福尔摩斯探案全集哪个版本最好 福尔摩斯探案经典:《恐怖谷》第4章Part3

福尔摩斯探案经典:《恐怖谷》第4章Part3  

"No tracks or marks?"
"None."
"Ha! Would there be any objection
Mr. White Mason
to our going down to the house at once? There may possibly be some small point which might be suggestive."
"I was going to propose it
Mr. Holmes; but I thought it well to put you in touch with all the facts before we go. I suppose if anything should strike you--" White Mason looked doubtfully at the amateur.
"I have worked with Mr. Holmes before
" said Inspector MacDonald. "He plays the game."
"My own idea of the game
at any rate
" said Holmes
with a smile. "I go into a case to help the ends of justice and the work of the police. If I have ever separated myself from the official force
it is because they have first separated themselves from me. I have no wish ever to score at their expense. At the same time
Mr. White Mason
I claim the right to work in my own way and give my results at my own time--plete rather than in stages."
"I am sure we are honoured by your presence and to show you all we know
" said White Mason cordially. "Come along
Dr. Watson
and when the time es we'll all hope for a place in your book."
We walked down the quaint village street with a row of pollarded elms on each side of it. Just beyond were o ancient stone pillars
weather-stained and lichen-blotched
bearing upon their summits a shapeless something which had once been the rampant lion of Capus of Birlstone. A short walk along the winding drive with such sward and oaks around it as one only sees in rural England
then a sudden turn
and the long
low Jacobean house of dingy
liver-coloured brick lay before us
with an old-fashioned garden of cut yews on each side of it. As we approached it
there was the wooden drawbridge and the beautiful broad moat as still and luminous as quicksilver in the cold
winter sunshine.
Three centuries had flowed past the old Manor House
centuries of births and of homeings
of country dances and of the meetings of fox hunters. Strange that now in its old age this dark business should have cast its shadow upon the venerable walls! And yet those strange
peaked roofs and quaint
overhung gables were a fitting covering to grim and terrible intrigue. As I looked at the deep-set windows and the long sweep of the dull-coloured
water-lapped front
I felt that no more fitting scene could be set for such a tragedy.
"That's the window
" said White Mason
"that one on the immediate right of the drawbridge. It's open just as it was found last night."
"It looks rather narrow for a man to pass."
"Well
it wasn't a fat man
anyhow. We don't need your deductions
Mr. Holmes
to tell us that. But you or I could squeeze through all right."
Holmes walked to the edge of the moat and looked across. Then he examined the stone ledge and the grass border beyond it.
"I've had a good look
Mr. Holmes
" said White Mason. "There is nothing there
no sign that anyone has landed--but why should he leave any sign?"
"Exactly. Why should he? Is the water always turbid?"
"Generally about this colour. The stream brings down the clay."
"How deep is it?"
"About o feet at each side and three in the middle."
"So we can put aside all idea of the man having been drowned in crossing."
"No
a child could not be drowned in it."
We walked across the drawbridge
and were admitted by a quaint
gnarled
dried-up person
who was the butler
Ames. The poor old fellow was white and quivering from the shock. The village sergeant
a tall
formal
melancholy man
still held his vigil in the room of Fate. The doctor had departed.
"Anything fresh
Sergeant Wilson?" asked White Mason.
"No
sir."