沉睡的谋杀案30
时间：2026-02-04 01:33:40
（单词翻译:单击）
III
The plan was put into execution the following morning.
Giles, feeling, as he put it, rather like a shady detective in a divorce suit,
took up his position at a point of vantage overlooking the front gate of An-
stell Manor. About half past eleven he reported to Gwenda that all had
gone well. Mrs. Erskine had left in a small Austin car, clearly bound for
the market town three miles away. The coast was clear.
Gwenda drove up to the front door and rang the bell. She asked for Mrs.
Erskine and was told she was out. She then asked for Major Erskine. Major
Erskine was in the garden. He straightened up from operations on a
flowerbed as Gwenda approached.
“I’m so sorry to bother you,” said Gwenda. “But I think I must have
dropped a ring somewhere out here yesterday. I know I had it when we
came out from tea. It’s rather loose, but I couldn’t bear to lose it because
it’s my engagement ring.”
The hunt was soon under way. Gwenda retraced her steps of yesterday,
tried to recollect where she had stood and what flowers she had touched.
Presently the ring came to light near a large clump of delphiniums.
Gwenda was profuse in her relief.
“And now can I get you a drink, Mrs. Reed? Beer? A glass of sherry? Or
would you prefer coffee, or something like that?”
“I don’t want anything—no, really. Just a cigarette—thanks.”
She sat down on a bench and Erskine sat down beside her.
They smoked for a few minutes in silence. Gwenda’s heart was beating
rather fast. No two ways about it. She had to take the plunge.
“I want to ask you something,” she said. “Perhaps you’ll think it terribly
impertinent of me. But I want to know dreadfully—and you’re probably
the only person who could tell me. I believe you were once in love with
my stepmother.”
He turned an astonished face towards her.
“With your stepmother?”
“Yes. Helen Kennedy. Helen Halliday as she became afterwards.”
“I see.” The man beside her was very quiet. His eyes looked out across
the sunlit lawn unseeingly. The cigarette between his fingers smouldered.
Quiet as he was, Gwenda sensed a turmoil within that taut figure, the arm
of which touched her own.
As though answering some question he had put to himself, Erskine said:
“Letters, I suppose.”
Gwenda did not answer.
“I never wrote her many—two, perhaps three. She said she had des-
troyed them—but women never do destroy letters, do they? And so they
came into your hands. And you want to know.”
“I want to know more about her. I was—very fond of her. Although I
was such a small child when—she went away.”
“She went away?”
“Didn’t you know?”
His eyes, candid and surprised, met hers.
“I’ve no news of her,” he said, “since—since that summer in Dillmouth.”
“Then you don’t know where she is now?”
“How should I? It’s years ago—years. All finished and done with. Forgot-
ten.”
“Forgotten?”
He smiled rather bitterly.
“No, perhaps not forgotten … You’re very perceptive, Mrs. Reed. But tell
me about her. She’s not—dead, is she?”
A small cold wind sprang up suddenly, chilled their necks and passed.
“I don’t know if she is dead or not,” said Gwenda. “I don’t know any-
thing about her. I thought perhaps you might know?”
She went on as he shook his head: “You see, she went away from Dill-
mouth that summer. Quite suddenly one evening. Without telling anyone.
And she never came back.”
“And you thought I might have heard from her?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head.
“No. Never a word. But surely her brother—doctor chap—lives in Dill-
mouth. He must know. Or is he dead too?”
“No, he’s alive. But he doesn’t know either. You see—they all thought
she went away—with somebody.”
He turned his head to look at her. Deep sorrowful eyes.
“They thought she went away with me?”
“Well, it was a possibility.”
“Was it a possibility? I don’t think so. It was never that. Or were we fools
—conscientious fools who passed up our chance of happiness?”
Gwenda did not speak. Again Erskine turned his head and looked at her.
“Perhaps you’d better hear about it. There isn’t really very much to
hear. But I wouldn’t like you to misjudge Helen. We met on a boat going
out to India. One of the children had been ill, and my wife was following
on the next boat. Helen was going out to marry a man in the Woods and
Forests or something of that kind. She didn’t love him. He was just an old
friend, nice and kind, and she wanted to get away from home where she
wasn’t happy. We fell in love.”
