弄假成真4
时间：2025-03-03 03:21:00
（单词翻译:单击）
Four
“You must come and see the clues and things for the Murder Hunt, M. Poirot,” said Mrs. Oliver
breathlessly.
Poirot rose and followed them obediently.
The three of them went across the hall and into a small room furnished plainly as a business
office.
“Lethal weapons to your left,” observed Captain Warburton, waving his hand towards a small
sinister2 stain on it, a blue bottle labelled Poison, a length of clothesline and a hypodermic syringe.
“Those are the Weapons,” explained Mrs. Oliver, “and these are the Suspects.”
She handed him a printed card which he read with interest.
Suspects
Estelle Glynne — a beautiful and mysterious
young woman, the guest of
daughter
Joan — is married to
Peter Gaye — a young Atom Scientist.
Miss Willing — a housekeeper4.
Quiett — a butler.
Maya Stavisky — a girl hiker.
Esteban Loyola — an uninvited guest.
Poirot blinked and looked towards Mrs. Oliver in mute incomprehension.
“A magnificent Cast of Characters,” he said politely. “But permit me to ask, Madame, what
does the Competitor do?”
“Turn the card over,” said Captain Warburton.
Poirot did so.
On the other side was printed:
Name and address……………………………
Solution:
Name of Murderer:…………………………..
Weapon:………………………………….
Motive:…………………………………..
Time and Place:……………………………..
Reasons for arriving at your conclusions:…………….
“Everyone who enters gets one of these,” explained Captain Warburton rapidly. “Also a notebook
and pencil for copying clues. There will be six clues. You go on from one to the other like a
snapshot. Everyone starts with one of these.”
Poirot took the small print from him and studied it with a frown. Then he turned it upside down.
He still looked puzzled. Warburton laughed.
“Ingenious bit of trick photography, isn’t it?” he said complacently6. “Quite simple once you
know what it is.”
“Some kind of barred window?” he suggested.
“Looks a bit like it, I admit. No, it’s a section of a tennis net.”
“Ah.” Poirot looked again at the snapshot. “Yes, it is as you say—quite obvious when you have
been told what it is!”
“So much depends on how you look at a thing,” laughed Warburton.
“That is a very profound truth.”
“The second clue will be found in a box under the centre of the tennis net. In the box are this
“Only, you see,” said Mrs. Oliver rapidly, “it’s a screw-topped bottle, so the cork is really the
clue.”
Mrs. Oliver interrupted him.
turned to Captain Warburton. “Have you got the leaflets?”
“They’ve not come from the printers yet.”
“But they promised!”
“I know. I know. Everyone always promises. They’ll be ready this evening at six. I’m going in
to fetch them in the car.”
“Oh, good.”
Mrs. Oliver gave a deep sigh and turned to Poirot.
“Well, I’ll have to tell it you, then. Only I’m not very good at telling things. I mean if I write
things, I get them perfectly11 clear, but if I talk, it always sounds the most frightful12 muddle13; and
that’s why I never discuss my plots with anyone. I’ve learnt not to, because if I do, they just look
at me blankly and say ‘—er—yes, but—I don’t see what happened—and surely that can’t possibly
make a book.’ So damping. And not true, because when I write it, it does!”
Mrs. Oliver paused for breath, and then went on:
“Well, it’s like this. There’s Peter Gaye who’s a young Atom Scientist and he’s suspected of
being in the pay of the Communists, and he’s married to this girl, Joan Blunt, and his first wife’s
dead, but she isn’t, and she turns up because she’s a secret agent, or perhaps not, I mean she may
really be a hiker—and the wife’s having an affair, and this man Loyola turns up either to meet
Maya, or to spy upon her, and there’s a blackmailing14 letter which might be from the housekeeper,
or again it might be the butler, and the revolver’s missing, and as you don’t know who the
blackmailing letter’s to, and the hypodermic syringe fell out at dinner, and after that it
disappeared….”
Mrs. Oliver came to a full stop, estimating correctly Poirot’s reaction.
