A girl met him at the door, a cute little redhead in a red-striped dress, who gave him a smile that seemed to start on the bridge of her nose and lift her whole face up after it. She held out her hand to him.
"Colonel Rand!" she exclaimed. "I'll bet you don't remember me."
"Sure I do. You're Dot," Rand said. "At least, I think you are; the last time I saw you, you were in pigtails. And you were only about so high." He measured with his hand. "The last time I was here, you were away at school. You must be old enough to vote, by now."
"I will, this fall," she replied. "Come on in; you're the first one here. Daddy hasn't gotten back from town yet. He called and said he'd be delayed till about nine." In the hall she took his hat and coat and guided him toward the parlor3 on the right.
"Oh, Mother!" she called. "Here's Colonel Rand!"
Rand remembered Irene Gresham, too; an over-age dizzy blonde who was still living in the Flaming Youth era of the twenties. She was an extremely good egg; he liked her very much. After all, insisting upon remaining an F. Scott Fitzgerald character was a harmless and amusing foible, and it was no more than right that somebody should try to keep the bright banner of Jazz Age innocence4 flying in a grim and sullen5 world. He accepted a cigarette, shared the flame of his lighter6 with mother and daughter, and submitted to being gushed7 over.
"... and, honestly, Jeff, you get handsomer every year," Irene Gresham rattled8 on. "Dot, doesn't he look just like Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind? But then, of course, Jeff really is a Southerner, so ..."
The doorbell interrupted this slight non sequitur. She broke off, rising.
"Sit still, Jeff; I'm just going to see who it is. You know, we're down to only one servant now, and it seems as if it's always her night off, or something. I don't know, honestly, what I'm going to do...."
She hurried out of the room. Voices sounded in the hall; a man's and a girl's.
"That's Pierre and Karen," Dot said. "Let's all go up in the gunroom, and wait for the others there."
They went out to meet the newcomers. The man was a few inches shorter than Rand, with gray eyes that looked startlingly light against the dark brown of his face. He wasn't using a cane9, but he walked with a slight limp. Beside him was a slender girl, almost as tall as he was, with dark brown hair and brown eyes. She wore a rust10-brown sweater and a brown skirt, and low-heeled walking-shoes.
Irene Gresham went into the introductions, the newcomers shook hands with Rand and were advised that the style of address was "Jeff," rather than "Colonel Rand," and then Dot suggested going up to the gunroom. Irene Gresham said she'd stay downstairs; she'd have to let the others in.
"Have you seen this collection before?" Pierre Jarrett inquired as he and Rand went upstairs together.
"About two years ago," Rand said. "Stephen had just gotten a cased dueling11 set by Wilkinson, then. From the Far West Hobby Shop, I think."
"Oh, he's gotten a lot of new stuff since then, and sold off about a dozen culls12 and duplicates," the former Marine13 said. "I'll show you what's new, till the others come."
They reached the head of the stairs and started down the hall to the gunroom, in the wing that projected out over the garage. Along the way, the girls detached themselves for nose-powdering.
Unlike the room at the Fleming home, Stephen Gresham's gunroom had originally been something else—a nursery, or play-room, or party-room. There were windows on both long sides, which considerably14 reduced the available wall-space, and the situation wasn't helped any by the fact that the collection was about thirty per cent long-arms. Things were pretty badly crowded; most of the rifles and muskets15 were in circular barracks-racks, away from the walls.
"Here, this one's new since you were here," Pierre said, picking a long musket16 from one of the racks and handing it to Rand. "How do you like this one?"
Rand took it and whistled appreciatively. "Real European matchlock; no, I never saw that. Looks like North Italian, say 1575 to about 1600."
"That musket," Pierre informed him, "came over on the Mayflower."
"Really, or just a gag?" Rand asked. "It easily could have. The Mayflower Company bought their muskets in Holland, from some seventeenth-century forerunner17 of Bannerman's, and Europe was full of muskets like this then, left over from the wars of the Holy Roman Empire and the French religious wars."
"Yes; I suppose all their muskets were obsolete18 types for the period," Pierre agreed. "Well, that's a real Mayflower arm. Stephen has the documentation for it. It came from the Charles Winthrop Sawyer collection, and there were only three ownership changes between the last owner and the Mayflower Company. Stephen only paid a hundred dollars for it, too."
