"You two ought to have something to talk about," he said, cheerfully. "Old buildings and all that sort of thing; this is rather an old building, by the way, though I say it who shouldn't. I must ask you to excuse me a moment; I've got to go and see about the cards for this Christmas romp6 my sister's arranging. We hope to see you all there, of course. Juliet wants it to be a fancy-dress affair—abbots and crusaders and all that. My ancestors, I suppose, after all."
"I trust the abbot was not an ancestor," said the archaeological gentleman, with a smile.
"Only a sort of great-uncle, I imagine," answered the other, laughing; then his rather rambling7 eye rolled round the ordered landscape in front of the house; an artificial sheet of water ornamented8 with an antiquated9 nymph in the center and surrounded by a park of tall trees now gray and black and frosty, for it was in the depth of a severe winter.
"It's getting jolly cold," his lordship continued. "My sister hopes we shall have some skating as well as dancing."
"If the crusaders come in full armor," said the other, "you must be careful not to drown your ancestors."
"Oh, there's no fear of that," answered Bulmer; "this precious lake of ours is not two feet deep anywhere." And with one of his flourishing gestures he stuck his stick into the water to demonstrate its shallowness. They could see the short end bent10 in the water, so that he seemed for a moment to lean his large weight on a breaking staff.
"The worst you can expect is to see an abbot sit down rather suddenly," he added, turning away. "Well, au revoir; I'll let you know about it later."
The archaeologist and the architect were left on the great stone steps smiling at each other; but whatever their common interests, they presented a considerable personal contrast, and the fanciful might even have found some contradiction in each considered individually. The former, a Mr. James Haddow, came from a drowsy12 den11 in the Inns of Court, full of leather and parchment, for the law was his profession and history only his hobby; he was indeed, among other things, the solicitor13 and agent of the Prior's Park estate. But he himself was far from drowsy and seemed remarkably14 wide awake, with shrewd and prominent blue eyes, and red hair brushed as neatly15 as his very neat costume. The latter, whose name was Leonard Crane, came straight from a crude and almost cockney office of builders and house agents in the neighboring suburb, sunning itself at the end of a new row of jerry-built houses with plans in very bright colors and notices in very large letters. But a serious observer, at a second glance, might have seen in his eyes something of that shining sleep that is called vision; and his yellow hair, while not affectedly16 long, was unaffectedly untidy. It was a manifest if melancholy17 truth that the architect was an artist. But the artistic18 temperament19 was far from explaining him; there was something else about him that was not definable, but which some even felt to be dangerous. Despite his dreaminess, he would sometimes surprise his friends with arts and even sports apart from his ordinary life, like memories of some previous existence. On this occasion, nevertheless, he hastened to disclaim20 any authority on the other man's hobby.
"I mustn't appear on false pretences," he said, with a smile. "I hardly even know what an archaeologist is, except that a rather rusty21 remnant of Greek suggests that he is a man who studies old things."
"Yes," replied Haddow, grimly. "An archaeologist is a man who studies old things and finds they are new."
"Dare one suggest," he said, "that some of the things we have been talking about are among the old things that turn out not to be old?"
His companion also was silent for a moment, and the smile on his rugged23 face was fainter as he replied, quietly:
"The wall round the park is really old. The one gate in it is Gothic, and I cannot find any trace of destruction or restoration. But the house and the estate generally—well the romantic ideas read into these things are often rather recent romances, things almost like fashionable novels. For instance, the very name of this place, Prior's Park, makes everybody think of it as a moonlit mediaeval abbey; I dare say the spiritualists by this time have discovered the ghost of a monk24 there. But, according to the only authoritative25 study of the matter I can find, the place was simply called Prior's as any rural place is called Podger's. It was the house of a Mr. Prior, a farmhouse26, probably, that stood here at some time or other and was a local landmark27. Oh, there are a great many examples of the same thing, here and everywhere else. This suburb of ours used to be a village, and because some of the people slurred28 the name and pronounced it Holliwell, many a minor29 poet indulged in fancies about a Holy Well, with spells and fairies and all the rest of it, filling the suburban30 drawing-rooms with the Celtic twilight31. Whereas anyone acquainted with the facts knows that 'Hollinwall' simply means 'the hole in the wall,' and probably referred to some quite trivial accident. That's what I mean when I say that we don't so much find old things as we find new ones."
Crane seemed to have grown somewhat inattentive to the little lecture on antiquities33 and novelties, and the cause of his restlessness was soon apparent, and indeed approaching. Lord Bulmer's sister, Juliet Bray34, was coming slowly across the lawn, accompanied by one gentleman and followed by two others. The young architect was in the illogical condition of mind in which he preferred three to one.
The man walking with the lady was no other than the eminent35 Prince Borodino, who was at least as famous as a distinguished36 diplomatist ought to be, in the interests of what is called secret diplomacy37. He had been paying a round of visits at various English country houses, and exactly what he was doing for diplomacy at Prior's Park was as much a secret as any diplomatist could desire. The obvious thing to say of his appearance was that he would have been extremely handsome if he had not been entirely38 bald. But, indeed, that would itself be a rather bald way of putting it. Fantastic as it sounds, it would fit the case better to say that people would have been surprised to see hair growing on him; as surprised as if they had found hair growing on the bust39 of a Roman emperor. His tall figure was buttoned up in a tight-waisted fashion that rather accentuated40 his potential bulk, and he wore a red flower in his buttonhole. Of the two men walking behind one was also bald, but in a more partial and also a more premature42 fashion, for his drooping43 mustache was still yellow, and if his eyes were somewhat heavy it was with languor44 and not with age. It was Horne Fisher, and he was talking as easily and idly about everything as he always did. His companion was a more striking, and even more sinister45, figure, and he had the added importance of being Lord Bulmer's oldest and most intimate friend. He was generally known with a severe simplicity46 as Mr. Brain; but it was understood that he had been a judge and police official in India, and that he had enemies, who had represented his measures against crime as themselves almost criminal. He was a brown skeleton of a man with dark, deep, sunken eyes and a black mustache that hid the meaning of his mouth. Though he had the look of one wasted by some tropical disease, his movements were much more alert than those of his lounging companion.
