沉睡的谋杀案25
时间：2026-01-29 07:44:09
（单词翻译:单击）
Fourteen
EDITH PAGETT
Mrs. Mountford’s back parlour was a comfortable room. It had a round
table covered with a cloth, and some old-fashioned armchairs and a stern-
looking but unexpectedly well-sprung sofa against the wall. There were
china dogs and other ornaments on the mantelpiece, and a framed col-
oured representation of the Princess Elizabeth and Margaret Rose. On an-
other wall was the King in Naval uniform, and a photograph of Mr.
Mountford in a group of other bakers and confectioners. There was a pic-
ture made with shells and a watercolour of a very green sea at Capri.
There were a great many other things, none of them with any pretensions
to beauty or the higher life; but the net result was a happy, cheerful room
where people sat round and enjoyed themselves whenever there was time
to do so.
Mrs. Mountford, née Pagett, was short and round and darkhaired with a
few grey streaks in the dark. Her sister, Edith Pagett, was tall and dark and
thin. There was hardly any grey in her hair though she was at a guess
round about fifty.
“Fancy now,” Edith Pagett was saying. “Little Miss Gwennie. You must
excuse me, m’am, speaking like that, but it does take one back. You used to
come into my kitchen, as pretty as could be. ‘Winnies,’ you used to say.
‘Winnies.’ And what you meant was raisins—though why you called them
winnies is more than I can say. But raisins was what you meant and rais-
ins it was I used to give you, sultanas, that is, on account of the stones.”
Gwenda stared hard at the upright figure and the red cheeks and black
eyes, trying to remember—to remember—but nothing came. Memory was
an inconvenient thing.
“I wish I could remember—” she began.
“It’s not likely that you would. Just a tiny little mite, that’s all you were.
Nowadays nobody seems to want to go in a house where there’s children. I
can’t see it, myself. Children give life to a house, that’s what I feel. Though
nursery meals are always liable to cause a bit of trouble. But if you know
what I mean, m’am, that’s the nurse’s fault, not the child’s. Nurses are
nearly always difficult—trays and waiting upon and one thing and an-
other. Do you remember Layonee at all, Miss Gwennie? Excuse me, Mrs.
Reed, I should say.”
“Léonie? Was she my nurse?”
“Swiss girl, she was. Didn’t speak English very well, and very sensitive
in her feelings. Used to cry a lot if Lily said something to upset her. Lily
was house-parlourmaid. Lily Abbott. A young girl and pert in her ways
and a bit flighty. Many a game Lily used to have with you, Miss Gwennie.
Play peep-bo through the stairs.”
Gwenda gave a quick uncontrollable shiver.
The stairs …
Then she said suddenly, “I remember Lily. She put a bow on the cat.”
“There now, fancy you remembering that! On your birthday it was, and
Lily she was all for it, Thomas must have a bow on. Took one off the
chocolate box, and Thomas was mad about it. Ran off into the garden and
rubbed through the bushes until he got it off. Cats don’t like tricks being
played on them.”
“A black and white cat.”
“That’s right. Poor old Tommy. Caught mice something beautiful. A real
proper mouser.” Edith Pagett paused and coughed primly. “Excuse me
running on like this, m’am. But talking brings the old days back. You
wanted to ask me something?”
“I like hearing you talk about the old days,” said Gwenda. “That’s just
what I want to hear about. You see, I was brought up by relations in New
Zealand and of course they could never tell me anything about—about my
father, and my stepmother. She—she was nice, wasn’t she?”
“Very fond of you, she was. Oh yes, she used to take you down to the
beach and play with you in the garden. She was quite young herself, you
understand. Nothing but a girl, really. I often used to think she enjoyed the
games as much as you did. You see she’d been an only child, in a manner
of speaking. Dr. Kennedy, her brother, was years and years older and al-
ways shut up with his books. When she wasn’t away at school, she had to
play by herself….”
