命案目睹记9
时间：2025-10-20 07:18:00
（单词翻译:单击）
II
Driving her own small car, Lucy Eyelesbarrow drove through an imposing
pair of vast iron gates. Just inside them was what had originally been a
small lodge which now seemed completely derelict, whether through war
damage, or merely through neglect, it was difficult to be sure. A long wind-
ing drive led through large gloomy clumps of rhododendrons up to the
house. Lucy caught her breath in a slight gasp when she saw the house
which was a kind of miniature Windsor Castle. The stone steps in front of
the door could have done with attention and the gravel sweep was green
with neglected weeds.
She pulled an old-fashioned wrought-iron bell, and its clamour sounded
echoing away inside. A slatternly woman, wiping her hands on her apron,
opened the door and looked at her suspiciously.
“Expected, aren’t you?” she said. “Miss Somethingbarrow, she told me.”
“Quite right,” said Lucy.
The house was desperately cold inside. Her guide led her along a dark
hall and opened a door on the right. Rather to Lucy’s surprise, it was quite
a pleasant sitting room, with books and chintz-covered chairs.
“I’ll tell her,” said the woman, and went away shutting the door after
having given Lucy a look of profound disfavour.
After a few minutes the door opened again. From the first moment Lucy
decided that she liked Emma Crackenthorpe.
She was a middle-aged woman with no very outstanding characteristics,
neither good-looking nor plain, sensibly dressed in tweeds and pullover,
with dark hair swept back from her forehead, steady hazel eyes and a
very pleasant voice.
She said: “Miss Eyelesbarrow?” and held out her hand.
Then she looked doubtful.
“I wonder,” she said, “if this post is really what you’re looking for? I
don’t want a housekeeper, you know, to supervise things. I want someone
to do the work.”
Lucy said that that was what most people needed.
Emma Crackenthorpe said apologetically:
“So many people, you know, seem to think that just a little light dusting
will answer the case—but I can do all the light dusting myself.”
“I quite understand,” said Lucy. “You want cooking and washing-up, and
housework and stoking the boiler. That’s all right. That’s what I do. I’m not
at all afraid of work.”
“It’s a big house, I’m afraid, and inconvenient. Of course we only live in
a portion of it—my father and myself, that is. He is rather an invalid. We
live quite quietly, and there is an Aga stove. I have several brothers, but
they are not here very often. Two women come in, a Mrs. Kidder in the
morning, and Mrs. Hart three days a week to do brasses and things like
that. You have your own car?”
“Yes. It can stand out in the open if there’s nowhere to put it. It’s used to
it.”
“Oh, there are any amount of old stables. There’s no trouble about that.”
She frowned a moment, then said, “Eyelesbarrow — rather an unusual
name. Some friends of mine were telling me about a Lucy Eyelesbarrow—
the Kennedys?”
“Yes. I was with them in North Devon when Mrs. Kennedy was having a
baby.”
Emma Crackenthorpe smiled.
“I know they said they’d never had such a wonderful time as when you
were there seeing to everything. But I had the idea that you were terribly
expensive. The sum I mentioned—”
“That’s quite all right,” said Lucy. “I want particularly, you see, to be
near Brackhampton. I have an elderly aunt in a critical state of health and
I want to be within easy distance of her. That’s why the salary is a second-
ary consideration. I can’t afford to do nothing. If I could be sure of having
some time off most days?”
“Oh, of course. Every afternoon, till six, if you like?”
“That seems perfect.”
Miss Crackenthorpe hesitated a moment before saying: “My father is
elderly and a little—difficult sometimes. He is very keen on economy, and
he says things sometimes that upset people. I wouldn’t like—”
Lucy broke in quickly:
“I’m quite used to elderly people, of all kinds,” she said. “I always man-
age to get on well with them.” Emma Crackenthorpe looked relieved.
“Trouble with father!” diagnosed Lucy. “I bet he’s an old tartar.”
She was apportioned a large gloomy bedroom which a small electric
heater did its inadequate best to warm, and was shown round the house, a
vast uncomfortable mansion. As they passed a door in the hall a voice
roared out:
“That you, Emma? Got the new girl there? Bring her in. I want to look at
her.”
Emma flushed, glanced at Lucy apologetically.
The two women entered the room. It was richly upholstered in dark vel-
vet, the narrow windows let in very little light, and it was full of heavy
mahogany Victorian furniture.
Old Mr. Crackenthorpe was stretched out in an invalid chair, a silver-
headed stick by his side.
He was a big gaunt man, his flesh hanging in loose folds. He had a face
rather like a bulldog, with a pugnacious chin. He had thick dark hair
flecked with grey, and small suspicious eyes.
“Let’s have a look at you, young lady.”
Lucy advanced, composed and smiling.
“There’s just one thing you’d better understand straight away. Just be-
cause we live in a big house doesn’t mean we’re rich. We’re not rich. We
live simply—do you hear?—simply! No good coming here with a lot of
high-falutin ideas. Cod’s as good a fish as turbot any day, and don’t you
forget it. I don’t stand for waste. I live here because my father built the
house and I like it. After I’m dead they can sell it up if they want to—and I
expect they will want to. No sense of family. This house is well built—it’s
solid, and we’ve got our own land around us. Keeps us private. It would
bring in a lot if sold for building land but not while I’m alive. You won’t
get me out of here until you take me out feet first.”