"That was practically stealing," Rand said. He carried the musket to the light and examined it closely. "Nice condition, too; I wouldn't be afraid to fire this with a full charge, right now." He handed the weapon back. "He didn't lose a thing on that deal."
"I should say not! I'd give him two hundred for it, any time. Even without the history, it's worth that."
"Who buys history, anyhow?" Rand wanted to know. "The fact that it came from the Sawyer collection adds more value to it than this Mayflower business. Past ownership by a recognized authority like Sawyer is a real guarantee of quality and authenticity19. But history, documented or otherwise—hell, only yesterday I saw a pair of pistols with a wonderful three-hundred-and-fifty-year documented history. Only not a word of it was true; the pistols were made about twenty years ago."
"Those wheel locks Fleming bought from Arnold Rivers?" Pierre asked. "God, wasn't that a crime! I'll bet Rivers bought himself a big drink when Lane Fleming was killed. Fleming was all set to hang Rivers's scalp in his wigwam.... But with Stephen, the history does count for something. As you probably know, he collects arms-types that figured in American history. Well, he can prove that this individual musket was brought over by the Pilgrims, so he can be sure it's an example of the type they used. But he'd sooner have a typical Pilgrim musket that never was within five thousand miles of Plymouth Rock than a non-typical arm brought over as a personal weapon by one of the Mayflower Company."
"Oh, none of us are really interested in the individual history of collection weapons," Rand said. "You show me a collection that's full of known-history arms, and I'll show you a collection that's either full of junk or else cost three times what it's worth. And you show me a collector who blows money on history, and nine times out of ten I'll show you a collector who doesn't know guns. I saw one such collection, once; every item had its history neatly20 written out on a tag and hung onto the trigger-guard. The owner thought that the patent-dates on Colts were model-dates, and the model-dates on French military arms were dates of fabrication."
Pierre wrinkled his nose disgustedly. "God, I hate to see a collection all fouled22 up with tags hung on things!" he said. "Or stuck over with gummed labels; that's even worse. Once in a while I get something with a label pasted on it, usually on the stock, and after I get it off, there's a job getting the wood under it rubbed up to the same color as the rest of the stock."
"Yes. I picked up a lovely little rifled flintlock pistol, once," Rand said. "American; full-length curly-maple stock; really a Kentucky rifle in pistol form. Whoever had owned it before me had pasted a slip of paper on the underside of the stock, between the trigger-guard and the lower ramrod thimble, with a lot of crap, mostly erroneous, typed on it. It took me six months to remove the last traces of where that thing had been stuck on."
"What do you collect, or don't you specialize?"
"Pistols; I try to get the best possible specimens24 of the most important types, special emphasis on British arms after 1700 and American arms after 1800. What I'm interested in is the evolution of the pistol. I have a couple of wheel locks, to start with, and three miguelet-locks and an Italian snaphaunce. Then I have a few early flintlocks, and a number of mid-eighteenth-century types, and some late flintlocks and percussion25 types. And about twenty Colts, and so on through percussion revolvers and early cartridge26 types to some modern arms, including a few World War II arms."
"I see; about the same idea Lane Fleming had," Pierre said. "I collect personal combat-arms, firearms and edge-weapons. Arms that either influenced fighting techniques, or were developed to meet special combat conditions. From what you say, you're mainly interested in the way firearms were designed and made; I'm interested in the conditions under which they were used. And Adam Trehearne, who'll be here shortly, collects pistols and a few long-arms in wheel lock, proto-flintlock and early flintlock, to 1700. And Philip Cabot collects U.S. Martials, flintlock to automatic, and also enemy and Allied27 Army weapons from all our wars. And Colin MacBride collects nothing but Colts. Odd how a Scot, who's only been in this country twenty years, should become interested in so distinctively28 American a type."
"And I collect anything I can sell at a profit, from Chinese matchlocks to tommy-guns," Karen Lawrence interjected, coming into the room with Dot Gresham.
Pierre grinned. "Karen is practically a unique specimen23 herself; the only general-antique dealer29 I've ever seen who doesn't hate the sight of a gun-collector."
