Ginger1 sat opposite me at a table in the White Cockatoo where we hadmet for a drink. She looked refreshingly2 the same as she had looked atMuch Deeping—a tousled mop of red hair, an engaging freckled3 face andalert green eyes. She was wearing her London artistic4 livery of skintightpants, a Sloppy5 Joe jersey6 and black woollen stockings—but otherwise shewas the same Ginger. I liked her very much.
“I’ve had to do a lot of work to track you down,” I said. “Your surnameand your address and your telephone number—all unknown. I’ve got aproblem.”
“That’s what my daily always says. It usually means that I have to buyher a new saucepan scourer7 or a carpet brush, or something dull.”
“You don’t have to buy anything,” I assured her.
Then I told her. It didn’t take quite so long as the story I had told to Her-mia, because she was already familiar with the Pale Horse and its occu-pants. I averted8 my eyes from her as I finished the tale. I didn’t want to seeher reaction. I didn’t want to see indulgent amusement, or stark9 incredu-lity. The whole thing sounded more idiotic10 than ever. No one (except Mrs.
Dane Calthrop) could possibly feel about it as I felt. I drew patterns on theplastic tabletop with a stray fork.
Ginger’s voice came briskly.
“That’s all, is it?”
“That’s all,” I admitted.
“What are you going to do about it?”
“You think— I should do something about it?”
“Well, of course! Someone’s got to do something! You can’t have an or-ganisation going about bumping people off and not do anything.”
“But what can I do?”
I could have fallen on her neck and hugged her.
She was sipping11 Pernod and frowning. Warmth spread over me. I wasno longer alone.
Presently she said musingly12:
“You’ll have to find out what it all means.”
“I agree. But how?”
“There seem to be one or two leads. Perhaps I can help.”
“Would you? But there’s your job.”
“Plenty could be done out of office hours.” She frowned again as shethought.
“That girl,” she said at last. “The one at supper after the Old Vic. Poppyor something. She knows about it—she must do—to say what she did.”
“Yes, but she got frightened, and sheered off when I tried to ask herquestions. She was scared. She definitely wouldn’t talk.”
“That’s where I can help,” said Ginger confidently. “She’d tell me thingsshe wouldn’t tell you. Can you arrange for us to meet? Your friend and herand you and me? A show, or dinner or something?” Then she lookeddoubtful. “Or is that too expensive?”
I assured her that I could support the expense.
“As for you —” Ginger thought a minute. “I believe,” she said slowly,“that your best bet would be the Thomasina Tuckerton angle.”
“But how? She’s dead.”
“And somebody wanted her dead, if your ideas are correct! And ar-ranged it with the Pale Horse. There seem two possibilities. The step-mother, or else the girl she had the fight with at Luigi’s and whose youngman she had pinched. She was going to marry him, perhaps. Thatwouldn’t suit the stepmother’s book — or the girl’s — if she was crazyenough about the young man. Either of them might have gone to the PaleHorse. We might get a lead there. What was the girl’s name, or don’t youknow?”
“I think it was Lou.”
“Ash-blonde lank13 hair, medium height, rather bosomy?”
I agreed with the description.
“I think I’ve met her about. Lou Ellis. She’s got a bit of money herself—”
“She didn’t look like it.”
“They don’t—but she has, all right. Anyway, she could afford to pay thePale Horse’s fees. They don’t do it for nothing, I suppose.”
“One would hardly imagine so.”
“You’ll have to tackle the stepmother. It’s more up your street thanmine. Go and see her—”
“I don’t know where she lives or anything.”
“Luigi knows something about Tommy’s home. He’ll know what countyshe lives in, I should imagine. A few books of reference ought to do therest. But what idiots we are! You saw the notice in The Times of her death.
You’ve only got to go and look in their files.”
“I’ll have to have a pretext14 for tackling the stepmother,” I said thought-fully.
Ginger said that that would be easy.
“You’re someone, you see,” she pointed15 out. “A historian, and you lectureand you’ve got letters after your name. Mrs. Tuckerton will be impressed,and probably tickled16 to death to see you.”
“And the pretext?”
“Some feature of interest about her house?” suggested Ginger vaguely17.
“Sure to have something if it’s an old one.”
“Nothing to do with my period,” I objected.
“She won’t know that,” said Ginger. “People always think that anythingover a hundred years old must interest a historian or an archaeologist. Orhow about a picture? There must be some old pictures of some kind. Any-way, you make an appointment and you arrive and you butter her up andbe charming, and then you say you once met her daughter — her step-daughter—and say how sad etc…. And then, bring in, quite suddenly, areference to the Pale Horse. Be a little sinister18 if you like.”
“And then?”
“And then you observe the reaction. If you mention the Pale Horse outof the blue, and she has a guilty conscience, I defy anyone not to showsome sign.”
“And if she does—what next?”
“The important thing is, that we’ll know we’re on the right track. Oncewe’re sure, we can go full steam ahead.”
She nodded thoughtfully.
“There’s something else. Why do you think the Grey woman told you allshe did tell you? Why was she so forthcoming?”
“The commonsense19 answer is because she’s potty.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean—why you? You in particular? I just wonderedif there might be some kind of tie-up?”
“Tie-up with what?”
“Wait just a minute—while I get my ideas in order.”
I waited. Ginger nodded twice emphatically and then spoke20.
“Supposing—just supposing—it went like this. The Poppy girl knows allabout the Pale Horse in a vague kind of way—not through personal know-ledge, but by hearing it talked about. She sounds the sort of girl thatwouldn’t be noticed much by anyone when they were talking—but she’dquite likely take in a lot more than they thought she did. Rather sillypeople are often like that. Say she was overheard talking to you about itthat night, and someone ticks her off. Next day you come and ask herquestions, and she’s been scared, so she won’t talk. But the fact that you’vecome and asked her also gets around. Now what would be the reason foryour asking questions? You’re not the police. The likely reason would bethat you’re a possible client.”
