XLII. WITH MISS BUTTERWORTH'S COMPLIMENTS.

 They tell me that Mr. Gryce has never been quite the same man since the clearing up of this mystery; that his confidence in his own powers is shaken, and that he hints, more often than is agreeable to his superiors, that when a man has passed his seventy-seventh year it is time for him to give up active connection with police matters. I do not agree with him. His mistakes, if we may call them such, were not those of failing faculties¹, but of a man made oversecure in his own conclusions by a series of old successes. Had he listened to me—But I will not pursue this suggestion. You will accuse me of egotism, an imputation² I cannot bear with equanimity³ and will not risk; modest depreciation⁴ of myself being one of the chief attributes of my[Pg 396] character.[D]

 

Howard Van Burnam bore his release, as he had his arrest, with great outward composure. Mr. Gryce's explanation of his motives⁶ in perjuring⁷ himself before the Coroner was correct, and while the mass of people wondered at that instinct of pride which led him to risk the imputation of murder sooner than have the world accuse his wife of an unwomanly action, there were others who understood his peculiarities⁸, and thought his conduct quite in keeping with what they knew of his warped⁹ and over-sensitive nature.

 

That he has been greatly moved by the unmerited fate of his weak but unfortunate wife, is evident from the sincerity¹⁰ with which he still mourns her.

 

I had always understood that Franklin had never been told of the peril¹¹ in which his good name had stood for a few short hours. But since a certain confidential¹² conversation which took place between us one evening, I have come to the conclusion that the police were not so reticent¹³ as they made themselves out to be. In that conversation he professed¹⁴ to thank me for certain good offices I had done him and his, and waxing warm in his gratitude¹⁵, confessed that without my interference he would have found himself in a strait of no ordinary seriousness; "For," said he, "there has been no over-statement[Pg 397] of the feelings I cherished toward my sister-in-law, nor was there any mistake made in thinking that she uttered some very desperate threats against me during the visit she paid me at my office on Monday. But I never thought of ridding myself of her in any way. I only thought of keeping her and my brother apart till I could escape the country. When therefore he came into the office on Tuesday morning for the keys of our father's house, I felt such a dread¹⁶ of the two meeting there, that I left immediately after my brother for the place where she had told me she would await a final message from me. I hoped to move her by one final plea, for I love my brother sincerely, notwithstanding the wrong I once did him. I was therefore with her in another place at the very time I was thought to be with her at the Hotel D——, a fact which greatly hampered¹⁷ me, as you can see, when I was requested by the police to give an account of how I spent that day. When I left her it was to seek my brother. She had told me of her deliberate intention of spending the night in the Gramercy Park house; and as I saw no way of her doing this without my brother's connivance¹⁸, I started in search of him, meaning to stick to him when I found him, and keep him away from her till that night was over. I was not successful in my undertaking¹⁹. He was locked in his rooms it seems, packing up his effects for flight,—we always had the same instincts even when boys,—and receiving no answer to my knock, I hastened away to Gramercy Park to keep a watch over the house against my brother coming there. This was early in the evening, and for hours afterwards I wandered like a restless spirit in and out of those streets, meeting no one I[Pg 398] knew, not even my brother, though he was wandering about in very much the same manner, and with very much the same apprehensions²⁰.

 

"The duplicity of the woman became very evident to me the next morning. In my last interview with her she had shown no relenting in her purpose towards me, but when I entered my office after this restless night in the streets, I found lying on my desk her little hand-bag, which had been sent down from Mrs. Parker's. In it was the letter, just as you divined, Miss Butterworth. I had hardly got over the shock of this most unexpected good fortune when the news came that a woman had been found dead in my father's house. What was I to think? That it was she, of course, and that my brother had been the man to let her in there. Miss Butterworth," this is how he ended, "I make no demands upon you, as I have made no demands upon the police, to keep the secret contained in that letter from my much-abused brother. Or, rather, it is too late now to keep it, for I have told him all there was to tell, myself, and he has seen fit to overlook my fault, and to regard me with even more affection than he did before this dreadful tragedy came to harrow up our lives."

 

Do you wonder I like Franklin Van Burnam?

 

The Misses Van Burnam call upon me regularly, and when they say "Dear old thing!" now, they mean it.

 

Of Miss Althorpe I cannot trust myself to speak. She was, and is, the finest woman I know, and when the great shadow now hanging over her has lost some of its impenetrability, she will be a useful one again, or I do not rightly read the patient smile which makes her face so beautiful in its sadness.[Pg 399]

 

Olive Randolph has, at my request, taken up her abode²¹ in my house. The charm which she seems to have exerted over others she has exerted over me, and I doubt if I shall ever wish to part with her again. In return she gives me an affection which I am now getting old enough to appreciate. Her feeling for me and her gratitude to Miss Althorpe are the only treasures left her out of the wreck²² of her life, and it shall be my business to make them lasting²³ ones.

 

The fate of Randolph Stone is too well known for me to enlarge upon it. But before I bid farewell to his name, I must say that after that curt²⁴ confession²⁵ of his, "Yes, I did it, in the way and for the motive⁵ she alleged," I have often tried to imagine the contradictory²⁶ feelings with which he must have listened to the facts as they came out at the inquest, and convinced, as he had every reason to be, that the victim was his wife, heard his friend Howard not only accept her for his, but insist that he was the man who accompanied her to that house of death. He has never lifted the veil from those hours, and he never will, but I would give much of the peace of mind which has lately come to me, to know what his sensations were, not only at that time, but when, on the evening, after the murder, he opened the papers and read that the woman whom he had left for dead with her brain pierced by a hat-pin, had been found on that same floor crushed under a fallen cabinet; and what explanation he was ever able to make to himself for a fact so inexplicable²⁷.

1 faculties   

n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院

参考例句：

• Although he's ninety, his mental faculties remain unimpaired. 他虽年届九旬，但头脑仍然清晰。
• All your faculties have come into play in your work. 在你的工作中，你的全部才能已起到了作用。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 imputation   

n.归罪，责难

参考例句：

• I could not rest under the imputation.我受到诋毁，无法平静。
• He resented the imputation that he had any responsibility for what she did.把她所作的事情要他承担，这一责难，使他非常恼火。

3 equanimity   

n.沉着，镇定

参考例句：

• She went again,and in so doing temporarily recovered her equanimity.她又去看了戏，而且这样一来又暂时恢复了她的平静。
• The defeat was taken with equanimity by the leadership.领导层坦然地接受了失败。

4 depreciation   

n.价值低落，贬值，蔑视，贬低

参考例句：

• She can't bear the depreciation of the enemy.她受不了敌人的蹂躏。
• They wrote off 500 for depreciation of machinery.他们注销了500镑作为机器折旧费。

5 motive   

n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的

参考例句：

• The police could not find a motive for the murder.警察不能找到谋杀的动机。
• He had some motive in telling this fable.他讲这寓言故事是有用意的。

6 motives   

n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• to impeach sb's motives 怀疑某人的动机
• His motives are unclear. 他的用意不明。

7 perjuring   

v.发假誓，作伪证( perjure的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He went to the length of perjuring himself for her sake. 他为了她而走到作伪证的地步。 来自互联网
• She went to the length of perjuring herself for the sake of him. 为了他，她做了伪证。 来自互联网

8 peculiarities   

n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪

参考例句：

• the cultural peculiarities of the English 英国人的文化特点
• He used to mimic speech peculiarities of another. 他过去总是模仿别人讲话的特点。

9 warped   

adj.反常的；乖戾的；（变）弯曲的；变形的v.弄弯，变歪( warp的过去式和过去分词 )；使（行为等）不合情理，使乖戾，

参考例句：

• a warped sense of humour 畸形的幽默感
• The board has warped. 木板翘了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

10 sincerity   

n.真诚，诚意；真实

参考例句：

• His sincerity added much more authority to the story.他的真诚更增加了故事的说服力。
• He tried hard to satisfy me of his sincerity.他竭力让我了解他的诚意。

11 peril   

n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物

参考例句：

• The refugees were in peril of death from hunger.难民有饿死的危险。
• The embankment is in great peril.河堤岌岌可危。

12 confidential   

adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的

参考例句：

• He refused to allow his secretary to handle confidential letters.他不让秘书处理机密文件。
• We have a confidential exchange of views.我们推心置腹地交换意见。

13 reticent   

adj.沉默寡言的；言不如意的

参考例句：

• He was reticent about his opinion.他有保留意见。
• He was extremely reticent about his personal life.他对自己的个人生活讳莫如深。

14 professed   

公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的

参考例句：

• These, at least, were their professed reasons for pulling out of the deal. 至少这些是他们自称退出这宗交易的理由。
• Her manner professed a gaiety that she did not feel. 她的神态显出一种她并未实际感受到的快乐。

15 gratitude   

adj.感激，感谢

参考例句：

• I have expressed the depth of my gratitude to him.我向他表示了深切的谢意。
• She could not help her tears of gratitude rolling down her face.她感激的泪珠禁不住沿着面颊流了下来。

16 dread   

vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧

参考例句：

• We all dread to think what will happen if the company closes.我们都不敢去想一旦公司关门我们该怎么办。
• Her heart was relieved of its blankest dread.她极度恐惧的心理消除了。

17 hampered   

妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The search was hampered by appalling weather conditions. 恶劣的天气妨碍了搜寻工作。
• So thought every harassed, hampered, respectable boy in St. Petersburg. 圣彼德堡镇的那些受折磨、受拘束的体面孩子们个个都是这么想的。

18 connivance   

n.纵容；默许

参考例句：

• The criminals could not have escaped without your connivance.囚犯没有你的默契配合，是逃不掉的。
• He tried to bribe the police into connivance.他企图收买警察放他一马。

19 undertaking   

n.保证，许诺，事业

参考例句：

• He gave her an undertaking that he would pay the money back with in a year.他向她做了一年内还钱的保证。
• He is too timid to venture upon an undertaking.他太胆小，不敢从事任何事业。

20 apprehensions   

疑惧

参考例句：

• He stood in a mixture of desire and apprehensions. 他怀着渴望和恐惧交加的心情伫立着。
• But subsequent cases have removed many of these apprehensions. 然而，随后的案例又消除了许多类似的忧虑。

21 abode   

n.住处，住所

参考例句：

• It was ten months before my father discovered his abode.父亲花了十个月的功夫，才好不容易打听到他的住处。
• Welcome to our humble abode!欢迎光临寒舍！

22 wreck   

n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难

参考例句：

• Weather may have been a factor in the wreck.天气可能是造成这次失事的原因之一。
• No one can wreck the friendship between us.没有人能够破坏我们之间的友谊。

23 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

24 curt   

adj.简短的，草率的

参考例句：

• He gave me an extremely curt answer.他对我作了极为草率的答复。
• He rapped out a series of curt commands.他大声发出了一连串简短的命令。

25 confession   

n.自白，供认，承认

参考例句：

• Her confession was simply tantamount to a casual explanation.她的自白简直等于一篇即席说明。
• The police used torture to extort a confession from him.警察对他用刑逼供。

26 contradictory   

adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立

参考例句：

• The argument is internally contradictory.论据本身自相矛盾。
• What he said was self-contradictory.他讲话前后不符。

27 inexplicable   

adj.无法解释的，难理解的

参考例句：

• It is now inexplicable how that development was misinterpreted.当时对这一事态发展的错误理解究竟是怎么产生的，现在已经无法说清楚了。
• There are many things which are inexplicable by science.有很多事科学还无法解释。