Twenty-six ROBERT GARDNER

Twenty-six ROBERT GARDNER

It was just twenty minutes later when Emily rang the front door bell ofThe Laurels¹. It had been a sudden impulse.
Aunt Jennifer, she knew, would be still at Deller’s with Ronnie Garfield.
She smiled beamingly on Beatrice when the latter opened the door to her.
“It’s me again,” said Emily. “Mrs. Gardner’s out, I know, but can I seeMr. Gardner?”
Such a request was clearly unusual. Beatrice seemed doubtful.
“Well, I don’t know. I’ll go up and see, shall I?”
“Yes, do,” said Emily.
Beatrice went upstairs, leaving Emily alone in the hall. She returned in afew minutes to ask the young lady to please step this way.
Robert Gardner was lying on a couch by the window in a big room onthe first floor. He was a big man, blue-eyed and fair-haired. He looked,Emily thought, as Tristan ought to look in the third act of Tristan and Isoldeand as no Wagnerian tenor² has ever looked yet.
“Hello,” he said. “You are the criminal’s spouse³ to be, aren’t you?”
“That’s right, Uncle Robert,” said Emily. “I suppose I do call you UncleRobert, don’t I?” she asked.
“If Jennifer will allow it. What’s it like having a young man languishingin prison?”
A cruel man, Emily decided⁴. A man who would take a malicious⁵ joy ingiving you sharp digs in painful places. But she was a match for him. Shesaid smilingly:
“Very thrilling.”
“Not so thrilling for Master Jim, eh?”
“Oh, well,” said Emily, “it’s an experience, isn’t it?”
“Teach him life can’t be all beer and skittles,” said Robert Gardner mali-ciously. “Too young to fight in the Great War, wasn’t he? Able to live softand take it easily. Well, well .?.?. He got it in the neck from another source.”
He looked at her curiously⁶.
“What did you want to come and see me for, eh?”
There was a tinge⁷ of something like suspicion in his voice.
“If you are going to marry into a family it’s just as well to see all your re-lations-in-law beforehand.”
“Know the worst before it’s too late. So you really think you are going tomarry young Jim, eh?”
“Why not?”
“In spite of this murder charge?”
“In spite of this murder charge.”
“Well,” said Robert Gardner, “I have never seen anybody less cast down.
Anyone would think you were enjoying yourself.”
“I am. Tracking down a murderer is frightfully thrilling,” said Emily.
“Eh?”
“I said tracking down a murderer is frightfully thrilling,” said Emily.
Robert Gardner stared at her, then he threw himself back on his pillows.
“I am tired,” he said in a fretful voice. “I can’t talk any more. Nurse,where’s Nurse? Nurse, I’m tired.”
Nurse Davis had come swiftly at his call from an adjoining room. “Mr.
Gardner gets tired very easily. I think you had better go now if you don’tmind, Miss Trefusis.”
Emily rose to her feet. She nodded brightly and said:
“Good-bye, Uncle Robert. Perhaps I’ll come back some day.”
“What do you mean?”
“Au revoir,” said Emily.
She was going out of the front door when she stopped.
“Oh!” she said to Beatrice. “I have left my gloves.”
“I will get them, Miss.”
“Oh, no,” said Emily. “I’ll do it.” She ran lightly up the stairs and enteredwithout knocking.
“Oh,” said Emily. “I beg your pardon. I am so sorry. It was my gloves.”
She took them up ostentatiously, and smiling sweetly at the two occupantsof the room who were sitting hand in hand ran down the stairs and out ofthe house.
“This glove leaving is a terrific scheme,” said Emily to herself. “This isthe second time it’s come off. Poor Aunt Jennifer, does she know, I won-der? Probably not. I must hurry or I’ll keep Charles waiting.”
Enderby was waiting in Elmer’s Ford⁸ at the agreed rendezvous⁹.
“Any luck?” he asked as he tucked the rug round her.
“In a way, yes. I’m not sure.”
Enderby looked at her inquiringly.
“No,” said Emily in answer to his glance, “I’m not going to tell you aboutit. You see, it may have nothing whatever to do with it — and if so, itwouldn’t be fair.”
Enderby sighed.
“I call that hard,” he observed.
“I’m sorry,” said Emily firmly. “But there it is.”
“Have it your own way,” said Charles coldly.
They drove on in silence—an offended silence on Charles’s part—an ob-livious one on Emily’s.
They were nearly at Exhampton when she broke the silence by a totallyunexpected remark.
“Charles,” she said, “are you a bridge player?”
“Yes, I am. Why?”
