弄假成真16
时间：2025-03-03 03:32:37
（单词翻译:单击）
Sixteen
I
Hercule Poirot sat in a square chair in front of the square fireplace in the square room of his
London flat. In front of him were various objects that were not square: that were instead violently
and almost impossibly curved. Each of them, studied separately, looked as if it could not have any
conceivable function in a sane world. They appeared improbable, irresponsible, and wholly
fortuitous. In actual fact, of course, they were nothing of the sort.
Assessed correctly, each had its particular place in a particular universe. Assembled in their
proper place in their particular universe, they not only made sense, they made a picture. In other
words, Hercule Poirot was doing a jigsaw puzzle.
He looked down at where a rectangle still showed improbably shaped gaps. It was an
occupation he found soothing and pleasant. It brought disorder into order. It had, he reflected, a
certain resemblance to his own profession. There, too, one was faced with various improbably
shaped and unlikely facts which, though seeming to bear no relationship to each other, yet did
each have its properly balanced part in assembling the whole. His fingers deftly picked up an
improbable piece of dark grey and fitted it into a blue sky. It was, he now perceived, part of an
aeroplane.
“Yes,” murmured Poirot to himself, “that is what one must do. The unlikely piece here, the
improbable piece there, the oh-so-rational piece that is not what it seems; all of these have their
appointed place, and once they are fitted in, eh bien, there is an end of the business! All is clear.
All is—as they say nowadays—in the picture.”
He fitted in, in rapid succession, a small piece of a minaret, another piece that looked as though
it was part of a striped awning and was actually the backside of a cat, and a missing piece of
sunset that had changed with Turneresque suddenness from orange to pink.
If one knew what to look for, it would be so easy, said Hercule Poirot to himself. But one does
not know what to look for. And so one looks in the wrong places or for the wrong things. He
sighed vexedly. His eyes strayed from the jigsaw puzzle in front of him to the chair on the other
side of the fireplace. There, not half an hour ago, Inspector Bland had sat consuming tea and
crumpets (square crumpets) and talking sadly. He had had to come to London on police business
and that police business having been accomplished, he had come to call upon M. Poirot. He had
wondered, he explained, whether M. Poirot had any ideas. He had then proceeded to explain his
own ideas. On every point he outlined, Poirot had agreed with him. Inspector Bland, so Poirot
thought, had made a very fair and unprejudiced survey of the case.
It was now a month, nearly five weeks, since the occurrences at Nasse House. It had been five
weeks of stagnation and of negation. Lady Stubbs’ body had not been recovered. Lady Stubbs, if
living, had not been traced. The odds, Inspector Bland pointed out, were strongly against her being
alive. Poirot agreed with him.
“Of course,” said Bland, “the body might not have been washed up. There’s no telling with a
body once it’s in the water. It may show up yet, though it will be pretty unrecognizable when it
does.”
“There is a third possibility,” Poirot pointed out.
Bland nodded.
“Yes,” he said, “I’ve thought of that. I keep thinking of that, in fact. You mean the body’s there
—at Nasse, hidden somewhere where we’ve never thought of looking. It could be, you know. It
just could be. With an old house, and with grounds like that, there are places you’d never think of
—that you’d never know were there.”
He paused a moment, ruminated, and then said:
“There’s a house I was in only the other day. They’d built an air raid shelter, you know, in the
war. A flimsy sort of more or less homemade job in the garden, by the wall of the house, and had
made a way from it into the house—into the cellar. Well, the war ended, the shelters tumbled
down, they heaped it up in irregular mounds and made a kind of rockery of it. Walking through
that garden now, you’d never think that the place had once been an air raid shelter and that there
was a chamber underneath. Looks as though it was always meant to be a rockery. And all the time,
behind a wine bin in the cellar, there’s a passage leading into it. That’s what I mean. That kind of
thing. Some sort of way into some kind of place that no outsider would know about. I don’t
suppose there’s an actual Priest’s Hole or anything of that kind?”
“Hardly—not at that period.”
