It was not for Lady Laura that I asked, however, but for Miss Belsize, and the almost slatternly maid really couldn’t say whether Miss Belsize was in or whether she wasn’t. She might be in the garden, or she might be on the river. Would I step inside and wait a minute? I would and did, but it was more minutes than one that I was kept languishing8 in an interior as dingy as the outside of the house. I had time to take the whole thing in. There were massive remnants of deservedly unfashionable furniture. The sofa I can still see in my mind’s eye, and the steel fire-irons, and the crystal chandelier. An aged9 and gigantic Broadwood occupied nearly half the room; and in a cheap frame thereon, inviting10 all sorts of comparisons and contrasts, stood a full-length portrait of Camilla Belsize resplendent in contemporary court kit11.
I was still studying that frankly12 barbaric paraphernalia13 — the feather, the necklace, the coiled train — and wondering what noble kinsman14 had come to the rescue for the great occasion, and why Camilla should have looked so bored with her finery, when the door opened and she herself entered — not even very smartly dressed — and looking anything but bored, although I say it.
But she did seem astonished, anxious, indignant, reproachful, and to my mind still more nervous and distressed15, though this hardly showed through the loopholes of her pride. And as for her white serge coat and skirt, they looked as though they had seen considerable service on the river, and I immediately perceived that one of the large enamel16 buttons was missing from the coat.
Up to that moment, I may now confess, I had been suffering from no slight nervous anxiety of my own. But all qualms17 were lost in sheer excitement when I spoke18.
“You may well wonder at this intrusion,” I began. “But I thought this must be yours, Miss Belsize.”
And from my waistcoat pocket I produced the missing button of enamel.
“Where did you find it?” inquired Miss Belsize, with an admirably slight increase of astonishment19 in voice and look. “And how did you know it was mine?” came quickly in the next breath.
“I didn’t know,” I answered. “I guessed. It was the shot of my life!”
“But you don’t say where you found it?”
“In an empty house not far from here.”
She had held her breath; now I felt it like the lightest zephyr20. And quite unconsciously I had retained the enamel button.
“Well, Mr. Manders? I’m very much obliged to you. But may I have it back again?”
I returned her property. We had been staring at each other all the time. I stared still harder as she repeated her perfunctory thanks.
“So it was you!” I said, and was sorry to see her looking purposely puzzled at that, but thankful when the reckless light outshone all the rest in those chameleon21 eyes of hers.
“Who did you think it was?” she asked me with a frosty little smile.
“I didn’t know if it was anybody at all. I didn’t know what to think,” said I, quite candidly22. “I simply found his pistol in my hand.”
“Whose pistol?”
“Dan Levy23’s.”
“Good!” she said grimly. “That makes it all the better.”
“You saved my life.”
“I thought you had taken his — and I’d collaborated25!”
There was not a tremor26 in her voice; it was cautious, eager, daring, intense, but absolutely her own voice now.
“No,” I said, “I didn’t shoot the fellow, but I made him think I had.”
“You made me think so too, until I heard what you said to him.”
“Yet you never made a sound yourself.”
“I should think not! I made myself scarce instead.”
“But, Miss Belsize, I shall go perfectly27 mad if you don’t tell me how you happened to be there at all!”
“Don’t you think it’s for you to tell me that about yourself and — all of you?”
“Oh, I don’t mind which of us fires first!” said I, excitedly.
“Then I will,” she said at once, and took me to the dreadful sofa at the inner end of the room, and sat down as though it were the most ordinary experience she had to relate. Nor could I believe the things that had really happened, and all so recently, as we talked them over in that commonplace environment of faded gentility. There was a window behind us, overlooking the ribbon of lawn and the cord of gravel28, and the bunch of willows29 that hedged them from the Thames. It all looked unreal to me, unreal in its very realism as the scene of our incredible conversation.
“You know what happened the other afternoon — I mean the day they couldn’t play,” began Miss Belsize, “because you were there; and though you didn’t stay to hear all that came out afterwards, I expect you know everything now. Mr. Raffles30 would be sure to tell you; in fact, I heard poor dear Mr. Garland give him leave. It’s a dreadful story from every point of view. Nobody comes out of it with flying colours, but what nice person could cope with a horrid31 money-lender? Mr. Raffles, perhaps — if you call him nice!”
