山核桃大街谋杀案（4）

时间：2025-03-03 03:09:03

（单词翻译:单击）

Chapter Three
Hurrying a little as she went up the steps, Mrs. Hubbard inserted her latch key into the door of 26
Hickory Road. Just as the door opened, a big young man with fiery red hair ran up the steps behind
her.
“Hallo, Ma,” he said, for in such a fashion did Len Bateson usually address her. He was a
friendly soul, with a Cockney accent and mercifully free from any kind of inferiority complex.
“Been out gallivanting?”
“I’ve been out to tea, Mr. Bateson. Don’t delay me now, I’m late.”
“I cut up a lovely corpse today,” said Len. “Smashing!”
“Don’t be so horrid, you nasty boy. A lovely corpse, indeed! The idea. You make me feel quite
squeamish.”
Len Bateson laughed, and the hall echoed the sound in a great ha ha.
“Nothing to Celia,” he said. “I went along to the Dispensary. ‘Come to tell you about a corpse,’
I said. She went as white as a sheet and I thought she was going to pass out. What do you think of
that, Mother Hubbard?”
“I don’t wonder at it,” said Mrs. Hubbard. “The idea! Celia probably thought you meant a real
one.”
“What do you mean—a real one? What do you think our corpses are? Synthetic?”
A thin young man with long untidy hair strolled out of a room on the right, and said in a
waspish way:
“Oh, it’s only you. I thought it was at least a posse of strong men. The voice is but the voice of
one man, but the volume is as the volume of ten.”
“Hope it doesn’t get on your nerves, I’m sure.”
“Not more than usual,” said Nigel Chapman and went back again.
“Our delicate flower,” said Len.
“Now don’t you two scrap,” said Mrs. Hubbard. “Good temper, that’s what I like, and a bit of
give and take.”
The big young man grinned down at her affectionately.
“I don’t mind our Nigel, Ma,” he said.
“Oh, Mrs. Hubbard, Mrs. Nicoletis is in her room and said she would like to see you as soon as
you got back.”
Mrs. Hubbard sighed and started up the stairs. The tall dark girl who had given the message
stood against the wall to let her pass.
Len Bateson, divesting himself of his mackintosh said, “What’s up, Valerie? Complaints of our
behaviour to be passed on by Mother Hubbard in due course?”
The girl shrugged her thin elegant shoulders. She came down the stairs and across the hall.
“This place gets more like a madhouse every day,” she said over her shoulder.
She went through the door at the right as she spoke. She moved with that insolent effortless
grace that is common to those who have been professional mannequins.
Twenty-six Hickory Road was in reality two houses, 24 and 26 semidetached. They had been
thrown into one on the ground floor so that there was both a communal sitting room and a large
dining room on the ground floor, as well as two cloakrooms and a small office towards the back of
the house. Two separate staircases led to the floors above which remained detached. The girls
occupied bedrooms in the right-hand side of the house, and the men on the other, the original No.
24.
Mrs. Hubbard went upstairs loosening the collar of her coat. She sighed as she turned in the
direction of Mrs. Nicoletis’s room.
She tapped on the door and entered.
“In one of her states again, I suppose,” she muttered.
Mrs. Nicoletis’s sitting room was kept very hot. The big electric fire had all its bars turned on
and the window was tightly shut. Mrs. Nicoletis was sitting smoking on a sofa surrounded by a lot
of rather dirty silk and velvet sofa cushions. She was a big dark woman, still good-looking, with a
bad-tempered mouth and enormous brown eyes.
“Ah! So there you are.” Mrs. Nicoletis made it sound like an accusation.
Mrs. Hubbard, true to her Lemon blood, was unperturbed.
“Yes,” she said tartly, “I’m here. I was told you wanted to see me specially.”
“Yes, indeed I do. It is monstrous, no less, monstrous!”
“What’s monstrous?”
