8 A FEW REPORTS

CHAPTER EIGHT A FEW REPORTS ANOTHER SECRET Seven meeting was held the next night, to hear the result of the various 'observations' and 'watchings'. All the seven were there, but the seventh this time was Scamper, not George. It seemed strange without him. It was quite a business-like meeting. Janet spoke first. She took out her notebook and read from it. 'I was at the railway station,' she said, 'and I picked out three people to observe as they passed. They came off the ten–thirteen train from Pilberry.'

第二天晚上又举行了一次秘密七人会议，听取各种“观察”和“观察”的结果。 七个人都来了，但这第七个人是斯坎普，不是乔治。 没有他，感觉很奇怪。 这是一次很有公事公办的会议。 珍妮特先开口了。她拿出笔记本读了起来。 “我在火车站，”她说，“我挑了三个经过的人来观察。 他们是从皮尔贝里来的10点13分的火车上下来的。”

'First, an old woman with a round face, a big nose with a wart at one side, and grey curly hair. She wore a green coat with a belt, a hat with lots of red cherries round it and—' 'Mrs Lawson!' yelled everyone at once, and Janet looked pleased. 'Yes,' she said. 'Quite right. I chose her just to see if I could describe her well enough for you to recognise. Here's the second person, not very exciting. A young woman in a nurse's uniform, golden hair, doll-like face, small feet and a quick walk.' 'Well, it's quite a good short description,' said Peter. 'I feel as if I might know her if I saw her. I think you're good at this, Janet.' Janet went red with pleasure. She loved Peter to praise her. 'Here's my last,' she said. 'I chose him because he really was a bit peculiar. Listen. 'A very stoopy man, who walked a bit lame, had an old soft hat pulled well down over his

“首先是一位老妇人，圆脸，大鼻子，一侧长了个疣，一头灰色的卷发。 她穿着一件绿外套，系着一条腰带，戴着一顶镶着许多红樱桃的帽子，还有——"劳森太太！大家齐声喊道，珍妮特看上去很高兴。 “是的，”她说。“完全正确。 我选择她只是想看看我能不能把她描述得足够好让你认出来。 这是第二个人，不太令人兴奋。 一个穿着护士制服的年轻女子，金发，娃娃脸，小脚，走得很快。“嗯，这是一个很简短的描述，”彼得说。 “我觉得如果我见到她，我就能认出她来。 我认为你很擅长这个，珍妮特。”珍妮特高兴得满脸通红。 她喜欢彼得表扬她。 “这是我的最后一张，”她说。 “我选择他是因为他确实有点奇怪。 听。“一个非常驼背的人，走路有点跛，戴着一顶旧软帽，盖在他的头上

face, a long overcoat with the shoulders very square, small feet for his size, a funny hand—' 'What do you mean, a funny hand?' asked Peter. 'Well, I don't quite know what was the matter with it,' said Janet. 'It looked as if two fingers were missing, and it was sort of deformed and crooked. That's all.' 'Colour of his hair, his tie or scarf, and how did he walk–quick, slow or medium?' asked Peter. 'His hat was too low, I couldn't see his hair, and he had no tie or scarf,' said Janet. 'And he limped a bit. There! Do you think you would recognise him if you saw him?' 'Oh yes!' said everyone. 'Well done, Janet.' 'Now you, Barbara and Pam,' said Peter. But their notes proved to be rather silly. 'They sound as if you'd had one of your stupid giggling fits,' said Peter, reprovingly. 'Don't read any more. They wouldn't be a bit

他的脸，一件长大衣，肩膀很方，一双小脚，一只奇怪的手——”“你是什么意思，一只奇怪的手？彼得问。 “嗯，我不太清楚这是怎么回事，”珍妮特说。 “它看起来好像少了两根手指，而且有点变形和弯曲。 这是所有。“他的头发、领带或围巾的颜色，以及他走路的方式——快、慢还是中？”彼得问。 “他的帽子太低了，我看不见他的头发，他没有打领带，也没有围巾，”珍妮特说。 他一瘸一拐地说。在那里!如果你见到他，你能认出他来吗？“哦，是的！”大家都说。 “干得好，珍妮特。“现在你们，芭芭拉和帕姆，”彼得说。 但事实证明，他们的笔记相当愚蠢。 “听起来好像你又傻乎乎地傻笑了。”彼得责备地说。 “别再读了。一点也不会

of use if we were really trying to find out something. Very poor, both of you. Now you, Colin. Did you do any shadowing?' 'No,' said Colin. 'I began a cold on Saturday night, so my mother wouldn't let me. I'm doing it tonight, after this meeting. I'm sorry, but it wasn't my fault.' 'Right,' said Peter. 'Well, that only leaves me and Jack. We found a good spyhole in a thick clump of leafy twigs springing out round the trunk of a great elm tree. They hid us beautifully. We sat there, peeping through the leaves, and at first we saw nothing.' 'Not many people walk along that road,' explained Jack. 'It's Fairmile Road, and you know how long it is. Most people take a bus. We didn't see anyone for ages.' 'In fact, we haven't much to report,' said Peter. 'The only possible thing of interest we saw was a car that came by, and stopped just near us.'

