弄假成真7
时间：2025-03-03 03:21:03
（单词翻译:单击）
Seven
taken him down to the boathouse and had now returned with him to the house. Down at the
boathouse a photographic unit was now busy and the fingerprint3 men and the medical officer had
just arrived.
“This do for you here all right?” asked Sir George.
“Very nicely, thank you, sir.”
“What am I to do about this show that’s going on, tell ’em about it, stop it, or what?”
Inspector Bland considered for a moment or two.
“What have you done so far, Sir George?” he asked.
“Haven’t said anything. There’s a sort of idea floating round that there’s been an accident.
Nothing more than that. I don’t think anyone’s suspected yet that it’s—er—well, murder.”
“How many people do you think there are at this affair?”
“Couple of hundred I should say,” answered Sir George, “and more pouring in every moment.
People seem to have come from a good long way round. In fact the whole thing’s being a roaring
success. Damned unfortunate.”
Inspector Bland inferred correctly that it was the murder and not the success of the fête to which
Sir George was referring.
He sighed.
“Tricky,” said Sir George sympathetically. “But I don’t see what reason any one of them could
have had. The whole thing seems quite fantastic—don’t see who would want to go murdering a
girl like that.”
“How much can you tell me about the girl? She was a local girl, I understand?”
local farms—Paterson’s, I think.” He added, “The mother is here at the fête this afternoon. Miss
Brewis—that’s my secretary, and she can tell you about everything much better than I can—Miss
Brewis winkled the woman out and has got her somewhere, giving her cups of tea.”
“Quite so,” said the inspector, approvingly. “I’m not quite clear yet, Sir George, as to the
circumstances of all this. What was the girl doing down there in the boathouse? I understand
there’s some kind of a murder hunt—or treasure hunt, going on.”
Sir George nodded.
“Yes. We all thought it rather a bright idea. Doesn’t seem quite so bright now. I think Miss
Brewis can probably explain it all to you better than I can. I’ll send her to you, shall I? Unless
there’s anything else you want to know about first.”
“Not at the moment, Sir George. I may have more questions to ask you later. There are people I
shall want to see. You, and Lady Stubbs, and the people who discovered the body. One of them, I
gather, is the woman novelist who designed this murder hunt as you call it.”
“That’s right. Mrs. Oliver. Mrs. Ariadne Oliver.”
“Oh—her!” he said. “Quite a best-seller. I’ve read a lot of her books myself.”
“She’s a bit upset at present,” said Sir George, “naturally, I suppose. I’ll tell her you’ll be
wanting her, shall I? I don’t know where my wife is. She seems to have disappeared completely
from view. Somewhere among the two or three hundred, I suppose—not that she’ll be able to tell
you much. I mean about the girl or anything like that. Who would you like to see first?”
“I think perhaps your secretary, Miss Brewis, and after that the girl’s mother.”
Sir George nodded and left the room.
out. He then volunteered a statement, obviously intended as a commentary on some of Sir
George’s remarks.
“Lady Stubbs is a bit wanting,” he said, “up here.” He tapped his forehead. “That’s why he said
she wouldn’t be much help. Scatty, that’s what she is.”
“Did he marry a local girl?”
“No. Foreigner of some sort. Coloured, some say, but I don’t think that’s so myself.”
Bland nodded. He was silent for a moment, doodling with a pencil on a sheet of paper in front
of him. Then he asked a question which was clearly off the record.
“Who did it, Hoskins?” he said.
If anyone did have any ideas as to what had been going on, Bland thought, it would be P.C.
Hoskins. Hoskins was a man of inquisitive10 mind with a great interest in everybody and everything.
He had a gossiping wife and that, taken with his position as local constable, provided him with
vast stores of information of a personal nature.
“Foreigner, if you ask me. ’Twouldn’t be anyone local. The Tuckers is all right. Nice,
respectable family. Nine of ’em all told. Two of the older girls is married, one boy in the Navy, the
other one’s doing his National Service, another girl’s over to a hairdresser’s at Torquay. There’s
three younger ones at home, two boys and a girl.” He paused, considering. “None of ’em’s what
you’d call bright, but Mrs. Tucker keeps her home nice, clean as a pin—youngest of eleven, she
was. She’s got her old father living with her.”
Bland received this information in silence. Given in Hoskins’ particular idiom, it was an outline
“That’s why I say it was a foreigner,” continued Hoskins. “One of those that stop up to the
Be surprised, you would, at what I’ve seen ’em doing in the bushes and the woods! Every bit as
bad as what goes on in parked cars along the Common.”
