清洁女工之死02
时间：2025-01-30 17:36:13
（单词翻译:单击）
Two
There was a moment or two of silence.
“You came to me—”
Poirot did not finish the sentence.
Superintendent1 Spence looked up. The colour in his face was deeper than it had been. It was a
typical countryman’s face, unexpressive, self-contained, with shrewd but honest eyes. It was the
face of a man with definite standards who would never be bothered by doubts of himself or by
doubts of what constituted right and wrong.
“I’ve been a long time in the Force,” he said. “I’ve had a good deal of experience of
this, that and the other. I can judge a man as well as any other could do. I’ve had cases of murder
during my service—some of them straightforward2 enough, some of them not so straightforward.
One case you know of, M. Poirot—”
Poirot nodded.
“Tricky, that was. But for you, we mightn’t have seen clear. But we did see clear—and
there wasn’t any doubt. The same with the others you don’t know about. There was Whistler,
he got his—and deserved it. There were those chaps who shot old Guterman. There was Verall
just sentiment. You’ve got to allow for that happening now and again. Sometimes there isn’t
enough evidence—sometimes there’s sentiment, sometimes a murderer manages to put it across
the jury—that last doesn’t happen often, but it can happen. Sometimes it’s a clever bit of work
things like that. But—but—”
Spence wagged a heavy forefinger8.
“I haven’t seen — not in my experience — an innocent man hanged for something he
didn’t do. It’s a thing, M. Poirot, that I don’t want to see.
“Not,” added Spence, “in this country!”
Poirot gazed back at him.
“And you think you are going to see it now. But why—”
Spence interrupted him.
“I know some of the things you’re going to say. I’ll answer them without you having to
ask them. I was put on this case. I was put on to get evidence of what happened. I went into the
whole business very carefully. I got the facts, all the facts I could. All those facts pointed9 one way
—pointed to one person. When I’d got all the facts I took them to my superior officer. After that
it was out of my hands. The case went to the Public Prosecutor10 and it was up to him. He decided11 to
prosecute—he couldn’t have done anything else—not on the evidence. And so James Bentley
was arrested and committed for trial, and was duly tried and has been found guilty. They
couldn’t have found him anything else, not on the evidence. And evidence is what a jury have to
quite satisfied he was guilty.”
“But you—are not?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Superintendent Spence sighed. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully with his big hand.
“I don’t know. What I mean is, I can’t give a reason—a concrete reason. To the jury I
dare say he looked like a murderer—to me he didn’t—and I know a lot more about murderers
than they do.”
“Yes, yes, you are an expert.”
“For one thing, you know, he wasn’t cocky. Not cocky at all. And in my experience they
usually are. Always so damned pleased with themselves. Always think they’re stringing you
along. Always sure they’ve been so clever about the whole thing. And even when they’re in the
dock and must know they’re for it, they’re still in a queer sort of way getting a kick out of it all.
They’re in the limelight. They’re the central figure. Playing the star part—perhaps for the first
time in their lives. They’re—well—you know—cocky!”
Spence brought out the word with an air of finality.
“You’ll understand what I mean by that, M. Poirot.”
“I understand very well. And this James Bentley—he was not like that?”
“No. He was—well, just scared stiff. Scared stiff from the start. And to some people that
would square in with his being guilty. But not to me.”
“No, I agree with you. What is he like, this James Bentley?”
“Thirty-three, medium height, sallow complexion14, wears glasses—”
Poirot arrested the flow.
“No, I do not mean his physical characteristics. What sort of a personality?”
“Oh — that.” Superintendent Spence considered. “Unprepossessing sort of fellow.
Nervous manner. Can’t look you straight in the face. Has a sly sideways way of peering at you.
Worst possible sort of manner for a jury. Sometimes cringing15 and sometimes truculent16. Blusters17 in
an inefficient18 kind of way.”
He paused and added in a conversational19 tone:
“Really a shy kind of chap. Had a cousin rather like that. If anything’s awkward they go
and tell some silly lie that hasn’t a chance of being believed.”
“He does not sound attractive, your James Bentley.”
“Oh, he isn’t. Nobody could like him. But I don’t want to see him hanged for all that.”