如果我们真的想搞清楚些什么的话。 你们两个都很可怜。现在轮到你了，科林。 你做过影子训练吗？“不，”科林说。 “星期六晚上我开始感冒，所以我妈妈不让我感冒。 我今晚就去，开完会之后。 我很抱歉，但那不是我的错。“好的，”彼得说。 “那就只剩下我和杰克了。 我们在一棵大榆树树干周围长出的一丛茂密的枝叶上发现了一个很好的窥孔。 他们把我们藏得很好。我们坐在那里，透过树叶向外窥视，起初什么也没看见。“沿着那条路走的人不多，”杰克解释说。 “这是费尔迈尔路，你知道它有多长。 大多数人乘公共汽车。我们很久没见到任何人了。“事实上，我们没什么可报告的。”彼得说。 “我们唯一可能感兴趣的是一辆驶过的汽车，停在了我们附近。”

'But why was that interesting?' asked Pam. 'Well, it wasn't very interesting, actually,' said Peter. 'All that happened was that a man got out with a dog, a magnificent grey poodle, fluffy in patches and bare in patches, you know how poodles look! The dog was terribly frightened, I thought. But you could see it was only car-sick and it soon recovered, and began to sniff round quite naturally.' 'It didn't like going back into the car, though,' said Jack. 'It whined like anything and pulled away from the man as hard as it could. He was pretty rough with it, I thought.' 'I suppose the poor thing knew it would be carsick again,' said Janet. 'Do you remember our next-door neighbour's dog, Peter? Every time it went out in the car, it cried and cried because it felt so ill.' 'Well your report doesn't seem very interesting,' said Barbara, rather glad to repay Peter for his candid remarks about her report

“但这有什么有趣的？”潘问。 “嗯，实际上，这不是很有趣。”彼得说。 “事情是这样的，一个男人带着一条狗出来了，一条漂亮的灰色贵宾犬，有几处毛茸茸的，也有几处光秃秃的，你知道贵宾犬的样子！”我想那只狗吓坏了。 但你可以看到它只是晕车，很快就恢复了，开始很自然地四处嗅。“不过，它不喜欢回到车里去，”杰克说。 它像什么东西一样呜咽着，用尽全力挣脱了那个人。 我想他对它太粗暴了。“我想这可怜的东西知道它又要晕车了，”珍妮特说。 “你还记得我们隔壁邻居的狗吗，彼得？” 每次坐车出去，它都哭个不停，因为它感觉很不舒服。“嗯，你的报告似乎不太有趣，”芭芭拉说，她很高兴能报答彼得对她报告的坦率评论

and Pam's. 'Did you take the car's number? I bet you didn't.' 'There wasn't much point in taking it,' said Peter. 'But as it happens, we did. Here it is– PSD 188.' 'PSD– pretty sick dog!' said Colin. 'That's easy enough to remember!' There was a laugh, and then a pause. Peter shut his notebook. 'Well that's all,' he said. 'I don't really feel we've done very much that is useful. Janet's reports are the best. They show how good she would be if she had to describe someone seen for only half a minute. The police are always asking for descriptions of persons seen by the public, and hardly anyone ever seems to be able to remember much about any stranger they saw.' 'But Janet would be able to tell them everything,' said Pam, rather jealously. 'The only big thing that has come out of this

和Pam。“你记下车牌号了吗？” 我打赌你没有。“拿它没有多大意义。”彼得说。 但碰巧的是，我们做到了。 这是PSD 188。“病得很重的狗！”科林说。 “这很容易记住！”一阵笑声，然后停顿了一下。 彼得合上他的笔记本。“好了，就这些，”他说。 我真的不觉得我们做了很多有用的事情。 珍妮特的报告是最好的。 这表明，如果让她描述一个只见了半分钟的人，她会有多好。 警察总是要求人们描述公众所见过的人，但几乎没有人能记得他们所见过的陌生人的多少情况。“可是珍妮特会把一切都告诉他们的，”潘相当嫉妒地说。 “这是唯一一件大事