Notwithstanding my good luck at the races, I felt I had now got involved in a horrible whirlpool of misfortune.
I was furious to think that when everything was going so well I should have been dragged into this wretched business.
I had no opportunity overnight to examine the dead man’s wallet. There was no privacy in the lodging5 house where we lived, and I was fearful of exciting the curiosity and gossip of any of the other inmates6. Experience had taught me that we all watched each other like cats.
After the meal next morning that we called breakfast, I announced my intention of going for a long walk. I said I had got a bad headache, and there were at once various surmises7 as to the way I had managed to secure sufficient money to get drunk on.
I walked quite a long way up into the hills, and there, sitting secluded8 in the lonely plantation9, opened the dead man’s wallet.
There was not much in it, but what there was was very significant.
There were eleven five-pound bank notes, all perfectly10 clean and of consecutive11 numbers, neatly12 folded in a blank envelope, also six one-pound Treasury13 notes that had evidently been in circulation some time, for they were ordinarily dirty.
Then there was another envelope, containing, of all things, about an ounce or so of red pepper.
In the other side of the wallet, wrapped in brown paper, was a length of thin black crepe, which, being opened out, became a serviceable sort of black mask, with holes cut for the eyes, and with ribbons already sewn on for tying round the head.
Then there was a card:—
Mrs. Whitten,
203, Hutt Street,
Adelaide,
Furnished Apartments.
Lastly, there was the racing14 programme of the previous day.
I was on the point of throwing this latter away when I remembered I had seen him writing something on it when I was waiting at the pay window to receive my dividend15. I turned over the pages curiously16. Yes, there it was on the margin17 opposite the 3.40 race. Two words written unevenly18 in pencil, “Mug — Mine.”
I frowned disgustedly to myself. So I had looked a mug, had I, and a soft job for a blackguard like him to rob and murder at his ease? He had seen I was shabby and in low water, and then drawing a nice wad of notes, as I was, over Rose of Dawn, he had no doubt surmised19 the first thing I should do would be to go and get drunk.
Then he would have robbed me in the best way he could, and evidently, his general habit was not to be too particular as to the way he did it.
The red pepper and the crepe mask he was carrying marked him indisputably as an old hand at the game, and I wondered grimly to myself what his possession of those eleven five-pound notes meant to some poor wretch4 whose ill-luck it had been to fall across his way.
Well, he had met his deserts, anyhow. The mug had not turned out such a soft touch as he had thought, and all he had got for his pains was a bloody20 hole in his forehead and a shallow grave in the sandhills by the sea.
I buried everything except the notes, and took my way slowly and thoughtfully back to the City.
I had no inclination22 to keep the money, and for a long time was puzzled how to get rid of it. It would have been idiotic23 to destroy, it, and yet as long as I had it about me I felt there was something to connect me with the dead man. It was the last link that bound me to the man I had killed.
Then it struck me as a good idea to send the money to the hospital. At any rate, it would not be wasted by sending it there, and whatsoever24 its source, some good cause would be benefiting in the end.
I pulled up at a little roadside refreshment25 place, and ordering a cool drink, sat down at a table by myself to direct the envelope.
I was desperately26 anxious to leave no shadow of a clue behind me, and so, before addressing the envelope to the Adelaide Hospital, I carefully printed out the two words in my own ordinary handwriting upon the margin of a piece of newspaper that I found handy. Then with my own handwriting before me as a guide, I made every letter on the envelope quite different. I printed the letters in a different shape — sloped them a different way and even made the spaces between them of a different length to my own.
Then I got the woman in the shop to oblige me with a stamp, and not until I had safely deposited the letter in a pillar box did I feel secure and free from any charge the future might bring.
I determined27 to wipe the whole matter out of my mind, and not let it bother me any more.
The next morning I was up early, and set out to make my outward appearance a little bit more respectable.
I had no intention of blossoming out suddenly as a smart, well-dressed young fellow until I had definitely made up my mind exactly what I was going to do.
