死亡约会 Part I Chapter 3（1）（在线收听）

Chapter 3

When Sarah had left the lounge, Dr Gerard sat where he was for some minutes. Then he strolled tothe table, picked up the latest number of Le Matin and strolled with it to a chair a few yards awayfrom the Boynton family. His curiosity was aroused.

He had at first been amused by the English girl’s interest in this American family, shrewdlydiagnosing that it was inspired by interest in one particular member of the family. But nowsomething out of the ordinary about this family party awakened in him the deeper, more impartialinterest of the scientist. He sensed that there was something here of definite psychological interest.

Very discreetly, under the cover of his paper, he took stock of them. First the boy in whom thatattractive English girl took such a decided interest. Yes, thought Gerard, definitely the type toappeal to her temperamentally. Sarah King had strength—she possessed well-balanced nerves,cool wits and a resolute will. Dr Gerard judged the young man to be sensitive, perceptive, diffidentand intensely suggestible. He noted with a physician’s eye the obvious fact that the boy was at themoment in a state of high nervous tension. Dr Gerard wondered why. He was puzzled. Whyshould a young man whose physical health was obviously good, who was abroad ostensiblyenjoying himself, be in such a condition that nervous breakdown was imminent?

The doctor turned his attention to the other members of the party. The girl with the chestnut hairwas obviously Raymond’s sister. They were of the same racial type, small-boned, well-shaped,aristocratic looking. They had the same slender well-formed hands, the same clean line of jaw, andthe same poise of the head on a long, slender neck. And the girl, too, was nervous…She madeslight involuntary nervous movements, her eyes were deeply shadowed underneath and overbright. Her voice, when she spoke, was too quick and a shade breathless. She was watchful—alert—unable to relax.

‘And she is afraid, too,’ decided Dr Gerard. ‘Yes, she is afraid!’

He overheard scraps of conversation—a very ordinary normal conversation.

‘We might go to Solomon’s Stables?’ ‘Would that be too much for Mother?’ ‘The Wailing Wallin the morning?’ ‘The Temple, of course—the Mosque of Omar they call it—I wonder why?’

‘Because it’s been made into a Moslem mosque, of course, Lennox.’