山核桃大街谋杀案（2）

时间：2025-03-03 03:00:01

（单词翻译:单击）

Chapter One
Hercule Poirot frowned.
“Miss Lemon,” he said.
“Yes, M. Poirot?”
“There are three mistakes in this letter.”
His voice held incredulity. For Miss Lemon, that hideous and efficient woman, never made
mistakes. She was never ill, never tired, never upset, never inaccurate. For all practical purposes,
that is to say, she was not a woman at all. She was a machine—the perfect secretary. She knew
everything, she coped with everything. She ran Hercule Poirot’s life for him, so that it, too,
functioned like a machine. Order and method had been Hercule Poirot’s watchwords from many
years ago. With George, his perfect manservant, and Miss Lemon, his perfect secretary, order and
method ruled supreme in his life. Now that crumpets were baked square as well as round, he had
nothing about which to complain.
And yet, this morning, Miss Lemon had made three mistakes in typing a perfectly simple letter,
and moreover, had not even noticed those mistakes. The stars stood still in their courses!
Hercule Poirot held out the offending document. He was not annoyed, he was merely
bewildered. This was one of the things that could not happen—but it had happened!
Miss Lemon took the letter. She looked at it. For the first time in his life, Poirot saw her blush; a
deep ugly unbecoming flush that dyed her face right up to the roots of her strong grizzled hair.
“Oh, dear,” she said. “I can’t think how—at least I can. It’s because of my sister.”
“Your sister?”
Another shock. Poirot had never conceived of Miss Lemon’s having a sister. Or, for that matter,
having a father, mother, or even grandparents. Miss Lemon, somehow, was so completely machine
made—a precision instrument so to speak—that to think of her having affections, or anxieties, or
family worries, seemed quite ludicrous. It was well known that the whole of Miss Lemon’s heart
and mind was given, when she was not on duty, to the perfection of a new filing system which was
to be patented and bear her name.
“Your sister?” Hercule Poirot repeated, therefore, with an incredulous note in his voice.
Miss Lemon nodded a vigorous assent.
“Yes,” she said, “I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned her to you. Practically all her life has been
spent in Singapore. Her husband was in the rubber business there.”
Hercule Poirot nodded understandingly. It seemed to him appropriate that Miss Lemon’s sister
should have spent most of her life in Singapore. That was what places like Singapore were for.
The sisters of women like Miss Lemon married men in Singapore, so that the Miss Lemons of this
world could devote themselves with machinelike efficiency to their employers’ affairs (and of
course to the invention of filing systems in their moments of relaxation).
“I comprehend,” he said. “Proceed.”
Miss Lemon proceeded.
“She was left a widow four years ago. No children. I managed to get her fixed up in a very nice
little flat at quite a reasonable rent—”
(Of course Miss Lemon would manage to do just that almost impossible thing.)
“She is reasonably well off—though money doesn’t go as far as it did, but her tastes aren’t
expensive and she has enough to be quite comfortable if she is careful.”
Miss Lemon paused and then continued:
“But the truth is, of course, she was lonely. She had never lived in England and she’d got no old
friends or cronies and of course she had a lot of time on her hands. Anyway, she told me about six
months ago that she was thinking of taking up this job.”
“Job?”
“Warden, I think they call it—or matron—of a hostel for students. It was owned by a woman
who was partly Greek and she wanted someone to run it for her. Manage the catering and see that
things went smoothly. It’s an old-fashioned roomy house—in Hickory Road, if you know where
that is.” Poirot did not. “It used to be a superior neighbourhood once, and the houses are well built.
My sister was to have very nice accommodation, bedroom and sitting room and a tiny bath
kitchenette of her own—”
Miss Lemon paused. Poirot made an encouraging noise. So far this did not seem at all like a tale
of disaster.
“I wasn’t any too sure about it myself, but I saw the force of my sister’s arguments. She’s never
been one to sit with her hands crossed all day long and she’s a very practical woman and good at
running things—and of course it wasn’t as though she were thinking of putting money into it or
anything like that. It was purely a salaried position—not a high salary, but she didn’t need that,
and there was no hard physical work. She’s always been fond of young people and good with
them, and having lived in the East so long she understands racial differences and people’s
susceptibilities. Because these students at the hostel are of all nationalities; mostly English, but
