'A' is for Alibiby Sue Grafton
'A' is for Alibi 「アリバイのＡ」はベストセラーでもあり，表紙によれば，The Independent Mystery Booksellers Associationという団体（？）の２０世紀の１００大ミステリーにも選ばれたそう。もう２０年も前の作品ですが，前に読んだ Blood Shotの中にも登場するような有名が探偵。気にもなっており，また，エジンバラ，ボストンと寒い場所のミステリばかり読んでいたので，ちょっと暖かいカリフォルニアの女性探偵もいいかな，と思い読みました。
書き出しは易しくて感動的。しかし，本編は女性らしい繊細さで建物の描写などかなり綿密にされていました。犯人は今となっては当たり前すぎ？しかし，７年前の事件を追うのは小説でも大変。
An autopsy and lab tests
showed that he'd died as a result of ingesting oleander, ground to a fine
powder and substituted for the medication in the capsule he took: not a
masterly plot, but one employed to good effect. Oleander is a common
oleander「セイヨウキョウチクトウ」は今回のキーワード。「細かい粉にひいて，カプセルの薬と入れ替える」
When interviewing someone
for the first time, it's always nice to have a little information up your sleeve.
「初めて面会するときには，少しでも手持ちの情報があるとよい」
have [keep] O up one's sleeve「〈奥の手･妙案など〉をいつでも出せるように用意してある」
The dark-haired groomer
left the poodle long enough to reach up for the flea spray, which was passed
over to Gwen.
「黒髪のトリマーがプードルから離れてノミスプレーを取って，グウェンに手渡した」
groomerは「犬の美容師」だそうですが，おもしろいことに訳語を当てているのは，プログレシブだけで，他の大辞典では，形だけか，取り上げられていません。
"You said you'd mellowed
some," I said. "How did that come about?"
"Six thousand
dollars' worth of therapy," she said flatly.
mellowは形容詞「熟している」では見る単語。動詞は英和辞典では「円熟させる（する）」となっていますが，今ひとつピンときません。COBUILDの定義，「主に年齢を重ねて物腰がやわらかくなる」
「少しは立ち直ったっていったけど，どうやりまりましたか」
Graftonはこの単語が好きなようで，３回も使っています。
I fought him tooth and nail over them, but what can I tell you?
tooth and nailはイランランキンの作品で，それが成句だと知りましたが，直後に出会うのも不思議です。
The house was in Montebello, a section of
town where there are rumored to be more millionaires per square mile than in
any other part of the country. Most of the houses are not even visible from the
road. Occasionally you can
catch a glimpse of a tiled roof hidden away in tangles of olive trees and live
oak. Many parcels of land are bordered by winding walls of hand-hewn stone overgrown
with wild roses and nasturtiums.
「アメリカで１平方マイルあたりの金持ちが数が一番多い地区！」
"That's Hansel and
Gretel," she said amicably. "They're Embden geese."
エムデン:ガチョウの大形の肉用種;白色で,くちばしと脚はオレンジ色;オランダ,ドイツで古くから飼われていた.（ランダム英和）
ドイツというために「ヘンデルとグレーテル」を引用か？
The
floors were dark-stained tongue and groove.
「さねはぎ,さね継ぎ:片方の材の突起を他方の材の溝に差し込む接合法,またはその継ぎ目」（ランダム英和）
I took up a stool across
from her, the two of us sitting in the center of the room, which looked as much
like a chem lab as a cook's dream.
「私は彼女と対面してスツールに座った。私たち二人は，料理人が夢見るような化学実験室にような部屋の真ん中に腰を下ろしていた」（？？！）
Kind of like the blurb
on a paperback: 'stepping over the bodies of those he loved . . .'
blurb「（本のカバーに刷られた）推薦［宣伝］文」 日本の文庫本にはないペーパーバックの背表紙の宣伝文句，あれはblurbと言うんですね…
it was safer to wean
him away by feeding his bad feelings.
「嫌われるようなことをして彼から離れたほうが安全だった」
wean「乳離れさす→引き離す」
"You better hit the road,"
I said.
