Strange Doings for George
That evening George sat so long over the newspapers that in spite of my absorbing interest in the topic engrossing1 me, I fell asleep in my cozy2 little rocking chair. I was awakened3 by what seemed like a kiss falling very softly on my forehead, though, to be sure, it may have been only the flap of George’s coat sleeve as he stooped over me.
“Wake up, little woman,” I heard, “and trot4 away to bed. I’m going out and may not be in till daybreak.”
“You! going out! at ten o’clock at night, tired as you are — as we both are! What has happened-Oh!”
This broken exclamation5 escaped me as I perceived in the dim background by the sitting-room6 door, the figure of a man who called up recent, but very thrilling experiences.
“Mr. Sweetwater,” explained George. “We are going out together. It is necessary, or you may be sure I should not leave you.”
I was quite wide awake enough by now to understand. “Oh, I know. You are going to hunt up the man. How I wish —”
But George did not wait for me to express my wishes. He gave me a little good advice as to how I had better employ my time in his absence, and was off before I could find words to answer.
This ends all I have to say about myself; but the events of that night carefully related to me by George are important enough for me to describe them, with all the detail which is their rightful due. I shall tell the story as I have already been led to do in other portions of this narrative7, as though I were present and shared the adventure.
As soon as the two were in the street, the detective turned towards George and said:
“Mr. Anderson, I have a great deal to ask of you. The business before us is not a simple one, and I fear that I shall have to subject you to more inconvenience than is customary in matters like this. Mr. Brotherson has vanished; that is, in his own proper person, but I have an idea that I am on the track of one who will lead us very directly to him if we manage the affair carefully. What I want of you, of course, is mere8 identification. You saw the face of the man who washed his hands in the snow, and would know it again, you say. Do you think you could be quite sure of yourself, if the man were differently dressed and differently occupied?
“I think so. There’s his height and a certain strong look in his face. I cannot describe it.”
“You don’t need to. Come! we’re all right. You don’t mind making a night of it?”
“Not if it is necessary.
“That we can’t tell yet.” And with a characteristic shrug9 and smile, the detective led the way to a taxicab which stood in waiting at the corner.
A quarter of an hour of rather fast riding brought them into a tangle10 of streets on the East side. As George noticed the swarming11 sidewalks and listened to the noises incident to an over-populated quarter, he could not forbear, despite the injunction he had received, to express his surprise at the direction of their search.
“Surely,” said he, “the gentleman I have described can have no friends here.” Then, bethinking himself, he added: “But if he has reasons to fear the law, naturally he would seek to lose himself in a place as different as possible from his usual haunts.”
“Yes, that would be some men’s way,” was the curt12, almost indifferent, answer he received. Sweetwater was looking this way and that from the window beside him, and now, leaning out gave some directions to the driver which altered their course.
When they stopped, which was in a few minutes, he said to George:
“We shall have to walk now for a block or two. I’m anxious to attract no attention, nor is it desirable for you to do so. If you can manage to act as if you were accustomed to the place and just leave all the talking to me, we ought to get along first-rate. Don’t be astonished at anything you see, and trust me for the rest; that’s all.”
They alighted, and he dismissed the taxicab. Some clock in the neighbourhood struck the hour of ten. “Good! we shall be in time,” muttered the detective, and led the way down the street and round a corner or so, till they came to a block darker than the rest, and much less noisy.
It had a sinister13 look, and George, who is brave enough under all ordinary circumstances, was glad that his companion wore a badge and carried a whistle. He was also relieved when he caught sight of the burly form of a policeman in the shadow of one of the doorways14. Yet the houses he saw before him were not so very different from those they had already passed. His uneasiness could not have sprung from them. They had even an air of positive respectability, as though inhabited by industrious16 workmen. Then, what was it which made the close companionship of a member of the police so uncommonly17 welcome? Was it a certain aspect of solitariness18 which clung to the block, or was it the sudden appearance here and there of strangely gliding19 figures, which no sooner loomed20 up against the snowy perspective, than they disappeared again in some unseen doorway15?
“There’s a meeting on to-night, of the Associated Brotherhood21 of the Awl22, the Plane and the Trowel (whatever that means), and it is the speaker we want to see; the man who is to address them promptly23 at ten o’clock. Do you object to meetings?”
“Is this a secret one?”
“It wasn’t advertised.”
“Are we carpenters or masons that we can count on admittance?”
“I am a carpenter. Don’t you think you can be a mason for the occasion?”
“I doubt it, but —”
“Hush! I must speak to this man.”
George stood back, and a few words passed between Sweetwater and a shadowy figure which seemed to have sprung up out of the sidewalk.
“Balked at the outset,” were the encouraging words with which the detective rejoined George. “It seems that a pass-word is necessary, and my friend has been unable to get it. Will the speaker pass out this way?” he inquired of the shadowy figure still lingering in their rear.
“He didn’t go in by it; yet I believe he’s safe enough inside,” was the muttered answer.