“And you think he will be hanged?”
grounds—a technicality of some kind, and I don’t see that it will have a chance of success.”
“Did he have a good counsel?”
“That’s right. A good average jury. Seven men, five women—all decent reasonable souls.
“So—according to the law of the land—James Bentley has nothing to complain of?”
“If he’s hanged for something he didn’t do, he’s got something to complain of!”
“A very just observation.”
“And the case against him was my case—I collected the facts and put them together—and
it’s on that case and those facts that he’s been condemned. And I don’t like it, M. Poirot, I
don’t like it.”
“Eh bien,” he said. “What do you suggest?”
Spence looked acutely embarrassed.
“I expect you’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s coming. The Bentley case is closed.
I’m on another case already—embezzlement. Got to go up to Scotland tonight. I’m not a free
man.”
“And I—am?”
Spence nodded in a shamefaced sort of way.
“You’ve got it. Awful cheek, you’ll think. But I can’t think of anything else—of any
other way. I did all I could at the time, I examined every possibility I could. And I didn’t get
anywhere. I don’t believe I ever would get anywhere. But who knows, it may be different for
you. You look at things in—if you’ll pardon me for saying so—in a funny sort of way. Maybe
that’s the way you’ve got to look at them in this case. Because if James Bentley didn’t kill
her, then somebody else did. She didn’t chop the back of her head in herself. You may be able to
find something that I missed. There’s no reason why you should do anything about this business.
It’s infernal cheek my even suggesting such a thing. But there it is. I came to you because it was
the only thing I could think of. But if you don’t want to put yourself out—and why should you
—”
Poirot interrupted him.
me—yes, you have intrigued me very much. It is a challenge—to the little grey cells of my brain.
And then, I have a regard for you. I see you, in your garden in six months’ time, planting,
perhaps, the rose bushes—and as you plant them it is not with the happiness you should be feeling,
because behind everything there is an unpleasantness in your brain, a recollection that you try to
push away, and I would not have you feel that, my friend. And finally—” Poirot sat upright and
nodded his head vigorously, “there is the principle of the thing. If a man has not committed
murder, he should not be hanged.” He paused and then added, “But supposing that after all, he
did kill her?”
“In that case I’d be only too thankful to be convinced of it.”
“And two heads are better than one? Voilà, everything is settled. I precipitate29 myself upon
the business. There is, that is clear, no time to be lost. Already the scent30 is cold. Mrs. McGinty was
killed—when?”
“Last November, 22nd.”
“I’ve got my notes on the case which I’ll pass over to you.”
“Good. For the moment, we need only the bare outline. If James Bentley did not kill Mrs.
McGinty, who did?”
“There’s nobody, so far as I can see.”
Let us take the last and the simplest? Who profited by her death?”
that.”
“Two hundred pounds is not very much—but in certain circumstances it could be enough.
So let us consider the niece. I apologize, my friend, for treading in your footsteps. You too, I
know, must have considered all this. But I have to go over with you the ground already
traversed.”
Spence nodded his large head.
“We considered the niece, of course. She’s thirty-eight, married. Husband is employed in
the building and decorating trade—a painter. He’s got a good character, steady employment,
sharp sort of fellow, no fool. She’s a pleasant young woman, a bit talkative, seemed fond of her
aunt in a mild sort of way. Neither of them had any urgent need for two hundred pounds, though
quite pleased to have it, I dare say.”
“What about the cottage? Do they get that?”
“It was rented. Of course, under the Rent Restriction37 Act the landlord couldn’t get the old
woman out. But now she’s dead, I don’t think the niece could have taken over—anyway she
and her husband didn’t want to. They’ve got a small modern council house of their own of
which they are extremely proud.” Spence sighed. “I went into the niece and her husband pretty
closely—they seemed the best bet, as you’ll understand. But I couldn’t get hold of anything.”
“Bien. Now let us talk about Mrs. McGinty herself. Describe her to me—and not only in
physical terms, if you please.”
Spence grinned.
“Don’t want a police description? Well, she was sixty-four. Widow. Husband had been
employed in the drapery department of Hodges in Kilchester. He died about seven years ago.
