山核桃大街谋杀案（13）
时间：2025-03-03 03:09:10
（单词翻译:单击）
Chapter Twelve
I
Hercule Poirot, at work upon his correspondence, paused in the middle of a sentence that he was
dictating. Miss Lemon looked up questioningly.
“Yes, M. Poirot?”
“My mind wanders!” Poirot waved a hand. “After all, this letter is not important. Be so kind,
Miss Lemon, as to get me your sister upon the telephone.”
“Yes, M. Poirot.”
A few moments later Poirot crossed the room and took the receiver from his secretary’s hand.
“’Allo!” he said.
“Yes, M. Poirot?”
Mrs. Hubbard sounded rather breathless.
“I trust, Mrs. Hubbard, that I am not disturbing you?”
“I’m past being disturbed,” said Mrs. Hubbard.
“There have been agitations, yes?” Poirot asked delicately.
“That’s a very nice way of putting it, M. Poirot. That’s exactly what they have been. Inspector
Sharpe finished questioning all the students yesterday, and then he came back with a search
warrant today and I’ve got Mrs. Nicoletis on my hands with raving hysterics.”
Poirot clucked his tongue sympathetically.
Then he said, “It is just a little question I have to ask. You sent me a list of those things that had
disappeared—and other queer happenings—what I have to ask is this, did you write that list in
chronological order?”
“You mean?”
“I mean, were the things written down exactly in the order of their disappearance?”
“No, they weren’t. I’m sorry—I just put them down as I thought of them. I’m so sorry if I
misled you.”
“I should have asked you before,” said Poirot. “But it did not strike me then as important. I have
your list here. One evening shoe, bracelet, diamond ring, powder compact, lipstick, stethoscope,
and so on. But you say that was not the order of disappearance?”
“No.”
“Can you remember now, or would it be too difficult for you, what was the proper order?”
“Well, I’m not sure if I could now, M. Poirot. You see it’s all some time ago. I should have to
think it out. Actually, after I had talked with my sister and knew I was coming to see you, I made a
list, and I should say that I put it down in the order of things as I remembered them. I mean, the
evening shoe because it was so peculiar; and then the bracelet and the powder compact and the
cigarette lighter and the diamond ring because they were all rather important things and looked as
though we had a genuine thief at work; and then I remembered the other more unimportant things
later and added them. I mean the boracic and the electric lightbulbs and the rucksack. They
weren’t really important and I only really thought of them as a kind of afterthought.”
“I see,” said Poirot. “Yes, I see . . . Now what I would ask of you, madame, is to sit down now,
when you have the leisure, that is. . . .”
“I dare say when I’ve got Mrs. Nicoletis to bed with a sedative and calmed down Geronimo and
Maria, I shall have a little time. What is it you want me to do?”
“Sit down and try to put down, as nearly as you can, the chronological order in which the
various incidents occurred.”
“Certainly, M. Poirot. The rucksack, I believe, was the first, and the electric light bulbs—which
I really didn’t think had any connection with the other things—and then the bracelet and the
compact, no—the evening shoe. But there, you don’t want to hear me speculate about it. I’ll put
them down as best I can.”
“Thank you, madame, I shall be much obliged to you.”
Poirot hung up the phone.
“I am vexed with myself,” he said to Miss Lemon. “I have departed from the principles of order
and method. I should have made quite sure from the start, the exact order in which these thefts
occurred.”
“Dear, dear,” said Miss Lemon mechanically. “Are you going to finish these letters now, M.
Poirot?”
But once again Poirot waved her indignantly away.
II
On arrival back at Hickory Road with a search warrant on Saturday morning, Inspector Sharpe had
demanded an interview with Mrs. Nicoletis, who always came on Saturdays to do accounts with
Mrs. Hubbard. He had explained what he was about to do.
Mrs. Nicoletis protested with vigour.
“But it is an insult, that! My students they will leave—they will all leave. I shall be ruined. . . .”
“No, no, madam. I’m sure they will be sensible. After all, this is a case of murder.”
“It is not murder—it is suicide.”
“And I’m sure once I’ve explained, no one will object. . . .”
Mrs. Hubbard put in a soothing word.
“I’m sure,” she said, “everyone will be sensible—except,” she added thoughtfully, “perhaps Mr.
Achmed Ali and Mr. Chandra Lal.”
“Pah!” said Mrs. Nicoletis. “Who cares about them?”
“Thank you, madam,” said the inspector. “Then I’ll make a start here, in your sitting room.”
An immediate and violent protest came from Mrs. Nicoletis at the suggestion.
“You search where you please,” she said, “but here, no! I refuse.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Nicoletis, but I have to go through the house from top to bottom.”
“That is right, yes, but not in my room. I am above the law.”
“No one’s above the law. I’m afraid I shall have to ask you to stand aside.”
“It is an outrage,” Mrs. Nicoletis screamed with fury. “You are officious busybodies. I will write
to everyone. I will write to my member of Parliament. I will write to the papers.”
“Write to anyone you please, madam,” said Inspector Sharpe. “I’m going to search this room.”
He started straight away upon the bureau. A large carton of confectionery, a mass of papers, and
a large variety of assorted junk rewarded his search. He moved from there to a cupboard in the
corner of the room.
“This is locked. Can I have the key, please?”
“Never!” screamed Mrs. Nicoletis. “Never, never, never shall you have the key! Beast and pig
of a policeman, I spit at you. I spit! I spit! I spit!”
