“Sure of the number, are you?” he asked briskly.
“Oh, yes — it was 104.”
“Well, then, the new building has swallowed it up — that’s certain.”
He tilted1 his head back and surveyed the half-finished front of a brick and limestone2 flat-house that reared its flimsy elegance3 above a row of tottering4 tenements5 and stables.
“Dead sure?” he repeated.
“Yes,” said Granice, discouraged. “And even if I hadn’t been, I know the garage was just opposite Leffler’s over there.” He pointed6 across the street to a tumble-down stable with a blotched sign on which the words “Livery and Boarding” were still faintly discernible.
The young man dashed across to the opposite pavement. “Well, that’s something — may get a clue there. Leffler’s — same name there, anyhow. You remember that name?”
“Yes — distinctly.”
Granice had felt a return of confidence since he had enlisted7 the interest of the Explorer’s “smartest” reporter. If there were moments when he hardly believed his own story, there were others when it seemed impossible that every one should not believe it; and young Peter McCarren, peering, listening, questioning, jotting8 down notes, inspired him with an exquisite9 sense of security. McCarren had fastened on the case at once, “like a leech,” as he phrased it — jumped at it, thrilled to it, and settled down to “draw the last drop of fact from it, and had not let go till he had.” No one else had treated Granice in that way — even Allonby’s detective had not taken a single note. And though a week had elapsed since the visit of that authorized10 official, nothing had been heard from the District Attorney’s office: Allonby had apparently11 dropped the matter again. But McCarren wasn’t going to drop it — not he! He positively12 hung on Granice’s footsteps. They had spent the greater part of the previous day together, and now they were off again, running down clues.
But at Leffler’s they got none, after all. Leffler’s was no longer a stable. It was condemned13 to demolition14, and in the respite15 between sentence and execution it had become a vague place of storage, a hospital for broken-down carriages and carts, presided over by a blear-eyed old woman who knew nothing of Flood’s garage across the way — did not even remember what had stood there before the new flat-house began to rise.
“Well — we may run Leffler down somewhere; I’ve seen harder jobs done,” said McCarren, cheerfully noting down the name.
As they walked back toward Sixth Avenue he added, in a less sanguine16 tone: “I’d undertake now to put the thing through if you could only put me on the track of that cyanide.”
Granice’s heart sank. Yes — there was the weak spot; he had felt it from the first! But he still hoped to convince McCarren that his case was strong enough without it; and he urged the reporter to come back to his rooms and sum up the facts with him again.
“Sorry, Mr. Granice, but I’m due at the office now. Besides, it’d be no use till I get some fresh stuff to work on. Suppose I call you up tomorrow or next day?”
He plunged17 into a trolley18 and left Granice gazing desolately19 after him.
Two days later he reappeared at the apartment, a shade less jaunty20 in demeanor21.
“Well, Mr. Granice, the stars in their courses are against you, as the bard22 says. Can’t get a trace of Flood, or of Leffler either. And you say you bought the motor through Flood, and sold it through him, too?”
“Yes,” said Granice wearily.
“Who bought it, do you know?”
Granice wrinkled his brows. “Why, Flood — yes, Flood himself. I sold it back to him three months later.”
“Flood? The devil! And I’ve ransacked23 the town for Flood. That kind of business disappears as if the earth had swallowed it.”
Granice, discouraged, kept silence.
“That brings us back to the poison,” McCarren continued, his note-book out. “Just go over that again, will you?”