“These bills! Your accounts!” Mrs. Nicoletis produced a sheaf of papers from beneath a cushion
in the manner of a successful conjuror. “What are we feeding these miserable students on? Foie
gras and quails? Is this the Ritz? Who do they think they are, these students?”
“Young people with a healthy appetite,” said Mrs. Hubbard. “They get a good breakfast and a
decent evening meal—plain food but nourishing. It all works out very economically.”
“Economically? Economically? You dare to say that to me? When I am being ruined?”
“You make a very substantial profit, Mrs. Nicoletis, out of this place. For students, the rates are
on the high side.”
“But am I not always full? Do I ever have a vacancy that is not applied for three times over?
Am I not sent students by the British Council, by London University Lodging Board—by the
Embassies—by the French Lycée? Are not there always three applications for every vacancy?”
“That’s very largely because the meals here are appetising and sufficient. Young people must be
properly fed.”
“Bah! These totals are scandalous. It is that Italian cook and her husband. They swindle you
over the food.”
“Oh no, they don’t, Mrs. Nicoletis. I can assure you that no foreigner is going to put anything
over on me.”
“Then it is you yourself—you who are robbing me.”
Mrs. Hubbard remained unperturbed.
“I can’t allow you to say things like that,” she said, in the voice an old-fashioned Nanny might
have used to a particularly truculent charge. “It isn’t a nice thing to do, and one of these days it
will land you in trouble.”
“Ah!” Mrs. Nicoletis threw the sheaf of bills dramatically up in the air whence they fluttered to
the ground in all directions. Mrs. Hubbard bent and picked them up, pursing her lips. “You enrage
me,” shouted her employer.
“I dare say,” said Mrs. Hubbard, “but it’s bad for you, you know, getting all worked up.
Tempers are bad for the blood pressure.”
“You admit that these totals are higher than those of last week?”
“Of course they are. There’s been some very good cut price stuff going at Lampson’s Stores.
I’ve taken advantage of it. Next week’s totals will be below average.”
Mrs. Nicoletis looked sulky.
“You explain everything so plausibly.”
“There.” Mrs. Hubbard put the bills in a neat pile on the table. “Anything else?”
“The American girl, Sally Finch, she talks of leaving—I do not want her to go. She is a
Fulbright scholar. She will bring here other Fulbright scholars. She must not leave.”
“What’s her reason for leaving?”
Mrs. Nicoletis humped monumental shoulders.
“How can I remember? It was not genuine. I could tell that. I always know.”
Mrs. Hubbard nodded thoughtfully. She was inclined to believe Mrs. Nicoletis on that point.
“Sally hasn’t said anything to me,” she said.
“But you will talk to her?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And if it is these coloured students, these Indians, these Negresses—then they can all go, you
understand? The colour bar, it means everything to these Americans—and for me it is the
Americans that matter—as for these coloured ones—scram!”
She made a dramatic gesture.
“Not while I’m in charge,” said Mrs. Hubbard coldly. “And anyway, you’re wrong. There’s no
feeling of that sort here amongst the students, and Sally certainly isn’t like that. She and Mr.
Akibombo have lunch together quite often, and nobody could be blacker than he is.”
“Then it is communists—you know what the Americans are about communists. Nigel Chapman
now—he is a communist.”
“I doubt it.”
“Yes, yes. You should have heard what he was saying the other evening.”
“Nigel will say anything to annoy people. He is very tiresome that way.”
“You know them all so well. Dear Mrs. Hubbard, you are wonderful! I say to myself again and
again—what should I do without Mrs. Hubbard? I rely on you utterly. You are a wonderful,
wonderful woman.”
“After the powder, the jam,” said Mrs. Hubbard.
“What is that?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll do what I can.”
She left the room, cutting short a gushing speech of thanks.
Muttering to herself: “Wasting my time—what a maddening woman she is!” she hurried along
the passage and into her own sitting room.
But there was to be no peace for Mrs. Hubbard as yet. A tall figure rose to her feet as Mrs.