Domestic chores. Broadhinny’s a small village which has lately become residential39. One or two
retired40 people, one of the partners in an engineering works, a doctor, that sort of thing. There’s
quite a good bus and train service to Kilchester, and Cullenquay which, as I expect you know, is
quite a large summer resort, is only eight miles away, but Broadhinny itself is still quite pretty and
rural—about a quarter of a mile off the main Drymouth and Kilchester road.”
Poirot nodded.
“Mrs. McGinty’s cottage was one of four that form the village proper. There is the post
office and village shop, and agricultural labourers live in the others.”
“Yes. Before her husband died, it used to be summer visitors, but after his death she just
took one regular. James Bentley had been there for some months.”
“So we come to—James Bentley?”
“Bentley’s last job was with a house agent’s in Kilchester. Before that, he lived with his
educated man, but no special qualifications or aptitudes44, and, as I say, an unprepossessing manner.
Didn’t find it easy to get anything. Anyway, they took him on at Breather & Scuttle’s. Rather a
second-rate firm. I don’t think he was particularly efficient or successful. They cut down staff
and he was the one to go. He couldn’t get another job, and his money ran out. He usually paid
Mrs. McGinty every month for his room. She gave him breakfast and supper and charged him
three pounds a week—quite reasonable, all things considered. He was two months behind in
paying her, and he was nearly at the end of his resources. He hadn’t got another job and she was
pressing him for what he owed her.”
“And he knew that she had thirty pounds in the house? Why did she have thirty pounds in
the house, by the way, since she had a Savings Bank account?”
“Because she didn’t trust the Government. Said they’d got two hundred pounds of her
money, but they wouldn’t get any more. She’d keep that where she could lay her hands on it
any minute. She said that to one or two people. It was under a loose board in her bedroom floor—a
very obvious place. James Bentley admitted he knew it was there.”
“Very obliging of him. And did niece and husband know that too?”
“Oh yes.”
“Then we have now arrived back at my first question to you. How did Mrs. McGinty die?”
“She died on the night of November 22nd. Police surgeon put the time of death as being
between 7 and 10 p.m. She’d had her supper—a kipper and bread and margarine, and according
to all accounts, she usually had that about half past six. If she adhered to that on the night in
James Bentley, by his own account, was out walking that evening from seven fifteen to about nine.
He went out and walked most evenings after dark. According to his own story he came in at about
nine o’clock (he had his own key) and went straight upstairs to his room. Mrs. McGinty had had
then went to bed. He heard and noticed nothing out of the way. Next morning he came downstairs
and looked into the kitchen, but there was no one there and no signs of breakfast being prepared.
He says he hesitated a bit and then knocked on Mrs. McGinty’s door, but got no reply.
came and James Bentley went up and knocked again, and after that, as I told you, the baker went
next door and fetched in a Mrs. Elliot, who eventually found the body and went off the deep end.
Mrs. McGinty was lying on the parlour floor. She’d been hit on the back of the head with
something rather in the nature of a meat chopper with a very sharp edge. She’d been killed
instantaneously. Drawers were pulled open and things strewn about, and the loose board in the
floor in her bedroom had been prised up and the cache was empty. All the windows were closed
from outside.”
“Therefore,” said Poirot, “either James Bentley must have killed her, or else she must
“Exactly. It wasn’t any holdup or burglar. Now who would she be likely to let in? One of
the neighbours, or her niece, or her niece’s husband. It boils down to that. We eliminated the
neighbours. Niece and her husband were at the pictures that night. It is possible—just possible,
that one or other of them left the cinema unobserved, bicycled three miles, killed the old woman,
hid the money outside the house, and got back into the cinema unnoticed. We looked into that
possibility, but we didn’t find any confirmation50 of it. And why hide the money outside
McGinty’s house if so? Difficult place to pick it up later. Why not somewhere along the three
miles back? No, the only reason for hiding it where it was hidden—”
Poirot finished the sentence for him.
“Would be because you were living in that house, but didn’t want to hide it in your room
or anywhere inside. In fact: James Bentley.”
“That’s right. Everywhere, every time, you came up against Bentley. Finally there was the
“How did he account for that?”
“Said he remembered brushing up against a butcher’s shop the previous day. Baloney! It
wasn’t animal blood.”
“And he stuck to that story?”