And Granice went over it again. It had all been so simple at the time — and he had been so clever in covering up his traces! As soon as he decided24 on poison he looked about for an acquaintance who manufactured chemicals; and there was Jim Dawes, a Harvard classmate, in the dyeing business — just the man. But at the last moment it occurred to him that suspicion might turn toward so obvious an opportunity, and he decided on a more tortuous25 course. Another friend, Carrick Venn, a student of medicine whom irremediable ill-health had kept from the practice of his profession, amused his leisure with experiments in physics, for the exercise of which he had set up a simple laboratory. Granice had the habit of dropping in to smoke a cigar with him on Sunday afternoons, and the friends generally sat in Venn’s work-shop, at the back of the old family house in Stuyvesant Square. Off this work-shop was the cupboard of supplies, with its row of deadly bottles. Carrick Venn was an original, a man of restless curious tastes, and his place, on a Sunday, was often full of visitors: a cheerful crowd of journalists, scribblers, painters, experimenters in divers26 forms of expression. Coming and going among so many, it was easy enough to pass unperceived; and one afternoon Granice, arriving before Venn had returned home, found himself alone in the work-shop, and quickly slipping into the cupboard, transferred the drug to his pocket.
But that had happened ten years ago; and Venn, poor fellow, was long since dead of his dragging ailment27. His old father was dead, too, the house in Stuyvesant Square had been turned into a boarding-house, and the shifting life of New York had passed its rapid sponge over every trace of their obscure little history. Even the optimistic McCarren seemed to acknowledge the hopelessness of seeking for proof in that direction.
“And there’s the third door slammed in our faces.” He shut his note-book, and throwing back his head, rested his bright inquisitive28 eyes on Granice’s furrowed29 face.
“Look here, Mr. Granice — you see the weak spot, don’t you?”
The other made a despairing motion. “I see so many!”
“Yes: but the one that weakens all the others. Why the deuce do you want this thing known? Why do you want to put your head into the noose30?”
Granice looked at him hopelessly, trying to take the measure of his quick light irreverent mind. No one so full of a cheerful animal life would believe in the craving31 for death as a sufficient motive32; and Granice racked his brain for one more convincing. But suddenly he saw the reporter’s face soften33, and melt to a naive34 sentimentalism.
“Mr. Granice — has the memory of it always haunted you?”
Granice stared a moment, and then leapt at the opening. “That’s it — the memory of it . . . always . . . ”
McCarren nodded vehemently35. “Dogged your steps, eh? Wouldn’t let you sleep? The time came when you had to make a clean breast of it?”
“I had to. Can’t you understand?”
The reporter struck his fist on the table. “God, sir! I don’t suppose there’s a human being with a drop of warm blood in him that can’t picture the deadly horrors of remorse36 — ”
The Celtic imagination was aflame, and Granice mutely thanked him for the word. What neither Ascham nor Denver would accept as a conceivable motive the Irish reporter seized on as the most adequate; and, as he said, once one could find a convincing motive, the difficulties of the case became so many incentives37 to effort.
“Remorse — remorse,” he repeated, rolling the word under his tongue with an accent that was a clue to the psychology38 of the popular drama; and Granice, perversely39, said to himself: “If I could only have struck that note I should have been running in six theatres at once.”
He saw that from that moment McCarren’s professional zeal40 would be fanned by emotional curiosity; and he profited by the fact to propose that they should dine together, and go on afterward41 to some music-hall or theatre. It was becoming necessary to Granice to feel himself an object of pre-occupation, to find himself in another mind. He took a kind of gray penumbral42 pleasure in riveting43 McCarren’s attention on his case; and to feign44 the grimaces45 of moral anguish46 became a passionately47 engrossing48 game. He had not entered a theatre for months; but he sat out the meaningless performance in rigid49 tolerance50, sustained by the sense of the reporter’s observation.
Between the acts, McCarren amused him with anecdotes51 about the audience: he knew every one by sight, and could lift the curtain from every physiognomy. Granice listened indulgently. He had lost all interest in his kind, but he knew that he was himself the real centre of McCarren’s attention, and that every word the latter spoke52 had an indirect bearing on his own problem.
“See that fellow over there — the little dried-up man in the third row, pulling his moustache? His memoirs53 would be worth publishing,” McCarren said suddenly in the last entr’acte.
Granice, following his glance, recognized the detective from Allonby’s office. For a moment he had the thrilling sense that he was being shadowed.
“Caesar, if he could talk —!” McCarren continued. “Know who he is, of course? Dr. John B. Stell, the biggest alienist in the country — ”
Granice, with a start, bent54 again between the heads in front of him. “That man — the fourth from the aisle55? You’re mistaken. That’s not Dr. Stell.”
