“Yes.”

“在你来客厅之前，你下过楼吗？”

“Had you been downstairs before you came into the living room?”

“没有。”

“No.”

“你整个下午都在楼上？”

“You were upstairs all afternoon?”

“是的。”

“Yes.”

“具体在什么地方？”

“Just exactly where?”

她深吸了一口气说：“我的房间。”

She drew a long breath, and said, “My room.”

至少他从她嘴里问出了超过两个字的回答，马龙心想，如果看到冯?弗拉纳根努力的盘问这个面无表情的女伴，将会是个非常有趣的场景，肯定能值回票价。

At least he’d got two words out of her, Malone told himself. Hearing von Flanagan trying to question the hard-faced panion would be well worth the price of admission.

“好吧，” 他说，“这个人可能是在贾斯特太太和我来之前被杀的，或者之后。但如果……”

“Well,” he said, “this man may have been murdered before Mrs. Justus and I arrived, or after. But if—”

“是之后。” 海伦突然说道。

“It was after,” Helene said suddenly.

所有人都看着她。

Everyone stared at her.

“我上楼去换衣服。” 她的眼睛里闪烁着奇异的光芒。

“I came up the stairs to change my dress.” There was a curiously flickering light in her eyes.

“他的门就在楼梯顶端，我上来的时候，门是开着的，他就坐在书桌旁，背对着我，正在翻电话号码簿。”

“His door is right at the head of the stairs, and when I came up, it was open. He was sitting there at the desk, his back to me, looking in the telephone book.”

“还活着？” 迈克尔?文宁难以置信地说。

“Alive?” Michael Venning said incredulously.

“显然，还活着。” 海伦说。

“Obviously,” Helene said.

“你再下楼的时候他还活着吗？” 马龙问。

“Was he alive when you came downstairs again?” Malone asked.

“我不知道。那时他的门是关闭的。他可能在那个时候…… 正在被杀…… 就在那个时候。我想是凶手把门关上了。”

“I don’t know. His door was closed. He might have been—being murdered—right then. I suppose the murderer would have closed the door.”

这次的喘息声来自伊迪丝?文宁。她的丈夫说：“听着，我们没必要都在这里守着这个。我要下楼去喝一杯。”

This time the gasp came from Editha Venning. Her husband said, “Look here, we don’t all have to stay up here with that. I’m going downstairs and have a drink.”

“我也是。” 罗特斯?艾伦无力地说。

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“Me too,” Lotus Allen said weakly.

“我们都去。” 莫娜?麦克莱恩说。“在等警察到来的时候，我们不妨舒服点。” 她几乎调皮地笑了笑。“在警察到来之前我们应该做点什么消遣。”

“We all will,” Mona McClane said. “We might as well be fortable while we wait for the police.” She smiled almost impishly. “What to do until the policeman es.”

她领着大家来到走廊。马龙注意到卢埃拉?怀特挽着文宁太太的胳膊。他心想，与其说她像个女伴，倒不如说她更像个警察看护，超级富有的人品味总是很奇怪。他又环顾了一下房间，电话的位置让他有点困惑，那张揉皱的纸片从死者的手指间滑落了一半。马龙几乎是漫不经心地把它捡起来，展开。

She led the way into the hall. Malone observed that Louella White took Mrs. Venning’s arm. More like a police matron than a panion, he thought, but the very rich had funny tastes. He took another look around the room. The position of the telephone puzzled him a little. The scrap of crumpled paper had half slipped from the dead man’s fingers; almost absent-mindedly Malone picked it up and smoothed it out.

上面除了一个数字什么都没有：“114”。

There was nothing on it save a number: “114.”

他又把它揉成一团，放回他发现它的地方，然后跟着其他人下了楼。

He crumpled it up again, dropped it back where he had found it, and followed the others downstairs.

114。这个数字让人有种奇怪的似曾相识的感觉，也和一起谋杀案有关。

One-fourteen. There was something maddeningly reminiscent about that. Something to do with a murder, too.

他能听到客厅里传来兴奋的谈话声。每个人似乎都想比别人说得更多。他听到迈克尔?文宁那刻意调整过的声音说：“我记得在 1929 年在加尔各答的时候……”，而罗特斯?艾伦那带有新英格兰口音的声音打断了他，说：“不管怎么说，罗斯应该是不会被怀疑的，他肯定已经醉得不省人事好几个小时了……”，还有女仆在问：“夫人，您要苏格兰威士忌还是波旁威士忌？”

He could hear the sound of excited conversation from the living room. Everyone seemed to be trying to outtalk everyone else. He heard Michael Venning’s carefully modulated voice saying, “I remember once in Calcutta, in 1929,” and Lotus Allen’s New Englandish voice cutting across it with, “Well anyway, Ross won’t be someutist”

莫娜?麦克莱恩在楼梯最下面的台阶上等他。

Mona McClane was waiting for him on the bottom step.

“你邀请我过来的时候，不会是故意安排了这一切吧？” 他问。

“You didn’t plan this, by any chance, when you invited me over?” he asked.

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她对他微笑，好像他不是认真的。“不，我没有。我确实安排了一些事情，但这件事破坏了我原有的安排。我也没有杀那个人，如果这是你想问的问题。”

She smiled at him as though he didn’t mean it. “No, I failed. I did plan something, but this has spoiled it. I didn’t murder that man, either, if that’s what you were going to ask.”

“我不是这个意思。” 他告诉她。“杰拉尔德?图伊兹是谁？”

“I wasn’t,” he told her. “Who was Gerald Tuesday?”

“只是个客人。” 她轻描淡写地说。“我在国外认识的人。共同的朋友写信告诉我他要来芝加哥，所以我当然邀请他来这儿住了。”

“Just a house guest,” she said lightly. “Someone I’d met abroad. Mutual friends wrote me he was ing to Chicago, and so of course I invited him to stay here.”

“好吧。” 马龙说。他又把雪茄拿出来，这次他彻底拆开了包装。“如果这是你的说法，我希望它能站得住脚。”

“All right,” Malone said. He took the cigar out again, this time he finished unwrapping it. “If that’s your story, I hope it’ll stand up.”

“它会的。” 她冷静地说。

“It will,” she said coolly.