弄假成真1
时间：2025-03-03 03:20:57
（单词翻译:单击）
One
I
It was Miss Lemon, Poirot’s efficient secretary, who took the telephone call.
Laying aside her shorthand notebook, she raised the receiver and said without emphasis,
“Trafalgar 8137.”
Hercule Poirot leaned back in his upright chair and closed his eyes. His fingers beat a meditative1
soft tattoo2 on the edge of the table. In his head he continued to compose the polished periods of the
Placing her hand over the receiver, Miss Lemon asked in a low voice:
“Will you accept a personal call from Nassecombe, Devon?”
Poirot frowned. The place meant nothing to him.
“The name of the caller?” he demanded cautiously.
“Air raid?” she asked doubtingly. “Oh, yes—what was the last name again?”
Once more she turned to Hercule Poirot.
“Mrs. Ariadne Oliver.”
profile….
He rose and replaced Miss Lemon at the telephone.
“Hercule Poirot speaks,” he announced grandiloquently6.
“Is that Mr. Hercules Porrot speaking personally?” the suspicious voice of the telephone
operator demanded.
Poirot assured her that that was the case.
“You’re through to Mr. Porrot,” said the voice.
Its thin reedy accents were replaced by a magnificent booming contralto which caused Poirot
hastily to shift the receiver a couple of inches farther from his ear.
“M. Poirot, is that really you?” demanded Mrs. Oliver.
“Myself in person, Madame.”
“This is Mrs. Oliver. I don’t know if you’ll remember me—”
“But of course I remember you, Madame. Who could forget you?”
“Well, people do sometimes,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Quite often, in fact. I don’t think that I’ve got
a very distinctive7 personality. Or perhaps it’s because I’m always doing different things to my
hair. But all that’s neither here nor there. I hope I’m not interrupting you when you’re frightfully
busy?”
“Good gracious—I’m sure I don’t want to drive you out of your mind. The fact is, I need you.”
“Need me?”
“Yes, at once. Can you take an aeroplane?”
“I do not take aeroplanes. They make me sick.”
“They do me, too. Anyway, I don’t suppose it would be any quicker than the train really,
because I think the only airport near here is Exeter which is miles away. So come by train. Twelve
o’clock from Paddington to Nassecombe. You can do it nicely. You’ve got three-quarters of an
hour if my watch is right—though it isn’t usually.”
“But where are you, Madame? What is all this about?”
“Nasse House, Nassecombe. A car or taxi will meet you at the station at Nassecombe.”
“But why do you need me? What is all this about?” Poirot repeated frantically9.
“Telephones are in such awkward places,” said Mrs. Oliver. “This one’s in the hall…People
passing through and talking…I can’t really hear. But I’m expecting you. Everybody will be so
thrilled. Good-bye.”
There was a sharp click as the receiver was replaced. The line hummed gently.
With a baffled air of bewilderment, Poirot put back the receiver and murmured something under
his breath. Miss Lemon sat with her pencil poised11, incurious. She repeated in muted tones the final
phrase of dictation before the interruption.
“—allow me to assure you, my dear sir, that the hypothesis you have advanced….”
Poirot waved aside the advancement12 of the hypothesis.
“That was Mrs. Oliver,” he said. “Ariadne Oliver, the detective novelist. You may have read…”
But he stopped, remembering that Miss Lemon only read improving books and regarded such
once, in”—he glanced at the clock—“thirty-five minutes.”
Miss Lemon raised disapproving14 eyebrows.
“That will be running it rather fine,” she said. “For what reason?”
“You may well ask! She did not tell me.”
“Because,” said Hercule Poirot thoughtfully, “she was afraid of being overheard. Yes, she made
that quite clear.”
expect! Fancy thinking that you’d go rushing off on some wild goose chase like that! An important
man like you! I have always noticed that these artists and writers are very unbalanced—no sense
of proportion. Shall I telephone through a telegram: Regret unable leave London?”
Her hand went out to the telephone. Poirot’s voice arrested the gesture.
his voice. “Georges! A few necessities of toilet in my small valise. And quickly, very quickly, I
have a train to catch.”
II
The train, having done one hundred and eighty-odd miles of its two hundred and twelve miles
Nassecombe station. Only one person alighted, Hercule Poirot. He negotiated with care a yawning
gap between the step of the train and the platform and looked round him. At the far end of the train
a porter was busy inside a luggage compartment19. Poirot picked up his valise and walked back
along the platform to the exit. He gave up his ticket and walked out through the booking office.
