山核桃大街谋杀案（18）

时间：2025-03-03 03:20:47

（单词翻译:单击）

Chapter Seventeen
I
Seated in a room at the police station, Nigel looked nervously1 into the stern eyes of Inspector2
Sharpe. Stammering3 slightly, he had just brought his narrative4 to a close.
“You realise, Mr. Chapman, that what you have just told us is very serious? Very serious
indeed.”
“Of course I realise it. I wouldn’t have come here to tell you about it unless I’d felt that it was
urgent.”
“And you say Miss Lane can’t remember exactly when she last saw this bicarbonate bottle
containing morphine?”
“She’s got herself all muddled5 up. The more she tries to think the more uncertain she gets. She
said I flustered6 her. She’s trying to think it out while I came round to you.”
“We’d better go round to Hickory Road right away.”
As the inspector spoke7 the telephone on the table rang, and the constable8 who had been taking
notes of Nigel’s story stretched out his hand and lifted the receiver.
“It’s Miss Lane now,” he said, as he listened. “Wanting to speak to Mr. Chapman.”
Nigel leaned across the table and took the receiver from him.
“Pat? Nigel here.”
The girl’s voice came, breathless, eager, the words tumbling over each other.
“Nigel. I think I’ve got it! I mean, I think I know now who must have taken—you know—taken
it from my handkerchief drawer, I mean—you see, there’s only one person who—”
The voice broke off.
“Pat. Hallo? Are you there? Who was it?”
“I can’t tell you now. Later. You’ll be coming round?”
The receiver was near enough for the constable and the inspector to have heard the conversation
clearly, and the latter nodded in answer to Nigel’s questioning look.
“Tell her ‘at once,’ ” he said.
“We’re coming round at once,” said Nigel. “On our way this minute.”
“Oh! Good. I’ll be in my room.”
“So long, Pat.”
Hardly a word was spoken during the brief ride to Hickory Road. Sharpe wondered to himself
whether this was a break at last. Would Patricia Lane have any definite evidence to offer, or would
it be pure surmise9 on her part? Clearly she had remembered something that had seemed to her
important. He supposed that she had been telephoning from the hall, and that therefore she had
had to be guarded in her language. At this time in the evening so many people would have been
passing through.
Nigel opened the front door at 26 Hickory Road with his key and they passed inside. Through
the open door of the common room, Sharpe could see the rumpled10 red head of Leonard Bateson
bent11 over some books.
Nigel led the way upstairs and along the passage to Pat’s room. He gave a short tap on the door
and entered.
“Hallo, Pat. Here we—”
His voice stopped, dying away in a long choking gasp12. He stood motionless. Over his shoulder,
Sharpe saw also what there was to see.
Patricia Lane lay slumped13 on the floor.
The inspector pushed Nigel gently aside. He went forward and knelt down by the girl’s huddled14
body. He raised her head, felt for the pulse, then delicately let the head resume its former position.
He rose to his feet, his face grim and set.
“No?” said Nigel, his voice high and unnatural15. “No. No. No.”
“Yes, Mr. Chapman. She’s dead.”
“No, no. Not Pat! Dear stupid Pat. How—”
“With this.”
It was a simple, quickly improvised16 weapon. A marble paperweight slipped into a woollen sock.
“Struck on the back of the head. A very efficacious weapon. If it’s any consolation17 to you, Mr.
Chapman, I don’t think she even knew what happened to her.”
Nigel sat down shakily on the bed. He said:
“That’s one of my socks . . . She was going to mend it . . . Oh, God, she was going to mend it. . .
.”
Suddenly he began to cry. He cried like a child—with abandon and without self-consciousness.
Sharpe was continuing his reconstruction18.
“It was someone she knew quite well. Someone who picked up a sock and just slipped the
paperweight into it. Do you recognise the paperweight, Mr. Chapman?”
He rolled the sock back so as to display it.
Nigel, still weeping, looked.
“Pat always had it on her desk. A Lion of Lucerne.”
He buried his face in his hands.
“Pat—oh, Pat! What shall I do without you!”
Suddenly he sat upright, flinging back his untidy fair hair.
“I’ll kill whoever did this! I’ll kill him! Murdering swine!”
“Gently, Mr. Chapman. Yes, yes, I know how you feel. A brutal19 piece of work.”
“Pat never harmed anybody. . . .”
Speaking soothingly20, Inspector Sharpe got him out of the room. Then he went back himself into
the bedroom. He stooped over the dead girl. Very gently he detached something from between her
fingers.
II
Geronimo, perspiration21 running down his forehead, turned frightened dark eyes from one face to
the other.
“I see nothing. I hear nothing, I tell you. I do not know anything at all. I am with Maria in
kitchen. I put the minestrone on, I grate the cheese—”
Sharpe interrupted the catalogue.
