Maria, the housemaid, hesitated a moment.
“Miss Callingham’s in, sir,” she answered in a somewhat dubious1 tone; “but I don’t know whether I ought to let you see her or not. My mistress is out; and I’ve strict orders that no strangers are to call on Miss Callingham when her aunt’s not here.”
And she held the door ajar in her hand undecidedly.
The tall man smiled, and seemed to me to slip a coin quietly into Maria’s palm.
“So much the better,” he answered, with unobtrusive persistence2; “I thought Miss Moore was out. That’s just why I’ve come. I’m an officer from Scotland Yard, and I want to see Miss Callingham—alone—most particularly.”
Maria drew herself up and paused.
My heart stood still within me at this chance of enlightenment. I guessed what he meant; so I called over the stairs to her, in a tremor3 of excitement:
“Show the gentleman into the drawing-room, Maria. I ‘ll come down to him at once.”
For I was dying to know the explanation of the Picture that haunted me so persistently4; and as nobody at home would ever tell me anything worth knowing about it, I thought this was as good an opportunity as I could get for making a beginning towards the solution of the mystery.
Well, I ran into my own room as quick as quick could be, and set my front hair straight, and slipped on a hat and jacket (for I was in my morning dress), and then went down to the drawing-room to see the Inspector6.
He rose as I entered. He was a gentleman, I felt at once. His manner was as deferential7, as kind, and as considerate to my sensitiveness, as anything it’s possible for you to imagine in anyone.
“I’m sorry to have to trouble you, Miss Callingham,” he said, with a very gentle smile; “but I daresay you can understand yourself the object of my visit. I could have wished to come in a more authorised way; but I’ve been in correspondence with Miss Moore for some time past as to the desirability of reopening the inquiry8 with regard to your father’s unfortunate death; and I thought the time might now have arrived when it would be possible to put a few questions to you personally upon that unhappy subject. Miss Moore objected to my plan. She thought it would still perhaps be prejudicial to your health—a point in which Dr. Wade9, I must say, entirely10 agrees with her. Nevertheless, in the interests of Justice, as the murderer is still at large, I’ve ventured to ask you for this interview; because what I read in the newspapers about the state of your health—.”
I interrupted him, astonished.
“What you read in the newspapers about the state of my health!” I repeated, thunderstruck. “Why, surely they don’t put the state of MY health in the newspapers!”
For I didn’t know then I was a Psychological Phenomenon.
The Inspector smiled blandly11, and pulling out his pocket-book, selected a cutting from a pile that apparently12 all referred to me.
“You’re mistaken,” he said, briefly13. “The newspapers, on the contrary, have treated your case at great length. See, here’s the latest report. That’s clipped from last Wednesday’s Telegraph.”
I remembered then that a paragraph of just that size had been carefully cut out of Wednesday’s paper before I was allowed by Aunt Emma to read it. Aunt Emma always glanced over the paper first, indeed, and often cut out such offending paragraphs. But I never attached much importance to their absence before, because I thought it was merely a little fussy14 result of auntie’s good old English sense of maidenly15 modesty16. I supposed she merely meant to spare my blushes. I knew girls were often prevented on particular days from reading the papers.
But now I seized the paragraph he handed me, and read it with deep interest. It was the very first time I had seen my own name in a printed newspaper. I didn’t know then how often it had figured there.
The paragraph was headed, “THE WOODBURY MURDER,” and it ran something like this, as well as I can remember it:
“There are still hopes that the miscreant17 who shot Mr. Vivian Callingham at The Grange, at Woodbury, some four years since, may be tracked down and punished at last for his cowardly crime. It will be fresh in everyone’s memory, as one of the most romantic episodes in that extraordinary tragedy, that at the precise moment of her father’s death, Miss Callingham, who was present in the room during the attack, and who alone might have been a witness capable of recognising or describing the wretched assailant, lost her reason on the spot, owing to the appalling18 shock to her nervous system, and remained for some months in an imbecile condition. Gradually, as we have informed our readers from time to time, Miss Callingham’s intellect has become stronger and stronger; and though she is still totally unable to remember spontaneously any events that occurred before her father’s death, it is hoped it may be possible, by describing vividly19 certain trains of previous incidents, to recall them in some small degree to her imperfect memory. Dr. Thornton, of Welbeck Street, who has visited her from time to time on behalf of the Treasury20, in conjunction with Dr. Wade, her own medical attendant, went down to Barton-on-the-Sea on Monday, and once more examined Miss Callingham’s intellect. Though the Doctor is judiciously21 reticent22 as to the result of his visit, it is generally believed at Barton that he thinks the young lady sufficiently23 recovered to undergo a regular interrogatory; and in spite of the fact that Dr. Wade is opposed to any such proceeding24 at present, as prejudicial to the lady’s health, it is not unlikely that the Treasury may act upon their own medical official’s opinion, and send down an Inspector from Scotland Yard to make inquiries25 direct on the subject from Miss Callingham in person.”
