They were led up stairs to a back room on the second floor of the house. Entering the room, they discovered through a thick cloud of tobacco smoke, a small, fat, bald-headed, dirty, old man, in an arm-chair, robed in a tattered2 flannel3 dressing-gown, with a short pipe in his mouth, a pug-dog on his lap, and a French novel in his hands.
“Is it business?” asked Old Sharon, speaking in a hoarse4, asthmatical voice, and fixing a pair of bright, shameless, black eyes attentively6 on the two visitors.
“It is business,” Mr. Troy answered, looking at the old rogue7 who had disgraced an honorable profession, as he might have looked at a reptile8 which had just risen rampant9 at his feet. “What is your fee for a consultation10?”
“You give me a guinea, and I’ll give you half an hour.” With this reply Old Sharon held out his unwashed hand across the rickety ink-splashed table at which he was sitting.
Mr. Troy would not have touched him with the tips of his own fingers for a thousand pounds. He laid the guinea on the table.
Old Sharon burst into a fierce laugh — a laugh strangely accompanied by a frowning contraction11 of his eyebrows12, and a frightful13 exhibition of the whole inside of his mouth. “I’m not clean enough for you — eh?” he said, with an appearance of being very much amused. “There’s a dirty old man described in this book that is a little like me.” He held up his French novel. “Have you read it? A capital story — well put together. Ah, you haven’t read it? You have got a pleasure to come. I say, do you mind tobacco-smoke? I think faster while I smoke — that’s all.”
Mr. Troy’s respectable hand waved a silent permission to smoke, given under dignified14 protest.
“All right,” said Old Sharon. “Now, get on.”
He laid himself back in his chair, and puffed15 out his smoke, with eyes lazily half closed, like the eyes of the pug-dog on his lap. At that moment, indeed there was a curious resemblance between the two. They both seemed to be preparing themselves, in the same idle way, for the same comfortable nap.
Mr. Troy stated the circumstances under which the five hundred pound note had disappeared, in clear and consecutive16 narrative17. When he had done, Old Sharon suddenly opened his eyes. The pug-dog suddenly opened his eyes. Old Sharon looked hard at Mr. Troy. The pug looked hard at Mr. Troy. Old Sharon spoke18. The pug growled19.
“I know who you are — you’re a lawyer. Don’t be alarmed! I never saw you before; and I don’t know your name. What I do know is a lawyer’s statement of facts when I hear it. Who’s this?” Old Sharon looked inquisitively20 at Moody as he put the question.
Mr. Troy introduced Moody as a competent witness, thoroughly21 acquainted with the circumstances, and ready and willing to answer any questions relating to them. Old Sharon waited a little, smoking hard and thinking hard. “Now, then!” he burst out in his fiercely sudden way. “I’m going to get to the root of the matter.”
He leaned forward with his elbows on the table, and began his examination of Moody. Heartily22 as Mr. Troy despised and disliked the old rogue, he listened with astonishment23 and admiration24 — literally25 extorted26 from him by the marvelous ability with which the questions were adapted to the end in view. In a quarter of an hour Old Sharon had extracted from the witness everything, literally everything down to the smallest detail, that Moody could tell him. Having now, in his own phrase, “got to the root of the matter,” he relighted his pipe with a grunt27 of satisfaction, and laid himself back in his old armchair.
“Well?” said Mr. Troy. “Have you formed your opinion?”
“Yes; I’ve formed my opinion.”
“What is it?”
Instead of replying, Old Sharon winked28 confidentially29 at Mr. Troy, and put a question on his side.
“I say! is a ten-pound note much of an object to you?”
“It depends on what the money is wanted for,” answered Mr. Troy.
“Look here,” said Old Sharon; “I give you an opinion for your guinea; but, mind this, it’s an opinion founded on hearsay30 — and you know as a lawyer what that is worth. Venture your ten pounds — in plain English, pay me for my time and trouble in a baffling and difficult case — and I’ll give you an opinion founded on my own experience.”
“Explain yourself a little more clearly,” said Mr. Troy. “What do you guarantee to tell us if we venture the ten pounds?”
“I guarantee to name the person, or the persons, on whom the suspicion really rests. And if you employ me after that, I guarantee (before you pay me a halfpenny more) to prove that I am right by laying my hand on the thief.”
“Let us have the guinea opinion first,” said Mr. Troy.
Old Sharon made another frightful exhibition of the whole inside of his mouth; his laugh was louder and fiercer than ever. “I like you!” he said to Mr. Troy, “you are so devilish fond of your money. Lord! how rich you must be! Now listen. Here’s the guinea opinion: Suspect, in this case, the very last person on whom suspicion could possibly fall.”
