Dumb Witness / Безмолвный свидетель. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Начало книги

Miss Arundell died on May 1st. Though her illness was short her death did not occasion much surprise in the little country town of Market Basing where she had lived since she was a girl of sixteen. For[1] Emily Arundell was well over seventy, the last of a family of five, and she had been known to be in delicate health for many years and had indeed nearly died of a similar attack to the one that killed her some eighteen months before.

But though Miss Arundell’s death surprised no one, something else did. The provisions of her will gave rise[2] to varying emotions, astonishment, pleasurable excitement, deep condemnation, fury, despair, anger and general gossip. For weeks and even months Market Basing was to talk of nothing else! Everyone had their own contribution to make to the subject from Mr Jones the grocer, who held that ‘blood was thicker than water[3]’, to Mrs Lamphrey at the post office, who repeated ad nauseam[4] that ‘there’s something behind it, depend upon it! You mark my words.’

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