借镜杀人38

时间：2025-10-10 07:15:12

（单词翻译:单击）

Twenty-one
Inspector1 Curry2 said rather impatiently:
“Yes, Miss Marple?”
“Could we, do you think, go into the Great Hall?”
Inspector Curry looked faintly surprised.
“Is that your idea of privacy? Surely in here—”
He looked round the study.
“It’s not privacy I’m thinking of so much. It’s something I want to show
you. Something Alex Restarick made me see.”
Inspector Curry, stifling3 a sigh, got up and followed Miss Marple.
“Somebody has been talking to you?” he suggested hopefully.
“No,” said Miss Marple. “It’s not a question of what people have said. It’s
really a question of conjuring4 tricks. They do it with mirrors, you know—
that sort of thing—if you understand me.”
Inspector Curry did not understand. He stared and wondered if Miss
Marple was quite right in the head.
Miss Marple took up her stand and beckoned5 the Inspector to stand be-
side her.
“I want you to think of this place as a stage set, Inspector. As it was on
the night Christian6 Gulbrandsen was killed. You’re here in the audience
looking at the people on the stage. Mrs. Serrocold and myself and Mrs.
Strete and Gina and Stephen—and just like on the stage, there are en-
trances and exits and the characters go out to different places. Only you
don’t think when you’re in the audience where they are really going to.
They go out ‘to the front door’ or ‘to the kitchen’ and when the door opens
you see a little bit of painted backcloth. But really of course they go out to
the wings—or the back of the stage with carpenters and electricians, and
other characters waiting to come on—they go out—to a different world.”
“I don’t quite see, Miss Marple—”
“Oh, I know—I daresay it sounds very silly—but if you think of this as a
play and the scene is ‘the Great Hall at Stonygates’—what exactly is behind
the scene?—I mean—what is backstage? The terrace—isn’t it?—the terrace
and a lot of windows opening onto it.
“And that, you see, is how the conjuring trick was done. It was the trick
of the Lady Sawn in Half that made me think of it.”
“The Lady Sawn in Half?” Inspector Curry was now quite sure that Miss
Marple was a mental case.
“A most thrilling conjuring trick. You must have seen it—only not really
one girl but two girls. The head of one and the feet of the other. It looks
like one person and is really two. And so I thought it could just as well be
the other way about. Two people could be really one person.”
“Two people really one?” Inspector Curry looked desperate.
“Yes. Not for long. How long did your constable7 take in the park to run
to this house and back? Two minutes and forty-five seconds, wasn’t it?
This would be less than that. Well under two minutes.”
“What was under two minutes?”
“The conjuring trick. The trick when it wasn’t two people but one per-
son. In there—in the study. We’re only looking at the visible part of the
stage. Behind the scenes, there is the terrace and a row of windows. So easy
when there are two people in the study to open the study window, get out,
run along the terrace (those footsteps Alex heard), in at the side door,
shoot Christian Gulbrandsen and run back, and during that time, the other
person in the study does both voices so that we’re all quite sure there are
two people in there. And so there were most of the time, but not for that
little period of under—two minutes.”
Inspector Curry found his breath and his voice.
“Do you mean that it was Edgar Lawson who ran along the terrace and
shot Gulbrandsen? Edgar Lawson who poisoned Mrs. Serrocold?”
“But you see, Inspector, no one has been poisoning Mrs. Serrocold at all.
That’s where the misdirection comes in. Someone very cleverly used the
fact that Mrs. Serrocold’s sufferings from arthritis8 were not unlike the
symptoms of arsenic9 poisoning. It’s the old conjurer’s trick of forcing a
card on you. Quite easy to add arsenic to a bottle of tonic—quite easy to
add a few lines to a typewritten letter. But the real reason for Mr. Gul-
brandsen’s coming here was the most likely reason—something to do with
the Gulbrandsen Trust. Money, in fact. Suppose that there had been em-
bezzlement — embezzlement10 on a very big scale — you see where that
points? To just one person—”
“Lewis Serrocold?”
“Lewis Serrocold….”

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1 inspector q6kxH     
n.检查员，监察员，视察员
参考例句：
  • The inspector was interested in everything pertaining to the school.视察员对有关学校的一切都感兴趣。
  • The inspector was shining a flashlight onto the tickets.查票员打着手电筒查看车票。
2 curry xnozh     
n.咖哩粉，咖哩饭菜；v.用咖哩粉调味，用马栉梳，制革
参考例句：
  • Rice makes an excellent complement to a curry dish.有咖喱的菜配米饭最棒。
  • Add a teaspoonful of curry powder.加一茶匙咖喱粉。
3 stifling dhxz7C     
a.令人窒息的
参考例句：
  • The weather is stifling. It looks like rain. 今天太闷热，光景是要下雨。
  • We were stifling in that hot room with all the windows closed. 我们在那间关着窗户的热屋子里，简直透不过气来。
4 conjuring IYdyC     
n.魔术
参考例句：
  • Paul's very good at conjuring. 保罗很会变戏法。
  • The entertainer didn't fool us with his conjuring. 那个艺人变的戏法没有骗到我们。
5 beckoned b70f83e57673dfe30be1c577dd8520bc     
v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句：
  • He beckoned to the waiter to bring the bill. 他招手示意服务生把账单送过来。
  • The seated figure in the corner beckoned me over. 那个坐在角落里的人向我招手让我过去。 来自《简明英汉词典》
6 Christian KVByl     
adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒
参考例句：
  • They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
  • His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。
7 constable wppzG     
n.(英国)警察，警官
参考例句：
  • The constable conducted the suspect to the police station.警官把嫌疑犯带到派出所。
  • The constable kept his temper,and would not be provoked.那警察压制着自己的怒气，不肯冒起火来。
8 arthritis XeyyE     
n.关节炎
参考例句：
  • Rheumatoid arthritis has also been linked with the virus.风湿性关节炎也与这种病毒有关。
  • He spent three months in the hospital with acute rheumatic arthritis.他患急性风湿性关节炎，在医院住了三个月。
9 arsenic 2vSz4     
n.砒霜，砷；adj.砷的
参考例句：
  • His wife poisoned him with arsenic.他的妻子用砒霜把他毒死了。
  • Arsenic is a poison.砒霜是毒药。
10 embezzlement RqoxY     
n.盗用，贪污
参考例句：
  • He was accused of graft and embezzlement and was chained and thrown into prison.他因被指控贪污盗窃而锒铛入狱。
  • The judge sent him to prison for embezzlement of funds.法官因他盗用公款将其送入监牢。

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