山核桃大街谋杀案（7）
时间：2025-03-03 03:09:07
（单词翻译:单击）
Chapter Six
The following day Mrs. Hubbard found exasperating in every particular. She had awoken with a
considerable sense of relief. The nagging doubt about recent occurrences was at last relieved. A
silly girl, behaving in that silly modern fashion (with which Mrs. Hubbard had no patience) had
been responsible. And from now on, order would reign.
Descending to breakfast in this comfortable assurance, Mrs. Hubbard found her newly attained
ease menaced. The students chose this particular morning to be particularly trying, each in his or
her way.
Mr. Chandra Lal who had heard of the sabotage to Elizabeth’s papers became excited and
voluble. “Oppression,” he spluttered, “deliberate oppression of native races. Contempt and
prejudice, colour prejudice. It is here well authenticated example.”
“Now, Mr. Chandra Lal,” said Mrs. Hubbard sharply. “You’ve no call to say anything of that
kind. Nobody knows who did it or why it was done.”
“Oh but, Mrs. Hubbard, I thought Celia had come to you herself and really faced up,” said Jean
Tomlinson. “I thought it splendid of her. We must all be very kind to her.”
“Must you be so revoltingly pi, Jean,” demanded Valerie Hobhouse angrily.
“I think that’s a very unkind thing to say.”
“Faced up,” said Nigel, with a shudder. “Such an utterly revolting term.”
“I don’t see why. The Oxford Group use it and—”
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, have we got to have the Oxford Group for breakfast?”
“What’s all this, Ma? It is Celia who’s been pinching those things, do you say? Is that why she’s
not down to breakfast?”
“I do not understand, please,” said Mr. Akibombo.
Nobody enlightened him. They were all too anxious to say their own piece.
“Poor kid,” Len Bateson went on. “Was she hard up or something?”
“I’m not really surprised, you know,” said Sally slowly. “I always had a sort of idea. . . .”
“You are saying that it was Celia who spilt ink on my notes?” Elizabeth Johnston looked
incredulous. “That seems to be surprising and hardly credible.”
“Celia did not throw ink on your work,” said Mrs. Hubbard. “And I wish you would all stop
discussing this. I meant to tell you all quietly later but—”
“But Jean was listening outside the door last night,” said Valerie.
“I was not listening. I just happened to go—”
“Come now, Bess,” said Nigel. “You know quite well who spilt the ink. I, said bad Nigel, with
my little green phial, I spilt the ink.”
“He didn’t. He’s only pretending. Oh, Nigel, how can you be so stupid?”
“I’m being noble and shielding you, Pat. Who borrowed my ink yesterday morning? You did.”
“I do not understand, please,” said Mr. Akibombo.
“You don’t want to,” Sally told him. “I’d keep right out of it if I were you.”
Mr. Chandra Lal rose to his feet.
“You ask why is the Mau Mau? You ask why does Egypt resent the Suez Canal?”
“Oh, hell!” said Nigel violently, and crashed his cup down on his saucer. “First the Oxford
Group and now politics! At breakfast! I’m going.”
He pushed back his chair violently and left the room.
“There’s a cold wind. Do take your coat.” Patricia rushed after him.
“Cluck, cluck, cluck,” said Valerie unkindly. “She’ll grow feathers and flap her wings soon.”
The French girl, Genevieve, whose English was as yet not equal to following rapid exchanges
of English, had been listening to explanations hissed into her ear by René. She now burst into
rapid French, her voice rising to a scream.
“Comment donc? C’est cette petite qui m’a volé mon compact? Ah, par example! J’irai à la
police. Je ne supporterai pas une pareille. . . .”
Colin McNabb had been attempting to make himself heard for some time, but his deep superior
drawl had been drowned by the higher pitched voices. Abandoning his superior attitude he now
brought down his fist with a heavy crash on the table and startled everyone into silence. The
marmalade pot skidded off the table and broke.
“Will you hold your tongues, all of you, and hear me speak. I’ve never heard more crass
ignorance and unkindness! Don’t any of you have even a nodding acquaintance with psychology?
The girl’s not to be blamed, I tell you. She’s been going through a severe emotional crisis and she
needs treating with the utmost sympathy and care—or she may remain unstable for life. I’m
warning you. The utmost care—that’s what she needs.”
“But after all,” said Jean, in a clear, priggish voice, “although I quite agree about being kind—
we oughtn’t to condone that sort of thing, ought we? Stealing, I mean.”
“Stealing,” said Colin. “This wasn’t stealing. Och! You make me sick—all of you.”
“Interesting case, is she, Colin?” said Valerie, and grinned at him.
“If you’re interested in the workings of the mind, yes.”
“Of course, she didn’t take anything of mine,” began Jean, “but I do think—”
“No, she didn’t take anything of yours,” said Colin, turning to scowl at her. “And if you knew
in the least what that meant you’d maybe not be too pleased about it.”
“Really, I don’t see—”
“Oh, come on, Jean,” said Len Bateson. “Let’s stop nagging and nattering. I’m going to be late
and so are you.”
They went out together. “Tell Celia to buck up,” he said over his shoulder.
“I should like to make formal protest,” said Mr. Chandra Lal. “Boracic powder, very necessary
for my eyes which much inflamed by study, was removed.”
“And you’ll be late too, Mr. Chandra Lal,” said Mrs. Hubbard firmly.
“My professor is often unpunctual,” said Mr. Chandra Lal gloomily, but moving towards the
door. “Also, he is irritable and unreasonable when I ask many questions of searching nature.”
“Mais il faut qu’elle me le rende, ce compact,” said Genevieve.
“You must speak English, Genevieve—you’ll never learn English if you go back into French
whenever you’re excited. And you had Sunday dinner in this week and you haven’t paid me for
it.”
“Ah, I have not my purse just now. Tonight—Viens, René, nous serons en retard.”
“Please,” said Mr. Akibombo, looking round him beseechingly. “I do not understand.”
“Come along, Akibombo,” said Sally. “I’ll tell you about it on the way to the Institute.”
She nodded reassuringly to Mrs. Hubbard and steered the bewildered Akibombo out of the
room.
“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Hubbard, drawing a deep breath. “Why in the world I ever took this job
on!”
Valerie, who was the only person left, grinned in a friendly fashion.
“Don’t worry, Ma,” she said. “It’s a good thing it’s all come out. Everyone was getting on the
jumpy side.”
“I must say I was very surprised.”
“That it turned out to be Celia?”
“Yes. Weren’t you?”
Valerie said in a rather absent voice:
“Rather obvious, really, I should have thought.”
“Have you been thinking so all along?”
“Well, one or two things made me wonder. At any rate she’s got Colin where she wants him.”
“Yes. I can’t help feeling that it’s wrong.”
“You can’t get a man with a gun,” Valerie laughed. “But a spot of kleptomania does the trick?
Don’t worry, Mum. And for God’s sake make Celia give Genevieve back her compact, otherwise
we shall never have any peace at meals.”
Mrs. Hubbard said with a sigh:
“Nigel has cracked his saucer and the marmalade pot is broken.”
“Hell of a morning, isn’t it?” said Valerie. She went out. Mrs. Hubbard heard her voice in the
hall saying cheerfully:
“Good morning, Celia. The coast’s clear. All is known and all is going to be forgiven—by order
of Pious Jean. As for Colin, he’s been roaring like a lion on your behalf.”
Celia came into the dining room. Her eyes were reddened with crying.
“Oh, Mrs. Hubbard.”
“You’re very late, Celia. The coffee’s cold and there’s not much left to eat.”
“I didn’t want to meet the others.”
“So I gather. But you’ve got to meet them sooner or later.”
“Oh, yes, I know, But I thought—by this evening—it would be easier. And of course I shan’t
stop here. I’ll go at the end of the week.”
Mrs. Hubbard frowned.
“I don’t think there’s any need for that. You must expect a little unpleasantness—that’s only fair
—but they’re generous-minded young people on the whole. Of course you’ll have to make
reparation as far as possible.”
Celia interrupted her eagerly.
“Oh, yes, I’ve got my cheque book here. That’s one of the things I wanted to say to you.” She
looked down. She was holding a cheque book and an envelope in her hand. “I’d written to you in
case you weren’t about when I got down, to say how sorry I was and I meant to put in a cheque, so
that you could square up with people—but my pen ran out of ink.”
“We’ll have to make a list.”
“I have—as far as possible. But I don’t know whether to try and buy new things or just to give
the money.”
“I’ll think it over. It’s difficult to say offhand.”
“Oh, but do let me give you a cheque now. I’d feel so much better.”
