Chapter 12 Chapter Twelve

Silas Wickley lived in a house on the alley that led to the bend in the river, more specifically the alley that led to the river, and where it met the fields it turned right along the village Then circle back to the village street.It's all a local thing.Silas Wickley lived in the last room in front of the field, and Grant, who came here as a policeman on a case, found it lacklustre.It wasn't because Wickley couldn't afford a nicer house—he was a bestselling author.What made the house so miserable was that it hadn't been tidied up at all--unlike the other houses on the street, which were always painted so brightly.There are no plants on the window sills, and there are no beautiful curtains. Compared with the surrounding environment, this room has a kind of slum atmosphere.

The door of the house was open, and the cries of babies and children filled the bright morning, and in the hallway stood an enameled washbasin filled with dirty water, with soap scum slowly bubbling up on the surface, and an Some stuffed animal was lying on the ground, and the room next to it was empty.Grant stood curiously observing the room, which was bare and frighteningly messy. The cries continued from the back room, and Grant knocked loudly on the front door, and a woman's voice said on the second knock, "Just leave it there, thank you." As he knocked a third time, he called out, The woman came out of the darkness and looked at him.

"Mrs. Wickley?" said Grant hesitantly. "Yes, I am Mrs. Wickley." She must have been a beauty before, beautiful and intelligent and independent.Grant remembered hearing that Wicky had married a primary school teacher.She wore a calico dressing gown, a coarse apron over it, and a pair of old shoes, the sort of shoes a woman makes easy for chores.She wasn't wearing socks, and the shoes had stains on her bare feet.Her hair was pulled back in a rigid, tight bun, but the front strands, too short to stay in the knot for long, hung down her cheeks; her face was long and tired-looking.

Grant told her he wanted to see her husband. She responded dully: "Oh!" It seemed that she was thinking about the crying child. "Excuse me, it's a mess," she said vaguely. "The maid who lives in the village didn't come today. She doesn't come often, and she comes or doesn't come depending on her mood, and these children--I Guess I can't bother my husband in the morning." Grant wondered if she didn't find the crying of the baby bothering at all? "He always writes in the morning." "I understand. But if you give him my card, I think he'll see me."

"Are you from the publishing house?" "No, I'm..." "I think it's best to wait and leave him alone. You can wait for him at the Swan, and maybe he can meet you before lunch." "No, I have to see him now, and here's the thing..." "Don't bother him, it will interrupt his train of thought and he will have a hard time getting back to his original train of thought. I mean, he writes very slowly - cautiously, sometimes only one paragraph a day, so..." "Mrs. Wickley," said Grant gruffly, "will you please give your husband this card and tell him I must see him, whatever he is doing." She stood with the card between her fingers. , didn't even look at the business card, and was busy thinking of other excuses to convince him.Suddenly he realized that she didn't dare to hand over her business card to her husband or interfere with him.In order to embolden her, he said that since the children were already so noisy, handing him the business card should not be a disturbance, and her husband had a hard time concentrating.

"Oh, he doesn't write here," she said, "I mean not in this house. He has a little room of his own at the end of the garden." Grant took the business card back from her and said coldly, "Mrs. Wickley, will you please take me?" She led him dully through a dark kitchen where a crying toddler sat with his legs stretched out. On the ground, a baby lay sobbing angrily in a pram.There was also a boy about three years old in the sun in the garden, who was throwing stones from the gravel path at the wooden door outside the house. This meaningless act made a lot of noise.

"Freddy, don't throw stones," she said involuntarily, and Freddy continued to throw stones at the wooden door involuntarily. The garden behind the house is a long strip along a narrow path, with a log cabin at the end far from the house.Mrs. Wickley pointed to the cabin and said, "Will you go in and introduce yourself? The kids are coming back from school for lunch and it's not ready yet." "Children?" Grant said. "Yeah, and three big ones. I'm off to work if you don't mind." "No, of course I don't mind," Grant said.It was true that it pleased Grant to interrupt the great Silas Wickley writing on such a morning, but he refrained from telling Mrs. Wickley.

