沉睡的谋杀案21
时间：2026-01-29 07:41:38
（单词翻译:单击）
II
Giles and Gwenda sat together at a corner table at the Ginger Cat. The little
black notebook lay on the table between them.
Miss Marple came in from the street and joined them.
“What will you have, Miss Marple? Coffee?”
“Yes, thank you—no, not cakes, just a scone and butter.”
Giles gave the order, and Gwenda pushed the little black book across to
Miss Marple.
“First you must read that,” she said, “and then we can talk. It’s what my
father—what he wrote himself when he was at the nursing home. Oh, but
first of all, just tell Miss Marple exactly what Dr. Penrose said, Giles.”
Giles did so. Then Miss Marple opened the little black book and the wait-
ress brought three cups of weak coffee, and a scone and butter, and a plate
of cakes. Giles and Gwenda did not talk. They watched Miss Marple as she
read.
Finally she closed the book and laid it down. Her expression was diffi-
cult to read. There was, Gwenda thought, anger in it. Her lips were
pressed tightly together, and her eyes shone very brightly, unusually so,
considering her age.
“Yes, indeed,” she said. “Yes, indeed!”
Gwenda said: “You advised us once—do you remember?—not to go on. I
can see why you did. But we did go on—and this is where we’ve got to.
Only now, it seems as though we’d got to another place where one could—
if one liked—stop … Do you think we ought to stop? Or not?”
Miss Marple shook her head slowly. She seemed worried, perplexed.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I really don’t know. It might be better to do so,
much better to do so. Because after this lapse of time there is nothing that
you can do—nothing, I mean, of a constructive nature.”
“You mean that after this lapse of time, there is nothing we can find
out?” asked Giles.
“Oh no,” said Miss Marple. “I didn’t mean that at all. Nineteen years is
not such a long time. There are people who would remember things, who
could answer questions — quite a lot of people. Servants for instance.
There must have been at least two servants in the house at the time, and a
nurse, and probably a gardener. It will only take time and a little trouble
to find and talk to these people. As a matter of fact, I’ve found one of them
already. The cook. No, it wasn’t that. It was more the question of what
practical good you can accomplish, and I’d be inclined to say to that —
None. And yet….”
She stopped: “There is a yet … I’m a little slow in thinking things out, but
I have a feeling that there is something—something, perhaps, not very tan-
gible—that would be worth taking risks for—even that one should take
risks for—but I find it difficult to say just what that is….”
Giles began “It seems to me—” and stopped.
Miss Marple turned to him gratefully.
“Gentlemen,” she said, “always seem to be able to tabulate things so
clearly. I’m sure you have thought things out.”
“I’ve been thinking things out,” said Giles. “And it seems to me that there
are just two conclusions one can come to. One is the same as I suggested
before. Helen Halliday wasn’t dead when Gwennie saw her lying in the
hall. She came to, and went away with her lover, whoever he was. That
would still fit the facts as we know them. It would square with Kelvin Hall-
iday’s rooted belief that he had killed his wife, and it would square with
the missing suitcase and clothes and with the note that Dr. Kennedy
found. But it leaves certain points unaccounted for. It doesn’t explain why
Kelvin was convinced he strangled his wife in the bedroom. And it doesn’t
cover the one, to my mind, really staggering question—where is Helen Hal-
liday now? Because it seems to me against all reason that Helen should
never have been heard of or from again. Grant that the two letters she
wrote are genuine, what happened after that? Why did she never write
again? She was on affectionate terms with her brother, he’s obviously
deeply attached to her and always has been. He might disapprove of her
conduct, but that doesn’t mean that he expected never to hear from her
again. And if you ask me, that point has obviously been worrying Kennedy
himself. Let’s say he accepted at the time absolutely the story he’s told us.
His sister’s going off and Kelvin’s breakdown. But he didn’t expect never
to hear from his sister again. I think, as the years went on, and he didn’t
hear, and Kelvin Halliday persisted in his delusion and finally committed
suicide, that a terrible doubt began to creep up in his mind. Supposing
that Kelvin’s story was true? That he actually had killed Helen? There’s no
word from her — and surely if she had died somewhere abroad, word
would have come to him? I think that explains his eagerness when he saw
our advertisement. He hoped that it might lead to some account of where
she was or what she had been doing. I’m sure it’s absolutely unnatural for
someone to disappear as — as completely as Helen seems to have done.
That, in itself, is highly suspicious.”
“I agree with you,” said Miss Marple. “But the alternative, Mr. Reed?”
Giles said slowly, “I’ve been thinking out the alternative. It’s pretty fant-
astic, you know, and even rather frightening. Because it involves—how
can I put it—a kind of malevolence….”
“Yes,” said Gwenda. “Malevolence is just right. Even, I think, something
that isn’t quite sane …” She shivered.
“That is indicated, I think,” said Miss Marple. “You know, there’s a great
deal of—well, queerness about—more than people imagine. I have seen
some of it….”
Her face was thoughtful.
“There can’t be, you see, any normal explanation,” said Giles. “I’m taking
now the fantastic hypothesis that Kelvin Halliday didn’t kill his wife, but
genuinely thought he had done so. That’s what Dr. Penrose, who seems a
decent sort of bloke, obviously wants to think. His first impression of Hall-
iday was that there was a man who had killed his wife and wanted to give
himself up to the police. Then he had to take Kennedy’s word for it that
that wasn’t so, so he had perforce to believe that Halliday was a victim of a
complex or a fixation or whatever the jargon is—but he didn’t really like
that solution. He’s had a good experience of the type and Halliday didn’t
square with it. However, on knowing Halliday better he became quite
genuinely sure that Halliday was not the type of man who would strangle
a woman under any provocation. So he accepted the fixation theory, but
with misgivings. And that really means that only one theory will fit the
case — Halliday was induced to believe that he had killed his wife, by
someone else. In other words, we’ve come to X.
“Going over the facts very carefully, I’d say that that hypothesis is at
least possible. According to his own account, Halliday came into the house
that evening, went into the dining room, took a drink as he usually did—
and then went into the next room, saw a note on the desk and had a black-
out—”
Giles paused and Miss Marple nodded her head in approval. He went
on:
“Say it wasn’t a blackout—that it was just simply dope—knock-out drops
in the whisky. The next step is quite clear, isn’t it? X had strangled Helen
in the hall, but afterwards he took her upstairs and arranged her artistic-
ally as a crime passionel on the bed, and that’s where Kelvin is when he
comes to; and the poor devil, who may have been suffering from jealousy
where she’s concerned, thinks that he’s done it. What does he do next?
Goes off to find his brother-in-law—on the other side of the town and on
foot. And that gives X time to do his next trick. Pack and remove a suitcase
of clothes and also remove the body—though what he did with the body,”
Giles ended vexedly, “beats me completely.”
“It surprises me you should say that, Mr. Reed,” said Miss Marple. “I
should say that that problem would present few difficulties. But do please
go on.”
“Who Were The Men In Her Life?” quoted Giles. “I saw that in a newspa-
per as we came back in the train. It set me wondering, because that’s
really the crux of the matter, isn’t it? If there is an X, as we believe, all we
know about him is that he must have been crazy about her — literally
crazy about her.”
“And so he hated my father,” said Gwenda. “And he wanted him to suf-
fer.”
“So that’s where we come up against it,” said Giles. “We know what kind
of a girl Helen was—” he hesitated.
“Man mad,” supplied Gwenda.
Miss Marple looked up suddenly as though to speak, and then stopped.
“—and that she was beautiful. But we’ve no clue to what other men
there were in her life besides her husband. There may have been any
number.”
Miss Marple shook her head.
“Hardly that. She was quite young, you know. But you are not quite ac-
curate, Mr. Reed. We do know something about what you have termed
‘the men in her life.’ There was the man she was going out to marry—”
“Ah yes—the lawyer chap? What was his name?”
“Walter Fane,” said Miss Marple.
“Yes. But you can’t count him. He was out in Malaya or India or some-
where.”
“But was he? He didn’t remain a tea-planter, you know,” Miss Marple
pointed out. “He came back here and went into the firm, and is now the
senior partner.”
Gwenda exclaimed: “Perhaps he followed her back here?”
“He may have done. We don’t know.”
Giles was looking curiously at the old lady.
“How did you find all this out?”
Miss Marple smiled apologetically.
“I’ve been gossiping a little. In shops—and waiting for buses. Old ladies
are supposed to be inquisitive. Yes, one can pick up quite a lot of local
news.”
“Walter Fane,” said Giles thoughtfully. “Helen turned him down. That
may have rankled quite a lot. Did he ever marry?”
“No,” said Miss Marple. “He lives with his mother. I’m going to tea there
at the end of the week.”
“There’s someone else we know about, too,” said Gwenda suddenly.
“You remember there was somebody she got engaged to, or entangled
with, when she left school — someone undesirable, Dr. Kennedy said. I
wonder just why he was undesirable….”
“That’s two men,” said Giles. “Either of them may have had a grudge,
may have brooded … Perhaps the first young man may have had some un-
satisfactory mental history.”
“Dr. Kennedy could tell us that,” said Gwenda. “Only it’s going to be a
little difficult asking him. I mean, it’s all very well for me to go along and
ask for news of my stepmother whom I barely remember. But it’s going to
take a bit of explaining if I want to know about her early love affairs. It
seems rather excessive interest in a stepmother you hardly knew.”
“There are probably other ways of finding out,” said Miss Marple. “Oh
yes, I think with time and patience, we can gather the information we
want.”
