沉睡的谋杀案22
时间：2026-01-29 07:41:39
（单词翻译:单击）
Twelve
LILY KIMBLE
Lily Kimble spread a couple of old newspapers on the kitchen table in
readiness for draining the chipped potatoes which were hissing in the
pan. Humming tunelessly a popular melody of the day she leaned forward
aimlessly studying the newsprint spread out before her.
Then suddenly she stopped humming and called: “Jim—Jim. Listen here,
will you?”
Jim Kimble, an elderly man of few words, was washing at the scullery
sink. To answer his wife, he used his favourite monosyllable.
“Ar?” said Jim Kimble.
“It’s a piece in the paper. Will anyone with any knowledge of Helen
Spenlove Halliday, née Kennedy, communicate with Messrs. Reed and
Hardy, Southampton Row! Seems to me they might be meaning Mrs. Halli-
day as I was in service with at St. Catherine’s. Took it from Mrs. Findey-
son, they did, she and ’er ’usband. Her name was Helen right enough—Yes,
and she was sister to Dr. Kennedy, him as always said I ought to have had
my adenoids out.”
There was a momentary pause as Mrs. Kimble adjusted the frying chips
with an expert touch. Jim Kimble was snorting into the roller towel as he
dried his face.
“Course, it’s an old paper, this,” resumed Mrs. Kimble. She studied its
date. “Nigh on a week or more old. Wonder what it’s all about? Think as
there’s any money in it, Jim?”
Mr. Kimble said, “Ar,” noncommittally.
“Might be a will or something,” speculated his wife. “Powerful lot of
time ago.”
“Ar.”
“Eighteen years or more, I shouldn’t wonder … Wonder what they’re
raking it all up for now? You don’t think it could be police, do you, Jim?
“Whatever?” asked Mr. Kimble.
“Well, you know what I always thought,” said Mrs. Kimble mysteriously.
“Told you at the time, I did, when we was walking out. Pretending that
she’d gone off with a feller. That’s what they say, husbands, when they do
their wives in. Depend upon it, it was murder. That’s what I said to you
and what I said to Edie, but Edie she wouldn’t have it at any price. Never
no imagination, Edie hadn’t. Those clothes she was supposed to have took
away with her—well, they weren’t right, if you know what I mean. There
was a suitcase gone and a bag, and enough clothes to fill ’em, but they
wasn’t right, those clothes. And that’s when I said to Edie, ‘Depend upon
it,’ I said, ‘the master’s murdered her and put her in the cellar.’ Only not
really the cellar, because that Layonee, the Swiss nurse, she saw some-
thing. Out of the window. Come to the cinema along of me, she did, though
she wasn’t supposed to leave the nursery — but there, I said, the child
never wakes up—good as gold she was, always, in her bed at night. ‘And
madam never comes up to the nursery in the evening,’ I says. ‘Nobody will
know if you slip out with me.’ So she did. And when we got in there was
ever such a schemozzle going on. Doctor was there and the master ill and
sleeping in the dressing room, and the doctor looking after him, and it was
then he asked me about the clothes, and it seemed all right at the time. I
thought she’d gone off all right with that fellow she was so keen on—and
him a married man, too — and Edie said she did hope and pray we
wouldn’t be mixed up in any divorce case. What was his name now? I
can’t remember. Began with an M—or was it an R? Bless us, your memory
does go.”
Mr. Kimble came in from the scullery and ignoring all matters of lesser
moment demanded if his supper was ready.
“I’ll just drain the chips … Wait, I’ll get another paper. Better keep this
one. ’T wouldn’t be likely to be police—not after all this time. Maybe it’s
lawyers—and money in it. It doesn’t say something to your advantage …
but it might be all the same … Wish I knew who I could ask about it. It says
write to some address in London—but I’m not sure I’d like to do a thing
like that … not to a lot of people in London … What do you say, Jim?”
“Ar,” said Mr. Kimble, hungrily eyeing the fish and chips.
The discussion was postponed.
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