“Nobody’s accusing you. We just want to get some times quite clear. Who was in and out of the
house the last hour?”
“I do not know. How should I know?”
“But you can see very clearly from the kitchen window who goes in and out, can’t you?”
“Perhaps, yes.”
“Then just tell us.”
“They come in and out all the time at this hour of the day.”
“Who was in the house from six o’clock until six thirty-five when we arrived?”
“Everybody except Mr. Nigel and Mrs. Hubbard and Miss Hobhouse.”
“When did they go out?”
“Mrs. Hubbard she go out before teatime, she has not come back yet.”
“Go on.”
“Mr. Nigel goes out about half an hour ago, just before six—look very upset. He come back
with you just now—”
“That’s right, yes.”
“Miss Valerie, she goes out just at six o’clock. Time signal, pip, pip, pip. Dressed for cocktails22,
very smart. She still out.”
“And everybody else is here?”
“Yes, sir. All here.”
Sharpe looked down at his notebook. The time of Patricia’s call was noted23 there. Eight minutes
past six, exactly.
“Everybody else was here, in the house? Nobody came back during that time?”
“Only Miss Sally. She been down to pillar-box with letter and come back in—”
“Do you know what time she came in?”
Geronimo frowned.
“She came back while the news was going on.”
“After six, then?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What part of the news was it?”
“I don’t remember, sir. But before the sport. Because when sport come we switch off.”
Sharpe smiled grimly. It was a wide field. Only Nigel Chapman, Valerie Hobhouse and Mrs.
Hubbard could be excluded. It would mean long and exhaustive questioning. Who had been in the
common room, who had left it? And when? Who would vouch24 for who? Add to that, that many of
the students, especially the Asiatic and African ones, were constitutionally vague about times, and
the task was no enviable one.
But it would have to be done.
III
In Mrs. Hubbard’s room the atmosphere was unhappy. Mrs. Hubbard herself, still in her outdoor
things, her nice round face strained and anxious, sat on the sofa. Sharpe and Sergeant25 Cobb sat at a
small table.
“I think she telephoned from in here,” said Sharpe. “Around about six-eight several people left
or entered the common room, or so they say—and nobody saw or noticed or heard the hall
telephone being used. Of course, their times aren’t reliable, half these people never seem to look at
a clock. But I think that anyway she’d come in here if she wanted to telephone the police station.
You were out, Mrs. Hubbard, but I don’t suppose you lock your door?”
Mrs. Hubbard shook her head.
“Mrs. Nicoletis always did, but I never do—”
“Well then, Patricia Lane comes in here to telephone, all agog26 with what’s she’s remembered.
Then, whilst she was talking, the door opened and somebody looked in or came in. Patricia stalled
and hung up. Was that because she recognised the intruder as the person whose name she was just
about to say? Or was it just a general precaution? Might be either. I incline myself to the first
supposition.”
Mrs. Hubbard nodded emphatically.
“Whoever it was may have followed her here, perhaps listening outside the door. Then came in
to stop Pat from going on.”
“And then—”
Sharpe’s face darkened. “That person went back to Patricia’s room with her, talking quite
normally and easily. Perhaps Patricia taxed her with removing the bicarbonate, and perhaps the
other gave a plausible27 explanation.”
Mrs. Hubbard said sharply:
“Why do you say ‘her?’ ”
“Funny thing—a pronoun! When we found the body, Nigel Chapman said, ‘I’ll kill whoever did
this. I’ll kill him.’ ‘Him,’ you notice. Nigel Chapman clearly believed the murder was done by a
man. It may be because he associated the idea of violence with a man. It may be that he’s got some
particular suspicion pointing to a man, to some particular man. If the latter, we must find out his
reasons for thinking so. But speaking for myself, I plump for a woman.”
“Why?”
“Just this. Somebody went into Patricia’s room with her—someone with whom she felt quite at
home. That points to another girl. The men don’t go to the girls’ bedroom floors unless it’s for
some special reason. That’s right, isn’t it, Mrs. Hubbard?”
“Yes. It’s not exactly a hard and fast rule, but it’s fairly generally observed.”
“The other side of the house is cut off from this side, except on the ground floor. Taking it that
the conversation earlier between Nigel and Pat was overheard, it would in all probability be a
woman who overheard it.”
“Yes, I see what you mean. And some of the girls seem to spend half their time here listening at
keyholes.”
She flushed and added apologetically:
“That’s rather too harsh. Actually, although these houses are solidly built, they’ve been cut up
and partitioned, and all the new work is flimsy as anything, like paper. You can’t help hearing
through it. Jean, I must admit, does do a good deal of snooping. She’s the type. And of course,
when Genevieve heard Nigel telling Pat his father had murdered his mother, she stopped and
listened for all she was worth.”