About to say uncompromisingly “Really? And why should you be allowed to make yourself
feel better?” Mrs. Hubbard reflected that since the students were always short of ready cash, the
whole affair would be more easily settled that way. It would also placate Genevieve who otherwise
might make trouble with Mrs. Nicoletis. (There would be trouble enough there anyway).
“All right,” she said. She ran her eye down the list of objects. “It’s difficult to say how much
offhand—”
Celia said eagerly, “Let me give you a cheque for what you think roughly and then you find out
from people and I can take some back or give you more.”
“Very well.” Mrs. Hubbard tentatively mentioned a sum which gave, she considered, ample
margin, and Celia agreed at once. She opened the cheque book.
“Oh, bother my pen.” She went over to the shelves where odds and ends were kept belonging to
various students. “There doesn’t seem to be any ink here except Nigel’s awful green. Oh, I’ll use
that. Nigel won’t mind. I must remember to get a new bottle of Quink when I go out.”
She filled the pen and came back and wrote out the cheque.
Giving it to Mrs. Hubbard, she glanced at her watch.
“I shall be late. I’d better not stop for breakfast.”
“Now, you’d better have something, Celia—even if it’s only a bit of bread and butter—no good
going out on an empty stomach. Yes, what is it?”
Geronimo, the Italian manservant, had come into the room and was making emphatic gestures
with his hands, his wizened, monkeylike face screwed up in a comical grimace.
“The padrona, she just come in. She want to see you.” He added, with a final gesture, “She
plenty mad.”
“I’m coming.”
Mrs. Hubbard left the room while Celia hurriedly began hacking a piece off the loaf.
Mrs. Nicoletis was walking up and down her room in a fairly good imitation of a tiger at the
Zoo near feeding time.
“What is this I hear?” she burst out. “You send for the police? Without a word to me? Who do
you think you are? My God, who does the woman think she is?”
“I did not send for the police.”
“You are a liar.”
“Now then, Mrs. Nicoletis, you can’t talk to me like that.”
“Oh no. Certainly not! It is I who am wrong. Not you. Always me. Everything you do is perfect.
Police in my respectable hostel.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” said Mrs. Hubbard, recalling various unpleasant incidents.
“There was that West Indian student who was wanted for living on immoral earnings and the
notorious young Communist agitator who came here under a false name—and—”
“Ah! You throw that in my teeth? Is it my fault that people come here and lie to me and have
forged papers and are wanted to assist the police in murder cases? And you reproach me for what I
have suffered!”
“I’m doing nothing of the kind. I only point out that it wouldn’t be exactly a novelty to have the
police here—I dare say it’s inevitable with a mixed lot of students. But the fact is that no one has
‘called in the police.’ A private detective with a big reputation happened to dine here as my guest
last night. He gave a very interesting talk on criminology to the students.”
“As if there were any need to talk about criminology to our students! They know quite enough
already. Enough to steal and destroy and sabotage as they like! And nothing is done about it—
nothing!”
“I have done something about it.”
“Yes, you have told this friend of yours all about our most intimate affair. That is a gross breach
of confidence.”
“Not at all. I’m responsible for running this place. I’m glad to tell you the matter is now cleared
up. One of the students has confessed that she has been responsible for most of these happenings.”
“Dirty little cat,” said Mrs. Nicoletis. “Throw her into the street.”
“She is ready to leave of her own accord and she is making full reparation.”
“What is the good of that? My beautiful Students’ Home will now have a bad name. No one
will come.” Mrs. Nicoletis sat down on the sofa and burst into tears. “Nobody thinks of my
feelings,” she sobbed. “It is abominable, the way I am treated. Ignored! Thrust aside! If I were to
die tomorrow, who would care?”
Wisely leaving this question unanswered, Mrs. Hubbard left the room.
“May the Almighty give me patience,” said Mrs. Hubbard to herself, and went down to the
kitchen to interview Maria.
Maria was sullen and uncooperative. The word “police” hovered unspoken in the air.
“It is I who will be accused. I and Geronimo—the povero. What justice can you expect in a
foreign land? No, I cannot cook the risotto as you suggest—they send the wrong rice. I make you
instead the spaghetti.”
“We had spaghetti last night.”
“It does not matter. In my country we eat the spaghetti every day—every single day. The pasta,
it is good all the time.”
“Yes, but you’re in England now.”
“Very well then, I make the stew. The English stew. You will not like it but I make it—pale—
pale—with the onions boiled in much water instead of cooked in the oil—and pale meat on
cracked bones.”