He knocked twice on the door of the cabin—it was a neat cabin—and opened it himself when no one answered.Silas Wickley turned from the desk where he was writing and said, "How dare you walk into my—" But he stopped when he saw Grant.Evidently he thought it was his wife who had broken in. "Who are you?" he said rudely. "If you're a reporter, you'll see no use being rude. This is private property, and you're trespassing on private land now." "I am Inspector Grant of Scotland Yard," said Grant, watching the reaction to the statement. It took a while for Silas to close his astonished jaw, and said in a weakly provocative tone, "What's the use of asking?"

Grant was talking about some routine trivia. He told Silas that he was investigating the disappearance of Leslie Seale and that everyone who knew Seale must be asked about their whereabouts that night.As he spoke, half of his mind noticed that the ink on the manuscript Vicky was working on was rather dry and dull.It was an inkblot from the previous day.Vicky hadn't started writing until this morning.At the mention of Searle, Wickley cursed the mercenary amateur writer. Grant didn't think Wicky was qualified to say that, given Wicky's income and the results of his morning's work.He interrupted him and asked what he was doing on Wednesday night.

"What if I'm not going to tell you?" "I will record your refusal and leave." Wickley felt unhappy when he heard this, and muttered that he was harassed by the police. "I'm just asking you to cooperate with me as a citizen, and as I said, you have the right to refuse to cooperate," Grant said. Silas said sullenly that he had been writing since dinner three nights. "Any witnesses?" Grant asked, not wanting to be polite to Silas. "Of course my wife." "Is she here with you?" "No, of course not. She's in the house."

