沉睡的谋杀案14
时间：2026-01-29 07:41:25
（单词翻译:单击）
II
Giles and Gwenda scanned the mail eagerly every day, but at first their
hopes were disappointed. All they got was two letters from private en-
quiry agents who pronounced themselves willing and skilled to undertake
investigations on their behalf.
“Time enough for them later,” said Giles. “And if we do have to employ
some agency, it will be a thoroughly first-class firm, not one that touts
through the mail. But I don’t really see what they could do that we aren’t
doing.”
His optimism (or self-esteem) was justified a few days later. A letter ar-
rived, written in one of those clear and yet somewhat illegible handwrit-
ings that stamp the professional man.
Galls Hill
Woodleigh Bolton.
Dear Sir,
In answer to your advertisement in The Times, Helen
Spenlove Kennedy is my sister. I have lost touch with her
for many years and should be glad to have news of her.
Yours faithfully,
James Kennedy, MD
“Woodleigh Bolton,” said Giles. “That’s not too far away. Woodleigh
Camp is where they go for picnics. Up on the moorland. About thirty miles
from here. We’ll write and ask Dr. Kennedy if we may come and see him,
or if he would prefer to come to us.”
A reply was received that Dr. Kennedy would be prepared to receive
them on the following Wednesday; and on that day they set off.
Woodleigh Bolton was a straggling village set along the side of a hill.
Galls Hill was the highest house just at the top of the rise, with a view over
Woodleigh Camp and the moors towards the sea.
“Rather a bleak spot,” said Gwenda shivering.
The house itself was bleak and obviously Dr. Kennedy scorned such
modern innovations as central heating. The woman who opened the door
was dark and rather forbidding. She led them across the rather bare hall,
and into a study where Dr. Kennedy rose to receive them. It was a long,
rather high room, lined with well-filled bookshelves.
Dr. Kennedy was a grey-haired elderly man with shrewd eyes under
tufted brows. His gaze went sharply from one to the other of them.
“Mr. and Mrs. Reed? Sit here, Mrs. Reed, it’s probably the most comfort-
able chair. Now, what’s all this about?”
Giles went fluently into their prearranged story.
He and his wife had been recently married in New Zealand. They had
come to England, where his wife had lived for a short time as a child, and
she was trying to trace old family friends and connections.
Dr. Kennedy remained stiff and unbending. He was polite but obviously
irritated by Colonial insistence on sentimental family ties.
“And you think my sister—my half-sister—and possibly myself—are
connections of yours?” he asked Gwenda, civilly, but with slight hostility.
“She was my stepmother,” said Gwenda. “My father’s second wife. I
can’t really remember her properly, of course. I was so small. My maiden
name was Halliday.”
He stared at her—and then suddenly a smile illuminated his face. He be-
came a different person, no longer aloof.
“Good Lord,” he said. “Don’t tell me that you’re Gwennie!”
Gwenda nodded eagerly. The pet name, long forgotten, sounded in her
ears with reassuring familiarity.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m Gwennie.”
“God bless my soul. Grown-up and married. How time flies! It must be—
what—fifteen years—no, of course, much longer than that. You don’t re-
member me, I suppose?”
Gwenda shook her head.
“I don’t even remember my father. I mean, it’s all a vague kind of blur.”
“Of course—Halliday’s first wife came from New Zealand—I remember
his telling me so. A fine country, I should think.”
“It’s the loveliest country in the world—but I’m quite fond of England,
too.”
“On a visit—or settling down here?” He rang the bell. “We must have
tea.”
When the tall woman came, he said, “Tea, please — and — er — hot
buttered toast, or—or cake, or something.”
The respectable housekeeper looked venomous, but said, “Yes, sir,” and
went out.
“I don’t usually go in for tea,” said Dr. Kennedy vaguely. “But we must
celebrate.”
“It’s very nice of you,” said Gwenda. “No, we’re not on a visit. We’ve
bought a house.” She paused and added, “Hillside.”