Maria spoke so menacingly that Mrs. Hubbard felt she was listening to an account of a murder.
“Oh, cook what you like,” she said angrily, and left the kitchen.
By six o’clock that evening, Mrs. Hubbard was once more her efficient self again. She had put
notes in all the students’ rooms asking them to come and see her before dinner, and when the
various summonses were obeyed, she explained that Celia had asked her to arrange matters. They
were all, she thought, very nice about it. Even Genevieve, softened by a generous estimate of the
value of her compact, said cheerfully that all would be sans rancune and added with a wise air,
“One knows that these crises of the nerves occur. She is rich, this Celia, she does not need to steal.
No, it is a storm in her head. M. McNabb is right there.”
Len Bateson drew Mrs. Hubbard aside as she came down when the dinner bell rang.
“I’ll wait for Celia out in the hall,” he said, “and bring her in. So that she sees it’s all right.”
“That’s very nice of you, Len.”
“That’s OK, Ma.”
In due course, as soup was being passed round, Len’s voice was heard booming from the hall.
“Come along in, Celia. All friends here.”
Nigel remarked waspishly to his soup plate:
“Done his good deed for the day!” but otherwise controlled his tongue and waved a hand of
greeting to Celia as she came in with Len’s large arm passed round her shoulders.
There was a general outburst of cheerful conversation on various topics and Celia was appealed
to by one and the other.
Almost inevitably this manifestation of goodwill died away into a doubtful silence. It was then
that Mr. Akibombo turned a beaming face towards Celia and, leaning across the table, said:
“They have explained me good now all that I did not understand. You very clever at steal
things. Long time nobody know. Very clever.”
At this point Sally Finch, gasping out, “Akibombo, you’ll be the death of me,” had such a
severe choke that she had to go out in the hall to recover. And the laughter broke out in a
thoroughly natural fashion.
Colin McNabb came in late. He seemed reserved and even more uncommunicative than usual.
At the close of the meal and before the others had finished he got up and said in an embarrassed
mumble:
“Got to go out and see someone. Like to tell you all first. Celia and I—hope to get married next
year when I’ve done my course.”
The picture of blushing misery, he received the congratulations and jeering catcalls of his
friends and finally escaped, looking terribly sheepish. Celia, on the other hand, was pink and
composed.
“Another good man gone west,” sighed Len Bateson.
“I’m so glad, Celia,” said Patricia. “I hope you’ll be very happy.”
“Everything in the garden is now perfect,” said Nigel. “Tomorrow we’ll bring some chianti in
and drink your health. Why is our dear Jean looking so grave? Do you disapprove of marriage,
Jean?”
“Of course not, Nigel.”
“I always think it’s so much better than free love, don’t you? Nicer for the children. Looks
better on their passports.”
“But the mother should not be too young,” said Genevieve. “They tell one that in the
physiology classes.”
“Really, dear,” said Nigel, “you’re not suggesting that Celia’s below the age of consent or
anything like that, are you? She’s free, white, and twenty-one.”
“That,” said Mr. Chandra Lal, “is a most offensive remark.”
“No, no, Mr. Chandra Lal,” said Patricia. “It’s just a—a kind of idiom. It doesn’t mean
anything.”
“I do not understand,” said Mr. Akibombo. “If a thing does not mean anything, why should it be
said?”
Elizabeth Johnston said suddenly, raising her voice a little:
“Things are sometimes said that do not seem to mean anything but they may mean a good deal.
No, it is not your American quotation I mean. I am talking of something else.” She looked round
the table. “I am talking of what happened yesterday.”
Valerie said sharply:
“What’s up, Bess?”
“Oh, please,” said Celia. “I think—I really do—that by tomorrow everything will be cleared up.
I really mean it. The ink on your papers, and that silly business of the rucksack. And if—if the
person owns up, like I’ve done, then everything will be cleared up.”
She spoke earnestly, with a flushed face, and one or two people looked at her curiously.
Valerie said with a short laugh:
“And we’ll all live happy ever afterwards.”
Then they got up and went into the common room. There was quite a little competition to give
Celia her coffee. Then the wireless was turned on, some students left to keep appointments or to
work and finally the inhabitants of 24 and 26 Hickory Road got to bed.
It had been, Mrs. Hubbard reflected, as she climbed gratefully between the sheets, a long
wearying day.
“But thank goodness,” she said to herself. “It’s all over now.”
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