Twenty-two（1）

Twenty-two
Mark Easterbrook’s Narrative¹
I
“Are we in time? Will she live?”
I wandered up and down. I couldn’t sit still.
Lejeune sat watching me. He was patient and kind.
“You can be sure that everything possible is being done.”
It was the same old answer. It did nothing to comfort me.
“Do they know how to treat thallium poisoning?”
“You don’t often get a case of it. But everything possible will be tried. Ifyou ask me, I think she’ll pull through.”
I looked at him. How could I tell if he really believed what he was say-ing? Was he just trying to soothe² me?
“At any rate, they’ve verified that it was thallium.”
“Yes, they’ve verified that.”
“So that’s the simple truth behind the Pale Horse. Poison. No witchcraft³,no hypnotism, no scientific death rays. Plain poisoning! And she flung thatat me, damn her. Flung it in my face. Laughing in her cheek all the while, Iexpect.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Thyrza Grey. That first afternoon when I went to tea there. Talkedabout the Borgias and all the build up of ‘rare and untraceable poisons’;the poisoned gloves and all the rest of it. ‘Common white arsenic,’ she said,‘and nothing else.’ This was just as simple. All that hooey! The trance andthe white cocks and the brazier and the pentagrams and the voodoo andthe reversed crucifix—all that was for the crudely superstitious⁴. And thefamous ‘box’ was another bit of hooey for the contemporary-minded. Wedon’t believe in spirits and witches and spells nowadays, but we’re a gull-ible lot when it comes to ‘rays’ and ‘waves’ and psychological phenomena⁵.
That box, I bet, is nothing but a nice little assembly of electrical show-off,coloured bulbs and humming valves. Because we live in daily fear of radiofall out and strontium 90 and all the rest of it, we’re amenable⁶ to sugges-tion along the line of scientific talk. The whole setup at the Pale Horse wasbogus! The Pale Horse was a stalking horse, neither more nor less. Atten-tion was to be focused on that, so that we’d never suspect what might begoing on in another direction. The beauty of it was that it was quite safefor them. Thyrza Grey could boast out loud about what occult powers shehad or could command. She could never be brought into court and triedfor murder on that issue. Her box could have been examined and provedto be harmless. Any court would have ruled that the whole thing was non-sense and impossible! And, of course, that’s exactly what it was.”
“Do you think they’re all three in it?” asked Lejeune.
“I shouldn’t think so. Bella’s belief in witchcraft is genuine, I should say.
She believes in her own powers and rejoices in them. The same with Sybil.
She’s got a genuine gift of mediumship. She goes into a trance and shedoesn’t know what happens. She believes everything that Thyrza tellsher.”
“So Thyrza is the ruling spirit?”
I said slowly:
“As far as the Pale Horse is concerned, yes. But she’s not the real brainsof the show. The real brain works behind the scenes. He plans and organ-ises. It’s all beautifully dovetailed, you know. Everyone has his or her job,and no one has anything on anyone else. Bradley runs the financial andlegal side. Apart from that, he doesn’t know what happens elsewhere. He’shandsomely paid, of course; so is Thyrza Grey.”
“You seem to have got it all taped to your satisfaction,” said Lejeunedrily.
“I haven’t. Not yet. But we know the basic necessary fact. It’s the sameas it has been through the ages. Crude and simple. Just plain poison. Thedear old death potion.”
“What put thallium into your head?”
“Several things suddenly came together. The beginning of the wholebusiness was the thing I saw that night in Chelsea. A girl whose hair wasbeing pulled out by the roots by another girl. And she said: ‘It didn’t reallyhurt.’ It wasn’t bravery, as I thought; it was simple fact. It didn’t hurt.
“I read an article on thallium poisoning when I was in America. A lot ofworkers in a factory died one after the other. Their deaths were put downto astonishingly varied⁷ causes. Amongst them, if I remember rightly, wereparatyphoid, apoplexy, alcoholic⁸ neuritis, bulbar paralysis⁹, epilepsy, gast-roenteritis, and so on. Then there was a woman who poisoned sevenpeople. Diagnosis¹⁰ included brain tumour¹¹, encephalitis, and lobar pneumo-nia. The symptoms vary a good deal, I understand. They may start withdiarrhoea and vomiting¹², or there may be a stage of intoxication¹³, again itmay begin with pain in the limbs, and be put down as polyneuritis orrheumatic fever or polio—one patient was put in an iron lung. Sometimesthere’s pigmentation of the skin.”
“You talk like a medical dictionary!”
“Naturally. I’ve been looking it up. But one thing always happens sooneror later. The hair falls out. Thallium used to be used for depilation at onetime—particularly for children with ringworm. Then it was found to bedangerous. But it’s occasionally given internally, but with very carefuldosage going by the weight of the patient. It’s mainly used nowadays forrats, I believe. It’s tasteless, soluble¹⁴, and easy to buy. There’s only onething, poisoning mustn’t be suspected.”
Lejeune nodded.
“Exactly,” he said. “Hence the insistence¹⁵ by the Pale Horse that the mur-derer must stay away from his intended victim. No suspicion of foul¹⁶ playever arises. Why should it? There’s no interested party who could havehad access to food or drink. No purchase of thallium or any other poison isever made by him or her. That’s the beauty of it. The real work is done bysomeone who has no connection whatever with the victim. Someone, Ithink, who appears once and once only.”
He paused.
“Any ideas on that?”
“Only one. A common factor appears to be that on every occasion somepleasant harmless-seeming woman calls with a questionnaire on behalf ofa domestic research unit.”
“You think that that woman is the one who plants the poison? As asample? Something like that?”
“I don’t think it’s quite as simple as that,” I said slowly. “I have an ideathat the women are quite genuine. But they come into it somehow. I thinkwe may be able to find out something if we talk to a woman called EileenBrandon, who works in an Espresso off Tottenham Court Road.”

1 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

2 soothe   

v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承

参考例句：

• I've managed to soothe him down a bit.我想方设法使他平静了一点。
• This medicine should soothe your sore throat.这种药会减轻你的喉痛。

3 witchcraft   

n.魔法，巫术

参考例句：

• The woman practising witchcraft claimed that she could conjure up the spirits of the dead.那个女巫说她能用魔法召唤亡灵。
• All these things that you call witchcraft are capable of a natural explanation.被你们统统叫做巫术的那些东西都可以得到合情合理的解释。

4 superstitious   

adj.迷信的

参考例句：

• They aim to deliver the people who are in bondage to superstitious belief.他们的目的在于解脱那些受迷信束缚的人。
• These superstitious practices should be abolished as soon as possible.这些迷信做法应尽早取消。

5 phenomena   

n.现象

参考例句：

• Ade couldn't relate the phenomena with any theory he knew.艾德无法用他所知道的任何理论来解释这种现象。
• The object of these experiments was to find the connection,if any,between the two phenomena.这些实验的目的就是探索这两种现象之间的联系，如果存在着任何联系的话。

6 amenable   

adj.经得起检验的；顺从的；对负有义务的

参考例句：

• His scientific discoveries are amenable to the laws of physics.他在科学上的发现经得起物理定律的检验。
• He is amenable to counsel.他这人听劝。

7 varied   

adj.多样的，多变化的

参考例句：

• The forms of art are many and varied.艺术的形式是多种多样的。
• The hotel has a varied programme of nightly entertainment.宾馆有各种晚间娱乐活动。

8 alcoholic   

adj.（含）酒精的，由酒精引起的；n.酗酒者

参考例句：

• The alcoholic strength of brandy far exceeds that of wine.白兰地的酒精浓度远远超过葡萄酒。
• Alcoholic drinks act as a poison to a child.酒精饮料对小孩犹如毒药。

9 paralysis   

n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症)

参考例句：

• The paralysis affects his right leg and he can only walk with difficulty.他右腿瘫痪步履维艰。
• The paralysis affects his right leg and he can only walk with difficulty.他右腿瘫痪步履维艰。

10 diagnosis   

n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断

参考例句：

• His symptoms gave no obvious pointer to a possible diagnosis.他的症状无法作出明确的诊断。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做一次彻底的调查分析。

11 tumour   

n.(tumor)(肿)瘤，肿块

参考例句：

• The surgeons operated on her for a tumour.外科医生为她施行了肿瘤切除手术。
• The tumour constricts the nerves.肿瘤压迫神经。

12 vomiting   

吐

参考例句：

• Symptoms include diarrhoea and vomiting. 症状有腹泻和呕吐。
• Especially when I feel seasick, I can't stand watching someone else vomiting." 尤其晕船的时候，看不得人家呕。”

13 intoxication   

n.wild excitement;drunkenness；poisoning

参考例句：

• He began to drink, drank himself to intoxication, till he slept obliterated. 他一直喝，喝到他快要迷糊地睡着了。
• Predator: Intoxication-Damage over time effect will now stack with other allies. Predator:Intoxication,持续性伤害的效果将会与队友相加。

14 soluble   

adj.可溶的；可以解决的

参考例句：

• These tablets are soluble in water.这些药片可在水中溶解。
• Camphor is soluble in alcohol.樟脑在酒精中可以溶化。

15 insistence   

n.坚持；强调；坚决主张

参考例句：

• They were united in their insistence that she should go to college.他们一致坚持她应上大学。
• His insistence upon strict obedience is correct.他坚持绝对服从是对的。

16 foul   

adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规

参考例句：

• Take off those foul clothes and let me wash them.脱下那些脏衣服让我洗一洗。
• What a foul day it is!多么恶劣的天气！