“Mr. Hercule Poirot?” he inquired respectfully.
He took Poirot’s case from him and opened the door of the car. They drove away from the
station over the railway bridge and turned down a country lane which wound between high hedges
on either side. Presently the ground fell away on the right and disclosed a very beautiful river view
“The River Helm, sir,” he said. “With Dartmoor in the distance.”
It was clear that admiration23 was necessary. Poirot made the necessary noises, murmuring
girls passed the car, toiling25 slowly up the hill. They were carrying heavy rucksacks on their backs
and wore shorts, with bright coloured scarves tied over their heads.
constituted himself Poirot’s guide to Devon. “Hoodown Park. Mr. Fletcher’s place it used to be.
hundred a night, they do. They’re not allowed to stay longer than a couple of nights—then they’ve
got to move on. Both sexes and mostly foreigners.”
Poirot nodded absently. He was reflecting, not for the first time, that seen from the back, shorts
were becoming to very few of the female sex. He shut his eyes in pain. Why, oh why, must young
“They seem heavily laden,” he murmured.
“Yes, sir, and it’s a long pull from the station or the bus stop. Best part of two miles to
Hoodown Park.” He hesitated. “If you don’t object, sir, we could give them a lift?”
“By all means, by all means,” said Poirot benignantly. There was he in luxury in an almost
empty car and here were these two panting and perspiring30 young women weighed down with
heavy rucksacks and without the least idea how to dress themselves so as to appear attractive to
the other sex. The chauffeur started the car and came to a slow purring halt beside the two girls.
Their flushed and perspiring faces were raised hopefully.
Poirot opened the door and the girls climbed in.
“It is most kind, please,” said one of them, a fair girl with a foreign accent. “It is longer way
than I think, yes.”
out beneath her headscarf, merely nodded her head several times, flashed her teeth, and murmured,
Grazie. The fair girl continued to talk vivaciously32.
“I to England come for two week holiday. I come from Holland. I like England very much. I
have been Stratford Avon, Shakespeare Theatre and Warwick Castle. Then I have been Clovelly,
now I have seen Exeter Cathedral and Torquay—very nice—I come to famous beauty spot here
and tomorrow I cross river, go to Plymouth where discovery of New World was made from
Plymouth Hoe.”
“And you, signorina?” Poirot turned to the other girl. But she only smiled and shook her curls.
—so we talk in train. She is coming from near Milan and has relative in England married to
gentleman who keeps shop for much groceries. She has come with friend to Exeter yesterday, but
friend has eat veal34 ham pie not good from shop in Exeter and has to stay there sick. It is not good
in hot weather, the veal ham pie.”
At this point the chauffeur slowed down where the road forked. The girls got out, uttered thanks
in two languages and proceeded up the left-hand road. The chauffeur laid aside for a moment his
“It’s not only veal and ham pie—you want to be careful of Cornish pasties too. Put anything in
a pasty they will, holiday time!”
He restarted the car and drove down the right-hand road which shortly afterwards passed into
thick woods. He proceeded to give a final verdict on the occupants of Hoodown Park Youth
Hostel.
“Nice enough young women, some of ’em, at that hostel,” he said; “but it’s hard to get them to
understand that a gentleman’s place is private here. Always coming through our woods, they are,
and pretending that they don’t understand what you say to them.” He shook his head darkly.
They went on, down a steep hill through woods, then through big iron gates, and along a drive,
The chauffeur opened the door of the car as a tall black-haired butler appeared on the steps.
“Mr. Hercule Poirot?” murmured the latter.
“Yes.”
“Mrs. Oliver is expecting you, sir. You will find her down at the Battery. Allow me to show you
the way.”
Poirot was directed to a winding path that led along the wood with glimpses of the river below.
The path descended39 gradually until it came out at last on an open space, round in shape, with a low
battlemented parapet. On the parapet Mrs. Oliver was sitting.
She rose to meet him and several apples fell from her lap and rolled in all directions. Apples
“I can’t think why I always drop things,” said Mrs. Oliver somewhat indistinctly, since her
mouth was full of apple. “How are you, M. Poirot?”
“Très bien, chère Madame,” replied Poirot politely. “And you?”
Mrs. Oliver was looking somewhat different from when Poirot had last seen her, and the reason
lay, as she had already hinted over the telephone, in the fact that she had once more experimented
with her coiffure. The last time Poirot had seen her, she had been adopting a windswept effect.