My head swam round. It was all like a dream to me. I held my forehead with my hands, and gazed blankly at the Inspector.
“You understand what all this means?” he said interrogatively, leaning forward as he spoke26. “You remember the murder?”
“Perfectly,” I answered him, trembling all over. “I remember every detail of it. I could describe you exactly all the objects in the room. The Picture it left behind has burned itself into my brain like a flash of lightning!”
The Inspector drew his chair nearer. “Now, Miss Callingham,” he said in a very serious voice, “that’s a remarkable27 expression—like a flash of lightning.’ Bear in mind, this is a matter of life and death to somebody somewhere. Somebody’s neck may depend upon your answers. Will you tell me exactly how much you remember?”
I told him in a few words precisely28 how the scene had imprinted29 itself on my memory. I recalled the room, the box, the green wires, the carpet; the man who lay dead in his blood on the floor; the man who stood poised30 ready to leap from the window. He let me go on unchecked till I’d finished everything I had to say spontaneously. Then he took a photograph from his pocket, which he didn’t show me. Looking at it attentively31, he asked me questions, one by one, about the different things in the room at the time in very minute detail: Where exactly was the box? How did it stand relatively32 to the unlighted lamp? What was the position of the pistol on the floor? In which direction was my father’s head lying? Though it brought back the Horror to me in a fuller and more terrible form than ever, I answered all his questions to the very best of my ability. I could picture the whole scene like a photograph to myself; and I didn’t doubt the object he held in his hand was a photograph of the room as it appeared after the murder. He checked my statements, one by one as I went on, by reference to the photograph, murmuring half to himself now and again: “Yes, yes, exactly so”; “That’s right”; “That was so,” at each item I mentioned.
At the end of these inquiries, he paused and looked hard at me.
“Now, Miss Callingham,” he said again, peering deep into my eyes, “I want you to concentrate your mind very much, not on this Picture you carry so vividly in your own brain, but on the events that went immediately before and after it. Pause long and think. Try hard to remember. And first, you say there was a great flash of light. Now, answer me this: was it one flash alone, or had there been several?”
I stopped and racked my brain. Blank, blank, as usual.
“I can’t remember,” I faltered33 out, longing34 terribly to cry. “I can recall just that one scene, and nothing else in the world before it.”
He looked at me fixedly35, jotting36 down a few words in his note-book as he looked. Then he spoke again, still more slowly:
“Now, try once more,” he said, with an encouraging air. “You saw this man’s back as he was getting out of the window. But can’t you remember having seen his face before? Had he a beard? a moustache? what eyes? what nose? Did you see the shot fired? And if so, what sort of person was the man who fired it?”
Again I searched the pigeon-holes of my memory in vain, as I had done a hundred times before by myself.
“It’s no use,” I cried helplessly, letting my hands drop by my side. “I can’t remember a thing, except the Picture. I don’t know whether I saw the shot fired or not. I don’t know what the murderer looked like in the face. I’ve told you all I know. I can recall nothing else. It’s all a great blank to me.”
The Inspector hesitated a moment, as if in doubt what step to take next. Then he drew himself up and said, still more gravely:
“This inability to assist us is really very singular. I had hoped, after Dr. Thornton’s report, that we might at last count with some certainty upon arriving at fresh results as to the actual murder. I can see from what you tell me you’re a young lady of intelligence—much above the average—and great strength of mind. It’s curious your memory should fail you so pointedly37 just where we stand most in need of its aid. Recollect38, nobody else but you ever saw the murderer’s face. Now, I’m going to presume you’re answering me honestly, and try a bold means to arouse your dormant39 memory. Look hard, and hark back.—Is that the room you recollect? Is that the picture that still haunts and pursues you?”
He handed me the photograph he held in his fingers. I took it, all on fire. The sight almost made me turn sick with horror. To my awe40 and amazement41, it was indeed the very scene I remembered so well. Only, of course, it was taken from another point of view, and represented things in rather different relative positions to those I figured them in. But it showed my father’s body lying dead upon the floor; it showed his poor corpse42 weltering helpless in its blood; it showed myself, as a girl of eighteen, standing43 awestruck, gazing on in blank horror at the sight; and in the background, half blurred44 by the summer evening light, it showed the vague outline of a man’s back, getting out of the window. On one side was the door: that formed no part of my mental picture, because it was at my back; but in the photograph it too was indistinct, as if in the very act of being burst open. The details were vague, in part—probably the picture had never been properly focussed;—but the main figures stood out with perfect clearness, and everything in the room was, allowing for the changed point of view, exactly as I remembered it in my persistent5 mental photograph.
