沉睡的谋杀案41
时间：2026-02-04 03:18:08
（单词翻译:单击）
Twenty-three
WHICH OF THEM?
Giles and Gwenda had not gone with Inspector Last and Dr. Kennedy to in-
terview Mr. Kimble. They arrived home about seven o’clock. Gwenda
looked white and ill. Dr. Kennedy had said to Giles: “Give her some brandy
and make her eat something, then get her to bed. She’s had a bad shock.”
“It’s so awful, Giles,” Gwenda kept saying. “So awful. That silly woman,
making an appointment with the murderer, and going along so confid-
ently—to be killed. Like a sheep to the slaughter.”
“Well, don’t think about it, darling. After all, we did know there was
someone—a killer.”
“No, we didn’t. Not a killer now. I mean, it was then—eighteen years ago.
It wasn’t, somehow, quite real … It might all have been a mistake.”
“Well, this proves that it wasn’t a mistake. You were right all the time,
Gwenda.”
Giles was glad to find Miss Marple at Hillside. She and Mrs. Cocker
between them fussed over Gwenda who refused brandy because she said
it always reminded her of Channel steamers, but accepted some hot
whisky and lemon, and then, coaxed by Mrs. Cocker, sat down and ate an
omelette.
Giles would have talked determinedly of other things, but Miss Marple,
with what Giles admitted to be superior tactics, discussed the crime in a
gentle aloof manner.
“Very dreadful, my dear,” she said. “And of course a great shock, but in-
teresting, one must admit. And of course I am so old that death doesn’t
shock me as much as it does you—only something lingering and painful
like cancer really distresses me. The really vital thing is that this proves
definitely and beyond any possible doubt that poor young Helen Halliday
was killed. We’ve thought so all along and now we know.”
“And according to you we ought to know where the body is,” said Giles.
“The cellar, I suppose.”
“No, no, Mr. Reed. You remember Edith Pagett said she went down there
on the morning after because she was disturbed by what Lily had said,
and she found no signs of anything of the kind—and there would be signs,
you know, if somebody was really looking for them.”
“Then what happened to it? Taken away in a car and thrown over a cliff
into the sea?”
“No. Come now, my dears, what struck you first of all when you came
here—struck you, Gwenda, I should say. The fact that from the drawing
room window, you had no view down to the sea. Where you felt, very
properly, that steps should lead down to the lawn—there was instead a
plantation of shrubs. The steps, you found subsequently, had been there
originally, but had at some time been transferred to the end of the terrace.
Why were they moved?”
Gwenda stared at her with dawning comprehension.
“You mean that that’s where—”
“There must have been a reason for making the change, and there
doesn’t really seem to be a sensible one. It is, frankly, a stupid place to
have steps down to the lawn. But that end of the terrace is a very quiet
place—it’s not overlooked from the house except by one window—the
window of the nursery, on the first floor. Don’t you see, that if you want to
bury a body the earth will be disturbed and there must be a reason for its
being disturbed. The reason was that it had been decided to move the
steps from in front of the drawing room to the end of the terrace. I’ve
learnt already from Dr. Kennedy that Helen Halliday and her husband
were very keen on the garden, and did a lot of work in it. The daily
gardener they employed used merely to carry out their orders, and if he
arrived to find that this change was in progress and some of the flags had
already been moved, he would only have thought that the Hallidays had
started on the work when he wasn’t there. The body, of course, could have
been buried at either place, but we can be quite certain, I think, that it is
actually buried at the end of the terrace and not in front of the drawing
room window.”
“Why can we be sure?” asked Gwenda.
“Because of what poor Lily Kimble said in her letter—that she changed
her mind about the body being in the cellar because of what Léonie saw
when she looked out of the window. That makes it very clear, doesn’t it?
The Swiss girl looked out of the nursery window at some time during the
night and saw the grave being dug. Perhaps she actually saw who it was
digging it.”
“And never said anything to the police?”
“My dear, there was no question at the time of a crime having occurred.