McCarren laughed. “Well, I guess I’ve been in court enough to know Stell when I see him. He testifies in nearly all the big cases where they plead insanity56.”
A cold shiver ran down Granice’s spine57, but he repeated obstinately58: “That’s not Dr. Stell.”
“Not Stell? Why, man, I know him. Look — here he comes. If it isn’t Stell, he won’t speak to me.”
The little dried-up man was moving slowly up the aisle. As he neared McCarren he made a slight gesture of recognition.
“How’do, Doctor Stell? Pretty slim show, ain’t it?” the reporter cheerfully flung out at him. And Mr. J. B. Hewson, with a nod of amicable59 assent60, passed on.
Granice sat benumbed. He knew he had not been mistaken — the man who had just passed was the same man whom Allonby had sent to see him: a physician disguised as a detective. Allonby, then, had thought him insane, like the others — had regarded his confession61 as the maundering of a maniac62. The discovery froze Granice with horror — he seemed to see the mad-house gaping63 for him.
“Isn’t there a man a good deal like him — a detective named J. B. Hewson?”
But he knew in advance what McCarren’s answer would be. “Hewson? J. B. Hewson? Never heard of him. But that was J. B. Stell fast enough — I guess he can be trusted to know himself, and you saw he answered to his name.”
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1
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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limestone
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| n.石灰石 | |
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elegance
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| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
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4
tottering
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| adj.蹒跚的，动摇的v.走得或动得不稳( totter的现在分词 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
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tenements
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| n.房屋，住户，租房子( tenement的名词复数 ) | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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8
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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9
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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10
authorized
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| a.委任的，许可的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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13
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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14
demolition
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| n.破坏,毁坏,毁坏之遗迹 | |
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15
respite
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| n.休息，中止，暂缓 | |
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sanguine
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| adj.充满希望的，乐观的，血红色的 | |
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17
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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18
trolley
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| n.手推车，台车；无轨电车；有轨电车 | |
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desolately
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| 荒凉地，寂寞地 | |
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jaunty
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| adj．愉快的，满足的；adv.心满意足地，洋洋得意地；n.心满意足；洋洋得意 | |
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21
demeanor
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| n.行为；风度 | |
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bard
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| n.吟游诗人 | |
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ransacked
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| v.彻底搜查( ransack的过去式和过去分词 )；抢劫，掠夺 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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tortuous
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| adj.弯弯曲曲的，蜿蜒的 | |
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divers
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| adj.不同的；种种的 | |
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ailment
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| n.疾病，小病 | |
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inquisitive
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| adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的 | |
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furrowed
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| v.犁田，开沟( furrow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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noose
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| n.绳套，绞索（刑）；v.用套索捉；使落入圈套；处以绞刑 | |
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craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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naive
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| adj.幼稚的，轻信的；天真的 | |
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vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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incentives
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| 激励某人做某事的事物( incentive的名词复数 )； 刺激； 诱因； 动机 | |
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psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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perversely
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| adv. 倔强地 | |
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zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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41
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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penumbral
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| adj.日月半影的 | |
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riveting
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| adj.动听的，令人着迷的，完全吸引某人注意力的；n.铆接（法） | |
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44
feign
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| vt.假装，佯作 | |
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45
grimaces
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| n.（表蔑视、厌恶等）面部扭曲，鬼脸( grimace的名词复数 )v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的第三人称单数 ) | |
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46
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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47
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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48
engrossing
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| adj.使人全神贯注的，引人入胜的v.使全神贯注( engross的现在分词 ) | |
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49
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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50
tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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51
anecdotes
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| n.掌故，趣闻，轶事( anecdote的名词复数 ) | |
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52
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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53
memoirs
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| n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
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54
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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55
aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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56
insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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57
spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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58
obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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59
amicable
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| adj.和平的，友好的；友善的 | |
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60
assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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61
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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62
maniac
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| n.精神癫狂的人；疯子 | |
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63
gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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