沉睡的谋杀案44
时间：2026-02-04 03:22:38
（单词翻译:单击）
Twenty-five
POSTSCRIPT AT TORQUAY
“But, of course, dear Gwenda, I should never have dreamed of going away
and leaving you alone in the house,” said Miss Marple. “I knew there was
a very dangerous person at large, and I was keeping an unobtrusive watch
from the garden.”
“Did you know it was—him—all along?” asked Gwenda.
They were all three, Miss Marple, Gwenda and Giles, sitting on the ter-
race of the Imperial Hotel at Torquay.
“A change of scene,” Miss Marple had said, and Giles had agreed, would
be the best thing for Gwenda. So Inspector Primer had concurred and they
had driven to Torquay forthwith.
Miss Marple said in answer to Gwenda’s question, “Well, he did seem in-
dicated, my dear. Although unfortunately there was nothing in the way of
evidence to go upon. Just indications, nothing more.”
Looking at her curiously, Giles said, “But I can’t see any indications
even.”
“Oh dear, Giles, think. He was on the spot, to begin with.”
“On the spot?”
“But certainly. When Kelvin Halliday came to him that night he had just
come back from the hospital. And the hospital, at that time, as several
people told us, was actually next door to Hillside, or St. Catherine’s as it
was then called. So that, as you see, puts him in the right place at the right
time. And then there were a hundred and one little significant facts. Helen
Halliday told Richard Erskine she had gone out to marry Walter Fane be-
cause she wasn’t happy at home. Not happy, that is, living with her brother.
Yet her brother was by all accounts devoted to her. So why wasn’t she
happy? Mr. Afflick told you that ‘he was sorry for the poor kid.’ I think
that he was absolutely truthful when he said that. He was sorry for her.
Why did she have to go and meet young Afflick in that clandestine way?
Admittedly she was not wildly in love with him. Was it because she
couldn’t meet young men in the ordinary normal way? Her brother was
‘strict’ and ‘old-fashioned.’ It is vaguely reminiscent, is it not, of Mr. Bar-
rett of Wimpole Street?”
Gwenda shivered.
“He was mad,” she said. “Mad.”
“Yes,” said Miss Marple. “He wasn’t normal. He adored his half-sister,
and that affection became possessive and unwholesome. That kind of
thing happens oftener than you’d think. Fathers who don’t want their
daughters to marry — or even to meet young men. Like Mr. Barrett. I
thought of that when I heard about the tennis net.”
“The tennis net?”
“Yes, that seemed to me very significant. Think of that girl, young Helen,
coming home from school, and eager for all a young girl wants out of life,
anxious to meet young men—to flirt with them—”
“A little sex-crazy.”
“No,” said Miss Marple with emphasis. “That is one of the wickedest
things about this crime. Dr. Kennedy didn’t only kill her physically. If you
think back carefully, you’ll see that the only evidence for Helen Kennedy’s
having been man mad or practically—what is the word you used, dear? oh
yes, a nymphomaniac—came actually from Dr. Kennedy himself. I think,
myself, that she was a perfectly normal young girl who wanted to have
fun and a good time and flirt a little and finally settle down with the man
of her choice—no more than that. And see what steps her brother took.
First he was strict and old- fashioned about allowing her liberty. Then,
when she wanted to give tennis parties—a most normal and harmless de-
sire—he pretended to agree and then one night secretly cut the tennis net
to ribbons—a very significant and sadistic action. Then, since she could
still go out to play tennis or to dances, he took advantage of a grazed foot
which he treated, to infect it so that it wouldn’t heal. Oh yes, I think he did
that … in fact, I’m sure of it.
“Mind you. I don’t think Helen realized any of all this. She knew her
brother had a deep affection for her and I don’t think she knew why she
felt uneasy and unhappy at home. But she did feel like that and at last she
decided to go out to India and marry young Fane simply in order to get
away. To get away from what? She didn’t know. She was too young and
guileless to know. So she went off to India and on the way she met Richard
Erskine and fell in love with him. There again, she behaved not like a sex-
crazy girl, but like a decent and honourable girl. She didn’t urge him to
leave his wife. She urged him not to do so. But when she saw Walter Fane
she knew that she couldn’t marry him, and because she didn’t know what
else to do, she wired her brother for money to go home.
“On the way home she met your father—and another way of escape
showed itself. This time it was one with good prospect of happiness.
“She didn’t marry your father under false pretences, Gwenda. He was
recovering from the death of a dearly loved wife. She was getting over an
unhappy love affair. They could both help each other. I think it is signific-
ant that she and Kelvin Halliday were married in London and then went
down to Dillmouth to break the news to Dr. Kennedy. She must have had
some instinct that that would be a wiser thing to do than to go down and
be married in Dillmouth, which ordinarily would have been the normal
thing to do. I still think she didn’t know what she was up against—but she
was uneasy, and she felt safer in presenting her brother with the marriage
as a fait accompli.