Moody, listening attentively, started, and changed color at those last words. Mr. Troy looked thoroughly disappointed and made no attempt to conceal32 it.
“Is that all?” he asked.
“All?” retorted the cynical33 vagabond. “You’re a pretty lawyer! What more can I say, when I don’t know for certain whether the witness who has given me my information has misled me or not? Have I spoken to the girl and formed my own opinion? No! Have I been introduced among the servants (as errand-boy, or to clean the boots and shoes, or what not), and have I formed my own judgement of them? No! I take your opinions for granted, and I tell you how I should set to work myself if they were my opinions too — and that’s a guinea’s-worth, a devilish good guinea’s-worth to a rich man like you!”
Old Sharon’s logic34 produced a certain effect on Mr. Troy, in spite of himself. It was smartly put from his point of view — there was no denying that.
“Even if I consented to your proposal,” he said, “I should object to your annoying the young lady with impertinent questions, or to your being introduced as a spy into a respectable house.”
Old Sharon doubled his dirty fists and drummed with them on the rickety table in a comical frenzy35 of impatience36 while Mr. Troy was speaking.
“What the devil do you know about my way of doing my business?” he burst out when the lawyer had done. “One of us two is talking like a born idiot — and (mind this) it isn’t me. Look here! Your young lady goes out for a walk, and she meets with a dirty, shabby old beggar — I look like a shabby old beggar already, don’t I? Very good. This dirty old wretch37 whines38 and whimpers and tells a long story, and gets sixpence out of the girl — and knows her by that time, inside and out, as well as if he had made her — and, mark! hasn’t asked her a single ques tion, and, instead of annoying her, has made her happy in the performance of a charitable action. Stop a bit! I haven’t done with you yet. Who blacks your boots and shoes? Look here!” He pushed his pug-dog off his lap, dived under the table, appeared again with an old boot and a bottle of blackening, and set to work with tigerish activity. “I’m going out for a walk, you know, and I may as well make myself smart.” With that announcement, he began to sing over his work — a song of sentiment, popular in England in the early part of the present century —“She’s all my fancy painted her; she’s lovely, she’s divine; but her heart it is another’s; and it never can be mine! Too-ral-loo-ral-loo’. I like a love-song. Brush away! brush away! till I see my own pretty face in the blacking. Hey! Here’s a nice, harmless, jolly old man! sings and jokes over his work, and makes the kitchen quite cheerful. What’s that you say? He’s a stranger, and don’t talk to him too freely. You ought to be ashamed of yourself to speak in that way of a poor old fellow with one foot in the grave. Mrs. Cook will give him a nice bit of dinner in the scullery; and John Footman will look out an old coat for him. And when he’s heard everything he wants to hear, and doesn’t come back again the next day to his work — what do they think of it in the servants’ hall? Do they say, ‘We’ve had a spy among us!’ Yah! you know better than that, by this time. The cheerful old man has been run over in the street, or is down with the fever, or has turned up his toes in the parish dead-house — that’s what they say in the servants’ hall. Try me in your own kitchen, and see if your servants take me for a spy. Come, come, Mr. Lawyer! out with your ten pounds, and don’t waste any more precious time about it!”
“I will consider and let you know,” said Mr. Troy.
Old Sharon laughed more ferociously39 than ever, and hobbled round the table in a great hurry to the place at which Moody was sitting. He laid one hand on the steward40’s shoulder, and pointed31 derisively41 with the other to Mr. Troy.
“I say, Mr. Silent-man! Bet you five pounds I never hear of that lawyer again!”
Silently attentive5 all through the interview (except when he was answering questions), Moody only replied in the fewest words. “I don’t bet,” was all he said. He showed no resentment42 at Sharon’s familiarity, and he appeared to find no amusement in Sharon’s extraordinary talk. The old vagabond seemed actually to produce a serious impression on him! When Mr. Troy set the example of rising to go, he still kept his seat, and looked at the lawyer as if he regretted leaving the atmosphere of tobacco smoke reeking43 in the dirty room.
“Have you anything to say before we go?” Mr. Troy asked.
Moody rose slowly and looked at Old Sharon. “Not just now, sir,” he replied, looking away again, after a moment’s reflection.
Old Sharon interpreted Moody’s look and Moody’s reply from his own peculiar44 point of view. He suddenly drew the steward away into a corner of the room.
“I say!” he began, in a whisper. “Upon your solemn word of honor, you know — are you as rich as the lawyer there?”
“Certainly not.”
“Look here! It’s half price to a poor man. If you feel like coming back, on your own account — five pounds will do from you. There! there! Think of it! — think of it!”
