顺水推舟45
时间：2025-01-30 17:36:06
（单词翻译:单击）
Sixteen
Into an atmosphere quivering with danger Hercule Poirot brought his own atmosphere of
deliberate anticlimax1.
“The kettle, it is boiling?” he inquired.
Rowley said heavily—stupidly—“Yes, it’s boiling.”
“Then you will, perhaps, make some coffee? Or some tea if it is easier.”
Hercule Poirot took a large clean handkerchief from his pocket; he soaked it in cold water,
“There, Mademoiselle, if you fasten that round your throat—so. Yes, I have the safety pin.
There, that will at once ease the pain.”
all had for her the quality of a nightmare. She felt horribly ill, and her throat was paining her
badly. She staggered to her feet and Poirot guided her gently to a chair and put her into it.
“There,” he said, and over his shoulder:
“The coffee?” he demanded.
“It’s ready,” said Rowley.
He brought it. Poirot poured out a cup and took it to Lynn.
“Look here,” said Rowley, “I don’t think you understand. I tried to strangle Lynn.”
on Rowley’s part.
“Two deaths I’ve got on my conscience,” said Rowley. “Hers would have been the third
—if you hadn’t arrived.”
“Let us drink up our coffee,” said Poirot, “and not talk of deaths. It is not agreeable for
Mademoiselle Lynn.”
“My God!” said Rowley. He stared at Poirot.
“There, that is better, yes?” said Poirot.
She nodded.
“Now we can talk,” said Poirot. “When I say that, I mean, really, that I shall talk.”
“How much do you know?” said Rowley heavily. “Do you know that I killed Charles
Trenton?”
“Yes,” said Poirot. “I have known that for some time.”
The door burst open. It was David Hunter.
“Lynn,” he cried. “You never told me—”
He stopped, puzzled, his eyes going from one to the other.
“What’s the matter with your throat?”
“Another cup,” said Poirot. Rowley took one from the dresser. Poirot received it, filled it
with coffee and handed it to David. Once more, Poirot dominated the situation.
“Sit down,” he said to David. “We will sit here and drink coffee, and you shall all three
listen to Hercule Poirot while he gives you a lecture on crime.”
He looked round on them and nodded his head.
Lynn thought:
“This is some fantastic nightmare. It isn’t real!”
They were all, it seemed, under the sway of this absurd little man with the big moustaches.
holding cups of coffee, listening to this little man who in some strange way dominated them all.
“What causes crime?” Hercule Poirot demanded rhetorically. “It is a question, that. What
crime—of some crime? And what happens—that is what I have asked myself from the beginning,
—are suddenly deprived of that protection?”
“I am speaking, you see, of the Cloades. There is only one Cloade here, and so I can speak
very freely. From the beginning the problem has fascinated me. Here is a whole family who
circumstances have prevented from ever having to stand on their own feet. Though each one of the
family had a life of his or her own, a profession, yet really they have never escaped from the
shadow of a beneficent protection. They have had, always, freedom from fear. They have lived in
behind them.
“What I say to you is this, there is no telling what a human character is, until the test comes.
To most of us the test comes early in life. A man is confronted quite soon with the necessity to
early just what he is made of.
“But the Cloades had no opportunity of knowing their own weaknesses until the time when
they were suddenly shorn of protection and were forced, quite unprepared, to face difficulty. One
thing, and one thing only, stood between them and the resumption of security, the life of Rosaleen
Cloade. I am quite certain in my own mind that every single one of the Cloades thought at one
time or another, ‘If Rosaleen was to die—’”
Lynn shivered. Poirot paused, letting the words sink in, then went on:
“The thought of death, her death, passed through every mind—of that I am certain. Did the
further thought of murder pass through also? And did the thought, in one particular instance, go
beyond thinking and become action.”
