古墓之谜 21

Twenty,MISS?JOHNSON,,MRS. ?MERCADO, MR.?REITER,I don’t mind confessing that the idea came as a complete shock to me. I’d never thought ofassociating Miss?Johnson with the letters. Mrs.?Mercado, perhaps. But Miss?Johnson was a reallady, and so self-controlled and sensible.,But I reflected, remembering the conversation I had listened to that evening betweenM.?Poirot and Dr.?Reilly, that that might be just why.,If it were Miss?Johnson who had written the letters it explained a lot, mind you. I didn’t thinkfor a minute Miss?Johnson had had anything to do with the murder. But I did see that her dislike ofMrs.?Leidner might have made her succumb ¹ to the temptation of, well—putting the wind up her—to put it vulgarly.,But then Mrs.?Leidner had been murdered and Miss?Johnson had felt terrible pangs ² ofremorse—first for her cruel trick and also, perhaps, because she realized that those letters wereacting as a very good shield to the actual murderer. No wonder she had broken down so utterly ³.,She was, I was sure, a decent soul at heart. And it explained, too, why she had caught so eagerly atmy consolation ⁴ of “what’s happened’s happened and can’t be mended.”,And then her cryptic ⁵ remark—her vindication ⁶ of herself—“she was never a nice woman! ”,The question was, what was I to do about it?,I tossed and turned for a good while and in the end decided ⁷ I’d let M.?Poirot know about it atthe first opportunity.,Will business leaders succumb to these ideas?商业领袖们会被这些观点折服吗？,She felt sudden pangs of regret. 她突然感到痛悔不已 。