Mrs. Halliday had run away with a lover—that was all that Léonie would
grasp. She probably couldn’t speak much English anyway. She did men-
tion to Lily, perhaps not at the time, but later, a curious thing she had ob-
served from her window that night, and that stimulated Lily’s belief in a
crime having occurred. But I’ve no doubt that Edith Pagett told Lily off for
talking nonsense, and the Swiss girl would accept her point of view and
would certainly not wish to be mixed-up with the police. Foreigners al-
ways seem to be particularly nervous about the police when they are in a
strange country. So she went back to Switzerland and very likely never
thought of it again.”
Giles said: “If she’s alive now—if she can be traced—”
Miss Marple nodded her head. “Perhaps.”
Giles demanded: “How can we set about it?”
Miss Marple said: “The police will be able to do that much better than
you can.”
“Inspector Last is coming over here tomorrow morning.”
“Then I think I should tell him—about the steps.”
“And about what I saw—or think I saw—in the hall?” asked Gwenda
nervously.
“Yes, dear. You’ve been very wise to say nothing of that until now. Very
wise. But I think the time has come.”
Giles said slowly: “She was strangled in the hall, and then the murderer
carried her upstairs and put her on the bed. Kelvin Halliday came in,
passed out with doped whisky, and in his turn was carried upstairs to the
bedroom. He came to, and thought he had killed her. The murderer must
have been watching somewhere near at hand. When Kelvin went off to
Dr. Kennedy’s, the murderer took away the body, probably hid it in the
shrubbery at the end of the terrace and waited until everybody had gone
to bed and was presumably asleep, before he dug the grave and buried the
body. That means he must have been here, hanging about the house,
pretty well all that night?”
Miss Marple nodded.
“He had to be—on the spot. I remember your saying that that was im-
portant. We’ve got to see which of our three suspects fits in best with the
requirements. We’ll take Erskine first. Now he definitely was on the spot.
By his own admission he walked up here with Helen Kennedy from the
beach at round about nine o’clock. He said good-bye to her. But did he say
good-bye to her? Let’s say instead that he strangled her.”
“But it was all over between them,” cried Gwenda. “Long ago. He said
himself that he was hardly ever alone with Helen.”
“But don’t you see, Gwenda, that the way we must look at it now, we
can’t depend on anything anyone says.”
“Now I’m so glad to hear you say that,” said Miss Marple. “Because I’ve
been a little worried, you know, by the way you two have seemed willing
to accept, as actual fact, all the things that people have told you. I’m afraid
I have a sadly distrustful nature, but, especially in a matter of murder, I
make it a rule to take nothing that is told to me as true, unless it is checked.
For instance, it does seem quite certain that Lily Kimble mentioned the
clothes packed and taken away in a suitcase were not the ones Helen Hall-
iday would herself have taken, because not only did Edith Pagett tell us
that Lily said so to her, but Lily herself mentioned the fact in her letter to
Dr. Kennedy. So that is one fact. Dr. Kennedy told us that Kelvin Halliday
believed that his wife was secretly drugging him, and Kelvin Halliday in
his diary confirms that—so there is another fact—and a very curious fact
it is, don’t you think? However, we will not go into that now.
“But I would like to point out that a great many of the assumptions you
have made have been based upon what has been told you—possibly told
you very plausibly.”
Giles stared hard at her.
Gwenda, her colour restored, sipped coffee, and leaned across the table.
Giles said: “Let’s check up now on what three people have said to us.
Take Erskine first. He says—”
“You’ve got a down on him,” said Gwenda. “It’s waste of time going on
about him, because now he’s definitely out of it. He couldn’t have killed
Lily Kimble.”
Giles went on imperturbly: “He says that he met Helen on the boat going
out to India and they fell in love, but that he couldn’t bring himself to
leave his wife and children, and that they agreed they must say good-bye.
Suppose it wasn’t quite like that. Suppose he fell desperately in love with
Helen, and that it was she who wouldn’t run off with him. Supposing he
threatened that if she married anyone else he would kill her.”
“Most improbable,” said Gwenda.
“Things like that do happen. Remember what you overheard his wife
say to him. You put it all down to jealousy, but it may have been true. Per-
haps she has had a terrible time with him where women are concerned—
he may be a little bit of a sex maniac.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“No, because he’s attractive to women. I think, myself, that there is
something a little queer about Erskine. However, let’s go on with my case
against him. Helen breaks off her engagement to Fane and comes home
and marries your father and settles down here. And then suddenly, Er-
skine turns up. He comes down ostensibly on a summer holiday with his
wife. That’s an odd thing to do, really. He admits he came here to see
Helen again. Now let’s take it that Erskine was the man in the drawing
room with her that day when Lily overheard her say she was afraid of
him. ‘I’m afraid of you—I’ve always been afraid of you—I think you’re mad.’