Miss Marple, sitting back against the wall, asked gently, “You’ve lived in
Dillmouth all your life, haven’t you?”
“Oh yes, madam. Father had the farm up behind the hill—Rylands it was
always called. He’d no sons, and Mother couldn’t carry on after he died, so
she sold it and bought the little fancy shop at the end of the High Street.
Yes, I’ve lived here all my life.”
“And I suppose you know all about everyone in Dillmouth?”
“Well, of course it used to be a small place, then. Though there used al-
ways to be a lot of summer visitors as long as I can remember. But nice
quiet people who came here every year, not these trippers and charabancs
we have nowadays. Good families they were, who’d come back to the
same rooms year after year.”
“I suppose,” said Giles, “that you knew Helen Kennedy before she was
Mrs. Halliday?”
“Well, I knew of her, so to speak, and I may have seen her about. But I
didn’t know her proper until I went into service there.”
“And you liked her,” said Miss Marple.
Edith Pagett turned towards her.
“Yes, madam, I did,” she said. There was a trace of defiance in her man-
ner. “No matter what anybody says. She was as nice as could be to me al-
ways. I’d never have believed she’d do what she did do. Took my breath
away, it did. Although, mind you, there had been talk—”
She stopped rather abruptly and gave a quick apologetic glance at
Gwenda.
Gwenda spoke impulsively.
“I want to know,” she said. “Please don’t think I shall mind anything you
say. She wasn’t my own mother—”
“That’s true enough, m’am.”
“And you see, we are very anxious to—to find her. She went away from
here — and she seems to have been quite lost sight of. We don’t know
where she is living now, or even if she is alive. And there are reasons—”
She hesitated and Giles said quickly, “Legal reasons. We don’t know
whether to presume death or—or what.”
“Oh, I quite understand, sir. My cousin’s husband was missing—after
Ypres it was—and there was a lot of trouble about presuming death and
that. Real vexing it was for her. Naturally, sir, if there is anything I can tell
you that will help in any way — it isn’t as if you were strangers. Miss
Gwenda and her ‘winnies.’ So funny you used to say it.”
“That’s very kind of you,” said Giles. “So, if you don’t mind, I’ll just fire
away. Mrs. Halliday left home quite suddenly, I understand?”
“Yes, sir, it was a great shock to all of us—and especially to the Major,
poor man. He collapsed completely.”
“I’m going to ask you right out—have you any idea who the man was
she went away with?”
Edith Pagett shook her head.
“That’s what Dr. Kennedy asked me — and I couldn’t tell him. Lily
couldn’t either. And of course that Layonee, being a foreigner, didn’t know
a thing about it.”
“You didn’t know,” said Giles. “But could you make a guess? Now that it’s
all so long ago, it wouldn’t matter—even if the guess is all wrong. You
must, surely, have had some suspicion.”
“Well, we had our suspicions … but mind you, it wasn’t more than suspi-
cions. And as far as I’m concerned, I never saw anything at all. But Lily
who, as I told you, was a sharp kind of girl, Lily had her ideas—had had
them for a long time. ‘Mark my words,’ she used to say. ‘That chap’s sweet
on her. Only got to see him looking at her as she pours out the tea. And
does his wife look daggers!’”
“I see. And who was the—er—chap?”
“Now I’m afraid, sir, I just don’t remember his name. Not after all these
years. A Captain—Esdale—no, that wasn’t it—Emery—no. I have a kind of
feeling it began with an E. Or it might have been H. Rather an unusual
kind of name. But I’ve never even thought of it for sixteen years. He and
his wife were staying at the Royal Clarence.”
“Summer visitors?”
“Yes, but I think that he—or maybe both of them—had known Mrs. Hall-
iday before. They came to the house quite often. Anyway, according to Lily
he was sweet on Mrs. Halliday.”
“And his wife didn’t like it.”
“No, sir … But mind you, I never believed for a moment that there was
anything wrong about it. And I still don’t know what to think.”