As long as I was patronising the cheap lodging house, any sudden change in my appearance would have plunged28 me at once into a regular hornet’s nest of inquiries29 as to how I had got the money, and the last thing I wanted to do was to attract attention.
I bought a good second-hand30 pair of boots, however, from a shop near the market, and chucked my old ones away behind some fencing in Wakefield Street.
Then, as I was passing the post office, I thought I might as well just go and collect the postcard I had written to myself on Saturday.
I went up to the counter and asked for any letters for Stratton. To my surprise, there were two men with unfamiliar31 faces in attendance there, and it seemed to me they took an unconscionably long time in looking through the mail. One of them at length came to me to ask for my initial, and then to my astonishment32, handed me a letter, as well as the postcard in my own handwriting.
I thought at first it must be a mistake, but I saw the Pimba postmark at once, and realised, in a dazed sort of way, that it was my cousin who had written to me.
What on earth, I thought, could he have to write to me about. We had had such a furious quarrel when I last saw him that I had certainly never expected to hear from him again, and how he had happened to write to the G.P.O., Adelaide, also puzzled me.
From the postmark, the letter was only three days old, and most curious, I sat down at once to master its contents.
It was quite a nice letter, written the previous week from his sheep station beyond Pimba. He had been very ill, he said, and the doctors had told him he could never get very much better. He was lonely out there with only hired people about him, and wanted to see someone of his own blood. He was sorry we had quarrelled, and was anxious to be friends again. If this letter reached me, and I had nothing better to do, would I come up and see him? He was quite well-to-do, and would deal generously by me. If I wanted money to come up, would I send him a wire?
I walked out of the post office with my head in the air. Here was the very thing I wanted — something definite to do. I would certainly go up to my cousin, and go up to him, too, well dressed, and as a prosperous man. I wouldn’t let him imagine I had come to be patronised, or wanted anything out of him.
With all the niceness of his letter, I knew he was one of those sneering33 men who would give you nothing if you really wanted it, but if you didn’t want it, well, then, everything was yours for the asking. I knew him so well, and the cause of our quarrel in years gone by had been on account of this very meanness.
I decided34 I would go up to Pimba on the Thursday, and at once started to get some things together. I bought a good second-hand portmanteau, and going from shop to shop, provided myself with a complete rig-out of everything I was likely to require.
I spent all the morning making my purchases, and it was a source of great amusement to me the whole time, thinking how astonished anyone from the lodging-house would have been had they been only following me about.
When I had got all I thought I should require, I went down to the railway station and left the portmanteau in the cloak room. It would never have done to have taken it to the place I was then calling ‘home.’
After dinner, I went and had a good sleep under the trees in the Botanical Gardens. Towards evening, when it was beginning to get cool, I thought I would go for a walk, and in passing, just have a look at number 203, Hutt Street, the house where my dead assailant had evidently been staying.
It was quite a small house, and looking up at the windows, I idly speculated which room had been occupied by the dead man, and what the landlady35 had done when he didn’t come back home.
Just when I was actually passing the front door, it opened, and two men stepped out into the porch. It gave me something of a shock to recognise one of them as the parchment-faced little man who had stared at me so inquisitively36 in the tram car at Henley Beach on the Saturday night.
I recognised him a fraction of a second before he saw me, and I flattered myself there was no look of interest or recognition on my face as I slowly lounged past the door.
I could see he remembered me, however, for his eyebrows37 seemed to come together with a click, but he only glanced casually38 over me, and went on talking to his companion in the porch.
I went slowly up the street, looking idly from side to side, but with my heart thumping39 much quicker than I could have wished.
It was rotten luck to knock up against the man like this, for instinctively40 now, I associated him in some way or other with the blackguard I had killed.
What was the line between them? I asked myself. Surely it was more than a coincidence, I argued, that he should have been looking round Henley on the Saturday, obviously, now, I could see, with some definite purpose in his mind, and then, within a few hours almost, be found coming out of the very rooms of the man whose body had lain so near him at the exact time he was examining the occupants of the tram car.
