破镜谋杀案31
时间：2025-11-25 09:22:51
（单词翻译:单击）
Sixteen
I
Baker, a big good-looking blond giant of a man, was intent on assembling
a model construction unit.
“Neighbours!” said Cherry. She gave a toss of her black curly head.
contents onto two plates, one rather fuller than the other. She placed the
fuller one before her husband.
“Mixed grill,” she announced.
“That’s something like,” he said. “What is today? My birthday?”
“You have to be well nourished,” said Cherry.
to make room for his meal. He grinned at his wife and asked:
“Who says so?”
“My Miss Marple for one!” said Cherry. “And if it comes to that,” she ad-
ded, sitting down opposite Jim and pulling her plate towards her, “I should
say she could do with a bit more solid nourishment7 herself. That old cat of
can think of! A ‘nice custard,’ a ‘nice bread and butter pudding,’ a ‘nice
macaroni cheese.’ Squashy puddings with pink sauce. And gas, gas, gas, all
day. Talks her head off she does.”
“Invalid diet!” said Cherry and snorted. “Miss Marple isn’t an invalid—
she’s just old. Always interfering12, too.”
“Who, Miss Marple?”
“No. That Miss Knight. Telling me how to do things! She even tries to tell
me how to cook! I know a lot more about cooking than she does.”
“You’re tops for cooking, Cherry,” said Jim appreciatively.
“There’s something to cooking,” said Cherry, “something you can get
your teeth into.”
Jim laughed. “I’m getting my teeth into this all right. Why did your Miss
Marple say that I needed nourishing? Did she think I looked run-down, the
other day when I came in to fix the bathroom shelf?”
Cherry laughed. “I’ll tell you what she said to me. She said, ‘You’ve got a
handsome husband, my dear. A very handsome husband.’ Sounds like one
of those period books they read aloud on the telly.”
“I hope you agreed with her?” said Jim with a grin.
“I said you were all right.”
“All right indeed! That’s a nice lukewarm way of talking.”
“And then she said ‘You must take care of your husband, my dear. Be
sure you feed him properly. Men need plenty of good meat meals, well
cooked.’”
“Hear, hear!”
“And she told me to be sure and prepare fresh food for you and not to
buy ready-made pies and things and slip them in the oven to warm up.
Not that I do that often,” added Cherry virtuously13.
“You can’t do it too seldom for me,” said Jim. “They don’t taste a bit the
same.”
“So long as you notice what you eat,” said Cherry, “and aren’t so taken
up with those strato-cruisers and things you’re always building. And don’t
tell me you bought that set as a Christmas present for your nephew Mi-
chael. You bought it so that you could play with it yourself.”
“He’s not quite old enough for it yet,” said Jim apologetically.
“And I suppose you’re going on dithering about with it all the evening.
What about some music? Did you get that new record you were talking
about?”
“Yes, I did. Tchaikovski 1812.”
“That’s the loud one with the battle, isn’t it?” said Cherry. She made a
face. “Our Mrs. Hartwell won’t half like that! Neighbours! I’m fed up with
worst. The Hartwells or the Barnabys. The Hartwells start rapping on the
wall as early as twenty to eleven sometimes. It’s a bit thick! After all even
the telly and the BBC go on later than that. Why shouldn’t we have a bit of
music if we like? And always asking us to turn it down low.”
“You can’t turn these things down low,” said Jim with authority. “You
don’t get the tone unless you’ve got the volume. Everyone knows that. It’s
absolutely recognized in musical circles. And what about their cat—al-
ways coming over into our garden, digging up the beds, just when I’ve got
it nice.”
“I tell you what, Jim. I’m fed up with this place.”
“You didn’t mind your neighbours up in Huddersfield,” remarked Jim.
“It wasn’t the same there,” said Cherry. “I mean, you’re all independent
there. If you’re in trouble, somebody’d give you a hand and you’d give a
tate like this that makes people look sideways at their neighbours. Because
we’re all new I suppose. The amount of backbiting16 and tale-telling and
writing to the council and one thing and another round here beats me!
People in real towns are too busy for it.”
“You may have something there, my girl.”
“D’you like it here, Jim?”
“The job’s all right. And after all, this is a brand new house. I wish there
was a bit more room in it so that I could spread myself a bit more. It
would be fine if I could have a workshop.”
“I thought it was lovely at first,” said Cherry, “but now I’m not so sure.