“But surely—”
“It’s logical, I tell you. You’ve heard rumours21 of this thing—you want tofind out about it—for your own purposes. Presently you appear at the fêtein Much Deeping. You are brought to the Pale Horse—presumably becauseyou’ve asked to be taken there—and what happens? Thyrza Grey goesstraight into her sales talk.”
“I suppose it’s a possibility.” I considered… “Do you think she can dowhat she claims to do, Ginger?”
“Personally I’d be inclined to say of course she can’t! But odd things canhappen. Especially with things like hypnotism. Telling someone to go andtake a bite out of a candle the next afternoon at four o’clock, and they do itwithout having any idea why. That sort of thing. And electric boxes whereyou put in a drop of blood and it tells you if you’re going to have cancer intwo years’ time. It all sounds rather bogus — but perhaps not entirelybogus. About Thyrza—I don’t think it’s true—but I’m terribly afraid itmight be!”
“Yes,” I said sombrely, “that explains it very well.”
“I might put in a bit of work on Lou,” said Ginger thoughtfully. “I knowlots of places where I can run across her. Luigi might know a few thingstoo.
“But the first thing,” she added, “is to get in touch with Poppy.”
The latter was arranged fairly easily. David was free three nights ahead,we settled on a musical show, and he arrived, with Poppy in tow. We wentto the Fantasie for supper and I noticed that Ginger and Poppy after a pro-longed retirement22 to powder their noses, reappeared on excellent termswith each other. No controversial subjects were raised during the party onGinger’s instructions. We finally parted and I drove Ginger home.
“Not much to report,” she said cheerfully. “I’ve been onto Lou. The manthey quarrelled about was Gene23 Pleydon, by the way. A nasty bit of goods,if you ask me. Very much on the make. The girls all adore him. He wasmaking quite a play for Lou and then Tommy came along. Lou says hedidn’t care for her a bit, he was after her money—but she’d probably wantto think that. Anyway, he dropped Lou like a hot coal and she was natur-ally sore about it. According to her, it wasn’t much of a row—just a fewgirlish high spirits.”
“Girlish high spirits! She tugged24 Tommy’s hair out by the roots.”
“I’m just telling you what Lou told me.”
“She seems to have been very forthcoming.”
“Oh, they all like talking about their affairs. They’ll talk to anyone whowill listen. Anyway, Lou has got another boyfriend now—another dud, I’dsay, but she’s already crazy about him. So it doesn’t look to me as thoughshe’d been a client of the Pale Horse. I brought the term up, but it didn’tregister. I think we can wash her out. Luigi doesn’t think there was muchin it, either. On the other hand, he thinks Tommy was serious about Gene.
And Gene was going for her in a big way. What have you done about thestepmother?”
“She was abroad. She comes back tomorrow. I’ve written her a letter—or rather I got my secretary to write it, asking for an appointment.”
“Good. We’re getting things moving. I hope everything doesn’t peterout.”
“If it gets us anywhere!”
“Something will,” said Ginger enthusiastically. “That reminds me. To goback to the beginning of all this, the theory is that Father Gorman waskilled after being called out to a dying woman, and that he was murderedbecause of something she told him or confessed to him. What happened tothat woman? Did she die? And who was she? There ought to be some leadthere.”
“She died. I don’t really know much about her. I think her name wasDavis.”
“Well, couldn’t you find out more?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“If we could get at her background, we might find out how she knewwhat she did know.”
“I see your point.”
I got Jim Corrigan on the telephone early the next morning and put myquery to him.
“Let me see now. We did get a bit further, but not much. Davis wasn’ther real name, that’s why it took a little time to check up on her. Half amoment, I jotted25 down a few things… Oh yes, here we are. Her real namewas Archer26, and her husband had been a smalltime crook27. She left himand went back to her maiden28 name.”
“What sort of a crook was Archer? And where is he now?”
“Oh, very small stuff. Pinched things from department stores. Uncon-sidered trifles here and there. He had a few convictions. As to where he isnow, he’s dead.”
“Not much there.”
“No, there isn’t. The firm Mrs. Davis was working for at the time of herdeath, the C.R.C. (Customers’ Reactions Classified), apparently29 didn’t knowanything about her, or her background.”
I thanked him and rang off.
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收听单词发音
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1
ginger
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| n.姜，精力，淡赤黄色；adj.淡赤黄色的；vt.使活泼，使有生气 | |
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refreshingly
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| adv.清爽地，有精神地 | |
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freckled
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| adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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sloppy
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| adj.邋遢的，不整洁的 | |
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jersey
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| n.运动衫 | |
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scourer
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| 洗擦者，洗刷物品 | |
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averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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stark
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| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
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idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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sipping
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的现在分词 ) | |
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musingly
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| adv.沉思地，冥想地 | |
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lank
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| adj.瘦削的；稀疏的 | |
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pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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tickled
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| （使）发痒( tickle的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）愉快，逗乐 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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commonsense
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| adj.有常识的；明白事理的；注重实际的 | |
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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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rumours
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| n.传闻( rumour的名词复数 )；风闻；谣言；谣传 | |
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retirement
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| n.退休，退职 | |
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gene
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| n.遗传因子，基因 | |
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tugged
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| v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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jotted
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| v.匆忙记下( jot的过去式和过去分词 )；草草记下，匆匆记下 | |
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archer
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| n.射手，弓箭手 | |
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crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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