Sweetwater had no relish24 for disappointments of this character, but it was not long before he straightened up and allowed himself to exchange a few more words with this mysterious person. These appeared to be of a more encouraging nature than the last, for it was not long before the detective returned with renewed alacrity25 to George, and, wheeling him about, began to retrace26 his steps to the corner.
“Are we going back? Are you going to give up the job?” George asked.
“No; we’re going to take him from the rear. There’s a break in the fence — Oh, we’ll do very well. Trust me.”
George laughed. He was growing excited, but not altogether agreeably so. He says that he has seen moments of more pleasant anticipation27. Evidently, my good husband is not cut out for detective work.
Where they went under this officer’s guidance, he cannot tell. The tortuous28 tangle of alleys29 through which he now felt himself led was dark as the nether31 regions to his unaccustomed eyes. There was snow under his feet and now and then he brushed against some obtruding32 object, or stumbled against a low fence; but beyond these slight miscalculations on his own part, he was a mere automaton33 in the hands of his eager guide, and only became his own man again when they suddenly stepped into an open yard and he could discern plainly before him the dark walls of a building pointed34 out by Sweetwater as their probable destination. Yet even here they encountered some impediment which prohibited a close approach. A wall or shed cut off their view of the building’s lower storey; and though somewhat startled at being left unceremoniously alone after just a whispered word of encouragement from the ever ready detective, George could quite understand the necessity which that person must feel for a quiet reconnoitering of the surroundings before the two of them ventured further forward in their possibly hazardous35 undertaking36. Yet the experience was none too pleasing to George, and he was very glad to hear Sweetwater’s whisper again at his ear, and to feel himself rescued from the pool of slush in which he had been left to stand.
“The approach is not all that can be desired,” remarked the detective as they entered what appeared to be a low shed. “The broken board has been put back and securely nailed in place, and if I am not very much mistaken there is a fellow stationed in the yard who will want the pass-word too. Looks shady to me. I’ll have something to tell the chief when I get back.”
“But we! What are we going to do if we cannot get in front or rear?
“We’re going to wait right here in the hopes of catching37 a glimpse of our man as he comes out,” returned the detective, drawing George towards a low window overlooking the yard he had described as sentinelled. “He will have to pass directly under this window on his way to the alley30,” Sweetwater went on to explain, “and if I can only raise it — but the noise would give us away. I can’t do that.”
“Perhaps it swings on hinges,” suggested George. “It looks like that sort of a window.”
“If it should — well! it does. We’re in great luck, sir. But before I pull it open, remember that from the moment I unlatch it, everything said or done here can be heard in the adjoining yard. So no whispers and no unnecessary movements. When you hear him coming, as sooner or later you certainly will, fall carefully to your knees and lean out just far enough to catch a glimpse of him before he steps down from the porch. If he stops to light his cigar or to pass a few words with some of the men he will leave behind, you may get a plain enough view of his face or figure to identify him. The light is burning low in that rear hall, but it will do. If it does not,— if you can’t see him or if you do, don’t hang out of the window more than a second. Duck after your first look. I don’t want to be caught at this job with no better opportunity for escape than we have here. Can you remember all that?”
George pinched his arm encouragingly, and Sweetwater, with an amused grunt38, softly unlatched the window and pulled it wide open.
A fine sleet39 flew in, imperceptible save for the sensation of damp it gave, and the slight haze40 it diffused41 through the air. Enlarged by this haze, the building they were set to watch rose in magnified proportions at their left. The yard between, piled high in the centre with snow-heaps or other heaps covered with snow, could not have been more than forty feet square. The window from which they peered, was half-way down this yard, so that a comparatively short distance separated them from the porch where George had been told to look for the man he was expected to identify. All was dark there at present, but he could hear from time to time some sounds of restless movement, as the guard posted inside shifted in his narrow quarters, or struck his benumbed feet softly together.
But what came to them from above was more interesting than anything to be heard or seen below. A man’s voice, raised to a wonderful pitch by the passion of oratory42, had burst the barriers of the closed hall in that towering third storey and was carrying its tale to other ears than those within. Had it been summer and the windows open, both George and Sweetwater might have heard every word; for the tones were exceptionally rich and penetrating43, and the speaker intent only on the impression he was endeavouring to make upon his audience. That he had not mistaken his power in this direction was evinced by the applause which rose from time to time from innumerable hands and feet. But this uproar44 would be speedily silenced, and the mellow45 voice ring out again, clear and commanding. What could the subject be to rouse such enthusiasm in the Associated Brotherhood of the Awl, the Plane and the Trowel? There was a moment when our listening friends expected to be enlightened. A shutter46 was thrown back in one of those upper windows, and the window hurriedly, raised, during which words took the place of sounds and they heard enough to whet47 their appetite for more. But only that. The shutter was speedily restored to place, and the window again closed. A wise precaution, or so thought George if they wished to keep their doubtful proceedings48 secret.
A tirade49 against the rich and a loud call to battle could be gleaned50 from the few sentences they had heard. But its virulence51 and pointed attack was not that of the second-rate demagogue or business agent, but of a man whose intellect and culture rang in every tone, and informed each sentence.