"It's all settled," announced the lady, with great animation47, when they came within hailing distance. "You've all got to put on masquerade things and very likely skates as well, though the prince says they don't go with it; but we don't care about that. It's freezing already, and we don't often get such a chance in England."
"Even in India we don't exactly skate all the year round," observed
Mr. Brain.
"And even Italy is not primarily associated with ice," said the
Italian.
"Italy is primarily associated with ices," remarked Mr. Horne Fisher. "I mean with ice cream men. Most people in this country imagine that Italy is entirely populated with ice cream men and organ grinders. There certainly are a lot of them; perhaps they're an invading army in disguise."
"How do you know they are not the secret emissaries of our diplomacy?" asked the prince, with a slightly scornful smile. "An army of organ grinders might pick up hints, and their monkeys might pick up all sort of things."
"The organs are organized in fact," said the flippant Mr. Fisher.
"Well, I've known it pretty cold before now in Italy and even in
India, up on the Himalayan slopes. The ice on our own little round
Juliet Bray was an attractive lady with dark hair and eyebrows49 and dancing eyes, and there was a geniality51 and even generosity52 in her rather imperious ways. In most matters she could command her brother, though that nobleman, like many other men of vague ideas, was not without a touch of the bully53 when he was at bay. She could certainly command her guests, even to the extent of decking out the most respectable and reluctant of them with her mediaeval masquerade. And it really seemed as if she could command the elements also, like a witch. For the weather steadily hardened and sharpened; that night the ice of the lake, glimmering54 in the moonlight, was like a marble floor, and they had begun to dance and skate on it before it was dark.
Prior's Park, or, more properly, the surrounding district of Holinwall, was a country seat that had become a suburb; having once had only a dependent village at its doors, it now found outside all its doors the signals of the expansion of London. Mr. Haddow, who was engaged in historical researches both in the library and the locality, could find little assistance in the latter. He had already realized, from the documents, that Prior's Park had originally been something like Prior's Farm, named after some local figure, but the new social conditions were all against his tracing the story by its traditions. Had any of the real rustics55 remained, he would probably have found some lingering legend of Mr. Prior, however remote he might be. But the new nomadic56 population of clerks and artisans, constantly shifting their homes from one suburb to another, or their children from one school to another, could have no corporate57 continuity. They had all that forgetfulness of history that goes everywhere with the extension of education.
Nevertheless, when he came out of the library next morning and saw the wintry trees standing58 round the frozen pond like a black forest, he felt he might well have been far in the depths of the country. The old wall running round the park kept that inclosure itself still entirely rural and romantic, and one could easily imagine that the depths of that dark forest faded away indefinitely into distant vales and hills. The gray and black and silver of the wintry wood were all the more severe or somber59 as a contrast to the colored carnival60 groups that already stood on and around the frozen pool. For the house party had already flung themselves impatiently into fancy dress, and the lawyer, with his neat black suit and red hair, was the only modern figure among them.
"Aren't you going to dress up?" asked Juliet, indignantly shaking at him a horned and towering blue headdress of the fourteenth century which framed her face very becomingly, fantastic as it was. "Everybody here has to be in the Middle Ages. Even Mr. Brain has put on a sort of brown dressing61 gown and says he's a monk; and Mr. Fisher got hold of some old potato sacks in the kitchen and sewed them together; he's supposed to be a monk, too. As to the prince, he's perfectly62 glorious, in great crimson63 robes as a cardinal64. He looks as if he could poison everybody. You simply must be something."
"I will be something later in the day," he replied. "At present I am nothing but an antiquary and an attorney. I have to see your brother presently, about some legal business and also some local investigations65 he asked me to make. I must look a little like a steward66 when I give an account of my stewardship67."
"Oh, but my brother has dressed up!" cried the girl. "Very much so. No end, if I may say so. Why he's bearing down on you now in all his glory."
The noble lord was indeed marching toward them in a magnificent sixteenth-century costume of purple and gold, with a gold-hilted sword and a plumed68 cap, and manners to match. Indeed, there was something more than his usual expansiveness of bodily action in his appearance at that moment. It almost seemed, so to speak, that the plumes69 on his hat had gone to his head. He flapped his great, gold-lined cloak like the wings of a fairy king in a pantomime; he even drew his sword with a flourish and waved it about as he did his walking stick. In the light of after events there seemed to be something monstrous70 and ominous71 about that exuberance72, something of the spirit that is called fey. At the time it merely crossed a few people's minds that he might possibly be drunk.
As he strode toward his sister the first figure he passed was that of Leonard Crane, clad in Lincoln green, with the horn and baldrick and sword appropriate to Robin73 Hood74; for he was standing nearest to the lady, where, indeed, he might have been found during a disproportionate part of the time. He had displayed one of his buried talents in the matter of skating, and now that the skating was over seemed disposed to prolong the partnership75. The boisterous76 Bulmer playfully made a pass at him with his drawn77 sword, going forward with the lunge in the proper fencing fashion, and making a somewhat too familiar Shakespearean quotation78 about a rodent79 and a Venetian coin.
Probably in Crane also there was a subdued80 excitement just then; anyhow, in one flash he had drawn his own sword and parried; and then suddenly, to the surprise of everyone, Bulmer's weapon seemed to spring out of his hand into the air and rolled away on the ringing ice.
"Well, I never!" said the lady, as if with justifiable81 indignation.
"You never told me you could fence, too."
