Eleven

It was just after dawn when Hercule Poirot awoke on the following morning. He had been given abedroom on the east side of the house.

Getting out of bed, he drew aside the window blind and satisfied himself that the sun hadrisen, and that it was a fine

morning.

He began to dress with his usual meticulous¹ care. Having finished his toilet, he wrappedhimself up in a thick overcoat and wound a muffler round his neck.

Then he tiptoed out of his room and through the silent house down to the drawing room. Heopened the french windows noiselessly and passed out into the garden.

The sun was just showing now. The air was misty², with the mist of a fine morning. HerculePoirot followed the terraced walk round the side of the house till he came to the windows of SirGervase’s study. Here he stopped and surveyed the scene.

Immediately outside the windows was a strip of grass that ran parallel with the house. In frontof that was a wide herbaceous border. The michaelmas daisies still made a fine show. In front ofthe border was the flagged walk where Poirot was standing³. A strip of grass ran from the grasswalk behind the border to the terrace. Poirot examined it carefully, then shook his head. He turnedhis attention to the border on either side

of it.

Very slowly he nodded his head. In the right-hand bed, distinct in the soft mould, there werefootprints.

As he stared down at them, frowning, a sound caught his ears and he lifted his head sharply.

Above him a window had been pushed up. He saw a red head of hair. Framed in an aureole ofgolden red he saw the intelligent face of Susan Cardwell.

“What on earth are you doing at this hour, M. Poirot? A spot of sleuthing?”

Poirot bowed with the utmost correctitude.

“Good morning, mademoiselle. Yes, it is as you say. You now behold⁴ a detective—a greatdetective, I may say—in the act of detecting!”

The remark was a little flamboyant⁵. Susan put her head on one side.

“I must remember this in my memoirs,” she remarked. “Shall I come down and help?”

“I should be enchanted⁶.”

“I thought you were a burglar at first. Which way did you get?out?”

“Through the drawing room window.”

“Just a minute and I’ll be with you.”

She was as good as her word. To all appearances Poirot was exactly in the same position aswhen she had first seen him.

“You are awake very early, mademoiselle?”

“I haven’t been to sleep really properly. I was just getting that desperate feeling that one doesget at five in the morning.”

“It’s not quite so early as that!”

“It feels like it! Now then, my super sleuth, what are we looking at?”

“But observe, mademoiselle, footprints.”

“So they are.”

“Four of them,” continued Poirot. “See, I will point them out to you. Two going towards thewindow, two coming from it.”

“Whose are they? The gardener’s?”

“Mademoiselle, mademoiselle! Those footmarks are made by the small dainty high-heeledshoes of a woman. See, convince yourself. Step, I beg of you, in the earth here beside them.”

Susan hesitated a minute, then placed a foot gingerly on to the mould in the place indicatedby Poirot. She was wearing small high-heeled slippers⁷ of dark brown leather.

“You see, yours are nearly the same size. Nearly, but not quite. These others are made by arather longer foot than yours. Perhaps Miss?Chevenix-Gore’s—or Miss?Lingard’s—or even LadyChevenix-Gore’s.”

“Not Lady Chevenix-Gore—she’s got tiny feet. People did in those days—manage to havesmall feet, I mean. And Miss?Lingard wears queer flat-heeled things.”

“Then they are the marks of Miss?Chevenix-Gore. Ah, yes, I remember she mentioned havingbeen out in the garden yesterday evening.”

He led the way back round the house.

“Are we still sleuthing?” asked Susan.

“But certainly. We will go now to Sir Gervase’s study.”

He led the way. Susan Cardwell followed him.

The door still hung in a melancholy⁸ fashion. Inside, the room was as it had been last night.

Poirot pulled the curtains and admitted the daylight.

He stood looking out at the border a minute or two, then he said:

“You have not, I presume, mademoiselle, much acquaintance with burglars?”

Susan Cardwell shook her red head regretfully.

“I’m afraid not, M. Poirot.”

“The chief constable⁹, he, too, has not had the advantages of a friendly relationship with them.

His connection with the criminal clases has always been strictly¹⁰ official. With me that is not so. Ihad a very pleasant chat with a burglar once. He told me an interesting thing about frenchwindows—a trick that could sometimes be employed if the fastening was sufficiently¹¹ loose.”

He turned the handle of the left-hand window as he spoke¹², the middle shaft¹³ came up out ofthe hole in the ground, and Poirot was able to pull the two doors of the window towards him.

Having opened them wide, he closed them again—closed them without turning the handle, so asnot to send the shaft down into its socket¹⁴. He let go of the handle, waited a moment, then struck aquick, jarring blow high up on the centre of the shaft. The jar of the blow sent the shaft down intothe socket in the ground—the handle turned of its own accord.

“You see, mademoiselle?”

“I think I do.”

Susan had gone rather pale.

“The window is now closed. It is impossible to enter a room when the window is closed, butit is possible to leave a room, pull the doors to from outside, then hit it as I did, and the bolt goesdown into the ground, turning the handle. The window then is firmly closed, and anyone lookingat it would say it had been closed from the inside.”

“Is that”—Susan’s voice shook a little—“is that what happened last night?”

“I think so, yes, mademoiselle.”

Susan said violently:

“I don’t believe a word of it.”

Poirot did not answer. He walked over to the mantelpiece. He wheeled sharply round.

“Mademoiselle, I have need of you as a witness. I have already one witness, Mr.?Trent. Hesaw me find this tiny sliver¹⁵ of looking glass last night. I spoke of it to him. I left it where it was forthe police. I even told the chief constable that a valuable clue was the broken mirror. But he didnot avail himself of my hint. Now you are a witness that I place this sliver of looking glass (towhich, remember, I have already called Mr.?Trent’s attention) into a little envelope—so.” Hesuited the action to the word. “And I write on it—so—and seal it up. You are a witness,mademoiselle?”

“Yes—but—but I don’t know what it means.”

Poirot walked over to the other side of the room. He stood in front of the desk and stared atthe shattered mirror on the wall in front of him.

“I will tell you what it means, mademoiselle. If you had been standing here last night, lookinginto this mirror, you could have seen in it murder being committed. . . .”

 

点击收听单词发音