Sweetwater, in whom satisfaction was fast taking the place of impatience52 and regret, pushed the window to before asking George this question:
“Did you hear the voice of the man whose action attracted, your attention outside the Clermont?”
“No.”
“Did you note just now the large shadow dancing on the ceiling over the speaker’s head?”
“Yes, but I could judge nothing from that.”
“Well, he’s a rum one. I shan’t open this window again till he gives signs of reaching the end of his speech. It’s too cold.”
But almost immediately he gave a start and, pressing George’s arm, appeared to listen, not to the speech which was no longer audible, but to something much nearer — a step or movement in the adjoining yard. At least, so George interpreted the quick turn which this impetuous detective made, and the pains he took to direct George’s attention to the walk running under the window beneath which they crouched53. Someone was stealing down upon the house at their left, from the alley beyond. A big man, whose shoulder brushed the window as he went by. George felt his hand seized again and pressed as this happened, and before he had recovered from this excitement, experienced another quick pressure and still another as one, two, three additional figures went slipping by. Then his hand was suddenly dropped, for a cry had shot up from the door where the sentinel stood guard, followed by a sudden loud slam, and the noise of a shooting bolt, which, proclaiming as it did that the invaders54 were not friends but enemies to the cause which was being vaunted above, so excited Sweetwater that he pulled the window wide open and took a bold look out. George followed his example and this was what they saw:
Three men were standing55 flat against the fence leading from the shed directly to the porch. The fourth was crouching56 within the latter, and in another moment they heard his fist descend57 upon the door inside in a way to rouse the echoes. Meantime, the voice in the audience hall above had ceased, and there could be heard instead the scramble58 of hurrying feet and the noise of overturning benches. Then a window flew up and a voice called down:
“Who’s that? What do you want down there?”
But before an answer could be shouted back, this man was drawn59 fiercely inside, and the scramble was renewed, amid which George heard Sweetwater’s whisper at his ear:
“It’s the police. The chief has got ahead of me. Was that the man we’re after — the one who shouted down?”
“No. Neither was he the speaker. The voices are very different.”
“We want the speaker. If the boys get him, we’re all right; but if they don’t — wait, I must make the matter sure.”
And with a bound he vaulted60 through the window, whistling in a peculiar61 way. George, thus left quite alone, had the pleasure of seeing his sole protector mix with the boys, as he called them, and ultimately crowd in with them through the door which had finally been opened for their admittance. Then came a wait, and then the quiet re-appearance of the detective alone and in no very amiable62 mood.
“Well?” inquired George, somewhat breathlessly. “Do you want me? They don’t seem to be coming out.”
“No; they’ve gone the other way. It was a red hot anarchist63 meeting, and no mistake. They have arrested one of the speakers, but the other escaped. How, we have not yet found out; but I think there’s a way out somewhere by which he got the start of us. He was the man I wanted you to see. Bad luck, Mr. Anderson, but I’m not at the end of my resources. If you’ll have patience with me and accompany me a little further, I promise you that I’ll only risk one more failure. Will you be so good, sir?”
收听单词发音 |
1
engrossing
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| adj.使人全神贯注的，引人入胜的v.使全神贯注( engross的现在分词 ) | |
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cozy
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| adj.亲如手足的，密切的，暖和舒服的 | |
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awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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swarming
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| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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curt
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| adj.简短的，草率的 | |
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sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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16
industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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uncommonly
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| adv. 稀罕(极，非常) | |
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solitariness
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| n.隐居；单独 | |
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gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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brotherhood
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| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
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awl
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| n.尖钻 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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alacrity
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| n.敏捷，轻快，乐意 | |
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retrace
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| v.折回；追溯，探源 | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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tortuous
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| adj.弯弯曲曲的，蜿蜒的 | |
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alleys
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| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
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alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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nether
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| adj.下部的，下面的；n.阴间；下层社会 | |
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obtruding
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| v.强行向前，强行，强迫( obtrude的现在分词 ) | |
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automaton
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| n.自动机器，机器人 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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hazardous
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| adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的 | |
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undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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grunt
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| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
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sleet
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| n.雨雪；v.下雨雪，下冰雹 | |
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haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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diffused
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| 散布的，普及的，扩散的 | |
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oratory
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| n.演讲术；词藻华丽的言辞 | |
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penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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shutter
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| n.百叶窗；(照相机)快门；关闭装置 | |
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whet
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| v.磨快，刺激 | |
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proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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tirade
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| n.冗长的攻击性演说 | |
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50
gleaned
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| v.一点点地收集（资料、事实）( glean的过去式和过去分词 )；（收割后）拾穗 | |
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virulence
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| n.毒力，毒性；病毒性；致病力 | |
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impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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53
crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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invaders
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| 入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 ) | |
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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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crouching
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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57
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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scramble
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| v.爬行，攀爬，杂乱蔓延，碎片，片段，废料 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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vaulted
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| adj.拱状的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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anarchist
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| n.无政府主义者 | |
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