黑麦奇案46
时间：2025-10-10 08:36:46
（单词翻译:单击）
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I
He leaned back in his chair and watched Miss Marple with fascinated
eyes. As Miss Marple had said, he was not surprised. His words were a
denial, not of probability, but of possibility. Lance Fortescue fitted the de-
scription: Miss Marple had outlined it well enough. But Inspector Neele
simply could not see how Lance could be the answer.
Miss Marple leaned forward in her chair and gently, persuasively2, and
rather in the manner of someone explaining the simple facts of arithmetic
to a small child, outlined her theory.
“He’s always been like that, you see. I mean, he’s always been bad. Bad
all through, although with it he’s always been attractive. Especially attract-
ive to women. He’s got a brilliant mind and he’ll take risks. He’s always
taken risks and because of his charm people have always believed the best
and not the worst about him. He came home in the summer to see his
father. I don’t believe for a moment that his father wrote to him or sent
for him—unless, of course, you’ve got actual evidence to that effect.” She
paused inquiringly.
Neele shook his head. “No,” he said, “I’ve no evidence of his father send-
ing for him. I’ve got a letter that Lance is supposed to have written to him
after being here. But Lance could quite easily have slipped that among his
father’s papers in the study here the day he arrived.”
“Sharp of him,” said Miss Marple, nodding her head. “Well, as I say, he
probably flew over here and attempted a reconciliation3 with his father,
but Mr. Fortescue wouldn’t have it. You see, Lance had recently got mar-
been supplementing in various dishonest ways, was not enough for him
anymore. He was very much in love with Pat (who is a dear, sweet girl)
and he wanted a respectable, settled life with her—nothing shifty. And
that, from his point of view, meant having a lot of money. When he was at
father mentioned them. Perhaps Adele did. He jumped to the conclusion
that MacKenzie’s daughter was established in the house and it occurred to
see, when he realized that he couldn’t get his father to do what he wanted,
may have realized that his father wasn’t—er, very well—and have feared
that by the time his father died there would have been a complete crash.”
“He knew about his father’s health all right,” said the inspector.
“Ah—that explains a good deal. Perhaps the coincidence of his father’s
the idea of the nursery rhyme. Make a crazy business of the whole thing—
and tie it up with that old revenge threat of the MacKenzies. Then, you see,
he could dispose of Adele, too, and that hundred thousand pounds going
out of the firm. But there would have to be a third character, the ‘maid in
the garden hanging up the clothes’— and I suppose that suggested the
whole wicked plan to him. An innocent accomplice9 whom he could silence
before she could talk. And that would give him what he wanted—a genu-
station just before five o’clock, which was the time when Gladys brought
the second tray into the hall. He came to the side door, saw her and
where the clotheslines were would only have taken three or four minutes.
Then he rang the front doorbell, was admitted to the house, and joined the
family for tea. After tea he went up to see Miss Ramsbottom. When he
came down, he slipped into the drawing room, found Adele alone there
drinking a last cup of tea and sat down by her on the sofa, and while he
was talking to her, he managed to slip the cyanide into her tea. It wouldn’t
be difficult, you know. A little piece of white stuff, like sugar. He might
have stretched out his hand to the sugar basin and taken a lump and ap-
parently dropped it into her cup. He’d laugh and say: ‘Look, I’ve dropped
more sugar into your tea.’ She’d say she didn’t mind, stir it and drink it. It
would be as easy and audacious as that. Yes, he’s an audacious fellow.”
Inspector Neele said slowly:
“It’s actually possible—yes. But I cannot see—really, Miss Marple, I can-
not see—what he stood to gain by it. Granted that unless old Fortescue
died the business would soon be on the rocks, is Lance’s share big enough
to cause him to plan three murders? I don’t think so. I really don’t think
so.”
“That is a little difficult,” admitted Miss Marple. “Yes, I agree with you.
That does present difficulties. I suppose …” She hesitated, looking at the in-
spector. “I suppose—I am so very ignorant in financial matters—but I sup-
pose it is really true that the Blackbird Mine is worthless?”
ingness to take the various speculative13 or worthless shares off Percival’s
hands. His parting words today in London that Percival had better get rid
of the Blackbird and its hoodoo. A gold mine. A worthless gold mine. But
perhaps the mine had not been worthless. And yet, somehow, that seemed
unlikely. Old Rex Fortescue was hardly likely to have made a mistake on
that point, although of course there might have been soundings recently.
Where was the mine? West Africa, Lance had said. Yes but somebody else
—was it Miss Ramsbottom—had said it was in East Africa. Had Lance been
deliberately14 misleading when he said West instead of East? Miss Ramsbot-
tom was old and forgetful, and yet she might have been right and not
Lance. East Africa. Lance had just come from East Africa. Had he perhaps
some recent knowledge?
Suddenly with a click another piece fitted into the inspector’s puzzle. Sit-
ting in the train, reading The Times. Uranium deposits found in Tanga-
nyika. Supposing that the uranium deposits were on the site of the old
Blackbird? That would explain everything. Lance had come to have know-
was a fortune to be grasped. An enormous fortune! He sighed. He looked
at Miss Marple.
“How do you think,” he asked reproachfully, “that I’m ever going to be
able to prove all this?”
Miss Marple nodded at him encouragingly, as an aunt might have en-
couraged a bright nephew who was going in for a scholarship exam.
“You’ll prove it,” she said. “You’re a very, very clever man, Inspector
Neele. I’ve seen that from the first. Now you know who it is you ought to
be able to get the evidence. At that holiday camp, for instance, they’ll re-
cognize his photograph. He’ll find it hard to explain why he stayed there
for a week calling himself Albert Evans.”
Yes, Inspector Neele thought, Lance Fortescue was brilliant and unscru-
pulous—but he was foolhardy, too. The risks he took were just a little too
great.
he looked at Miss Marple.
“It’s all pure assumption, you know,” he said.
“Yes—but you are sure, aren’t you?”
“I suppose so. After all, I’ve known his kind before.”
The old lady nodded.
“Yes—that matters so much—that’s really why I’m sure.”
Neele looked at her playfully.
“Because of your knowledge of criminals.”
“Oh no—of course not. Because of Pat—a dear girl—and the kind that al-
ways marries a bad lot—that’s really what drew my attention to him at the
start—”
“I may be sure—in my own mind,” said the inspector, “but there’s a lot
swear that—”
Miss Marple interrupted:
“And you’re quite right. But you’ve been thinking of the wrong person.
Go and talk to Mrs. Percy.”
点击
收听单词发音
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1
inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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persuasively
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| adv.口才好地；令人信服地 | |
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reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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pittance
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| n.微薄的薪水，少量 | |
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lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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scapegoat
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| n.替罪的羔羊，替人顶罪者；v.使…成为替罪羊 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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accomplice
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| n.从犯，帮凶，同谋 | |
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alibi
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| n.某人当时不在犯罪现场的申辩或证明；借口 | |
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beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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ruby
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| n.红宝石，红宝石色 | |
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