伯特伦旅馆之谜7
时间：2026-01-04 07:38:32
（单词翻译:单击）
II
As Colonel Luscombe strode along the passage from his room, a door at
the top of the stairs opened sharply and Lady Sedgwick spoke to him.
“There you are at last! I’ve been on the look out for you—waiting to
pounce. Where can we go and talk? That is to say without falling over
some old pussy every second.”
“Well, really, Bess, I’m not quite sure—I think on the mezzanine floor
there’s a sort of writing room.”
“You’d better come in here. Quick now, before the chambermaid gets
peculiar ideas about us.”
Rather unwillingly, Colonel Luscombe stepped across the threshold and
had the door shut firmly behind him.
“I’d no idea you would be staying here, Bess, I hadn’t the faintest idea of
it.”
“I don’t suppose you had.”
“I mean—I would never have brought Elvira here. I have got Elvira here,
you know?”
“Yes, I saw her with you last night.”
“But I really didn’t know that you were here. It seemed such an unlikely
place for you.”
“I don’t see why,” said Bess Sedgwick, coldy. “It’s far and away the most
comfortable hotel in London. Why shouldn’t I stay here?”
“You must understand that I hadn’t any idea of…I mean—”
She looked at him and laughed. She was dressed ready to go out in a
well cut dark suit and a shirt of bright emerald green. She looked gay and
very much alive. Beside her, Colonel Luscombe looked rather old and
faded.
“Darling Derek, don’t look so worried. I’m not accusing you of trying to
stage a mother and daughter sentimental meeting. It’s just one of those
things that happen; where people meet each other in unsuspected places.
But you must get Elvira out of here, Derek. You must get her out of it at
once—today.”
“Oh, she’s going. I mean, I only brought her here just for a couple of
nights. Do a show—that sort of thing. She’s going down to the Melfords’ to-
morrow.”
“Poor girl, that’ll be boring for her.”
Luscombe looked at her with concern. “Do you think she will be very
bored?”
Bess took pity on him.
“Probably not after duress in Italy. She might even think it wildly thrill-
ing.”
Luscombe took his courage in both hands.
“Look here, Bess, I was startled to find you here, but don’t you think it—
well, you know, it might be meant in a way. I mean that it might be an op-
portunity—I don’t think you really know how—well, how the girl might
feel.”
“What are you trying to say, Derek?”
“Well, you are her mother, you know.”
“I’m course I’m her mother. She’s my daughter. And what good has that
fact ever been to either of us, or ever will be?”
“You can’t be sure. I think—I think she feels it.”
“What gives you that idea?” said Bess Sedgwick sharply.
“Something she said yesterday. She asked where you were, what you
were doing.”
Bess Sedgwick walked across the room to the window. She stood there a
moment tapping on the pane.
“You’re so nice, Derek,” she said. “You have such nice ideas. But they
don’t work, my poor angel. That’s what you’ve got to say to yourself. They
don’t work and they might be dangerous.”
“Oh come now, Bess. Dangerous?”
“Yes, yes, yes. Dangerous. I’m dangerous. I’ve always been dangerous.”
“When I think of some of the things you’ve done,” said Colonel
Luscombe.
“That’s my own business,” said Bess Sedgwick. “Running into danger has
become a kind of habit with me. No, I wouldn’t say habit. More an addic-
tion. Like a drug. Like that nice little dollop of heroin addicts have to have
every so often to make life seem bright coloured and worth living. Well,
that’s all right. That’s my funeral—or not—as the case may be. I’ve never
taken drugs—never needed them—Danger has been my drug. But people
who live as I do can be a source of harm to others. Now don’t be an obstin-
ate old fool, Derek. You keep that girl well away from me. I can do her no
good. Only harm. If possible, don’t even let her know I was staying in the
same hotel. Ring up the Melfords and take her down there today. Make
some excuse about a sudden emergency—”
Colonel Luscombe hesitated, pulling his moustaches.
“I think you’re making a mistake, Bess.” He sighed. “She asked where
you were. I told her you were abroad.”
“Well, I shall be in another twelve hours, so that all fits very nicely.”
She came up to him, kissed him on the point of his chin, turned him
smartly around as though they were about to play Blind Man’s Buff,
opened the door, gave him a gentle little propelling shove out of it. As the
door shut behind him, Colonel Luscombe noticed an old lady turning the
corner from the stairs. She was muttering to herself as she looked into her
handbag. “Dear, dear me. I suppose I must have left it in my room. Oh
dear.”
She passed Colonel Luscombe without paying much attention to him ap-
parently, but as he went on down the stairs Miss Marple paused by her
room door and directed a piercing glance after him. Then she looked to-
wards Bess Sedgwick’s door. “So that’s who she was waiting for,” said Miss
Marple to herself. “I wonder why.”
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