I drew a deep breath.
“That’s my Picture,” I said, slowly. “But it recalls to me nothing new. I—I don’t understand it.”
The Inspector stared at me hard once more.
“Do you know,” he asked, “how that photograph was produced, and how it came into our possession?”
I trembled violently.
“No, I don’t,” I answered, reddening. “But—I think it had something to do with the flash like lightning.”
The Inspector jumped at those words like a cat upon a mouse.
“Quite right,” he cried briskly, as one who at last, after long search, finds a hopeful clue where all seemed hopeless. “It had to do with the flash. The flash produced it. This is a photograph taken by your father’s process.... Of course you recollect your father’s process?”
He eyed me close. The words, as he spoke them, seemed to call up dimly some faint memory of my pre-natal days—of my First State, as I had learned from the doctors to call it. But his scrutiny45 made me shrink. I shut my eyes and looked back.
“I think,” I said slowly, rummaging46 my memory half in vain, “I remember something about it. It had something to do with photography, hadn’t it?...No, no, with the electric light....I can’t exactly remember which. Will you tell me all about it?”
He leaned back in his chair, and, eyeing me all the time with that same watchful47 glance, began to describe to me in some detail an apparatus48 which he said my father had devised, for taking instantaneous photographs by the electric light, with a clockwork mechanism49. It was an apparatus that let sensitive-plates revolve50 one after another opposite the lens of a camera; and as each was exposed, the clockwork that moved it produced an electric spark, so as to represent such a series of effects as the successive positions of a horse in trotting51. My father, it seemed, was of a scientific turn, and had just perfected this new automatic machine before his sudden death. I listened with breathless interest; for up to that time I had never been allowed to hear anything about my father—anything about the great tragedy with which my second life began. It was wonderful to me even now to be allowed to speak and ask questions on it with anybody. So hedged about had I been all my days with mystery.
As I listened, I saw the Inspector could tell by the answering flash in my eye that his words recalled SOMETHING to me, however vaguely52. As he finished, I leant forward, and with a very flushed face, that I could feel myself, I cried, in a burst of recollection:
“Yes, yes. I remember. And the box on the table—the box that’s in my mental picture, and is not in the photograph—THAT was the apparatus you’ve just been describing.”
The Inspector turned upon me with a rapidity that fairly took my breath away.
“Well, where are the other ones?” he asked, pouncing53 down upon me quite fiercely.
“The other WHAT?” I repeated, amazed; for I didn’t really understand him.
“Why, the other photographs!” he replied, as if trying to surprise me. “There must have been more, you know. It held six plates. Except for this one, the apparatus, when we found it, was empty.”
His manner seemed to crush out the faint spark of recollection that just flickered54 within me. I collapsed55 at once. I couldn’t stand such brusqueness.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I answered in despair. “I never saw the plates. I know nothing about them.”
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1
dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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2
persistence
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| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
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3
tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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4
persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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6
inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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7
deferential
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| adj. 敬意的，恭敬的 | |
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8
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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9
wade
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| v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉 | |
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10
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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blandly
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| adv.温和地，殷勤地 | |
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12
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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13
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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14
fussy
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| adj.为琐事担忧的，过分装饰的，爱挑剔的 | |
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maidenly
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| adj. 像处女的, 谨慎的, 稳静的 | |
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modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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17
miscreant
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| n.恶棍 | |
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appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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20
treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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21
judiciously
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| adv.明断地，明智而审慎地 | |
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reticent
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| adj.沉默寡言的；言不如意的 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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26
spoke
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| 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 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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29
imprinted
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| v.盖印（imprint的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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32
relatively
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| adv.比较...地，相对地 | |
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33
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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34
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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fixedly
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| adv.固定地；不屈地，坚定不移地 | |
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36
jotting
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| n.简短的笔记，略记v.匆忙记下( jot的现在分词 )；草草记下，匆匆记下 | |
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37
pointedly
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| adv.尖地，明显地 | |
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38
recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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39
dormant
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| adj.暂停活动的；休眠的；潜伏的 | |
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40
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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41
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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42
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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43
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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44
blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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45
scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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46
rummaging
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| 翻找，搜寻( rummage的现在分词 )； 海关检查 | |
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47
watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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48
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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49
mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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50
revolve
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| vi.(使)旋转；循环出现 | |
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51
trotting
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| 小跑，急走( trot的现在分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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52
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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53
pouncing
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| v.突然袭击( pounce的现在分词 )；猛扑；一眼看出；抓住机会（进行抨击） | |
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54
flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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55
collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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