He got as far as the gallery, and then stopped, suddenly frozen to the spot. There, pacing slowly to and fro by the light of a half-moon, which streamed in slantwise through the east window, with bowed head and hands clasped in front of him, was the Grey Monk! Trant's jaw9 fell, and his eyes seemed to start from their orbits. A moment or two he stared; then he turned and, without a word or a sound, made his way back to his room, shaking in every limb like a huge jelly, and in mortal dread10 lest a ghostly hand should clutch him from behind.
Next morning he sought an opportunity of unburdening his mind to Sir Gilbert, only to be snapped at and told that he was an old fool for his pains.
"Let me hear of your having whispered a word about this idiotic11 rubbish, either in the servants' hall or outside the house, and it will be worse for you," said the Baronet, in his most minatory12 tone. "I'm ashamed of you, Trant, at your time of life."
For all that, Sir Gilbert did not rest till he had told Lady Pell, who in return confided13 to him his grandson's adventure in the spinny, as related to her by the latter.
"It is most annoying--most disturbing and annoying," said the Baronet, "and I don't at all know what to do in the matter. Perhaps the best thing will be to do nothing, but to keep on ignoring the whole business as I have done from the first. How is it the apparition never troubles me? I only wish it would! It would not escape me, I warrant you, till I had found out something definite about it. Let us hope, however, that we have heard the last of it for a long time to come."
But it was a hope not destined14 to be fulfilled.
In the course of the following fortnight two more appearances were reported to the Baronet, both coming from members of his own household. In these cases the figure was avouched15 to have been encountered outside the house and in two widely separated parts of the grounds.
When, on the morning to which we have now come, Mr. Lewis Clare failed to make his appearance at the breakfast table, Sir Gilbert, in something of a huff, sent a servant to his room with an ironical16 inquiry17 whether they might expect to see him downstairs by luncheon18 time. Presently the man came back with the news that Mr. Clare was not in his room and that his bed did not appear to have been slept in. Thereupon the Baronet's eyes met those of Lady Pell. "What fresh folly19 has he been guilty of? What further disgrace is he going to bring upon himself and me?" were the questions they mutely asked. But to the servant he merely nodded and said, "That will do."
A little later, when her ladyship and Miss Thursby got up from table, he remarked to the former, "I will see you in the course of the morning"; which meant, "As soon as I have any news you shall be told it." Then to himself he added, "I suppose I must employ Lisle to hunt him up again."
He lingered over his breakfast this morning in a way very unusual with him, as if hoping against hope that, from minute to minute, his grandson might make his appearance.
He was leaning back in his chair, a prey20 to a host of bitter thoughts, when Trant, looking at once mysterious and important, entered the room, carrying in one hand a letter, and in the other a large key.
"If you please, Sir Gilbert," he said, in deprecatory tones, for he knew how ill his master brooked21 being disturbed when in a brown study, "this letter, addressed to you, with the key of the strong room, has just been found on your study table by the housemaid whose duty it is to dust the room. As the letter is marked 'Immediate,' I thought that perhaps----"
"The key of the strong room lying on my study table, do you say?" broke in Sir Gilbert. "How could it possibly have got there?"
While speaking he had taken both the key and the letter. Having put on his glasses he looked at the address on the letter and shook his head. The writing was wholly strange to him. Wondering greatly, he laid the key on the table in front of him and broke open the envelope. Trant stole out of the room on tiptoe; he seemed to scent22 a mystery.
"Should Sir Gilbert Clare," began the letter, "feel anxious as to the whereabouts of his self-styled grandson he will find him locked up in the strong room, the key of which accompanies this missive. It will be for the young man to explain to Sir Gilbert's satisfaction the nature of the business which took him there between twelve and one o'clock this morning.
"Further, it may be as well to open Sir Gilbert Clare's eyes to a fact in respect of which he seems to have been deliberately23 hoodwinked. Luigi Rispani is not his grandson, but merely a nephew of the woman who married John Alexander Clare. The said John Alexander Clare had but one child--a daughter--who died when a few months old. In accepting Luigi Rispani as his grandson Sir Gilbert Clare has allowed himself to be made the victim of a fraud.
"One Who Knows."
For full ten minutes after he had finished reading the note Sir Gilbert sat without moving, his eyes closed and his chin sunk on his breast. So old and worn and white did he look that he might have been taken for one already dead. Many times in his life had he drunk deep of the waters of bitterness, but perhaps never before had they tasted so utterly24 bitter. For the moment his soul cried out, "I can bear no more! Give me death--give me anything rather than this!" But presently the strong man within him, which was not yet wholly overcome, began to reassert itself, and a voice seemed to say to him, "If what you have just heard be the truth, then is it better that the truth should be known, at whatever cost to yourself and others. Anything is better than that you should remain the unwitting participant in a living lie." He opened his eyes, sighed and sat up. What a change had come over his life in a few short minutes!
Presently he touched the handbell on the table, to which Trant, who had been listening for it, at once responded.
"Present my compliments to Lady Pell, and tell her that I am very desirous of having a word with her here, and as soon as Mr. Lisle arrives request him to come to me." He felt that he must share his burden with someone; it was too weighty to be borne alone.
