Chapter 4 Chapter Four

Grant was mistaken if he thought his superiors would be pleased with his probable early recovery, or his caution with regard to the papers he picked up.Bryce was still against him, criticizing him thoroughly in his reply, in typical Bryce style.Only a man like Bryce, Grant thought as he read the letter, could have managed to have it both ways.In the first paragraph of his letter, he accused Grant of being unprofessional for taking something from the scene of a sudden and unexplained death.Then, in the second paragraph, he talked about his surprise that Grant would trouble the busy police with something as trivial as stealing a newspaper.He also said that it is precisely because Grant is now away from work that he lacks judgment and the ability to identify priorities.There is no third paragraph.

The strong message coming out of the familiar, thin office stationery: Grant had been sidelined.What the letter was really saying was: "I can't imagine why you, Aaron Grant, would want to bother us, either to report on your own health or to be interested in our work. In fact, we have no interest in your health, and you don't have to care about our work. "He was an outsider, a traitor. Only now, after reading the cynical letter and "enjoying" having the door slammed in front of him, did he begin to realize that besides his conscience, he felt that he should confess to the work unit and accidentally took the newspaper , In fact, I also want to keep abreast of Seven B's information.His letter and that apology were a channel to information, and since Seven B was no longer news, it was hopeless to get news from the newspapers.People die on trains every day.They simply won't be interested anymore.To the press, Seven B died twice, one in his actual death and the other in terms of newsworthiness.But for his part, he'd been wanting to know more about Seven B, perhaps unaware of it himself, but wishing his colleagues would come clean about it.

He didn't know Bryce well, he thought, as he tore up the letter and threw it in the trash can, but he still had Officer Williams! Thankfully, there was a faithful Williams.Why, Williams might have wondered, would a man of his class and experience be interested in a nameless dead body so briefly glanced at? Of course, he may also find it boring.In any case, he had to talk to Williams.So he wrote a letter asking if Williams knew the results of the autopsy on the young man Charles Martin who died a week earlier on a train bound for Highland on Tuesday night, and anything that came out during the autopsy. A thing for young people.Then it was a warm greeting to Mrs. Williams and Angela and Leonard.

For the next two days he was in the joy of eagerly awaiting Williams' reply.He inspected the unfishable Tully Valley, pond by pond; mended the gaps in the boats that were moored on Lake Dever.Accompanied by Shepherd Graham, followed by Zanger and Tonger, he walked up the hill; he listened to Tommy describe his plans for a nine-hole golf course between his house and the side of the hill.When the mail was delivered on the third day, he was eager to rush home. This kind of eagerness was the peculiar mood he used to have after submitting his poems to magazines, and he never felt it again after he was nineteen years old.

But when he learned that there were no letters from him, his disbelief was as heavy as receiving rejections as a teenager. He reminded himself how irrational he was (Grant's mind always thought it was an unforgivable sin), and the fact that the autopsy process had nothing to do with the police department, and he didn't even know which department took over the job, William Adams had to find out.And Williams also has his own job, a 24-hour job.So it would be irrational to ask him to drop what he was doing just to satisfy an unimportant problem that a colleague on vacation inadvertently thought of.

He waited two more days, and the letter came. Williams said in the letter that he hoped that Grant was eager to come back to work, he should rest, and everyone at the same time hoped that he would get enough rest and get better (not everyone! Grant thought of Bryce), They all miss him terribly.As for Charles Martin, there was no mystery about him personally or about his death, if that was what Grant wanted to know.Charles Martin just hit the back of his head against the edge of the porcelain sink and climbed back into bed on his hands and knees, but died of internal bleeding soon after.And the reason why he fell backwards was because he drank straight whiskey.Not enough to make him drunk, but enough to cloud his mind.In addition, the tilt of the train body caused by the turning of the train was also the cause of his fall.There was nothing incomprehensible about the dead man himself.There are ordinary French newspapers in his carry-on luggage; relatives and friends still live in his hometown near Marseilles, but there has been no news of him for many years.He left home because he stabbed his girlfriend in a moment of jealousy and got into trouble.Now his relatives have sent the funeral expenses, so he will not be buried in the beggar's cemetery.

This letter not only did not bring comfort to Grant, but aroused his desire to know the truth. He calculated that Williams was happily preparing a pipe and newspaper for himself, Mrs. Williams was mending, and Angela and Leo were doing their homework, and then called him on the private phone.Of course, it is possible that Williams is still out working on cases after get off work, but it is also possible that he is staying at home now! He is at home. After duly expressing his gratitude to Williams for his reply, Grant said: "You said his family sent money to bury him. Has no one come to identify the body?"

