山核桃大街谋杀案（16）
时间：2025-03-03 03:09:51
（单词翻译:单击）
Chapter Fifteen
In a quiet room at New Scotland Yard, four men were sitting round a table.
Hercule Poirot. On the table was a rucksack.
Superintendent Wilding stroked his chin thoughtfully.
“It’s an interesting idea, M. Poirot,” he said cautiously. “Yes, it’s an interesting idea.”
“It is, as I say, simply an idea,” said Poirot.
Wilding nodded.
somewhere else. Speaking for my own branch, there’s been a good lot of the stuff coming into this
country in the last year and a half. Heroin8 mostly—a fair amount of coke. There are various depots9
dotted here and there on the Continent. The French police have got a lead or two as to how it
comes into France—they’re less certain how it goes out again.”
“Would I be right in saying,” Poirot asked, “that your problem could be divided roughly under
three heads. There is the problem of distribution, there is the problem of how the consignments10
enter the country, and there is the problem of who really runs the business and takes the main
profits?”
“Roughly I’d say that’s quite right. We know a fair amount about the small distributors and how
the stuff is distributed. Some of the distributors we pull in, some we leave alone hoping that they
may lead us to the big fish. It’s distributed in a lot of different ways, nightclubs, pubs, drug stores,
an odd doctor or so, fashionable women’s dressmakers and hairdressers. It is handed over on
racecourses, and in antique dealers’, sometimes in a crowded multiple store. But I needn’t tell you
all this. It’s not that side of it that’s important. We can keep pace with all that fairly well. And
we’ve got certain very shrewd suspicions as to what I’ve called the big fish. One or two very
respectable wealthy gentlemen against whom there’s never a breath of suspicion. Very careful
they are; they never handle the stuff themselves, and the little fry don’t even know who they are.
But every now and again, one of them makes a slip—and then—we get him.”
“That is all very much as I supposed. The line in which I am interested is the third line—how do
the consignments come into the country?”
“Ah. We’re an island. The most usual way is the good old-fashioned way of the sea. Running a
that’s slipped quietly across the Channel. That succeeds for a bit but sooner or later we get a line
on the particular fellow who owns the boat and once he’s under suspicion his opportunity’s gone.
are the commercial importers. Respectable firms that import grand pianos, or what have you! They
have quite a good run for a bit, but we usually get wise to them in the end.”
the entry from abroad into this country?”
“Decidedly. And I’ll say more. For some time now, we’ve been worried. More stuff is coming
in than we can keep pace with.”
“There’s a good deal of it going on, sir. Illicit diamonds and other stones are coming out of
South Africa and Australia, some from the Far East. They’re coming into this country in a steady
stream, and we don’t know how. The other day a young woman, an ordinary tourist, in France,
was asked by a casual acquaintance if she’d take a pair of shoes across the Channel. Not new ones,
nothing dutiable, just some shoes someone had left behind. She agreed quite unsuspiciously. We
happened to be on to that. The heels of the shoes turned out to be hollow and packed with uncut
diamonds.”
Superintendent Wilding said:
“Either. Anything, in fact, of high value and small bulk. There is an opening, it seems to me, for
what you might call a freight service, conveying goods such as I have described to and fro across
the Channel. Stolen jewellery, the stones removed from their settings, could be taken out of
England, illicit stones and drugs brought in. It could be a small independent agency, unconnected
with distribution, that carried stuff on a commission basis. And the profits might be high.”
“I’ll say you’re right there! You can pack ten or twenty thousand pounds’ worth of heroin in a
very small space and the same goes for uncut stones of high quality.”
later you suspect a person, an airline steward14, a yachting enthusiast21 with a small cabin cruiser, the
woman who travels to and fro to France too often, the importer who seems to be making more
money than is reasonable, the man who lives well without visible means of support. But if the stuff
is brought into this country by an innocent person, and what is more, by a different person each
Wilding pushed a finger towards the rucksack. “And that’s your suggestion?”
“Yes. Who is the person who is least vulnerable to suspicion these days? The student. The
earnest, hard-working student. Badly off, travelling about with no more luggage than what he can
carry on his back. Hitchhiking his way across Europe. If one particular student were to bring the
stuff in all the time, no doubt you’d get wise to him or her, but the whole essence of the
arrangement is that the carriers are innocent and that there are a lot of them.”
“Just how exactly do you think it’s managed, M. Poirot?” he asked.
