chapter 51

Sewell Endicott said he was working late and I could drop around in the evening about seven-thirty. He had a corner office with a blue carpet, a red mahogany desk with carved corners, very old and obviously very valuable, the usual glass-front bookshelves of mustardyellow legal books, the usual cartoons by Spy of famous English judges, and a large portrait of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes on the south wall, alone. Endicótt's chair was quilted in black leather. Near him was an open rolltop desk jammed with papers. It was an office no decorator had had a chance to pansy up. He was in his shirtsleeves and he looked tired, but he had that kind of face. He was smoking one of his tasteless cigarettes. Ashes from it had fallen on his loosened tie. His limp black hair was all over the place. He stared at me silently after I sat down. Then he said: "You're a stubborn son of a bitch, if ever I met one. Don't tell me you're still digging into that mess." "Something worries me a little. Would it be all right now if I assumed you were representing Mr. Harlan Potter when you came to see me in the birdcage?" He nodded. I touched the side of my face gently with my fingertips. It was all healed up and the swelling¹ was gone, but one of the blows must have damaged a nerve. Part of the cheek was still numb². couldn't let it alone. It would get all right in time. "And that when you went to Otatoclán you were temporarily deputized as a member of the D.A.'s staff?" "Yes, but don't rub it in, Marlowe. It was a valuable connection. Perhaps I gave it too much weight." "Still is, I hope." He shook his head. "No. That's finished. Mr. Potter does his legal business through San Francisco, New York, and Washington firms." "I guess he hates my guts—if he thinks about it." Endicott smiled. "Curiously³ enough, he put all the blame on his son-in-law, Dr. Loring. A man like Harlan Potter has to blame somebody. He couldn't possibly be wrong himself. He felt that if Loring hadn't been feeding the woman dangerous drugs, none of it would have happened." "He's wrong. You saw Terry Lennox's body in Otatoclan, didn't you?" "I did indeed. In the back of a cabinet maker's shop. They have no proper mortuary there. He was making the coffin⁴ too. The body was ice-cold. I saw the wound in the temple. There's no question of identity, if you had any ideas along those lines." "No, Mr. Endicott, I didn't, because in his case it could hardly be possible. He was disguised a little though, wasn't he?" "Face and hands darkened, hair dyed black. But the scars were still obvious. And the fingerprints⁵, of course, were easily checked from things he had handled at home." "What kind of police force do they have down there?" "Primitive⁶. The jefe could just about read and write, But he knew about fingerprints. It was hot weather, you know. Quite hot." He frowned and took his cigarette out of his mouth and dropped it negligently⁷ into an enormous black basalt sort of receptade. "They had to get ice from the hotel," he added. "Plenty of ice." He looked at me again. "No embalming⁸ there. Things have to move fast." "You speak Spanish, Mr. Endicott?" "Only a few words. The hotel manager interpreted." He smiled. "A well-dressed smoothie, that fellow. Looked tough, but he was very polite and helpful. It was all over in no time." "I had a letter from Terry. I guess Mr. Potter would know about it. I told his daughter, Mrs. Loring. I showed it to her. There was a portrait of Madison in it." "A what?" "Five-thousand-dollar bill." He raised his eyebrows⁹. "Really. Well, he could certainly afford it. His wife gave him a cool quarter of a million the second time they were married. I've an idea he meant to go to Mexico to live anyhow — quite apart from what happened. I don't know what happened to the money. I wasn't in on that." "Here's the letter, Mr. Endicott, if you care to read it." I took it out and gave it to him. He read it carefully, the way lawyers read everything. He put it down on the desk and leaned back and stared at nothing. "A little literary, isn't it?" he said quietly. "I wonder why he did it." "Killed himself, confessed, or wrote me the letter?" "Confessed and killed himself, of course," Endicott said sharply. "The letter is understandable. At least you got a reasonable recompense for what you did for him—and since. "The mailbox bothers me," I said. "Where he says there was a mailbox on the street under his window and the hotel waiter was going to hold his letter up before he mailed it, so Terry could see that it was mailed." Something in Endicott's eyes went to sleep. "Why?" he asked indifferently. He picked another of his filtered cigarettes out of a square box. I held my lighter¹¹ across the desk for him. "They wouldn't have one in a place like Otatodán," I said. "Go on." "I didn't get it at first. Then I looked the place up. It's a mere¹² village. Population say ten or twelve thousand. One street partly paved. The jefe has a Model A Ford¹⁰ as an official car. The post office is in the corner of a store, the carnicería, the butcher shop. One hotel, a couple of cantinas, no good roads, a small airfield¹³. There's hunting around there in the mountains — lots of it. Hence the airfield. Only decent way to get there." "Go on. I know about the hunting." "So there's a mailbox on the street. Like there's a race course and a dog track and a golf course and a jai alai fronton and park with a colored fountain and a bandstand." "Then he made a mistake," Endicott said coldly. "Perhaps it was something that looked like a mailbox to him—say a trash receptacle." I stood up. I reached for the letter and refolded it and put it back in my pocket. "A trash receptacle," I said. "Sure, that's it. Painted with the Mexican colors,, green, white, red, and a sign on it stenciled¹⁴ in large clear print: KEEP OUR CITY CLEAN. In Spanish, of course. And lying around it seven mangy dogs." "Don't get cute, Marlowe." "Sorry if I let my brains show. Another small point I have already raised with Randy Starr. How come the letter got mailed at all? According to the letter the method was prearranged. So somebody told him about the mailbox. So somebody lied. So somebody mailed the letter with five grand in it just the same. Intriguing¹⁵, don't you agree?" He puffed¹⁶ smoke and watched it float away. "What's your conclusion—and why ring Starr in on it?" "Starr and a heel named Menendez, now removed from our midst, were pals¹⁷ of Terry's in the British Army. They are wrong gees¹⁸ in a way — I should say in almost every way — but they still have room for personal pride and so on. There was a cover-up here engineered for obvious reasons. There was another sort of cover-up in Otatoclán, for entirely¹⁹ different reasons." "What's your conclusion?" he asked me again and much more sharply. "What's yours?" He didn't answer me. So I thanked him for his time and left. He was frowning as I opened the door, but I thought it was an honest frown of puzzlement. Or maybe he was trying to remember how it looked outside the hotel and whether there was a mailbox there. It was another wheel to start turning—no more. It turned for a solid month before anything came up. Then on a certain Friday morning I found a stranger waiting for me in my office. He was a well-dressed Mexican or Suramericano of some sort. He sat by the open window smoking a brown cigarette that smelled strong. He was tall and very slender and very elegant, with a neat dark mustache and dark hair, rather longer than we wear it, and a fawn-colored suit of some loosely woven material. He wore those green sunglasses. He stood up politely. "Se.or Marlowe?" "What can I do for you?" He handed me a folded paper. "Un aviso de parte del Se.or Starr en Las Vegas, se.or. Habla Usted Espaflol?" "Yeah, but not fast. English would be better." "English then," he said. "It is all the same to me." I took the paper and read it. "This introduces Cisco Maioranos, a friend of mine. I think he can fix you up. S." "Let's go inside, Se.or Maioranos," I said. I held the door open for him. He smelled of perfume as he went by. His eyebrows were awfully²⁰ damned dainty too. But he probably wasn't as dainty as he looked because there were knife scars on both sides of his face.

1 swelling   

n.肿胀

参考例句：

• Use ice to reduce the swelling. 用冰敷消肿。
• There is a marked swelling of the lymph nodes. 淋巴结处有明显的肿块。

2 numb   

adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木

参考例句：

• His fingers were numb with cold.他的手冻得发麻。
• Numb with cold,we urged the weary horses forward.我们冻得发僵，催着疲惫的马继续往前走。

3 curiously   

adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地

参考例句：

• He looked curiously at the people.他好奇地看着那些人。
• He took long stealthy strides. His hands were curiously cold.他迈着悄没声息的大步。他的双手出奇地冷。

4 coffin   

n.棺材，灵柩

参考例句：

• When one's coffin is covered,all discussion about him can be settled.盖棺论定。
• The coffin was placed in the grave.那口棺材已安放到坟墓里去了。

5 fingerprints   

n.指纹( fingerprint的名词复数 )v.指纹( fingerprint的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Everyone's fingerprints are unique. 每个人的指纹都是独一无二的。
• They wore gloves so as not to leave any fingerprints behind (them). 他们戴着手套，以免留下指纹。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 primitive   

adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物

参考例句：

• It is a primitive instinct to flee a place of danger.逃离危险的地方是一种原始本能。
• His book describes the march of the civilization of a primitive society.他的著作描述了一个原始社会的开化过程。

7 negligently   

参考例句：

• Losses caused intentionally or negligently by the lessee shall be borne by the lessee. 如因承租人的故意或过失造成损失的，由承租人负担。 来自经济法规部分
• Did the other person act negligently? 他人的行为是否有过失？ 来自口语例句

8 embalming   

v.保存（尸体）不腐( embalm的现在分词 )；使不被遗忘；使充满香气

参考例句：

• The corpse was preserved from decay by embalming. 尸体用香料涂抹以防腐烂。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They were experts at preserving the bodies of the dead by embalming them with special lotions. 他们具有采用特种药物洗剂防止尸体腐烂的专门知识。 来自辞典例句

9 eyebrows   

眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Eyebrows stop sweat from coming down into the eyes. 眉毛挡住汗水使其不能流进眼睛。
• His eyebrows project noticeably. 他的眉毛特别突出。

10 Ford   

n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过

参考例句：

• They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
• If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。

11 lighter   

n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级

参考例句：

• The portrait was touched up so as to make it lighter.这张画经过润色，色调明朗了一些。
• The lighter works off the car battery.引燃器利用汽车蓄电池打火。

12 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

13 airfield   

n.飞机场

参考例句：

• The foreign guests were motored from the airfield to the hotel.用车把外宾从机场送到旅馆。
• The airfield was seized by enemy troops.机场被敌军占领。

14 stenciled   

v.用模板印（文字或图案）( stencil的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• To transfer(a stenciled design) with pounce. 以印花粉印用印花粉末转印（镂空模板花样） 来自互联网
• L: Cardboard cartons, with stenciled shipping marks. 李：刷有抬头的硬纸板箱。 来自互联网

15 intriguing   

adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心

参考例句：

• These discoveries raise intriguing questions. 这些发现带来了非常有趣的问题。
• It all sounds very intriguing. 这些听起来都很有趣。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 puffed   

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

参考例句：

• He lit a cigarette and puffed at it furiously. 他点燃了一支香烟，狂吸了几口。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He felt grown-up, puffed up with self-importance. 他觉得长大了，便自以为了不起。 来自《简明英汉词典》

17 pals   

n.朋友( pal的名词复数 )；老兄；小子；（对男子的不友好的称呼）家伙

参考例句：

• We've been pals for years. 我们是多年的哥们儿了。
• CD 8 positive cells remarkably increased in PALS and RP(P CD8+细胞在再生脾PALS和RP内均明显增加(P 来自互联网

18 gees   

n.（美俚）一千元（gee的复数形式）v.驭马快走或向右（gee的第三人称单数形式）

参考例句：

• When the lunch bell rang, she peeled the gees and ate them. 中午吃饭铃响时她就剥开鸡蛋吃起来。 来自互联网
• How do you want you gees? 你要怎么样的蛋呢？ 来自互联网

19 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

20 awfully   

adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地

参考例句：

• Agriculture was awfully neglected in the past.过去农业遭到严重忽视。
• I've been feeling awfully bad about it.对这我一直感到很难受。