"Are you here alone?" "yes." "Thank you and good morning." Grant said as he walked out of the cabin and closed the door neatly.There was a refreshing sweetness to this morning. The half-dry rags hanging around the house and the sour smell of baby spit are nothing compared to the sour humanity that pervades Silas Wickley's writing room.It occurred to him on the way back to the front room that what is now called a "masterpiece" in English was produced by this dull and twisted mind.The thought didn't make him any more comfortable. He avoided the uninteresting house, where the clanging of pots and pans meant that the mistress was busy cooking (he could not help thinking that the sound was very harmonious).He walked along the outside of the house to the gate, Freddie walking with him. "Hi, Freddie." Grant felt a little sorry for the boring boy. "Hi." Freddie replied coldly. "Isn't there a better game here than throwing stones at doors?" "No," Freddie said. "Can't you arrange yourself and find a fun game to play?" "No," said Freddie in a decisive tone. Grant stood for a moment, thinking about the boy's actions. "Freddy, you look like your father," he said, walking down the alley to where he parked. It was in this alley that Leslie Seale walked on Wednesday night to say good-bye to a group of people standing in the village street.Afterwards he walked past Wickley's house to the gate in the first field where the village meets the bend in the river. At least, everyone thinks so. He might have walked down the back alley and back into the village street, but there was no point in doing so.Since then, no one has seen him in the village.He just walked into the dark alleyway and never came back.Tulis had said that Silas Wickley was a little crazy, but Silas Wickley did not give the impression that Grant was crazy.He might just be a sadist, or more like a megalomaniac, someone possessed by twisted vanity, but by no means crazy. Or would a psychiatrist have a different opinion? A well-known physician once told him that he had to give up on himself in order to write a book (someone else said it wiser and more succinctly, but he couldn't remember who that was at the moment) .Every line, the psychiatrist says, hides a subconscious betrayal.Grant wondered what judgment the physician would pass after reading Silas Wickley's vicious satire.Would he say it was an outpouring of narrow-mindedness, a ferment of vanity? There is no privacy.So he decided to go back to Wickham and eat Chinese food there, so that he could see Inspector Rogers, who was resting, and see if there was any news from headquarters. Arriving in Wickham, he found that the senior officers of the department were preparing for a weekend of rest, while the lower ranks were preparing for their weekly entertainment on Saturday nights.Rogers didn't say anything, he was quiet, and he had nothing to report.He said that everyone in Wickham was discussing Seale's disappearance, which had become the general news of the morning papers, but no one had come forward to say that he had seen him. "Not even a lunatic who came out and confessed to murder," he said sarcastically. "Well, it's a good change," Grant said. "He'll show up, he'll show up." Rogers resigned himself to his fate, and invited Grant to his house for lunch. But Grant preferred to eat at the White Hart Inn. He sat in the dining room of the White Hart Hotel eating the modest but rich lunch they served.Suddenly the music in the kitchen stopped, and a gentle voice came through the noise: "Before the news is reported, there is a police announcement. Anyone who has picked up a young man on the Wickham and Clone Highway, Overseas or elsewhere on Wednesday night, please contact Scotland Yard-" "1212 White Hall . ’ the kitchen staff repeated cheerfully. Then there was a burst of loud conversation as the staff discussed the latest news. Grant ate the food and walked out into the sunshine.When he entered the restaurant, the street outside was full of Saturday shoppers, but now it was empty and the shops were closed.He drove out of town, secretly wishing he could go fishing.Why would he have chosen a job where he couldn't rest on a Saturday afternoon? Half the world was free to enjoy the sunny afternoon, but he was wasting his time doing interrogations that didn't make any progress. He drove back to Shaka Town with a heavy heart, only the voice of Dura Sitchin comforted him a little.He drove Dora with him for a mile of narrow trails, and more than a mile parallel to the river outside the city.Just as he was driving towards the town of Shaka, he saw a shambling figure, what appeared to be a young man, carrying a bunch of tools.As he approached, slowed down, and responded to the man's thumbs-up gesture for a ride, he realized it was a girl in denim, carrying a shopping bag.She smiled at him and said, "You saved me. I missed the bus to buy shoes for the prom tonight." "Oh," said Grant, looking at the package emerging from the bag, "is it glass?" "No," she said, closing the door and sitting comfortably in the seat. "I don't need to be home before midnight. Besides, I don't buy glass slippers. They're wool, probably made in France. We learned that at school." Grant thought to himself, don't young people nowadays have fantasy.What would a world be like without fantasy? Or, that the enchanting fantasy that was important to him was an older, less earthly fantasy for the child now? The thought put him in a much better mood.At least these modern kids are smart.He thought it might be influenced by the movie.When things haven't surfaced, it's always the little ones -- the average people -- who get a head start.Without a second thought his passenger thought he was referring to dancing shoes. She was a cheerful kid, and even after a week at work and missing the bus on a Saturday afternoon holiday, she kept talking about herself.Her name was Dura Sitchin, she worked in a laundry, and she had a boyfriend who worked in a garage in Shaka, and if all went well, they were going to get married when he got promoted at Christmas. Much later, Grant anonymously sent a box of chocolates to Dora Sitchin, thanking her for the good mood she had put him in. He really hoped that the boyfriend who was going to be promoted at Christmas didn't misunderstand. "Are you a businessman?" she asked after telling her own story. "No," said Grant, "I'm a policeman." "Come on, keep talking!" Suddenly, she realized that what he said might be true, so she looked carefully inside the car. "Cool!" she finally said, "You're the one to blame!" "How can you be so sure?" Grant asked curiously. "It's shiny and tidy inside," she said. "Only the fire department and the police have the time to keep it so shiny. I don't think the police can give people a ride." "Are you talking about the post office? Shaka is in front of you. Where do you live?" "The house with the big cherry trees. My God! I'm glad I don't have to walk the four miles. Do you drive fast?" "No," Grant said, and asked why she asked. "Oh, you're wearing normal clothes, and from the rest of the way, I thought you were on vacation alone. You should get something like the American police have." "What?" Grant asked, and parked the car across from the house with the cherry trees. "A siren to honk along the road." "My God," Grant said. "I've always wanted to race down the street with a siren on and watch the crowd dodge." "Don't forget your shoes," said Grant coldly, seeing the shoes she had left on the seat. "Oh my God, thank you! Thank you so much, I will never speak ill of the police as long as I live." She ran up the steps of the house, stopped to wave to him, and disappeared behind the door. Grant drove to the village to continue his questioning.