“But, my dear young lady,” said Mr. Kirkwood, “what can you possibly ex-pect to find at Hazelmoor? All Captain Trevelyan’s effects have been re-moved. The police have made a thorough search of the house. I quite un-derstand your position and your anxiety that Mr. Pearson shall be—er—cleared if possible. But what can you do?”
“I don’t expect to find anything,” Emily replied, “or to notice anythingthat the police have overlooked. I can’t explain to you, Mr. Kirkwood. Iwant—I want to get the atmosphere of the place. Please let me have thekey. There’s no harm in it.”
“Certainly there’s no harm in it,” said Mr. Kirkwood with dignity.
“Then please be kind,” said Emily.
So Mr. Kirkwood was kind and handed over the key with an indulgentsmile. He did his best to come with her, which catastrophe1 was only aver-ted by great tact2 and firmness on Emily’s part.
That morning Emily had received a letter. It was couched in the follow-ing terms:
“Dear Miss Trefusis,”—wrote Mrs. Belling. “You said ashow you would like to hear if anything at all should hap-pen that was in any way out of the common even if not im-portant, and, as this is peculiar3, though not in any wayimportant, I thought it my duty Miss to let you know atonce, hoping this will catch you by the last post tonight orthe first post tomorrow. My niece she came round and saidit wasn’t of any importance but peculiar which I agreedwith her. The police said, and it was generally agreed thatnothing was taken from Captain Trevelyan’s house andnothing was in a manner of speaking nothing that is ofany value, but something there is missing though not no-ticed at the time being unimportant. But it seems Missthat a pair of the Captain’s boots is missing which Evansnoticed when he went over the things with Major Burnaby.
Though I don’t suppose it is of any importance Miss Ithought you would like to know. It was a pair of boots Missthe thick kind you rubs oil into and which the Captainwould have worn if he had gone out in the snow but as hedidn’t go out in the snow it doesn’t seem to make sense. Butmissing they are and who took them nobody knows andthough I well know it’s of no importance I felt it my duty towrite and hoping this finds you as it leaves me at presentand hoping you are not worrying too much about theyoung gentleman I remain Miss Yours truly — Mrs. J.
Belling.”
Emily had read and re- read this letter. She had discussed it withCharles.
“Boots,” said Charles thoughtfully. “It doesn’t seem to make sense.”
“It must mean something,” Emily pointed4 out. “I mean—why should apair of boots be missing?”
“You don’t think Evans is inventing?”
“Why should he? And after all if people do invent, they invent some-thing sensible. Not a silly pointless thing like this.”
“Boots suggests something to do with footprints,” said Charles thought-fully.
“I know. But footprints don’t seem to enter into this case at all. Perhapsif it hadn’t come on to snow again—”
“Yes, perhaps, but even then.”
“Could he have given them to some tramp,” suggested Charles, “andthen the tramp did him in.”
“I suppose that’s possible,” said Emily, “but it doesn’t sound very likeCaptain Trevelyan. He might perhaps have found a man some work to door given him a shilling, but he wouldn’t have pressed his best winter bootson him.”
“Well, I give it up,” said Charles.
“I’m not going to give it up,” said Emily. “By hook or by crook5 I’m goingto get to the bottom of it.”
Accordingly she came to Exhampton and went first to the Three Crowns,where Mrs. Belling received her with great enthusiasm.
“And your young gentleman still in prison, Miss! Well, it’s a cruel shameand none of us don’t believe it was him at least I would like to hear themsay so when I am about. So you got my letter? You’d like to see Evans?
Well, he lives right round the corner, 85 Fore6 Street it is. I wish I couldcome with you, but I can’t leave the place, but you can’t mistake it.”
Emily did not mistake it. Evans himself was out, but Mrs. Evans receivedher and invited her in. Emily sat down and induced Mrs. Evans to do soalso and plunge7 straight into the matter on hand.
“I’ve come to talk about what your husband told Mrs. Belling. I meanabout a pair of Captain Trevelyan’s boots being missing.”
“It’s an odd thing, to be sure,” said the girl.
“Your husband is quite certain about it?”
“Oh, yes. Wore these boots most of the time in winter, the Captain did.
Big ones they were, and he wore a couple of pairs of socks inside them.”
Emily nodded.
“They can’t have gone to be mended or anything like that?” she sugges-ted.
“Not without Evans knowing, they couldn’t,” said his wife boastfully.
“No, I suppose not.”