Dr. Kennedy said vaguely, “Oh yes. In Dillmouth. You wrote from there.”
“It’s the most extraordinary coincidence,” said Gwenda. “Isn’t it, Giles?”
“I should say so,” said Giles. “Really quite staggering.”
“It was for sale, you see,” said Gwenda, and added in face of Dr.
Kennedy’s apparent non-comprehension, “It’s the same house where we
used to live long ago.”
Dr. Kennedy frowned. “Hillside? But surely—Oh yes, I did hear they’d
changed the name. Used to be St. Something or other—if I’m thinking of
the right house—on the Leahampton road, coming down into the town, on
the right-hand side?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the one. Funny how names go out of your head. Wait a minute.
St. Catherine’s—that’s what it used to be called.”
“And I did live there, didn’t I?” Gwenda said.
“Yes, of course you did.” He stared at her, amused. “Why did you want
to come back there? You can’t remember much about it, surely?”
“No. But somehow—it felt like home.”
“It felt like home,” the doctor repeated. There was no expression in the
words, but Giles wondered what he was thinking about.
“So you see,” said Gwenda, “I hoped you’d tell me about it all—about my
father and Helen and—” she ended lamely—“and everything….”
He looked at her reflectively.
“I suppose they didn’t know very much — out in New Zealand. Why
should they? Well, there isn’t much to tell. Helen—my sister—was coming
back from India on the same boat with your father. He was a widower
with a small daughter. Helen was sorry for him or fell in love with him.
He was lonely, or fell in love with her. Difficult to know just the way
things happen. They were married in London on arrival, and came down
to Dillmouth to me. I was in practice there, then. Kelvin Halliday seemed a
nice chap, rather nervy and run-down—but they seemed happy enough
together—then.”
He was silent for a moment before he said, “However, in less than a
year, she ran away with someone else. You probably know that?”
“Who did she run away with?” asked Gwenda.
He bent his shrewd eyes upon her.
“She didn’t tell me,” he said. “I wasn’t in her confidence. I’d seen —
couldn’t help seeing—that there was friction between her and Kelvin. I
didn’t know why. I was always a strait-laced sort of fellow—a believer in
marital fidelity. Helen wouldn’t have wanted me to know what was going
on. I’d heard rumours—one does—but there was no mention of any par-
ticular name. They often had guests staying with them who came from
London, or from other parts of England. I imagined it was one of them.”
“There wasn’t a divorce, then?”
“Helen didn’t want a divorce. Kelvin told me that. That’s why I ima-
gined, perhaps wrongly, that it was a case of some married man. Someone
whose wife was an RC perhaps.”
“And my father?”
“He didn’t want a divorce, either.”
Dr. Kennedy spoke rather shortly.
“Tell me about my father,” said Gwenda. “Why did he decide suddenly
to send me out to New Zealand?”
Kennedy paused a moment before saying, “I gather your people out
there had been pressing him. After the breakup of his second marriage, he
probably thought it was the best thing.”
“Why didn’t he take me out there himself?”
Dr. Kennedy looked along the mantelpiece searching vaguely for a pipe
cleaner.
“Oh, I don’t know … He was in rather poor health.”
“What was the matter with him? What did he die of?”
The door opened and the scornful housekeeper appeared with a laden
tray.
There was buttered toast and some jam, but no cake. With a vague ges-
ture Dr. Kennedy motioned Gwenda to pour out. She did so. When the
cups were filled and handed round and Gwenda had taken a piece of toast,
Dr. Kennedy said with rather forced cheerfulness: “Tell me what you’ve
done to the house? I don’t suppose I’d recognize it now—after you two
have finished with it.”
“We’re having a little fun with bathrooms,” admitted Giles.
Gwenda, her eyes on the doctor, said: “What did my father die of?”
“I couldn’t really tell, my dear. As I say, he was in rather poor health for
a while, and he finally went into a Sanatorium—somewhere on the east
coast. He died about two years later.”
“Where was this Sanatorium exactly?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t remember now. As I say, I have an impression it was
on the east coast.”
