Mark Easterbrook’s Narrative1
I liked Divisional Detective-Inspector2 Lejeune at first sight. He had an airof quiet ability. I thought, too, that he was an imaginative man—the kindof man who would be willing to consider possibilities that were not ortho-dox.
He said:
“Dr. Corrigan has told me of his meeting with you. He’s taken a great in-terest in this business from the first. Father Gorman, of course, was verywell known and respected in the district. Now you say you have some spe-cial information for us?”
“It concerns,” I said, “a place called the Pale Horse.”
“In, I understand, a village called Much Deeping?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about it.”
I told him of the first mention of the Pale Horse at the Fantasie. Then Idescribed my visit to Rhoda, and my introduction to the “three weird3 sis-ters.” I related, as accurately4 as I could, Thyrza Grey’s conversation onthat particular afternoon.
“And you were impressed by what she said?”
I felt embarrassed.
“Well, not really. I mean, I didn’t seriously believe—”
“Didn’t you, Mr. Easterbrook? I rather think you did.”
“I suppose you’re right. One just doesn’t like admitting how credulousone is.”
Lejeune smiled.
“But you’ve left something out, haven’t you? You were already interes-ted when you came to Much Deeping—why?”
“I think it was the girl looking so scared.”
“The young lady in the flower shop?”
“Yes. She’d thrown out her remark about the Pale Horse so casually5. Herbeing so scared seemed to underline the fact that there was—well, some-thing to be scared about. And then I met Dr. Corrigan and he told meabout the list of names. Two of them I already knew. Both were dead. Athird name seemed familiar. Afterwards I found that she, too, had died.”
“That would be Mrs. Delafontaine?”
“Yes.”
“Go on.”
“I made up my mind that I’d got to find out more about this business.”
“And you set about it. How?”
I told him of my call on Mrs. Tuckerton. Finally I came to Mr. Bradleyand the Municipal Square Buildings in Birmingham.
I had his full interest now. He repeated the name.
“Bradley,” he said. “So Bradley’s in this?”
“You know him?”
“Oh yes, we know all about Mr. Bradley. He’s given us a lot of trouble.
He’s a smooth dealer6, an adept7 at never doing anything that we can pin onhim. He knows every trick and dodge8 of the legal game. He’s always juston the right side of the line. He’s the kind of man who could write a booklike those old cookery books, “A hundred ways of evading9 the law.” Butmurder, such a thing as organised murder—I should have said that thatwas right off his beat. Yes—right off his beat—”
“Now that I’ve told you about our conversation, could you act upon it?”
Lejeune slowly shook his head.
“No, we couldn’t act on it. To begin with, there were no witnesses toyour conversation. It was just between the two of you and he could denythe whole thing if he wanted to! Apart from that, he was quite right whenhe told you that a man can bet on anything. He bets somebody won’t die—and he loses. What is there criminal about that? Unless we can connectBradley in some way with the actual crime in question—and that, I ima-gine, will not be easy.”
He left it with a shrug10 of his shoulders. He paused a minute and thensaid,
“Did you, by any chance, come across a man called Venables when youwere down in Much Deeping?”
“Yes,” I said, “I did. I was taken over to lunch with him one day.”
“Ah! What impression, if I may ask, did he make upon you?”
“A very powerful impression. He’s a man of great personality. An in-valid.”
“Yes. Crippled by polio.”
“He can only move about in a wheeled chair. But his disability seems tohave heightened his determination to live and enjoy living.”
“Tell me all you can about him.”
I described Venables’s house, his art treasures, the range and sweep ofhis interests.
Lejeune said:
“It’s a pity.”
“What is a pity?”
He said drily: “That Venables is a cripple.”
“Excuse me, but you are quite certain he really is a cripple? He couldn’tbe—well—faking the whole thing?”
“We’re as sure of his being a cripple as one can be sure of anything. Hisdoctor is Sir William Dugdale of Harley Street, a man absolutely abovesuspicion. We have Sir William’s assurance that the limbs are atrophied11.
Our little Mr. Osborne may be certain that Venables was the man he sawwalking along Barton Street that night. But he’s wrong.”
“I see.”
“As I say, it’s a pity, because if there is such a thing as an organisationfor private murder, Venables is the kind of man who would be capable ofplanning it.”
“Yes; that’s what I thought.”
With his forefinger13 Lejeune traced interlacing circles on the table infront of him. Then he looked up sharply.
“Let’s assemble what we’ve got; adding to our own knowledge the know-ledge you’ve brought us. It seems reasonably certain that there is someagency or organisation12 that specialises in what one might call the removalof unwanted persons. There’s nothing crude about the organisation. Itdoesn’t employ ordinary thugs or gunmen… There’s nothing to show thatthe victims haven’t died a perfectly14 natural death. I may say that in addi-tion to the three deaths you’ve mentioned, we’ve got a certain amount ofrather indefinite information about some of the others—deaths were fromnatural causes in each instance, but there were those who profited bythese deaths. No evidence, mind you.
