沉睡的谋杀案17
时间：2026-01-29 07:41:28
（单词翻译:单击）
II
Gwenda was afraid that tea might prove a difficult meal—but Miss Marple
fortunately seemed not to notice that her hostess talked a little too fast and
too feverishly, and that her gaiety was somewhat forced. Miss Marple her-
self was gently garrulous — she was enjoying her stay in Dillmouth so
much and—wasn’t it exciting?—some friends of friends of hers had writ-
ten to friends of theirs in Dillmouth, and as a result she had received some
very pleasant invitations from the local residents.
“One feels so much less of an outsider, if you know what I mean, my
dear, if one gets to know some of the people who have been established
here for years. For instance, I am going to tea with Mrs. Fane—she is the
widow of the senior partner in the best firm of solicitors here. Quite an
old-fashioned family firm. Her son is carrying it on now.”
The gentle gossiping voice went on. Her landlady was so kind — and
made her so comfortable—“and really delicious cooking. She was for some
years with my old friend Mrs. Bantry—although she does not come from
this part of the world herself—her aunt lived here for many years and she
and her husband used to come here for holidays—so she knows a great
deal of the local gossip. Do you find your gardener satisfactory, by the
way? I hear that he is considered locally as rather a scrimshanker—more
talk than work.”
“Talk and tea is his speciality,” said Giles. “He has about five cups of tea
a day. But he works splendidly when we are looking.”
“Come out and see the garden,” said Gwenda.
They showed her the house and the garden, and Miss Marple made the
proper comments. If Gwenda had feared her shrewd observation of some-
thing amiss, then Gwenda was wrong. For Miss Marple showed no cogniz-
ance of anything unusual.
Yet, strangely enough, it was Gwenda who acted in an unpredictable
manner. She interrupted Miss Marple in the midst of a little anecdote
about a child and a seashell to say breathlessly to Giles:
“I don’t care—I’m going to tell her….”
Miss Marple turned her head attentively. Giles started to speak, then
stopped. Finally he said, “Well, it’s your funeral, Gwenda.”
And so Gwenda poured it all out. Their call on Dr. Kennedy and his sub-
sequent call on them and what he had told them.
“That was what you meant in London, wasn’t it?” Gwenda asked breath-
lessly. “You thought, then, that—that my father might be involved?”
Miss Marple said gently, “It occurred to me as a possibility—yes. ‘Helen’
might very well be a young stepmother—and in a case of—er—strangling,
it is so often a husband who is involved.”
Miss Marple spoke as one who observes natural phenomena without
surprise or emotion.
“I do see why you urged us to leave it alone,” said Gwenda. “Oh, and I
wish now we had. But one can’t go back.”
“No,” said Miss Marple, “one can’t go back.”
“And now you’d better listen to Giles. He’s been making objections and
suggestions.”
“All I say is,” said Giles, “that it doesn’t fit.”
And lucidly, clearly, he went over the points as he had previously out-
lined them to Gwenda.
Then he particularized his final theory.
“If you’ll only convince Gwenda that that’s the only way it could have
been.”
Miss Marple’s eyes went from him to Gwenda and back again.
“It is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis,” she said. “But there is always,
as you yourself pointed out, Mr. Reed, the possibility of X.”
“X!” said Gwenda.
“The unknown factor,” said Miss Marple. “Someone, shall we say, who
hasn’t appeared yet—but whose presence, behind the obvious facts, can
be deduced.”
“We’re going to the Sanatorium in Norfolk where my father died,” said
Gwenda. “Perhaps we’ll find out something there.”
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