"No, they only recognized the photos." "Pictures from when I was alive?" "No, no, it's a picture of a dead body." "Nobody came to London to identify the body in person?" "Maybe not." "That's weird." "If he's a bad boy, it's not surprising at all. It's better to have less than more." "Any sign that he's the bad boy in the family?" "No, it's not." "What is his job? " "Mechanic." "He has his passport with him?" "No. Just ordinary newspapers and some letters."

"Oh, he has a letter?" "Just the two or three letters that people usually carry. One was from a girl who said she was waiting for him." "The letters were in French?" "yes.". "Then what money does he have?" "Wait, I'll look for my notes. Well, there are twenty-twos and ten pounds in notes, and eighteenpence and twopence in coins." "It's all British money?" "Yes indeed! " "Judging from the fact that he didn't carry his passport and use British money, he should have been in the UK for a long time, but it's strange why no one came to recognize him?"

"They probably don't know he's dead yet, it's not very public after all." "He has no address in England?" "No. The letters were not in envelopes, they were just in his wallet. His friends may not have turned up yet!" "Does anyone know where he's going? Or why he's going there?" "No, it seems not." "What luggage did he bring?" "Just an overnight suitcase with shirts, socks, pajamas and slippers, no dry cleaner's logo on it." "What? Why? Are these things new?" "No, no," Williams said, amused by Grant's apparent suspicion, "it's all worn out."