“Anyway, we’ve got two possibilities,” said Giles.
“We might, I think, infer a third,” said Miss Marple. “It would be, of
course, a pure hypothesis, but justified, I think, by the turn of events.”
Gwenda and Giles looked at her in slight surprise.
“It is just an inference,” said Miss Marple, turning a little pink. “Helen
Kennedy went out to India to marry young Fane. Admittedly she was not
wildly in love with him, but she must have been fond of him, and quite
prepared to spend her life with him. Yet as soon as she gets there, she
breaks off the engagement and wires her brother to send her money to get
home. Now why?”
“Changed her mind, I suppose,” said Giles.
Both Miss Marple and Gwenda looked at him in mild contempt.
“Of course she changed her mind,” said Gwenda. “We know that. What
Miss Marple means is—why?”
“I suppose girls do change their minds,” said Giles vaguely.
“Under certain circumstances,” said Miss Marple.
Her words held all the pointed innuendo that elderly ladies are able to
achieve with the minimum of actual statement.
“Something he did —” Giles was suggesting vaguely, when Gwenda
chipped in sharply.
“Of course,” she said. “Another man!”
She and Miss Marple looked at each other with the assurance of those
admitted to a freemasonry from which men were excluded.
Gwenda added with certainty: “On the boat! Going out!”
“Propinquity,” said Miss Marple.
“Moonlight on the boat deck,” said Gwenda. “All that sort of thing. Only
—it must have been serious—not just a flirtation.”
“Oh yes,” said Miss Marple, “I think it was serious.”
“If so, why didn’t she marry the chap?” demanded Giles.
“Perhaps he didn’t really care for her,” Gwenda said slowly. Then shook
her head. “No, I think in that case she would still have married Walter
Fane. Oh, of course, I’m being stupid. Married man.”
She looked triumphantly at Miss Marple.
“Exactly,” said Miss Marple. “That’s how I should reconstruct it. They
fell in love, probably desperately in love. But if he was a married man—
with children, perhaps — and probably an honourable type — well, that
would be the end of it.”
“Only she couldn’t go on and marry Walter Fane,” said Gwenda. “So she
wired her brother and went home. Yes, that all fits. And on the boat home,
she met my father….”
She paused, thinking it out.
“Not wildly in love,” she said. “But attracted … and then there was me.
They were both unhappy … and they consoled each other. My father told
her about my mother, and perhaps she told him about the other man …
Yes—of course—” She flicked over the pages of the diary.
“I knew there was someone—she said as much to me on the
boat—someone she loved and couldn’t marry.
Yes—that’s it. Helen and my father felt they were alike—and there was me
to be looked after, and she thought she could make him happy—and she
even thought, perhaps, that she’d be quite happy herself in the end.”
She stopped, nodded violently at Miss Marple, and said brightly: “That’s
it.”
Giles was looking exasperated.
“Really, Gwenda, you make a whole lot of things up and pretend that
they actually happened.”
“They did happen. They must have happened. And that gives us a third
person for X.”
“You mean—?”
“The married man. We don’t know what he was like. He mayn’t have
been nice at all. He may have been a little mad. He may have followed her
here—”
“You’ve just placed him as going out to India.”
“Well, people can come back from India, can’t they? Walter Fane did. It
was nearly a year later. I don’t say this man did come back, but I say he’s a
possibility. You keep harping on who the men were in her life. Well, we’ve
got three of them. Walter Fane, and some young man whose name we
don’t know, and a married man—”
“Whom we don’t know exists,” finished Giles.
“We’ll find out,” said Gwenda. “Won’t we, Miss Marple?”
“With time and patience,” said Miss Marple, “we may find out a great
deal. Now for my contribution. As a result of a very fortunate little conver-
sation in the draper’s today, I have discovered that Edith Pagett who was
cook at St. Catherine’s at the time we are interested in, is still in Dillmouth.
Her sister is married to a confectioner here. I think it would be quite nat-
ural, Gwenda, for you to want to see her. She may be able to tell us a good
deal.”
“That’s wonderful,” said Gwenda. “I’ve thought of something else,” she
added. “I’m going to make a new will. Don’t look so grave, Giles, I shall still
leave my money to you. But I shall get Walter Fane to do it for me.”
“Gwenda,” said Giles. “Do be careful.”
“Making a will,” said Gwenda, “is a most natural thing to do. And the
line of approach I’ve thought up is quite good. Anyway, I want to see him.
I want to see what he’s like, and if I think that possibly—”
She left the sentence unfinished.
“What surprises me,” said Giles, “is that no one else answered that ad-
vertisement of ours—this Edith Pagett, for example—”
Miss Marple shook her head.
“People take a long time to make up their minds about a thing like that
in these country districts,” she said. “They’re suspicious. They like to think
things over.”
©2005-2010英文阅读网