“And, because she’s afraid, she makes plans to go and live in Norfolk,
but she’s very secretive about it. No one is to know. No one is to know, that
is, until the Erskines have left Dillmouth. So far that fits. Now we come to
the fatal night. What the Hallidays were doing earlier that evening we
don’t know—”
Miss Marple coughed.
“As a matter of fact, I saw Edith Pagett again. She remembers that there
was early supper that night—seven o’clock—because Major Halliday was
going to some meeting—Golf Club, she thinks it was, or some Parish meet-
ing. Mrs. Halliday went out after supper.”
“Right. Helen meets Erskine, by appointment, perhaps, on the beach. He
is leaving the following day. Perhaps he refuses to go. He urges Helen to
go away with him. She comes back here and he comes with her. Finally, in
a fit of frenzy he strangles her. The next bit is as we have already agreed.
He’s slightly mad, he wants Kelvin Halliday to believe it is he who has
killed her. Later, Erskine buries the body. You remember, he told Gwenda
that he didn’t go back to the hotel until very late because he was walking
about Dillmouth.”
“One wonders,” said Miss Marple, “what his wife was doing?”
“Probably frenzied with jealousy,” said Gwenda. “And gave him hell
when he did get in.”
“That’s my reconstruction,” said Giles. “And it’s possible.”
“But he couldn’t have killed Lily Kimble,” said Gwenda, “because he
lives in Northumberland. So thinking about him is just waste of time. Let’s
take Walter Fane.”
“Right. Walter Fane is the repressed type. He seems gentle and mild and
easily pushed around. But Miss Marple has brought us one valuable bit of
testimony. Walter Fane was once in such a rage that he nearly killed his
brother. Admittedly he was a child at the time, but it was startling because
he had always seemed of such a gentle forgiving nature. Anyway, Walter
Fane falls in love with Helen Halliday. Not merely in love, he’s crazy about
her. She won’t have him and he goes off to India. Later she writes him that
she will come out and marry him. She starts. Then comes the second blow.
She arrives and promptly jilts him. She has ‘met someone on the boat.’ She
goes home and marries Kelvin Halliday. Possibly Walter Fane thinks that
Kelvin Halliday was the original cause of her turning him down. He
broods, nurses a crazy jealous hate and comes home. He behaves in a
most forgiving, friendly manner, is often at this house, has become appar-
ently a tame cat around the house, the faithful Dobbin. But perhaps Helen
realizes that this isn’t true. She gets a glimpse of what is going on below
the surface. Perhaps, long ago, she sensed something disturbing in quiet
young Walter Fane. She says to him, ‘I think I’ve always been afraid of
you.’ She makes plans, secretly, to go right away from Dillmouth and live
in Norfolk. Why? Because she’s afraid of Walter Fane.
“Now we come again to the fatal evening. Here, we’re not on very sure
ground. We don’t know what Walter Fane was doing that night, and I
don’t see any probability of ever finding out. But he fulfils Miss Marple’s
requirement of being ‘on the spot’ to the extent of living in a house that is
only two or three minutes’ walk away. He may have said he was going to
bed early with a headache, or shut himself into his study with work to do
—something of that kind. He could have done all the things we’ve decided
the murderer did do, and I think that he’s the most likely of the three to
have made mistakes in packing a suitcase. He wouldn’t know enough
about what women wear to do it properly.”
“It was queer,” said Gwenda. “In his office that day I had an odd sort of
feeling that he was like a house with its blinds pulled down … and I even
had a fanciful idea that—that there was someone dead in the house.”
She looked at Miss Marple.
“Does that seem very silly to you?” she asked.
“No, my dear. I think that perhaps you were right.”
“And now,” said Gwenda, “we come to Afflick. Afflick’s Tours. Jackie Af-
flick who was always too smart by half. The first thing against him is that
Dr. Kennedy believed he had incipient persecution mania. That is—he was
never really normal. He’s told us about himself and Helen — but we’ll
agree now that that was all a pack of lies. He didn’t just think she was a
cute kid—he was madly, passionately in love with her. But she wasn’t in
love with him. She was just amusing herself. She was man mad, as Miss
Marple says.”