P.C. Hoskins was by this time an absolute specialist on the subject of sexual “goings-on.” They
formed a large portion of his conversation when off duty and having his pint13 in the Bull and Bear.
Bland said:
“I don’t think there was anything—well, of that kind. The doctor will tell us, of course, as soon
as he’s finished his examination.”
“Yes, sir, that’ll be up to him, that will. But what I say is, you never know with foreigners. Turn
nasty, they can, all in a moment.”
Inspector Bland sighed as he thought to himself that it was not quite as easy as that. It was all
very well for Constable Hoskins to put the blame conveniently on “foreigners.” The door opened
and the doctor walked in.
“Sergeant Cottrill will attend to that,” said Bland. “Well, Doc, what’s the finding?”
“Simple and straightforward15 as it can be,” said the doctor. “No complications. Garrotted with a
piece of clothesline. Nothing could be simpler or easier to do. No struggle of any kind beforehand.
I’d say the kid didn’t know what was happening to her until it had happened.”
“Any signs of assault?”
“Not presumably a sexual crime, then?”
“I wouldn’t say so, no.” The doctor added, “I shouldn’t say she’d been a particularly attractive
girl.”
“Was she fond of the boys?”
Bland addressed this question to Constable Hoskins.
“I wouldn’t say they’d much use for her,” said Constable Hoskins, “though maybe she’d have
liked it if they had.”
“Maybe,” agreed Bland. His mind went back to the pile of comic papers in the boathouse and
wood.” He thought there had been a little wishful thinking there. On the whole, though, it seemed
unlikely that there was a sex angle to Marlene Tucker’s death. Although, of course, one never
during this holiday season. He almost believed that it must be so—for otherwise he could really
see no reason for so pointless a crime. However, he thought, we’re only at the beginning. I’d better
see what all these people have to tell me.
“What about time of death?” he asked.
The doctor glanced over at the clock and his own watch.
“Just after half past five now,” he said. “Say I saw her about twenty past five—she’d been dead
about an hour. Roughly, that is to say. Put it between four o’clock and twenty to five. Let you
know if there’s anything more after the autopsy22.” He added: “You’ll get the proper report with the
long words in due course. I’ll be off now. I’ve got some patients to see.”
He left the room and Inspector Bland asked Hoskins to fetch Miss Brewis. His spirits rose a
little when Miss Brewis came into the room. Here, as he recognized at once, was efficiency. He
would get clear answers to his questions, definite times and no muddleheadedness.
“Mrs. Tucker’s in my sitting room,” Miss Brewis said as she sat down. “I’ve broken the news to
her and given her some tea. She’s very upset, naturally. She wanted to see the body but I told her it
was much better not. Mr. Tucker gets off work at six o’clock and was coming to join his wife here.
I told them to look out for him and bring him along when he arrives. The younger children are at
the fête still, and someone is keeping an eye on them.”
“Excellent,” said Inspector Bland, with approval. “I think before I see Mrs. Tucker I would like
to hear what you and Lady Stubbs can tell me.”
“I don’t know where Lady Stubbs is,” said Miss Brewis acidly. “I rather imagine she got bored
with the fête and has wandered off somewhere, but I don’t expect she can tell you anything more
than I can. What exactly is it that you want to know?”
“I want to know all the details of this murder hunt first and of how this girl, Marlene Tucker,
came to be taking a part in it.”
“That’s quite easy.”
Succinctly23 and clearly Miss Brewis explained the idea of the murder hunt as an original
attraction for the fête, the engaging of Mrs. Oliver, the well-known novelist, to arrange the matter,
and a short outline of the plot.
“Originally,” Miss Brewis explained, “Mrs. Alec Legge was to have taken the part of the
victim.”
Constable Hoskins put in an explanatory word.
month ago, they did. Two or three months they got it for.”
“I see. And Mrs. Legge, you say, was to be the original victim? Why was that changed?”
“Well, one evening Mrs. Legge told all our fortunes and was so good at it that it was decided
we’d have a fortune teller’s tent as one of the attractions and that Mrs. Legge should put on
Eastern dress and be Madame Zuleika and tell fortunes at half a crown a time. I don’t think that’s
really illegal, is it, Inspector? I mean it’s usually done at these kind of fêtes?”
Inspector Bland smiled faintly.
then we have to—er—make an example.”
“But usually you’re tactful? Well, that’s how it was. Mrs. Legge agreed to help us that way and
I think someone suggested that one of the Guides would do quite well.”
“Just who was it who suggested that, Miss Brewis?”