I said that was about the worst thing I called him. I mentioned some of the other things. Miss Belsize listened to them with exemplary patience.
“Well,” she resumed, “he was quite nice about this. I will say that for him. He said he knew Mr. Levy pretty well, and would see what could be done. But he spoke like an executioner who was going to see what could be done with the condemned32 man! And all the time I was wondering what had been done already at Carlsbad — what exactly that horrid creature meant when he was talking at Mr. Raffles before us all. Well, of course, I knew what he meant us to think he meant; but was there, could there be, anything in it?”
Miss Belsize looked at me as though she expected an answer, only to stop me the moment I opened my mouth to speak.
“I don’t want to know, Mr. Manders! Of course you know all about Mr. Raffles”— there was a touch of feeling in this —“but it’s nothing to me, though in this case I should certainly have been on his side. You said yourself that it could only have been a practical joke, if there was anything in it at all, and so I tried to think in spite of those horrid men who were following him about at Lord’s, even in spite of the way he vanished with them after him. But he never came near the match again — though he had travelled all the way from Carlsbad to see it! Why had he ever been there? What had he really done there? And what could he possibly do to rescue anybody from Mr. Levy, if he himself was already in Levy’s power?”
“You don’t know Raffles,” said I, promptly33 enough this time. “He never was in any man’s power for many minutes. I would back him to save the most desperate situation you could devise.”
“You mean by some desperate deed? That’s what I feared,” declared Miss Belsize, rather strenuously34. “Something really had happened at Carlsbad; something worse was by way of happening next. For Teddy’s sake,” she whispered, “and his poor father’s!”
I agreed that old Raffles stuck at nothing for his friends, and Miss Belsize again said that was what she had feared. Her tone had completely altered about Raffles, as well it might. I thought it would have broken with gratitude35 when she spoke of the unlucky father and son.
“And I was right!” she exclaimed, with that other kind of feeling to which I found it harder to put a name. “I came home miserable36 from the match on Saturday —”
“Though Teddy had done so well!” I was fool enough to interject.
“I couldn’t help thinking about Mr. Raffles,” replied Camilla, with a flash of her frank eyes, “and wondering, and wondering, what had happened. And then on Sunday I saw him on the river.”
“He didn’t tell me.”
“He didn’t know I recognised him; he was disguised — absolutely!” said Camilla Belsize under her breath. “But he couldn’t disguise himself from me,” she added as though glorying in her perspicacity37.
“Did you tell him so, Miss Belsize?”
“Not I, indeed! I didn’t speak to him; it was no business of mine. But there he was, at the bottom of Mr. Levy’s garden, having a good look at the boathouse when nobody was about. Why? What could his object be? And why disguise himself? I thought of the affair at Carlsbad, and I felt certain that something of the kind was going to happen again!”
“Well?”
“What could I do? Should I do anything at all? Was it any business of mine? You may imagine the way I cross-questioned myself, and you may imagine the crooked38 answers I got! I won’t bore you with the psychology39 of the thing; it’s pretty obvious after all. It was not so much a case of doing the best as of knowing the worst. All day yesterday there were no developments of any sort, and there was no sign of Mr. Raffles; nothing had happened in the night, or we should have heard of it; but that made me all the more certain that something or other would happen last night. The week’s grace was nearly up — you know what I mean — their last week at their own house. If anything was to be done, it was about time, and I knew Mr. Raffles was going to do something. I wanted to know what — that was all.”
“Quite right, too!” I murmured. But I doubt if Miss Belsize heard me; she was in no need of my encouragement or my approval. The old light — her own light — the reckless light — was burning away in her brilliant eyes!
“The night before,” she went on, “I hardly slept a wink40; last night I preferred not to go to bed at all. I told you I sometimes did weird41 things that astonished the natives of these suburban42 shores. Well, last night, if it wasn’t early this morning, I made my weirdest43 effort yet. I have a canoe, you know; just now I almost live in it. Last night I went out unbeknowns after midnight, partly to reassure44 myself, partly — I beg your pardon, Mr. Manders?”
“I didn’t speak.”
“Your face shouted!”
“I’d rather you went on.”
“But if you know what I’m going to say?”
