|
Fairy-Kist is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It first appeared in ''Maclean’s Magazine'' in America in 1927. It was after published in 1928 in England in the ''Strand Magazine'', illustrated by Charles Brock. It finally came out in book format in 1932, in the collection ''Limits and Renewals.'' ==Plot== The narrator is conversing with some friends after dinner, and one Keede, a doctor, tells the company a story. The body a young girl was found outside a village one night, and the mystery of her death never cleared up. A trowel had been found by her body, apparently the weapon with which the murder had been committed. Her lover was suspected; they had quarreled the same night, but there was no evidence against him and the affair was dropt for some time. Keede has suspicions in another quarter; he had himself passed the spot on the night and seem a man, with a woman's body, and not realising she was dead, reported to the police. He was able to identify him by the plates on his motorcycle, and determined to "play Sherlock Holmes". Following the man, one Henry Wollin, to his home, Keede and a friend found that he was a returned soldier, now an enthusiastic gardener, in the care of his housekeeper. She told them how he had been wounded and gassed in the War, come home off his head - ''Fairy-kist'' she called it - and how she had nursed him since. Wollin, fearing that they suspected him, next disappeared for some time. On his return Keede and his friend Lemming had determined to continue on the scent, when they learnt the details of the lorry theory. Puzzled as to why Wollin had behaved in so guilty a fashion, Keede eventually discovered the truth from Wollin himself.Later it was found that a lorry which frequented the village always skids against the embankment where the body was found, and it was supposed that the girl had been killed by it. He had been out that night on his motorcycle and, coming across the girls body, had stopt to investigate when Keede coming up in his car had so panicked him that he had fled, leaving his trowel behind. Terrified of being suspected of the murder, he had bought a new trowel, and committed other similar acts to hide his own trail, and incidentally make himself seem the real criminal. When he thought the police were on his track he had hidden in his cellar for a month. Wollin was even afraid of being arrested for planting roots in the country, as he had been on the night of the tragedy. He is convinced he is mad, and had heard voices while he had been in hospital bidding him plant gardens. In fact, Keede's friend Lemming, a doctor, discovered that the supposed voices had been no more than the hospital nurse reading to him a book, Mrs Ewing's "Mary's Meadow", while he had been delirious. When he explained this to Keede, the latter was vastly relieved, and realising that he was not mad, had recovered forthwith. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fairy-Kist」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|