“Not likely. At the trial he told a completely different tale. You see, there was a hair on the
cuff as well—a bloodstained hair, and the hair was identical with Mrs. McGinty’s hair. That had
got to be explained away. He admitted then that he had gone into the room the night before when
he came back from his walk. He’d gone in, he said, after knocking, and found her there, on the
knew what had happened.”
“Yes, indeed. And yet, you know,” said Spence thoughtfully, “it might well be true. It’s
not the sort of thing that an ordinary man—or a jury—can believe. But I’ve come across people
like that. I don’t mean the collapse story. I mean people who are confronted by a demand for
responsible action and who simply can’t face up to it. Shy people. He goes in, say, and finds her.
He knows that he ought to do something—get the police—go to a neighbour—do the right thing
whatever it is. And he funks it. He thinks ‘I don’t need to know anything about it. I needn’t
have come in here tonight. I’ll go to bed just as if I hadn’t come in here at all .?.?.’ Behind it,
of course, there’s fear—fear that he may be suspected of having a hand in it. He thinks he’ll
keep himself out of it as long as possible, and so the silly juggins goes and puts himself into it—up
to his neck.”
Spence paused.
“It could have been that way.”
“It could,” said Poirot thoughtfully.
“Or again, it may have been just the best story his counsel could think up for him. But I
don’t know. The waitress in the café in Kilchester where he usually had lunch said that he
always chose a table where he could look into a wall or a corner and not see people. He was that
kind of a chap—just a bit screwy. But not screwy enough to be a killer. He’d no persecution55
complex or anything of that kind.”
Spence looked hopefully at Poirot—but Poirot did not respond—he was frowning.
The two men sat silent for a while.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
superintendent
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| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
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2
straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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3
arsenic
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| n.砒霜，砷；adj.砷的 | |
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4
perverted
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| adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落 | |
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5
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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6
prosecuting
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| 检举、告发某人( prosecute的现在分词 )； 对某人提起公诉； 继续从事（某事物）； 担任控方律师 | |
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7
tack
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| n.大头钉；假缝，粗缝 | |
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8
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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9
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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10
prosecutor
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| n.起诉人；检察官，公诉人 | |
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11
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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12
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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13
qualms
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| n.不安；内疚 | |
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14
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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15
cringing
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| adj.谄媚，奉承 | |
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16
truculent
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| adj.野蛮的，粗野的 | |
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17
blusters
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| n.大声的威吓( bluster的名词复数 )；狂风声，巨浪声v.外强中干的威吓( bluster的第三人称单数 )；咆哮；（风）呼啸；狂吹 | |
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18
inefficient
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| adj.效率低的，无效的 | |
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19
conversational
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| adj.对话的，会话的 | |
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20
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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21
allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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22
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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23
conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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24
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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25
scrupulously
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| adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地 | |
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26
bias
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| n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见 | |
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27
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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28
intrigued
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| adj.好奇的，被迷住了的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的过去式)；激起…的兴趣或好奇心；“intrigue”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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29
precipitate
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| adj.突如其来的；vt.使突然发生；n.沉淀物 | |
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30
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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31
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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32
tacks
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| 大头钉( tack的名词复数 )； 平头钉； 航向； 方法 | |
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33
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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34
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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35
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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36
savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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37
restriction
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| n.限制，约束 | |
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38
pneumonia
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| n.肺炎 | |
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39
residential
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| adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的 | |
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40
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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41
lodger
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| n.寄宿人，房客 | |
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42
invalid
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| n.病人，伤残人；adj.有病的，伤残的；无效的 | |
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43
annuity
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| n.年金；养老金 | |
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44
aptitudes
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| （学习方面的）才能，资质，天资( aptitude的名词复数 ) | |
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45
digestion
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| n.消化，吸收 | |
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46
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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47
baker
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| n.面包师 | |
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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
killer
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| n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者 | |
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50
confirmation
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| n.证实，确认，批准 | |
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51
cuff
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| n.袖口；手铐；护腕；vt.用手铐铐；上袖口 | |
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52
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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53
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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54
fishy
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| adj. 值得怀疑的 | |
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55
persecution
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| n. 迫害,烦扰 | |
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