伯特伦旅馆之谜34
时间：2026-01-04 08:03:23
（单词翻译:单击）
II
Canon Pennyfather came through the swing doors into the hall of Ber-
tram’s Hotel. He frowned slightly, wondering what it was that seemed a
little different about Bertram’s today. Perhaps it had been painted or done
up in some way? He shook his head. That was not it, but there was some-
thing. It did not occur to him that it was the difference between a six foot
commissionaire with blue eyes and dark hair and a five foot seven com-
missionaire with sloping shoulders, freckles and a sandy thatch of hair
bulging out under his commissionaire’s cap. He just knew something was
different. In his usual vague way he wandered up to the desk. Miss Gor-
ringe was there and greeted him.
“Canon Pennyfather. How nice to see you. Have you come to fetch your
baggage? It’s all ready for you. If you’d only let us know we could have
sent it to you to any address you like.”
“Thank you,” said Canon Pennyfather, “thank you very much. You’re al-
ways most kind, Miss Gorringe. But as I had to come up to London anyway
today I thought I might as well call for it.”
“We were so worried about you,” said Miss Gorringe. “Being missing,
you know. Nobody able to find you. You had a car accident, I hear?”
“Yes,” said Canon Pennyfather. “Yes. People drive much too fast
nowadays. Most dangerous. Not that I can remember much about it. It af-
fected my head. Concussion, the doctor says. Oh well, as one is getting on
in life, one’s memory—” He shook his head sadly. “And how are you, Miss
Gorringe?”
“Oh, I’m very well,” said Miss Gorringe.
At that moment it struck Canon Pennyfather that Miss Gorringe also was
different. He peeered at her, trying to analyse where the difference lay.
Her hair? That was the same as usual. Perhaps even a little frizzier. Black
dress, large locket, cameo brooch. All there as usual. But there was a dif-
ference. Was she perhaps a little thinner? Or was it — yes, surely, she
looked worried. It was not often that Canon Pennyfather noticed whether
people looked worried, he was not the kind of man who noticed emotion
in the faces of others, but it struck him today, perhaps because Miss Gor-
ringe had so invariably presented exactly the same countenance to guests
for so many years.
“You’ve not been ill, I hope?” he asked solicitously. “You look a little
thinner.”
“Well, we’ve had a good deal of worry, Canon Pennyfather.”
“Indeed. Indeed. I’m sorry to hear it. Not due to my disappearance, I
hope?”
“Oh no,” said Miss Gorringe. “We were worried, of course, about that,
but as soon as we heard that you were all right—” She broke off and said,
“No. No—it’s this—well, perhaps you haven’t read about it in the papers.
Gorman, our outside porter, got killed.”
“Oh yes,” said Canon Pennyfather. “I remember now. I did see it men-
tioned in the paper—that you had had a murder here.”
Miss Gorringe shuddered at this blunt mention of the word murder. The
shudder went all up her black dress.
“Terrible,” she said, “terrible. Such a thing has never happened at Ber-
tram’s. I mean, we’re not the sort of hotel where murders happen.”
“No, no, indeed,” said Canon Pennyfather quickly. “I’m sure you’re not. I
mean it would never have occurred to me that anything like that could
happen here.”
“Of course it wasn’t inside the hotel,” said Miss Gorringe, cheering up a
little as this aspect of the affair struck her. “It was outside in the street.”
“So really nothing to do with you at all,” said the Canon, helpfully.
That apparently was not quite the right thing to say.
“But it was connected with Bertram’s. We had to have the police here
questioning people, since it was our commissionaire who was shot.”
“So that’s a new man you have outside. D’you know, I thought somehow
things looked a little strange.”
“Yes, I don’t know that he’s very satisfactory. I mean, not quite the style
we’re used to here. But of course we had to get someone quickly.”
“I remember all about it now,” said Canon Pennyfather, assembling
some rather dim memories of what he had read in the paper a week ago.
“But I thought it was a girl who was shot.”
“You mean Lady Sedgwick’s daughter? I expect you remember seeing
her here with her guardian, Colonel Luscombe. Apparently she was at-
tacked by someone in the fog. I expect they wanted to snatch her bag. Any-
way they fired a shot at her and then Gorman, who of course had been a
soldier and was a man with a lot of presence of mind, rushed down, got in
front of her and got shot himself, poor fellow.”
“Very sad, very sad,” said the Canon, shaking his head.
“It makes everything terribly difficult,” complained Miss Gorringe. “I
mean, the police constantly in and out. I suppose that’s to be expected, but
we don’t like it here, though I must say Chief-Inspector Davy and Sergeant
Wadell are very respectable-looking. Plain clothes, and very good style,
not the sort with boots and mackintoshes like one sees on films. Almost
like one of us.”
“Er—yes,” said Canon Pennyfather.
“Did you have to go to hospital?” inquired Miss Gorringe.
“No,” said the Canon, “some very nice people, really good Samaritans—a
market gardener, I believe—picked me up and his wife nursed me back to
health. I’m most grateful, most grateful. It is refreshing to find that there is
still human kindness in the world. Don’t you think so?”
Miss Gorringe said she thought it was very refreshing. “After all one
reads about the increase in crime,” she added, “all those dreadful young
men and girls holding up banks and robbing trains and ambushing
people.” She looked up and said, “There’s Chief-Inspector Davy coming
down the stairs now. I think he wants to speak to you.”
“I don’t know why he should want to speak to me,” said Canon Penny-
father, puzzled. “He’s already been to see me, you know,” he said, “at
Chadminster. He was very disappointed, I think, that I couldn’t tell him
anything useful.”
“You couldn’t?”
The Canon shook his head sorrowfully.
“I couldn’t remember. The accident took place somewhere near a place
called Bedhampton and really I don’t understand what I can have been do-
ing there. The Chief- Inspector kept asking me why I was there and I
couldn’t tell him. Very odd, isn’t it? He seemed to think I’d been driving a
car from somewhere near a railway station to a vicarage.”
“That sounds very possible,” said Miss Gorringe.
“It doesn’t seem possible at all,” said Canon Pennyfather. “I mean, why
should I be driving about in a part of the world that I don’t really know?”
Chief-Inspector Davy had come up to them.
“So here you are, Canon Pennyfather,” he said. “Feeling quite yourself
again?”
“Oh, I feel quite well now,” said the Canon, “but rather inclined to have
headaches still. And I’ve been told not to do too much. But I still don’t
seem to remember what I ought to remember and the doctor says it may
never come back.”
“Oh well,” said Chief-Inspector Davy, “we mustn’t give up hope.” He led
the Canon away from the desk. “There’s a little experiment I want you to
try,” he said. “You don’t mind helping me, do you?”
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