The inspector nodded. He had listened to the evidence of Sally Finch28 and Jean Tomlinson and
Genevieve. He said:
“Who occupies the rooms on either side of Patricia’s?”
“Genevieve’s is beyond it—but that’s a good original wall. Elizabeth Johnston’s is on the other
side, nearer the stairs. That’s only a partition wall.”
“That narrows it down a bit,” said the inspector.
“The French girl heard the end of the conversation. Sally Finch was present earlier on before
she went out to post her letter. But the fact that those two girls were there automatically excludes
anybody else having been able to snoop, except for a very short period. Always with the exception
of Elizabeth Johnston, who could have heard everything through the partition wall if she’d been in
her bedroom, but it seems to be fairly clear that she was already in the common room when Sally
Finch went out to the post.”
“She did not remain in the common room all the time?”
“No, she went upstairs again at some period to fetch a book she had forgotten. As usual, nobody
can say when.”
“It might have been any of them,” said Mrs. Hubbard helplessly.
“As far as their statements go, yes—but we’ve got a little extra evidence.”
He took a small folded paper packet out of his pocket.
“What’s that?” demanded Mrs. Hubbard.
Sharpe smiled.
“A couple of hairs—I took them from between Patricia Lane’s fingers.”
“You mean that—”
There was a tap on the door.
“Come in,” said the inspector.
The door opened to admit Mr. Akibombo. He was smiling broadly, all over his black face.
“Please,” he said.
Inspector Sharpe said impatiently:
“Yes, Mr.—er—um, what is it?”
“I think, please, I have a statement to make. Of first-class importance to elucidation29 of sad and
tragic30 occurrence.”

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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 nervously tn6zFp     
adv.神情激动地，不安地
参考例句：
  • He bit his lip nervously,trying not to cry.他紧张地咬着唇，努力忍着不哭出来。
  • He paced nervously up and down on the platform.他在站台上情绪不安地走来走去。
2 inspector q6kxH     
n.检查员，监察员，视察员
参考例句：
  • The inspector was interested in everything pertaining to the school.视察员对有关学校的一切都感兴趣。
  • The inspector was shining a flashlight onto the tickets.查票员打着手电筒查看车票。
3 stammering 232ca7f6dbf756abab168ca65627c748     
v.结巴地说出( stammer的现在分词 )
参考例句：
  • He betrayed nervousness by stammering. 他说话结结巴巴说明他胆子小。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • \"Why,\" he said, actually stammering, \"how do you do?\" “哎呀，\"他说，真的有些结结巴巴，\"你好啊？” 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
4 narrative CFmxS     
n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的
参考例句：
  • He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
  • Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。
5 muddled cb3d0169d47a84e95c0dfa5c4d744221     
adj.混乱的；糊涂的；头脑昏昏然的v.弄乱，弄糟( muddle的过去式)；使糊涂；对付，混日子
参考例句：
  • He gets muddled when the teacher starts shouting. 老师一喊叫他就心烦意乱。
  • I got muddled up and took the wrong turning. 我稀里糊涂地拐错了弯。 来自《简明英汉词典》
6 flustered b7071533c424b7fbe8eb745856b8c537     
adj.慌张的；激动不安的v.使慌乱，使不安( fluster的过去式和过去分词)
参考例句：
  • The honking of horns flustered the boy. 汽车喇叭的叫声使男孩感到慌乱。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
  • She was so flustered that she forgot her reply. 她太紧张了，都忘记了该如何作答。 来自辞典例句
7 spoke XryyC     
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
参考例句：
  • They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
  • The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
8 constable wppzG     
n.(英国)警察，警官
参考例句：
  • The constable conducted the suspect to the police station.警官把嫌疑犯带到派出所。
  • The constable kept his temper,and would not be provoked.那警察压制着自己的怒气，不肯冒起火来。
9 surmise jHiz8     
v./n.猜想，推测
参考例句：
  • It turned out that my surmise was correct.结果表明我的推测没有错。
  • I surmise that he will take the job.我推测他会接受这份工作。
10 rumpled 86d497fd85370afd8a55db59ea16ef4a     
v.弄皱，使凌乱( rumple的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句：
  • She rumpled his hair playfully. 她顽皮地弄乱他的头发。
  • The bed was rumpled and strewn with phonograph records. 那张床上凌乱不堪，散放着一些唱片。 来自辞典例句
11 bent QQ8yD     
n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的
参考例句：
  • He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