Suddenly it struck me he must have been looking for the very man I had killed, and that if I hadn’t killed him he would have found him going back in the car. And if anyone was looking for a criminal like that, who would be wanting him but the police? I got hot all over.
Of course, it was all clear to me at once. The little man was a detective, and I cursed the foolish curiosity that had brought me, for the second time, under his notice.
Naturally, seeing me at Henley and then meeting me by the dead man’s rooms, he would put two and two together and divine instantly there was some connection between us.
Now, I knew I should be followed and watched, and the slightest false step on my part would land me in the police court with some awkward questions to answer.
There was one good thing, however, I consoled myself. I was prepared now, and should not be taken by surprise, whatever happened. If anyone tapped me on the shoulder and told me to ‘come along,’ I would be ready for them, and give nothing away in surprise.
Besides, I argued, what could they ever have against me? The body was safely hidden, and unlikely, in those lonely sandhills, to be disturbed again for years and years, until, indeed, in the far future, they might start building there.
Besides again, if they did find the body, what was it to do with me? They might suspect anything, but where was the proof?
All this flashed through my mind as I slowly walked back to the city. I took it for granted I was being followed, and time after time I resisted the temptation to look round. I knew it would only precipitate41 matters if I tried to throw them off the scent42, so I just dawdled43 back home and arrived at the lodging-house about eight o’clock, in a tired and rather exhausted44 condition.
The realisation that the parchment-faced little man was a detective had indeed been a bit of a shock for me, but I found soon, there was a worse shock to come.
I had had my supper, and was trying to read the evening paper when old Nat Saunders came in. He was full of news as usual.
They had been trapping motors in King William Street, he said, and there would be a fine crop of drivers up before the magistrates45 next morning. A woman had been knocked down in Victoria Square, and it was believed that both her legs were broken. Then came a piece of news that landed me in a muck sweat, and froze my tongue to the roof of my mouth. A man had committed suicide, he said, on the sandhills near Glenelg. Two little boys and a dog had come across a good pair of shoes that afternoon on the beach, and the dog had sniffed46 so much at the sand close by that the boys had scraped it away and come across a man’s leg. He was supposed to have shot himself, and then the wind had covered him over with drifting sand. The body had been brought to the city in a covered cart.
I heard no more. A fearful drumming came into my ears, and I could feel my forehead grow cold with sweat.
So the blow had fallen. The apparently47 impossible had happened, and all my elaborate precautions made useless, by two wretched boys and a mongrel cur.
Well, I should be arrested for sure now, and the sooner the better, to get the wretched business over. But then I thought, how could they bring anything home to me? What was there, even now, to connect me with the dead man? Under suspicion I might be, but search as they might, surely they could never prove that it was I who had killed him.
I grew calmer at once, and went over everything carefully in my mind.
No; I had destroyed every clue behind me, and if only I kept my head and denied everything, there was no charge they could possibly prove against me.
I went off to bed almost easy in my mind, and, strange to say, had a particularly good night’s rest.
The next day was Tuesday, and keeping to my resolve, I went about just as ordinary, as if I were perfectly free from care.
I went to the newspaper offices and scanned the advertisements; I walked up and down King William Street; I lounged in the park lands in the afternoon; took a trip by the tram-car to Henley, and sat for a couple of hours having a smoke on the jetty.
And all the time I felt, rather than saw, that I was being followed.
It was not that anyone hustled48 me, or got in my way, or that I noticed the same people about me at different times of the day.
I seemed quite free and unattended, and nobody stared at me wherever I went. Yet somehow or other, I never found myself quite alone at any time all day, and I could have sworn coming back in the car from Henley, that at least four of the other passengers were connected with the police. They didn’t appear to take any notice of each other, but they were all strong, beefy-looking fellows, and all wore big, stout49 boots.