Hubbard entered and said:
“I should be glad to speak to you for a few minutes, please.”
“Of course, Elizabeth.”
Mrs. Hubbard was rather surprised. Elizabeth Johnston was a girl from the West Indies who was
studying law. She was a hard worker, ambitious, who kept very much to herself. She had always
seemed particularly well balanced and competent, and Mrs. Hubbard had always regarded her as
one of the most satisfactory students in the hostel.
She was perfectly controlled now, but Mrs. Hubbard caught the slight tremor in her voice
although the dark features were quite impassive.
“Is something the matter?”
“Yes. Will you come with me to my room, please?”
“Just a moment.” Mrs. Hubbard threw off her coat and gloves and then followed the girl out of
the room and up the next flight of stairs. The girl had a room on the top floor. She opened the door
and went across to a table near the window.
“Here are the notes of my work,” she said. “This represents several months of hard study. You
see what has been done?”
Mrs. Hubbard caught her breath with a slight gasp.
Ink had been spilled on the table. It had run all over the papers, soaking them through. Mrs.
Hubbard touched it with her fingertip. It was still wet.
She said, knowing the question to be foolish as she asked it:
“You didn’t spill the ink yourself?”
“No. It was done whilst I was out.”
“Mrs. Biggs, do you think—”
Mrs. Biggs was the cleaning woman who looked after the top-floor bedrooms.
“It was not Mrs. Biggs. It was not even my own ink. That is here on the shelf by my bed. It has
not been touched. It was done by someone who brought ink here and did it deliberately.”
Mrs. Hubbard was shocked.
“What a very wicked—and cruel thing to do.”
“Yes, it is a bad thing.”
The girl spoke quietly, but Mrs. Hubbard did not make the mistake of underrating her feelings.
“Well, Elizabeth, I hardly know what to say. I am shocked, badly shocked, and I shall do my
utmost to find out who did this wicked malicious thing. You’ve no ideas yourself as to that?”
The girl replied at once.
“This is green ink, you saw that.”
“Yes, I noticed that.”
“It is not very common, this green ink. I know one person here who uses it. Nigel Chapman.”
“Nigel? Do you think Nigel would do a thing like that?”
“I should not have thought so—no. But he writes his letters and his notes with green ink.”
“I shall have to ask a lot of questions. I’m very sorry, Elizabeth, that such a thing should happen
in this house and I can only tell you that I shall do my best to get to the bottom of it.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Hubbard. There have been—other things, have there not?”
“Yes—er—yes.”
Mrs. Hubbard left the room and started towards the stairs. But she stopped suddenly before
proceeding down and instead went along the passage to a door at the end of the corridor. She
knocked and the voice of Miss Sally Finch bade her enter.
The room was a pleasant one and Sally Finch herself, a cheerful redhead, was a pleasant person.
She was writing on a pad and looked up with a bulging cheek. She held out an open box of
sweets and said indistinctly:
“Candy from home. Have some.”
“Thank you, Sally. Not just now. I’m rather upset.” She paused. “Have you heard what’s
happened to Elizabeth Johnston?”
“What’s happened to Black Bess?”
The nickname was an affectionate one and had been accepted as such by the girl herself.
Mrs. Hubbard described what had happened. Sally showed every sign of sympathetic anger.
“I’ll say that’s a mean thing to do. I wouldn’t believe anyone would do a thing like that to our
Bess. Everybody likes her. She’s quiet and doesn’t get around much, or join in, but I’m sure
there’s no one who dislikes her.”
“That’s what I should have said.”
“Well, it’s all of a piece, isn’t it, with the other things? That’s why—”
“That’s why what?” Mrs. Hubbard asked as the girl stopped abruptly.
Sally said slowly:
“That’s why I’m getting out of here. Did Mrs. Nick tell you?”
“Yes. She was very upset about it. Seemed to think you hadn’t given her the real reason.”