  • We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。
12 gasp UfxzL     
n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说
参考例句：
  • She gave a gasp of surprise.她吃惊得大口喘气。
  • The enemy are at their last gasp.敌人在做垂死的挣扎。
13 slumped b010f9799fb8ebd413389b9083180d8d     
大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的过去式和过去分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下]
参考例句：
  • Sales have slumped this year. 今年销售量锐减。
  • The driver was slumped exhausted over the wheel. 司机伏在方向盘上，疲惫得睡着了。
14 huddled 39b87f9ca342d61fe478b5034beb4139     
挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式）
参考例句：
  • We huddled together for warmth. 我们挤在一块取暖。
  • We huddled together to keep warm. 我们挤在一起来保暖。
15 unnatural 5f2zAc     
adj.不自然的；反常的
参考例句：
  • Did her behaviour seem unnatural in any way?她有任何反常表现吗？
  • She has an unnatural smile on her face.她脸上挂着做作的微笑。
16 improvised tqczb9     
a.即席而作的,即兴的
参考例句：
  • He improvised a song about the football team's victory. 他即席创作了一首足球队胜利之歌。
  • We improvised a tent out of two blankets and some long poles. 我们用两条毛毯和几根长竿搭成一个临时帐蓬。
17 consolation WpbzC     
n.安慰，慰问
参考例句：
  • The children were a great consolation to me at that time.那时孩子们成了我的莫大安慰。
  • This news was of little consolation to us.这个消息对我们来说没有什么安慰。
18 reconstruction 3U6xb     
n.重建，再现，复原
参考例句：
  • The country faces a huge task of national reconstruction following the war.战后，该国面临着重建家园的艰巨任务。
  • In the period of reconstruction,technique decides everything.在重建时期，技术决定一切。
19 brutal bSFyb     
adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的
参考例句：
  • She has to face the brutal reality.她不得不去面对冷酷的现实。
  • They're brutal people behind their civilised veneer.他们表面上温文有礼，骨子里却是野蛮残忍。
20 soothingly soothingly     
adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地
参考例句：
  • The mother talked soothingly to her child. 母亲对自己的孩子安慰地说。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • He continued to talk quietly and soothingly to the girl until her frightened grip on his arm was relaxed. 他继续柔声安慰那姑娘，她那因恐惧而紧抓住他的手终于放松了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
21 perspiration c3UzD     
n.汗水；出汗
参考例句：
  • It is so hot that my clothes are wet with perspiration.天太热了，我的衣服被汗水湿透了。
  • The perspiration was running down my back.汗从我背上淌下来。
22 cocktails a8cac8f94e713cc85d516a6e94112418     
n.鸡尾酒( cocktail的名词复数 )；餐前开胃菜；混合物
参考例句：
  • Come about 4 o'clock. We'll have cocktails and grill steaks. 请四点钟左右来，我们喝鸡尾酒，吃烤牛排。 来自辞典例句
  • Cocktails were a nasty American habit. 喝鸡尾酒是讨厌的美国习惯。 来自辞典例句
23 noted 5n4zXc     
adj.著名的，知名的
参考例句：
  • The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
  • Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。
24 vouch nLszZ     
v.担保；断定；n.被担保者
参考例句：
  • They asked whether I was prepared to vouch for him.他们问我是否愿意为他作担保。
  • I can vouch for the fact that he is a good worker.我保证他是好员工。
25 sergeant REQzz     
n.警官，中士
参考例句：
  • His elder brother is a sergeant.他哥哥是个警官。
  • How many stripes are there on the sleeve of a sergeant?陆军中士的袖子上有多少条纹？
26 agog efayI     
adj.兴奋的，有强烈兴趣的； adv.渴望地
参考例句：
  • The children were all agog to hear the story.孩子们都渴望着要听这个故事。
  • The city was agog with rumors last night that the two had been executed.那两人已被处决的传言昨晚搞得全城沸沸扬扬。
27 plausible hBCyy     
adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的
参考例句：
  • His story sounded plausible.他说的那番话似乎是真实的。
  • Her story sounded perfectly plausible.她的说辞听起来言之有理。
28 finch TkRxS     
n.雀科鸣禽(如燕雀，金丝雀等)
参考例句：
  • This behaviour is commonly observed among several species of finch.这种行为常常可以在几种雀科鸣禽中看到。
  • In Australia,it is predominantly called the Gouldian Finch.在澳大利亚，它主要还是被称之为胡锦雀。
29 elucidation be201a6d0a3540baa2ace7c891b49f35     
n.说明，阐明
参考例句：
  • The advertising copy is the elucidation text,which must be written according to the formula of AIDA. 文案是说明文，应基本遵照AIDA公式来写作。 来自互联网
  • Fourth, a worm hole, elucidation space-time can stretch, compression, rent, also is deduced time-travel this idea. 第四，有了虫洞，就说明时空可以被拉伸、压缩、撕裂，也就推导出了时空旅行这个想法。 来自互联网
30 tragic inaw2     
adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的
参考例句：
  • The effect of the pollution on the beaches is absolutely tragic.污染海滩后果可悲。
  • Charles was a man doomed to tragic issues.查理是个注定不得善终的人。

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