He paused.
“Always a bald kind of statement. But it wasn’t—I want to make that
quite clear—just the usual shipboard love affair. It was serious. We were
both — well — shattered by it. And there wasn’t anything to be done. I
couldn’t let Janet and the children down. Helen saw it the same way as I
did. If it had been only Janet—but there were the boys. It was all hopeless.
We agreed to say good-bye and try and forget.”
He laughed, a short mirthless laugh.
“Forget? I never forgot—not for one moment. Life was just a living Hell.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Helen….
“Well, she didn’t marry the chap she had been going out to marry. At the
last moment, she just couldn’t face it. She went home to England and on
the way home she met this other man—your father, I suppose. She wrote
to me a couple of months later telling me what she had done. He was very
unhappy over the loss of his wife, she said, and there was a child. She
thought that she could make him happy and that it was the best thing to
do. She wrote from Dillmouth. About eight months later my father died
and I came into this place. I sent in my papers and came back to England.
We wanted a few weeks’ holiday until we could get into this house. My
wife suggested Dillmouth. Some friend had mentioned it as a pretty place
and quiet. She didn’t know, of course, about Helen. Can you imagine the
temptation? To see her again. To see what this man she had married was
like.”
There was a short silence, then Erskine said:
“We came and stayed at the Royal Clarence. It was a mistake. Seeing
Helen again was Hell … She seemed happy enough, on the whole—I didn’t
know whether she cared still, or whether she didn’t … Perhaps she’d got
over it. My wife, I think, suspected something … She’s—she’s a very jeal-
ous woman—always has been.”
He added brusquely, “That’s all there is to it. We left Dillmouth—”
“On August 17th,” said Gwenda.
“Was that the date? Probably. I can’t remember exactly.”
“It was a Saturday,” said Gwenda.
“Yes, you’re right. I remember Janet said it might be a crowded day to
travel north—but I don’t think it was….”
“Please try and remember, Major Erskine. When was the last time you
saw my stepmother—Helen?”
He smiled, a gentle, tired smile.
“I don’t need to try very hard. I saw her the evening before we left. On
the beach. I’d strolled down there after dinner—and she was there. There
was no one else about. I walked up with her to her house. We went
through the garden—”
“What time?”
“I don’t know … Nine o’clock, I suppose.”
“And you said good-bye?”
“And we said good-bye.” Again he laughed. “Oh, not the kind of good-
bye you’re thinking of. It was very brusque and curt. Helen said: ‘Please go
away now. Go quickly. I’d rather not—’ She stopped then—and I—I just
went.”
“Back to the hotel?”
“Yes, yes, eventually. I walked a long way first—right out into the coun-
try.”
Gwenda said, “It’s difficult with dates—after so many years. But I think
that that was the night she went away—and didn’t come back.”
“I see. And as I and my wife left the next day, people gossiped and said
she’d gone away with me. Charming minds people have.”
“Anyway,” said Gwenda bluntly, “she didn’t go away with you?”
“Good Lord, no, there was never any question of such a thing.”
“Then why do you think,” asked Gwenda, “that she went away?”
Erskine frowned. His manner changed, became interested.
“I see,” he said. “That is a bit of a problem. She didn’t—er—leave any ex-
planation?”
Gwenda considered. Then she voiced her own belief.
“I don’t think she left any word at all. Do you think she went away with
someone else?”
“No, of course she didn’t.”
“You seem rather sure about that.”
“I am sure.”
“Then why did she go?”
“If she went off — suddenly — like that — I can only see one possible
reason. She was running away from me.”
“From you?”
“Yes. She was afraid, perhaps, that I’d try to see her again — that I’d
pester her. She must have seen that I was still—crazy about her … Yes,
that must have been it.”
“It doesn’t explain,” said Gwenda, “why she never came back. Tell me,
did Helen say anything to you about my father? That she was worried
about him? Or—or afraid of him? Anything like that?”
“Afraid of him? Why? Oh I see, you thought he might have been jealous.
Was he a jealous man?”
“I don’t know. He died when I was a child.”
“Oh, I see. No—looking back—he always seemed normal and pleasant.
He was fond of Helen, proud of her—I don’t think more. No, I was the one
who was jealous of him.”