Of course I knew, but I dragged it from her none the less. The nebulous white-shirted figure in the canoe, that had skimmed past Dan Levy’s frontage as we were trying to get him aboard his own pleasure-boat, and again past the empty house when we were in the act of disembarking him there, that figure was the trim and slim one now at my side. She had seen us — searched for us — each time. Our voices she had heard and recognised; only our actions, or rather that midnight deed of ours, had she misinterpreted. She would not admit it to me, but I still believe she feared it was a dead body that we had shipped at dead of night to hide away in that desolate45 tower.
Yet I cannot think she thought it in her heart. I rather fancy (what she indeed averred) that some vague inkling of the truth flashed across her at least as often as that monstrous46 hypothesis. But know she must; therefore, after boldly ascertaining47 that nothing was known of the master’s whereabouts at Levy’s house, but that no uneasiness was entertained on his account, this young woman, true to the audacity48 which I had seen in her eyes from the first, had taken the still bolder step of landing on the rank lawn and entering the empty tower to discover its secret, for herself. Her stealthy step upon the spiral stair had been the signal for my mortal struggle with Dan Levy. She had heard the whole, and even seen a little of that; in fact, she had gathered enough from Levy’s horrible imprecations to form later a rough but not incorrect impression of the situation between him and Raffles and me. As for the moneylender’s language, it was with a welcome gleam of humour that Miss Belsize assured me she had “gone too straight to hounds” in her time to be as completely paralysed by it as her mother’s neighbours might have been. And as for the revolver, it had fallen at her feet, and first she thought I was going to follow it over the banisters, and before she could think again she had restored the weapon to my wildly clutching hand!
“But when you fired I felt a murderess,” she said. “So you see I misjudged you for the second time.”
If I am conveying a dash of flippancy49 in our talk, let me earnestly declare that it was hardly even a dash. It was but a wry50 and rueful humour on the girl’s part, and that only towards the end, but I can promise my worst critic that I was never less facetious51 in my life. I was thinking in my heavy way that I had never looked into such eyes as these, so bold, so sad, so merry with it all! I was thinking that I had never listened to such a voice, or come across recklessness and sentiment so harmonised, save also in her eyes! I was thinking that there never was a girl to touch Camilla Belsize, or a man either except A. J. Raffles! And yet —
And yet it was over Raffles that she took all the wind from my sails, exactly as she had done at Lord’s, only now she did it at parting, and sent me off into the dusk a slightly puzzled and exceedingly exasperated52 man.
“Of course,” said Camilla at her garden gate, “of course you won’t repeat a word of what I’ve told you, Mr. Manders?”
“You mean about your adventures last night and today?” said I, somewhat taken aback.
“I mean every single thing we’ve talked about!” was her sweeping53 reply. “Not a syllable54 must go an inch further; otherwise I shall be very sorry I ever spoke to you.”
As though she had come and confided55 in me of her own accord! But I passed that, even if I noticed it at the time.
“I won’t tell a soul, of course,” I said, and fidgeted. “That is — except — I suppose you don’t mind —”
“I do! There must be no exceptions.”
“Not even old Raffles?”
“Mr. Raffles least of all!” cried Camilla Belsize, with almost a forked flash from those masterful eyes. “Mr. Raffles is the last person in the world who must ever know a single thing.”
“Not even that it was you who absolutely saved the situation for him and me?” I asked, wistfully; for I much wanted these two to think better of each other; and it had begun to look as though I had my wish, so far as Camilla was concerned, while I had only to tell Raffles everything to make him her slave for life. But now she was adamant56 on the point, adamant heated in some hidden flame.
“It’s rather hard lines on me, Mr. Manders, if because I go and get excited, and twist off a button in my excitement, as I suppose I must have done — unless it’s a judgment57 on me — it’s rather hard lines if you give me away when I never should have given myself away to you!”
This was unkind. It was still more unfair in view of the former passage between us to the same tune58. I was evidently getting no credit for my very irksome fidelity59. I helped myself to some at once.
“You gave yourself away to me at Lord’s all right,” said I, cheerfully. “And I never let out a word of that.”
“Not even to Mr. Raffles?” she asked, with a quick unguarded intonation60 that was almost wistful.
“Not a word,” was my reply. “Raffles has no idea you noticed anything, much less how keen you were for me to warn him.”
Miss Belsize looked at me a moment with civil war in her splendid eyes. Then something won — I think it was only her pride — and she was holding out her hand.
“He must never know a word of this either,” said she, firmly as at first. “And I hope you’ll forgive me for not trusting you quite as I always shall for the future.”
