顺水推舟41
时间：2025-01-30 17:36:02
（单词翻译:单击）
Twelve
several shopping bags with her and came up to him with a breathless eagerness of manner.
“So terrible about poor Major Porter,” she said. “I can’t help feeling that his outlook on
life must have been very materialistic2. Army life, you know. Very narrowing, and though he had
spent a good deal of his life in India, I’m afraid he never took advantage of the spiritual
opportunities. It would be all pukka and chota hazri and tiffin and pigsticking—the narrow Army
round. To think that he might have sat as a chela at the feet of some guru! Ah, the missed
opportunities, M. Poirot, how sad they are!”
Aunt Kathie shook her head and relaxed her grip on one of the shopping bags. A depressed-
looking bit of cod3 slipped out and slithered into the gutter4. Poirot retrieved5 it and in her agitation6
along the High Street.
“Thank you so much, M. Poirot.” Aunt Kathie grasped the cod. He ran after the golden
syrup. “Oh, thank you—so clumsy of me—but really I have been so upset. That unfortunate man
—yes, it is sticky, but really I don’t like to use your clean handkerchief. Well, it’s very kind of
you—as I was saying, in life we are in death—and in death we are in life—I should never be
surprised to see the astral body of any of my dear friends who have passed over. One might, you
know, just pass them in the street. Why—only the other night I—”
—yes?”
“Astral bodies,” said Aunt Kathie. “I asked, you know, for twopence—because I only had
halfpennies. But I thought at the time the face was familiar—only I couldn’t place it. I still
can’t—but I think now it must be someone who has Passed Over—perhaps some time ago—so
that my remembrance was very uncertain. It is wonderful the way people are sent to one in one’s
need—even if it’s only a matter of pennies for telephones. Oh, dear, quite a queue at Peacocks—
they must have got either trifle or Swiss roll! I hope I’m not too late!”
grim-faced women outside the confectioner’s shop.
towards the White House.
He wanted very much to have a talk with Lynn Marchmont, and he suspected that Lynn
It was a lovely morning—one of those summer mornings in spring that have a freshness denied
to a real summer’s day.
hillside above Furrowbank. Charles Trenton had come that way from the station on the Friday
before his death. On his way down the hill, he had met Rosaleen Cloade coming up. He had not
recognized her, which was not surprising since he was not Robert Underhay, and she, naturally,
had not recognized him for the same reason. But she had sworn when shown the body that she had
not even glanced at the face of the man she had passed on the footpath? If so, what had she been
thinking about? Had she, by any chance, been thinking of Rowley Cloade?
Poirot turned along the small side road which led to the White House. The garden of the White
centre of the lawn was a big old gnarled apple tree. Under it, stretched out in a deck chair, was
Lynn Marchmont.
“You did startle me, M. Poirot. I didn’t hear you coming across the grass. So you are still
here—in Warmsley Vale?”
“I am still here—yes.”
“Why?”
“It is a pleasant out-of-the-world spot where one can relax. I relax.”
“I’m glad you are here,” said Lynn.
“You do not say to me like the rest of your family, “When do you go back to London, M.
Poirot?” and wait anxiously for the answer.”
“Do they want you to go back to London?”
“It would seem so.”
“I don’t.”
“No—I realize that. Why, Mademoiselle?”
“Because it means that you’re not satisfied. Not satisfied, I mean, that David Hunter did it.”
“And you want him so much—to be innocent?”
He saw a faint flush creep up under her bronzed skin.
“Naturally, I don’t want to see a man hanged for what he didn’t do.”
“Naturally—oh, yes!”
“And the police are simply prejudiced against him because he’s got their backs up. That’s
the worst of David—he likes antagonizing people.”
“The police are not so prejudiced as you think, Miss Marchmont. The prejudice against him
was in the minds of the jury. They refused to follow the coroner’s guidance. They gave a verdict
against him and so the police had to arrest him. But I may tell you that they are very far from
satisfied with the case against him.”
She said eagerly:
“Then they may let him go?”
Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
“Who do they think did do it, M. Poirot?”
Poirot said slowly: “There was a woman at the Stag that night.”
Lynn cried:
“I don’t understand anything. When we thought the man was Robert Underhay it all seemed
so simple. Why did Major Porter say it was Underhay if it wasn’t? Why did he shoot himself?
We’re back now where we started.”
“You are the third person to use that phrase!”
“Am I?” She looked startled. “What are you doing, M. Poirot?”
“Talking to people. That is what I do. Just talk to people.”
“But you don’t ask them things about the murder?”
Poirot shook his head.
“No, I just—what shall we say—pick up gossip.”
“Does that help?”
“Sometimes it does. You would be surprised how much I know of the everyday life of
Warmsley Vale in the last few weeks. I know who walked where, and who they met, and
sometimes what they said. For instance, I know that the man Arden took the footpath to the village
passing by Furrowbank and asking the way of Mr. Rowley Cloade, and that he had a pack on his
back and no luggage. I know that Rosaleen Cloade had spent over an hour at the farm with
Rowley Cloade and that she had been happy there, unlike her usual self.”
“Yes,” said Lynn, “Rowley told me that. He said she was like someone having an afternoon
out.”
“Aha, he said that?” Poirot paused and went on, “Yes, I know a lot of the comings and
goings. And I have heard a lot about people’s difficulties — yours and your mother’s, for
example.”
Rosaleen. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”
“I did not say so.”
“Well, it’s true! And I suppose you’ve heard things about me and Rowley and David.”
“But you are going to marry Rowley Cloade?”
“Am I? I wish I knew…That’s what I was trying to decide that day—when David burst out
of the wood. It was like a great question mark in my brain. Shall I? Shall I? Even the train in the
valley seemed to be asking the same thing. The smoke made a fine question mark in the sky.”
Poirot’s face took on a curious expression. Lynn misunderstood it. She cried out:
“Oh, don’t you see, M. Poirot, it’s all so difficult. It isn’t a question of David at all. It’s
me! I’ve changed. I’ve been away for three—four years. Now I’ve come back I’m not the
same person who went away. That’s the tragedy everywhere. People coming home changed,
having to readjust themselves. You can’t go away and lead a different kind of life and not
change!”
“You are wrong,” said Poirot. “The tragedy of life is that people do not change.”
She stared at him, shaking her head. He insisted:
“But yes. It is so. Why did you go away in the first place?”
“Yes, yes, but why did you join the Wrens in the first place? You were engaged to be married.
You were in love with Rowley Cloade. You could have worked, could you not, as a land girl, here
in Warmsley Vale?”
“I could have, I suppose, but I wanted—”
“You wanted to get away. You wanted to go abroad, to see life. You wanted, perhaps, to get
away from Rowley Cloade…And now you are restless, you still want—to get away! Oh, no,
Mademoiselle, people do not change!”
“When I was out East, I longed for home,” Lynn cried defensively.
“Yes, yes, where you are not, there you will want to be! That will always be so, perhaps, with
you. You make a picture to yourself, you see, a picture of Lynn Marchmont coming home…But
the picture does not come true, because the Lynn Marchmont whom you imagine is not the real
Lynn Marchmont. She is the Lynn Marchmont you would like to be.”
Lynn asked bitterly:
“So, according to you, I shall never be satisfied anywhere?”
“I do not say that. But I do say that, when you went away, you were dissatisfied with your
engagement, and that now you have come back, you are still dissatisfied with your engagement.”
Lynn broke off a leaf and chewed it meditatively19.
“You’re rather a devil at knowing things, aren’t you, M. Poirot?”
“It is my métier,” said Poirot modestly. “There is a further truth, I think, that you have not
yet recognized.”
Lynn said sharply:
“You mean David, don’t you? You think I am in love with David?”
“That is for you to say,” murmured Poirot discreetly20.
“And I—don’t know! There’s something in David that I’m afraid of—but there’s
something that draws me, too…” She was silent a moment and then went on: “I was talking
yesterday to his Brigadier. He came down here when he heard David was arrested to see what he
could do. He’s been telling me about David, how incredibly daring he was. He said David was
one of the bravest people he’d ever had under him. And yet, you know, M. Poirot, in spite of all
he said and his praise, I had the feeling that he wasn’t sure, not absolutely sure that David
hadn’t done this!”
“And are you not sure, either?”
“No—you see, I’ve never trusted David. Can you love someone you don’t trust?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“I’ve always been unfair to David—because I didn’t trust him. I’ve believed quite a lot of
the beastly local gossip—hints that David wasn’t David Hunter at all—but just a boy friend of
Rosaleen’s. I was ashamed when I met the Brigadier and he talked to me about having known
David as a boy in Ireland.”