Bulmer put up his sword with an air rather bewildered than annoyed, which increased the impression of something irresponsible in his mood at the moment; then he turned rather abruptly82 to his lawyer, saying:
"We can settle up about the estate after dinner; I've missed nearly all the skating as it is, and I doubt if the ice will hold till to-morrow night. I think I shall get up early and have a spin by myself."
"You won't be disturbed with my company," said Horne Fisher, in his weary fashion. "If I have to begin the day with ice, in the American fashion, I prefer it in smaller quantities. But no early hours for me in December. The early bird catches the cold."
* * *
A considerable group of the skating party had consisted of the guests staying at the house, and the rest had tailed off in twos and threes some time before most of the guests began to retire for the night. Neighbors, always invited to Prior's Park on such occasions, went back to their own houses in motors or on foot; the legal and archeological gentleman had returned to the Inns of Court by a late train, to get a paper called for during his consultation85 with his client; and most of the other guests were drifting and lingering at various stages on their way up to bed. Horne Fisher, as if to deprive himself of any excuse for his refusal of early rising, had been the first to retire to his room; but, sleepy as he looked, he could not sleep. He had picked up from a table the book of antiquarian topography, in which Haddow had found his first hints about the origin of the local name, and, being a man with a quiet and quaint32 capacity for being interested in anything, he began to read it steadily, making notes now and then of details on which his previous reading left him with a certain doubt about his present conclusions. His room was the one nearest to the lake in the center of the woods, and was therefore the quietest, and none of the last echoes of the evening's festivity could reach him. He had followed carefully the argument which established the derivation from Mr. Prior's farm and the hole in the wall, and disposed of any fashionable fancy about monks86 and magic wells, when he began to be conscious of a noise audible in the frozen silence of the night. It was not a particularly loud noise, but it seemed to consist of a series of thuds or heavy blows, such as might be struck on a wooden door by a man seeking to enter. They were followed by something like a faint creak or crack, as if the obstacle had either been opened or had given way. He opened his own bedroom door and listened, but as he heard talk and laughter all over the lower floors, he had no reason to fear that a summons would be neglected or the house left without protection. He went to his open window, looking out over the frozen pond and the moonlit statue in the middle of their circle of darkling woods, and listened again. But silence had returned to that silent place, and, after straining his ears for a considerable time, he could hear nothing but the solitary87 hoot88 of a distant departing train. Then he reminded himself how many nameless noises can be heard by the wakeful during the most ordinary night, and shrugging his shoulders, went wearily to bed.
He awoke suddenly and sat up in bed with his ears filled, as with thunder, with the throbbing89 echoes of a rending90 cry. He remained rigid91 for a moment, and then sprang out of bed, throwing on the loose gown of sacking he had worn all day. He went first to the window, which was open, but covered with a thick curtain, so that his room was still completely dark; but when he tossed the curtain aside and put his head out, he saw that a gray and silver daybreak had already appeared behind the black woods that surrounded the little lake, and that was all that he did see. Though the sound had certainly come in through the open window from this direction, the whole scene was still and empty under the morning light as under the moonlight. Then the long, rather lackadaisical92 hand he had laid on a window sill gripped it tighter, as if to master a tremor93, and his peering blue eyes grew bleak94 with fear. It may seem that his emotion was exaggerated and needless, considering the effort of common sense by which he had conquered his nervousness about the noise on the previous night. But that had been a very different sort of noise. It might have been made by half a hundred things, from the chopping of wood to the breaking of bottles. There was only one thing in nature from which could come the sound that echoed through the dark house at daybreak. It was the awful articulate voice of man; and it was something worse, for he knew what man.
He knew also that it had been a shout for help. It seemed to him that he had heard the very word; but the word, short as it was, had been swallowed up, as if the man had been stifled95 or snatched away even as he spoke96. Only the mocking reverberations of it remained even in his memory, but he had no doubt of the original voice. He had no doubt that the great bull's voice of Francis Bray, Baron97 Bulmer, had been heard for the last time between the darkness and the lifting dawn.
How long he stood there he never knew, but he was startled into life by the first living thing that he saw stirring in that half-frozen landscape. Along the path beside the lake, and immediately under his window, a figure was walking slowly and softly, but with great composure—a stately figure in robes of a splendid scarlet99; it was the Italian prince, still in his cardinal's costume. Most of the company had indeed lived in their costumes for the last day or two, and Fisher himself had assumed his frock of sacking as a convenient dressing gown; but there seemed, nevertheless, something unusually finished and formal, in the way of an early bird, about this magnificent red cockatoo. It was as if the early bird had been up all night.
"What is the matter?" he called, sharply, leaning out of the window, and the Italian turned up his great yellow face like a mask of brass100.
"We had better discuss it downstairs," said Prince Borodino.
Fisher ran downstairs, and encountered the great, red-robed figure entering the doorway101 and blocking the entrance with his bulk.
"Did you hear that cry?" demanded Fisher.
"I heard a noise and I came out," answered the diplomatist, and his face was too dark in the shadow for its expression to be read.
"It was Bulmer's voice," insisted Fisher. "I'll swear it was
Bulmer's voice."
"Did you know him well?" asked the other.
The question seemed irrelevant102, though it was not illogical, and
Bulmer only slightly.
"Nobody seems to have known him well," continued the Italian, in level tones. "Nobody except that man Brain. Brain is rather older than Bulmer, but I fancy they shared a good many secrets."
Fisher moved abruptly, as if waking from a momentary104 trance, and said, in a new and more vigorous voice, "But look here, hadn't we better get outside and see if anything has happened."
"The ice seems to be thawing," said the other, almost with indifference105.
When they emerged from the house, dark stains and stars in the gray field of ice did indeed indicate that the frost was breaking up, as their host had prophesied106 the day before, and the very memory of yesterday brought back the mystery of to-day.
"He knew there would be a thaw," observed the prince. "He went out skating quite early on purpose. Did he call out because he landed in the water, do you think?"