Lady Pell was quickly on the scene.
"Sit down, Louisa, and oblige me by reading this, which was brought me a few minutes ago," said Sir Gilbert as he handed her the letter.
She took it without a word. When she had read to the end, she turned a scared face on her kinsman25.
"This is indeed terrible, if it be true," she said as she gave him back the letter.
"Here is the key of the strong room to confirm it."
At this juncture26 Everard Lisle entered the room. At sight of Lady Pell he was about to retire, but Sir Gilbert motioned to him to come forward. "Read this, which was found on my study table about half-an-hour ago," he said.
Lisle, standing27 within a yard of his elbow, did as he was told. He, too, was utterly dumbfoundered and for a few moments knew not what to say. Then a thought struck him. "According to this, sir, Mr. Lewis is still locked up in the strong room."
"Aye--like a rat in a trap," replied the Baronet grimly. "Suppose we go and release him and hear what he has to say for himself. Do you take the key, Lisle. Come, Louisa; I must ask you to keep us company. This seems to me an affair which may necessitate28 the presence of witnesses."
"Now, be good enough to unlock the door of the strong room," he said to Lisle when they had reached the study.
Everard did as he was told and pulled wide the heavy door.
"Anybody inside?" demanded Sir Gilbert sharply. He was standing just behind Lisle, but his eyes failed to pierce the semi-obscurity of the room.
"Mr. Lewis Clare, sir," replied Everard.
"Ah, it is true, then!" He drew in his breath like one suddenly struck in a vital part and caught at Lisle's shoulder. A shiver passed over him from head to foot, but his voice was firm enough when next he spoke29.
"You there, come out--come out this instant," he commanded.
Never was there a more abject-looking being than he who responded to the summons, with his blanched30 face, his dishevelled hair, and his fear-distended eyes. He seemed to crawl rather than walk into the outer room. Sir Gilbert pointed31 to a chair. "Seat yourself there," he said. The look with which he regarded him was a mixture of pity, contempt and scorn.
Then, in an aside to Lady Pell, he added: "I thank heaven that not a drop of my ancestors' blood runs in this craven's veins32. But pray be seated. This may prove to be a lengthy33 business." As he spoke, he drew a chair forward near his own and they both sat down. Then turning to Everard, he said: "Mr. Lisle, I think I have heard you say that you write shorthand."
"Yes, Sir Gilbert."
"Then station yourself there opposite me. I want you to take notes of the questions I am about to put to this wretched young man and of his answers to the same."
There were so many questions he wanted to ask that for a few moments he seemed at a loss where or how to begin. Luigi, of course, knew nothing about the letter which had reached him so mysteriously with the key of the strong room, and was still unaware34 that Sir Gilbert had the slightest suspicion of the gross imposition of which he had been made the victim.
For a brief space Sir Gilbert seemed lost in thought, then lifting his head and bending on Luigi from between his contracted lids a look which caused the young fellow to shrink and cower35 even more abjectly36 than before, he said: "Luigi Rispani, for that is your name, I know you at last for the vile37 impostor and cheat that you are. Whether you are aware of it or not, let me tell you this: you have been guilty of that which would inevitably38 consign39 you to a felon's cell should I decide to proceed to extremities40 against you, and, indeed, you deserve nothing less at my hands. But what I may decide to do in the matter will depend in a great measure upon yourself. Answer the questions I am about to put to you truthfully and without prevarication41, and I may be induced to deal leniently42 by you. Lie to me, or strive in any way to throw dust in my eyes, and the moment I discover you in the attempt I will have you given into the custody43 of the police and will proceed against you with the utmost rigour of the law. What say you, sir? Are you prepared to tell me the absolute and positive truth without a shadow of concealment44 on your part, or are you not?"
"I will tell you the truth, Sir Gilbert, and nothing but the truth; I really will," whined45 Luigi, who was seated sideways on a chair, huddled46 up and with one leg crossed under him, his back arched and his head sunk between his shoulders. Every minute or two he was seized with a spasm47 of nervous trembling, resulting partly from fright and partly from the chill due to his long imprisonment48 in the strong room.
"So be it," replied Sir Gilbert grimly. "But bear this in mind, that I know more, far more than you think I do." He paused, cleared his voice and then continued. "Luigi Rispani, you are not my grandson--that I know already. But tell me this: what relation are you to Captain Verinder, and also to the widow of my late son, John Alexander Clare?"
"Captain Verinder is my great-uncle. Mrs. Clare is my aunt--my father and she were brother and sister."
"How, and with whom did the fraud originate, which led to your imposing49 yourself on me as my grandson?"
"It was all my great-uncle's doing. It was he who originated the scheme, and it was he who persuaded my aunt and me to join him in carrying it out."
"After all, then, my instinct was not at fault," murmured Sir Gilbert to himself. "It was not prejudice, but Nature's own monition that bade me beware of Verinder."