"The slippers have the manufacturer's name on them?" "No, the kind of thick, handmade slippers you'd see in a North African square or a Mediterranean seaside." "What else? " "Is that in the suitcase? Well, there's also a French New Testament and a yellow paperback novel, both very old." The operator said, "Your three minutes are up." Grant extended it by three minutes, but did not get further information on Seven B.No one knows except that he has no criminal record - whether in France (where he stabbed his girlfriend seems to have been a purely domestic matter) or England. This is indeed a typical case, and the only thing known about him is that nothing is known. "By the way," said Williams, "I forgot to answer the note in your letter when I replied." "What about the footnotes?" Grant asked, then remembered that he had written down his afterthought: If you had time, maybe you could ask the Secret Service if they were interested in a man named Archie Brown, a Scottish Patriot. Go ask Ted Hanna, just say I asked. "Oh! Yes, yes, about the patriot, are you free to deal with it? It's not that important." "By the way, the day before yesterday I happened to meet the man you mentioned on the Whitehall bus. He said he had no problem with your bird personally, but he really wanted to know what the big crow was. Do you know what he was talking about? ?” "I think I know," said Grant cheerfully. "You tell him I'll do my best to find out for them, and treat it like vacation homework." "If you want, don't worry about work and get well. Just get back as much as possible before the unit closes without you." "The shoes he wears, where are the shoes made?" "Who wore the shoes? Oh, Karachi made them." "where? " "Karachi." "Oh! Yes, that's what you said just now. He seems to be running around a lot. The title page of the Bible doesn't have a name either?" "I don't think so. I don't think I wrote that down when I took the evidence, oh, yes, yes, I've got it: no names." "Nobody else on the missing persons list that resembles him?" "No, no one, not even one with similar characteristics to him, he is not a missing person." "It's really troublesome, please check these little things, and you are not polite to ask me to go back to my creek to fish. Someday I will repay you." "Are the fish in your creek easy to bait?" "There is no creek at all, and the fish are hiding in the deepest part of the pond, which is why I became interested in such small cases that the busy Southwest Bureau would not care about at all." But he knew that wasn't true.He wasn't interested in Seven B's case because he was bored, it was -- he'd almost called it that -- some sort of symbiosis.He had a strange identification with Seven B, not so much that he and Seven B had anything in common, but because Grant identified with an interest in the man.Given the fact that Grant had only met him once and knew nothing about him, this was clearly irrational.Maybe he thinks that Seven B is fighting demons like him? Is it because of his purely personal interest that he let this contest start? The smell of whiskey permeated the berth, but the young man was not passed out, in fact only slightly drunk.He fell and hit the hard, thick round washstand, which could happen to anyone.Perhaps the paradise he so uncharacteristically guarded was not oblivion at all. He turned his attention back to what Williams was saying. "what? " "I forgot to tell you that the berth attendant thought Martin was being seen off when he got into the car at Euston." "Why didn't you just say that?" "Oh! I just figured it wasn't going to help anyway, it was just a random complaint from the sleeper attendant, and I was told by the officer who was there that he took the whole thing as a personal affront." Yogurt seems to be very formal about everything. "What did he say?" "He said that in Euston he had seen another man in Martin's sleeper car as he was walking down the corridor. He hadn't seen the man's face because the door was ajar and Martin was facing him, so The only thing he noticed was that Martin was talking to another guy. They seemed very happy and friendly, and they were talking about robbing a restaurant." "what? " "You know? The coroner's response was also 'what'? The railroad attendant said they were talking about 'snatching Kelly' and since no one is going to rob the Kelly football team, this Kelly must be a restaurant . It seems that restaurants in Scotland are either called Waverly or Caledonian, and most people simply call them 'Kelly'. But he said they were just joking. " "Is this what he saw off?" "Yes! That's it." "Maybe this is not the person who came to see him off at all, but just a friend I met by chance on the train. Maybe I saw the name outside the berth or recognized him when I passed by him." Maybe so.But if that was the case, the friend should reappear the next morning. "Not really! Especially if his carriage is far away and the body is being moved with such care.I doubt very much that any of the passengers knew that anyone had died.Also, as far as I know, the ambulance came long after the entire station had left, because I was almost finishing my breakfast when the ambulance arrived. " "Yes. But the berth attendant said he thought the other man was seeing him off because he was well-dressed. He said that most people go to the cafeterias on the train without hats on. Their berths, the first thing to do is hang the hat on the peg." "Speaking of the list on the berth, how did he book this berth?" "Ordered over the phone, but he came to get the tickets himself, at least the guy who came to get the tickets was a thin dark-haired guy who booked a week ago." "Okay, you go on about the yogurt." "Who is it about?" "About the berth attendant." "He said that about 20 minutes after the train left Houston, he went into the car to collect the ticket. At that time, Martin was washing his hands and asked, but the ticket stub of his sleeper and the outbound ticket to Sgon were pre-placed on the small cabinet under the mirror. Yes. He took the ticket and crossed his name off the passenger list. As he passed the washroom, he knocked on the door and asked, "Are you a guest in Sleeper 7B?" Martin said yes. The waiter said: 'I've already taken your ticket, thank you! Do you want tea tomorrow morning? ' Martin replied: 'No, thank you! Good night. "Yes, half of his return journey is in his wallet." "Then it seems pretty obvious. No one came to ask