I
“Well, really, Mr. Lejeune, I don’t see what more I can tell you! I told it allbefore to your sergeant1. I don’t know who Mrs. Davis was, or where shecame from. She’d been with me about six months. She paid her rent regu-lar, and she seemed a nice quiet respectable person, and what more youexpect me to say I’m sure I don’t know.”
Mrs. Coppins paused for breath and looked at Lejeune with some dis-pleasure. He gave her the gentle melancholy2 smile which he knew by ex-perience was not without its effect.
“Not that I wouldn’t be willing to help if I could,” she amended3.
“Thank you. That’s what we need—help. Women know—they feel in-stinctively—so much more than a man can know.”
It was a good gambit, and it worked.
“Ah,” said Mrs. Coppins. “I wish Coppins could hear you. So hoity-toityand offhand4 he always was. ‘Saying you know things when you haven’tgot anything to go on!’ he’d say and snort. And nine times out of ten I wasright.”
“That’s why I’d like to hear what ideas you have about Mrs. Davis. Wasshe—an unhappy woman, do you think?”
“Now as to that—no, I wouldn’t say so. Businesslike. That’s what she al-ways seemed. Methodical. As though she’d got her life planned and wasacting accordingly. She had a job, I understand, with one of these con-sumer research associations. Going around and asking people what soappowder they used, or flour, and what they spend on their weekly budgetand how it’s divided up. Of course I’ve always felt that sort of thing issnooping really—and why the Government or anyone else wants to knowbeats me! All you hear at the end of it is only what everybody has knownperfectly well all along—but there, there’s a craze for that sort of thingnowadays. And if you’ve got to have it, I should say that poor Mrs. Daviswould do the job very nicely. A pleasant manner, not nosy6, just business-like and matter-of-fact.”
“You don’t know the actual name of the firm or association that em-ployed her?”
“No, I don’t, I’m afraid.”
“Did she ever mention relatives—?”
“No. I gathered she was a widow and had lost her husband many yearsago. A bit of an invalid7 he’d been, but she never talked much about him.”
“She didn’t mention where she came from—what part of the country?”
“I don’t think she was a Londoner. Came from somewhere up north, Ishould say.”
“You didn’t feel there was anything—well, mysterious about her?”
Lejeune felt a doubt as he spoke8. If she was a suggestible woman—ButMrs. Coppins did not take advantage of the opportunity offered to her.
“Well, I can’t say really that I did. Certainly not from anything she eversaid. The only thing that perhaps might have made me wonder was hersuitcase. Good quality it was, but not new. And the initials on it had beenpainted over. J.D.—Jessie Davis. But originally it had been J. somethingelse. H., I think. But it might have been an A. Still, I didn’t think anythingof that at the time. You can often pick up a good piece of luggage second-hand9 ever so cheap, and then it’s natural to get the initials altered. Shehadn’t a lot of stuff—only the one case.”
Lejeune knew that. The dead woman had had curiously10 few personalpossessions. No letters had been kept, no photographs. She had had appar-ently no insurance card, no bankbook, no chequebook. Her clothes wereof good everyday serviceable quality, nearly new.
“She seemed quite happy?” he asked.
“I suppose so.”
He pounced11 on the faint doubtful tone in her voice.
“You only suppose so?”
“Well, it’s not the kind of thing you think about, is it? I should say shewas nicely off, with a good job, and quite satisfied with her life. She wasn’tthe bubbling over sort. But of course, when she got ill—”
“Yes, when she got ill?” he prompted her.
“Vexed, she was at first. When she went down with ’flu, I mean. It wouldput all her schedule out, she said. Missing appointments and all that. But’flu’s ’flu, and you can’t ignore it when it’s there. So she stopped in bed,and made herself tea on the gas ring, and took aspirin12. I said why not havethe doctor and she said no point in it. Nothing to do for ’flu but stay in bedand keep warm and I’d better not come near her to catch it. I did a bit ofcooking for her when she got better. Hot soup and toast. And a rice pud-ding now and again. It got her down, of course, ’flu does—but not morethan what’s usual, I’d say. It’s after the fever goes down that you get thedepression—and she got that like everyone does. She sat there, by the gasfire, I remember, and said to me, ‘I wish one didn’t have so much time tothink. I don’t like having time to think. It gets me down.’”
Lejeune continued to look deeply attentive13 and Mrs. Coppins warmed toher theme.
“Lent her some magazines, I did. But she didn’t seem able to keep hermind on reading. Said once, I remember, ‘If things aren’t all they shouldbe, it’s better not to know about it, don’t you agree?’ and I said, ‘That’sright, dearie.’ And she said, ‘I don’t know—I’ve never really been sure.’
And I said that was all right, then. And she said, “Everything I’ve done hasalways been perfectly5 straightforward14 and aboveboard. I’ve nothing to re-proach myself with.’ And I said, ‘Of course you haven’t, dear.’ But I did justwonder in my own mind whether in the firm that employed her theremightn’t have been some funny business with the accounts maybe, andshe’d got wind of it—but had felt it wasn’t really her business.”
“Possible,” agreed Lejeune.
“Anyway, she got well again—or nearly so, and went back to work. I toldher it was too soon. Give yourself another day or two, I said. And there,how right I was! Come back the second evening, she did, and I could see atonce she’d got a high fever. Couldn’t hardly climb the stairs. You musthave the doctor, I says, but no, she wouldn’t. Worse and worse she got, allthat day, her eyes glassy, and her cheeks like fire, and her breathing ter-rible. And the next day in the evening she said to me, hardly able to getthe words out: ‘A priest. I must have a priest. And quickly…or it will be toolate.’ But it wasn’t our vicar she wanted. It had to be a Roman Catholicpriest. I never knew she was a Roman, never any crucifix about or any-thing like that.”
But there had been a crucifix, tucked away at the bottom of the suitcase.
Lejeune did not mention it. He sat listening.
“I saw young Mike in the street and I sent him for that Father Gorman atSt. Dominic’s. And I rang for the doctor, and the hospital on my own ac-count, not saying nothing to her.”
“You took the priest up to her when he came?”
“Yes, I did. And left them together.”
“Did either of them say anything?”
“Well now, I can’t exactly remember. I was talking myself, saying herewas the priest and now she’d be all right, trying to cheer her up, but I docall to mind now as I closed the door I heard her say something aboutwickedness. Yes — and something, too, about a horse — horse racing15,maybe. I like a half crown on myself occasionally—but there’s a lot ofcrookedness goes on in racing, so they say.”
“Wickedness,” said Lejeune. He was struck by the word.
“Have to confess their sins, don’t they, Romans, before they die? So Isuppose that was it.”
Lejeune did not doubt that that was it, but his imagination was stirredby the word used. Wickedness….
Something rather special in wickedness, he thought, if the priest whoknew about it was followed and clubbed to death….
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1
sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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2
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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3
Amended
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| adj. 修正的 动词amend的过去式和过去分词 | |
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4
offhand
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| adj.临时，无准备的；随便，马虎的 | |
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5
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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6
nosy
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| adj.鼻子大的，好管闲事的，爱追问的；n.大鼻者 | |
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7
invalid
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| n.病人，伤残人；adj.有病的，伤残的；无效的 | |
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8
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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9
second-hand
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| adj.用过的，旧的，二手的 | |
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10
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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11
pounced
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| v.突然袭击( pounce的过去式和过去分词 )；猛扑；一眼看出；抓住机会（进行抨击） | |
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12
aspirin
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| n.阿司匹林 | |
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13
attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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14
straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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15
racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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