Mark Easterbrook’s Narrative1
I“So now we’re quite sure,” said Ginger2.
“We were sure before.”
“Yes—reasonably so. But this does clinch3 it.”
I was silent for a moment or two. I was visualising Mrs. Tuckerton jour-neying to Birmingham. Entering the Municipal Square Buildings—meetingMr. Bradley. Her nervous apprehension… his reassuring4 bonhomie. Hisskilful underlining of the lack of risk. (He would have had to underlinethat very hard with Mrs. Tuckerton.) I could see her going away, not com-mitting herself. Letting the idea take root in her mind. Perhaps she wentto see her stepdaughter, or her stepdaughter came home for a weekend.
There could have been talk, hints of marriage. And all the time thethought of the MONEY—not just a little money, not a miserly pittance—butlots of money, big money, money that enabled you to do everything youhad ever wanted! And all going to this degenerate5, ill- mannered girl,slouching about in the coffee bars of Chelsea in her jeans and her sloppyjumpers, with her undesirable6 degenerate friends. Why should a girl likethat, a girl who was no good and would never be any good, have all thatbeautiful money?
And so—another visit to Birmingham. More caution, more reassurance7.
Finally, a discussion on terms. I smiled involuntarily. Mr. Bradley wouldnot have had it all his own way. She would have been a hard bargainer.
But in the end, the terms had been agreed, some document duly signed,and then what?
That was where imagination stopped. That was what we didn’t know.
I came out of my meditation8 to see Ginger watching me.
She asked: “Got it all worked out?”
“How did you know what I was doing?”
“I’m beginning to know the way your mind works. You were working itout, weren’t you, following her—to Birmingham and all the rest of it?”
“Yes. But I was brought up short. At the moment when she had settledthings in Birmingham—What happens next?”
We looked at each other.
“Sooner or later,” said Ginger, “someone has got to find out exactly whathappens at the Pale Horse.”
“How?”
“I don’t know… It won’t be easy. Nobody who’s actually been there,who’s actually done it, will ever tell. At the same time, they’re the onlypeople who can tell. It’s difficult… I wonder….”
“We could go to the police?” I suggested.
“Yes. After all, we’ve got something fairly definite now. Enough to actupon, do you think?”
I shook my head doubtfully.
“Evidence of intent. But is that enough? It’s this death wish nonsense.
Oh,” I forestalled9 her interruption, “it mayn’t be nonsense—but it wouldsound like it in court. We’ve no idea, even, of what the actual procedureis.”
“Well, then, we’ve got to know. But how?”
“One would have to see—or hear—with one’s own eyes and ears. Butthere’s absolutely no place one could hide oneself in that great barn of aroom—and I suppose that’s where it—whatever ‘it’ is—must take place.”
Ginger sat up very straight, gave her head a kind of toss, rather like anenergetic terrier, and said:
“There’s only one way to find out what does really happen. You’ve got tobe a genuine client.”
I stared at her.
“A genuine client?”
“Yes. You or I, it doesn’t matter which, has got to want somebody put outof the way. One of us has got to go to Bradley and fix it up.”
“I don’t like it,” I said sharply.
“Why?”
“Well—it opens up dangerous possibilities.”
“For us?”
“Perhaps. But I was really thinking about the—victim. We’ve got to havea victim—we’ve got to give him a name. It can’t be just invention. Theymight check up — in fact, they’d almost certainly check up, don’t youagree?”
Ginger thought a minute and then nodded.
“Yes. The victim’s got to be a real person with a real address.”
“That’s what I don’t like,” I said.
“And we’ve got to have a real reason for getting rid of him.”
We were silent for a moment, considering this aspect of the situation.
“The person, whoever it was, would have to agree,” I said slowly. “It’s alot to ask.”
“The whole setup has got to be good,” said Ginger, thinking it out. “Butthere’s one thing, you were absolutely right in what you were saying theother day. The weakness of the whole thing is that they’re in a cleft10 stick.
The business has got to be secret—but not too secret. Possible clients havegot to be able to hear about it.”
“What puzzles me,” I said, “is that the police don’t seem to have heardabout it. After all, they’re usually aware of what kind of criminal activitiesare going on.”
“Yes, but I think that the reason for that is, that this is in every sense ofthe word, an amateur show. It’s not professional. No professional crimin-als are employed or involved. It’s not like hiring gangsters11 to bump peopleoff. It’s all—private.”
I said that I thought she had something there.
Ginger went on:
“Suppose now that you, or I (we’ll examine both possibilities), are des-perate to get rid of someone. Now who is there that you and I could wantto do away with? There’s my dear old Uncle Mervyn—I’ll come into a verynice packet when he pops off. I and some cousin in Australia are the onlyones left of the family. So there’s a motive12 there. But he’s over seventy andmore or less gaga, so it would really seem more sensible for me to wait fornatural causes—unless I was in some terrible hole for money—and thatreally would be quite difficult to fake. Besides, he’s a pet, and I’m veryfond of him, and gaga or not gaga, he quite enjoys life, and I wouldn’twant to deprive him of a minute of it—or even risk such a thing! Whatabout you? Have you got any relatives who are going to leave youmoney?”
