沉睡的谋杀案32
时间：2026-02-04 01:33:50
（单词翻译:单击）
Nineteen
MR. KIMBLE SPEAKS
“I dunno, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Kimble.
Her husband, driven into speech by what was neither more nor less
than an outrage, became vocal.
He shoved his cup forward.
“What you thinking of, Lily?” he demanded. “No sugar!”
Mrs. Kimble hastily remedied the outrage, and then proceeded to elab-
orate on her own theme.
“Thinking about this advert, I am,” she said. “Lily Abbott, it says, plain as
plain. And “formerly house- parlourmaid at St. Catherine’s Dillmouth.”
That’s me, all right.”
“Ar,” agreed Mr. Kimble.
“After all these years—you must agree it’s odd, Jim.”
“Ar,” said Mr. Kimble.
“Well, what am I going to do, Jim?”
“Leave it be.”
“Suppose there’s money in it?”
There was a gurgling sound as Mr. Kimble drained his teacup to fortify
himself for the mental effort of embarking on a long speech. He pushed
his cup along and prefaced his remarks with a laconic: “More.” Then he
got under way.
“You went on a lot at one time about what ’appened at St. Catherine’s. I
didn’t take much account of it—reckoned as it was mostly foolishness—
women’s chatter. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe something did ’appen. If so it’s
police business and you don’t want to be mixed up in it. All over and done
with, ain’t it? You leave well alone, my girl.”
“All very well to say that. It may be money as has been left me in a will.
Maybe Mrs. Halliday’s alive all the time and now she’s dead and left me
something in ’er will.”
“Left you something in ’er will? What for? Ar!” said Mr. Kimble, revert-
ing to his favourite monosyllable to express scorn.
“Even if it’s police … You know, Jim, there’s a big reward sometimes for
anyone as can give information to catch a murderer.”
“And what could you give? All you know you made up yourself in your
head!”
“That’s what you say. But I’ve been thinking—”
“Ar,” said Mr. Kimble disgustedly.
“Well, I have. Ever since I saw that first piece in the paper. Maybe I got
things a bit wrong. That Layonee, she was a bit stupid like all foreigners,
couldn’t understand proper what you said to her—and her English was
something awful. If she didn’t mean what I thought she meant … I’ve been
trying to remember the name of that man … Now if it was him she saw …
Remember that picture I told you about? Secret Lover. Ever so exciting.
They tracked him down in the end through his car. Fifty thousand dollars
he paid the garage man to forget he filled up with petrol that night. Dunno
what that is in pounds … And the other one was there, too, and the hus-
band crazy with jealousy. All mad about her, they were. And in the end—”
Mr. Kimble pushed back his chair with a grating sound. He rose to his
feet with slow and ponderous authority. Preparatory to leaving the kit-
chen, he delivered an ultimatum—the ultimatum of a man who, though
usually inarticulate, had a certain shrewdness.
“You leave the whole thing alone, my girl,” he said. “Or else, likely as
not, you’ll be sorry.”
He went into the scullery, put on his boots (Lily was particular about her
kitchen floor) and went out.
Lily sat on at the table, her sharp foolish little brain working things out.
Of course she couldn’t exactly go against what her husband said, but all
the same … Jim was so hidebound, so stick-in-the-mud. She wished there
was somebody else she could ask. Someone who would know all about re-
wards and the police and what it all meant. Pity to turn up a chance of
good money.
That wireless set … the home perm … that cherry-coloured coat in Rus-
sell’s (ever so smart)… even, maybe, a whole Jacobean suite for the sitting
room….
Eager, greedy, shortsighted, she went on dreaming … What exactly had
Layonee said all those years ago?
Then an idea came to her. She got up and fetched the bottle of ink, the
pen, and a pad of writing paper.
“Know what I’ll do,” she said to herself. “I’ll write to the doctor, Mrs.
Halliday’s brother. He’ll tell me what I ought to do—if he’s alive still, that
is. Anyway, it’s on my conscience I never told him about Layonee—or
about that car.”
There was silence for some time apart from the laborious scratching of
Lily’s pen. It was very seldom that she wrote a letter and she found the
composition of it a considerable effort.
However it was done at last and she put it into an envelope and sealed it
up.
But she felt less satisfied than she had expected. Ten to one the doctor
was dead or had gone away from Dillmouth.
Was there anyone else?
What was the name, now, of that fellow?
If she could only remember that….
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