“I was thinking. You know what they tell you to do when you’re assess-ing the value of your hand? If you’re defending—count the winners—butif you’re attacking count the losers. Now, we’re attacking in this businessof ours—but perhaps we have been doing it the wrong way.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, we’ve been counting the winners, haven’t we? I mean going overthe people who could have killed Captain Trevelyan, however improbableit seems. And that’s perhaps why we’ve got so terribly muddled¹⁰.”
“I haven’t got muddled,” said Charles.
“Well, I have then. I’m so muddled I can’t think at all. Let’s look at it theother way round. Let’s count the losers—the people who can’t possiblyhave killed Captain Trevelyan.”
“Well, let’s see—” Enderby reflected. “To begin with there’s the Willettsand Burnaby and Rycroft and Ronnie—Oh! and Duke.”
“Yes,” agreed Emily. “We know none of them can have killed him. Be-cause at the time he was killed they were all at Sittaford House and theyall saw each other and they can’t all be lying. Yes, they’re all out of it.”
“As a matter of fact everyone in Sittaford is out of it,” said Enderby.
“Even Elmer,” he lowered his voice in deference¹¹ to the possibility of thedriver hearing him. “Because the road to Sittaford was impassable for carson Friday.”
“He could have walked,” said Emily in an equally low voice. “If MajorBurnaby could have got there that evening Elmer could have started atlunchtime—got to Exhampton at five, murdered him, and walked backagain.”
Enderby shook his head.
“I don’t think he could have walked back again. Remember the snowstarted to fall about half past six. Anyway, you’re not accusing Elmer, areyou?”
“No,” said Emily, “though, of course, he might be a homicidal maniac¹².”
“Hush,” said Charles. “You’ll hurt his feelings if he hears you.”
“At any rate,” said Emily, “you can’t say definitely that he couldn’t havemurdered Captain Trevelyan.”
“Almost,” said Charles. “He couldn’t walk to Exhampton and backwithout all Sittaford knowing about it and saying it was queer.”
“It certainly is a place where everyone knows everything,” agreedEmily.
“Exactly,” said Charles, “and that’s why I say that everyone in Sittafordis out of it. The only ones that weren’t at the Willetts—Miss Percehouseand Captain Wyatt are invalids¹³. They couldn’t go ploughing throughsnowstorms. And dear old Curtis and Mrs. C. If any of them did it, theymust have gone comfortably to Exhampton for the weekend and comeback when it was all over.”
Emily laughed.
“You couldn’t be absent from Sittaford for the weekend without its be-ing noticed, certainly,” she said.
“Curtis would notice the silence if Mrs. C was,” said Enderby.
“Of course,” said Emily, “the person it ought to be is Abdul. It would bein a book. He’d be a Lascar really, and Captain Trevelyan would havethrown his favourite brother overboard in a mutiny — something likethat.”
“I decline to believe,” said Charles, “that that wretched depressed-look-ing native ever murdered anybody.
“I know,” he said suddenly.
“What?” said Emily eagerly.
“The blacksmith’s wife. The one who’s expecting her eighth. The in-trepid woman despite her condition walked all the way to Exhampton andbatted him one with the sandbag.”
“And why, pray?”
“Because, of course, although the blacksmith was the father of the pre-ceding seven, Captain Trevelyan was the father of her coming che-ild.”
“Charles,” said Emily. “Don’t be indelicate.
“And anyway,” she added, “it would be the blacksmith who did it, nother. A really good case there. Think how that brawny¹⁴ arm could wield¹⁵ asandbag! And his wife would never notice his absence with seven childrento look after. She wouldn’t have time to notice a mere¹⁶ man.”
“This is degenerating¹⁷ into mere idiocy,” said Charles.
“It is rather,” agreed Emily. “Counting losers hasn’t been a great suc-cess.”
“What about you?” said Charles.
“Me?”
“Where were you when the crime was committed?”
“How extraordinary! I never thought of that. I was in London, of course.
But I don’t know that I could prove it. I was alone in my flat.”
“There you are,” said Charles. “Motive and everything. Your young mancoming into twenty thousand pounds, what more do you want?”
“You are clever, Charles,” said Emily. “I can see that really I’m a mostsuspicious character. I never thought of it before.”

