死亡约会 Part II Chapter 1（1）（在线收听）

Part II

Chapter 1

Colonel Carbury smiled across the table at his guest and raised his glass. ‘Well, here’s to crime!’

Hercule Poirot’s eyes twinkled in acknowledgement of the aptness of the toast.

He had come to Amman with a letter of introduction to Colonel Carbury from Colonel Race.

Carbury had been interested to see this world-famous person to whose gifts his old friend andally in the Intelligence had paid such unstinting tribute.

‘As neat a bit of psychological deduction as you’ll ever find!’ Race had written of the solutionof the Shaitana murder.

‘We must show you all we can of the neighbourhood,’ said Carbury, twisting a somewhatragged brindled moustache. He was an untidy stocky man of medium height with a semibald headand vague, mild, blue eyes. He did not look in the least like a soldier. He did not look evenparticularly alert. He was not in the least one’s idea of a disciplinarian. Yet in Transjordania hewas a power.

‘There’s Jerash,’ he said. ‘Care about that sort of thing?’

‘I am interested in everything!’

‘Yes,’ said Carbury. ‘That’s the only way to react to life.’ He paused.

‘Tell me, d’you ever find your own special job has a way of following you round?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Well—to put it plainly—do you come to places expecting a holiday from crime—and findinstead bodies cropping up?’

‘It has happened, yes; more than once.’

‘H’m,’ said Colonel Carbury and looked particularly abstracted.

Then he roused himself with a jerk. ‘Got a body now I’m not very happy about,’ he said.

‘Indeed?’

‘Yes. Here in Amman. Old American woman. Went to Petra with her family. Trying journey,unusual heat for time of year, old woman suffered from heart trouble, difficulties of the journey abit harder for her than she imagined, extra strain on heart—she popped off!’

‘Here—in Amman?’

‘No, down at Petra. They brought the body here today.’

‘Ah!’

‘All quite natural. Perfectly possible. Likeliest thing in the world to happen. Only—’

‘Yes? Only—?’

Colonel Carbury scratched his bald head.

‘I’ve got the idea,’ he said, ‘that her family did her in!’

‘Aha! And what makes you think that?’

Colonel Carbury did not reply to that question directly.

‘Unpleasant old woman, it seems. No loss. General feeling all round that her popping off was agood thing. Anyway, very difficult to prove anything so long as the family stick together and ifnecessary lie like hell. One doesn’t want complications—or international unpleasantness. Easiestthing to do—let it go! Nothing really to go upon. Knew a doctor chap once. He told me—oftenhad suspicions in cases of his patients—hurried into the next world a little ahead of time! He said—best thing to do to keep quiet unless you really had something damned good to go upon!

Otherwise beastly stink, case not proved, black mark against an earnest hard- working G.P.

Something in that. All the same —’ He scratched his head again. ‘I’m a tidy man,’ he saidunexpectedly.