“That’s what Mr. Weyman says—he says the house was built about 1790 or thereabouts. No
reason for priests to hide themselves by that date. All the same, you know, there might be—
somewhere, some alteration in the structure—something that one of the family might know about.
What do you think, M. Poirot?”
“It is possible, yes,” said Poirot. “Mais oui, decidedly it is an idea. If one accepts the possibility,
then the next thing is—who would know about it? Anyone staying in the house might know, I
suppose?”
“Yes. Of course it would let out de Sousa.” The inspector looked dissatisfied. De Sousa was still
his preferred suspect. “As you say, anyone who lived in the house, such as a servant or one of the
family, might know about it. Someone just staying in the house would be less likely. People who
only came in from outside, like the Legges, less likely still.”
“The person who would certainly know about such a thing, and who could tell you if you asked
her, would be Mrs. Folliat,” said Poirot.
Mrs. Folliat, he thought, knew all there was to know about Nasse House. Mrs. Folliat knew a
great deal…Mrs. Folliat had known straight away that Hattie Stubbs was dead. Mrs. Folliat knew,
before Marlene and Hattie Stubbs died, that it was a very wicked world and that there were very
wicked people in it. Mrs. Folliat, thought Poirot vexedly, was the key to the whole business. But
Mrs. Folliat, he reflected, was a key that would not easily turn in the lock.
“I’ve interviewed the lady several times,” said the inspector. “Very nice, very pleasant she’s
been about everything, and seems very distressed that she can’t suggest anything helpful.”
Can’t or won’t? thought Poirot. Bland was perhaps thinking the same.
“There’s a type of lady,” he said, “that you can’t force. You can’t frighten them, or persuade
them, or diddle them.”
No, Poirot thought, you couldn’t force or persuade or diddle Mrs. Folliat.
The inspector had finished his tea, and sighed and gone, and Poirot had got out his jigsaw
puzzle to alleviate his mounting exasperation. For he was exasperated. Both exasperated and
humiliated. Mrs. Oliver had summoned him, Hercule Poirot, to elucidate a mystery. She had felt
that there was something wrong, and there had been something wrong. And she had looked
confidently to Hercule Poirot, first to prevent it—and he had not prevented it—and, secondly, to
discover the killer, and he had not discovered the killer. He was in a fog, in the type of fog where
there are from time to time baffling gleams of light. Every now and then, or so it seemed to him,
he had had one of those glimpses. And each time he had failed to penetrate farther. He had failed
to assess the value of what he seemed, for one brief moment, to have seen.
Poirot got up, crossed to the other side of the hearth, rearranged the second square chair so that
it was at a definite geometric angle, and sat down in it. He had passed from the jigsaw of painted
wood and cardboard to the jigsaw of a murder problem. He took a notebook from his pocket and
wrote in small neat characters:
“Etienne de Sousa, Amanda Brewis, Alec Legge, Sally Legge, Michael Weyman.”
It was physically impossible for Sir George or Jim Warburton to have killed Marlene Tucker.
Since it was not physically impossible for Mrs. Oliver to have done so, he added her name after a
brief space. He also added the name of Mrs. Masterton since he did not remember of his own
knowledge having seen Mrs. Masterton constantly on the lawn between four o’clock and quarter
to five. He added the name of Henden, the butler; more, perhaps, because a sinister butler had
figured in Mrs. Oliver’s Murder Hunt than because he had really any suspicions of the dark-haired
artist with the gong stick. He also put down “Boy in turtle shirt” with a query mark after it. Then
he smiled, shook his head, took a pin from the lapel of his jacket, shut his eyes and stabbed with it.
It was as good a way as any other, he thought.
He was justifiably annoyed when the pin proved to have transfixed the last entry.
“I am an imbecile,” said Hercule Poirot. “What has a boy in a turtle shirt to do with this?”
But he also realized he must have had some reason for including this enigmatic character in his
list. He recalled again the day he had sat in the Folly, and the surprise on the boy’s face at seeing
him there. Not a very pleasant face, despite the youthful good looks. An arrogant ruthless face.