some of them actually black, I believe.”
“Naturally,” said Hercule Poirot.
“Half the nurses in our hospitals seem to be black nowadays,” said Miss Lemon doubtfully,
“and I understand much pleasanter and more attentive than the English ones. But that’s neither
here nor there. We talked the scheme over and finally my sister moved in. Neither she nor I cared
very much for the proprietress, Mrs. Nicoletis, a woman of very uncertain temper, sometimes
charming and sometimes, I’m sorry to say, quite the reverse—and both cheeseparing and
impractical. Still, naturally, if she’d been a thoroughly competent woman, she wouldn’t have
needed any assistance. My sister is not one to let people’s tantrums and vagaries worry her. She
can hold her own with anyone and she never stands any nonsense.”
Poirot nodded. He felt a vague resemblance to Miss Lemon showing in this account of Miss
Lemon’s sister—a Miss Lemon softened as it were by marriage and the climate of Singapore, but
a woman with the same hard core of sense.
“So your sister took the job?” he asked.
“Yes, she moved into 26 Hickory Road about six months ago. On the whole, she liked her work
there and found it interesting.”
Hercule Poirot listened. So far the adventure of Miss Lemon’s sister had been disappointingly
tame.
“But for some time now she’s been badly worried. Very badly worried.”
“Why?”
“Well, you see, M. Poirot, she doesn’t like the things that are going on.”
“There are students there of both sexes?” Poirot inquired delicately.
“Oh no, M. Poirot, I don’t mean that! One is always prepared for difficulties of that kind, one
expects them! No, you see, things have been disappearing.”
“Disappearing?”
“Yes. And such odd things . . . And all in rather an unnatural way.”
“When you say things have been disappearing, you mean things have been stolen?”
“Yes.”
“Have the police been called in?”
“No. Not yet. My sister hopes that it may not be necessary. She is fond of these young people—
of some of them, that is—and she would very much prefer to straighten things out by herself.”
“Yes,” said Poirot thoughtfully. “I can quite see that. But that does not explain, if I may say so,
your own anxiety which I take to be a reflex of your sister’s anxiety.”
“I don’t like the situation, M. Poirot. I don’t like it at all. I cannot help feeling that something is
going on which I do not understand. No ordinary explanation seems quite to cover the facts—and I
really cannot imagine what other explanation there can be.”
Poirot nodded thoughtfully.
Miss Lemon’s Heel of Achilles had always been her imagination. She had none. On questions
of fact she was invincible. On questions of surmise, she was lost. Not for her the state of mind of
Cortez’s men upon the peak of Darien.
“Not ordinary petty thieving? A kleptomaniac, perhaps?”
“I do not think so. I read up the subject,” said the conscientious Miss Lemon, “in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica and in a medical work. But I was not convinced.”
Hercule Poirot was silent for a minute and a half.
Did he wish to embroil himself in the troubles of Miss Lemon’s sister and the passions and
grievances of a polyglot hostel? But it was very annoying and inconvenient to have Miss Lemon
making mistakes in typing his letters. He told himself that if he were to embroil himself in the
matter, that would be the reason. He did not admit to himself that he had been rather bored of late
and that the very triviality of the business attracted him.
“ ‘The parsley sinking into the butter on a hot day,’ ” he murmured to himself.
“Parsley? Butter?” Miss Lemon looked startled.
“A quotation from one of your classics,” he said. “You are acquainted, no doubt, with the
Adventures, to say nothing of the Exploits, of Sherlock Holmes.”
“You mean these Baker Street societies and all that,” said Miss Lemon. “Grown men being so
silly! But there, that’s men all over. Like the model railways they go on playing with. I can’t say
I’ve ever had time to read any of the stories. When I do get time for reading, which isn’t very
often, I prefer an improving book.”
Hercule Poirot bowed his head gracefully.
“How would it be, Miss Lemon, if you were to invite your sister here for some suitable
refreshment—afternoon tea, perhaps? I might be able to be of some slight assistance to her.”
“That’s very kind of you, M. Poirot. Really very kind indeed. My sister is always free in the
afternoons.”
“Then shall we say tomorrow, if you can arrange it?”
And in due course, the faithful George was instructed to provide a meal of square crumpets
richly buttered, symmetrical sandwiches, and other suitable components of a lavish English
afternoon tea.

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