Without a change of voice he turned to Rowley:
“Yes,” said Rowley. “It was the day she came to the farm. There was no one else there. I
I’d sent to market. You can see how pathetic they are—but you send them off just the same. I
wondered, really, that she wasn’t afraid…She would have been, if she’d known what was in
“She left it behind, I suppose. That’s how you got hold of it.”
Rowley nodded.
“I don’t know why I didn’t kill her,” he said wonderingly. “I thought of it. One could
have faked it up as an accident, or something.”
“It was not your type of crime,” said Poirot. “That is the answer. The man you did kill, you
killed in a rage—and you did not really mean to kill him, I fancy?”
fender. I couldn’t believe it when I found he was dead.”
Then suddenly he shot a startled glance at Poirot:
“How did you know that?”
“I think,” said Poirot, “that I have reconstructed your actions fairly accurately23. You shall
tell me if I am wrong. You went to the Stag, did you not, and Beatrice Lippincott told you about
the conversation she had overheard? Thereupon you went, as you have said, to your uncle’s,
something that made you change your mind about consulting him. I think I know what that
something was. You saw a photograph—”
Rowley nodded.
face had seemed so familiar. I tumbled to it that Jeremy and Frances were getting some relation of
the Stag and up to No. 5 and accused the fellow of being a fraud. He laughed and admitted it—
said David Hunter was going to come across all right with the money that very evening. I just saw
red when I realized that my own family was, as I saw it, double-crossing me. I called him a swine
and hit him. He went down as I said.”
There was a pause. Poirot said: “And then?”
“It was the lighter,” said Rowley slowly. “It fell out of my pocket. I’d been carrying it
about meaning to give it back to Rosaleen when I saw her. It fell down on the body, and I saw the
initials, D.H. It was David’s, not hers.
“Ever since that party at Aunt Kathie’s I’d realized—well, never mind all that. I’ve
sometimes thought I’m going mad—perhaps I am a bit mad. First Johnnie going—and then the
war—I—I can’t talk about things but sometimes I’d feel blind with rage—and now Lynn—and
this fellow. I dragged the dead man into the middle of the room and turned him over on his face.
Then I picked up those heavy steel tongs—well, I won’t go into details. I wiped off fingerprints27,
cleaned up the marble curb—then I deliberately28 put the hands of the wristwatch at ten minutes
be traced through them. Then I got out. It seemed to me that with Beatrice’s story of what
she’d overheard, David would be for it all right.”
“And then,” said Poirot, “you came to me. It was a pretty little comedy that you played
there, was it not, asking me to produce some witnesses that knew Underhay? It was already clear
to me that Jeremy Cloade had repeated to his family the story that Major Porter had told. For
nearly two years all the family had cherished a secret hope that Underhay might turn up. That wish
influenced Mrs. Lionel Cloade in her manipulation of the Ouija board—unconsciously, but it was
a very revealing accident.
“Eh bien, I perform my ‘conjuring trick.’ I flatter myself that I impress you and really it is I
who am the complete mug. Yes and there in Major Porter’s room, he says, after he offers me a
cigarette, he says to you, ‘You don’t, do you?’
“How did he know that you did not smoke? He is supposed only that moment to have met you.
Imbecile that I am, I should have seen the truth then—that already you and Major Porter, you had
made your little arrangement together! No wonder he was nervous that morning. Yes, I am to be
the mug, I am to bring Major Porter down to identify the body. But I do not go on being the mug
for ever—no, I am not the mug now, am I?”
He looked round angrily and then went on:
“But then, Major Porter went back on that arrangement. He does not care to be a witness upon
oath in a murder trial, and the strength of the case against David Hunter depends very largely upon
the identity of the dead man. So Major Porter backs out.”
“He wrote to me he wouldn’t go through with it,” said Rowley thickly. “The damned fool.
Didn’t he see we’d gone too far to stop? I came up to try to drive some sense into him. I was
murder. The front door wasn’t locked—I went up and found him.
