CHAPTER XVI BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION

Twice, I looked into Toller's room during the remainder of the night, and found him sleeping. When the sun rose, I could endure the delay no longer. I woke him.

"What is it?" he asked peevishly¹.

"You must be the last person who saw Cristel," I answered. "I want to know all that you can tell me."

His anger completely mastered him; he burst out with a furious reply.

"It's you two—you my landlord, and him my lodger—who have driven Cristy away from her home. She said she would go, and she has gone. Get out of my place, sir! You ought to be ashamed to look at me."

It was useless to reason with him, and it was of vital importance to lose no time in instituting a search. After the reception I had met with, I took care to restore the key of the door leading into the new cottage, before I left him. It was his key; and the poor distracted old man might charge me with taking away his property next.

As I set forth² on my way home, I found the new man-servant on the look-out.

His first words showed that he was acting³ under orders. He asked if I had found the young lady; and he next informed me that his master had revived some hours since, and "bore no malice⁴." This outrageous⁵ assertion suddenly fired me with suspicion. I believed that the Cur had been acting a part when he threatened me with his pistol, and that he was answerable for the disappearance⁶ of Cristel. My first impulse now was to get the help of a lawyer.

The men at my stables were just stirring when I got home. In ten minutes more, I was driving to our town.

The substance of the professional opinion which I received has been already stated in these pages.

One among my answers to the many questions which my legal adviser⁷ put to me led him to a conclusion that made my heart ache. He was of opinion that my brief absence, while I was taking that fatal "breath of air" on the banks of the river, had offered to Cristel her opportunity of getting away without discovery. "Her old father," the lawyer said, "was no doubt in his bed, and you yourself found nobody watching, in the neighborhood of the cottage."

"Employ me in some way!" I burst out. "I can't endure my life, if I'm not helping⁸ to trace Cristel."

He was most kind. "I understand," he said. "Try what you can get those two ladies to tell you—and you may help us materially."

Mrs. Roylake was nearest to me. I appealed to her womanly sympathies, and was answered by tears. I made another attempt; I said I was willing to believe that she meant well, and that I should be sorry to offend her. She got up, and indignantly left the room.

I went to Lady Rachel next.

She was at home, but the servant returned to me with an excuse: her ladyship was particularly engaged. I sent a message upstairs, asking when I might hope to be received. The servant was charged with the delivery of another excuse: her ladyship would write. After waiting at home for hours I was foolish enough to write, on my side; and (how could I help it?) to express myself strongly. The she-socialist's reply is easy to remember: "Dear Mr. Roylake, when you have recovered your temper, you will hear from me again."

Even my stepmother gained by comparison with this.

To rest, and do nothing, was to exercise a control over myself of which I was perfectly⁹ incapable¹⁰. I went back to the cottage. Having no hopeful prospect¹¹ in any other quarter, I persisted in believing that Toller must have seen something or heard something that might either help me, or suggest an idea to my legal adviser.

On entering the kitchen, I found the door of communication wide open, and the new servant established in the large armchair.

"I'm waiting for my master, sir."

He had got over his fright, and had recovered his temper. The respectful side of him was turned to me again.

"Your master is with Mr. Toller?"

"Yes, sir."

What I felt, amply justified¹² the lawyer in having exacted a promise from me to keep carefully out of the Cur's presence. "You might knock him on the head again, Mr. Roylake, and might hit a little too hard next time."

But I had an idea of my own. I said, as if speaking to myself: "I would give a five pound note to know what is going on upstairs."

"I shall be glad to earn it, sir," the fellow said. "If I make a clean breast of what I know already, and if I tell you to-morrow what I can find out—will it be worth the money?"

I began to feel degraded in my own estimation. But I nodded to him, for all that.

"I am the innocent cause, sir, of what happened last night," he coolly resumed. "We kept a look-out on the road and saw you, though you didn't see us. But my master never suspected you (for reasons which he kept to himself) of making use of the boat. I reminded him that one of us had better have an eye on the slip of pathway, between the cottage and the river. This led to his sending me to the boathouse—and you know what happened afterwards. My master, as I suppose, is pumping Mr. Toller. That's all, sir, for to-night. When may I have the honor of expecting you to-morrow morning?"

I appointed an hour, and left the place.

As I entered the wood again, I found a man on the watch. He touched his hat, and said: "I'm the clerk, sir. Your gamekeeper is wanted for his own duties to-night; he will relieve me in the morning."

I went home with my mind in a ferment¹³ of doubt. If I could believe the servant, the Cur was as innocent of the abduction of Cristel as I was. But could I trust the servant?

The events of the next morning altered the whole complexion¹⁴ of affairs fatally for the worse.