“Well, I didn’t. No point in making her go up in smoke. You know what she’s like. But that’s
the reason, right enough. I just don’t like what’s going on here. It was odd losing my shoe, and
then Valerie’s scarf being all cut to bits and Len’s rucksack . . . it wasn’t so much things being
pinched—after all, that may happen any time—it’s not nice but it’s roughly normal—but this other
isn’t.” She paused for a moment, smiling, and then suddenly grinned. “Akibombo’s scared,” she
said. “He’s always very superior and civilised—but there’s a good old West African belief in
magic very close to the surface.”
“Tchah!” said Mrs. Hubbard crossly. “I’ve no patience with superstitious nonsense. Just some
ordinary human being making a nuisance of themselves. That’s all there is to it.”
Sally’s mouth curved up in a wide catlike grin.
“The emphasis,” she said, “is on ordinary. I’ve a sort of feeling that there’s a person in this
house who isn’t ordinary.”
Mrs. Hubbard went on down the stairs. She turned into the students’ common room on the
ground floor. There were four people in the room. Valerie Hobhouse, prone on a sofa with her
narrow, elegant feet stuck up over the arm of it; Nigel Chapman sitting at a table with a heavy
book open in front of him; Patricia Lane leaning against the mantelpiece, and a girl in a
mackintosh who had just come in and who was pulling off a woolly cap as Mrs. Hubbard entered.
She was a stocky, fair girl with brown eyes set wide apart and a mouth that was usually just a little
open so that she seemed perpetually startled.
Valerie, removing a cigarette from her mouth, said in a lazy, drawling voice:
“Hallo, Ma, have you administered soothing syrup to the old devil, our revered proprietress?”
Patricia Lane said:
“Has she been on the warpath?”
“And how?” said Valerie and chuckled.
“Something very unpleasant has happened,” said Mrs. Hubbard. “Nigel, I want you to help me.”
“Me, ma’am?” Nigel looked at her and shut his book. His thin, malicious face was suddenly
illuminated by a mischievous but surprisingly sweet smile. “What have I done?”
“Nothing, I hope,” said Mrs. Hubbard. “But ink has been deliberately and maliciously spilt all
over Elizabeth Johnston’s notes, and it’s green ink. You write with green ink, Nigel.”
He stared at her, his smile disappearing.
“Yes, I use green ink.”
“Horrid stuff,” said Patricia. “I wish you wouldn’t, Nigel. I’ve always told you I think it’s
horribly affected of you.”
“I like being affected,” said Nigel. “Lilac ink would be even better, I think. I must try and get
some. But are you serious, Mum? About the sabotage, I mean?”
“Yes, I am serious. Was it your doing, Nigel?”
“No, of course not. I like annoying people, as you know, but I’d never do a filthy trick like that
—and certainly not to Black Bess who minds her own business in a way that’s an example to some
people I could mention. Where is that ink of mine? I filled my pen yesterday evening, I remember.
I usually keep it on the shelf over there.” He sprang up and went across the room. “You’re right.
The bottle’s nearly empty. It should be practically full.”
The girl in the mackintosh gave a little gasp.
“Oh dear,” she said. “Oh dear, I don’t like it—”
Nigel wheeled at her accusingly.
“Have you got an alibi, Celia?” he said menacingly.
The girl gave a gasp.
“I didn’t do it. I really didn’t do it. Anyway, I’ve been at the hospital all day. I couldn’t—”
“Now, Nigel,” said Mrs. Hubbard. “Don’t tease Celia.”
Patricia Lane said angrily:
“I don’t see why Nigel should be suspected. Just because his ink was taken—”
Valerie said cattishly:
“That’s right, darling, defend your young.”
“But it’s so unfair—”
“But really I didn’t have anything to do with it,” Celia protested earnestly.
“Nobody thinks you did, infant,” said Valerie impatiently. “All the same, you know,” her eyes
met Mrs. Hubbard’s and exchanged a glance, “all this is getting beyond a joke. Something will
have to be done about it.”
“Something is going to be done,” said Mrs. Hubbard grimly.

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