"That's only because I'm crazy enough to want to marry one," the girl dealer replied. "Of all the miserly, unscrupulous, grasping characters ..." She expressed a doubt that the average gun-collector would pay more than ten cents to see his Lord and Savior riding to hounds on a Bren-carrier. "They don't give a hoot30 whose grandfather owned what, and if anything's battered31 up a little, they don't think it looks quaint32, they think it looks lousy. And they've never heard of inflation; they think arms ought still to sell for the sort of prices they brought at the old Mark Field sale, back in 1911."
"What were you looking at?" Dot asked Rand, then glanced at the musket in Pierre's hands. "Oh, Priscilla."
Karen laughed. "Dot not only knows everything in the collection; she knows it by name. Dot, show Colonel Rand Hester Prynne."
"Hester coming up," Gresham's daughter said, catching33 another musket out of the same rack from which Pierre had gotten the matchlock and passing it over to Rand. He grasped the heavy piece, approving of the easy, instinctive34 way in which the girl had handled it. "Look on the barrel," she told him. "On top, right at the breech."
The gun was a flintlock, or rather, a dog-lock; sure enough, stamped on the breech was the big "A" of the Company of Workmen Armorers of London, the seventeenth-century gunmakers' guild35.
"That's right," he nodded. "That's Hester Prynne, all right; the first American girl to make her letter."
There were footsteps in the hall outside, and male voices.
"Adam and Colin," Pierre recognized them before they entered.
Both men were past fifty. Colin MacBride was a six-foot black Highlander37; black eyes, black hair, and a black weeping-willow mustache, from under which a stubby pipe jutted38. Except when he emptied it of ashes and refilled it, it was a permanent fixture39 of his weather-beaten face. Trehearne was somewhat shorter, and fair; his sandy mustache, beginning to turn gray at the edges, was clipped to micrometric exactness.
They shook hands with Rand, who set Hester back in her place. Trehearne took the matchlock out of Pierre's hands and looked at it wistfully.
"Some chaps have all the luck," he commented. "What do you think of it, Mr. Rand?" Pierre, who had made the introductions, had respected the detective's present civilian40 status. "Or don't you collect long-arms?"
"I don't collect them, but I'm interested in anything that'll shoot. That's a good one. Those things are scarce, too."
"Yes. You'll find a hundred wheel locks for every matchlock, and yet there must have been a hundred matchlocks made for every wheel lock."
"Matchlocks were cheap, and wheel locks were expensive," MacBride suggested. He spoke41 with the faintest trace of Highland36 accent. "Naturally, they got better care."
"It would take a Scot to think of that," Karen said. "Now, you take a Scot who collects guns, and you have something!"
"That's only part of it," Rand said. "I believe that by the last quarter of the seventeenth century, most of the matchlocks that were lying around had been scrapped42, and the barrels used in making flintlocks. Hester Prynne, over there, could easily have started her career as a matchlock. And then, a great many matchlocks went into the West African slave and ivory trade, and were promptly43 ruined by the natives."
"Yes, and I seem to recall having seen Spanish and French miguelet muskets that looked as though they had been altered directly from matchlock, retaining the original stock and even the original lock-plate," Trehearne added.
"So have I, come to think of it." Rand stole a glance at his wrist-watch. It was nine five; he was wishing Stephen Gresham would put in an appearance.
MacBride and Trehearne joined Pierre and the girls in showing him Gresham's collection; evidently they all knew it almost as well as their own. After a while, Irene Gresham ushered44 in Philip Cabot. He, too, was past middle age, with prematurely45 white hair and a thin, scholarly face. According to Hollywood type-casting, he might have been a professor, or a judge, or a Boston Brahmin, but never a stockbroker46.
Irene Gresham wanted to know what everybody wanted to drink. Rand wanted Bourbon and plain water; MacBride voted for Jamaica rum; Trehearne and Cabot favored brandy and soda48, and Pierre and the girls wanted Bacardi and Coca-Cola.
"And Stephen'll want rye and soda, when he gets here," Irene said. "Come on, girls; let's rustle49 up the drinks."
"Well, I see everybody's here," he said. "No; where's Karen?"
Pierre told him. A few minutes later the women returned, carrying bottles and glasses; when the flurry of drink-mixing had subsided51, they all sat down.