The house is all right and I love the blue paint and the bathroom’s nice,
but I don’t like the people and the feeling round here. Did I tell you that
that day in that house they went to look over. You know when she more or
less fell out of the window. She said Harry just stood there like a stuck
pig.”
“I’m glad she’s broken off with him. He’s a no-good if I ever saw one,”
said Jim.
“No good marrying a chap just because a baby’s on the way,” said
Cherry. “He didn’t want to marry her, you know. He’s not a very nice fel-
“Miss Marple? I didn’t know she’d ever seen him?”
“Oh yes, she was round here walking the day she fell down and Mrs.
Badcock picked her up and took her into her house. Do you think Arthur
and Mrs. Bain will make a match of it?”
Jim frowned as he picked up a bit of strato-cruiser and consulted the in-
structional diagram.
“I do wish you’d listen when I’m talking,” said Cherry.
“What did you say?”
“Arthur Badcock and Mary Bain.”
“For the Lord’s sake, Cherry, his wife’s only just dead! You women! I’ve
heard he’s in a terrible state of nerves still—jumps if you speak to him.”
“I wonder why… I shouldn’t have thought he’d take it that way, would
you?”
“Can you clear off this end of the table a bit?” said Jim, relinquishing20
even a passing interest in the affairs of his neighbours. “Just so that I can
spread some of these pieces out a bit.”
Cherry heaved an exasperated21 sigh.
“To get any attention round here, you have to be a super jet, or a turbo
prop,” she said bitterly. “You and your construction models!”
off as long as possible. Instead, she piled everything into the sink, haphaz-
ard, slipped on a corduroy jacket and went out of the house, pausing to
call over her shoulder:
“I’m just going to slip along to see Gladys Dixon. I want to borrow one of
Casting a venomous look at her next-door neighbour’s front door as she
passed, Cherry went round the corner into Blenheim Close and stopped at
No. 16. The door was open and Cherry tapped on it and went into the hall
calling out:
“Is Gladdy about?”
“Is that you, Cherry?” Mrs. Dixon looked out of the kitchen. “She’s up-
stairs in her room, dressmaking.”
“Right. I’ll go up.”
Cherry went upstairs to a small bedroom in which Gladys, a plump girl
with a plain face, was kneeling on the floor, her cheeks flushed, and sev-
“Hallo, Cherry. Look, I got a lovely bit of stuff at Harper’s sale at Much
Benham. I’m going to do that crossover pattern with frills again, the one I
did in Terylene before.”
“That’ll be nice,” said Cherry.
Gladys rose to her feet, panting a little.
“Got indigestion now,” she said.
“You oughtn’t to do dressmaking right after supper,” said Cherry, “bend-
ing over like that.”
“I suppose I ought to slim a bit,” said Gladys. She sat down on the bed.
“Nothing much. There’s a lot of talk still. Marina Gregg came back on the
“What about?”
“She didn’t like the taste of her coffee. You know, they have coffee in the
wrong with it. Which was nonsense, of course. There couldn’t have been.
a special china cup, rather posh—different from the others—but it’s the
same coffee. So there couldn’t have been anything wrong with it, could
there?”
“Nerves, I suppose,” said Cherry. “What happened?”
“Oh, nothing. Mr. Rudd just calmed everyone down. He’s wonderful that
way. He took the coffee from her and poured it down the sink.”
“That seems to be rather stupid,” said Cherry slowly.
“Why—what do you mean?”
“Well, if there was anything wrong with it — now nobody will ever
know.”
“Do you think there really might have been?” asked Gladys looking
alarmed.
at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.”
Gladys shivered.
“I don’t half like it, Cherry,” she said. “Somebody’s got it in for her all
right. She’s had more letters, you know, threatening her—and there was
“What bust business?”
“A marble bust. On the set. It’s a corner of a room in some Austrian
palace or other. Funny name like Shotbrown. Pictures and china and
pushed back enough. Anway, a heavy lorry went past out in the road and
jarred it off—right onto the chair where Marina sits for her big scene with
Count Somebody-or-other. Smashed to smithereens! Lucky they weren’t
shooting at the time. Mr. Rudd, he said not to say a word to her, and he put
another chair there, and when she came yesterday and asked why the
chair had been changed, he said the other chair was the wrong period,
and this gave a better angle for the camera. But he didn’t half like it—I can
tell you that.”
The two girls looked at each other.
“It’s exciting in a way,” said Cherry slowly. “And yet—it isn’t….”