He glared at Lucy.
“Your home is your castle,” said Lucy.
“Laughing at me?”
“Of course not. I think it’s very exciting to have a real country place all
surrounded by town.”
“Quite so. Can’t see another house from here, can you? Fields with cows
in them—right in the middle of Brackhampton. You hear the traffic a bit
when the wind’s that way—but otherwise it’s still country.”
He added, without pause or change of tone, to his daughter:
“Ring up that damn’ fool of a doctor. Tell him that last medicine’s no
good at all.”
Lucy and Emma retired. He shouted after them:
“And don’t let that damned woman who sniffs dust in here. She’s disar-
ranged all my books.”
Lucy asked:
“Has Mr. Crackenthorpe been an invalid long?”
Emma said, rather evasively:
“Oh, for years now… This is the kitchen.”
The kitchen was enormous. A vast kitchen range stood cold and neglec-
ted. An Aga stood demurely beside it.
Lucy asked times of meals and inspected the larder. Then she said
cheerfully to Emma Crackenthorpe:
“I know everything now. Don’t bother. Leave it all to me.”
Emma Crackenthorpe heaved a sigh of relief as she went up to bed that
night.
“The Kennedys were quite right,” she said. “She’s wonderful.”
Lucy rose at six the next morning. She did the house, prepared veget-
ables, assembled, cooked and served breakfast. With Mrs. Kidder she
made the beds and at eleven o’clock they sat down to strong tea and bis-
cuits in the kitchen. Mollified by the fact that Lucy “had no airs about her,”
and also by the strength and sweetness of the tea, Mrs. Kidder relaxed into
gossip. She was a small spare woman with a sharp eye and tight lips.
“Regular old skinflint he is. What she has to put up with! All the same,
she’s not what I call down-trodden. Can hold her own all right when she
has to. When the gentlemen come down she sees to it there’s something
decent to eat.”
“The gentlemen?”
“Yes. Big family it was. The eldest, Mr. Edmund, he was killed in the
war. Then there’s Mr. Cedric, he lives abroad somewhere. He’s not mar-
ried. Paints pictures in foreign parts. Mr. Harold’s in the City, lives in Lon-
don—married an earl’s daughter. Then there’s Mr. Alfred, he’s got a nice
way with him, but he’s a bit of a black-sheep, been in trouble once or twice
—and there’s Miss Edith’s husband, Mr. Bryan, ever so nice, he is—she
died some years ago, but he’s always stayed one of the family, and there’s
Master Alexander, Miss Edith’s little boy. He’s at school, comes here for
part of the holidays always; Miss Emma’s terribly set on him.”
Lucy digested all this information, continuing to press tea on her in-
formant. Finally, reluctantly, Mrs. Kidder rose to her feet.
“Seem to have got along a treat, we do, this morning,” she said wonder-
ingly. “Want me to give you a hand with the potatoes, dear?”
“They’re all done ready.”
“Well, you are a one for getting on with things! I might as well be getting
along myself as there doesn’t seem anything else to do.”
Mrs. Kidder departed and Lucy, with time on her hands, scrubbed the
kitchen table which she had been longing to do, but which she had put off
so as not to offend Mrs. Kidder whose job it properly was. Then she
cleaned the silver till it shone radiantly. She cooked lunch, cleared it away,
washed it up, and at two-thirty was ready to start exploration. She had set
out the tea things ready on a tray, with sandwiches and bread and butter
covered with a damp napkin to keep them moist.
She strolled round the gardens which would be the normal thing to do.
The kitchen garden was sketchily cultivated with a few vegetables. The
hot-houses were in ruins. The paths everywhere were overgrown with
weeds. A herbaceous border near the house was the only thing that
showed free of weeds and in good condition and Lucy suspected that that
had been Emma’s hand. The gardener was a very old man, somewhat
deaf, who was only making a show of working. Lucy spoke to him pleas-
antly. He lived in a cottage adjacent to the big stableyard.
Leading out of the stableyard a back drive led through the park which
was fenced off on either side of it, and under a railway arch into a small
back lane.
Every few minutes a train thundered along the main line over the rail-
way arch. Lucy watched the trains as they slackened speed going round
the sharp curve that encircled the Crackenthorpe property. She passed un-
der the railway arch and out into the lane. It seemed a little-used track. On
the one side was the railway embankment, on the other was a high wall
which enclosed some tall factory buildings. Lucy followed the lane until it
came out into a street of small houses. She could hear a short distance
away the busy hum of main road traffic. She glanced at her watch. A wo-
man came out of a house nearby and Lucy stopped her.
“Excuse me, can you tell me if there is a public telephone near here?”
“Post office just at the corner of the road.”
Lucy thanked her and walked along until she came to the Post Office
which was a combination shop and post office. There was a telephone box
at one side. Lucy went into it and made a call. She asked to speak to Miss
Marple. A woman’s voice spoke in a sharp bark.
“She’s resting. And I’m not going to disturb her!! She needs her rest—
she’s an old lady. Who shall I say called?”
“Miss Eyelesbarrow. There’s no need to disturb her. Just tell her that I’ve
arrived and everything is going on well and that I’ll let her know when
I’ve any news.”
She replaced the receiver and made her way back to Rutherford Hall.
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