"Let's get the business over first," Gresham suggested. "I suppose you've gone over the collection already, Jeff?"
"Yes, and first of all, I want to know something. When was the last that any of you saw it?"
Gresham and Pierre had been in Fleming's gunroom just two days before the fatal "accident."
"And can you tell me if the big Whitneyville Colt was still there, then?" Rand asked. "Or the Rappahannock Forge, or the Collier flintlock, or the Hall?"
"Why, of course ... My God, aren't they there now?" Gresham demanded.
Rand shook his head. "And if Fleming still had them two days before he was killed, then somebody's been weeding out the collection since. Doing it very cleverly, too," he added. "You know how that stuff's arranged, and how conspicuous52 a missing pistol would be. Well, when I was going over the collection, I found about two dozen pieces of the most utter trash, things Lane Fleming wouldn't have allowed in the house, all hanging where some really good item ought to have been." He took a paper from his pocket and read off a list of the dubious53 items, interpolating comments on the condition, and a list of the real rarities which Gresham had mentioned the day before, which were now missing.
"All that good stuff was there the last time I saw the collection," Gresham said. "What do you say, Pierre?"
"I had the Hall pistol in my hands," Pierre said. "And I remember looking at the Rappahannock Forge."
Trehearne broke in to ask how many English dog-locks there were, and if the snaphaunce Highlander and the big all-steel wheel lock were still there. At the same time, Cabot was inquiring about the Springfield 1818 and the Virginia Manufactory pistols.
"I'll have a complete, itemized list in a few days," Rand said. "In the meantime, I'd like a couple of you to look at the collection and help me decide what's missing. I'm going to try to catch the thief, and then get at the fence through him."
"Think Rivers might have gotten the pistols?" Gresham asked. "He's the crookedest dealer I know of."
"He's the crookedest dealer anybody knows of," Rand amended54. "The only thing, he's a little too anxious to buy the collection, for somebody who's just skimmed off the cream."
"Ten thousand dollars isn't much in the way of anxiety," Cabot said. "I'd call that a nominal55 bid, to avoid suspicion."
"The dope's changed a little on that." Rand brought him up to date. "Rivers's offer is now twenty-five thousand."
"Guid Lorrd!" The Scots accent fairly curdled59 on Colin MacBride's tongue. "We canna go over that!"
"I'm afraid not; twenty would be about our limit," Gresham agreed. "And with the best items gone ..." He shrugged60.
Pierre and Karen were looking at each other in blank misery61; their dream of establishing themselves in the arms business had blown up in their faces.
"Oh, he's talking through his hat!" Cabot declared. "He just hopes we'll lose interest, and then he'll buy what's left of the collection for a song."
"Maybe he knows the collection's been robbed," Trehearne suggested. "That would let him out, later. He'd accuse you or the Fleming estate of holding out the best pieces, and then offer to take what's left for about five thousand."
"Well, that would be presuming that he knows the collection has been robbed," Cabot pointed62 out. "And the only way he'd know that would be if he, himself, had bought the stolen pistols."
"Well, does anybody need a chaser to swallow that?" Trehearne countered. "I'm bloody63 sure I don't."
Karen Lawrence shook her head. "No, he'd pay twenty-five thousand for the collection, just as it stands, to keep Pierre and me out of the arms business. This end of the state couldn't support another arms-dealer, and with the reputation he's made for himself, he'd be the one to go under." She stubbed out her cigarette and finished her drink. "If you don't mind, Pierre, I think I'll go home."
"I'm not feeling very festive64, myself, right now." The ex-Marine rose and held out his hand to Rand. "Don't get the idea, Jeff, that anybody here holds this against you. You have your clients' interests to look out for."
"Well, if this be treason make the most of it," Rand said, "but I hope Rivers doesn't go through with it. I'd like to see you people get the collection, and I'd hate to see a lot of nice pistols like that get into the hands of a damned swindler like Rivers.... Maybe I can catch him with the hot-goods on him, and send him up for about three-to-five."
"Oh, he's too smart for that," Karen despaired. "He can get away with faking, but the dumbest jury in the world would know what receiving stolen goods was, and he knows it."
Dorothy and Irene Gresham accompanied Pierre and Karen downstairs. After they had gone, Gresham tried, not very successfully, to inject more life into the party with another round of drinks. For a while they discussed the personal and commercial iniquities65 of Arnold Rivers. Trehearne and MacBride, who had come together in the latter's car, left shortly, and half an hour later, Philip Cabot rose and announced that he, too, was leaving.
"You haven't seen my collection since before the war, Jeff," he said. "If you're not sleepy, why don't you stop at my place and see what's new? You're staying at the Flemings'; my house is along your way, about a mile on the other side of the railroad."
They went out and got into their cars. Rand kept Cabot's taillight in sight until the broker47 swung into his drive and put his car in the garage. Rand parked beside the road, took the Leech66 & Rigdon out of the glove-box, and got out, slipping the Confederate revolver under his trouser-band. He was pulling down his vest to cover the butt67 as he went up the walk and joined his friend at the front door.
Cabot's combination library and gunroom was on the first floor. Like Rand's own, his collection was hung on racks over low bookcases on either side of the room. It was strictly68 a collector's collection, intensely specialized69. There were all but a few of the U.S. regulation single-shot pistols, a fair representation of secondary types, most of the revolvers of the Civil War, and all the later revolvers and automatics. In addition, there were British pistols of the Revolution and 1812, Confederate revolvers, a couple of Spanish revolvers of 1898, the Lugers and Mausers and Steyers of the first World War, and the pistols of all our allies, beginning with the French weapons of the Revolution.
"I'm having the devil's own time filling in for this last war," Cabot said. "I have a want-ad running in the Rifleman, and I've gotten a few: that Nambu, and that Japanese Model-14, and the Polish Radom, and the Italian Glisenti, and that Tokarev, and, of course, the P-'38 and the Canadian Browning; but it's going to take the devil's own time. I hope nobody starts another war, for a few years, till I can get caught up on the last one."
Rand was looking at the Confederate revolvers. Griswold & Grier, Haiman Brothers, Tucker & Sherrod, Dance Brothers & Park, Spiller & Burr—there it was: Leech & Rigdon. He tapped it on the cylinder70 with a finger.
"Wasn't it one of those things that killed Lane Fleming?" he asked.
"Leech & Rigdon? So I'm told." Cabot hesitated. "Jeff, I saw that revolver, not four hours before Fleming was shot. Had it in my hands; looked it over carefully." He shook his head. "It absolutely was not loaded. It was empty, and there was rust in the chambers71."
"Then how the hell did he get shot?" Rand wanted to know.
"That I couldn't say; I'm only telling you how he didn't get shot. Here, this is how it was. It was a Thursday, and I'd come halfway72 out from town before I remembered that I hadn't bought a copy of Time, so I stopped at Biddle's drugstore, in the village, for one. Just as I was getting into my car, outside, Lane Fleming drove up and saw me. He blew his horn at me, and then waved to me with this revolver in his hand. I went over and looked at it, and he told me he'd found it hanging back of the counter at a barbecue-stand, where the road from Rosemont joins Route 22. There had been some other pistols with it, and I went to see them later, but they were all trash. The Leech & Rigdon had been the only decent thing there, and Fleming had talked it out of this fellow for ten dollars. He was disgustingly gleeful about it, particularly as it was a better specimen than mine."
"Would you know it, if you saw it again?" Rand asked.
"Yes. I remember the serials74. I always look at serials on Confederate arms. The highest known serial73 number for a Leech & Rigdon is 1393; this one was 1234."
Rand pulled the .36 revolver from his pants-leg and gave it a quick glance; the number was 1234. He handed it to Cabot.
"Is this it?" he asked.
Cabot checked the number. "Yes. And I remember this bruise75 on the left grip; Fleming was saying that he was glad it would be on the inside, so it wouldn't show when he hung it on the wall." He carried the revolver to the desk and held it under the light. "Why, this thing wasn't fired at all!" he exclaimed. "I thought that Fleming might have loaded it, meaning to target it—he had a pistol range back of his house—but the chambers are clean." He sniffed76 at it. "Hoppe's Number Nine," he said. "And I can see traces of partly dissolved rust, and no traces of fouling77. What the devil, Jeff?"
"It probably hasn't been fired since Appomattox," Rand agreed. "Philip, do you think all this didn't-know-it-was-loaded routine might be an elaborate suicide build-up, either before or after the fact?"
"Absolutely not!" There was a trace of impatience78 in Cabot's voice. "Lane Fleming wasn't the man to commit suicide. I knew him too well ever to believe that."
"I heard a rumor79 that he was about to lose control of his company," Rand mentioned. "You know how much Premix meant to him."
"That's idiotic80!" Cabot's voice was openly scornful, now, and he seemed a little angry that Rand should believe such a story, as though his confidence in his friend's intelligence had been betrayed. "Good Lord, Jeff, where did you ever hear a yarn81 like that?"
"Quote, usually well-informed sources, unquote."
"Well, they were unusually ill-informed, that time," Cabot replied. "Take my word for it, there's absolutely nothing in it."
"So it wasn't an accident, and it wasn't suicide," Rand considered. "Philip, what is the prognosis on this merger82 of Premix and National Milling & Packaging, now that Lane Fleming's opposition83 has been, shall we say, liquidated84?"
Cabot's head jerked up; he looked at Rand in shocked surprise.
"My God, you don't think...?" he began. "Jeff, are you investigating Lane Fleming's death?"
"I was retained to sell the collection," Rand stated. "Now, I suppose, I'll have to find out who's been stealing those pistols, and recover them, and jail the thief and the fence. But I was not retained to investigate the death of Lane Fleming. And I do not do work for which I am not paid," he added, with mendacious85 literalness.
"I see. Well, the merger's going through. It won't be official until the sixteenth of May, when the Premix stockholders meet, but that's just a formality. It's all cut and dried and in the bag now. Better let me pick you up a little Premix; there's still some lying around. You'll make a little less than four-for-one on it."
"I'd had that in mind when I asked you about the merger," Rand said. "I have about two thousand with you, haven't I?" He did a moment's mental arithmetic, then got out his checkbook. "Pick me up about a hundred shares," he told the broker. "I've been meaning to get in on this ever since I heard about it."
"I don't see how you did hear about it," Cabot said. "For obvious reasons, it's being kept pretty well under the hat."
Rand grinned. "Quote, usually well-informed sources, unquote. Not the sources mentioned above."
"Jeff, you know, this damned thing's worrying me," Cabot told him, writing a receipt and exchanging it for Rand's check. "I've been trying to ignore it, but I simply can't. Do you really think Lane Fleming was murdered by somebody who wanted to see this merger consummated86 and who knew that that was an impossibility as long as Fleming was alive?"
"Philip, I don't know. And furthermore, I don't give a damn," Rand lied. "If somebody wants me to look into it, and pays me my possibly exaggerated idea of what constitutes fair compensation, I will. And I'll probably come up with Fleming's murderer, dead or alive. But until then, it is simply no epidermis87 off my scrotum. And I advise you to adopt a similar attitude."
They changed the subject, then, to the variety of pistols developed and used by the opposing nations in World War II, and the difficulties ahead of Cabot in assembling even a fairly representative group of them. Rand promised to mail Cabot a duplicate copy of his list of the letter-code symbols used by the Nazis88 to indicate the factories manufacturing arms for them, as well as copies of some old wartime Intelligence dope on enemy small-arms. At a little past one, he left Cabot's home and returned to the Fleming residence.
There were four cars in the garage. The Packard sedan had not been moved, but the station-wagon was facing in the opposite direction. The gray Plymouth was in the space from which Rand had driven earlier in the evening, and a black Chrysler Imperial had been run in on the left of the Plymouth. He put his own car in on the right of the station-wagon, made sure that the Leech & Rigdon was locked in his glove-box, and closed and locked the garage doors. Then he went up into the house, through the library, and by the spiral stairway to the gunroom.
The garage had been open, he recalled, at the time of Lane Fleming's death. The availability of such an easy means of undetected ingress and egress89 threw the suspect field wide open. Anybody who knew the habits of the Fleming household could have slipped up to the gunroom, while Varcek was in his lab, Dunmore was in the bathroom, and Gladys and Geraldine were in the parlor. As he crossed the hall to his own room, Rand was thinking of how narrowly Arnold Rivers had escaped a disastrous90 lawsuit91 and criminal action by the death of Lane Fleming.