“It’s queer like,” said Mrs. Evans, “but I don’t suppose it had anything todo with the murder, do you, Miss?”
“It doesn’t seem likely,” agreed Emily.
“Have they found out anything new, Miss?” The girl’s voice was eager.
“Yes, one or two things—nothing very important.”
“Seeing as that the Inspector8 from Exeter was here again today, Ithought as though they might.”
“Inspector Narracott?”
“Yes, that’s the one, Miss.”
“Did he come by my train?”
“No, he came by car. He went to the Three Crowns first and asked aboutthe young gentleman’s luggage.”
“What young gentleman’s luggage?”
“The gentleman you go about with, Miss.”
Emily stared.
“They asked Tom,” went on the girl, “I was passing by just after and hetold me about it. He’s a one for noticing is Tom. He remembered therewere two labels on the young gentleman’s luggage, one to Exeter and oneto Exhampton.”
A sudden smile illuminated9 Emily’s face as she pictured the crime beingcommitted by Charles in order to provide a scoop10 for himself. One could,she decided11, write a gruesome little story on that theme. But she admiredInspector Narracott’s thoroughness in checking every detail to do withanyone, however remote their connection with the crime. He must haveleft Exeter almost immediately after his interview with her. A fast carwould easily beat the train, and in any case she had lunched in Exeter.
“Where did the Inspector go afterwards?” she asked.
“To Sittaford, Miss. Tom heard him tell the driver.”
“To Sittaford House?”
Brian Pearson was, she knew, still staying at Sittaford House with theWilletts.
“No, Miss, to Mr. Duke’s.”
Duke again. Emily felt irritated and baffled. Always Duke—the unknownfactor. She ought, she felt, to be able to deduce him from the evidence, buthe seemed to have produced the same effect on everyone—a normal, or-dinary, pleasant man.
“I’ve got to see him,” said Emily to herself. “I’ll go straight there as soonas I get back to Sittaford.”
Then she had thanked Mrs. Evans, gone on to Mr. Kirkwood’s and ob-tained the key, and was now standing12 in the hall of Hazelmoor and won-dering how and what she had expected to feel there.
She mounted the stairs slowly and went into the first room at the top ofthe stairs. This was quite clearly Captain Trevelyan’s bedroom. It had, asMr. Kirkwood had said, been emptied of personal effects. Blankets werefolded in a neat pile, the drawers were empty, there was not so much as ahanger left in the cupboard. The boot cupboard showed a row of bareshelves.
Emily sighed and then turned and went downstairs. Here was the sittingroom where the dead man had lain, the snow blowing in from the openwindow.
She tried to visualize13 the scene. Whose hand had struck Captain Trev-elyan down, and why? Had he been killed at five and twenty past five aseveryone believed — or had Jim really lost his nerve and lied? Had hefailed to make anyone hear at the front door and gone round to the win-dow, looked in and seen his dead uncle’s body and dashed away in anagony of fear? If only she knew. According to Mr. Dacres, Jim stuck to hisstory. Yes—but Jim might have lost his nerve. She couldn’t be sure.
Had there been, as Mr. Rycroft had suggested, someone else in the house—someone who had overheard the quarrel and seized his chance?
If so—did that throw any light on the boot problem? Had someone beenupstairs—perhaps in Captain Trevelyan’s bedroom? Emily passed throughthe hall again. She took a quick look into the dining room; there were acouple of trunks there neatly14 strapped15 and labelled. The sideboard wasbare. The silver cups were at Major Burnaby’s bungalow16.
She noticed, however, that the prize of three new novels, an account ofwhich Charles had had from Evans and had reported with amusing embel-lishments to her, had been forgotten and lay dejectedly on a chair.
She looked round the room and shook her head. There was nothinghere.
She went up the stairs again and once more entered the bedroom.
She must know why these boots were missing! Until she could concoctsome theory reasonably satisfactory to herself which would account fortheir disappearance17, she felt powerless to put them out of her mind. Theywere soaring to ridiculous proportions, dwarfing18 everything else to dowith the case. Was there nothing to help her?
She took each drawer out and felt behind it. In detective stories therewas always an obliging scrap19 of paper. But evidently in real life one couldnot expect such fortunate accidents, or else Inspector Narracott and hismen had been wonderfully thorough. She felt for loose boards, she feltround the edge of the carpet with her fingers. She investigated the springmattress. What she expected to find in all these places she hardly knew,but she went on looking with dogged perseverance20.