“I know,” she said sympathetically. “It sounds just a muddle, but it isn’t really—not in my head
—and when you see the synopsis leaflet, you’ll find it’s quite clear.
“And, anyway,” she ended, “the story doesn’t really matter, does it? I mean, not to you. All
you’ve got to do is to present the prizes—very nice prizes, the first’s a silver cigarette case shaped
like a revolver—and say how remarkably15 clever the solver has been.”
Poirot thought to himself that the solver would indeed have been clever. In fact, he doubted
very much that there would be a solver. The whole plot and action of the Murder Hunt seemed to
him to be wrapped in impenetrable fog.
“Well,” said Captain Warburton cheerfully, glancing at his wristwatch, “I’d better be off to the
printers and collect.”
“If they’re not done—”
“Oh, they’re done all right. I telephoned. So long.”
He left the room.
“Well?”
“Well—what?”
“Everybody and everything seems to me completely normal.”
“Normal?”
“Well, perhaps that is not quite the right word. Lady Stubbs, as you say, is definitely subnormal,
and Mr. Legge would appear to be rather abnormal.”
Poirot did not question the somewhat doubtful wording of this sentence but accepted it at its
face value.
entertainment. If you could only indicate—”
“Sh!” Mrs. Oliver grasped his arm again. “Someone’s coming.”
The pleasant mild face of Miss Brewis appeared round the door.
“Oh, there you are, M. Poirot. I’ve been looking for you to show you your room.”
She led him up the staircase and along a passage to a big airy room looking out over the river.
“There is a bathroom just opposite. Sir George talks of adding more bathrooms, but to do so
would sadly impair26 the proportions of the rooms. I hope you’ll find everything quite comfortable.”
“Yes, indeed.” Poirot swept an appreciative27 eye over the small bookstand, the reading lamp and
the box labelled “Biscuits” by the bedside. “You seem, in this house, to have everything organized
to perfection. Am I to congratulate you, or my charming hostess?”
in her voice.
“As you say.”
“But in other respects is she not, perhaps…” He broke off. “Pardon. I am indiscreet. I comment
on something I ought not, perhaps, to mention.”
Miss Brewis gave him a steady look. She said dryly:
“Lady Stubbs knows perfectly well exactly what she is doing. Besides being, as you said, a very
decorative young woman, she is also a very shrewd one.”
that was what the efficient Miss Brewis thought, was it? Or had she merely said so for some reason
of her own? And why had she made such a statement to him—to a newcomer? Because he was a
newcomer, perhaps? And also because he was a foreigner. As Hercule Poirot had discovered by
experience, there were many English people who considered that what one said to foreigners
didn’t count!
He frowned perplexedly, staring absentmindedly at the door out of which Miss Brewis had
gone. Then he strolled over to the window and stood looking out. As he did so, he saw Lady
Stubbs come out of the house with Mrs. Folliat and they stood for a moment or two talking by the
big magnolia tree. Then Mrs. Folliat nodded a good-bye, picked up her gardening basket and
led through the trees to the river. She looked just once over her shoulder before she disappeared
from sight. From behind the magnolia tree Michael Weyman came quietly into view, paused a
moment irresolutely33 and then followed the tall slim figure down into the trees.
A good-looking and dynamic young man, Poirot thought. With a more attractive personality, no
doubt, than that of Sir George Stubbs….
But if so, what of it? Such patterns formed themselves eternally through life. Rich middle-aged34
unattractive husband, young and beautiful wife with or without sufficient mental development,
attractive and susceptible35 young man. What was there in that to make Mrs. Oliver utter a
peremptory36 summons through the telephone? Mrs. Oliver, no doubt, had a vivid imagination,
but….
“But after all,” murmured Hercule Poirot to himself, “I am not a consultant37 in adultery—or in
Could there really be anything in this extraordinary notion of Mrs. Oliver’s that something was
wrong? Mrs. Oliver was a singularly muddle-headed woman, and how she managed somehow or
other to turn out coherent detective stories was beyond him, and yet, for all her muddle-
headedness she often surprised him by her sudden perception of truth.