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standing
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punctuated
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| v.（在文字中）加标点符号，加标点( punctuate的过去式和过去分词 )；不时打断某事物 | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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lighter
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gushed
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rattled
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cane
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rust
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dueling
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culls
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marine
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considerably
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muskets
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| n.火枪，（尤指）滑膛枪( musket的名词复数 ) | |
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musket
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| n.滑膛枪 | |
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17
forerunner
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| n.前身，先驱（者），预兆，祖先 | |
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18
obsolete
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| adj.已废弃的，过时的 | |
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authenticity
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| n.真实性 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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gust
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| n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发 | |
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22
fouled
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| v.使污秽( foul的过去式和过去分词 )；弄脏；击球出界；（通常用废物）弄脏 | |
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23
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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25
percussion
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| n.打击乐器；冲突，撞击；震动，音响 | |
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cartridge
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| n.弹壳，弹药筒；(装磁带等的)盒子 | |
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allied
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| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
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distinctively
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| adv.特殊地，区别地 | |
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dealer
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| n.商人，贩子 | |
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30
hoot
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| n.鸟叫声，汽车的喇叭声； v.使汽车鸣喇叭 | |
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battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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guild
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| n.行会，同业公会，协会 | |
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36
highland
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| n.(pl.)高地，山地 | |
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highlander
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| n.高地的人，苏格兰高地地区的人 | |
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jutted
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| v.（使）突出( jut的过去式和过去分词 )；伸出；（从…）突出；高出 | |
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fixture
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| n.固定设备；预定日期；比赛时间；定期存款 | |
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civilian
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| adj.平民的，民用的，民众的 | |
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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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scrapped
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| 废弃(scrap的过去式与过去分词)； 打架 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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ushered
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| v.引，领，陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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prematurely
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| adv.过早地，贸然地 | |
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stockbroker
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| n.股票（或证券），经纪人（或机构） | |
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broker
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| n.中间人，经纪人；v.作为中间人来安排 | |
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48
soda
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| n.苏打水；汽水 | |
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rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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51
subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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Amended
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| adj. 修正的 动词amend的过去式和过去分词 | |
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nominal
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| adj.名义上的；(金额、租金)微不足道的 | |
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stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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exclamations
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| n.呼喊( exclamation的名词复数 )；感叹；感叹语；感叹词 | |
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curdled
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| v.（使）凝结( curdle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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63
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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festive
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| adj.欢宴的，节日的 | |
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iniquities
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| n.邪恶( iniquity的名词复数 )；极不公正 | |
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leech
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| n.水蛭，吸血鬼，榨取他人利益的人；vt.以水蛭吸血；vi.依附于别人 | |
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butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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specialized
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| adj.专门的，专业化的 | |
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cylinder
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| n.圆筒，柱(面)，汽缸 | |
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71
chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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serial
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| n.连本影片，连本电视节目；adj.连续的 | |
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74
serials
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| n.连载小说，电视连续剧( serial的名词复数 ) | |
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75
bruise
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| n.青肿，挫伤；伤痕；vt.打青；挫伤 | |
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76
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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77
fouling
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| n.（水管、枪筒等中的）污垢v.使污秽( foul的现在分词 )；弄脏；击球出界；（通常用废物）弄脏 | |
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78
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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79
rumor
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| n.谣言，谣传，传说 | |
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80
idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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81
yarn
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| n.纱，纱线，纺线；奇闻漫谈，旅行轶事 | |
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82
merger
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| n.企业合并，并吞 | |
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83
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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84
liquidated
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| v.清算( liquidate的过去式和过去分词 )；清除（某人）；清偿；变卖 | |
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85
mendacious
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| adj.不真的，撒谎的 | |
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86
consummated
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| v.使结束( consummate的过去式和过去分词 )；使完美；完婚；（婚礼后的）圆房 | |
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87
epidermis
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| n.表皮 | |
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88
Nazis
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| n.（德国的）纳粹党员( Nazi的名词复数 )；纳粹主义 | |
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89
egress
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| n.出去；出口 | |
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90
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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lawsuit
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| n.诉讼，控诉 | |
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