Gwenda asked, “Were they still here—at the Royal Clarence—when—
when Helen—my stepmother went away?”
“As far as I recollect they went away just about the same time, a day
earlier or a day later—anyway, it was close enough to make people talk.
But I never heard anything definite. It was all kept very quiet if it was so.
Quite a nine days’ wonder Mrs. Halliday going off like that, so sudden. But
people did say she’d always been flighty—not that I ever saw anything of
the kind myself. I wouldn’t have been willing to go to Norfolk with them if
I’d thought that.”
For a moment three people stared at her intently. Then Giles said, “Nor-
folk? Were they going to Norfolk?”
“Yes, sir. They’d bought a house there. Mrs. Halliday told me about three
weeks before—before all this happened. She asked me if I’d come with
them when they moved, and I said I would. After all, I’d never been away
from Dillmouth, and I thought perhaps I’d like a change—seeing as I liked
the family.”
“I never heard they had bought a house in Norfolk,” said Giles.
“Well, it’s funny you should say that, sir, because Mrs. Halliday seemed
to want it kept very quiet. She asked me not to speak about it to anyone at
all—so of course I didn’t. But she’d been wanting to go away from Dill-
mouth for some time. She’d been pressing Major Halliday to go, but he
liked it at Dillmouth. I even believe he wrote to Mrs. Findeyson whom St.
Catherine’s belonged to, asking if she’d consider selling it. But Mrs. Halli-
day was dead against it. She seemed to have turned right against Dill-
mouth. It’s almost as though she was afraid to stop there.”
The words came out quite naturally, yet at the sound of them the three
people listening again stiffened to attention.
Giles said, “You don’t think she wanted to go to Norfolk to be near this—
the man whose name you can’t remember?”
Edith Pagett looked distressed.
“Oh indeed, sir, I wouldn’t like to think that. And I don’t think it, not for
a moment. Besides I don’t think that—I remember now—they came from
up North somewhere, that lady and gentleman did. Northumberland, I
think it was. Anyway, they liked coming south for a holiday because it was
so mild down here.”
Gwenda said: “She was afraid of something, wasn’t she? Or of someone?
My stepmother, I mean.”
“I do remember—now that you say that—”
“Yes?”
“Lily came into the kitchen one day. She’d been dusting the stairs, and
she said, ‘Ructions!’ she said. She had a very common way of talking some-
times, Lily had, so you must excuse me.
“So I asked her what she meant and she said that the missus had come
in from the garden with the master into the drawing room and the door to
the hall being open, Lily heard what they said.
“‘I’m afraid of you,’ that’s what Mrs. Halliday had said.
“‘And she sounded scared too,’ Lily said. ‘I’ve been afraid of you for a long
time. You’re mad. You’re not normal. Go away and leave me alone. You must
leave me alone. I’m frightened. I think, underneath, I’ve always been
frightened of you... .’
“Something of that kind—of course I can’t say now to the exact words.
But Lily, she took it very seriously, and that’s why, after it all happened,
she—”
Edith Pagett stopped dead. A curious frightened look came over her
face.
“I didn’t mean, I’m sure—” she began. “Excuse me, madam, my tongue
runs away with me.”
Giles said gently: “Please tell us, Edith. It’s really important, you see, that
we should know. It’s all a long time ago now, but we’ve got to know.”
“I couldn’t say, I’m sure,” said Edith helplessly.
Miss Marple asked: “What was it Lily didn’t believe—or did believe?”
Edith Pagett said apologetically: “Lily was always one to get ideas in her
head. I never took no notice of them. She was always one for going to the
pictures and she got a lot of silly melodramatic ideas that way. She was
out at the pictures the night it happened—and what’s more she took Lay-
onee with her—and very wrong that was, and I told her so. ‘Oh, that’s all
right,’ she said. ‘It’s not leaving the child alone in the house. You’re down
in the kitchen and the master and the missus will be in later and anyway
that child never wakes once she’s off to sleep.’ But it was wrong, and I told
her so, though of course I never knew about Layonee going till afterwards.