“The time is short—short,” he murmured to himself. “Is there something wrong here, as Mrs.
Oliver believes? I am inclined to think there is. But what? Who is there who could enlighten me? I
need to know more, much more, about the people in this house. Who is there who could inform
me?”
After a moment’s reflection he seized his hat (Poirot never risked going out in the evening air
with uncovered head), and hurried out of his room and down the stairs. He heard afar the
dictatorial39 baying of Mrs. Masterton’s deep voice. Nearer at hand, Sir George’s voice rose with an
“Damned becoming that yashmak thing. Wish I had you in my harem, Sally. I shall come and
have my fortune told a good deal tomorrow. What’ll you tell me, eh?”
There was a slight scuffle and Sally Legge’s voice said breathlessly:
“George, you mustn’t.”
Poirot raised his eyebrows, and slipped out of a conveniently adjacent side door. He set off at
top speed down a back drive which his sense of locality enabled him to predict would at some
point join the front drive.
“You permit, Madame?”
“Oh, thank you, M. Poirot, that’s very kind of you. But it’s not heavy.”
“Allow me to carry it for you to your home. You live near here?”
The lodge by the front gate of her former home…How did she really feel about that, Poirot
wondered. Her composure was so absolute that he had no clue to her feelings. He changed the
subject by observing:
“Lady Stubbs is much younger than her husband, is she not?”
“Twenty-three years younger.”
“Physically she is very attractive.”
Mrs. Folliat said quietly:
“Hattie is a dear good child.”
It was not an answer he had expected. Mrs. Folliat went on:
“I know her very well, you see. For a short time she was under my care.”
“I did not know that.”
“How should you? It is in a way a sad story. Her people had estates, sugar estates, in the West
Indies. As a result of an earthquake, the house there was burned down and her parents and brothers
and sisters all lost their lives. Hattie herself was at a convent in Paris and was thus suddenly left
without any near relatives. It was considered advisable by the executors that Hattie should be
chaperoned and introduced into society after she had spent a certain time abroad. I accepted the
charge of her.” Mrs. Folliat added with a dry smile: “I can smarten myself up on occasions and,
naturally, I had the necessary connections—in fact, the late Governor had been a close friend of
ours.”
“Naturally, Madame, I understand all that.”
“It suited me very well—I was going through a difficult time. My husband had died just before
the outbreak of war. My elder son who was in the navy went down with his ship, my younger son,
who had been out in Kenya, came back, joined the commandos and was killed in Italy. That meant
three lots of death duties and this house had to be put up for sale. I myself was very badly off and I
was glad of the distraction46 of having someone young to look after and travel about with. I became
very fond of Hattie, all the more so, perhaps, because I soon realized that she was—shall we say—
practically no money. If she had been an heiress her position might have been one of much greater
difficulty. She was attractive to men and being of an affectionate nature was easily attracted and
influenced—she had definitely to be looked after. When, after the final winding50 up of her parents’
estate, it was discovered that the plantation51 was destroyed and there were more debts than assets, I
could only be thankful that a man such as Sir George Stubbs had fallen in love with her and
wanted to marry her.”
“Possibly—yes—it was a solution.”
“Sir George,” said Mrs. Folliat, “though he is a self-made man and—let us face it—a complete
vulgarian, is kindly and fundamentally decent, besides being extremely wealthy. I don’t think he
would ever ask for mental companionship from a wife, which is just as well. Hattie is everything
he wants. She displays clothes and jewels to perfection, is affectionate and willing, and is
completely happy with him. I confess that I am very thankful that that is so, for I admit that I
deliberately52 influenced her to accept him. If it had turned out badly”—her voice faltered53 a little
—“it would have been my fault for urging her to marry a man so many years older than herself.
You see, as I told you, Hattie is completely suggestible. Anyone she is with at the time can
dominate her.”
her. I am not, like the English, romantic. To arrange a good marriage, one must take more than
romance into consideration.”
He added:
“And as for this place here, Nasse House, it is a most beautiful spot. Quite, as the saying goes,
out of this world.”