“Really, I don’t quite know…I think it may have been Mrs. Masterton, the Member’s wife. No,
perhaps it was Captain Warburton…Really, I can’t be sure. But, anyway, it was suggested.”
“Is there any reason why this particular girl should have been chosen?”
sometimes comes to help in the kitchen. I don’t know quite why we settled on her. Probably her
name came to mind first. We asked her and she seemed quite pleased to do it.”
“She definitely wanted to do it?”
Brewis, “she couldn’t have acted a part or anything like that. But this was all very simple, and she
felt she’d been singled out from the others and was pleased about it.”
“What exactly was it that she had to do?”
“She had to stay in the boathouse. When she heard anyone coming to the door she was to lie
businesslike. The fact that the girl who was to sham dead had actually been found dead did not at
the moment appear to affect her emotionally.
“Rather a boring way for the girl to spend the afternoon when she might have been at the fête,”
suggested Inspector Bland.
“I suppose it was in a way,” said Miss Brewis, “but one can’t have everything, can one? And
Marlene did enjoy the idea of being the body. It made her feel important. She had a pile of papers
and things to read to keep her amused.”
“And something to eat as well?” said the inspector. “I noticed there was a tray down there with
a plate and glass.”
“Oh, yes, she had a big plate of sweet cakes, and a raspberry fruit drink. I took them down to
her myself.”
Bland looked up sharply.
“You took them down to her? When?”
“About the middle of the afternoon.”
“What time exactly? Can you remember?”
Miss Brewis considered a moment.
“Let me see. Children’s Fancy Dress was judged, there was a little delay—Lady Stubbs couldn’t
be found, but Mrs. Folliat took her place, so that was all right…Yes, it must have been—I’m
almost sure—about five minutes past four that I collected the cakes and the fruit drink.”
“And you took them down to her at the boathouse yourself. What time did you reach there?”
“Oh, it takes about five minutes to go down to the boathouse—about quarter past four, I should
think.”
“And at quarter past four Marlene Tucker was alive and well?”
“Yes, of course,” said Miss Brewis, “and very eager to know how people were getting on with
the murder hunt, too. I’m afraid I couldn’t tell her. I’d been too busy with the sideshow on the
lawn, but I did know that a lot of people had entered for it. Twenty or thirty to my knowledge.
Probably a good many more.”
“How did you find Marlene when you arrived at the boathouse?”
“I’ve just told you.”
the door?”
“Oh, no,” said Miss Brewis, “because I called out just before I got there. So she opened the door
and I took the tray in and put it on the table.”
“At a quarter past four,” said Bland, writing it down, “Marlene Tucker was alive and well. You
will understand, I’m sure, Miss Brewis, that that is a very important point. You are quite sure of
your times?”
“I can’t be exactly sure because I didn’t look at my watch, but I had looked at it a short time
previously32 and that’s as near as I can get.” She added, with a sudden dawning realization33 of the
inspector’s point, “Do you mean that it was soon after—?”
“It can’t have been very long after, Miss Brewis.”
“Oh, dear,” said Miss Brewis.
It was a rather inadequate34 expression, but nevertheless it conveyed well enough Miss Brewis’
dismay and concern.
“Now, Miss Brewis, on your way down to the boathouse and on your way back again to the
house, did you meet anybody or see anyone near the boathouse?”
Miss Brewis considered.
“No,” she said, “I didn’t meet anyone. I might have, of course, because the grounds are open to
everyone this afternoon. But on the whole, people tend to stay round the lawn and the side shows
and all that. They like to go round the kitchen gardens and the greenhouses, but they don’t walk
very much at these affairs, don’t you think so, Inspector?”
The inspector said that that was probably so.
“Though, I think,” said Miss Brewis, with sudden memory, “that there was someone in the
“The Folly?”
“Yes. A small white temple arrangement. It was put up just a year or two ago. It’s to the right of
the path as you go down to the boathouse. There was someone in there. A courting couple, I
suspect. Someone was laughing and then someone said, ‘Hush.’”
“You don’t know who this courting couple was?”
“I’ve no idea. You can’t see the front of the Folly from the path. The sides and back are
enclosed.”
The inspector thought for a moment or two, but it did not seem likely to him that the couple—
whoever they were—in the Folly were important. Better find out who they were, perhaps, because
they in their turn might have seen someone coming up from or going down to the boathouse.
“And there was no one else on the path? No one at all?” he insisted.
“I see what you’re driving at, of course,” said Miss Brewis. “I can only assure you that I didn’t
meet anyone. But then, you see, I needn’t have. I mean, if there had been anyone on the path who
didn’t want me to see them, it’s the simplest thing in the world just to slip behind some of the
anyone who had no business to be there heard someone coming along the path, they could slip out
of sight in a moment.”