The young man had come there for some purpose. He had come to meet someone, and it followed
that that someone was a person whom he could not meet, or did not wish to meet, in the ordinary
way. It was a meeting, in fact, to which attention must not be called. A guilty meeting. Something
to do with the murder?
Poirot pursued his reflections. A boy who was staying at the Youth Hostel—that is to say, a boy
who would be in that neighbourhood for two nights at most. Had he come there casually? One of
the many young students visiting Britain? Or had he come there for a special purpose, to meet
some special person? There could have been what seemed a casual encounter on the day of the
fête—possibly there had been.
I know a good deal, said Hercule Poirot to himself. I have in my hands many, many pieces of
this jigsaw. I have an idea of the kind of crime this was—but it must be that I am not looking at it
the right way.
He turned a page of his notebook, and wrote:
Did Lady Stubbs ask Miss Brewis to take tea to Marlene? If not, why does Miss
Brewis say that she did?
He considered the point. Miss Brewis might quite easily herself have thought of taking cake and
a fruit drink to the girl. But if so why did she not simply say so? Why lie about Lady Stubbs
having asked her to do so? Could this be because Miss Brewis went to the boathouse and found
Marlene dead? Unless Miss Brewis was herself guilty of the murder, that seemed very unlikely.
She was not a nervous woman nor an imaginative one. If she had found the girl dead, she would
surely at once have given the alarm?
He stared for some time at the two questions he had written. He could not help feeling that
somewhere in those words there was some vital pointer to the truth that had escaped him. After
four or five minutes of thought he wrote down something more.
Etienne de Sousa declares that he wrote to his cousin three weeks before his
arrival at Nasse House. Is that statement true or false?
Poirot felt almost certain that it was false. He recalled the scene at the breakfast table. There
seemed no earthly reason why Sir George or Lady Stubbs should pretend to a surprise and, in the
latter’s case, a dismay, which they did not feel. He could see no purpose to be accomplished by it.
Granting, however, that Etienne de Sousa had lied, why did he lie? To give the impression that his
visit had been announced and welcomed? It might be so, but it seemed a very doubtful reason.
There was certainly no evidence that such a letter had ever been written or received. Was it an
attempt on de Sousa’s part to establish his bona fides—to make his visit appear natural and even
expected? Certainly Sir George had received him amicably enough, although he did not know
him.
Poirot paused, his thoughts coming to a stop. Sir George did not know de Sousa. His wife, who
did know him, had not seen him. Was there perhaps something there? Could it be possible that the
Etienne de Sousa who had arrived that day at the fête was not the real Etienne de Sousa? He went
over the idea in his mind, but again he could see no point to it. What had de Sousa to gain by
coming and representing himself as de Sousa if he was not de Sousa? In any case, de Sousa did not
derive any benefit from Hattie’s death. Hattie, as the police had ascertained, had no money of her
own except that which was allowed her by her husband.
Poirot tried to remember exactly what she had said to him that morning. “He is a bad man. He
does wicked things.” And, according to Bland, she had said to her husband: “He kills people.”
There was something rather significant about that, now that one came to examine all the facts.
He kills people.
On the day Etienne de Sousa had come to Nasse House one person certainly had been killed,
possibly two people. Mrs. Folliat had said that one should pay no attention to these melodramatic
remarks of Hattie’s. She had said so very insistently. Mrs. Folliat….
Hercule Poirot frowned, then brought his hand down with a bang on the arm of his chair.
“Always, always—I return to Mrs. Folliat. She is the key to the whole business. If I knew what
she knows…I can no longer sit in an armchair and just think. No, I must take a train and go again
to Devon and visit Mrs. Folliat.”
II
Hercule Poirot paused for a moment outside the big wrought iron gates of Nasse House. He looked
ahead of him along the curving drive. It was no longer summer. Golden-brown leaves fluttered
gently down from the trees. Near at hand the grassy banks were coloured with small mauve
cyclamen. Poirot sighed. The beauty of Nasse House appealed to him in spite of himself. He was
not a great admirer of nature in the wild, he liked things trim and neat, yet he could not but
appreciate the soft wild beauty of massed shrubs and trees.
