sub rosa hideout

  "Aren't you an artist, too, M. Poirot?"

  Poirot put his head on one side.

  "It's a question, that. But on the whole, I would say, no. I have known crimes that were artistic ㅡ they were, you understand, supreme exercises of imagination. But the solving of them ㅡ no, it is not a creative power that is needed. What is required is a passion for the truth."

  "A passion for the truth," said Henrietta meditatively. "Yes, I can see how dangerous that might make you. Would the truth satisfy you?"

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  Poirot said: "That is one of Inspector Grange's men. He seems to be looking for something."

  "Clues, I suppose. Don't policemen look for clues? Cigarette ash, footprints, burnt matches."

  Her voice held a kind of bitter mockery. Poirot answered seriously.

  "Yes, they look for these things ㅡ and sometimes they find them. But the real clues, Miss Savernake, in a case like this, usually lie in the personal relationship of the people concerned."

  "I don't think I understand you."

  "Little things," said Poirot, his head thrown back, his eyes half-closed. "Not cigarette ash, or a rubber heel mark ㅡ but a gesture, a look, an unexpected action..."

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  "...But you might have fired that shot in a sudden moment of fierce resentment ㅡ and if so ㅡ if so, Mademoiselle, you have the creative imagination and ability to cover your tracks."

  Henrietta got up. She stood for a moment, pale and shaken, looking at him. She said with a sudden, rueful smile.

  "And I thought you liked me."

  Hercule Poirot sighed. He said sadly:

  "That is what is so unfortunate for me. I do."

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  To Hercule Poirot there was only one thing more fascinating than the study of human beings, and that was the pursuit of truth.

  He meant to know the truth of John Christow's death.

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  In the kitchen a tearful Doris Emmott was wilting under the stern reproof of Mr Gudgeon. Mrs Medway and Miss Simmons acted as a kind of Greek chorus.

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  "...Her ladyship is the kind of absent-minded lady who wouldn't hurt a fly, but there's no denying that she puts things in funny places. I shall never forget," added Gudgeon with feeling, "when she brought back a live lobster and put it in the card tray in the hall. Thought I was seeing things!"

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  She gave him her lovely dazzling smile again and she put one long white hand on his sleeve.

  "Dear M. Poirot, you know perfectly. The police will have to hunt about for the owner of those fingerprints and they won't find him, and they'll have, in the end, to let the whole thing stop. But I'm afraid, you know, that you won't let it drop."

  "No, I shall not let it drop." said Hercule Poirot.

  "That is just what I thought. And that is why I came. It's the truth you want, isn't it?"

  "Certainly I want the truth."

  "I see I haven't explained myself very well. I'm trying to find out just why you won't let things drop. It isn't because of your prestige ㅡ or because you want to hang a murderer (such an unpleasant kind of death, I've always thought ㅡ so medieval) It's just, I think, that you want to know. You do see what I mean, don't you? If you were to know the truth ㅡ if you were to be told the truth, I think ㅡ I think perhaps that might satisfy you? Would it satisfy you, M. Poirot?"

  "You are offering to tell me the truth, Lady Angkatell?"

  She nodded.

  "You yourself know the truth, then?"

  Her eyes opened very wide.

  "Oh, yes, I've known for a very long time. I'd liketo tell you. And then we could agree that ㅡ well, that it was all over and done with."

  She smiled at him.

  "Is it a bargain, M. Poirot?"

  It was quite an effort for Hercule Poirot to say:

  "No, Madame, it is not a bargain."

  He wanted ㅡ he wanted, very badly, to let the whole thing drop, simply because Lady Angkatell asked him to do so.

  Lady Angkatell sat very still for a moment. Then she raised her eyebrows.

  "I wonder," she said. "I wonder if you really know what you're doing."

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  Yes, she thought, that was what despair was. A cold thing ㅡ a thing of infinite coldness and loneliness. She'd never understood until now that despair was a cold thing. She had thought of it as something hot and passionate, something violent, a hot-blooded desperation. But that was not so.

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  "But you are one of those who can live with a sword in their hearts ㅡ who can go on and smile ㅡ "

  Henrietta looked up at him. Her lips twisted into a bitter smile.

  "That's a little melodramatic, isn't it?"

  "It is because I am a foreinger and I like to use fine words."

  Henrietta said suddenly:

  "You have been very kind to me."

  "That is because I have admired you always very much."

'The Hollow'는 내가 읽은 아가사 크리스티 중에 - 그리고 전작을 다 읽지는 못했을지라도 그 수는 상당히 많다 - 유일하게 감정적으로 사람을 미치게 한다고 느꼈던 작품이다. 표현이 crude한 것은 지금 내 탓이고. 이 작품은 아마 번역본으로는 해문판이 제일 많이 돌아다니는 것으로 아는데, 나는 우연히도 원본으로 먼저 읽고 나중에 번역이 궁금해서 해문판을 찾아봤더랬다. 그리고는 다소 실망했는데, 너무도 단순하고 이런저런 부연설명없이 간단해서 제일 감동적이었던 저 마지막 부분("because I have admired you always very much")이 의미가 덧칠된 채로 들어가 있었기 때문. 포와로는 아주 단순하게 '당신'을 좋아하기 때문,이라고 말하는데, 번역은 그게 그 캐릭터의 능력/정신력에 경탄했기 때문이라는 뉘앙스였다. 왜 부연을 했는지 짐작 못할 바는 아니지만 이런 문장이 간단해지는 데는 그만한 이유가 있는 것이라, 그대로 옮겨 주는 것이 더 좋았을 것이다…고 늘 생각했다. 애초에 이렇게 단순하고 진솔하게 '당신이 마음에 들었기 때문'이라고 했기 때문에 그 대목이 그토록 감동적일 수 있었던 것이고.

포와로는 내가 본 바로는 이 아가씨 외에도 딱 한 명 더한테 이런 애정을 보이는데, 이런 면모 때문에 포와로를 싫어할 수가 없다. 세상 앞에 숨지 않고 연민을 아는 사람이라서. 그리고 그래서 내가 의견차가 있다지만 포와로가 등장하는 작품들이 더 감상적이라고 느끼고 마플보다 포와로를 선호하는 이유지.