If I had, I’d have run up to see she—you, I mean, Miss Gwenda—were
quite all right. You can’t hear a thing from the kitchen when the baize
door’s shut.”
Edith Pagett paused and then went on: “I was doing some ironing. The
evening passed ever so quick and the first thing I knew Dr. Kennedy came
out in the kitchen and asked me where Lily was and I said it was her night
off but she’d be in any minute now and sure enough she came in that very
minute and he took her upstairs to the mistress’s room. Wanted to know if
she’d taken any clothes away with her, and what. So Lily looked about and
told him and then she come down to me. All agog she was. ‘She’s hooked
it,’ she said. ‘Gone off with someone. The master’s all in. Had a stroke or
something. Apparently it’s been a terrible shock to him. More fool he. He
ought to have seen it coming.’ ‘You shouldn’t speak like that,’ I said. ‘How
do you know she’s gone off with anybody? Maybe she had a telegram from
a sick relation.’ ‘Sick relation my foot,’ Lily says (always a common way of
speaking, as I said). ‘She left a note.’ ‘Who’s she gone off with?’ I said. ‘Who
do you think?’ Lily said. ‘Not likely to be Mr. Sobersides Fane, for all his
sheep’s eyes and the way he follows her round like a dog.’ So I said, ‘You
think it’s Captain—whatever his name was.’ And she said, ‘He’s my bet.
Unless it’s our mystery man in the flashy car.’ (That’s just a silly joke we
had.) And I said, ‘I don’t believe it. Not Mrs. Halliday. She wouldn’t do a
thing like that.’ And Lily says, ‘Well, it seems she’s done it.’
“All this was at first, you understand. But later on, up in our bedroom,
Lily woke me up. ‘Look here,’ she says. ‘It’s all wrong.’ ‘What’s wrong?’ I
said. And she said, ‘Those clothes.’ ‘Whatever are you talking about?’ I
said. ‘Listen, Edie,’ she said. ‘I went through her clothes because the doctor
asked me to. And there’s a suitcase gone and enough to fill it—but they’re
the wrong things.’ ‘What do you mean?’ I said. And Lily said, ‘She took an
evening dress, her grey and silver—but she didn’t take her evening belt
and brassière, nor the slip that goes with it, and she took her gold brocade
evening shoes, not the silver strap ones. And she took her green tweed—
which she never wears until late on in the autumn, but she didn’t take that
fancy pullover and she took her lace blouses that she only wears with a
town suit. Oh and her undies, too, they were a job lot. You mark my
words, Edie,’ Lily said. ‘She’s not gone away at all. The master’s done her
in.’
“Well, that made me wide awake. I sat right up and asked her what on
earth she was talking about.
“‘Just like it was in the News of the World last week,’ Lily says. ‘The mas-
ter found she’d been carrying on and he killed her and put her down in
the cellar and buried her under the floor. You’d never hear anything be-
cause it’s under the front hall. That’s what he’s done, and then he packed a
suitcase to make it look as though she’d gone away. But that’s where she is
—under the cellar floor. She never left this house alive.’ I gave her a piece of
my mind then, saying such awful things. But I’ll admit I slipped down to
the cellar the next morning. But there, it was all just as usual and nothing
disturbed and no digging been done—and I went and told Lily she’d just
been making a fool of herself, but she stuck to it as the master had done
her in. ‘Remember,’ she says, ‘she was scared to death of him. I heard her
telling him so.’ ‘And that’s just where you’re wrong, my girl,’ I said, ‘be-
cause it wasn’t the master at all. Just after you’d told me, that day, I looked
out of the window and there was the master coming down the hill with his
golf clubs, so it couldn’t have been him who was with the mistress in the
drawing room. It was someone else.’”
The words echoed lingeringly in the comfortable commonplace sitting
room.
Giles said softly under his breath, “It was someone else….”
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