The Woman in White / Женщина в белом

”

“We must use any chance of tracing the person who has written this,” I said, returning the letter to Miss Halcombe, “I think we ought to speak to the gardener again about the elderly woman who gave him the letter, and then to continue our inquiries in the village.”

“Sir Percival Glyde is anxious that the marriage should take place before the end of the year.”

“Does Miss Fairlie know of that wish?” I asked eagerly.

“She has no suspicion of it. Mr. Fairlie has written to London, to the family solicitor,[37 - family solicitor – поверенный семьи] Mr.

Gilmore. Mr. Gilmore will arrive tomorrow, and will stay with us a few days. Mr. Gilmore is the old friend of two generations of Fairlies, and we can trust him, as we could trust no one else.”

“One of the paragraphs of the anonymous letter,” I said, “contains some sentences of personal description. Sir Percival Glyde’s name is not mentioned, I know – but does that description at all resemble him?”

“Accurately – even in stating his age to be forty-five – ”

Forty-five; and she was not yet twenty-one! That added to my blind hatred and distrust of him.

“There can be no doubt,” Miss Halcombe continued, “that every peculiarity of his personal appearance is thoroughly well known to the writer of the letter.”

“Even a cough that he is troubled with is mentioned, if I remember right?”

“Yes, and mentioned correctly.”

I felt the blood rush into my cheeks.

“But,” she said, “not a whisper, Mr. Hartright, has ever reached me, or my family, against Sir Percival.”

I opened the door for her in silence, and followed her out. She had not convinced me.

“We must find out more about the woman who gave this letter to the gardener,” said Marian. “Come on.”

We found the gardener at work as usual – but he couldn’t give us any more information to help us. The woman who had given him the letter had been wearing a long dark-blue coat and a scarf which covered her hair.

She hadn’t spoken a word to him. After giving him the letter, she had hurried away in the direction of the village. That was all the gardener could tell us.

The village lay southward of the house. So to the village we went next.

We then went to the village and spent several hours asking people there if they had seen a strange woman that day, but nobody had.