“Now, then!” said Mr. Troy, waiting for his companion, with the door open in his hand. He looked back at Sharon when Moody joined him. The old vagabond was settled again in his armchair, with his dog in his lap, his pipe in his mouth, and his French novel in his hand; exhibiting exactly the picture of frowzy45 comfort which he had presented when his visitors first entered the room.
“Good-day,” said Mr. Troy, with haughty46 condescension47.
“Don’t interrupt me!” rejoined Old Sharon, absorbed in his novel. “You’ve had your guinea’s worth. Lord! what a lovely book this is! Don’t interrupt me!”
“Impudent scoundrel!” said Mr. Troy, when he and Moody were in the street again. “What could my friend mean by recommending him? Fancy his expecting me to trust him with ten pounds! I consider even the guinea completely thrown away.”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” said Moody, “I don’t quite agree with you there.”
“What! you don’t mean to tell me you understand that oracular sentence of his —‘Suspect the very last person on whom suspicion could possibly fall.’ Rubbish!”
“I don’t say I understand it, sir. I only say it has set me thinking.”
“Thinking of what? Do your suspicions point to the thief?”
“If you will please to excuse me, Mr. Troy, I should like to wait a while before I answer that.”
Mr. Troy suddenly stood still, and eyed his companion a little distrustfully.
“Are you going to turn detective-policeman on your own account?” he asked.
“There’s nothing I won’t turn to, and try, to help Miss Isabel in this matter,” Moody answered, firmly. “I have saved a few hundred pounds in Lady Lydiard’s service, and I am ready to spend every farthing of it, if I can only discover the thief.”
Mr. Troy walked on again. “Miss Isabel seems to have a good friend in you,” he said. He was (perhaps unconsciously) a little offended by the independent tone in which the steward spoke, after he had himself engaged to take the vindication48 of the girl’s innocence49 into his own hands.
“Miss Isabel has a devoted50 servant and slave in me!” Moody answered, with passionate51 enthusiasm.
“Very creditable; I haven’t a word to say against it,” Mr. Troy rejoined. “But don’t forget that the young lady has other devoted friends besides you. I am her devoted friend, for instance — I have promised to serve her, and I mean to keep my word. You will excuse me for adding that my experience and discretion52 are quite as likely to be useful to her as your enthusiasm. I know the world well enough to be careful in trusting strangers. It will do you no harm, Mr. Moody, to follow my example.”
Moody accepted his reproof53 with becoming patience and resignation. “If you have anything to propose, sir, that will be of service to Miss Isabel,” he said, “I shall be happy if I can assist you in the humblest capacity.”
“And if not?” Mr. Troy inquired, conscious of having nothing to propose as he asked the question.
“In that case, sir, I must take my own course, and blame nobody but myself if it leads me astray.”
Mr. Troy said no more: he parted from Moody at the next turning.
Pursuing the subject privately54 in his own mind, he decided55 on taking the earliest opportunity of visiting Isabel at her aunt’s house, and on warning her, in her future intercourse56 with Moody, not to trust too much to the steward’s discretion. “I haven’t a doubt,” thought the lawyer, “of what he means to do next. The infatuated fool is going back to Old Sharon!”
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1
moody
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| adj.心情不稳的，易怒的，喜怒无常的 | |
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tattered
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| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
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flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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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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rogue
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| n.流氓；v.游手好闲 | |
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reptile
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| n.爬行动物；两栖动物 | |
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rampant
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| adj.(植物)蔓生的；狂暴的，无约束的 | |
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consultation
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| n.咨询；商量；商议；会议 | |
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contraction
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| n.缩略词，缩写式，害病 | |
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12
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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15
puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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consecutive
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| adj.连续的，联贯的，始终一贯的 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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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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19
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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inquisitively
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| 过分好奇地； 好问地 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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extorted
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| v.敲诈( extort的过去式和过去分词 )；曲解 | |
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grunt
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| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
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28
winked
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| v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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confidentially
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| ad.秘密地，悄悄地 | |
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hearsay
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| n.谣传，风闻 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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33
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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35
frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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whines
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| n.悲嗥声( whine的名词复数 )；哀鸣者v.哀号( whine的第三人称单数 )；哀诉，诉怨 | |
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ferociously
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| 野蛮地，残忍地 | |
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steward
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| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
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derisively
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| adv. 嘲笑地，嘲弄地 | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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reeking
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的现在分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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45
frowzy
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| adj.不整洁的；污秽的 | |
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46
haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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condescension
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| n.自以为高人一等，贬低(别人) | |
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48
vindication
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| n.洗冤，证实 | |
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49
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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50
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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51
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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52
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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53
reproof
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| n.斥责，责备 | |
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54
privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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55
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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