I fully21 expected to find trouble brewing50 when I got back home, but except that I imagined the lodging-house proprietor51 allowed his glance to stray towards me rather more often than usual, nothing at all happened, and I went to bed as usual just before ten.
Next morning I was out early after breakfast, and I blessed my stars it was to be my last day in Adelaide. The train beyond Pimba only went on Mondays and Thursdays, or I think I should have cleared out of the city straight away.
There was nothing in the newspapers about any body being found at Glenelg, and I was almost beginning to treat all my fears as imaginary.
But I held myself ready for anything, and was prepared any moment to be held up in the street.
It was a good thing I did so, for the end came very much as I had prepared myself to think it would.
I was looking idly in a shop window in the Arcade52 off Rundle Street when two men suddenly closed up to me, one on either side, and a stern voice came sharply from behind.
“Stand still; don’t move, keep your hands down and out of your pockets. We’re police officers, and the Chief wants a word with you.”
At the same time, hands were deftly53 and unobtrusively passed up and down over my body.
“All right, no weapon. Now, are you coming quietly?”
I turned round quite slowly and looked the speaker squarely in the face.
“What the devil do the police want me for?” I asked brusquely.
“You come along and you’ll see. Now, are you going to make a fuss?”
I looked round at my captors. There were four of them, and they all looked so eager and ready for me to give them the chance of a scuffle that the situation, perhaps from sheer nervousness on my part, struck me as having quite a humorous side.
I relaxed my face into a smile and replied quite pleasantly.
“Of course I’ll come without a fuss. I’ve nothing better to do, worse luck.”
And off we started for the Police Headquarters. Outwardly, I was proud to think I appeared calm and self-possessed, but inwardly, I was in a seething54 turmoil55 of suspense56, and manfully trying to pull myself together for the dangers and pitfalls57 of the coming ordeal58.
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1
sleepless
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| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
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2
squeaked
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| v.短促地尖叫( squeak的过去式和过去分词 )；吱吱叫；告密；充当告密者 | |
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rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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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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5
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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6
inmates
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| n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
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7
surmises
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| v.臆测，推断( surmise的第三人称单数 )；揣测；猜想 | |
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8
secluded
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| adj.与世隔绝的；隐退的；偏僻的v.使隔开，使隐退( seclude的过去式和过去分词) | |
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9
plantation
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| n.种植园，大农场 | |
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10
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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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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12
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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13
treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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14
racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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15
dividend
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| n.红利，股息；回报，效益 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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18
unevenly
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| adv.不均匀的 | |
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surmised
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| v.臆测，推断( surmise的过去式和过去分词 )；揣测；猜想 | |
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20
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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21
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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23
idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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24
whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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25
refreshment
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| n.恢复，精神爽快，提神之事物；（复数）refreshments:点心，茶点 | |
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26
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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27
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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28
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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29
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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30
second-hand
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| adj.用过的，旧的，二手的 | |
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31
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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32
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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33
sneering
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| 嘲笑的，轻蔑的 | |
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34
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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35
landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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inquisitively
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| 过分好奇地； 好问地 | |
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37
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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38
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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39
thumping
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| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
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40
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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41
precipitate
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| adj.突如其来的；vt.使突然发生；n.沉淀物 | |
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42
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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43
dawdled
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| v.混（时间）( dawdle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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44
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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45
magistrates
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| 地方法官，治安官( magistrate的名词复数 ) | |
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46
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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47
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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48
hustled
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| 催促（hustle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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50
brewing
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| n. 酿造, 一次酿造的量 动词brew的现在分词形式 | |
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51
proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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52
arcade
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| n.拱廊；(一侧或两侧有商店的)通道 | |
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53
deftly
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| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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54
seething
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| 沸腾的，火热的 | |
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55
turmoil
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| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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56
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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57
pitfalls
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| （捕猎野兽用的）陷阱( pitfall的名词复数 )； 意想不到的困难，易犯的错误 | |
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58
ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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