| I know that perhaps I ought to have told something I know before, but as they said the master had shot himself it was all right I thought. And I wouldn't have liked to get Miss Nevill's young man into trouble and never thought really for one moment as he had done it. But now I see he has been took up for shooting at a gentleman in the country and so perhaps he isn't quite all there and I ought to say but I thought I would write to you, you being a friend of the mistress and asking me so particular the other day if there was anything and of course I wish now I had told you then. But I do hope it won't mean getting mixed up with the police because I shouldn't like that and my mother wouldn't like it either. She has always been most particular. Yours respectfully, Agnes Fletcher. | Надо было бы еще раньше рассказать вам обо всем, но поскольку мне сказали, что хозяин застрелился, а я совсем не хотела впутывать сюда еще и молодого человека мисс Невил я ни разу не задумывалась над действиями Фрэнка Картера, а сейчас его забрали за покушение на джентльмена и я подумала что надо бы сообщить вам ведь вы так вежливо разговаривали в прошлый раз со мной о том не знаю ли я чего и я конечно же подумала, что надо рассказать вам все Но мне никак не хотелось бы разговаривать с полицией да и мать моя не одобрила бы этого. Искренне ваша - Агнес Флетчер". |
| Poirot murmured: "I always knew it was something to do with some man. | Пуаро хватило духу одолеть послание. - Я правильно решил, что здесь замешан мужчина. |
| I guessed the wrong man, that is all." | Только не на того подумал, - пробормотал он. |
| Chapter 8 FIFTEEN, SIXTEEN, MAIDS IN THE KITCHEN | Восемь, восемь - спеть его попросим |
| I The interview with Agnes Fletcher took place in Hertfordshire, in a somewhat derelict tea shop, for Agnes had been anxious not to tell her story under Miss Morley's critical eye. | Беседа с Агнес Флетчер состоялась в маленьком кафе в Хертфорде - девушка очень не хотела встречаться под неусыпным оком мисс Морли. |
| The first quarter of an hour was taken up in listening to exactly how particular Agnes's mother had always been. | Первые пятнадцать минут ушли на выслушивание ее опасений быть замешанной в каком-нибудь уголовном деле или хотя бы быть допрошенной полицией. |
| Also, how Agnes's father, though a proprietor of licensed premises, had never once had any friction with the police, closing time being strictly observed to the second, and indeed Agnes' father and mother were universally respected and looked up to in Little Darlingham, Gloucestershire and none of Mrs. Fletcher's family of six (two having died in infancy) had ever occasioned their parents the least anxiety. And if Agnes, now, were to get mixed up with the police in any way, Mum and Dad would probably die of it, because as she'd been saying, they'd always held their heads high, and never had no trouble of any kind with the police. After this had been repeated, da capo, and with various embellishments, several times, Agnes drew a little nearer to the subject of the interview. |