Fisher looked puzzled. "Bulmer was the last man to bellow107 like that because he got his boots wet. And that's all he could do here; the water would hardly come up to the calf108 of a man of his size. You can see the flat weeds on the floor of the lake, as if it were through a thin pane109 of glass. No, if Bulmer had only broken the ice he wouldn't have said much at the moment, though possibly a good deal afterward110. We should have found him stamping and damning up and down this path, and calling for clean boots."
"Let us hope we shall find him as happily employed," remarked the diplomatist. "In that case the voice must have come out of the wood."
"I'll swear it didn't come out of the house," said Fisher; and the two disappeared together into the twilight of wintry trees.
The plantation111 stood dark against the fiery112 colors of sunrise, a black fringe having that feathery appearance which makes trees when they are bare the very reverse of rugged. Hours and hours afterward, when the same dense113, but delicate, margin114 was dark against the greenish colors opposite the sunset, the search thus begun at sunrise had not come to an end. By successive stages, and to slowly gathering115 groups of the company, it became apparent that the most extraordinary of all gaps had appeared in the party; the guests could find no trace of their host anywhere. The servants reported that his bed had been slept in and his skates and his fancy costume were gone, as if he had risen early for the purpose he had himself avowed116. But from the top of the house to the bottom, from the walls round the park to the pond in the center, there was no trace of Lord Bulmer, dead or alive. Horne Fisher realized that a chilling premonition had already prevented him from expecting to find the man alive. But his bald brow was wrinkled over an entirely new and unnatural117 problem, in not finding the man at all.
He considered the possibility of Bulmer having gone off of his own accord, for some reason; but after fully5 weighing it he finally dismissed it. It was inconsistent with the unmistakable voice heard at daybreak, and with many other practical obstacles. There was only one gateway118 in the ancient and lofty wall round the small park; the lodge119 keeper kept it locked till late in the morning, and the lodge keeper had seen no one pass. Fisher was fairly sure that he had before him a mathematical problem in an inclosed space. His instinct had been from the first so attuned120 to the tragedy that it would have been almost a relief to him to find the corpse121. He would have been grieved, but not horrified122, to come on the nobleman's body dangling123 from one of his own trees as from a gibbet, or floating in his own pool like a pallid124 weed. What horrified him was to find nothing.
He soon become conscious that he was not alone even in his most individual and isolated125 experiments. He often found a figure following him like his shadow, in silent and almost secret clearings in the plantation or outlying nooks and corners of the old wall. The dark-mustached mouth was as mute as the deep eyes were mobile, darting126 incessantly127 hither and thither128, but it was clear that Brain of the Indian police had taken up the trail like an old hunter after a tiger. Seeing that he was the only personal friend of the vanished man, this seemed natural enough, and Fisher resolved to deal frankly129 with him.
"This silence is rather a social strain," he said. "May I break the ice by talking about the weather?—which, by the way, has already broken the ice. I know that breaking the ice might be a rather melancholy metaphor130 in this case."
"I don't think so," replied Brain, shortly. "I don't fancy the ice had much to do with it. I don't see how it could."
"What would you propose doing?" asked Fisher.
"Well, we've sent for the authorities, of course, but I hope to find something out before they come," replied the Anglo-Indian. "I can't say I have much hope from police methods in this country. Too much red tape, habeas corpus and that sort of thing. What we want is to see that nobody bolts; the nearest we could get to it would be to collect the company and count them, so to speak. Nobody's left lately, except that lawyer who was poking131 about for antiquities."
"Oh, he's out of it; he left last night," answered the other. "Eight hours after Bulmer's chauffeur132 saw his lawyer off by the train I heard Bulmer's own voice as plain as I hear yours now."
"I suppose you don't believe in spirits?" said the man from India. After a pause he added: "There's somebody else I should like to find, before we go after a fellow with an alibi133 in the Inner Temple. What's become of that fellow in green—the architect dressed up as a forester? I haven't seem him about."
Mr. Brain managed to secure his assembly of all the distracted company before the arrival of the police. But when he first began to comment once more on the young architect's delay in putting in an appearance, he found himself in the presence of a minor mystery, and a psychological development of an entirely unexpected kind.
Juliet Bray had confronted the catastrophe134 of her brother's disappearance135 with a somber stoicism in which there was, perhaps, more paralysis136 than pain; but when the other question came to the surface she was both agitated137 and angry.
"We don't want to jump to any conclusions about anybody," Brain was saying in his staccato style. "But we should like to know a little more about Mr. Crane. Nobody seems to know much about him, or where he comes from. And it seems a sort of coincidence that yesterday he actually crossed swords with poor Bulmer, and could have stuck him, too, since he showed himself the better swordsman. Of course, that may be an accident and couldn't possibly be called a case against anybody; but then we haven't the means to make a real case against anybody. Till the police come we are only a pack of very amateur sleuthhounds."
"And I think you're a pack of snobs," said Juliet. "Because Mr. Crane is a genius who's made his own way, you try to suggest he's a murderer without daring to say so. Because he wore a toy sword and happened to know how to use it, you want us to believe he used it like a bloodthirsty maniac3 for no reason in the world. And because he could have hit my brother and didn't, you deduce that he did. That's the sort of way you argue. And as for his having disappeared, you're wrong in that as you are in everything else, for here he comes."
And, indeed, the green figure of the fictitious138 Robin Hood slowly detached itself from the gray background of the trees, and came toward them as she spoke.
He approached the group slowly, but with composure; but he was decidedly pale, and the eyes of Brain and Fisher had already taken in one detail of the green-clad figure more clearly than all the rest. The horn still swung from his baldrick, but the sword was gone.
Rather to the surprise of the company, Brain did not follow up the question thus suggested; but, while retaining an air of leading the inquiry139, had also an appearance of changing the subject.