There was definite evasion now in his manner. Giles and Gwenda
looked at each other for a brief second.
Giles said, “At least, sir, you can tell us where he’s buried? Gwenda is—
naturally—very anxious to visit his grave.”
Dr. Kennedy bent over the fireplace, scraping in the bowl of his pipe
with a penknife.
“Do you know,” he said, rather indistinctly, “I don’t really think I should
dwell too much on the past. All this ancestor worship—it’s a mistake. The
future is what matters. Here you are, you two, young and healthy with the
world in front of you. Think forward. No use going about putting flowers
on the grave of someone whom, for all practical purposes, you hardly
knew.”
Gwenda said mutinously: “I should like to see my father’s grave.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you.” Dr. Kennedy’s tones were pleasant but
cold. “It’s a long time ago, and my memory isn’t what it was. I lost touch
with your father after he left Dillmouth. I think he wrote to me once from
the Sanatorium and, as I say, I have an impression it was on the east coast
—but I couldn’t really be sure even of that. And I’ve no idea at all of where
he is buried.”
“How very odd,” said Giles.
“Not really. The link between us, you see, was Helen. I was always very
fond of Helen. She’s my half sister and very many years younger than I
am, but I tried to bring her up as well as I could. The right schools and all
that. But there’s no gainsaying that Helen — well, that she never had a
stable character. There was trouble when she was quite young with a very
undesirable young man. I got her out of that safely. Then she elected to go
out to India and marry Walter Fane. Well, that was all right, nice lad, son
of Dillmouth’s leading solicitor, but frankly, dull as ditchwater. He’d al-
ways adored her, but she never looked at him. Still, she changed her mind
and went out to India to marry him. When she saw him again, it was all
off. She wired to me for money for her passage home. I sent it. On the way
back, she met Kelvin. They were married before I knew about it. I’ve felt,
shall we say, apologetic for that sister of mine. It explains why Kelvin and
I didn’t keep up the relationship after she went away.” He added sud-
denly: “Where’s Helen now? Can you tell me? I’d like to get in touch with
her.”
“But we don’t know,” said Gwenda. “We don’t know at all.”
“Oh! I thought from your advertisement—” He looked at them with sud-
den curiosity. “Tell me, why did you advertise?”
Gwenda said: “We wanted to get in touch—” and stopped.
“With someone you can hardly remember?” Dr. Kennedy looked
puzzled.
Gwenda said quickly: “I thought—if I could get in touch with her—she’d
tell me—about my father.”
“Yes—yes—I see. Sorry I can’t be of much use. Memory not what it was.
And it’s a long time ago.”
“At least,” said Giles, “you know what kind of a Sanatorium it was?
Tubercular?”
Dr. Kennedy’s face again looked suddenly wooden: “Yes—yes, I rather
believe it was.”
“Then we ought to be able to trace that quite easily,” said Giles. “Thank
you very much, sir, for all you’ve told us.”
He got up and Gwenda followed suit.
“Thank you very much,” she said. “And do come and see us at Hillside.”
They went out of the room and Gwenda, glancing back over her
shoulder, had a final view of Dr. Kennedy standing by the mantelpiece,
pulling his grizzled moustache and looking troubled.
“He knows something he won’t tell us,” said Gwenda, as they got into the
car. “There’s something—oh, Giles! I wish—I wish now that we’d never
started….”
They looked at each other, and in each mind, unacknowledged to the
other, the same fear sprang.
“Miss Marple was right,” said Gwenda. “We should have left the past
alone.”
“We needn’t go any further,” said Giles uncertainly. “I think perhaps,
Gwenda darling, we’d better not.”
Gwenda shook her head.
“No, Giles, we can’t stop now. We should always be wondering and ima-
gining. No, we’ve got to go on … Dr. Kennedy wouldn’t tell us because he
wanted to be kind—but that sort of business is no good. We’ll have to go
on and find out what really happened. Even if—even if—it was my father
who …” But she couldn’t go on.
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