about him or identify the body, probably because he was traveling and no one expected him to be back anytime soon." "Probably like you said, and with the limited reach of the news, I don't think even his family would bother to publish his obituary in English papers, maybe they only in local papers where someone knew him Posting a message means nothing more.” "And what did the coroner say?" "Well, it's not the same. He ate a little before he died. There was a lot of whiskey in his stomach and some in his veins. It was enough for his body." "No mention of him being an alcoholic at all?" "Oh no, no mention of depravity or anything like that. Head and shoulders hurt before, other than that a healthy man. Not very strong though." "Are you sure he's been hurt before?" "Yes, but it was a long time ago, I mean it had nothing to do with his death. He had a fractured skull and a broken collarbone. Would it be impolite or too abrupt if I asked you why such a simple case interested you so much?" "Well, help me, sir.If I know why, I'll let you know.I think the more I live, the more I go back, the more I look like a child. " "I think it's more like you're bored," Williams said sympathetically. "Like me, growing up in the country, it never occurred to me to see grass grow. The country has always been an overrated place. In the country Everything is remote and inconvenient. I think once your brook starts to flow, you'll forget all about Mr. Martin. It's pouring rain here right now, so it probably won't be long before yours. " In fact, it didn't rain in Tuli Valley that night, but other things happened.A slight wind blows in the persistent cold, soft and warm; the air between the gusts is damp and thick; The fish jumped over the hidden reef, and traced upward against the pouring water between the stones, shining silvery in the sun.Pat took his precious invention from the worm box (with his own compartment in the box) and presented it to Grant with the formality and benevolence of a principal, as a principal issues a certificate to a student.He said, "You'll take good care of it, won't you? It took me a long time to make it." It was, like his mother said, something horrible.It looked rather like a woman's hat, thought Grant, but he was well aware that he had been chosen out of many to be the only recipient worthy of the honor.So he accepted with modest gratitude, carefully storing the strange bait in his box, hoping that Pat would not oversee his use.But in the days that followed, every time he wanted to pick out new bugs, he would see that scary thing, and his heart would immediately feel warm, just because of his little nephew's affirmation of him. He spent several days in the Tuli Valley, facing the tawny swirl, happy and relaxed.The river water is as clear as beer, with white foam on it, and the flow of the water sounds like music.He was having a great time.The moist, soft air made dew, which dripped on his tweed suit; water from the hazel boughs trickled down the nape of his neck. For almost a whole week, fish was on his mind, on his lips, and in his mouth. Then, one evening, in his favorite pond under the drawbridge, his peace of mind and contentment was shattered. He saw a human face in the water. Before his heart had even jumped out of his mouth, he realized that the face did not exist on the surface of the water, but in his eyes.It was a dead-white face with flippant brows. He muttered an obscenity before hurling his rod across the pond beyond.He has nothing to do with Seven B.In the past, his interest in Seven B was born of his total misunderstanding of Seven B's situation.He thinks that Seven B is as enmeshed in the devil's snare as he is, and paints a picture of Seven B for himself that is utterly absurd.It turns out that the alcoholic's paradise in the sleeper compartment of Seven B is nothing more than an overturned whiskey bottle.He's no longer interested in Seven B: he's just a very ordinary young man in good health who tragically ended his life in a rather indignified way on a night train ride.After falling, he struggled to climb on his hands and knees until he died. "But he wrote these poems about heaven." A voice rose from the bottom of his heart. "He didn't," he said to a voice that rose from the bottom of his heart. "There is not a shred of evidence that he wrote these lines." "And his face, an extraordinary face, a face that conquered you from the very beginning, long before you began to think of his heaven." "I'm not overwhelmed," he said. "I'm naturally interested in people because of my profession." "Really? You mean, if it was a fat businessman with a beard like a badly repaired fence and a face like an overcooked berth, that fell in this whiskey-smelling berth?" Pudding, you're still interested in him?" "It's possible!" "You dishonest bastard. From the moment you saw his face and noticed Yogurt's rough attitude towards him, you were a fan of Seven B. You rescued him from Yogurt's clutches and helped He smoothed the coat as a mother smooths her child's shawl." "Shut up! " "You want to know about him, not because you think there is anything suspicious about his death, but simply because you want to know about him. He was young but dead, was rash and alive. You want to know What he looked like when he was flippant and alive." "Okay! I want to know. I also want to know who will be the new favorite in Lincolnshire, how much my shares are opening today, and the next Jen Case movie, but I won't because of any of them Insomnia because of something." "No, but you won't see Jane Case's face between you and the water." "I don't want to see anyone's face between me and the river, and nothing will appear between me and the river. I came here to fish, and nothing can get in the way of my purpose." "Seven B also came up north for something, I doubt what it is?" "how could I know? " "No matter what, it's definitely not fishing." "Why not? " "Nobody goes five or six hundred miles to fish without any tackle. If he's still smart, he'll at least bring his favorite bait, even if he plans to rent rods. ""yes. " "Maybe his paradise is Tinan Europe, you know, the Gaelic one, that's quite possible." "Why is it possible?" "It is said that Tinano is far to the west, away from the outermost islands. It is the Isle of Youth, the Isle of Eternal Youth, a Gaelic paradise. But what guards the way to Paradise? It seems There are islands of singing sand, and island stones that