Today, her hair, richly blued, was piled upward in a multiplicity of rather artificial little curls in a
pseudo Marquise style. The Marquise effect ended at her neck; the rest of her could have been
definitely labelled “country practical,” consisting of a violent yolk-of-egg rough tweed coat and
skirt and a rather bilious-looking mustard-coloured jumper.
“I knew you’d come,” said Mrs. Oliver cheerfully.
“Oh, yes, I did.”
“I still ask myself why I am here.”
“Well, I know the answer. Curiosity.”
Poirot looked at her and his eyes twinkled a little. “Your famous woman’s intuition,” he said,
“has, perhaps, for once not led you too far astray.”
away?”
not always then!”
Instead he said, looking round him:
“It is indeed a beautiful property that you have here.”
“This? But it doesn’t belong to me, M. Poirot. Did you think it did? Oh, no, it belongs to some
people called Stubbs.”
“Who are they?”
doing a job.”
“Ah, you are getting local colour for one of your chefs-d’oeuvre?”
“No, no. Just what I said. I’m doing a job. I’ve been engaged to arrange a murder.”
Poirot stared at her.
“Oh, not a real one,” said Mrs. Oliver reassuringly45. “There’s a big fête thing on tomorrow, and
as a kind of novelty there’s going to be a Murder Hunt. Arranged by me. Like a Treasure Hunt,
you see; only they’ve had a Treasure Hunt so often that they thought this would be a novelty. So
they offered me a very substantial fee to come down and think it up. Quite fun, really—rather a
change from the usual grim routine.”
“How does it work?”
“Well, there’ll be a Victim, of course. And Clues. And Suspects. All rather conventional—you
Half a crown to enter and you get shown the first Clue and you’ve got to find the Victim, and the
“Remarkable!” said Hercule Poirot.
“Actually,” said Mrs. Oliver ruefully, “it’s all much harder to arrange than you’d think. Because
you’ve got to allow for real people being quite intelligent, and in my books they needn’t be.”
“And it is to assist you in arranging this that you have sent for me?”
“Oh, no,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Of course not! I’ve done all that. Everything’s all set for tomorrow.
No, I wanted you for quite another reason.”
“What reason?”
Mrs. Oliver’s hands strayed upward to her head. She was just about to sweep them frenziedly
through her hair in the old familiar gesture when she remembered the intricacy of her hairdo.
“I dare say I’m a fool,” she said. “But I think there’s something wrong.”
点击
收听单词发音
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1
meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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2
tattoo
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| n.纹身，(皮肤上的)刺花纹；vt.刺花纹于 | |
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3
dictating
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的现在分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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4
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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5
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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6
grandiloquently
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7
distinctive
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| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
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8
derange
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| v.使精神错乱 | |
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9
frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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10
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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11
poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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12
advancement
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| n.前进，促进，提升 | |
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13
fictional
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| adj.小说的，虚构的 | |
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14
disapproving
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| adj.不满的，反对的v.不赞成( disapprove的现在分词 ) | |
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15
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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16
bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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17
tout
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| v.推销，招徕；兜售；吹捧，劝诱 | |
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18
puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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19
compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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20
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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21
chauffeur
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| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
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22
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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23
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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24
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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25
toiling
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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26
hostel
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| n.（学生）宿舍，招待所 | |
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27
crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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28
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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29
thighs
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| n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿 | |
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30
perspiring
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| v.出汗，流汗( perspire的现在分词 ) | |
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31
chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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32
vivaciously
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| adv.快活地；活泼地；愉快地 | |
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33
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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34
veal
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| n.小牛肉 | |
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35
aloofness
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| 超然态度 | |
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36
trespass
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| n./v.侵犯，闯入私人领地 | |
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37
trespassing
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| [法]非法入侵 | |
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38
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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39
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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40
motif
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| n.(图案的)基本花纹，(衣服的)花边；主题 | |
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41
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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42
spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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43
gallantly
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| adv. 漂亮地，勇敢地，献殷勤地 | |
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44
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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45
reassuringly
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| ad.安心，可靠 | |
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46
blackmailer
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| 敲诈者，勒索者 | |
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47
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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48
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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49
outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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50
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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51
tugging
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| n.牵引感v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的现在分词 ) | |
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52
lobes
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| n.耳垂( lobe的名词复数 )；（器官的）叶；肺叶；脑叶 | |
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