At his left was the small white porticoed lodge. It was a fine afternoon. Probably Mrs. Folliat
would not be at home. She would be out somewhere with her gardening basket or else visiting
some friends in the neighbourhood. She had many friends. This was her home, and had been her
home for many long years. What was it the old man on the quay had said? “There’ll always be
Folliats at Nasse House.”
Poirot rapped gently upon the door of the Lodge. After a few moments’ delay he heard footsteps
inside. They sounded to his ear slow and almost hesitant. Then the door was opened and Mrs.
Folliat stood framed in the doorway. He was startled to see how old and frail she looked. She
stared at him incredulously for a moment or two, then she said:
“M. Poirot? You!”
He thought for a moment that he had seen fear leap into her eyes, but perhaps that was sheer
imagination on his part. He said politely:
“May I come in, Madame?”
“But of course.”
She had recovered all her poise now, beckoned him in with a gesture and led the way into her
small sittingroom. There were some delicate Chelsea figures on the mantelpiece, a couple of chairs
covered in exquisite petit point, and a Derby tea service stood on the small table. Mrs. Folliat said:
“I will fetch another cup.”
Poirot raised a faintly protesting hand, but she pushed the protest aside.
“Of course you must have some tea.”
She went out of the room. He looked round him once more. A piece of needlework, a petit point
chair seat, lay on a table with a needle sticking in it. Against the wall was a bookcase with books.
There was a little cluster of miniatures on the wall and a faded photograph in a silver frame of a
man in uniform with a stiff moustache and a weak chin.
Mrs. Folliat came back into the room with a cup and saucer in her hand.
Poirot said, “Your husband, Madame?”
“Yes.”
Noticing that Poirot’s eyes swept along the top of the bookcase as though in search of further
photographs, she said brusquely:
“I’m not fond of photographs. They make one live in the past too much. One must learn to
forget. One must cut away the dead wood.”
Poirot remembered how the first time he had seen Mrs. Folliat she had been clipping with
sécateurs at a shrub on the bank. She had said then, he remembered, something about dead wood.
He looked at her thoughtfully, appraising her character. An enigmatical woman, he thought, and a
woman who, in spite of the gentleness and fragility of her appearance, had a side to her that could
be ruthless. A woman who could cut away dead wood not only from plants but from her own
life…
She sat down and poured out a cup of tea, asking: “Milk? Sugar?”
“Three lumps if you will be so good, Madame?”
She handed him his cup and said conversationally:
“I was surprised to see you. Somehow I did not imagine you would be passing through this part
of the world again.”
“I am not exactly passing through,” said Poirot.
“No?” She queried him with slightly uplifted eyebrows.
“My visit to this part of the world is intentional.”
She still looked at him in inquiry.
“I came here partly to see you, Madame.”
“Really?”
“First of all—there has been no news of the young Lady Stubbs?”
Mrs. Folliat shook her head.
“There was a body washed up the other day in Cornwall,” she said. “George went there to see if
he could identify it. But it was not her.” She added: “I am very sorry for George. The strain has
been very great.”
“Does he still believe that his wife may be alive?”
Slowly Mrs. Folliat shook her head.
“I think,” she said, “that he has given up hope. After all, if Hattie were alive, she couldn’t
possibly conceal herself successfully with the whole of the Press and the police looking for her.
Even if something like loss of memory had happened to her—well, surely the police would have
found her by now?”
“It would seem so, yes,” said Poirot. “Do the police still search?”
“I suppose so. I do not really know.”
“But Sir George has given up hope.”
“He does not say so,” said Mrs. Folliat. “Of course I have not seen him lately. He has been
mostly in London.”
“And the murdered girl? There have been no developments there?”
“Not that I know of.” She added. “It seems a senseless crime—absolutely pointless. Poor child
—”
“It still upsets you, I see, to think of her, Madame.”
Mrs. Folliat did not reply for a moment or two. Then she said:
“I think when one is old, the death of anyone who is young upsets one out of due proportion.
We old folks expect to die, but that child had her life before her.”
“It might not have been a very interesting life.”
“Not from our point of view, perhaps, but it might have been interesting to her.”