“No, dear. I didn’t say that. Nothing of the kind.”
“Well, a nymphomaniac if you prefer the term. Anyway, she had an af-
fair with Jackie Afflick and then wanted to drop him. He didn’t want to be
dropped. Her brother got her out of her scrape, but Jackie Afflick never
forgave or forgot. He lost his job—according to him through being framed
by Walter Fane. That shows definite signs of persecution mania.”
“Yes,” agreed Giles. “But on the other hand, if it was true, it’s another
point against Fane—quite a valuable point.”
Gwenda went on.
“Helen goes abroad, and he leaves Dillmouth. But he never forgets her,
and when she returns to Dillmouth, married, he comes over and visits her.
He said first of all, he came once, but later on, he admits that he came
more than once. And, oh Giles, don’t you remember? Edith Pagett used a
phrase about ‘our mystery man in a flashy car.’ You see, he came often
enough to make the servants talk. But Helen took pains not to ask him to a
meal—not to let him meet Kelvin. Perhaps she was afraid of him. Perhaps
—”
Giles interrupted.
“This might cut both ways. Supposing Helen was in love with him—the
first man she ever was in love with, and supposing she went on being in
love with him. Perhaps they had an affair together and she didn’t let any-
one know about it. But perhaps he wanted her to go away with him, and
by that time she was tired of him, and wouldn’t go, and so—and so—he
killed her. And all the rest of it. Lily said in her letter to Dr. Kennedy there
was a posh car standing outside that night. It was Jackie Afflick’s car.
Jackie Afflick was ‘on the spot,’ too.
“It’s an assumption,” said Giles. “But it seems to me a reasonable one.
But there are Helen’s letters to be worked into our reconstruction. I’ve
been puzzling my brains to think of the ‘circumstances,’ as Miss Marple
put it, under which she could have been induced to write those letters. It
seems to me that to explain them, we’ve got to admit that she actually had
a lover, and that she was expecting to go away with him. We’ll test our
three possibles again. Erskine first. Say that he still wasn’t prepared to
leave his wife or break up his home, but that Helen had agreed to leave
Kelvin Halliday and go somewhere where Erskine could come and be with
her from time to time. The first thing would be to disarm Mrs. Erskine’s
suspicions, so Helen writes a couple of letters to reach her brother in due
course which will look as though she has gone abroad with someone. That
fits in very well with her being so mysterious about who the man in ques-
tion is.”
“But if she was going to leave her husband for him, why did he kill her?”
asked Gwenda.
“Perhaps because she suddenly changed her mind. Decided that she did
really care for her husband after all. He just saw red and strangled her.
Then, he took the clothes and suitcase and used the letters. That’s a per-
fectly good explanation covering everything.”
“The same might apply to Walter Fane. I should imagine that scandal
might be absolutely disastrous to a country solicitor. Helen might have
agreed to go somewhere nearby where Fane could visit her but pretend
that she had gone abroad with someone else. Letters all prepared and
then, as you suggested, she changed her mind. Walter went mad and
killed her.”
“What about Jackie Afflick?”
“It’s more difficult to find a reason for the letters with him. I shouldn’t
imagine that scandal would affect him. Perhaps Helen was afraid, not of
him, but of my father—and so thought it would be better to pretend she’d
gone abroad—or perhaps Afflick’s wife had the money at that time, and he
wanted her money to invest in his business. Oh yes, there are lots of pos-
sibilities for the letters.”
“Which one do you fancy, Miss Marple?” asked Gwenda. “I don’t really
think Walter Fane—but then—”
Mrs. Cocker had just come in to clear away the coffee cups.
“There now, madam,” she said. “I quite forgot. All this about a poor wo-
man being murdered and you and Mr. Reed mixed up in it, not at all the
right thing for you, madam, just now. Mr. Fane was here this afternoon,
asking for you. He waited quite half an hour. Seemed to think you were
expecting him.”
“How strange,” said Gwenda. “What time?”
“It must have been about four o’clock or just after. And then, after that,
there was another gentleman, came in a great big yellow car. He was pos-
itive you were expecting him. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. Waited
twenty minutes. I wondered if you’d had some idea of a tea party and for-
gotten it.”
