Chapter 10 Attack on Tuppence（2）

II
Albert produced a very passable meal. His cooking was erratic¹. It had itsmoments of brilliance² which tonight was exemplified by what he calledcheese pudding, and Tuppence and Tommy preferred to call cheesesoufflé. Albert reproved them slightly for the wrong nomenclature.
‘Cheese soufflé is different,’ he said, ‘got more beaten up white of egg init than this has.’
‘Never mind,’ said Tuppence, ‘it’s very good whether it’s cheese puddingor cheese soufflé.’
Both Tommy and Tuppence were entirely³ absorbed with the eating offood and did not compare any more notes as to their procedure. When,however, they had both drunk two cups of strong coffee, Tuppence leanedback in her chair, uttered a deep sigh and said:
‘Now I feel almost myself again. You didn’t do much washing before din-ner, did you, Tommy?’
‘I couldn’t be bothered to wait and wash,’ said Tommy. ‘Besides, I neverknow with you. You might have made me go upstairs to the book-roomand stand on a dusty ladder and poke⁴ about on the shelves.’
‘I wouldn’t be so unkind,’ said Tuppence. ‘Now wait a minute. Let’s seewhere we are.’
‘Where we are or where you are?’
‘Well, where I am, really,’ said Tuppence. ‘After all, that’s the only thingI know about, isn’t it? You know where you are and I know where I am.
Perhaps, that is.’
‘May be a bit of perhaps about it,’ said Tommy.
‘Pass me over my bag, will you, unless I’ve left it in the dining-room?’
‘You usually do but you haven’t this time. It’s under the foot of yourchair. No–the other side.’
Tuppence picked up her handbag.
‘Very nice present, this was,’ she said. ‘Real crocodile, I think. Bit diffi-cult to stuff things in sometimes.’
‘And apparently⁵ to take them out again,’ said Tommy.
Tuppence was wrestling.
‘Expensive bags are always very difficult for getting things out of,’ shesaid breathlessly. ‘Those basketwork ones are the most comfortable. Theybulge to any extent and you can stir them up like you stir up a pudding.
Ah! I think I’ve got it.’
‘What is it? It looks like a washing bill.’
‘Oh, it’s a little notebook. Yes, I used to write washing things in it, youknow, what I had to complain about–torn pillowcase or something likethat. But I thought it would come in useful, you see, because only three orfour pages of it had been used. I put down here, you see, things we’veheard. A great many of them don’t seem to have any point but there it is. Iadded census⁶, by the way, when you first mentioned it. I didn’t know whatit meant at that time or what you meant by it. But anyway I did add it.’
‘Fine,’ said Tommy.
‘And I put down Mrs Henderson and someone called Dodo.’
‘Who was Mrs Henderson?’
‘Well, I don’t suppose you’ll remember and I needn’t go back to it nowbut those were two of the names I put down that Mrs What’s-her-name,you know, the old one, Mrs Griffin mentioned. And then there was a mes-sage or a notice. Something about Oxford⁷ and Cambridge. And I’ve comeacross another thing in one of the old books.’
‘What about–Oxford and Cambridge? Do you mean an undergraduate?’
‘I’m not sure whether there was an undergraduate or not, I think reallyit was a bet on the boat race.’
‘Much more likely,’ said Tommy. ‘Not awfully⁸ apt to be useful to us.’
‘Well, one never knows. So there’s Mrs Henderson and there’s some-body who lives in a house called Apple Tree Lodge⁹ and there’s something Ifound on a dirty bit of paper shoved into one of the books upstairs. I don’tknow if it was Catriona or whether it was in a book called Shadow of theThrone.’
‘That’s about the French Revolution. I read it when I was a boy,’ saidTommy.
‘Well, I don’t see how that comes in. At any rate, I put it down.’
‘Well, what is it?’
‘It seems to be three pencil words. Grin, g-r-i-n, then hen, h-e-n and thenLo, capital L-o.’
‘Let me guess,’ said Tommy. ‘Cheshire cat–that’s a grin–Henny-Penny,that’s another fairy story, isn’t it, for the hen, and Lo–’
‘Ah,’ said Tuppence, ‘Lo does you in, does it?’
‘Lo and behold,’ said Tommy, ‘but it doesn’t seem to make sense.’
Tuppence spoke¹⁰ rapidly. ‘Mrs Henley, Apple Tree Lodge–I haven’t doneher yet, she’s in Meadowside.’ Tuppence recited quickly: ‘Now, where arewe? Mrs Griffin, Oxford and Cambridge, bet on a boat race, census,Cheshire cat, Henny- Penny, the story where the Hen went to theDovrefell– Hans Andersen or something like that– and Lo. I suppose Lomeans when they got there. Got to the Dovrefell, I mean.
‘I don’t think there’s much else,’ said Tuppence. ‘There’s the Oxford andCambridge boat race or the bet.’
‘I should think the odds¹¹ are on our being rather silly. But I think if we goon being silly long enough, some gem¹² of great price might come out of it,concealed among the rubbish, as you might say. Just as we found one sig-nificant book on the bookshelves upstairs.’
‘Oxford and Cambridge,’ said Tuppence thoughtfully. ‘That makes methink of something. It makes me remember something. Now what could itbe?’
‘Mathilde?’
‘No, it wasn’t Mathilde, but–’
‘Truelove,’ suggested Tommy. He grinned from ear to ear. ‘True love.
Where can I my true love find?’
‘Stop grinning, you ape,’ said Tuppence. ‘You’ve got that last thing onyour brain. Grin-hen-lo. Doesn’t make sense. And yet–I have a kind of feel-ing–Oh!’
‘What’s the Oh about?’
‘Oh! Tommy, I’ve got an idea. Of course.’
‘What’s of course?’
‘Lo,’ said Tuppence. ‘Lo. Grin is what made me think of it. You grinninglike a Cheshire cat. Grin. Hen and then Lo. Of course. That must be itsomehow.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘Oxford and Cambridge boat race.’
‘Why does grin hen Lo make you think of Oxford and Cambridge boatrace?’
‘I’ll give you three guesses,’ said Tuppence.
‘Well, I give up at once because I don’t think it could possibly makesense.’
‘It does really.’
‘What, the boat race?’
‘No, nothing to do with the boat race. The colour. Colours, I mean.’
‘What do you mean, Tuppence?’
‘Grin hen Lo. We’ve been reading it the wrong way round. It’s meant tobe read the other way round.’
‘What do you mean? Ol, then n-e-h–it doesn’t make sense. You couldn’tgo on n-i-r-g. Nirg or some word like that.’
‘No. Just take the three words. A little bit, you know, like what Alexan-der did in the book–the first book that we looked at. Read those threewords the other way round. Lo-hen-grin.’
Tommy scowled¹³.
‘Still haven’t got it?’ said Tuppence. ‘Lohengrin, of course. The swan. Theopera. You know, Lohengrin, Wagner.’
‘Well, there’s nothing to do with a swan.’
‘Yes, there is. Those two pieces of china we found. Stools for the garden.
You remember? One was a dark blue and one was a light blue, and oldIsaac said to us, at least I think it was Isaac, he said, “That’s Oxford, yousee, and that’s Cambridge.”’
‘Well, we smashed the Oxford one, didn’t we?’
‘Yes. But the Cambridge one is still there. The light blue one. Don’t yousee? Lohengrin. Something was hidden in one of those two swans.
Tommy, the next thing we have to do is to go and look at the Cambridgeone. The light blue one, it’s still in KK. Shall we go now?’
‘What–at eleven o’clock at night–no.’
‘We’ll go tomorrow. You haven’t got to go to London tomorrow?’ ‘No.’
‘Well, we’ll go tomorrow and we’ll see.’