“You might just as well give me the key,” said Inspector Sharpe. “If not, I shall simply prise the
door open.”
“I will not give you the key! You will have to tear my clothes off me before you get the key!
And that—that will be a scandal.”
“Get a chisel, Cobb,” said Inspector Sharpe resignedly.
Mrs. Nicoletis uttered a scream of fury. Inspector Sharpe paid no attention. The chisel was
brought. Two sharp cracks and the door of the cupboard came open. As it swung forward a large
consignment of empty brandy bottles poured out of the cupboard.
“Beast! Pig! Devil!” screamed Mrs. Nicoletis.
“Thank you, madam,” said the inspector politely. “We’ve finished in here.”
Mrs. Hubbard tactfully replaced the bottles while Mrs. Nicoletis had hysterics.
One mystery, the mystery of Mrs. Nicoletis’s tempers, was now cleared up.
III
Poirot’s telephone call came through just as Mrs. Hubbard was pouring out an appropriate dose of
sedative from the private medicine cupboard in her sitting room. After replacing the receiver she
went back to Mrs. Nicoletis whom she had left screaming and kicking her heels on the sofa in her
own sitting room.
“Now you drink this,” said Mrs. Hubbard. “And you’ll feel better.”
“Gestapo!” said Mrs. Nicoletis, who was now quiet but sullen.
“I shouldn’t think any more about it if I were you,” said Mrs. Hubbard soothingly.
“Gestapo!” said Mrs. Nicoletis again. “Gestapo! That is what they are!”
“They have to do their duty, you know,” said Mrs. Hubbard.
“Is it their duty to pry into my private cupboards? I say to them, ‘That is not for you.’ I lock it. I
put the key down my bosom. If you had not been there as a witness they would have torn my
clothes off me without shame.”
“Oh no, I don’t think they would have done that,” said Mrs. Hubbard.
“That is what you say! Instead they get a chisel and they force my door. That is structural
damage to the house for which I shall be responsible.”
“Well, you see, if you wouldn’t give them the key. . . .”
“Why should I give them the key? It is my key. My private key. And this is my private room.
My private room and I say to the police, ‘Keep out’ and they do not keep out.”
“Well, after all, Mrs. Nicoletis, there has been a murder, remember. And after a murder one has
to put up with certain things which might not be very pleasant at ordinary times.”
“I spit upon the murder!” said Mrs. Nicoletis. “That little Celia she commits suicide. She has a
silly love affair and she takes poison. It is the sort of thing that is always happening. They are so
stupid about love, these girls—as though love mattered! One year, two years and it is all finished,
the grand passion! The man is the same as any other man! But these silly girls they do not know
that. They take the sleeping draught and the disinfectant and they turn on gas taps and then it is too
late.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Hubbard, turning full circle, as it were, to where the conversation had started,
“I shouldn’t worry any more about it all now.”
“That is all very well for you. Me, I have to worry. It is not safe for me any longer.”
“Safe?” Mrs. Hubbard looked at her, startled.
“It was my private cupboard,” Mrs. Nicoletis insisted. “Nobody knows what was in my private
cupboard. I did not want them to know. And now they do know. I am very uneasy. They may
think—what will they think?”
“Who do you mean by they?”
Mrs. Nicoletis shrugged her large, handsome shoulders and looked sulky.
“You do not understand,” she said, “but it makes me uneasy. Very uneasy.”
“You’d better tell me,” said Mrs. Hubbard. “Then perhaps I can help you.”
“Thank goodness I do not sleep here,” said Mrs. Nicoletis. “These locks on the doors here they
are all alike; one key fits any other. No, thanks to heaven, I do not sleep here.”
Mrs. Hubbard said:
“Mrs. Nicoletis, if you are afraid of something, hadn’t you better tell me just what it is?”
Mrs. Nicoletis gave her a flickering look from her dark eyes and then looked away again.
“You have said it yourself,” she said evasively. “You have said there has been a murder in this
house, so naturally one is uneasy. Who may be next? One does not even know who the murderer
is. That is because the police are so stupid, or perhaps they have been bribed.”
“That’s all nonsense and you know it,” said Mrs. Hubbard. “But tell me, have you got any cause
for real anxiety. . . .”
Mrs. Nicoletis flew into one of her tempers.
“Ah, you do not think I have any cause for anxiety? You know best as usual! You know
everything! You are so wonderful; you cater, you manage, you spend money like water on food so
that the students are fond of you, and now you want to manage my affairs! But that, no! I keep my
affairs to myself and nobody shall pry into them, do you hear? No, Mrs. What-do-you-call-it Paul
Pry.”
“Please yourself,” said Mrs. Hubbard, exasperated.
“You are a spy—I always knew it.”
“A spy on what?”
“Nothing,” said Mrs. Nicoletis. “There is nothing here to spy upon. If you think there is it is
because you made it up. If lies are told about me I shall know who told them.”
“If you wish me to leave,” said Mrs. Hubbard, “you’ve only got to say so.”
“No, you are not to leave. I forbid it. Not at this moment. Not when I have all the cares of the
police, of murder, of everything else on my hands, I shall not allow you to abandon me.”
“Oh, all right,” said Mrs. Hubbard helplessly. “But really, it’s very difficult to know what you
do want. Sometimes I don’t think you know yourself. You’d better lie down on my bed and have a
sleep—”
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