I shook my head.
“No one at all.”
“Bother. It could be blackmail13, perhaps? That would take a lot of fixing,though. You’re not really vulnerable enough. If you were an M.P., or in theForeign Office, or an up and coming Minister it would be different. Thesame with me. Fifty years ago it would have been easy. Compromising let-ters, or photographs in the altogether, but really nowadays, who cares?
One can be like the Duke of Wellington and say ‘Publish and be damned!’
Well, now, what else is there? Bigamy?” She fixed14 me with a reproachfulstare. “What a pity it is you’ve never been married. We could have cookedsomething up if you had.”
Some expression on my face must have given me away. Ginger wasquick.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Have I raked up something that hurts?”
“No,” I said. “It doesn’t hurt. It was a long time ago, I rather doubt ifthere’s anyone now who knows about it.”
“You married someone?”
“Yes. Whilst I was at the University. We kept it dark. She wasn’t—well,my people would have cut up rough. I wasn’t even of age. We lied aboutour ages.”
I was silent a moment or two, reliving the past.
“It wouldn’t have lasted,” I said slowly. “I know that now. She was prettyand she could be very sweet… but…”
“What happened?”
“We went to Italy in the long vacation. There was an accident—a car ac-cident. She was killed outright15.”
“And you?”
“I wasn’t in the car. She was—with a friend.”
Ginger gave me a quick glance. I think she understood the way it hadbeen. The shock of my discovery that the girl I had married was not thekind that makes a faithful wife.
Ginger reverted16 to practical matters.
“You were married in England?”
“Yes. Registry office in Peterborough.”
“But she died in Italy?”
“Yes.”
“So there will be no record of her death in England?”
“No.”
“Then what more do you want? It’s an answer to prayer! Nothing couldbe simpler! You’re desperately17 in love with someone and you want tomarry her—but you don’t know whether your wife is still alive. You’veparted years ago and never heard from her since. Dare you risk it? Whileyou’re thinking it out, sudden reappearance of the wife! She turns up outof the blue, refuses to give you a divorce, and threatens to go to youryoung woman and spill the beans.”
“Who’s my young woman?” I asked, slightly confused. “You?”
Ginger looked shocked.
“Certainly not. I’m quite the wrong type—I’d probably go and live in sinwith you. No, you know quite well who I mean—and she’ll be exactlyright, I should say. The statuesque brunette you go around with. Veryhighbrow and serious.”
“Hermia Redcliffe?”
“That’s right. Your steady.”
“Who told you about her?”
“Poppy, of course. She’s rich, too, isn’t she?”
“She’s extremely well-off. But really—”
“All right, all right. I’m not saying you’re marrying her for her money.
You’re not the kind. But nasty minds like Bradley’s could easily think so…Very well then. Here’s the position. You are about to pop the question toHermia when up turns the unwanted wife from the past. She arrives inLondon and the fat’s in the fire. You urge a divorce—she won’t play. She’svindictive. And then—you hear of the Pale Horse. I’ll bet anything you likethat Thyrza, and that half-witted peasant Bella, thought that that was whyyou came that day. They took it as a tentative approach, and that’s whyThyrza was so forthcoming. It was a sales talk they were giving you.”
“It could have been, I suppose.” I went over that day in my mind.
“And your going to Bradley soon after fits in perfectly18. You’re hooked!
You’re a prospect—”
She paused triumphantly19. There was something in what she said—but Ididn’t quite see….
“I still think,” I said, “that they’ll investigate very carefully.”
“Sure to,” Ginger agreed.
“It’s all very well to invent a fictitious20 wife, resurrected from the past—but they’ll want details—where she lives—all that. And when I try to hedge—”
“You won’t need to hedge. To do the thing properly the wife has got tobe there—and she will be there!—
“Brace yourself,” said Ginger. “I’m your wife!”
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1
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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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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3
clinch
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| v.敲弯，钉牢；确定；扭住对方 [参]clench | |
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4
reassuring
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| a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的 | |
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degenerate
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| v.退步，堕落；adj.退步的，堕落的；n.堕落者 | |
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6
undesirable
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| adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子 | |
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7
reassurance
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| n.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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meditation
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| n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录 | |
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9
forestalled
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| v.先发制人，预先阻止( forestall的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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10
cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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11
gangsters
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| 匪徒，歹徒( gangster的名词复数 ) | |
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12
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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13
blackmail
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| n.讹诈，敲诈，勒索，胁迫，恫吓 | |
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14
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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outright
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| adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的 | |
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16
reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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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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triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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fictitious
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| adj.虚构的，假设的；空头的 | |
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