“No,” said Gwenda. “How odd.”
“Let’s ring up Fane now,” said Giles. “He won’t have gone to bed.”
He suited the action to the word.
“Hullo, is that Fane speaking? Giles Reed here. I hear you came round to
see us this afternoon—What?—No—no, I’m sure of it—no, how very odd.
Yes, I wonder, too.”
He laid down the receiver.
“Here’s an odd thing. He was rung up in his office this morning. A mes-
sage left would he come round and see us this afternoon. It was very im-
portant.”
Giles and Gwenda stared at each other. Then Gwenda said, “Ring up Af-
flick.”
Again Giles went to the telephone, found the number and rang through.
It took a little longer, but presently he got the connection.
“Mr. Afflick? Giles Reed, I—”
Here he was obviously interrupted by a flow of speech from the other
end.
At last he was able to say:
“But we didn’t—no, I assure you—nothing of the kind—Yes—yes, I know
you’re a busy man. I wouldn’t have dreamed of—Yes, but look here, who
was it rang you—a man?—No, I tell you it wasn’t me. No—no, I see. Well, I
agree, it’s quite extraordinary.”
He replaced the receiver and came back to the table.
“Well, there it is,” he said. “Somebody, a man who said he was me, rang
up Afflick and asked him to come over here. It was urgent—big sum of
money involved.”
They looked at each other.
“It could have been either of them,” said Gwenda. “Don’t you see, Giles?
Either of them could have killed Lily and come on here as an alibi.”
“Hardly an alibi, dear,” put in Miss Marple.
“I don’t mean quite an alibi, but an excuse for being away from their of-
fice. What I mean is, one of them is speaking the truth and one is lying.
One of them rang up the other and asked him to come here—to throw sus-
picion on him—but we don’t know which. It’s a clear issue now between
the two of them. Fane or Afflick. I say—Jackie Afflick.”
“I think Walter Fane,” said Giles.
They both looked at Miss Marple.
She shook her head.
“There’s another possibility,” she said.
“Of course. Erskine.”
Giles fairly ran across to the telephone.
“What are you going to do?” asked Gwenda.
“Put through a trunk call to Northumberland.”
“Oh Giles—you can’t really think—”
“We’ve got to know. If he’s there—he can’t have killed Lily Kimble this
afternoon. No private aeroplanes or silly stuff like that.”
They waited in silence until the telephone bell rang.
Giles picked up the receiver.
“You were asking for a personal call to Major Erskine. Go ahead, please.
Major Erskine is waiting.”
Clearing his throat nervously, Giles said, “Er—Erskine? Giles Reed here
—Reed, yes.”
He cast a sudden agonized glance at Gwenda which said as plainly as
possible, “What the hell do I say now?”
Gwenda got up and took the receiver from him.
“Major Erskine? This is Mrs. Reed here. We’ve heard of—of a house.
Linscott Brake. Is—is it—do you know anything about it? It’s somewhere
near you, I believe.”
Erskine’s voice said: “Linscott Brake? No, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of
it. What’s the postal town?”
“It’s terribly blurred,” said Gwenda. “You know those awful typescripts
agents send out. But it says fifteen miles from Daith so we thought—”
“I’m sorry. I haven’t heard of it. Who lives there?”
“Oh, it’s empty. But never mind, actually we’ve — we’ve practically
settled on a house. I’m so sorry to have bothered you. I expect you were
busy.”
“No, not at all. At least only busy domestically. My wife’s away. And our
cook had to go off to her mother, so I’ve been dealing with domestic
routine. I’m afraid I’m not much of a hand at it. Better in the garden.”
“I’d always rather do gardening than housework. I hope your wife isn’t
ill?”
“Oh no, she was called away to a sister. She’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Well, good night, and so sorry to have bothered you.”
She put down the receiver.
“Erskine is out of it,” she said triumphantly. “His wife’s away and he’s
doing all the chores. So that leaves it between the two others. Doesn’t it,
Miss Marple?”
Miss Marple was looking grave.
“I don’t think, my dears,” she said, “that you have given quite enough
thought to the matter. Oh dear—I am really very worried. If only I knew
exactly what to do….”
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