1 erratic   

adj.古怪的，反复无常的，不稳定的

参考例句：

• The old man had always been cranky and erratic.那老头儿性情古怪,反复无常。
• The erratic fluctuation of market prices is in consequence of unstable economy.经济波动致使市场物价忽起忽落。

2 brilliance   

n.光辉，辉煌，壮丽，（卓越的）才华，才智

参考例句：

• I was totally amazed by the brilliance of her paintings.她的绘画才能令我惊歎不已。
• The gorgeous costume added to the brilliance of the dance.华丽的服装使舞蹈更加光彩夺目。

3 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

4 poke   

n.刺，戳，袋；vt.拨开，刺，戳；vi.戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢

参考例句：

• We never thought she would poke her nose into this.想不到她会插上一手。
• Don't poke fun at me.别拿我凑趣儿。

5 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

6 census   

n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查

参考例句：

• A census of population is taken every ten years.人口普查每10年进行一次。
• The census is taken one time every four years in our country.我国每四年一次人口普查。

7 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

8 awfully   

adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地

参考例句：

• Agriculture was awfully neglected in the past.过去农业遭到严重忽视。
• I've been feeling awfully bad about it.对这我一直感到很难受。

9 lodge   

v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆

参考例句：

• Is there anywhere that I can lodge in the village tonight?村里有我今晚过夜的地方吗？
• I shall lodge at the inn for two nights.我要在这家小店住两个晚上。

10 spoke   

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

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

11 odds   

n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别

参考例句：

• The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
• Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗？

12 gem   

n.宝石，珠宝；受爱戴的人 [同]jewel

参考例句：

• The gem is beyond my pocket.这颗宝石我可买不起。
• The little gem is worth two thousand dollars.这块小宝石价值两千美元。

13 scowled   

怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He scowled his displeasure. 他满脸嗔色。
• The teacher scowled at his noisy class. 老师对他那喧闹的课堂板着脸。