"Now we're all assembled," he observed, quietly, "there is a question I want to ask to begin with. Did anybody here actually see Lord Bulmer this morning?"
Leonard Crane turned his pale face round the circle of faces till he came to Juliet's; then he compressed his lips a little and said:
"Yes, I saw him."
"Was he alive and well?" asked Brain, quickly. "How was he dressed?"
"He appeared exceedingly well," replied Crane, with a curious intonation140. "He was dressed as he was yesterday, in that purple costume copied from the portrait of his ancestor in the sixteenth century. He had his skates in his hand."
"And his sword at his side, I suppose," added the questioner. "Where is your own sword, Mr. Crane?"
"I threw it away."
In the singular silence that ensued, the train of thought in many minds became involuntarily a series of colored pictures.
They had grown used to their fanciful garments looking more gay and gorgeous against the dark gray and streaky silver of the forest, so that the moving figures glowed like stained-glass saints walking. The effect had been more fitting because so many of them had idly parodied141 pontifical142 or monastic dress. But the most arresting attitude that remained in their memories had been anything but merely monastic; that of the moment when the figure in bright green and the other in vivid violet had for a moment made a silver cross of their crossing swords. Even when it was a jest it had been something of a drama; and it was a strange and sinister thought that in the gray daybreak the same figures in the same posture143 might have been repeated as a tragedy.
"Did you quarrel with him?" asked Brain, suddenly.
"Yes," replied the immovable man in green. "Or he quarreled with me."
"Why did he quarrel with you?" asked the investigator144; and Leonard
Crane made no reply.
Horne Fisher, curiously145 enough, had only given half his attention to this crucial cross-examination. His heavy-lidded eyes had languidly followed the figure of Prince Borodino, who at this stage had strolled away toward the fringe of the wood; and, after a pause, as of meditation146, had disappeared into the darkness of the trees.
He was recalled from his irrelevance147 by the voice of Juliet Bray, which rang out with an altogether new note of decision:
"If that is the difficulty, it had best be cleared up. I am engaged to Mr. Crane, and when we told my brother he did not approve of it; that is all."
Neither Brain nor Fisher exhibited any surprise, but the former added, quietly:
"Except, I suppose, that he and your brother went off into the wood to discuss it, where Mr. Crane mislaid his sword, not to mention his companion."
"And may I ask," inquired Crane, with a certain flicker148 of mockery passing over his pallid features, "what I am supposed to have done with either of them? Let us adopt the cheerful thesis that I am a murderer; it has yet to be shown that I am a magician. If I ran your unfortunate friend through the body, what did I do with the body? Did I have it carried away by seven flying dragons, or was it merely a trifling149 matter of turning it into a milk-white hind41?"
"It is no occasion for sneering," said the Anglo-Indian judge, with abrupt83 authority. "It doesn't make it look better for you that you can joke about the loss."
Fisher's dreamy, and even dreary151, eye was still on the edge of the wood behind, and he became conscious of masses of dark red, like a stormy sunset cloud, glowing through the gray network of the thin trees, and the prince in his cardinal's robes reemerged on to the pathway. Brain had had half a notion that the prince might have gone to look for the lost rapier. But when he reappeared he was carrying in his hand, not a sword, but an ax.
The incongruity152 between the masquerade and the mystery had created a curious psychological atmosphere. At first they had all felt horribly ashamed at being caught in the foolish disguises of a festival, by an event that had only too much the character of a funeral. Many of them would have already gone back and dressed in clothes that were more funereal154 or at least more formal. But somehow at the moment this seemed like a second masquerade, more artificial and frivolous155 than the first. And as they reconciled themselves to their ridiculous trappings, a curious sensation had come over some of them, notably156 over the more sensitive, like Crane and Fisher and Juliet, but in some degree over everybody except the practical Mr. Brain. It was almost as if they were the ghosts of their own ancestors haunting that dark wood and dismal157 lake, and playing some old part that they only half remembered. The movements of those colored figures seemed to mean something that had been settled long before, like a silent heraldry. Acts, attitudes, external objects, were accepted as an allegory even without the key; and they knew when a crisis had come, when they did not know what it was. And somehow they knew subconsciously158 that the whole tale had taken a new and terrible turn, when they saw the prince stand in the gap of the gaunt trees, in his robes of angry crimson and with his lowering face of bronze, bearing in his hand a new shape of death. They could not have named a reason, but the two swords seemed indeed to have become toy swords and the whole tale of them broken and tossed away like a toy. Borodino looked like the Old World headsman, clad in terrible red, and carrying the ax for the execution of the criminal. And the criminal was not Crane.
Mr. Brain of the Indian police was glaring at the new object, and it was a moment or two before he spoke, harshly and almost hoarsely159.
"What are you doing with that?" he asked. "Seems to be a woodman's chopper."
"A natural association of ideas," observed Horne Fisher. "If you meet a cat in a wood you think it's a wildcat, though it may have just strolled from the drawing-room sofa. As a matter of fact, I happen to know that is not the woodman's chopper. It's the kitchen chopper, or meat ax, or something like that, that somebody has thrown away in the wood. I saw it in the kitchen myself when I was getting the potato sacks with which I reconstructed a mediaeval hermit160."
"All the same, it is not without interest," remarked the prince, holding out the instrument to Fisher, who took it and examined it carefully. "A butcher's cleaver161 that has done butcher's work."
Brain was staring at the dull blue gleam of the ax head with fierce and fascinated eyes. "I don't understand you," he said. "There is no—there are no marks on it."
"It has shed no blood," answered Fisher, "but for all that it has committed a crime. This is as near as the criminal came to the crime when he committed it."
"What do you mean?"
"He was not there when he did it," explained Fisher. "It's a poor sort of murderer who can't murder people when he isn't there."
"You seem to be talking merely for the sake of mystification," said Brain. "If you have any practical advice to give you might as well make it intelligible163."