“They seemed to you reasonably happy together?”
“Yes, they did. I was glad—and yet, at the same time, it hurt, to see it …
No, Helen never discussed him with me. As I tell you, we were hardly ever
alone, never confidential together. But now that you have mentioned it, I
do remember thinking that Helen was worried….”
“Worried?”
“Yes. I thought perhaps it was because of my wife—” He broke off. “But
it was more than that.”
He looked again sharply at Gwenda.
“Was she afraid of her husband? Was he jealous of other men where she
was concerned?”
“You seem to think not.”
“Jealousy is a very queer thing. It can hide itself sometimes so that you’d
never suspect it.” He gave a short quick shiver. “But it can be frightening—
very frightening….”
“Another thing I would like to know—” Gwenda broke off.
A car had come up the drive. Major Erskine said, “Ah, my wife has come
back from shopping.”
In a moment, as it were, he became a different person. His tone was
easy yet formal, his face expressionless. A slight tremor betrayed that he
was nervous.
Mrs. Erskine came striding round the corner of the house.
Her husband went towards her.
“Mrs. Reed dropped one of her rings in the garden yesterday,” he said.
Mrs. Erskine said abruptly: “Indeed?”
“Good morning,” said Gwenda. “Yes, luckily I have found it.”
“That’s very fortunate.”
“Oh, it is. I should have hated to lose it. Well, I must be going.”
Mrs. Erskine said nothing. Major Erskine said: “I’ll see you to your car.”
He started to follow Gwenda along the terrace. His wife’s voice came
sharply.
“Richard. If Mrs. Reed will excuse you, there is a very important call—”
Gwenda said hastily, “Oh, that’s quite all right. Please don’t bother.”
She ran quickly along the terrace and round the side of the house to the
drive.
Then she stopped. Mrs. Erskine had drawn up her car in such a way that
Gwenda doubted whether she could get her own car past and down the
drive. She hesitated, then slowly retraced her steps to the terrace.
Just short of the french windows she stopped dead. Mrs. Erskine’s voice,
deep and resonant, came distinctly to her ears.
“I don’t care what you say. You arranged it—arranged it yesterday. You
fixed it up with that girl to come here whilst I was in Daith. You’re always
the same—any pretty girl. I won’t stand it, I tell you. I won’t stand it.”
Erskine’s voice cut in—quiet, almost despairing.
“Sometimes, Janet, I really think you’re insane.”
“I’m not the one who’s insane. It’s you! You can’t leave women alone.”
“You know that’s not true, Janet.”
“It is true! Even long ago—in the place where this girl comes from—Dill-
mouth. Do you dare tell me that you weren’t in love with that yellow-
haired Halliday woman?”
“Can you never forget anything? Why must you go on harping on these
things? You simply work yourself up and—”
“It’s you! You break my heart … I won’t stand it, I tell you! I won’t stand
it! Planning assignations! Laughing at me behind my back! You don’t care
for me—you’ve never cared for me. I’ll kill myself! I’ll throw myself over a
cliff—I wish I were dead—”
“Janet—Janet—for God’s sake….”
The deep voice had broken. The sound of passionate sobbing floated out
into the summer air.
On tip-toe Gwenda crept away and round into the drive again. She cogit-
ated for a moment, then rang the front doorbell.
“I wonder,” she said, “if there is anyone who—er—could move this car. I
don’t think I can get out.”
The servant went into the house. Presently a man came round from
what had been the stable yard. He touched his cap to Gwenda, got into the
Austin and drove it into the yard. Gwenda got into her car and drove rap-
idly back to the hotel where Giles was waiting for her.
“What a time you’ve been,” he greeted her. “Get anything?”
“Yes. I know all about it now. It’s really rather pathetic. He was terribly
in love with Helen.”
She narrated the events of the morning.
“I really think,” she ended, “that Mrs. Erskine is a bit insane. She soun-
ded quite mad. I see now what he meant by jealousy. It must be awful to
feel like that. Anyway, we know now that Erskine wasn’t the man who
went away with Helen, and that he knows nothing about her death. She
was alive that evening when he left her.”
“Yes,” said Giles. “At least—that’s what he says.”
Gwenda looked indignant.
“That,” repeated Giles firmly, “is what he says.”
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