“Is there anything you know about this girl yourself, that could help us?” he asked.
“I really know nothing about her,” said Miss Brewis. “I don’t think I’d ever spoken to her until
“And you know nothing about her—nothing that could be helpful?”
“I don’t know of any reason why anyone should want to murder her,” said Miss Brewis. “In fact
it seems to me, if you know what I mean, quite impossible that such a thing should have happened.
I can only think that to some unbalanced mind, the fact that she was to be the murdered victim
might have induced the wish to make her a real victim. But even that sounds very far-fetched and
silly.”
Bland sighed.
“Oh, well,” he said, “I suppose I’d better see the mother now.”
Mrs. Tucker was a thin, hatchet-faced woman with stringy blonde hair and a sharp nose. Her
eyes were reddened with crying, but she had herself in hand now, and was ready to answer the
inspector’s questions.
“Doesn’t seem right that a thing like that should happen,” she said. “You read of these things in
the papers, but that it should happen to our Marlene—”
“I’m very, very sorry about it,” said Inspector Bland gently. “What I want you to do is to think
as hard as you can and tell me if there is anyone who could have had any reason to harm the girl?”
thought, I have, but I can’t get anywhere. Words with the teacher at school Marlene had now and
again, and she’d have her quarrels now and again with one of the girls or boys, but nothing serious
“She never talked to you about anyone who might have been an enemy of any kind?”
and what she’d like to do to her face and herself. You know what girls are. Far too young she was,
to put on lipstick43 and all that muck, and her dad told her so, and so did I. But that’s what she’d do
Bland nodded. There was nothing here that could help him. An adolescent, rather silly girl, her
head full of film stars and glamour—there were hundreds of Marlenes.
“What her dad’ll say, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Tucker. “Coming here any minute he’ll be,
“If you ask me,” she said, “it’s one of them nasty foreigners up at the Hostel. You never know
where you are with foreigners. Nice spoken as most of them are, some of the shirts they wear you
wouldn’t believe. Shirts with girls on them with these bikinis, as they call them. And all of them
sunning themselves here and there with no shirts at all on—it all leads to trouble. That’s what I
say!”
Still weeping, Mrs. Tucker was escorted from the room by Constable Hoskins. Bland reflected
that the local verdict seemed to be the comfortable and probably age-long one of attributing every
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
inspector
|
|
| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
bland
|
|
| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
fingerprint
|
|
| n.指纹；vt.取...的指纹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
cynically
|
|
| adv.爱嘲笑地，冷笑地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
mused
|
|
| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
quay
|
|
| n.码头，靠岸处 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
eyebrows
|
|
| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
constable
|
|
| n.(英国)警察，警官 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
inquisitive
|
|
| adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
hostel
|
|
| n.（学生）宿舍，招待所 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
pint
|
|
| n.品脱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
outfits
|
|
| n.全套装备( outfit的名词复数 )；一套服装；集体；组织v.装备，配置设备，供给服装( outfit的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
straightforward
|
|
| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
rape
|
|
| n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
scrawls
|
|
| 潦草的笔迹( scrawl的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
margin
|
|
| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
lust
|
|
| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
specialized
|
|
| adj.专门的，专业化的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
immature
|
|
| adj.未成熟的，发育未全的，未充分发展的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
autopsy
|
|
| n.尸体解剖；尸检 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
succinctly
|
|
| adv.简洁地；简洁地，简便地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
queried
|
|
| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
creek
|
|
| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
raffles
|
|
| n.抽彩售物( raffle的名词复数 )v.以抽彩方式售（物）( raffle的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
helping
|
|
| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
tenants
|
|
| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
moronic
|
|
| a.低能的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
sham
|
|
| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
shamming
|
|
| 假装，冒充( sham的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
previously
|
|
| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
realization
|
|
| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
inadequate
|
|
| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
herd
|
|
| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
folly
|
|
| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
shrubs
|
|
| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
tack
|
|
| n.大头钉；假缝，粗缝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
vaguely
|
|
| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
sniff
|
|
| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
mischief
|
|
| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
makeup
|
|
| n.组织；性格；化装品 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
lipstick
|
|
| n.口红，唇膏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
scent
|
|
| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
lipsticks
|
|
| n.口红，唇膏( lipstick的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
coconuts
|
|
| n.椰子( coconut的名词复数 )；椰肉，椰果 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
sob
|
|
| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
tragic
|
|
| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
©2005-2010英文阅读网