And then, as she straightened her back and stood upright, her eye wascaught by the one incongruous touch in this room of apple-pie order, alittle pile of soot21 in the grate.
Emily looked at it with the fascinated gaze of a bird for a snake. Shedrew nearer, eyeing it. It was no logical deduction22, no reasoning of causeand effect, it was simply that the sight of soot as such suggested a certainpossibility. Emily rolled up her sleeves and thrust both arms up the chim-ney.
A moment later she was staring with incredulous delight at a parcelwrapped neatly in newspaper. One shake detached the newspaper andthere, before her, were the missing pair of boots.
“But why?” said Emily. “Here they are. But why? Why? Why? Why?”
She stared at them. She turned them over. She examined them outsideand inside and the same question beat monotonously23 in her brain. Why?
Granted that someone had removed Captain Trevelyan’s boots and hid-den them up the chimney. Why had they done so?
“Oh!” cried Emily desperately24, “I shall go mad!”
She put the boots carefully in the middle of the floor, and drawing up achair opposite them she sat down. And then deliberately25 she set herself tothink out things from the beginning, going over every detail that she knewherself or had learned by hearsay26 from other people. She consideredevery actor in the drama and outside the drama.
And suddenly, a queer nebulous idea began to take shape—an idea sug-gested by that pair of innocent boots that stood there dumbly on the floor.
“But if so,” said Emily,—“if so—”
She picked up the boots in her hand and hurried downstairs. Shepushed open the dining room door and went to the cupboard in thecorner. Here was Captain Trevelyan’s motley array of sporting trophiesand sporting outfits27, all the things he had not trusted within reach of thefemale tenants28. The skis, the sculls, the elephant’s foot, the tusks29, the fish-ing rods—everything still waiting for Messrs. Young and Peabody to packthem expertly for store.
Emily bent30 down boots in hand.
In a minute or two she stood upright, flushed, incredulous.
“So that was it,” said Emily. “So that was it.”
She sank into a chair. There was still much that she did not understand.
After some minutes she rose to her feet. She spoke31 aloud.
“I know who killed Captain Trevelyan,” she said. “But I don’t know why.
I still can’t think why. But I mustn’t lose time.”
She hurried out of Hazelmoor. To find a car to drive her to Sittaford wasthe work of a few minutes. She ordered it to take her to Mr. Duke’s bunga-low. Here she paid the man and then walked up the path as the car droveaway.
She lifted the knocker and gave a loud rat-tat.
After a moment or two’s interval32 the door was opened by a big burlyman with a rather impassive face.
For the first time, Emily met Mr. Duke face to face.
“Mr. Duke?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I am Miss Trefusis. May I come in, please?”
There was a momentary33 hesitation34. Then he stood aside to let her pass.
Emily walked into the living room. He closed the front door and followedher.
“I want to see Inspector Narracott,” said Emily. “Is he here?”
Again there was a pause. Mr. Duke seemed uncertain how to answer. Atlast he appeared to make up his mind. He smiled—a rather curious smile.
“Inspector Narracott is here,” he said. “What do you want to see himabout?”
Emily took the parcel she was carrying and unwrapped it. She took out apair of boots and placed them on the table in front of him.
“I want,” she said, “to see him about those boots.”
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1
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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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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6
fore
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| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
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plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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scoop
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| n.铲子，舀取，独家新闻；v.汲取，舀取，抢先登出 | |
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11
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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13
visualize
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| vt.使看得见，使具体化，想象，设想 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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15
strapped
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| adj.用皮带捆住的，用皮带装饰的；身无分文的；缺钱；手头紧v.用皮带捆扎(strap的过去式和过去分词)；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带 | |
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16
bungalow
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| n.平房，周围有阳台的木造小平房 | |
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disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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dwarfing
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| n.矮化病 | |
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scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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perseverance
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| n.坚持不懈，不屈不挠 | |
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soot
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| n.煤烟，烟尘；vt.熏以煤烟 | |
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deduction
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| n.减除，扣除，减除额；推论，推理，演绎 | |
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monotonously
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| adv.单调地，无变化地 | |
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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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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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hearsay
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| n.谣传，风闻 | |
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outfits
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| n.全套装备( outfit的名词复数 )；一套服装；集体；组织v.装备，配置设备，供给服装( outfit的第三人称单数 ) | |
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28
tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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29
tusks
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| n.（象等动物的）长牙( tusk的名词复数 )；獠牙；尖形物；尖头 | |
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30
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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31
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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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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