“C’est épatant,” murmured Poirot, “how people can get hold of the wrong end of a
stick!”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I say. Tell me, did Mrs. Cloade—the doctor’s wife, I mean—did she ring up on
the night of the murder?”
“Aunt Kathie? Yes, she did.”
“What about?”
“Did she speak from her own house?”
“Why no, actually her telephone was out of order. She had to go out to a call box.”
“At ten minutes past ten?”
“Thereabouts. Our clocks never keep particularly good time.”
“Thereabouts,” said Poirot thoughtfully. He went on delicately:
“That was not the only telephone call you had that evening?”
“David Hunter rang you up from London?”
“Oh, indeed I should not presume—”
“You’re welcome to know! He said he was going away—clearing out of my life. He said he
was no good to me and that he never would run straight—not even for my sake.”
“And since that was probably true you did not like it,” said Poirot.
to America or somewhere. Then, perhaps, we shall be able to stop thinking about them—we’ll
learn to stand on our own feet. We’ll stop feeling ill will.”
“Ill will?”
“Yes. I felt it first one night at Aunt Kathie’s. She gave a sort of party. Perhaps it was
all round us. Ill will to her—to Rosaleen. Don’t you see, we were wishing her dead—all of us!
Wishing her dead…And that’s awful, to wish that someone who’s never done you any harm—
may die—”
“Her death, of course, is the only thing that can do you any practical good.” Poirot spoke in a
brisk and practical tone.
she is, at Furrowbank, all alone. She looks like a ghost—she looks scared to death—she looks—
oh! she looks as though she’s going off her head. And she won’t let us help! Not one of us.
We’ve all tried. Mums asked her to come and stay with us, Aunt Frances asked her there. Even
Aunt Kathie went along and offered to be with her at Furrowbank. But she won’t have anything
to do with us now and I don’t blame her. She wouldn’t even see Brigadier Conroy. I think
won’t let us.”
“Have you tried? You, yourself?”
“Yes,” said Lynn. “I went up there yesterday. I said, was there anything I could do? She
looked at me—” Suddenly she broke off and shivered. “I think she hates me. She said, ‘You,
least of all.’ David told her, I think, to stop on at Furrowbank, and she always does what David
tells her. Rowley took her up eggs and butter from Long Willows. I think he’s the only one of us
she likes. She thanked him and said he’d always been kind. Rowley, of course, is kind.”
“There are people,” said Poirot, “for whom one has great sympathy—great pity, people who
have too heavy a burden to bear. For Rosaleen Cloade I have great pity. If I could, I would help
her. Even now, if she would listen—”
With sudden resolution he got to his feet.
“Come, Mademoiselle,” he said, “let us go up to Furrowbank.”
“You want me to come with you?”
“If you are prepared to be generous and understanding—”
Lynn cried:
“I am—indeed I am—”
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1
accosted
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| v.走过去跟…讲话( accost的过去式和过去分词 )；跟…搭讪；（乞丐等）上前向…乞讨；（妓女等）勾搭 | |
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materialistic
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| a.唯物主义的，物质享乐主义的 | |
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3
cod
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| n.鳕鱼；v.愚弄；哄骗 | |
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4
gutter
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| n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟 | |
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5
retrieved
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| v.取回( retrieve的过去式和过去分词 )；恢复；寻回；检索（储存的信息） | |
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6
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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7
syrup
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| n.糖浆，糖水 | |
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8
rammed
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| v.夯实（土等）( ram的过去式和过去分词 )；猛撞；猛压；反复灌输 | |
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9
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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10
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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11
averse
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| adj.厌恶的；反对的，不乐意的 | |
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12
footpath
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| n.小路，人行道 | |
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13
willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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14
shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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15
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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17
cadge
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| v.乞讨 | |
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18
wrens
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| n.鹪鹩( wren的名词复数 ) | |
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19
meditatively
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| adv.冥想地 | |
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20
discreetly
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| ad.(言行)审慎地，慎重地 | |
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21
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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22
muddle
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| n.困惑，混浊状态；vt.使混乱，使糊涂，使惊呆；vi.胡乱应付，混乱 | |
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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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Flared
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| adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词 | |
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acquitted
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| 宣判…无罪( acquit的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（自己）作出某种表现 | |
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eddying
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| 涡流，涡流的形成 | |
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27
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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28
cadging
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| v.乞讨，乞得，索取( cadge的现在分词 ) | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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