“I can’t tell you what I felt like. It was as though I was a murderer twice over. If only he’d
waited—if he’d only let me talk to him.”
“There was a note there?” Poirot asked. “You took it away?”
Underhay. I took the note away and destroyed it.”
Rowley struck his fist on the table. “It was like a bad dream—a horrible nightmare! I’d
begun this thing and I’d got to go on with it. I wanted the money to get Lynn—and I wanted
Hunter to hang. And then—I couldn’t understand it—the case against him broke down. Some
story about a woman—a woman who was with Arden later. I couldn’t understand, I still can’t
understand. What woman? How could a woman be in there talking to Arden after he was dead?”
“There was no woman,” said Poirot.
“Aha,” said Poirot. “But what did she see? And what did she hear? She saw someone in
dim light. And what did she hear? She saw the ‘hussy’ draw back into No. 5 and from within
the room she heard a man’s voice saying, ‘Get out of here, my girl.’ Eh bien, it was a man
she saw and a man she heard! But it was a very ingenious idea, Mr. Hunter,” Poirot added,
“What do you mean?” David asked sharply.
“It is now to you that I will tell a story. You come along to the Stag at nine o’clock or
thereabouts. You come not to murder, but to pay. What do you find? You find the man who had
been blackmailing37 you lying on the floor, murdered in a particularly brutal38 manner. You can think
entering the Stag by any one as far as you know and your first idea is to clear out as soon as
possible, catch the 9:20 train back to London and swear hard that you have not been near
Warmsley Vale. To catch the train your only chance is to run across country. In doing so you run
unexpectedly into Miss Marchmont and you also realize that you cannot catch the train. You see
the smoke of it in the valley. She too, although you do not know it, has seen the smoke, but she
has not consciously realized that it indicates that you cannot catch the train, and when you tell her
that the time is nine-fifteen she accepts your statement without any doubt.
“To impress on her mind that you do catch the train, you invent a very ingenious scheme. In
“You go back to Furrowbank, letting yourself in quietly with your key and you help yourself
face in a highly theatrical42 manner.
“You return to the Stag at a suitable time, impress your personality on the old lady who sits in
the Residents Only room and whose peculiarities43 are common gossip at the Stag. Then you go up
to No. 5. When you hear her coming to bed, you come out into the passage, then withdraw
hurriedly inside again, and proceed to say loudly, ‘You’d better get out of here, my girl.’”
Poirot paused.
“A very ingenious performance,” he observed.
“Is that true, David?” cried Lynn. “Is it true?”
David was grinning broadly.
“I think a good deal of myself as a female impersonator. Lord, you should have seen that old
gorgon’s face!”
“But how could you be here at ten o’clock and yet telephone to me from London at
eleven?” demanded Lynn perplexedly.
David Hunter bowed to Poirot.
“All explanations by Hercule Poirot,” he remarked. “The man who knows everything. How
did I do it?”
“Very simply,” said Poirot. “You rang up your sister at the flat from the public call box and
Warmsley Vale 34. When Miss Marchmont came to the phone the operator verified the number,
then saying no doubt ‘A call from London,’ or ‘Go ahead London,’ something of that
kind?”
Lynn nodded.
“Rosaleen Cloade then replaced the receiver. You,” Poirot turned to David, “carefully
noting the time, dialled 34, got it, pressed Button A, said ‘London wants you’ in a slightly
telephone call these days, and would only strike Miss Marchmont as a reconnection.”
Lynn said quietly:
“So that’s why you rang me up, David?”
Something in her tone, quiet as it was, made David look at her sharply.
He turned to Poirot and made a gesture of surrender.
“No doubt about it. You do know everything! To tell the truth I was scared stiff. I had to think
up something. After I’d rung Lynn, I walked five miles to Dasleby and went up to London by the
early milk train. Slipped into the flat in time to rumple46 the bed and have breakfast with Rosaleen.
It never entered my head that the police would think she’d done it.
“And of course I hadn’t the remotest idea who had killed him! I simply couldn’t imagine
for myself and Rosaleen.”
“That,” said Poirot, “has been the great difficulty. Motive. You and your sister had a motive
for killing Arden. Every member of the Cloade family had a motive for killing Rosaleen.”
David said sharply:
“She was killed, then? It wasn’t suicide?”
“No. It was a carefully premeditated well-thought-out crime. Morphia was substituted for
bromide in one of her sleeping-powders—one towards the bottom of the box.”
“In the powders.” David frowned. “You don’t mean—you can’t mean Lionel Cloade?”
“Oh, no,” said Poirot. “You see, practically any of the Cloades could have substituted the
here came up to Furrowbank with butter and eggs for Rosaleen. Mrs. Marchmont came there. So
did Mrs. Jeremy Cloade. Even Lynn Marchmont came. And one and all they had a motive.”
“Lynn didn’t have a motive,” cried David.
“We all had motives,” said Lynn. “That’s what you mean?”
“Yes,” said Poirot. “That is what has made the case difficult. David Hunter and Rosaleen
Cloade had a motive for killing Arden—but they did not kill him. All of you Cloades had a motive
for killing Rosaleen Cloade and yet none of you killed her. This case is, always has been, the
wrong way round. Rosaleen Cloade was killed by the person who had most to lose by her death.”
He turned his head slightly. “You killed her, Mr. Hunter….”
“I?” David cried. “Why on earth should I kill my own sister?”
“You killed her because she wasn’t your sister. Rosaleen Cloade died by enemy action in
London nearly two years ago. The woman you killed was a young Irish housemaid, Eileen
Corrigan, whose photograph I received from Ireland today.”
He drew it from his pocket as he spoke. With lightning swiftness David snatched it from him,
leapt to the door, jumped through it, and banging it behind him, was gone. With a roar of anger
Rowley charged headlong after him.
Poirot and Lynn were left alone.
Lynn cried out, “It’s not true. It can’t be true.”
“Oh, yes, it is true. You saw half the truth once when you fancied David Hunter was not her
brother. Put it the other way and it all falls into shape. This Rosaleen was a Catholic (Underhay’s
wife was not a Catholic), troubled by conscience, wildly devoted49 to David. Imagine his feelings on
that night of the Blitz, his sister dead, Gordon Cloade dying—all that new life of ease and money
except for himself, blasted and unconscious. Already no doubt he has made love to her and he has
no doubt he can make her do what he wants.
“He had a way with woman,” Poirot added dryly, without looking at Lynn who flushed.
“He is an opportunist, he snatches his chance of fortune. He identifies her as his sister. She
returns to consciousness to find him at her bedside. He persuades and cajoles her into accepting
the role.
“But imagine their consternation51 when the first blackmailing letter arrives. All along I have
said to myself, ‘Is Hunter really the type of man to let himself be blackmailed52 so easily?’ It
seemed, too, that he was actually uncertain whether the man blackmailing him was Underhay or
not. But how could he be uncertain? Rosaleen Cloade could tell him at once if the man were her
husband or not. Why hurry her up to London before she has a chance to catch a glimpse of the
man? Because—there could only be one reason—because he could not risk the man getting a
glimpse of her. If the man was Underhay, he must not discover that Rosaleen Cloade was not
Rosaleen Cloade at all. No, there was only one thing to be done. Pay up enough to keep the
blackmailer53 quiet, and then—do a flit—go off to America.
“And then, unexpectedly, the blackmailing stranger is murdered—and Major Porter identifies
him as Underhay. Never in his life has David Hunter been in a tighter place! Worse still, the girl
herself is beginning to crack. Her conscience is becoming increasingly active. She is showing
him liable to criminal prosecution55. Moreover, he finds her demands on him increasingly irksome.
He has fallen in love with you. So he decides to cut his losses. Eileen must die. He substitutes
morphia for one of the powders prescribed for her by Dr. Cloade, urges her on to take them every
night, suggests to her fears of the Cloade family. David Hunter will not be suspected since the
death of his sister means that her money passes back to the Cloades.
round.”
The door opened and Superintendent57 Spence came in.
Poirot said sharply, “Eh bien?”
Spence said, “It’s all right. We’ve got him.”
Lynn said in a low voice:
“Did he—say anything?”
“Said he’d had a good run for his money—”
“Funny,” added the Superintendent, “how they always talk at the wrong moment…We
cautioned him, of course. But he said, ‘Cut it out, man. I’m a gambler—but I know when I’ve
lost the last throw.’”
Poirot murmured:
“‘There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at its flood, leads on to fortune….’
“Yes, the tide sweeps in—but it also ebbs—and may carry you out to sea.”
点击
收听单词发音
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1
anticlimax
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| n.令人扫兴的结局；突降法 | |
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2
automaton
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| n.自动机器，机器人 | |
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3
wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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4
croaking
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| v.呱呱地叫( croak的现在分词 )；用粗的声音说 | |
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5
hoarsely
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| adv.嘶哑地 | |
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6
willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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7
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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8
deploring
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| v.悲叹，痛惜，强烈反对( deplore的现在分词 ) | |
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9
lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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10
sipped
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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11
stimulant
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| n.刺激物，兴奋剂 | |
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12
killer
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| n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者 | |
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13
stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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14
ravages
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| 劫掠后的残迹，破坏的结果，毁坏后的残迹 | |
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15
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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16
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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17
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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18
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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19
calves
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| n.(calf的复数)笨拙的男子，腓；腿肚子( calf的名词复数 )；牛犊；腓；小腿肚v.生小牛( calve的第三人称单数 )；（冰川）崩解；生（小牛等），产（犊）；使（冰川）崩解 | |
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20
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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21
jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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22
backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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23
accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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24
solicitor
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| n.初级律师，事务律师 | |
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25
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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26
stunt
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| n.惊人表演，绝技，特技；vt.阻碍...发育，妨碍...生长 | |
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27
fingerprints
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| n.指纹( fingerprint的名词复数 )v.指纹( fingerprint的第三人称单数 ) | |
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28
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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ration
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| n.定量(pl.)给养，口粮；vt.定量供应 | |
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30
perjure
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| v.作伪证；使发假誓 | |
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hog
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| n.猪；馋嘴贪吃的人；vt.把…占为己有，独占 | |
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32
perjured
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| adj.伪证的，犯伪证罪的v.发假誓，作伪证( perjure的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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33
croaked
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| v.呱呱地叫( croak的过去式和过去分词 )；用粗的声音说 | |
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enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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makeup
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| n.组织；性格；化装品 | |
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36
placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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37
blackmailing
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| 胁迫，尤指以透露他人不体面行为相威胁以勒索钱财( blackmail的现在分词 ) | |
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38
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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40
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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41
lipsticks
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| n.口红，唇膏( lipstick的名词复数 ) | |
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42
theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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43
peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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44
toll
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| n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟) | |
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45
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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46
rumple
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| v.弄皱，弄乱；n.褶纹，皱褶 | |
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47
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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48
tampered
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| v.窜改( tamper的过去式 )；篡改；（用不正当手段）影响；瞎摆弄 | |
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49
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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50
survivor
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| n.生存者，残存者，幸存者 | |
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51
consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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52
blackmailed
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| 胁迫，尤指以透露他人不体面行为相威胁以勒索钱财( blackmail的过去式 ) | |
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53
blackmailer
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| 敲诈者，勒索者 | |
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54
breakdown
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| n.垮，衰竭；损坏，故障，倒塌 | |
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55
prosecution
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| n.起诉，告发，检举，执行，经营 | |
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56
trump
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| n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭 | |
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57
superintendent
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| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
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