"The only practical advice I can suggest," said Fisher, thoughtfully, "is a little research into local topography and nomenclature. They say there used to be a Mr. Prior, who had a farm in this neighborhood. I think some details about the domestic life of the late Mr. Prior would throw a light on this terrible business."
"And you have nothing more immediate98 than your topography to offer," said Brain, with a sneer150, "to help me avenge164 my friend?"
"Well," said Fisher, "I should find out the truth about the Hole in the Wall."
* * *
That night, at the close of a stormy twilight and under a strong west wind that followed the breaking of the frost, Leonard Crane was wending his way in a wild rotatory walk round and round the high, continuous wall that inclosed the little wood. He was driven by a desperate idea of solving for himself the riddle165 that had clouded his reputation and already even threatened his liberty. The police authorities, now in charge of the inquiry, had not arrested him, but he knew well enough that if he tried to move far afield he would be instantly arrested. Horne Fisher's fragmentary hints, though he had refused to expand them as yet, had stirred the artistic temperament of the architect to a sort of wild analysis, and he was resolved to read the hieroglyph166 upside down and every way until it made sense. If it was something connected with a hole in the wall he would find the hole in the wall; but, as a matter of fact, he was unable to find the faintest crack in the wall. His professional knowledge told him that the masonry167 was all of one workmanship and one date, and, except for the regular entrance, which threw no light on the mystery, he found nothing suggesting any sort of hiding place or means of escape. Walking a narrow path between the winding168 wall and the wild eastward169 bend and sweep of the gray and feathery trees, seeing shifting gleams of a lost sunset winking170 almost like lightning as the clouds of tempest scudded171 across the sky and mingling172 with the first faint blue light from a slowly strengthened moon behind him, he began to feel his head going round as his heels were going round and round the blind recurrent barrier. He had thoughts on the border of thought; fancies about a fourth dimension which was itself a hole to hide anything, of seeing everything from a new angle out of a new window in the senses; or of some mystical light and transparency, like the new rays of chemistry, in which he could see Bulmer's body, horrible and glaring, floating in a lurid173 halo over the woods and the wall. He was haunted also with the hint, which somehow seemed to be equally horrifying174, that it all had something to do with Mr. Prior. There seemed even to be something creepy in the fact that he was always respectfully referred to as Mr. Prior, and that it was in the domestic life of the dead farmer that he had been bidden to seek the seed of these dreadful things. As a matter of fact, he had found that no local inquiries175 had revealed anything at all about the Prior family.
The moonlight had broadened and brightened, the wind had driven off the clouds and itself died fitfully away, when he came round again to the artificial lake in front of the house. For some reason it looked a very artificial lake; indeed, the whole scene was like a classical landscape with a touch of Watteau; the Palladian facade176 of the house pale in the moon, and the same silver touching177 the very pagan and naked marble nymph in the middle of the pond. Rather to his surprise, he found another figure there beside the statue, sitting almost equally motionless; and the same silver pencil traced the wrinkled brow and patient face of Horne Fisher, still dressed as a hermit and apparently178 practicing something of the solitude179 of a hermit. Nevertheless, he looked up at Leonard Crane and smiled, almost as if he had expected him.
"Look here," said Crane, planting himself in front of him, "can you tell me anything about this business?"
"I shall soon have to tell everybody everything about it," replied Fisher, "but I've no objection to telling you something first. But, to begin with, will you tell me something? What really happened when you met Bulmer this morning? You did throw away your sword, but you didn't kill him."
"I didn't kill him because I threw away my sword," said the other.
"I did it on purpose—or I'm not sure what might have happened."
After a pause he went on, quietly: "The late Lord Bulmer was a very breezy gentleman, extremely breezy. He was very genial50 with his inferiors, and would have his lawyer and his architect staying in his house for all sorts of holidays and amusements. But there was another side to him, which they found out when they tried to be his equals. When I told him that his sister and I were engaged, something happened which I simply can't and won't describe. It seemed to me like some monstrous upheaval180 of madness. But I suppose the truth is painfully simple. There is such a thing as the coarseness of a gentleman. And it is the most horrible thing in humanity."
"I know," said Fisher. "The Renaissance181 nobles of the Tudor time were like that."
"It is odd that you should say that," Crane went on. "For while we were talking there came on me a curious feeling that we were repeating some scene of the past, and that I was really some outlaw182, found in the woods like Robin Hood, and that he had really stepped in all his plumes and purple out of the picture frame of the ancestral portrait. Anyhow, he was the man in possession, and he neither feared God nor regarded man. I defied him, of course, and walked away. I might really have killed him if I had not walked away."
"Yes," said Fisher, nodding, "his ancestor was in possession and he was in possession, and this is the end of the story. It all fits in."
"Fits in with what?" cried his companion, with sudden impatience183. "I can't make head or tail of it. You tell me to look for the secret in the hole in the wall, but I can't find any hole in the wall."
"There isn't any," said Fisher. "That's the secret." After reflecting a moment, he added: "Unless you call it a hole in the wall of the world. Look here; I'll tell you if you like, but I'm afraid it involves an introduction. You've got to understand one of the tricks of the modern mind, a tendency that most people obey without noticing it. In the village or suburb outside there's an inn with the sign of St. George and the Dragon. Now suppose I went about telling everybody that this was only a corruption184 of King George and the Dragoon. Scores of people would believe it, without any inquiry, from a vague feeling that it's probable because it's prosaic185. It turns something romantic and legendary186 into something recent and ordinary. And that somehow makes it sound rational, though it is unsupported by reason. Of course some people would have the sense to remember having seen St. George in old Italian pictures and French romances, but a good many wouldn't think about it at all. They would just swallow the skepticism because it was skepticism. Modern intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything without authority. That's exactly what has happened here.
