无人生还49
时间：2026-03-19 03:11:51
（单词翻译:单击）
III
Dr Armstrong said violently:
‘We must get out of here—we must—we must! At all costs!’
Mr Justice Wargrave looked thoughtfully out of the smoking-room win-
dow. He played with the cord of his eyeglasses. He said:
‘I do not, of course, profess to be a weather prophet. But I should say
that it is very unlikely that a boat could reach us—even if they knew of
our plight—in under twenty-four hours—and even then only if the wind
drops.’
Dr Armstrong dropped his head in his hands and groaned.
He said:
‘And in the meantime we may all be murdered in our beds?’
‘I hope not,’ said Mr Justice Wargrave. ‘I intend to take every possible
precaution against such a thing happening.’
It flashed across Dr Armstrong’s mind that an old man like the judge
was far more tenacious of life than a younger man would be. He had often
marvelled at that fact in his professional career. Here was he, junior to the
judge by perhaps twenty years, and yet with a vastly inferior sense of self-
preservation.
Mr Justice Wargrave was thinking:
‘Murdered in our beds! These doctors are all the same—they think in
clichés. A thoroughly commonplace mind.’
The doctor said:
‘There have been three victims already, remember.’
‘Certainly. But you must remember that they were unprepared for the
attack. We are forewarned.’
Dr Armstrong said bitterly:
‘What can we do? Sooner or later—’
‘I think,’ said Mr Justice Wargrave, ‘that there are several things we can
do.’
Armstrong said:
‘We’ve no idea, even, who it can be—’
The judge stroked his chin and murmured:
‘Oh, you know, I wouldn’t quite say that.’
Armstrong stared at him.
‘Do you mean you know?’
Mr Justice Wargrave said cautiously:
‘As regards actual evidence, such as is necessary in court, I admit that I
have none. But it appears to me, reviewing the whole business, that one
particular person is sufficiently clearly indicated. Yes, I think so.’
Armstrong stared at him.
He said:
‘I don’t understand.’
IV
Miss Brent was upstairs in her bedroom.
She took up her Bible and went to sit by the window.
She opened it. Then, after a minute’s hesitation, she set it aside and went
over to the dressing-table. From a drawer in it she took out a small black-
covered notebook.
She opened it and began writing.
‘A terrible thing has happened. General Macarthur is
dead. (His cousin married Elsie MacPherson.) There is no
doubt but that he was murdered. After luncheon the judge
made us a most interesting speech. He is convinced that
the murderer is one of us. That means that one of us is pos-
sessed by a devil. I had already suspected that. Which of us
is it? They are all asking themselves that. I alone know…’
She sat for some time without moving. Her eyes grew vague and filmy.
The pencil straggled drunkenly in her fingers. In shaking loose capitals
she wrote:
THE MURDERER’S NAME IS BEATRICE TAYLOR…
Her eyes closed.
Suddenly, with a start, she awoke. She looked down at the notebook.
With an angry exclamation she scored through the vague unevenly
scrawled characters of the last sentence.
She said in a low voice:
‘Did I write that? Did I? I must be going mad…’
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