stand as one walks." "And talking beasts? You found them in the Outer Isles?" "I found it." "Did you find out? What are they?" "seal." "Oh! Go away and leave me alone, I'm busy fishing now." "You may be fishing, but you haven't caught anything. Your fishing rod can be put away.Now you listen to me. "I will never listen to you.Well! Even if there are singing sands, walking stones, and rapping seals in these islands, that doesn't matter to me, and I don't think it has anything to do with Seven B. " "No? Then what is he doing in the north?" "Maybe to bury a relative, to have a tryst with a woman, or to rock climb! How would I know? And why should I care?" "He's going to stop overnight at the Caledonian Hotel somewhere." "He didn't." "How do you know where he'll spend the night?" "I don't know, no one knows." "How could anyone be so ridiculous as to say he was going to 'rob Kelly' if he was going to spend the night at a hotel called Waverley?" "If he's going to Grada, I bet there won't be a hotel in Grada with such an ugly name as Caledonian in the Mainland. If he goes to Grada, he will definitely go through Glasgow and Eupen." "Not really. It's a short and comfortable ride via Sgon. He probably hates Glasgow, and a lot of people don't like that place. Or give Sgon's Caledonian a call when you get home tonight. Check to see if a man named Charles Martin ever intended to spend the night there?" "I don't do that kind of thing!" "If you beat the river like this, you will scare all the fish in the river to death." At dinner he went home depressed, not only did he not catch any fish, he also lost his peace. The day's work was done, the children were in bed, and there was a sleepy silence in the living room. His eyes wandered from the book in his hand to the phone on the other side of the room. The phone was placed on Tommy's desk, sitting there quietly, exuding a latent strength, and constantly beckoned to Grant.As long as he picked up the microphone, he could talk to people on the Pacific coast of America, to people on every uninhabited island in the Atlantic Ocean, and to people two miles above the surface of the earth. He can also speak to the people at Sgon's Caledonian Hotel. He suppressed this thought, and the anger gradually rose in his heart, and it passed an hour like this.Then Lola went to make a nightcap; Tommy let the dogs out; and Grant rushed to the phone like a football player, rather than at the normal speed of a civilized person walking across the room. He picks up the phone and realizes he doesn't know the phone number; he puts it down, feeling saved. He got up and wanted to go back to his book, but instead of the book he picked up the phone book.There would be no peace tonight if he didn't speak to the people at Sgon's Caledonian.It's a silly price to pay, but it's cheap enough to get serenity. "Sgon 1460...Caledonian Hotel, please? Can you tell me if a man named Charles Martin booked a room with you two weeks ago? Oh, yes, thanks, I'll wait. No ? No name? Oh, thank you very much, sorry to bother you." That's it, he thought.The microphone was put down with a "bang".As far as he was concerned, the matter of Seven B was over. He drank a comforting nightcap and went to bed, staring soberly at the ceiling.He turns off the lights and starts using his own secret recipe for insomnia: Pretend he has to stay up tonight.He developed this method long ago on a simple premise: It is human nature to want to do what is forbidden.This approach has worked fine so far.As long as he pretends that he can't sleep, his eyelids will start to droop. This kind of pretending can just remove the biggest obstacle to sleep: the more he is afraid of not being able to sleep, the easier it is to be unable to sleep. His eyelids drooped as usual, but a bell in his head kept ringing, like a mouse in a cage: talking beast still river walking stone singing sand What is a river that can be completely still? What is it about those islands? It can't be a frozen river. There is no snow or frost on the island. What would it be? The river flows into the sand and stops at there? No, use your imagination! Still river, still river? Perhaps the librarians will know that there must be a large public library in Sgon. "I thought you weren't interested in these anymore," said the voice. "go to hell! " He is a mechanic, what does that mean? A mechanic, that word has all kinds of possibilities. No matter what he does, he's successful enough to be able to afford a first-class sleeper. It used to be a millionaire's treat! And he spent the money, judging by the suitcase he was carrying, for a quick visit. A visit to a woman? Maybe! The girl who promised to wait for him? But she's French. A woman? No English man would run five hundred miles for a woman, but a French man might, especially one who would stab his girlfriend for looking her way. talking beast still river Oh my gosh! Never again.Your imagination must stop, lest you feel the urge to write something down.If your imagination is overactive, you can get into a situation where you become so entangled in certain thoughts that you can't get out, and you'll be so ecstatic at the beautiful steps of your temple that you've sketched that you'll be willing to work hard for a few years and spare your vacations. , so really go there. More intensely, it may turn into a compulsive passion to let go of everything and find something that haunts your heart: a mountain, a green stone statue in a museum, a There is no river marked on the map, or a little bit of canvas. To what extent did the images drawn by Seven B seduce him? Enough for him to embark on a journey of finding? Or just enough for him to write? Just because he wrote these pencil words. Of course it was written by him. These sentences belong to Qi B, just like his eyebrows and the handwriting of his male student belong to him. "Those fonts?" the voice said defiantly. "Yes, those fonts." "But he's from Maasai." "It's possible he was educated in England, isn't he?" "In a few minutes you'll tell me he's not French at all." "Yeah! I'll be doing that in a few minutes." But obviously, this is entering the realm of fantasy.Seven B is not mysterious at all, he has a clear identity, a family, and a girl waiting for him. He was indeed a Frenchman, and it was purely accidental that he wrote this line in English. "He's probably at Crabham," he retorted to the voice in utter disgust, and fell asleep at once.