curiously (curious), right, calm, quiet, true, rich, sudden, kind, devoted, careful (carefully), peaceful, impaitient (impaitiently), good-looking, young, bitter, strange (16)
former, elderly, deadly (3)
Agatha Christie. Philomel Cottage (in English, for intermediate, 8)
- went on – продолжил (от go on – продолжать )
- A look of contempt went over his face. – Презрительное выражение появилось на его лице.
- to insure his life in my favor – застраховать жизнь в мою пользу
- a certificate of heart failure – заключение о внезапной остановке сердца
- made a will in my favor – составил завещание в мою пользу (от make a will – составить завещание )
- face suffused with blood – налилось кровью (от suffuse with blood – побагроветь )
- to spring upon her – наброситься на нее
- bad fright – сильный испуг
«Now, Alix …»
She screamed, her hands held out to protect herself from him.
«Gerald — stop — I’ve got something to tell you, something to confess…» He did stop.
«To confess?» he said curiously.
«Yes, to confess.» She went on, trying to hold his attention. «Something I must have told you before.»
A look of contempt went over his face. «A former lover, I suppose,» he sneered.
«No,» said Alix. «Something else. You’d call it,” –she pause, — “yes, you’d call it a crime.» And at once she saw that she had said the right words. His attention was held. Seeing that, she became calm.
«You had better sit down again,» she said quietly. She crossed the room to her old chair and sat down too. She even took her needlework. But behind her calmness she was thinking hard to tell a story which must hold his interest until help arrived.
«I told you,» she said, «that I had been a typist for fifteen years. That was not quite true. There were two intervals. The first was when I was twenty-two. I met a man, elderly but quite rich. He fell in love with me and asked me to marry him. I accepted. We were married.» She paused. «I asked him to insure his life in my favor.»
She saw a sudden interest appeared in her husband’s face, and went on. «During the war I worked for a time in a Hospital. There I had the access to all kinds of rare drugs and poisons. Yes, poisons.» She paused. He was very interested now, not a doubt of it. The murderer must have an interest in murder.
She looked at the clock. It was five and twenty to nine.
«There is one poison — it is a white powder. A pinch of it means death. You know something about poisons perhaps?»
«No,» said Gerald, «I know very little about them.»
She drew a breath of relief. This made her task easier. «You have heard of hyoscine, of course? Any doctor would give a certificate of heart failure. I stole a small quantity of this drug and kept it by me.» She paused again.
«Go on,» said Gerald.
«No, I’m afraid, I can’t tell you. Another time.»
«Now,» he said impatiently. «I want to hear.»
«We had been married a month. I was very good to my elderly husband, very kind and devoted. He praised me to all the neighbors. Everyone knew what a loving wife I was. I always made his coffee myself every evening. One evening, when we were alone together, I put a pinch of the deadly poison in his cup.»
Alix paused, and carefully looked at Gerald. She, who had never acted in her life, became the greatest actress in the world at this moment. «It was very peaceful evening. We were sitting and talking. Suddenly he gasped a little and asked for air. I opened the window. Then he said he could not move from his chair. Soon he died.»
She stopped, smiling. It was a quarter to nine. They would come soon.
«How much,» said Gerald, «was the insurance money?»
«About two thousand pounds. I spent the money soon and have to come back to my office work. But I wasn’t going to work there long. Then I met another man. He didn’t know I had been married before. He was a younger man, rather good-looking, and also rich. We were married quietly. He didn’t want to insure his life, but of course he made a will in my favor. He liked me to make his coffee also.»
Alix smiled, and added simply: «I make very good coffee.»
Then she went on. «I had several friends in the village where we were living. They were very sorry for me, with my husband dying suddenly of heart attack one evening after dinner. I didn’t quite like the doctor. I don’t think he suspected me, but he was certainly very surprised at my husband’s sudden death. I don’t know why I came back to the office again. My second husband left about four thousand pounds. Then, you see -» But she stopped. Gerald Martin, his face suffused with blood, half choking, was pointing a shaking forefinger at her.
«The coffee — my God! The coffee!» She stared at him. «I understand now why it was bitter. You devil. You’ve poisoned me.»
His hands gripped the arms of his chair. He was ready to spring upon her.
«You’ve poisoned me.» Alix moved back from him to the fireplace. Now, terrified, she opened her lips to say that she didn’t — and then paused. Any moment he could spring upon her.
She got all her strength and looked him in the eye steadily.
«Yes,» she said, «I poisoned you. Already the poison is working. At this minute you can’t move from your chair — YOU CAN’T MOVE .»
If she could keep him there — even a few minutes — Ah! what was that? Footsteps on the road. The creak of the gate. Then footsteps on the path outside. The door of the hall opened –
«YOU CAN’T MOVE,» she said again. Then she ran past him and out of the room to fall into Dick Windyford’s arms.
«My God! Alix!» he cried. Then he turned to the man with him, a tall policeman. «Go and see what’s been happening in that room.» He laid Alix carefully down on a couch and bent over her.
«My little girl,» he murmured. «My poor little girl. What have they been doing to you?»
Her lips just whispered his name. Dick was aroused from his thoughts by the policeman’s touching him on the arm. «There’s nothing in that room, sir, but a man sitting in a chair. Looks as though he’d had some kind of bad fright, and -»
«Yes?»
«Well, sir, he’s — dead.»
They were surprised by hearing Alix’s strange voice. She spoke as though in some kind of dream. «…. AND YOU CAN’T MOVE.»
THE END