「出かけたほうがいいわよ」
Let's
hit the road ! 《口語》 さあ出かけよう（活用英和）
She was there in a flash,
her face thrust forward through the crack like a Pekingese, complete with bulging
eyes, pug nose, and chin whiskers. "Yes?" she snapped. She was eighty
years old if a day.
犬でした！
They're
straight
shooters, both of them.
真っ正直な人
That was the biggest
mistake of my life because he divorced me anyway."
"As
punishment."
"As only Laurence
Fife knew how. In
spades."
「断然,確かに,極度に;率直に」（わかったような，わからないような…）
The television set in my
room was on the fritz so I wandered down to the office and watched TV with
Arlette while she ate a box of caramel Ayds.
He was not pleased with
my arrival on the scene and he made no bones about that.
「彼は私が現場に到着したことを気に入らないようで，そのことを隠そうともしなかった」
make
no bones about「…を率直に認める・…をためらわない」
The
いわゆる「マジパン」というやつですね。
I locked the door, kicked
off my shoes, and pulled down the chenille spread, crawling under the covers with
relief.
At fifty-five miles an
hour, no wildlife was visible but I had heard the cries of tree frogs even in
my sleep and I pictured now, from my speeding car, the clay and gravel washes filled
with buffcolored lizards and millipedes, creatures whose adoption to their
environment include the husbanding of moisture and an aversion to hot
sun.
husbandが動詞で「節約する」というのは大変印象深い意味で，よく冗談に「じゃ，wifeは『浪費する』っていうのかな」などと言っています。
You know, they want you
to lie there and tell 'em all your dreams and kinky fantasies so they can whack
off mentally at your expense. I did Reichian
before that but I got sick of huffing and puffing and pulling on towels.
カウンセリングの一種だと思います。
時間があれば，調べるのですが…
"What, before Daddy
died? Yeah I did. I had the flu, really grisly stuff, so I stayed with Mom. She
was great, really poured on the TLC. I never slept so much in my life."
tender loving careのアクロニムのようで，「優しく思いやりのある世話」
"
ランダム英和だけにある情報「0Scarsdale(medical) diet というダイエット法がある.」だそうです。
I was El Blimpo
back then but I had a crush on her and we kind of had this brother-sister
relationship- platonic. We didn't date. Just had lunch together once a week, something
like that. Sometimes a drink after work."
「太っちょ」という意味のスペイン語か何かだと思われます。
The disappointment was
acute. I was down to the last pile of books, mostly paperbacks. Such taste. Leon Uris and Irving Stone,
Victoria Holt, Georgette Heyer,
a few more exotic samples that I guessed had been from some literature survey
course in college.
ウ〜ン，大学の文学専修に使いそうなテキスト，でも私はどれもうとい！
"What kind of
crossword puzzle did you concoct this week?"
"An easy one. All
doubles. Prefixes-'bi,' 'di,' 'bis,' 'dis.' Twin. Twain. Binary. Things like
that. Try this one: six letters, 'double impression.'" "Already,
I give up." "'Mackle.' It's a printer's term. Kind of a cheat but the
fit was so nice. Try this. 'Double meaning.'
Nine letters."
"Henry, would you
quit that?"
"'Ambiguity.' I'll
leave it on your doorstep."
クロスワードで６文字，意味は「２重刷り」→Mackle
９文字で「２重の意味」→ambiguity
"I'm courting a
ticket if I stay parked out here. I'll follow you. I don't like to be stuck
without my own wheels."
"'Wheels'? Like in
the sixties, you refer to your car as 'wheels' ?"
"Yeah, I read that
in a book," I said dryly.
「自分のwheelsなしで動きが取れないようにはなりたくないの」
「Wheelsだって？６０年代みたいに。自分の車のことをwheelsなんていうのかい」
「えぇ，本で読んだことがあるわ」
wheels「（俗）車」だそうですが，かなり古めかしい表現のようで。
He opened the door and both
bounded out, tongues flapping like slivers of corned beef. One of the dogs
galummoxed into the other room and came trotting back with a leash in its
mouth.
galumph「どたばた歩く」の異綴りのようで，英和辞典では確認できませんでした。ちなみにWebサーチでもヒットなし。
（２００３年１月１９日）