Eight

Eight
Detective-Inspector¹ Lejeune heard the well-known tune² “Father O’Flynn”
being whistled outside in the passage and raised his head as Dr. Corrigancame in.
“Sorry to disoblige everybody,” said Corrigan, “but the driver of that Jag-uar hadn’t any alcohol in him at all… What P.C. Ellis smelt³ on his breathmust have been Ellis’s imagination or halitosis.”
But Lejeune at the moment was uninterested in the daily run of motor-ists’ offences.
“Come and take a look at this,” he said.
Corrigan took the letter handed to him. It was written in a small neatscript. The heading was Everest, Glendower Close, Bournemouth.
Dear Inspector Lejeune,
You may remember that you asked me to get in touch withyou if I should happen to see the man who was followingFather Gorman on the night that he was killed. I kept agood lookout⁴ in the neighbourhood of my establishment,but never caught a glimpse of him again.
Yesterday, however, I attended a church fête in a villageabout twenty miles from here. I was attracted by the factthat Mrs. Oliver, the well-known detective writer, was go-ing to be there autographing her own books. I am a greatreader of detective stories and I was quite curious to see thelady.
What I did see, to my great surprise, was the man I de-scribed to you as having passed my shop the night FatherGorman was killed. Since then, it would seem, he musthave met with an accident, as on this occasion he was pro-pelling himself in a wheeled chair. I made some discreetinquiries as to who he might be, and it seems he is a localresident of the name of Venables. His place of residence isPriors Court, Much Deeping. He is said to be a man of con-siderable means.
Hoping these details may be of some service to you,Yours truly,
Zachariah Osborne
“Well?” said Lejeune.
“Sounds most unlikely,” said Corrigan dampingly.
“On the face of it, perhaps. But I’m not so sure—”
“This Osborne fellow—he couldn’t really have seen anyone’s face veryclearly on a foggy night like that. I expect this is just a chance resemb-lance. You know what people are. Ring up all over the country to saythey’ve seen a missing person—and nine times out of ten there’s no re-semblance even to the printed description!”
“Osborne’s not like that,” said Lejeune.
“What is he like?”
“He’s a respectable dapper little chemist, old-fashioned, quite a charac-ter, and a great observer of persons. One of the dreams of his life is to beable to come forward and identify a wife poisoner who has purchased ar-senic at his shop.”
Corrigan laughed.
“In that case, this is clearly an example of wishful thinking.”
“Perhaps.”
Corrigan looked at him curiously⁶.
“So you think there may be something in it? What are you going to doabout it?”
“There will be no harm, in any case, in making a few discreet⁵ inquiriesabout this Mr. Venables of—” he referred to the letter— “of Priors Court,Much Deeping.”

1 inspector   

n.检查员，监察员，视察员

参考例句：

• The inspector was interested in everything pertaining to the school.视察员对有关学校的一切都感兴趣。
• The inspector was shining a flashlight onto the tickets.查票员打着手电筒查看车票。

2 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

3 smelt   

v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼

参考例句：

• Tin is a comparatively easy metal to smelt.锡是比较容易熔化的金属。
• Darby was looking for a way to improve iron when he hit upon the idea of smelting it with coke instead of charcoal.达比一直在寻找改善铁质的方法，他猛然想到可以不用木炭熔炼，而改用焦炭。

4 lookout   

n.注意，前途，瞭望台

参考例句：

• You can see everything around from the lookout.从了望台上你可以看清周围的一切。
• It's a bad lookout for the company if interest rates don't come down.如果利率降不下来，公司的前景可就不妙了。

5 discreet   

adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的

参考例句：

• He is very discreet in giving his opinions.发表意见他十分慎重。
• It wasn't discreet of you to ring me up at the office.你打电话到我办公室真是太鲁莽了。

6 curiously   

adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地

参考例句：

• He looked curiously at the people.他好奇地看着那些人。
• He took long stealthy strides. His hands were curiously cold.他迈着悄没声息的大步。他的双手出奇地冷。