“I’ll forgive you everything, Miss Belsize, except your dislike of dear old Raffles!”
I had spoken quite earnestly, keeping her hand; she drew it away as I made my point.
“I don’t dislike him,” she answered in a strange tone; but with a stranger stress she added, “I don’t like him either.”
And even then I could not see what the verb should have been, or why Miss Belsize should turn away so quickly in the end, and snatch her eyes away quicker still.
I saw them, and thought of her, all the way back to the station, but not an inch further. So I need no sympathy on that score. If I did, it would have been just the same that July evening, for I saw somebody else and had something else to think about from the moment I set foot upon the platform. It was the wrong platform. I was about to cross by the bridge when a down train came rattling61 in, and out jumped a man I knew by sight before it stopped.
The man was Mackenzie, the incorrigibly62 Scotch63 detective whom we had met at Milchester Abbey, who I always thought had kept an eye on Raffles ever since. He was across the platform before the train pulled up, and I did what Raffles would have done in my place. I ran after him.
“Ye ken24 Dan Levy’s hoose by the river?” I heard him babble64 to his cabman, with wilful65 breadth of speech. “Then drive there, mon, like the deevil himsel’!”
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
dingy
|
|
| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
contemplating
|
|
| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
blistered
|
|
| adj.水疮状的，泡状的v.（使）起水泡( blister的过去式和过去分词 )；（使表皮等）涨破，爆裂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
obsolete
|
|
| adj.已废弃的，过时的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
prettily
|
|
| adv.优美地；可爱地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
retired
|
|
| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
impoverished
|
|
| adj.穷困的，无力的，用尽了的v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
languishing
|
|
| a. 衰弱下去的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
aged
|
|
| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
inviting
|
|
| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
kit
|
|
| n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
frankly
|
|
| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
paraphernalia
|
|
| n.装备；随身用品 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
kinsman
|
|
| n.男亲属 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
distressed
|
|
| 痛苦的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
enamel
|
|
| n.珐琅，搪瓷，瓷釉；(牙齿的)珐琅质 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
qualms
|
|
| n.不安；内疚 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
spoke
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
astonishment
|
|
| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
zephyr
|
|
| n.和风，微风 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
chameleon
|
|
| n.变色龙，蜥蜴；善变之人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
candidly
|
|
| adv.坦率地，直率而诚恳地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
levy
|
|
| n.征收税或其他款项，征收额 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
ken
|
|
| n.视野，知识领域 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
collaborated
|
|
| 合作( collaborate的过去式和过去分词 )； 勾结叛国 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
tremor
|
|
| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
gravel
|
|
| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
willows
|
|
| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
raffles
|
|
| n.抽彩售物( raffle的名词复数 )v.以抽彩方式售（物）( raffle的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
horrid
|
|
| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
condemned
|
|
| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
promptly
|
|
| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
strenuously
|
|
| adv.奋发地，费力地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
gratitude
|
|
| adj.感激，感谢 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
miserable
|
|
| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
perspicacity
|
|
| n. 敏锐, 聪明, 洞察力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
crooked
|
|
| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
psychology
|
|
| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
wink
|
|
| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
weird
|
|
| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
suburban
|
|
| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
weirdest
|
|
| 怪诞的( weird的最高级 )； 神秘而可怕的； 超然的； 古怪的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
reassure
|
|
| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
desolate
|
|
| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
monstrous
|
|
| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
ascertaining
|
|
| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
audacity
|
|
| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
flippancy
|
|
| n.轻率；浮躁；无礼的行动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
wry
|
|
| adj.讽刺的；扭曲的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
facetious
|
|
| adj.轻浮的，好开玩笑的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
exasperated
|
|
| adj.恼怒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
sweeping
|
|
| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
syllable
|
|
| n.音节；vt.分音节 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
confided
|
|
| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
adamant
|
|
| adj.坚硬的，固执的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
judgment
|
|
| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
tune
|
|
| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
fidelity
|
|
| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
intonation
|
|
| n.语调，声调；发声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
rattling
|
|
| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
incorrigibly
|
|
| adv.无法矫正地；屡教不改地；无可救药地；不能矫正地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
scotch
|
|
| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
babble
|
|
| v.含糊不清地说，胡言乱语地说，儿语 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
wilful
|
|
| adj.任性的，故意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |