The train, an express, seemed to crawl like a tortoise, but the way I felt I guess the flight of an aëroplane would have been slow. I had hideous3 fears that he might give us the slip, but O'Mally was confident. One of his men had got a lead on Barker through a vendor4 of newspapers, from whom the capitalist twice in the last week had purchased the big New York dailies. It had taken several days to locate his place of hiding—a quiet boarding house far removed from the center of the city—which was now under surveillance. As we swung through the night, shut close in a smoke-filled compartment5, we speculated as to whether he would try and throw a bluff6 or see the game was up and tell the truth.
At the station O'Mally's man met us and the four of us piled into a taxi, and started on a run across town. It was moonlight, and going down those quiet streets, lined with big houses and then with little houses—still, dwindling7 vistas8 sleeping in the silver radiance—seemed to me the longest drive I'd ever taken in my life. As we sped the detective gave us further particulars. By his instructions the newsstand man, who left the morning papers at the boarding house, had got into communication with the servant, a colored girl. From her he had learnt that Barker—he passed under the name of Joseph Sammis—had been away for twenty-four hours and had come back that morning so ill that a doctor had been called in. The doctor had said the man's heart was weak, and that his condition looked like the result of strain or shock. Questioned further the girl had said he was "A pleasant, civil-spoken old gentleman, giving no trouble to anybody." He went out very little, sitting in his room most of the time reading the papers. He received no mail there, but that he did get letters she had found out, as she had seen one on his table addressed to the General Delivery.
The house was on a street, quiet and deserted9 at this early hour, one of a row all built alike. As we climbed out of the taxi the moon was bright, the shadows lying like black velvet10 across the lonely roadway. On the opposite side, loitering slow, was a man, who, raising a hand to his hat, passed on into the darkness along the area railings. Though it was only a little after nine, many of the houses showed the blankness of unlit windows, but in the place where we had stopped a fan-light over the door glowed in a yellow semicircle.
As the taxi moved off we three—O'Mally's detective slipped away into the shadow like a ghost—walked up a little path to the front door where I pulled an old-fashioned bell handle. I could hear the sound go jingling11 through the hall, loud and cracked, and then steps, languid and dragging, come from somewhere in the rear. I was to act as spokesman, my cue being to ask for Mr. Sammis on a matter of urgent business.
The door was opened by the colored girl, who looked at us stupidly and then said she'd call Miss Graves, the landlady12, as she didn't think anyone could see Mr. Sammis.
Standing13 back from the door she let us into a hall with a hatrack on one side and a flight of stairs going up at the back. The light was dim, coming from a globe held aloft by a figure that crowned the newel post. The paper on the walls, some dark striped pattern, seemed to absorb what little radiance there was and the whole place smelled musty and was as quiet as a church.
The colored girl had disappeared down a long passage and presently a door opened back there and a woman came out, tall and thin, in a skimpy black dress. She approached us as we stood in a group by the hatrack, leaning forward near-sightedly and blinking at us through silver-rimmed spectacles.
"My maid says you want to see Mr. Sammis," she said, in an unamiable voice.
"Yes," I answered. "We've come from New York and it's imperative14 we see him this evening."
"But you can't," she snapped. "He's sick. The doctor says he mustn't be disturbed."
Talking it over afterward15 we all confessed that we were seized by the same idea—that this lanky16 old spinster might be in the game and Barker's illness was a fake. Feeling as I did I was ready to leap forward, grab her, and lock her in her own parlor17 while the others chased up the stairs. I could sense the slight, uneasy stir of the two men beside me, and I tried to inject a determination into my voice, that while it was civil was also informing:
"Can't you give me a message?" she demurred19, squinting20 her eyes up behind the glasses. "I'll see that it's delivered in the morning."
"No, Madam. This is important and can't wait. We won't be long, we only have to consult with him for a few minutes."
She gave a shrug21 as much as to say, "Well, this is your affair!" and, drawing back, pointed22 to the stairs.
"He's up there, fourth floor front, second door to your left."
To each of us the suspicion that she was in with Barker had grown with every minute. The idea once lodged23 in our minds, possessed24 them, and we went up those stairs, slow at first, and then, as we got out of earshot, faster and faster. It was a run on the second flight and a gallop25 on the third. On this landing there was no gas lit, but a window at the end of the passage let in a square of moonlight that lay bright on the floor and showed us the hall's dim length and the outlines of closed doors.
It was the second of these, on the left-hand side, and creeping toward it we stood for a moment getting our wind. The place was very cold, as if a window was open, and there was not a sound. Standing by the door O'Mally knocked softly. There was no answer.