"When some critic or other chose to say that Prior's Park was not a priory, but was named after some quite modern man named Prior, nobody really tested the theory at all. It never occurred to anybody repeating the story to ask if there was any Mr. Prior, if anybody had ever seen him or heard of him. As a matter of fact, it was a priory, and shared the fate of most priories—that is, the Tudor gentleman with the plumes simply stole it by brute187 force and turned it into his own private house; he did worse things, as you shall hear. But the point here is that this is how the trick works, and the trick works in the same way in the other part of the tale. The name of this district is printed Holinwall in all the best maps produced by the scholars; and they allude188 lightly, not without a smile, to the fact that it was pronounced Holiwell by the most ignorant and old-fashioned of the poor. But it is spelled wrong and pronounced right."
"Do you mean to say," asked Crane, quickly, "that there really was a well?"
"There is a well," said Fisher, "and the truth lies at the bottom of it."
"The well is under that water somewhere," he said, "and this is not the first tragedy connected with it. The founder190 of this house did something which his fellow ruffians very seldom did; something that had to be hushed up even in the anarchy191 of the pillage192 of the monasteries193. The well was connected with the miracles of some saint, and the last prior that guarded it was something like a saint himself; certainly he was something very like a martyr194. He defied the new owner and dared him to pollute the place, till the noble, in a fury, stabbed him and flung his body into the well, whither, after four hundred years, it has been followed by an heir of the usurper195, clad in the same purple and walking the world with the same pride."
"But how did it happen," demanded Crane, "that for the first time
Bulmer fell in at that particular spot?"
"Because the ice was only loosened at that particular spot, by the only man who knew it," answered Horne Fisher. "It was cracked deliberately196, with the kitchen chopper, at that special place; and I myself heard the hammering and did not understand it. The place had been covered with an artificial lake, if only because the whole truth had to be covered with an artificial legend. But don't you see that it is exactly what those pagan nobles would have done, to desecrate197 it with a sort of heathen goddess, as the Roman Emperor built a temple to Venus on the Holy Sepulchre. But the truth could still be traced out, by any scholarly man determined198 to trace it. And this man was determined to trace it."
"What man?" asked the other, with a shadow of the answer in his mind.
"The only man who has an alibi," replied Fisher. "James Haddow, the antiquarian lawyer, left the night before the fatality199, but he left that black star of death on the ice. He left abruptly, having previously200 proposed to stay; probably, I think, after an ugly scene with Bulmer, at their legal interview. As you know yourself, Bulmer could make a man feel pretty murderous, and I rather fancy the lawyer had himself irregularities to confess, and was in danger of exposure by his client. But it's my reading of human nature that a man will cheat in his trade, but not in his hobby. Haddow may have been a dishonest lawyer, but he couldn't help being an honest antiquary. When he got on the track of the truth about the Holy Well he had to follow it up; he was not to be bamboozled201 with newspaper anecdotes202 about Mr. Prior and a hole in the wall; he found out everything, even to the exact location of the well, and he was rewarded, if being a successful assassin can be regarded as a reward."
"And how did you get on the track of all this hidden history?" asked the young architect.
A cloud came across the brow of Horne Fisher. "I knew only too much about it already," he said, "and, after all, it's shameful203 for me to be speaking lightly of poor Bulmer, who has paid his penalty; but the rest of us haven't. I dare say every cigar I smoke and every liqueur I drink comes directly or indirectly204 from the harrying205 of the holy places and the persecution206 of the poor. After all, it needs very little poking about in the past to find that hole in the wall, that great breach207 in the defenses of English history. It lies just under the surface of a thin sheet of sham153 information and instruction, just as the black and blood-stained well lies just under that floor of shallow water and flat weeds. Oh, the ice is thin, but it bears; it is strong enough to support us when we dress up as monks and dance on it, in mockery of the dear, quaint old Middle Ages. They told me I must put on fancy dress; so I did put on fancy dress, according to my own taste and fancy. I put on the only costume I think fit for a man who has inherited the position of a gentleman, and yet has not entirely lost the feelings of one."
"Sackcloth," he said; "and I would wear the ashes as well if they would stay on my bald head."
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1
hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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2
reverent
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| adj.恭敬的，虔诚的 | |
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3
maniac
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| n.精神癫狂的人；疯子 | |
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4
abounding
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| adj.丰富的，大量的v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的现在分词 ) | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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6
romp
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| n.欢闹；v.嬉闹玩笑 | |
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7
rambling
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| adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的 | |
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8
ornamented
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| adj.花式字体的v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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9
antiquated
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| adj.陈旧的，过时的 | |
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10
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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11
den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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12
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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13
solicitor
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| n.初级律师，事务律师 | |
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14
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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15
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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16
affectedly
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17
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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18
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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19
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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20
disclaim
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| v.放弃权利，拒绝承认 | |
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21
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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23
rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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monk
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| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
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authoritative
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| adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的 | |
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farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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27
landmark
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| n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标 | |
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28
slurred
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| 含糊地说出( slur的过去式和过去分词 )； 含糊地发…的声； 侮辱； 连唱 | |
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29
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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31
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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32
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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33
antiquities
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| n.古老( antiquity的名词复数 )；古迹；古人们；古代的风俗习惯 | |
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34
bray
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| n.驴叫声, 喇叭声；v.驴叫 | |
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35
eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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37
diplomacy
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| n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕 | |
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38
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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39
bust
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| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
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40
accentuated
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| v.重读( accentuate的过去式和过去分词 )；使突出；使恶化；加重音符号于 | |
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41
hind
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| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
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42
premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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43
drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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44
languor
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| n.无精力，倦怠 | |
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45
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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46
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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47
animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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48
cozy
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| adj.亲如手足的，密切的，暖和舒服的 | |
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49
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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50
genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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51
geniality
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| n.和蔼，诚恳；愉快 | |
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52
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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53
bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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54
glimmering
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| n.微光，隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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55
rustics
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| n.有农村或村民特色的( rustic的名词复数 )；粗野的；不雅的；用粗糙的木材或树枝制作的 | |
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56
nomadic
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| adj.流浪的；游牧的 | |
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57
corporate
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| adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的 | |
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58
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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59
somber
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| adj.昏暗的，阴天的，阴森的，忧郁的 | |
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60
carnival
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| n.嘉年华会，狂欢，狂欢节，巡回表演 | |
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61
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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62
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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63
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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64
cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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65
investigations
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| （正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究 | |
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66
steward
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| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
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67
stewardship
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| n. n. 管理工作；管事人的职位及职责 | |
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68
plumed
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| 饰有羽毛的 | |
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69
plumes
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| 羽毛( plume的名词复数 )； 羽毛饰； 羽毛状物； 升上空中的羽状物 | |
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70
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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71
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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72
exuberance
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| n.丰富；繁荣 | |
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73
robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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74
hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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75
partnership
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| n.合作关系，伙伴关系 | |
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76
boisterous
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| adj.喧闹的，欢闹的 | |
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77
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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78
quotation
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| n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情 | |
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79
rodent
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| n.啮齿动物；adj.啮齿目的 | |
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80
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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81
justifiable
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| adj.有理由的，无可非议的 | |
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82
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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83
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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84
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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85
consultation
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| n.咨询；商量；商议；会议 | |
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86
monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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87