“And although, as you say, we old folk must expect to die,” said Poirot, “we do not really want
to. At least I do not want to. I find life very interesting still.”
“I don’t think that I do.”
She spoke more to herself than him, her shoulders drooped still more.
“I am very tired, M. Poirot. I shall be not only ready, but thankful, when my time comes.”
He shot a quick glance at her. He wondered, as he had wondered before, whether it was a sick
woman who sat talking to him, a woman who had perhaps the knowledge or even the certainty of
approaching death. He could not otherwise account for the intense weariness and lassitude of her
manner. That lassitude, he felt, was not really characteristic of the woman. Amy Folliat, he felt,
was a woman of character, energy and determination. She had lived through many troubles, loss of
her home, loss of wealth, the deaths of her sons. All these, he felt, she had survived. She had cut
away the “dead wood,” as she herself had expressed it. But there was something now in her life
that she could not cut away, that no one could cut away for her. If it was not physical illness he did
not see what it could be. She gave a sudden little smile as though she were reading his thoughts.
“Really, you know, I have not very much to live for, M. Poirot,” she said. “I have many friends
but no near relations, no family.”
“You have your home,” said Poirot on an impulse.
“You mean Nasse? Yes—”
“It is your home, isn’t it, although technically it is the property of Sir George Stubbs? Now Sir
George Stubbs has gone to London you rule in his stead.”
Again he saw the sharp look of fear in her eyes. When she spoke her voice held an icy edge to
it.
“I don’t quite know what you mean, M. Poirot. I am grateful to Sir George for renting me this
lodge, but I do rent it. I pay him a yearly sum for it with the right to walk in the grounds.”
Poirot spread out his hands.
“I apologize, Madame. I did not mean to offend you.”
“No doubt I misunderstood you,” said Mrs. Folliat coldly.
“It is a beautiful place,” said Poirot. “A beautiful house, beautiful grounds. It has about it a great
peace, great serenity.”
“Yes.” Her face lightened. “We have always felt that. I felt it as a child when I first came here.”
“But is there the same peace and serenity now, Madame?”
“Why not?”
“Murder unavenged,” said Poirot. “The spilling of innocent blood. Until that shadow lifts, there
will not be peace.” He added, “I think you know that, Madame, as well as I do.”
Mrs. Folliat did not answer. She neither moved nor spoke. She sat quite still and Poirot had no
idea what she was thinking. He leaned forward a little and spoke again.
“Madame, you know a good deal—perhaps everything—about this murder. You know who
killed that girl, you know why. You know who killed Hattie Stubbs, you know, perhaps, where her
body lies now.”
Mrs. Folliat spoke then. Her voice was loud, almost harsh.
“I know nothing,” she said. “Nothing.”
“Perhaps I have used the wrong word. You do not know, but I think you guess, Madame. I’m
quite sure that you guess.”
“Now you are being—excuse me—absurd!”
“It is not absurd—it is something quite different—it is dangerous.”
“Dangerous? To whom?”
“To you, Madame. So long as you keep your knowledge to yourself you are in danger. I know
murderers better than you do, Madame.”
“I have told you already, I have no knowledge.”
“Suspicions, then—”
“I have no suspicions.”
“That, excuse me, is not true, Madame.”
“To speak out of mere suspicion would be wrong—indeed, wicked.”
Poirot leaned forward. “As wicked as what was done here just over a month ago?”
She shrank back into her chair, huddled into herself. She half whispered:
“Don’t talk to me of it.” And then added, with a long shuddering sigh, “Anyway, it’s over now.
Done—finished with.”
“How can you tell that, Madame? I tell you of my own knowledge that it is never finished with
a murderer.”
She shook her head.
“No. No, it’s the end. And, anyway, there is nothing I can do. Nothing.”
He got up and stood looking down at her. She said almost fretfully:
“Why, even the police have given up.”
Poirot shook his head.
“Oh, no, Madame, you are wrong there. The police do not give up. And I,” he added, “do not
give up either. Remember that, Madame, I, Hercule Poirot, do not give up.”
It was a very typical exit line.
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