复仇女神41
时间：2026-01-29 07:29:13
（单词翻译:单击）
II
“Michael,” said Professor Wanstead, “I want to introduce you to Miss Jane
Marple, who’s been very active on your behalf.”
The young man of thirty-two looked at the white-haired, rather dicky
old lady with a slightly doubtful expression.
“Oh—er—” he said, “well, I guess I have heard about it. Thanks very
much.”
He looked at Wanstead.
“It’s true, is it, they’re going to give me a free pardon or something silly
like that?”
“Yes. A release will be put through quite soon. You’ll be a free man in a
very short time.”
“Oh.” Michael sounded slightly doubtful.
“It will take a little getting used to, I expect,” said Miss Marple kindly.
She looked at him thoughtfully. Seeing him in retrospect as he might
have been ten years or so ago. Still quite attractive—though he showed all
the signs of strain. Attractive, yes. Very attractive, she thought he would
have been once. A gaiety about him then, there would have been, and a
charm. He’d lost that now, but it would come back perhaps. A weak mouth
and attractively shaped eyes that could look you straight in the face, and
probably had been always extremely useful for telling lies that you really
wanted to believe. Very like—who was it?—she dived into past memories
—Jonathan Birkin, of course. He had sung in the choir. A really delightful
baritone voice. And how fond the girls had been of him! Quite a good job
he’d had as a clerk in Messrs. Gabriel’s firm. A pity there had been that
little matter of the cheques.
“Oh,” said Michael. He said, with even more embarrassment, “It’s been
very kind of you, I’m sure, to take so much trouble.”
“I’ve enjoyed it,” said Miss Marple. “Well, I’m glad to have met you.
Good-bye. I hope you’ve got a very good time coming to you. Our country
is in rather a bad way just now, but you’ll probably find some job or other
that you might quite enjoy doing.”
“Oh yes. Thanks, thanks very much. I—I really am very grateful, you
know.”
His tone sounded still extremely unsure about it.
“It’s not me you ought to be grateful to,” said Miss Marple, “you ought to
be grateful to your father.”
“Dad? Dad never thought much of me.”
“Your father, when he was a dying man, was determined to see that you
got justice.”
“Justice.” Michael Rafiel considered it.
“Yes, your father thought Justice was important. He was, I think, a very
just man himself. In the letter he wrote me asking me to undertake this
proposition, he directed me to a quotation:
‘Let Justice roll down like waters
And Righteousness like an everlasting stream.’”
“Oh! What’s it mean? Shakespeare?”
“No, the Bible—one has to think about it—I had to.”
Miss Marple unwrapped a parcel she had been carrying.
“They gave me this,” she said. “They thought I might like to have it—be-
cause I had helped to find out the truth of what had really happened. I
think, though, that you are the person who should have first claim on it—
that is if you really want it. But maybe you do not want it—”
She handed him the photograph of Verity Hunt that Clotilde Bradbury-
Scott had shown her once in the drawing room of The Old Manor House.
He took it—and stood with it, staring down on it … His face changed, the
lines of it softened, then hardened. Miss Marple watched him without
speaking. The silence went on for some little time. Professor Wanstead
also watched—he watched them both, the old lady and the boy.
It came to him that this was in some way a crisis—a moment that might
affect a whole new way of life.
Michael Rafiel sighed—he stretched out and gave the photograph back
to Miss Marple.
“No, you are right, I do not want it. All that life is gone—she’s gone—I
can’t keep her with me. Anything I do now has got to be new—going for-
ward. You—” he hesitated, looking at her—“You understand?”
“Yes,” said Miss Marple—“I understand—I think you are right. I wish
you good luck in the life you are now going to begin.”
He said good-bye and went out.
“Well,” said Professor Wanstead, “not an enthusiastic young man. He
could have thanked you a bit more enthusiastically for what you did for
him.”
“Oh, that’s quite all right,” said Miss Marple. “I didn’t expect him to do
so. It would have embarrassed him even more. It is, you know,” she ad-
ded, “very embarrassing when one has to thank people and start life again
and see everything from a different angle and all that. I think he might do
well. He’s not bitter. That’s the great thing. I understand quite well why
that girl loved him—”
“Well, perhaps he’ll go straight this time.”
“One rather doubts that,” said Miss Marple. “I don’t know that he’d be
able to help himself unless—of course,” she said, “the great thing to hope
for is that he’ll meet a really nice girl.”
“What I like about you,” said Professor Wanstead, “is your delightfully
practical mind.”
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