Arriving at the cottage, I found a man prostate on the road, dead drunk—and the Cur's servant looking at him.

"May I ask something?" the man said. "Have you been having my master watched?"

"Yes."

"Bad news, in that case, sir. Your man there is a drunken vagabond; and my master has gone to London by the first train."

When I had recovered the shock, I denied, for the sake of my own credit, that the brute¹⁵ on the road could be a servant of mine.

"Why not, sir?"

"Do you think I should have been kept in ignorance of it, if my gamekeeper had been a drunkard? His fellow servants would have warned me."

The man smiled. "I'm afraid, sir, you don't know much about servants. It's a point of honor among us never to tell tales of each other to our masters."

I began to wish that I had never left Germany. The one course to take now was to tell the lawyer what had happened. I turned away to get back, and drive at once to the town. The servant remembered, what I had forgotten—the five pound note.

"Wait and hear my report, sir," he suggested.

The report informed me: First, that Mr. Toller was at the mill, and had been there for some time past. Secondly¹⁶: that the Cur had been alone, for a while, on Mr. Toller's side of the cottage, in Mr. Toiler's absence—for what purpose his servant had not discovered. Thirdly: that the Cur had returned to his room in a hurry, and had packed a few things in his travelling-bag. Fourthly: that he had ordered the servant to follow, with his luggage, in a fly which he would send from the railway station, and to wait at the London terminus for further orders. Fifthly, and lastly: that it was impossible to say whether the drunkenness of the gamekeeper was due to his own habits, or to temptation privately¹⁷ offered by the very person whose movements he had been appointed to watch.

I paid the money. The man pocketed it, and paid me a compliment in return: "I wish I was your servant, sir."

1 peevishly   

adv．暴躁地

参考例句：

• Paul looked through his green glasses peevishly when the other speaker brought down the house with applause. 当另一个演说者赢得了满座喝彩声时，保罗心里又嫉妒又气恼。
• "I've been sick, I told you," he said, peevishly, almost resenting her excessive pity. “我生了一场病，我告诉过你了，"他没好气地说，对她的过分怜悯几乎产生了怨恨。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

2 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

3 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

4 malice   

n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋

参考例句：

• I detected a suggestion of malice in his remarks.我觉察出他说的话略带恶意。
• There was a strong current of malice in many of his portraits.他的许多肖像画中都透着一股强烈的怨恨。

5 outrageous   

adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的

参考例句：

• Her outrageous behaviour at the party offended everyone.她在聚会上的无礼行为触怒了每一个人。
• Charges for local telephone calls are particularly outrageous.本地电话资费贵得出奇。

6 disappearance   

n.消失，消散，失踪

参考例句：

• He was hard put to it to explain her disappearance.他难以说明她为什么不见了。
• Her disappearance gave rise to the wildest rumours.她失踪一事引起了各种流言蜚语。

7 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

8 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

9 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

10 incapable   

adj.无能力的，不能做某事的

参考例句：

• He would be incapable of committing such a cruel deed.他不会做出这么残忍的事。
• Computers are incapable of creative thought.计算机不会创造性地思维。

11 prospect   

n.前景，前途；景色，视野

参考例句：

• This state of things holds out a cheerful prospect.事态呈现出可喜的前景。
• The prospect became more evident.前景变得更加明朗了。

12 justified   

a.正当的，有理的

参考例句：

• She felt fully justified in asking for her money back. 她认为有充分的理由要求退款。
• The prisoner has certainly justified his claims by his actions. 那个囚犯确实已用自己的行动表明他的要求是正当的。

13 ferment   

vt.使发酵；n./vt.（使）激动，（使）动乱

参考例句：

• Fruit juices ferment if they are kept a long time.果汁若是放置很久，就会发酵。
• The sixties were a time of theological ferment.六十年代是神学上骚动的时代。

14 complexion   

n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格

参考例句：

• Red does not suit with her complexion.红色与她的肤色不协调。
• Her resignation puts a different complexion on things.她一辞职局面就全变了。

15 brute   

n.野兽，兽性

参考例句：

• The aggressor troops are not many degrees removed from the brute.侵略军简直象一群野兽。
• That dog is a dangerous brute.It bites people.那条狗是危险的畜牲，它咬人。

16 secondly   

adv.第二，其次

参考例句：

• Secondly,use your own head and present your point of view.第二，动脑筋提出自己的见解。
• Secondly it is necessary to define the applied load.其次，需要确定所作用的载荷。

17 privately   

adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地

参考例句：

• Some ministers admit privately that unemployment could continue to rise.一些部长私下承认失业率可能继续升高。
• The man privately admits that his motive is profits.那人私下承认他的动机是为了牟利。