In that half-lit passage, chilled with the icy breath of the winter night and held in a strange stillness, I was seized by a grisly sense of impending26 horror. If I'd been a small boy my teeth would have begun to chatter27. At thirty years of age that doesn't happen, but I doubt whether anyone whose body was supplied with an ordinarily active nervous system would not have felt something sinister28 in that cold, dark place, in the silence behind that close-shut door.
O'Mally knocked again and again; there was no answer.
"Try it," I whispered and the detective turned the handle.
"Locked," he breathed back, then—"Stand away there. I'm going to break it. There's something wrong here."
He turned sideways, bracing29 his shoulder against the door. There was a cracking sound, and the lock, embedded30 in old soft wood, gave way, the door swinging in with O'Mally hanging to the handle.
The room was unlit but for the silver moonlight that came from the window, uncurtained and open. At that sight the same thought seized the three of us—the man was gone—and O'Mally, fumbling31 in his pocket for matches, broke into furious profanity.
I had a box and as I dug round for it, took a look about, and saw the shapes of a chair with garments hanging over it, an open desk, and, against the opposite wall, the bed. It was only a pale oblong, and looked irregular, as if the clothes were heaped on it as the man had thrown them back. I could have joined O'Mally in his swearing. Gone—when our fingers were closing on him! Then I found the matches and the gas burst out over our heads.
My eyes were on the bed and O'Mally's must have been, for simultaneously32 I gave an exclamation33 and he leaped forward. There, asleep, under the covers lay a man. Quick as a flash of lightning the detective was beside him, bending to look close at the face, then he drew back with a sound—a cry of amazement34, disbelief—and pulling off the bed clothes laid his hand on the sleeper's chest.
Babbitts and I made a rush for the bed, I to the head, where I leaned low to make sure, staring into the gray, pale face with its prominent nose and sunken eyes. Then it was my turn to cry out, to stagger back, looking from one man to the other, aghast at what I'd seen:
"It's not Barker at all."
For a moment we stared at one another, jaws36 fallen, eyes stony37. Not a word came from one of us, the silence broken by the hissing38 rush of the gas turned up full cock in a sputtering39 ribbon of flame. I came to myself first, turned from them back to the dead face, its marble calm in strange contrast to the stunned40 consternation41 of the living faces.
"It's not he," I repeated. "I've often seen him. It's not the man."
"How do I know—Sammis, I suppose. It's like him—the nose, the eyes and the eyebrows44, and the mustache. But," I looked at them, gazing like two stupefied animals at the head on the pillow, "it's not Johnston Barker."
O'Mally, with a groan45 of baffled desperation, fell into a chair, his hands hanging over the arms, his feet limp on the floor before him. Babbitts stood paralyzed, leaning on the foot of the bed. It was an extraordinary situation—three live men, hot on the chase of a fourth and in the moment of victory faced by the most inscrutable and solemn thing that life holds—a dead man. We couldn't get over it, couldn't seem to think or act, grouped round the bed with the whistling rush of the gas loud on the silence.
Then suddenly, another and more distant sound broke up our stupefaction. Someone was coming up the stairs. It jerked us back to life, and I made a run for the door, O'Mally's whisper hissing after me:
"If it's that woman, keep her away for a while. I want to go over the room."
It was Miss Graves, ascending46 slowly with the help of the balustrade. I caught her on the landing and told her what we'd found. She was not greatly surprised—the doctor had warned her. I explained the broken door by telling her we had been alarmed by the silence and had forced our way in. That, too, she took quietly, and turned away, gliding47 shadowlike down the stairs to send out the servant for the doctor.
When I reëntered the room its aspect was changed. A sheet covered the dead man and O'Mally and Babbitts, with all the burners in the chandelier blazing, had started looking over the room. The detective was already at work on the papers in the desk, Babbitts going through the clothes over the chair and the few others that hung in the cupboard.
"Hustle48 and get busy," said O'Mally, as he heard me come in. "If this isn't Johnston Barker, it's the man we've been trailing and I'm pretty sure it's the one that attacked Ford49."
There was a table by the bedside with a reading lamp and some books on it. Moving these I came upon two newspaper clippings, relating to the suicide of Harland. In both Anthony Ford was mentioned. The reporters had evidently spoken to him that night on the street, gleaning50 any fragments of information they could. One alluded51 to the fact that he was employed in the offices below Harland's, the Azalea Woods Estates. These words were heavily underlined in pencil.
"Looks like it from this," I said, showing the clipping to O'Mally.
He glanced at it and grunted52, going back to his inspection53 of a sheaf of papers he had found in one of the desk pigeonholes54.
Meantime Babbitts had found in the coat that hung over the chair a wallet containing a hundred dollars, a tailor's bill for a suit and coat, receipted and bearing a New York address, and Tony Ford's house and street number written in pencil on a neatly55 folded sheet of note paper. Besides these there was one letter, dated January 13, typed and bearing no signature. Its contents was as follows:
Enclosed please find one hundred dollars in two bills of fifty. Will send same amount on same date next month if work should be still delayed. Will communicate further later.
The envelope, also addressed in typewriting, was directed to Joseph Sammis, General Delivery, Philadelphia, and bore a New York postmark.
We were working too quickly for much comment, but Babbitts held out the paper with Ford's address on it toward O'Mally.
"This bears it out, too," he said.
"From what I've seen here," he said, "Sammis was the man Ford was with in the real-estate business. These are all contracts, bills and some correspondence, the records of a small venture that went to smash," he pushed the roll back in its pigeonhole—"not another thing."
"There's not another thing in the room," I answered, "except two novels and a stack of New York papers on the floor there by the bureau. Hist! quiet!"
There were feet coming up the stairs. In a twinkling everything was as it had been, Babbitts and O'Mally withdrew to the window and I went out to see who was coming. It was Miss Graves and the doctor.
I explained the situation and found the doctor brusquely business-like and matter-of-fact. It was what might have been expected. When he had been called in that morning he had found Mr. Sammis a very sick man, suffering from angina pectoris and a general condition of debility and exhaustion57. He had asked him if he had been subjected to any recent exertion58 or strain but been told no other than a trip the day before to Washington. Miss Graves said it was undoubtedly59 this trip that had done the damage. He had been well when he started on Tuesday morning, but on returning twenty-four hours later had been so weak and enfeebled that one of the other lodgers60 had had to assist him to his room. An examination proved that he had been dead some hours. Who his relations were or where he came from Miss Graves had no idea and would turn the matter over to the authorities.
It was close on midnight when we left, and there being no vehicle in sight we walked up the street. The moon was as bright as day, and, swinging along between those two lines of black houses, with here and there a light shining yellow in an upper window, we were silent, each occupied by his own thoughts.
I could guess those of the other two—Babbitts' chagrin61 at once again losing his big story, O'Mally's sullen62 indignation at having followed a clue that led to such a blind alley63. But their disappointment and bitterness were nothing to mine. All my hopes gone again, and this last puzzle helping64 in no way, in no way as I then counted help.
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1
friction
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| n.摩擦，摩擦力 | |
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2
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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3
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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4
vendor
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| n.卖主；小贩 | |
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compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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6
bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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7
dwindling
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| adj.逐渐减少的v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的现在分词 ) | |
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8
vistas
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| 长条形景色( vista的名词复数 )； 回顾； 展望； （未来可能发生的）一系列情景 | |
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9
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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10
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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11
jingling
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| 叮当声 | |
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12
landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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13
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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14
imperative
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| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
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15
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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16
lanky
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| adj.瘦长的 | |
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17
parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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18
transact
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| v.处理；做交易；谈判 | |
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19
demurred
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| v.表示异议，反对( demur的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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20
squinting
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| 斜视( squint的现在分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看 | |
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21
shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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22
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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23
lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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24
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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25
gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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26
impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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28
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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29
bracing
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| adj.令人振奋的 | |
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30
embedded
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| a.扎牢的 | |
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31
fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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32
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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33
exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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34
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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35
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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36
jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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37
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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38
hissing
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| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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39
sputtering
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| n.反应溅射法；飞溅；阴极真空喷镀；喷射v.唾沫飞溅( sputter的现在分词 )；发劈啪声；喷出；飞溅出 | |
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40
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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41
consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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42
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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43
stupor
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| v.昏迷；不省人事 | |
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44
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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45
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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46
ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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47
gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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48
hustle
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| v.推搡；竭力兜售或获取；催促；n.奔忙(碌) | |
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49
Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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50
gleaning
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| n.拾落穗，拾遗，落穗v.一点点地收集（资料、事实）( glean的现在分词 )；（收割后）拾穗 | |
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51
alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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52
grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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53
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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54
pigeonholes
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| n.鸽舍出入口( pigeonhole的名词复数 )；小房间；文件架上的小间隔v.把…搁在分类架上( pigeonhole的第三人称单数 )；把…留在记忆中；缓办；把…隔成小格 | |
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55
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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56
elastic
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| n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的 | |
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57
exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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58
exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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59
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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60
lodgers
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| n.房客，租住者( lodger的名词复数 ) | |
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61
chagrin
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| n.懊恼；气愤；委屈 | |
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62
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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63
alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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64
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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