“Kelvin Halliday was very friendly to Kennedy and liked him. Kennedy
seems to have gone out of his way to appear pleased about the marriage.
The couple took a furnished house there.
“And now we come to that very significant fact—the suggestion that
Kelvin was being drugged by his wife. There are only two possible explan-
ations of that—because there are only two people who could have had the
opportunity of doing such a thing. Either Helen Halliday was drugging her
husband, and if so, why? Or else the drugs were being administered by Dr.
Kennedy. Kennedy was Halliday’s physician as is clear by Halliday’s con-
sulting him. He had confidence in Kennedy’s medical knowledge—and the
suggestion that his wife was drugging him was very cleverly put to him by
Kennedy.”
“But could any drug make a man have the hallucination that he was
strangling his wife?” asked Giles. “I mean there isn’t any drug, is there,
that has that particular effect?”
“My dear Giles, you’ve fallen into the trap again—the trap of believing
what is said to you. There is only Dr. Kennedy’s word for it that Halliday
ever had that hallucination. He himself never says so in his diary. He had
hallucinations, yes, but he does not mention their nature. But I dare say
Kennedy talked to him about men who had strangled their wives after
passing through a phase such as Kelvin Halliday was experiencing.”
“Dr. Kennedy was really wicked,” said Gwenda.
“I think,” said Miss Marple, “that he’d definitely passed the borderline
between sanity and madness by that time. And Helen, poor girl, began to
realize it. It was to her brother she must have been speaking that day
when she was overheard by Lily. “I think I’ve always been afraid of you.”
That was one of the things she said. And that always was very significant.
And so she determined to leave Dillmouth. She persuaded her husband to
buy a house in Norfolk, she persuaded him not to tell anyone about it. The
secrecy about it was very illuminating. She was clearly very afraid of
someone knowing about it—but that did not fit in with the Walter Fane
theory or the Jackie Afflick theory—and certainly not with Richard Er-
skine’s being concerned. No, it pointed to somewhere much nearer home.
“And in the end, Kelvin Halliday, whom doubtless the secrecy irked and
who felt it to be pointless, told his brother-in-law.
“And in so doing, sealed his own fate and that of his wife. For Kennedy
was not going to let Helen go and live happily with her husband. I think
perhaps his idea was simply to break down Halliday’s health with drugs.
But at the revelation that his victim and Helen were going to escape him,
he became completely unhinged. From the hospital he went through into
the garden of St. Catherine’s and he took with him a pair of surgical
gloves. He caught Helen in the hall, and he strangled her. Nobody saw
him, there was no one there to see him, or so he thought, and so, racked
with love and frenzy, he quoted those tragic lines that were so apposite.”
Miss Marple sighed and clucked her tongue.
“I was stupid—very stupid. We were all stupid. We should have seen at
once. Those lines from The Duchess of Malfi were really the clue to the
whole thing. They are said, are they not, by a brother who has just con-
trived his sister’s death to avenge her marriage to the man she loved. Yes,
we were stupid—”
“And then?” asked Giles.
“And then he went through with the whole devilish plan. The body car-
ried upstairs. The clothes packed in a suitcase. A note, written and thrown
in the wastepaper basket to convince Halliday later.”
“But I should have thought,” said Gwenda, “that it would have been bet-
ter from his point of view for my father actually to have been convicted of
the murder.”
Miss Marple shook her head.
“Oh no, he couldn’t risk that. He had a lot of shrewd Scottish common
sense, you know. He had a wholesome respect for the police. The police
take a lot of convincing before they believe a man guilty of murder. The
police might have asked a lot of awkward questions and made a lot of
awkward enquiries as to times and places. No, his plan was simpler and, I
think, more devilish. He only had Halliday to convince. First, that he had
killed his wife. Secondly that he was mad. He persuaded Halliday to go
into a mental home, but I don’t think he really wanted to convince him
that it was all a delusion. Your father accepted that theory, Gwennie,
mainly, I should imagine, for your sake. He continued to believe that he
had killed Helen. He died believing that.”
“Wicked,” said Gwenda. “Wicked—wicked—wicked.”
“Yes,” said Miss Marple. “There isn’t really any other word. And I think,
Gwenda, that that is why your childish impression of what you saw re-
mained so strong. It was real evil that was in the air that night.”
“But the letters,” said Giles. “Helen’s letters? They were in her handwrit-
ing, so they couldn’t be forgeries.”
“Of course they were forgeries! But that is where he overreached him-
self. He was so anxious, you see, to stop you and Giles making investiga-
tions. He could probably imitate Helen’s handwriting quite nicely—but it
wouldn’t fool an expert. So the sample of Helen’s handwriting he sent you
with the letter wasn’t her handwriting either. He wrote it himself. So nat-
urally it tallied.”
“Goodness,” said Giles. “I never thought of that.”
“No,” said Miss Marple. “You believed what he said. It really is very dan-
gerous to believe people. I never have for years.”
