreed, didn’t they, in general terms? It was only in the case of his widowthat they’d come down from the general to the particular. Maureen Clegghad thought of Jacko entirely⁶ from her own point of view. She had wastedherself on Jacko. She had been carried away by his charm and she was re-sentful of the fact. Now, securely remarried, she echoed her husband’sviews. She had given Calgary a forthright⁷ account of some of Jacko’s dubi-ous dealings, and the methods by which he had obtained money. Money….
In Arthur Calgary’s fatigued⁸ brain the word seemed to dance on the wallin gigantic letters. Money! Money! Money! Like a motif⁹ in an opera, hethought. Mrs. Argyle’s money! Money put into trust! Money put into an an-nuity! Residual¹⁰ estate left to her husband! Money got from the bank!
Money in the bureau drawer! Hester rushing out to her car with no moneyin her purse, getting two pounds from Kirsten Lindstrom. Money found onJacko, money that he swore his mother had given him.
The whole thing made a pattern—a pattern woven out of irrelevant¹¹ de-tails about money.
And surely, in that pattern, the unknown factor was becoming clear.
He looked at his watch. He had promised to ring up Hester at an agreedtime. He drew the telephone towards him and asked for the number.
Presently her voice came to him, clear, rather childish.
“Hester. Are you all right?”
“Oh, yes, I’m all right.”
It took him a moment or two to grasp the implication of that accentedword. Then he said sharply:
“What has happened?”
“Philip has been killed.”
“Philip! Philip Durrant?”
Calgary sounded incredulous.
“Yes. And Tina, too—at least she isn’t dead yet. She’s in hospital.”
“Tell me,” he ordered.
She told him. He questioned and requestioned her narrowly until he gotall the facts.
Then he said grimly:
“Hold on, Hester, I’m coming. I’ll be with you”—he looked at his watch—“in an hour’s time. I’ve got to see Superintendent¹² Huish first.”

1 tack   

n.大头钉；假缝，粗缝

参考例句：

• He is hammering a tack into the wall to hang a picture.他正往墙上钉一枚平头钉用来挂画。
• We are going to tack the map on the wall.我们打算把这张地图钉在墙上。

2 isolate   

vt.使孤立，隔离

参考例句：

• Do not isolate yourself from others.不要把自己孤立起来。
• We should never isolate ourselves from the masses.我们永远不能脱离群众。

3 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。

4 doctrine   

n.教义；主义；学说

参考例句：

• He was impelled to proclaim his doctrine.他不得不宣扬他的教义。
• The council met to consider changes to doctrine.宗教议会开会考虑更改教义。

5 vessel   

n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管

参考例句：

• The vessel is fully loaded with cargo for Shanghai.这艘船满载货物驶往上海。
• You should put the water into a vessel.你应该把水装入容器中。

6 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

7 forthright   

adj.直率的，直截了当的 [同]frank

参考例句：

• It's sometimes difficult to be forthright and not give offence.又直率又不得罪人，这有时很难办到。
• He told me forthright just why he refused to take my side.他直率地告诉我他不肯站在我这一边的原因。

8 fatigued   

adj. 疲乏的

参考例句：

• The exercises fatigued her. 操练使她感到很疲乏。
• The President smiled, with fatigued tolerance for a minor person's naivety. 总统笑了笑，疲惫地表现出对一个下级人员的天真想法的宽容。

9 motif   

n.(图案的)基本花纹，(衣服的)花边；主题

参考例句：

• Alienation is a central motif in her novels.疏离感是她小说的一个重要的主题。
• The jacket has a rose motif on the collar.这件夹克衫领子上有一朵玫瑰花的图案。

10 residual   

adj.复播复映追加时间；存留下来的，剩余的

参考例句：

• There are still a few residual problems with the computer program.电脑程序还有一些残留问题。
• The resulting residual chromatism is known as secondary spectrum.所得到的剩余色差叫做二次光谱。

11 irrelevant   

adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的

参考例句：

• That is completely irrelevant to the subject under discussion.这跟讨论的主题完全不相关。
• A question about arithmetic is irrelevant in a music lesson.在音乐课上，一个数学的问题是风马牛不相及的。

12 superintendent   

n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长

参考例句：

• He was soon promoted to the post of superintendent of Foreign Trade.他很快就被擢升为对外贸易总监。
• He decided to call the superintendent of the building.他决定给楼房管理员打电话。