“Since Nasse had to be sold,” said Mrs. Folliat, with a faint tremor55 in her voice, “I am glad that
Sir George bought it. It was requisitioned during the war by the Army and afterwards it might
have been bought and made into a guest house or a school, the rooms cut up and partitioned,
distorted out of their natural beauty. Our neighbours, the Fletchers, at Hoodown, had to sell their
fortunately Hoodown is late-Victorian, and of no great architectural merit, so that the alterations57
very angry. It’s true that they have occasionally damaged the rare shrubs59 by hacking60 them about—
little back from the drive with a small railed garden round it.
Mrs. Folliat took back her basket from Poirot with a word of thanks.
“I was always very fond of the lodge,” she said, looking at it affectionately. “Merdle, our head
gardener for thirty years, used to live there. I much prefer it to the top cottage, though that has
been enlarged and modernized63 by Sir George. It had to be; we’ve got quite a young man now as
head gardener, with a young wife—and these young women must have electric irons and modern
cookers and television, and all that. One must go with the times…” She sighed. “There is hardly a
person left now on the estate from the old days—all new faces.”
“You know those lines of Spenser’s? ‘Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas, ease after war,
death after life, doth greatly please….’”
She paused and said without any change of tone: “It’s a very wicked world, M. Poirot. And
there are very wicked people in the world. You probably know that as well as I do. I don’t say so
before the younger people, it might discourage them, but it’s true… Yes, it’s a very wicked
world….”
She gave him a little nod, then turned and went into the lodge. Poirot stood still, staring at the
shut door.
点击
收听单词发音
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1
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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5
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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6
complacently
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| adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地 | |
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7
annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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8
cork
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| n.软木，软木塞 | |
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9
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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10
synopsis
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| n.提要，梗概 | |
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11
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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12
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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13
muddle
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| n.困惑，混浊状态；vt.使混乱，使糊涂，使惊呆；vi.胡乱应付，混乱 | |
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14
blackmailing
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| 胁迫，尤指以透露他人不体面行为相威胁以勒索钱财( blackmail的现在分词 ) | |
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15
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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16
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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17
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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18
hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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19
spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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20
reproof
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| n.斥责，责备 | |
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21
breakdown
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| n.垮，衰竭；损坏，故障，倒塌 | |
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22
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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23
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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24
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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25
melodrama
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| n.音乐剧；情节剧 | |
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26
impair
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| v.损害，损伤；削弱，减少 | |
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27
appreciative
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| adj.有鉴赏力的，有眼力的；感激的 | |
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28
decorative
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| adj.装饰的，可作装饰的 | |
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29
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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30
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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31
trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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32
smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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33
irresolutely
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| adv.优柔寡断地 | |
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34
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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35
susceptible
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| adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的 | |
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peremptory
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| adj.紧急的，专横的，断然的 | |
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consultant
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| n.顾问；会诊医师，专科医生 | |
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incipient
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| adj.起初的，发端的，初期的 | |
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dictatorial
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| adj. 独裁的，专断的 | |
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amorous
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| adj.多情的；有关爱情的 | |
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intonation
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| n.语调，声调；发声 | |
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42
manoeuvre
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| n.策略，调动；v.用策略，调动 | |
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43
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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44
lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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45
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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46
distraction
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| n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐 | |
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47
fending
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| v.独立生活，照料自己( fend的现在分词 )；挡开，避开 | |
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48
deficient
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| adj.不足的，不充份的，有缺陷的 | |
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blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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50
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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51
plantation
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| n.种植园，大农场 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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53
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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54
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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56
hostel
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| n.（学生）宿舍，招待所 | |
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alterations
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| n.改动( alteration的名词复数 )；更改；变化；改变 | |
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58
trespass
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| n./v.侵犯，闯入私人领地 | |
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59
shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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60
hacking
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| n.非法访问计算机系统和数据库的活动 | |
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shortcut
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| n.近路，捷径 | |
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62
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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modernized
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| 使现代化，使适应现代需要( modernize的过去式和过去分词 )； 现代化，使用现代方法 | |
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haven
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| n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所 | |
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