复仇女神20
时间：2026-01-29 07:12:34
（单词翻译:单击）
II
Miss Marple, coming down the stairs that morning, probably rather
earlier than she had been expected, found no immediate sign of her host-
esses. She let herself out at the front door and wandered once round the
garden. It was not because she’d really enjoyed this particular garden. It
was some vague feeling that there was something here that she ought to
notice, something that would give her some idea, or that had given her
some idea only she had not — well, frankly, she had not been bright
enough to realize just what the bright idea had been. Something she ought
to take note of, something that had a bearing.
She was not at the moment anxious to see any of the three sisters. She
wanted to turn a few things over in her mind. The new facts that had
come to her through Janet’s early tea chat.
A side gate stood open and she went through it to the village street and
along a line of small shops to where a steeple poked up announcing the
site of the church and its churchyard. She pushed open the lych-gate and
wandered about among the graves, some dating from quite a while back,
some by the far wall later ones, and one or two beyond the wall in what
was obviously a new enclosure. There was nothing of great interest
among the older tombs. Certain names recurred as they do in villages. A
good many Princes of village origin had been buried. Jasper Prince, deeply
regretted. Margery Prince, Edgar and Walter Prince, Melanie Prince, 4
years old. A family record. Hiram Broad—Ellen Jane Broad, Eliza Broad,
91 years.
She was turning away from the latter when she observed an elderly
man moving in slow motion among the graves, tidying up as he walked.
He gave her a salute and a “good morning.”
“Good morning,” said Miss Marple. “A very pleasant day.”
“It’ll turn to rain later,” said the old man.
He spoke with the utmost certainty.
“There seem to be a lot of Princes and Broads buried here,” said Miss
Marple.
“Ah yes, there’ve always been Princes here. Used to own quite a bit of
land once. There have been Broads a good many years, too.”
“I see a child is buried here. Very sad when one sees a child’s grave.”
“Ah, that’ll be little Melanie that was. Mellie, we called her. Yes, it was a
sad death. Run over, she was. Ran out into the street, went to get sweets at
the sweet shop. Happens a lot nowadays with cars going through at the
pace they do.”
“It is sad to think,” said Miss Marple, “that there are so many deaths all
the time. And one doesn’t really notice it until one looks at the inscriptions
in the churchyard. Sickness, old age, children run over, sometimes even
more dreadful things. Young girls killed. Crimes, I mean.”
“Ah, yes, there’s a lot of that about. Silly girls, I call most of ’em. And
their mums haven’t got time to look after them properly nowadays—what
with going out to work so much.”
Miss Marple rather agreed with his criticism, but had no wish to waste
time in agreement on the trend of the day.
“Staying at The Old Manor House, aren’t you?” the old man asked.
“Come here on the coach tour I saw. But it got too much for you, I suppose.
Some of those that are gettin’ on can’t always take it.”
“I did find it a little exhausting,” confessed Miss Marple, “and a very
kind friend of mine, a Mr. Rafiel, wrote to some friends of his here and
they invited me to stay for a couple of nights.”
The name, Rafiel, clearly meant nothing to the elderly gardener.
“Mrs. Glynne and her two sisters have been very kind,” said Miss
Marple. “I suppose they’ve lived here a long time?”
“Not so long as that. Twenty years maybe. Belonged to old Colonel Brad-
bury-Scott. The Old Manor House did. Close on seventy he was when he
died.”
“Did he have any children?”
“A son what was killed in the war. That’s why he left the place to his
nieces. Nobody else to leave it to.”
He went back to his work amongst the graves.
Miss Marple went into the church. It had felt the hand of a Victorian re-
storer, and had bright Victorian glass in the windows. One or two brasses
and some tablets on the walls were all that was left of the past.
Miss Marple sat down in an uncomfortable pew and wondered about
things.
Was she on the right track now? Things were connecting up—but the
connections were far from clear.
A girl had been murdered—(actually several girls had been murdered)
— suspected young men (or “youths” as they were usually called
nowadays) had been rounded up by the police, to “assist them in their en-
quiries.” A common pattern, but this was all old history, dating back ten or
twelve years. There was nothing to find out—now, no problems to solve. A
tragedy labelled Finis.
What could be done by her? What could Mr. Rafiel possibly want her to
do?
Elizabeth Temple … She must get Elizabeth Temple to tell her more.
Elizabeth had spoken of a girl who had been engaged to be married to Mi-
chael Rafiel. But was that really so? That did not seem to be known to
those in The Old Manor House.
A more familiar version came into Miss Marple’s mind — the kind of
story that had been reasonably frequent in her own village. Starting as al-
ways, “Boy meets girl.” Developing in the usual way—
“And then the girl finds she is pregnant,” said Miss Marple to herself,
“and she tells the boy and she wants him to marry her. But he, perhaps,
doesn’t want to marry her—he has never had any idea of marrying her.
But things may be made difficult for him in this case. His father, perhaps,
won’t hear of such a thing. Her relations will insist that he ‘does the right
thing.’ And by now he is tired of the girl—he’s got another girl perhaps.
And so he takes a quick brutal way out—strangles her, beats her head to a
pulp to avoid identification. It fits with his record—a brutal sordid crime—
but forgotten and done with.”
She looked round the church in which she was sitting. It looked so
peaceful. The reality of Evil was hard to believe in. A flair for Evil—that
was what Mr. Rafiel had attributed to her. She rose and walked out of the
church and stood looking round the churchyard again. Here, amongst the
gravestones and their worn inscriptions, no sense of Evil moved in her.
Was it Evil she had sensed yesterday at The Old Manor House? That
deep depression of despair, that dark desperate grief. Anthea Bradbury-
Scott, her eyes gazing fearfully back over one shoulder, as though fearing
some presence that stood there—always stood there—behind her.
They knew something, those Three Sisters, but what was it that they
knew?
Elizabeth Temple, she thought again. She pictured Elizabeth Temple
with the rest of the coach party, striding across the downs at this moment,
climbing up a steep path and gazing over the cliffs out to sea.
Tomorrow, when she rejoined the tour, she would get Elizabeth Temple
to tell her more.
©2005-2010英文阅读网