“And the brandy?”
“He did that the day he came to Hillside with Helen’s letter and talked to
me in the garden. He was waiting in the house while Mrs. Cocker came out
and told me he was there. It would only take a minute.”
“Good Lord,” said Giles. “And he urged me to take Gwenda home and
give her brandy after we were at the police station when Lily Kimble was
killed. How did he arrange to meet her earlier?”
“That was very simple. The original letter he sent her asked her to meet
him at Woodleigh Camp and come to Matchings Halt by the two-five train
from Dillmouth Junction. He came out of the copse of trees, probably, and
accosted her as she was going up the lane—and strangled her. Then he
simply substituted the letter you all saw for the letter she had with her
(and which he had asked her to bring because of the directions in it) and
went home to prepare for you and play out the little comedy of waiting for
Lily.”
“And Lily really was threatening him? Her letter didn’t sound as though
she was. Her letter sounded as though she suspected Afflick.”
“Perhaps she did. But Léonie, the Swiss girl, had talked to Lily, and
Léonie was the one danger to Kennedy. Because she looked out of the
nursery window and saw him digging in the garden. In the morning he
talked to her, told her bluntly that Major Halliday had killed his wife—that
Major Halliday was insane, and that he, Kennedy, was hushing up the
matter for the child’s sake. If, however, Léonie felt she ought to go to the
police, she must do so, but it would be very unpleasant for her—and so on.
“Léonie took immediate fright at the mention of the police. She adored
you and had implicit faith in what M. le docteur thought best. Kennedy
paid her a handsome sum of money and hustled her back to Switzerland.
But before she went, she hinted something to Lily as to your father’s hav-
ing killed his wife and that she had seen the body buried. That fitted in
with Lily’s ideas at the time. She took it for granted that it was Kelvin Hall-
iday Léonie had seen digging the grave.”
“But Kennedy didn’t know that, of course,” said Gwenda.
“Of course not. When he got Lily’s letter the words in it that frightened
him were that Léonie had told Lily what she had seen out of the window
and the mention of the car outside.”
“The car? Jackie Afflick’s car?”
“Another misunderstanding. Lily remembered, or thought she re-
membered, a car like Jackie Afflick’s being outside in the road. Already
her imagination had got to work on the Mystery Man who came over to
see Mrs. Halliday. With the hospital next door, no doubt a good many cars
did park along this road. But you must remember that the doctor’s car was
actually standing outside the hospital that night—he probably leaped to
the conclusion that she meant his car. The adjective posh was meaningless
to him.”
“I see,” said Giles. “Yes, to a guilty conscience that letter of Lily’s might
look like blackmail. But how do you know all about Léonie?”
Her lips pursed close together, Miss Marple said: “He went—right over
the edge, you know. As soon as the men Inspector Primer had left rushed
in and seized him, he went over the whole crime again and again —
everything he’d done. Léonie died, it seems, very shortly after her return
to Switzerland. Overdose of some sleeping tablets … Oh no, he wasn’t tak-
ing any chances.”
“Like trying to poison me with the brandy.”
“You were very dangerous to him, you and Giles. Fortunately you never
told him about your memory of seeing Helen dead in the hall. He never
knew there had been an eyewitness.”
“Those telephone calls to Fane and Afflick,” said Giles. “Did he put those
through?”
“Yes. If there was an enquiry as to who could have tampered with the
brandy, either of them would make an admirable suspect, and if Jackie Af-
flick drove over in his car alone, it might tie him in with Lily Kimble’s
murder. Fane would most likely have an alibi.”
“And he seemed fond of me,” said Gwenda. “Little Gwennie.”
“He had to play his part,” said Miss Marple. “Imagine what it meant to
him. After eighteen years, you and Giles come along, asking questions,
burrowing into the past, disturbing a murder that had seemed dead but
was only sleeping … Murder in retrospect … A horribly dangerous thing to
do, my dears. I have been sadly worried.”
“Poor Mrs. Cocker,” said Gwenda. “She had a terribly near escape. I’m
glad she’s going to be all right. Do you think she’ll come back to us, Giles?
After all this?”
“She will if there’s a nursery,” said Giles gravely, and Gwenda blushed,
and Miss Marple smiled a little and looked out across Torbay.
“How very odd it was that it should happen the way it did,” mused
Gwenda. “My having those rubber gloves on, and looking at them, and
then his coming into the hall and saying those words that sounded so like
the others. ‘Face’… and then: ‘Eyes dazzled’—”
She shuddered.
“Cover her face … Mine eyes dazzle … she died young … that might have
been me … if Miss Marple hadn’t been there.”
She paused and said softly, “Poor Helen … Poor lovely Helen, who died
young … You know, Giles, she isn’t there anymore—in the house—in the
hall. I could feel that yesterday before we left. There’s just the house. And
the house is fond of us. We can go back if we like….”
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