“I think I’m going to give up working in the canteen at the studios,” said
Gladys.
“Why? Nobody wants to poison you or drop marble busts on your
head!”
“No. But it’s not always the person who’s meant to get done in who gets
done in. It may be someone else. Like Heather Badcock that day.”
“True enough,” said Cherry.
“You know,” said Gladys, “I’ve been thinking. I was at the Hall that day,
“When Heather died?”
“No, when she spilt the cocktail. All down her dress. A lovely dress it
was, too, royal blue nylon taffeta. She’d got it quite new for the occasion.
And it was funny.”
“What was funny?”
“I didn’t think anything of it at the time. But it does seem funny when I
think it over.”
Cherry looked at her expectantly. She accepted the adjective “funny” in
the sense that it was meant. It was not intended humorously.
“For goodness’ sake, what was funny?” she demanded.
“I’m almost sure she did it on purpose.”
“Spilt the cocktail on purpose?”
“Yes. And I do think that was funny, don’t you?”
“On a brand-new dress? I don’t believe it.”
“I wonder now,” said Gladys, “what Arthur Badcock will do with all
Heather’s clothes. That dress would clean all right. Or I could take out half
a breadth, it’s a lovely full skirt. Do you think Arthur Badcock would think
it very awful of me if I wanted to buy it off him? It would need hardly any
alteration—and it’s lovely stuff.”
“You wouldn’t—” Cherry hesitated “—mind?”
“Mind what?”
“Well—having a dress that a woman had died in—I mean died that
way….”
Gladys stared at her.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she admitted. She considered for a moment or
two. Then she cheered up.
“I can’t see that it really matters,” she said. “After all, every time you buy
something secondhand, somebody’s usually worn it who has died, haven’t
they?”
“Yes. But it’s not quite the same.”
“I think you’re being fanciful,” said Gladys. “It’s a lovely bright shade of
blue, and really expensive stuff. About that funny business,” she contin-
ued thoughtfully, “I think I’ll go up to the hall tomorrow morning on my
way to work and have a word with Mr. Giuseppe about it.”
“Is he the Italian butler?”
When we go and help there, he chivvies us girls something terrible.” She
Anyway, I might just tell him about it, and ask him what I ought to do.”
“I don’t see that you’ve got anything to tell,” said Cherry.
jective.
“I think,” said Cherry, “that you just want an excuse to go and talk to Mr.
Giuseppe — and you’d better be careful, my girl. You know what these
wops are like! Affiliation39 orders all over the place. Hot-blooded and pas-
sionate, that’s what these Italians are.”
Gladys sighed ecstatically.
her warnings were unnecessary. Mr. Giuseppe, she thought, would have
better fish to fry elsewhere.
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收听单词发音 |
1
baker
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| n.面包师 | |
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venom
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| n.毒液，恶毒，痛恨 | |
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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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4
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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6
component
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| n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的 | |
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7
nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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8
knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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9
carbohydrates
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| n.碳水化合物，糖类( carbohydrate的名词复数 )；淀粉质或糖类食物 | |
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10
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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11
invalid
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| n.病人，伤残人；adj.有病的，伤残的；无效的 | |
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12
interfering
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| adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词 | |
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13
virtuously
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| 合乎道德地，善良地 | |
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14
grousing
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| v.抱怨，发牢骚( grouse的现在分词 ) | |
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15
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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16
backbiting
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| 背后诽谤 | |
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17
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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18
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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19
crackers
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| adj.精神错乱的，癫狂的n.爆竹( cracker的名词复数 )；薄脆饼干；（认为）十分愉快的事；迷人的姑娘 | |
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20
relinquishing
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| 交出，让给( relinquish的现在分词 )； 放弃 | |
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21
exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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22
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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Vogue
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| n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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tacking
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| （帆船）抢风行驶，定位焊[铆]紧钉 | |
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avid
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| adj.热心的；贪婪的；渴望的；劲头十足的 | |
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frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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29
sip
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| v.小口地喝，抿，呷；n.一小口的量 | |
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jug
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| n.(有柄，小口，可盛水等的)大壶，罐，盂 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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cocktail
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| n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物 | |
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33
bust
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| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
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34
busts
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| 半身雕塑像( bust的名词复数 )； 妇女的胸部； 胸围； 突击搜捕 | |
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35
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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giggled
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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defiantly
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| adv.挑战地，大胆对抗地 | |
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affiliation
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| n.联系，联合 | |
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spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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