"You see, Sir Gilbert, this is how it was," went on Luigi, who now seemed eagerly anxious to unbosom himself. "When Mrs. Clare came to London she knew nothing about her husband having been your son. He died in America, and, as it would appear, without having told her anything about his relatives in England. It was Captain Verinder who ferreted out the facts of the case, and everything that followed was due to him. Mrs. Clare's only child had died when it was a few months old, but he persuaded her that if she were to introduce herself to you, bringing a son and heir with her, she would have a far greater claim on your generosity50, and might count upon a very different reception at your hands, from any that would be given her as the childless widow she really was. Of myself I can only say that I was weak enough to be overborne by my uncle's persuasions51, and--and that I ultimately consented to allow myself to be passed off as your grandson."
Luigi ceased, and for a little while no one spoke. Sir Gilbert, in an absent way, was rubbing his eyeglasses with his pocket-handkerchief, and apparently52 turning over in his mind what had just been told him. Looking up at length, he said: "You have been frank with me so far, or so I have reason to believe. I hope you will not be less so in answering my next question. Tell me, then, if you please, to what circumstances it was owing that I found you locked up in my strong room."
Luigi hung his head in a way he had not done before, while two spots of vivid red flamed out on his sallow cheeks. Then, flinging up his head with a sort of half-defiant air, he said: "I promised to tell you the truth, Sir Gilbert, and I will. Last night, after waiting till the clock had struck twelve, I came here, picked the lock of your drawer, found the key of the strong room, opened the door and went inside. My intention was to abstract certain American bonds which I knew were there, and pass them over to my uncle for him to dispose of."
"This latter transaction, then, was one in which your uncle was also mixed up?"
"It was his notion entirely53, that I should get possession of the bonds. We were both cornered. Nearly all the money you gave us for travelling purposes, had been lost at a Brussels gaming-table. We succeeded in borrowing a hundred pounds on our joint54 note of hand, which will fall due about a week hence. In order to meet it and so keep the affair from coming to your ears, which it otherwise inevitably would do, my uncle egged me on to abstract four of the bonds in question, the proceeds of the sale of which would have extricated55 us from our predicament."
"As pretty a piece of villainy as I have heard tell of for many a long day!" remarked Sir Gilbert. "But you were disturbed by someone when in the midst of your nefarious56 work, otherwise I should not have found you this morning under lock and key."
Luigi nodded, and his eyes, shifting for the first time from Sir Gilbert's face, turned to Lady Pell and then to Lisle, with a look which neither of them could fathom57.
"And who was that someone?" demanded Sir Gilbert. "Some member of my household, as a matter of course; still, I fail to understand why--eh, what is that you say? I did not catch your words."
The words uttered at first in little more than a whisper, were now spoken so that all present could hear them.
"It was the Grey Monk who shut me up in the strong room."
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
apparition
|
|
| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
monk
|
|
| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
scouted
|
|
| 寻找，侦察( scout的过去式和过去分词 )； 物色（优秀运动员、演员、音乐家等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
housekeeper
|
|
| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
delusion
|
|
| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
oversight
|
|
| n.勘漏，失察，疏忽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
scrambled
|
|
| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
slippers
|
|
| n. 拖鞋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
jaw
|
|
| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
dread
|
|
| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
idiotic
|
|
| adj.白痴的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
minatory
|
|
| adj.威胁的；恫吓的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
confided
|
|
| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
destined
|
|
| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
avouched
|
|
| v.保证，断言，承认( avouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
16
ironical
|
|
| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
inquiry
|
|
| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
luncheon
|
|
| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
folly
|
|
| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
prey
|
|
| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
brooked
|
|
| 容忍，忍受（brook的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
scent
|
|
| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
deliberately
|
|
| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
utterly
|
|
| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
kinsman
|
|
| n.男亲属 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
juncture
|
|
| n.时刻，关键时刻，紧要关头 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
necessitate
|
|
| v.使成为必要，需要 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
blanched
|
|
| v.使变白( blanch的过去式 )；使（植物）不见阳光而变白；酸洗（金属）使有光泽；用沸水烫（杏仁等）以便去皮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
veins
|
|
| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
lengthy
|
|
| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
unaware
|
|
| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
cower
|
|
| v.畏缩，退缩，抖缩 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
abjectly
|
|
| 凄惨地； 绝望地； 糟透地； 悲惨地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
vile
|
|
| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
inevitably
|
|
| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
consign
|
|
| vt.寄售（货品），托运，交托，委托 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
extremities
|
|
| n.端点( extremity的名词复数 )；尽头；手和足；极窘迫的境地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
prevarication
|
|
| n.支吾；搪塞；说谎；有枝有叶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
leniently
|
|
| 温和地，仁慈地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
custody
|
|
| n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
concealment
|
|
| n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
whined
|
|
| v.哀号( whine的过去式和过去分词 )；哀诉，诉怨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
huddled
|
|
| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
spasm
|
|
| n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
imprisonment
|
|
| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
imposing
|
|
| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
generosity
|
|
| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
persuasions
|
|
| n.劝说，说服（力）( persuasion的名词复数 )；信仰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
joint
|
|
| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
extricated
|
|
| v.使摆脱困难，脱身( extricate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
nefarious
|
|
| adj.恶毒的，极坏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
fathom
|
|
| v.领悟，彻底了解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |