CHAPTER LX. NARROWED DOWN.

It was a curious scene, a scene to remember long afterwards. In all Lawrence's imaginative writing he had never constructed anything more striking than this. He was about to hear the story of a strange crime, and it could not be told in a better setting than the Corner House.

The garish¹ sunlight struggled through the grimy panes². Under ordinary conditions the drawing-room was a luxurious³ one. But the fine dust of years had settled upon pictures and statues and upon the upholstery of the old Empire furniture. As Charlton paced to and fro a gossamer⁴ cloud of dust seemed to follow him.

In the centre of it all sat Leona. Lawrence could see now that there were marks and bruises⁵ on her face, the result of the autocar accident, which showed out now there was no artist to attend to them.

She sat with her hands folded in her lap grimly, patiently waiting for the novelist to speak. He produced a cigarette.

"You won't mind?" he said.

"I will have one with you," Leona replied. "That will be more comfortable. Now, will you be so good as to proceed?"

"We will go back to the beginning," Lawrence began. "Here is a very beautiful and fascinating woman, living all alone in her wealth. Her talents and her loveliness have taken her into the cream of society."

"Which isn't worth the trouble when you've got it."

"There I perfectly⁶ agree with you. But the lady I speak of is bound to lead. Wherever she is and whatever walk of life she finds herself in, she is bound to lead. She flashes out and dazzles London. She lives in a fine house and entertains royally. But there is one thing that puzzles me. Why does the lady reside so far from Park Lane or Belgravia or Mayfair?"

"Lytton Avenue houses are large and they have gardens."

Lawrence smiled as he flicked⁷ off the end of his cigarette.

"It is very good of you to assist me in my deductions," he said. "But that does not quite account for everything; in fact, it accounts for nothing. There are finer houses in the localities I speak of, with better gardens. And a lady who pays for nothing has no need to study economy."

Leona laughed outright⁸.

"I have paid for nothing for years," she said. "L'audace, l'audace et toujours l'audace! But for circumstances over which I had no control I might have gone on to my death. But proceed. I am interested."

"Let us hope the story will proceed in grip as it proceeds," Lawrence murmured. "I was interested too. This, I say in effect to myself, is a splendid woman in a halo of mystery. I must study her with a view to a future heroine. I see her in the park where I can study her features. After a time I come to the conclusion that I have taken up a magnificent adventuress."

"Never a truer word in your life," Leona sneered⁹.

"Well, I am glad not to have offended you. Incidentally I am not the less interested because my young relative Hetty Lawrence holds a position of some trust in the house of the heroine of the story. I say to myself that I must know the Countess Lalage. We become quite friends, in fact."

Leona smiled in a queer, strange way.

"Oh, yes," she said slowly. "We were friends. I bear you no malice¹⁰. But if I had only guessed--well, we should have seen something fresh in the way of obituary¹¹ notices."

"You would have removed me," Lawrence asked.

"Ay, I should. I should have put you from my path. Make no mistake about that. But it is no use repining over that. Go on."

"Well, I study you. Then I begin to see my way. It was only the kind of idea that would creep into the brain of a novelist who does not scruple¹² to endow even his most intimate friends with ferocious¹³ qualities for business purposes. But I allowed myself to think that the reason why you had come to Lytton Avenue was because you were in some way interested in the Corner House. There you have the first faint indication of the shaping of the story.

"Here in the dull and gloomy Corner House, with its dark and gloomy tragedy, cheek by jowl with the hardness and glitter and brilliancy of Lytton Avenue. If my adventurer wants a big dark cupboard to hide things, where can she have a better one than the Corner House! If I bore you----"

"Bore me!" Leona cried. "Never more interested in my life. Subtlety¹⁴ of this kind always appeals to me. Proceed."

"Again, it is a little strange that I have already built a romance round the Corner House before the heroine came along. I told you once that I had known the owner of the Corner House before the tragedy. I had my heroine and I had my plot. A plot of vengeance¹⁵ and wounded pride.

"But stranger still to say, the live heroine, yourself, is more deeply interested than I imagined. We will say that she did a foolish thing. She fell in love with one of her own guests--Dr. Bruce, to be plain."

Leona quivered but said nothing. It was only by a motion of her hand that she signalled Lawrence to proceed.

"Well, this love came--the wild, unreasoning passion of the South. Dr. Bruce was pushed on, his fortune was being rapidly made. Then my heroine makes a discovery in strict accordance with the conditions of the game. Her governess and the doctor are affianced to one another."

"It is always thus in books," Leona said, with a hard smile.

"Inevitably¹⁶. But you were not in a book, unfortunately. You were flesh and blood and you took your own way. You thought you had been slighted. You made up your mind to get your revenge at any price. All the same, you could not see your way. You wanted a neat plot to get Bruce into trouble, for he had bad taste in not caring for you. You used the simple expedient¹⁷ of stealing mine."

1 garish   

adj.华丽而俗气的，华而不实的

参考例句：

• This colour is bright but not garish.这颜色艳而不俗。
• They climbed the garish purple-carpeted stairs.他们登上铺着俗艳的紫色地毯的楼梯。

2 panes   

窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sun caught the panes and flashed back at him. 阳光照到窗玻璃上，又反射到他身上。
• The window-panes are dim with steam. 玻璃窗上蒙上了一层蒸汽。

3 luxurious   

adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的

参考例句：

• This is a luxurious car complete with air conditioning and telephone.这是一辆附有空调设备和电话的豪华轿车。
• The rich man lives in luxurious surroundings.这位富人生活在奢侈的环境中。

4 gossamer   

n.薄纱，游丝

参考例句：

• The prince helped the princess,who was still in her delightful gossamer gown.王子搀扶着仍穿著那套美丽薄纱晚礼服的公主。
• Gossamer is floating in calm air.空中飘浮着游丝。

5 bruises   

n.瘀伤，伤痕，擦伤( bruise的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He was covered with bruises after falling off his bicycle. 他从自行车上摔了下来，摔得浑身伤痕。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The pear had bruises of dark spots. 这个梨子有碰伤的黑斑。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 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。

7 flicked   

（尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等）

参考例句：

• She flicked the dust off her collar. 她轻轻弹掉了衣领上的灰尘。
• I idly picked up a magazine and flicked through it. 我漫不经心地拿起一本杂志翻看着。

8 outright   

adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的

参考例句：

• If you have a complaint you should tell me outright.如果你有不满意的事，你应该直率地对我说。
• You should persuade her to marry you outright.你应该彻底劝服她嫁给你。

9 sneered   

讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He sneered at people who liked pop music. 他嘲笑喜欢流行音乐的人。
• It's very discouraging to be sneered at all the time. 成天受嘲讽是很令人泄气的。

10 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。

11 obituary   

n.讣告，死亡公告；adj.死亡的

参考例句：

• The obituary records the whole life of the deceased.讣文记述了这位死者的生平。
• Five days after the letter came,he found Andersen s obituary in the morning paper.收到那封信五天后，他在早报上发现了安德森的讣告。

12 scruple   

n./v.顾忌，迟疑

参考例句：

• It'seemed to her now that she could marry him without the remnant of a scruple.她觉得现在她可以跟他成婚而不需要有任何顾忌。
• He makes no scruple to tell a lie.他说起谎来无所顾忌。

13 ferocious   

adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的

参考例句：

• The ferocious winds seemed about to tear the ship to pieces.狂风仿佛要把船撕成碎片似的。
• The ferocious panther is chasing a rabbit.那只凶猛的豹子正追赶一只兔子。

14 subtlety   

n.微妙，敏锐，精巧；微妙之处，细微的区别

参考例句：

• He has shown enormous strength,great intelligence and great subtlety.他表现出充沛的精力、极大的智慧和高度的灵活性。
• The subtlety of his remarks was unnoticed by most of his audience.大多数听众都没有觉察到他讲话的微妙之处。

15 vengeance   

n.报复，报仇，复仇

参考例句：

• He swore vengeance against the men who murdered his father.他发誓要向那些杀害他父亲的人报仇。
• For years he brooded vengeance.多年来他一直在盘算报仇。

16 inevitably   

adv.不可避免地；必然发生地

参考例句：

• In the way you go on,you are inevitably coming apart.照你们这样下去，毫无疑问是会散伙的。
• Technological changes will inevitably lead to unemployment.技术变革必然会导致失业。

17 expedient   

adj.有用的，有利的；n.紧急的办法，权宜之计

参考例句：

• The government found it expedient to relax censorship a little.政府发现略微放宽审查是可取的。
• Every kind of expedient was devised by our friends.我们的朋友想出了各种各样的应急办法。