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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88
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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89
throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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90
rending
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| v.撕碎( rend的现在分词 )；分裂；（因愤怒、痛苦等而）揪扯（衣服或头发等）；（声音等）刺破 | |
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91
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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92
lackadaisical
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| adj.无精打采的，无兴趣的；adv.无精打采地，不决断地 | |
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93
tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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94
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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95
stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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96
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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97
baron
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| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
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98
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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99
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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100
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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101
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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102
irrelevant
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| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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103
random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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104
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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105
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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106
prophesied
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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107
bellow
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| v.吼叫，怒吼；大声发出，大声喝道 | |
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108
calf
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| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
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109
pane
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| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
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110
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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111
plantation
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| n.种植园，大农场 | |
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112
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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113
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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114
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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115
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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116
avowed
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| adj.公开声明的，承认的v.公开声明，承认( avow的过去式和过去分词) | |
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117
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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118
gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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119
lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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120
attuned
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| v.使协调( attune的过去式和过去分词 )；调音 | |
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121
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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122
horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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123
dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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124
pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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125
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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126
darting
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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127
incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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128
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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129
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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130
metaphor
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| n.隐喻，暗喻 | |
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131
poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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132
chauffeur
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| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
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133
alibi
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| n.某人当时不在犯罪现场的申辩或证明；借口 | |
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134
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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135
disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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136
paralysis
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| n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症) | |
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137
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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138
fictitious
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| adj.虚构的，假设的；空头的 | |
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139
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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140
intonation
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| n.语调，声调；发声 | |
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141
parodied
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| v.滑稽地模仿，拙劣地模仿( parody的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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142
pontifical
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| adj.自以为是的，武断的 | |
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143
posture
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| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
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144
investigator
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| n.研究者，调查者，审查者 | |
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145
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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146
meditation
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| n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录 | |
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147
irrelevance
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| n.无关紧要；不相关；不相关的事物 | |
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148
flicker
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| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
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149
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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150
sneer
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| v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语 | |
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151
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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152
incongruity
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| n.不协调，不一致 | |
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153
sham
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| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
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154
funereal
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| adj.悲哀的；送葬的 | |
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155
frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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156
notably
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| adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地 | |
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157
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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158
subconsciously
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| ad.下意识地，潜意识地 | |
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159
hoarsely
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| adv.嘶哑地 | |
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160
hermit
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| n.隐士，修道者；隐居 | |
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161
cleaver
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| n.切肉刀 | |
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162
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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163
intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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164
avenge
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| v.为...复仇，为...报仇 | |
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165
riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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166
hieroglyph
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| n.象形文字， 图画文字 | |
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167
masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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168
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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169
eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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170
winking
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| n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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171
scudded
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| v.（尤指船、舰或云彩）笔直、高速而平稳地移动( scud的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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172
mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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173
lurid
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| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
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174
horrifying
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| a.令人震惊的，使人毛骨悚然的 | |
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175
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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176
facade
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| n.(建筑物的)正面，临街正面；外表 | |
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177
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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178
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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179
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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180
upheaval
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| n.胀起，(地壳)的隆起；剧变，动乱 | |
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181
renaissance
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| n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴 | |
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182
outlaw
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| n.歹徒，亡命之徒；vt.宣布…为不合法 | |
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183
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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184
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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185
prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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186
legendary
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| adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学） | |
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187
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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188
allude
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| v.提及，暗指 | |
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189
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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190
Founder
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| n.创始者，缔造者 | |
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191
anarchy
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| n.无政府状态；社会秩序混乱，无秩序 | |
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192
pillage
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| v.抢劫；掠夺；n.抢劫，掠夺；掠夺物 | |
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193
monasteries
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| 修道院( monastery的名词复数 ) | |
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194
martyr
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| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
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195
usurper
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| n. 篡夺者, 僭取者 | |
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196
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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197
desecrate
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| v.供俗用，亵渎，污辱 | |
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198
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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199
fatality
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| n.不幸，灾祸，天命 | |
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200
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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201
bamboozled
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| v.欺骗，使迷惑( bamboozle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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202
anecdotes
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| n.掌故，趣闻，轶事( anecdote的名词复数 ) | |
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203
shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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204
indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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205
harrying
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| v.使苦恼( harry的现在分词 )；不断烦扰；一再袭击；侵扰 | |
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206
persecution
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| n. 迫害,烦扰 | |
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207
breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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208
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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