“It’s clever, damnably clever, Mr. Easterbrook. Whoever thought it out—and it’s been thought out in great detail—has brains. We’ve only got holdof a few scattered15 names. Heaven knows how many more of them thereare—how widespread the whole thing may be. And we’ve only got the fewnames we have got, by the accident of a woman knowing herself to be dy-ing, and wanting to make her peace with heaven.”
He shook his head angrily, and then went on:
“This woman, Thyrza Grey; you say she boasted to you about herpowers! Well, she can do so with impunity16. Charge her with murder, puther in the dock, let her trumpet17 to heaven and a jury that she has releasedpeople from the toils18 of this world by will power or weaving spells—orwhat have you. She wouldn’t be guilty according to the law. She’s neverbeen near the people who died, we’ve checked on that, she hasn’t sentthem poisoned chocolates through the post or anything of that kind. Ac-cording to her own account, she just sits in a room and employs telepathy!
Why, the whole thing would be laughed out of Court!”
I murmured:
“But Lu and Aengus laugh not. Nor any in the high celestial19 House.”
“What’s that?”
“Sorry. A quotation20 from the ‘Immortal Hour.’”
“Well, it’s true enough. The devils in Hell are laughing but not the Hostof Heaven. It’s an—an evil business, Mr. Easterbrook.”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s a word that we don’t use very much nowadays. But it’sthe only word applicable here. That’s why—”
“Yes?”
Lejeune looked at me inquiringly.
I spoke21 in a rush. “I think there’s a chance—a possible chance—of get-ting to know a bit more about all this. I and a friend of mine have workedout a plan. You may think it very silly—”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“First of all, I take it from what you’ve said, that you are sure in yourmind that there is such an organisation as the one we’ve been discussing,and that it works?”
“It certainly works.”
“But you don’t know how it works? The first steps are already formu-lated. The individual I call the client hears vaguely22 about this organisa-tion, gets to know more about it, is sent to Mr. Bradley in Birmingham,and decides that he will go ahead. He enters into some agreement withBradley, and then is, or so I presume, sent to the Pale Horse. But what hap-pens after that, we don’t know! What, exactly, happens at the Pale Horse?
Somebody’s got to go and find out.”
“Go on.”
“Because until we do know, exactly, what Thyrza Grey actually does, wecan’t get any further—Your police doctor, Jim Corrigan, says the wholeidea is poppycock—but is it? Inspector Lejeune, is it?”
Lejeune sighed.
“You know what I’d answer—what any sane23 person would answer—theanswer would be ‘Yes, of course it is!’—but I’m speaking now unofficially.
Very odd things have happened during the last hundred years. Wouldanyone have believed seventy years ago that a person could hear Big Benstrike twelve on a little box and, after it had finished striking, hear it againwith his own ears through the window, from the actual clock itself—andno jiggery pokery. But Big Ben struck once—not twice—the sound wasbrought to the ears of the person by two different kinds of waves! Wouldyou believe you could hear a man speaking in New York in your owndrawing room, without so much as a connecting wire? Would you havebelieved —? Oh! a dozen other things — things that are now everydayknowledge that a child gabbles off!”
“In other words, anything’s possible?”
“That’s what I mean. If you ask me if Thyrza Grey can kill someone byrolling her eyes or going into a trance, or projecting her will, I still say‘No.’ But—I’m not sure—How can I be? If she’s stumbled on something—”
“Yes,” I said. “The supernatural seems supernatural. But the science oftomorrow is the supernatural of today.”
“I’m not talking officially, mind,” Lejeune warned me.
“Man, you’re talking sense. And the answer is, someone has got to goand see what actually happens. That’s what I propose to do—go and see.”
Lejeune stared at me.
“The way’s already paved,” I said.
I settled down then, and told him about it. I told him exactly what I anda friend of mine planned to do.
He listened, frowning and pulling at his lower lip.
“Mr. Easterbrook, I see your point. Circumstances have, so to speak,given you the entrée. But I don’t know whether you fully24 realise that whatyou are proposing to do may be dangerous—these are dangerous people.
It may be dangerous for you—but it will certainly be dangerous for yourfriend.”
“I know,” I said, “I know… We’ve been over it a hundred times. I don’tlike her playing the part she’s going to play. But she’s determined25—abso-lutely determined. Damn it all, she wants to!”
Lejeune said unexpectedly:
“She’s a redhead, didn’t you say?”
“Yes,” I said, startled.
“You can never argue with a redhead,” said Lejeune. “Don’t I know it!”
I wondered if his wife was one.
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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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inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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dealer
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| n.商人，贩子 | |
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adept
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| adj.老练的，精通的 | |
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dodge
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| v.闪开，躲开，避开；n.妙计，诡计 | |
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evading
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| 逃避( evade的现在分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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atrophied
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| adj.萎缩的，衰退的v.（使）萎缩，（使）虚脱，（使）衰退( atrophy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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organisation
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| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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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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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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impunity
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| n.(惩罚、损失、伤害等的)免除 | |
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trumpet
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| n.喇叭，喇叭声；v.吹喇叭，吹嘘 | |
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toils
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| 网 | |
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celestial
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| adj.天体的；天上的 | |
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quotation
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| n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情 | |
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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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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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