命案目睹记45
时间：2025-10-20 07:29:50
（单词翻译:单击）
IV
It was some three hours later when the doctor and Lucy, both of them
somewhat exhausted, sat down by the kitchen table to drink large cups of
black coffee.
“Ha,” Dr. Quimper drained his cup, set it down with a clatter on the sau-
cer. “I needed that. Now, Miss Eyelesbarrow, let’s get down to brass tacks.”
Lucy looked at him. The lines of fatigue showed clearly on his face mak-
ing him look older than his forty-four years, the dark hair on his temples
was flecked with grey, and there were lines under his eyes.
“As far as I can judge,” said the doctor, “they’ll be all right now. But how
come? That’s what I want to know. Who cooked the dinner?”
“I did,” said Lucy.
“And what was it? In detail.”
“Mushroom soup. Curried chicken and rice. Syllabubs. A savoury of
chicken livers and bacon.”
“Canapés Diane,” said Dr. Quimper unexpectedly.
Lucy smiled faintly.
“Yes, Canapés Diane.”
“All right—let’s go through it. Mushroom soup—out of a tin, I suppose?”
“Certainly not. I made it.”
“You made it. Out of what?”
“Half a pound of mushrooms, chicken stock, milk, a roux of butter and
flour, and lemon juice.”
“Ah. And one’s supposed to say ‘It must have been the mushrooms.’”
“It wasn’t the mushrooms. I had some of the soup myself and I’m quite
all right.”
“Yes, you’re quite all right. I hadn’t forgotten that.”
Lucy flushed.
“If you mean—”
“I don’t mean. You’re a highly intelligent girl. You’d be groaning up-
stairs, too, if I’d meant what you thought I meant. Anyway, I know all
about you. I’ve taken the trouble to find out.”
“Why on earth did you do that?”
Dr. Quimper’s lips were set in a grim line.
“Because I’m making it my business to find out about the people who
come here and settle themselves in. You’re a bona fide young woman who
does this particular job for a livelihood and you seem never to have had
any contact with the Crackenthorpe family previous to coming here. So
you’re not a girl-friend of either Cedric, Harold or Alfred—helping them to
do a bit of dirty work.”
“Do you really think—?”
“I think quite a lot of things,” said Quimper. “But I have to be careful.
That’s the worst of being a doctor. Now let’s get on. Curried chicken. Did
you have some of that?”
“No. When you’ve cooked a curry, you’ve dined off the smell, I find. I
tasted it, of course. I had soup and some syllabub.”
“How did you serve the syllabub?”
“In individual glasses.”
“Now, then, how much of all this is cleared up?”
“If you mean washing up, everything was washed up and put away.”
Dr. Quimper groaned.
“There’s such a thing as being overzealous,” he said.
“Yes, I can see that, as things have turned out, but there it is, I’m afraid.”
“What do you have still?”
“There’s some of the curry left—in a bowl in the larder. I was planning
to use it as a basis for mulligatawny soup this evening. There’s some
mushroom soup left, too. No syllabub and none of the savoury.”
“I’ll take the curry and the soup. What about chutney? Did they have
chutney with it?”
“Yes. In one of those stone jars.”
“I’ll have some of that, too.”
He rose. “I’ll go up and have a look at them again. After that, can you
hold the fort until morning? Keep an eye on them all? I can have a nurse
round, with full instructions, by eight o’clock.”
“I wish you’d tell me straight out. Do you think it’s food poisoning—or—
or—well, poisoning.”
“I’ve told you already. Doctors can’t think — they have to be sure. If
there’s a positive result from these food specimens I can go ahead. Other-
wise—”
“Otherwise?” Lucy repeated.
Dr. Quimper laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Look after two people in particular,” he said. “Look after Emma. I’m
not going to have anything happen to Emma….”
There was emotion in his voice that could not be disguised. “She’s not
even begun to live yet,” he said. “And you know, people like Emma Crack-
enthorpe are the salt of the earth… Emma—well, Emma means a lot to me.
I’ve never told her so, but I shall. Look after Emma.”
“You bet I will,” said Lucy.
“And look after the old man. I can’t say that he’s ever been my favourite
patient, but he is my patient, and I’m damned if I’m going to let him be
hustled out of the world because one or other of his unpleasant sons—or
all three of them, maybe — want him out of the way so that they can
handle his money.”
He threw her a sudden quizzical glance.
“There,” he said. “I’ve opened my mouth too wide. But keep your eyes
skinned, there’s a good girl, and incidentally keep your mouth shut.”
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