“As to that it is my guess only. No doubt I am wrong in many details, but I should say that it
worked roughly like this: First, a line of rucksacks is placed on the market. They are of the
ordinary, conventional type, just like any other rucksack, well and strongly made and suitable for
their purpose. When I say ‘just like any other rucksack’ that is not so. The lining25 at the base is
slightly different. As you see, it is quite easily removable and is of a thickness and composition to
“Too true,” said Wilding. “Why,” he measured with rapid fingers, “you could bring in stuff
worth five or six thousand pounds each time without anyone being the wiser.”
“Exactly,” said Hercule Poirot. “Alors! The rucksacks are made, put on the market, are on sale
—probably in more than one shop. The proprietor29 of the shop may be in the racket or he may not.
It may be that he has just been sold a cheap line which he finds profitable, since his prices will
definite organisation32 in the background; a carefully kept list of students at the medical schools, at
London University and at other places. Someone who is himself a student, or posing as a student,
is probably at the head of the racket. Students go abroad. At some point in the return journey a
duplicate rucksack is exchanged. The student returns to England; customs investigations34 will be
tossed into a cupboard or into a corner of the room. At this point there will be again an exchange
of rucksacks or possibly the false bottom will be neatly37 extracted and an innocent one replace it.”
“And you think that’s what happened at Hickory Road?”
Poirot nodded.
“That is my suspicion. Yes.”
“But what put you on to it, M. Poirot—assuming you’re right, that is?”
“A rucksack was cut to pieces,” said Poirot. “Why? Since the reason is not plain, one has to
imagine a reason. There is something queer about the rucksacks that come to Hickory Road. They
responsible for them swore that the destruction of the rucksack was not her doing. Since she has
confessed to the other things why should she deny that, unless she was speaking the truth? So
there must be another reason for the destruction of the rucksack—and to destroy a rucksack, I may
say, is not an easy thing. It was hard work and someone must have been pretty desperate to
memories after a period of some months are not too certain) but roughly—that that rucksack was
destroyed at about the date when a police officer called to see the person in charge of the hostel.
The actual reason that the police officer called had to do with quite another matter, but I will put it
to you like this: You are someone concerned in this smuggling racket. You go home to the house
that evening and you are informed that the police have called and are at the moment upstairs with
Mrs. Hubbard. Immediately you assume that the police are on to the smuggling racket, that they
have come to make an investigation33; and let us say that at that moment there is in the house a
rucksack just brought back from abroad containing—or which has recently contained—
contraband40. Now, if the police have a line on what has been going on, they will have come to
Hickory Road for the express purpose of examining the rucksacks of the students. You dare not
walk out of the house with the rucksack in question because, for all you know, somebody may
have been left outside by the police to watch the house with just that object in view, and a
rucksack is not an easy thing to conceal26 or disguise. The only thing you can think of is to rip up
empty rucksack, if it had held dope, might yield traces of heroin or cocaine on close examination
or analysis. So the rucksack must be destroyed. You agree that that is possible?”
“It is an idea, as I said before,” said Superintendent Wilding.
“It also seems possible that a small incident not hitherto regarded as important may be
connected with the rucksack. According to the Italian servant, Geronimo, on the day, or one of the
days, when the police called, the light in the hall had gone. He went to look for a bulb to replace it;
found the spare bulbs, too, were missing. He was quite sure that a day or two previously44 there had
been spare bulbs in the drawer. It seems to me a possibility—this is far-fetched and I would not
guilty conscience who had been mixed up with a smuggling racket before and who feared that his
face might be known to the police if they saw him in a bright light. So he quietly removed the bulb
from the hall light and took away the new ones so that it should not be replaced. As a result the
hall was illuminated46 by a candle only. This, as I say, is merely a supposition.”
“It’s an ingenious idea,” said Wilding.
“It’s possible, sir,” said Sergeant Bell eagerly. “The more I think of it the more possible I think
it is.”
“But if so,” went on Wilding, “there’s more to it than just Hickory Road?”
Poirot nodded.
“Oh yes. The organisation must cover a wide range of students’ clubs and so on.”
“You have to find a connecting link between them,” said Wilding.
Inspector Sharpe spoke for the first time.
“There is such a link, sir,” he said, “or there was. A woman who ran several student clubs and
organisations. A woman who was right on the spot at Hickory Road. Mrs. Nicoletis.”
“Yes,” said Poirot. “Mrs. Nicoletis fits the bill. She had a financial interest in all these places
though she didn’t run them herself. Her method was to get someone of unimpeachable48 integrity
and antecedents to run the place. My friend Mrs. Hubbard is such a person. The financial backing
was supplied by Mrs. Nicoletis—but there again I suspect her of being only a figurehead.”