1 laurels   

n.桂冠，荣誉

参考例句：

• The path was lined with laurels.小路两旁都种有月桂树。
• He reaped the laurels in the finals.他在决赛中荣膺冠军。

2 tenor   

n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意

参考例句：

• The tenor of his speech was that war would come.他讲话的大意是战争将要发生。
• The four parts in singing are soprano,alto,tenor and bass.唱歌的四个声部是女高音、女低音、男高音和男低音。

3 spouse   

n.配偶(指夫或妻)

参考例句：

• Her spouse will come to see her on Sunday.她的丈夫星期天要来看她。
• What is the best way to keep your spouse happy in the marriage?在婚姻中保持配偶幸福的最好方法是什么？

4 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

5 malicious   

adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的

参考例句：

• You ought to kick back at such malicious slander. 你应当反击这种恶毒的污蔑。
• Their talk was slightly malicious.他们的谈话有点儿心怀不轨。

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。

7 tinge   

vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息

参考例句：

• The maple leaves are tinge with autumn red.枫叶染上了秋天的红色。
• There was a tinge of sadness in her voice.她声音中流露出一丝忧伤。

8 Ford   

n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过

参考例句：

• They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
• If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。

9 rendezvous   

n.约会，约会地点，汇合点；vi.汇合，集合；vt.使汇合，使在汇合地点相遇

参考例句：

• She made the rendezvous with only minutes to spare.她还差几分钟时才来赴约。
• I have a rendezvous with Peter at a restaurant on the harbour.我和彼得在海港的一个餐馆有个约会。

10 muddled   

adj.混乱的；糊涂的；头脑昏昏然的v.弄乱，弄糟( muddle的过去式)；使糊涂；对付，混日子

参考例句：

• He gets muddled when the teacher starts shouting. 老师一喊叫他就心烦意乱。
• I got muddled up and took the wrong turning. 我稀里糊涂地拐错了弯。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 deference   

n.尊重，顺从；敬意

参考例句：

• Do you treat your parents and teachers with deference?你对父母师长尊敬吗？
• The major defect of their work was deference to authority.他们的主要缺陷是趋从权威。

12 maniac   

n.精神癫狂的人；疯子

参考例句：

• Be careful!That man is driving like a maniac!注意！那个人开车像个疯子一样！
• You were acting like a maniac,and you threatened her with a bomb!你像一个疯子，你用炸弹恐吓她！

13 invalids   

病人，残疾者( invalid的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The invention will confer a benefit on all invalids. 这项发明将有助于所有的残疾人。
• H?tel National Des Invalids is a majestic building with a golden hemispherical housetop. 荣军院是有着半球形镀金屋顶的宏伟建筑。

14 brawny   

adj.强壮的

参考例句：

• The blacksmith has a brawny arm.铁匠有强壮的胳膊。
• That same afternoon the marshal appeared with two brawny assistants.当天下午，警长带着两名身强力壮的助手来了。

15 wield   

vt.行使，运用，支配；挥，使用(武器等)

参考例句：

• They wield enormous political power.他们行使巨大的政治权力。
• People may wield the power in a democracy.在民主国家里，人民可以行使权力。

16 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

17 degenerating   

衰退，堕落，退化( degenerate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He denied that some young people today were degenerating. 他否认现在某些青年在堕落。
• Young people of today are not degenerating. 今天的青年并没有在变坏。