复仇女神31
时间：2026-01-29 07:22:10
（单词翻译:单击）
II
Dr. Stokes was a middle-aged man with greying hair and spectacles. Police
evidence was given first, then the medical evidence with technical details
of the concussion injuries which had caused death. Mrs. Sandbourne gave
particulars of the coach tour, the expedition as arranged for that particu-
lar afternoon, and particulars of how the fatality had occurred. Miss
Temple, she said, although not young, was a very brisk walker. The party
were going along a well-known footpath which led around the curve of a
hill which slowly mounted to the old Moorland Church originally built in
Elizabethan times, though repaired and added to later. On an adjoining
crest was what was called the Bonaventure Memorial. It was a fairly steep
ascent and people usually climbed it at different paces from each other.
The younger ones very often ran or walked ahead and reached their des-
tination much earlier than the others. The elderly ones took it slowly. She
herself usually kept at the rear of the party so that she could, if necessary,
suggest to people who were tired that they could, if they liked, go back.
Miss Temple, she said, had been talking to a Mr. and Mrs. Butler. Miss
Temple, though she was over sixty, had been slightly impatient at their
slow pace and had outdistanced them, had turned a corner and gone on
ahead rather rapidly, which she had done often before. She was inclined
to get impatient if waiting for people to catch up for too long, and pre-
ferred to make her own pace. They had heard a cry ahead, and she and
the others had run on, turned a curve of the pathway and had found Miss
Temple lying on the ground. A large boulder detached from the hillside
above where there were several others of the same kind, must, they had
thought, have rolled down the hillside and struck Miss Temple as she was
going along the path below. A most unfortunate and tragic accident.
“You had no idea there was anything but an accident?”
“No, indeed. I can hardly see how it could have been anything but an ac-
cident.”
“You saw no one above you on the hillside?”
“No. This is the main path round the hill but of course people do wander
about over the top. I did not see anyone that particular afternoon.”
Then Joanna Crawford was called. After particulars of her name and age
Dr. Stokes asked,
“You were not walking with the remainder of the party?”
“No, we had left the path. We’d gone round the hill a little higher up the
slope.”
“You were walking with a companion?”
“Yes. With Mr. Emlyn Price.”
“There was no one else actually walking with you?”
“No. We were talking and we were looking at one or two of the flowers.
They seemed of rather an uncommon kind. Emlyn’s interested in botany.”
“Were you out of sight of the rest of the party?”
“Not all the time. They were walking along the main path—some way
below us, that is.”
“Did you see Miss Temple?”
“I think so. She was walking ahead of the others, and I think I saw her
turn a corner of the path ahead of them after which we didn’t see her be-
cause the contour of the hill hid her.”
“Did you see someone walking above you on the hillside?”
“Yes. Up amongst a good many boulders. There’s a sort of great patch of
boulders on the side of the hill.”
“Yes,” said Dr. Stokes, “I know exactly the place you mean. Large granite
boulders. People call them the Wethers, or the Grey Wethers sometimes.”
“I suppose they might look like sheep from a distance but we weren’t so
very far away from them.”
“And you saw someone up there?”
“Yes. Someone was more or less in the middle of the boulders, leaning
over them.”
“Pushing them, do you think?”
“Yes. I thought so, and wondered why. He seemed to be pushing at one
on the outside of the group near the edge. They were so big and so heavy I
would have thought it was impossible to push them. But the one he or she
was pushing seemed to be balanced like a rocking stone.”
“You said first he, now you say he or she, Miss Crawford. Which do you
think it was?”
“Well, I thought—I suppose—I suppose I thought it was a man, but I
wasn’t actually thinking at the time. It was — he or she was — wearing
trousers and a pullover, a sort of man’s pullover with a polo-neck.”
“What colour was the pullover?”
“Rather a bright red and black in checks. And there was longish hair at
the back of a kind of beret, rather like a woman’s hair, but then it might
just as well have been a man’s.”
“It certainly might,” said Dr. Stokes, rather drily. “Identifying a male or
female figure by their hair is certainly not easy these days.” He went on,
“What happened next?”
“Well, the stone began to roll over. It sort of toppled over the edge and
then it began to gain speed. I said to Emlyn, “Oh it’s going to go right over
down the hill.” Then we heard a sort of crash as it fell. And I think I heard
a cry from below but I might have imagined it.”
“And then?”
“Oh, we ran on up a bit and round the corner of the hill to see what
happened to the stone.”
“And what did you see?”
“We saw the boulder below on the path with a body underneath it—and
people coming running round the corner.”
“Was it Miss Temple who uttered the cry?”
“I think it must have been. It might have been one of the others who was
catching up and turned the corner. Oh! it was—it was horrible.”
“Yes, I’m sure it was. What had happened to the figure you’d seen
above? The man or woman in the red and black pullover? Was that figure
still there among the stones?”
“I don’t know. I never looked up there. I was—I was busy looking at the
accident, and running down the hill to see if one could do anything. I did
just look up, I think, but there wasn’t anyone in sight. Only the stones.
There were a lot of contours and you could lose anyone quite easily from
view.”
“Could it have been one of your party?”
“Oh, no. I’m sure it wasn’t one of us. I would have known because, I
mean, one would have known by their clothes. I’m sure nobody was wear-
ing a scarlet and black pullover.”
“Thank you, Miss Crawford.”
Emlyn Price was called next. His story was practically a replica of
Joanna’s.
There was a little more evidence which did not amount to much.
The Coroner brought in that there was not sufficient evidence to show
how Elizabeth Temple had come to her death, and adjourned the inquest
for a fortnight.
©2005-2010英文阅读网