“H’m,” said Wilding. “I think it would be interesting to know a little more about Mrs.
Nicoletis.”
Sharpe nodded.
“We’re investigating her,” he said. “Her background and where she came from. It has to be
done carefully. We don’t want to alarm our birds too soon. We’re looking into her financial
background, too. My word, that woman was a tartar if ever there was one.”
He described his experiences of Mrs. Nicoletis when confronted with a search warrant.
“Brandy bottles, eh?” said Wilding. “So she drank? Well, that ought to make it easier. What’s
happened to her? Hooked it—”
“No sir. She’s dead.”
crack. Maybe she didn’t bargain for murder.”
“You’re talking about the Celia Austin case. Did the girl know something?”
“She knew something,” said Poirot, “but if I may so put it, I do not think she knew what it was
she knew!”
“You mean she knew something but didn’t appreciate the implications of it?”
“Yes. Just that. She was not a clever girl. She would be quite likely to fail to grasp an inference.
But having seen something, or heard something, she may have mentioned the fact quite
unsuspiciously.”
“You’ve no idea what she saw or heard, M. Poirot?”
“I make guesses,” said Poirot. “I cannot do more. There has been mention of a passport. Did
someone in the house have a false passport allowing them to go to and fro to the Continent under
another name? Would the revelation of that fact be a serious danger to that person? Did she see the
from the rucksack without realising what it was that that person was doing? Did she perhaps see
the person who removed the light bulbs? And mention the fact to him or her, not realising that it
was of any importance? Ah, mon dieu!” said Hercule Poirot with irritation52. “Guesses! guesses!
guesses! One must know more. Always one must know more!”
“Well,” said Sharpe, “we can make a start on Mrs. Nicoletis’s antecedents. Something may
come up.”
“She was put out of the way because they thought she might talk? Would she have talked?”
“She’d been drinking secretly for some time . . . and that means her nerves were shot to pieces,”
said Sharpe. “She might have broken down and spilled the whole thing. Turned Queen’s
Evidence.”
“She didn’t really run the racket, I suppose?”
Poirot shook his head.
“I should not think so, no. She was out in the open, you see. She knew what was going on, of
course, but I should not say she was the brains behind it. No.”
“Any idea who is the brains behind it?”
“I could make a guess—I might be wrong. Yes—I might be wrong!”
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1
superintendent
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| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
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narcotics
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| n.麻醉药( narcotic的名词复数 )；毒品；毒 | |
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squad
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| n.班，小队，小团体；vt.把…编成班或小组 | |
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sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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smuggling
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| n.走私 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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heroin
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| n.海洛因 | |
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depots
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| 仓库( depot的名词复数 )； 火车站； 车库； 军需库 | |
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consignments
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| n.托付货物( consignment的名词复数 )；托卖货物；寄售；托运 | |
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cargo
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| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
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cove
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| n.小海湾，小峡谷 | |
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airliners
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| n.客机，班机( airliner的名词复数 ) | |
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14
steward
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| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
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stewards
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| （轮船、飞机等的）乘务员( steward的名词复数 )； （俱乐部、旅馆、工会等的）管理员； （大型活动的）组织者； （私人家中的）管家 | |
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illicit
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| adj.非法的，禁止的，不正当的 | |
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gems
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| growth； economy； management； and customer satisfaction 增长 | |
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18
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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smuggled
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| 水货 | |
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smuggler
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| n.走私者 | |
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enthusiast
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| n.热心人，热衷者 | |
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cargoes
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| n.（船或飞机装载的）货物( cargo的名词复数 )；大量，重负 | |
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jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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cocaine
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| n.可卡因，古柯碱（用作局部麻醉剂） | |
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proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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favourably
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| adv. 善意地，赞成地 =favorably | |
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outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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organisation
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| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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investigations
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| （正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究 | |
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hostel
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| n.（学生）宿舍，招待所 | |
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unpacks
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| v.从（包裹等）中取出（所装的东西），打开行李取出( unpack的第三人称单数 )；拆包；解除…的负担；吐露（心事等） | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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contraband
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| n.违禁品，走私品 | |
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cram
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| v.填塞，塞满，临时抱佛脚，为考试而学习 | |
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boiler
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| n.锅炉；煮器(壶，锅等) | |
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premises
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| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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47
flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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unimpeachable
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| adj.无可指责的；adv.无可怀疑地 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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autopsy
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| n.尸体解剖；尸检 | |
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51
tampered
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| v.窜改( tamper的过去式 )；篡改；（用不正当手段）影响；瞎摆弄 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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