命案目睹记7
时间：2025-10-20 07:15:22
（单词翻译:单击）
III
“Maps,” said his mother, Griselda, who still, although she had a grown-up
son, looked strangely young and blooming to be inhabiting the shabby old
vicarage. “What does she want with maps? I mean, what does she want
them for?”
“I don’t know,” said young Leonard, “I don’t think she said exactly.”
“I wonder now…” said Griselda. “It seems very fishy to me… At her age
the old pet ought to give up that sort of thing.”
Leonard asked what sort of thing, and Griselda said elusively:
“Oh, poking her nose into things. Why maps, I wonder?”
In due course Miss Marple received a letter from her great- nephew
David West. It ran affectionately:
Dear Aunt Jane,— Now what are you up to? I’ve got the in-
formation you wanted. There are only two trains that can
possibly apply—the 4:33 and the 5 o’clock. The former is a
slow train and stops at Haling Broadway, Barwell Heath,
Brackhampton and then stations to Market Basing. The 5
o’clock is the Welsh express for Cardiff, Newport and
Swansea. The former might be overtaken somewhere by
the 4:50, although it is due in Brackhampton five minutes
earlier and the latter passes the 4:50 just before Brack-
hampton.
In all this do I smell some village scandal of a fruity char-
acter? Did you, returning from a shopping spree in town
by the 4:50, observe in a passing train the mayor’s wife be-
ing embraced by the Sanitary Inspector? But why does it
matter which train it was? A weekend at Porthcawl per-
haps? Thank you for the pullover. Just what I wanted.
How’s the garden? Not very active this time of year, I
should imagine.
Yours ever,
David
Miss Marple smiled a little, then considered the information thus presen-
ted to her. Mrs. McGillicuddy had said definitely that the carriage had not
been a corridor one. Therefore—not the Swansea express. The 4:33 was
indicated.
Also some more travelling seemed unavoidable. Miss Marple sighed, but
made her plans.
She went up to London as before on the 12:15, but this time returned not
by the 4:50, but by the 4:33 as far as Brackhampton. The journey was un-
eventful, but she registered certain details. The train was not crowded—
4:33 was before the evening rush hour. Of the first-class carriages only one
had an occupant—a very old gentleman reading the New Statesman. Miss
Marple travelled in an empty compartment and at the two stops, Haling
Broadway and Barwell Heath, leaned out of the window to observe pas-
sengers entering and leaving the train. A small number of third-class pas-
sengers got in at Haling Broadway. At Barwell Heath several third-class
passengers got out. Nobody entered or left a first-class carriage except the
old gentleman carrying his New Statesman.
As the train neared Brackhampton, sweeping around a curve of line,
Miss Marple rose to her feet and stood experimentally with her back to the
window over which she had drawn down the blind.
Yes, she decided, the impetus of the sudden curving of the line and the
slackening of speed did throw one off one’s balance back against the win-
dow and the blind might, in consequence, very easily fly up. She peered
out into the night. It was lighter than it had been when Mrs. McGillicuddy
had made the same journey—only just dark, but there was little to see. For
observation she must make a daylight journey.
On the next day she went up by the early morning train, purchased four
linen pillow-cases (tut-tutting at the price!) so as to combine investigation
with the provision of household necessities, and returned by a train leav-
ing Paddington at twelve fifteen. Again she was alone in a first-class car-
riage. “This taxation,” thought Miss Marple, “that’s what it is. No one can
afford to travel first class except business men in the rush hours. I sup-
pose because they can charge it to expenses.”
About a quarter of an hour before the train was due at Brackhampton,
Miss Marple got out the map with which Leonard had supplied her and
began to observe the country-side. She had studied the map very carefully
beforehand, and after noting the name of a station they passed through,
she was soon able to identify where she was just as the train began to
slacken for a curve. It was a very considerable curve indeed. Miss Marple,
her nose glued to the window, studied the ground beneath her (the train
was running on a fairly high embankment) with close attention. She di-
vided her attention between the country outside and the map until the
train finally ran into Brackhampton.
That night she wrote and posted a letter addressed to Miss Florence Hill,
4 Madison Road, Brackhampton… On the following morning, going to the
County library, she studied a Brackhampton directory and gazetteer, and
a County history.
Nothing so far had contradicted the very faint and sketchy idea that had
come to her. What she had imagined was possible. She would go no fur-
ther than that.
But the next step involved action—a good deal of action—the kind of ac-
tion for which she, herself, was physically unfit. If her theory were to be
definitely proved or disproved, she must at this point have help from
some other source. The question was—who? Miss Marple reviewed vari-
ous names and possibilities rejecting them all with a vexed shake of the
head. The intelligent people on whose intelligence she could rely were all
far too busy. Not only had they all got jobs of varying importance, their
leisure hours were usually apportioned long beforehand. The unintelli-
gent who had time on their hands were simply, Miss Marple decided, no
good.
She pondered in growing vexation and perplexity.
Then suddenly her forehead cleared. She ejaculated aloud a name.
“Of course!” said Miss Marple. “Lucy Eyelesbarrow!”
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