Chapter 15 Chapter fifteen

The temperature by the river is unusually low.The willow trees are rustling, the river water is the color of white wax, and the wind blowing and the beating of the shower make the water ripple.With the long wait, Rogers' usual anxious expression froze.So far, no uninvited guests have come to share the vigil with them.The Mill House had been sworn to secrecy, but found that there were no secrets to keep.Mrs. Doop had gone to bed, and Tommy, like the rest of the police, was involved in the salvage work.The wide stretch of river bank was quite a distance from the road or road, and there were no homes nearby, so that no passerby would stop to look and then go on to spread what they saw.

Only this group of staff waiting for the result was left alone by the river.The moment was unbearably long. Grant and Rogers had been tired of reviewing missions a long time ago, and they didn't have any energy at the moment.Now, they are just two men standing on the edge of the swamp in the cold spring.They sat side by side on the trunk of a fallen willow tree.Grant watched the slow progress of the salvage work, and Rogers looked out over the wide flats of the valley. "The river floods here in winter," he said. "But as long as you can forget the damage it caused, it's also quite a sight to behold."

Grant read: "Devastating hurdle it drowns the oars of survival." "what is this? " "A friend of mine in the military wrote about the flood. Upon waking to look at the slender burning green grass, destructive beauty it sinks to the oars of survival. ""not bad. said Rogers. "Sorrowful old tune," replied Grant, "sounds like a poem. I think it's about bad luck." "Is it very long?" "Only two paragraphs and an allegorical ending." "What is the content of the ending?" "Oh, the beauty of the end... rises above this sunken earth.

What we love is not your faded face, because the faded beauty has sunk with the earth. "Rodgers thought the poem was finished, and said: "Very good.Your comrade in arms does know what he's talking about.I never read poetry—I mean poetry anthologies, but, you know, some magazines sometimes print poems and essays and stuff to fill up the space in the magazines, so you can't help but read them. " "I know." "I've read a lot of poems in magazines and I've always found something between the lines, and I still remember one of them. It's not strictly a poem, I mean it lacks poetic rhyme , but it stuck with me for life. It reads: I have given my all to this island Far from the bottomless seashore Isles with crying seagulls and me who can hear the ocean from my infancy Only through the green fields can you hear the undulations of the babbling river and the whispering of small birds from among the leaves.

So, you know, I grew up by the ocean, in a place called Mill Harbor, and I never really got used to being away from the ocean.This is a feeling of suffocation that cannot be relieved.However, it was not until I read this poem that I found the meaning of expression that fully fits.I can totally empathize with that guy - 'little bird chirping whisper'!" His contemptuous and somewhat angry tone amuses Grant, but something amuses him even more and he starts laughing stand up. "What's so funny?" Rogers asked a little defensively. "I'm just imagining, if an excellent detective novelist happened to see two policemen sitting under a willow tree reciting verses alternately, what kind of picture would it be like."

"Oh, they!" Rogers said in a calm voice, and spat, "I don't know if you appreciate this?" "Of course, occasionally." "My chief is also very interested in these and has collected quite a few. His record is that there are ninety-two poems in a book. The book seems to be called "God Help". It seems to be written by a female writer. He paused for a moment, looked into the distance, and then said, "There's a woman coming here, pushing a bicycle." Grant looked at it and said, "That's not a woman, it's a goddess, and she's here to help us."

That was the indestructible Marta, who brought them sandwiches and coffee. "I can only think of bringing them over to you on a bicycle," she explained. "But it's also very difficult because all the doors are closed." "Then how did you get in?" "I take things off the bike, lift the bike over, and then put things back on the bike." "It is your spirit that has created the British Empire today." "Probably, but I'll need Tommy's help when I get back." "No problem, Miss Harold." Tommy chewed his sandwich.

After everyone went ashore, Grant introduced Marta to each other one by one. "I think the news may have leaked a little bit," Marta said. "Toby called and asked me if I had to salvage the river again." "You didn't tell him why?" "Oh, no, no," she said.She turned pale, as if remembering the shoe. At two o'clock in the afternoon, there was a large crowd of onlookers.At three o'clock, it seemed as if it had become a garden venue, and it took the local police to control it hard to maintain order. By three-thirty, they had reached the town of Shaka, but with nothing, Grant returned to the mill house, where he met Walter Whitemore.

"Thank you for the news, Inspector," he said. "I should have gone to the river, but I couldn't." "You don't need to come at all." "Marta said you'd be back around teatime, so I'll wait here for you. Any—results?" "not yet." "Why did you want to know about that shoe this morning?" "Because it was found with the laces on. I wonder if Searle usually unties his shoes when he takes them off. Apparently he always unties them before taking them off." ''Why was that shoe tied tight when it was found? "

"I see." Walter said quietly. He declined the afternoon tea and looked more dazed than usual when he left. "I wish I could feel a little more sorry for him," Marta said. "Would you like Chinese tea or Indian tea?" Grant was feeling much better after three cups of scalding tea ("that's bad for health," Marta said), when Williams called.Although Williams tried hard to gather information, it was not exhaustive enough.Miss Seale was not very fond of her cousin Leslie Seale.She was also born in the US, but on the other side of the country and didn't meet each other until they were grown up.They quarreled as soon as they met.He occasionally called her when he came to England, but not this time.She did not know that he had come to England.

Williams asked if she was away a lot, if Seale called and she didn't answer.She said she had gone to paint in the Scottish Highlands, and maybe Searle called many times, but she didn't answer.When she's not there, the house is empty and no one answers the phone. "Did you see those pictures?" asked Grant. "Those pictures of Scotland." "Oh, see. That place is everywhere." "What does it look like?" "It's like Scotland." "Oh, very orthodox." "I don't know, most of them seem to be Sautherland and Skye." "What about his friends in the country?" "She said she was surprised he had any friends." "Did she tell you anything strange about Syl?" "No, not at all." "Nor did she say why he suddenly disappeared, or where he disappeared to?" "No, she didn't say anything. She just told me he had no friends, both parents were dead, and he was an only child. She didn't seem to know anything about his relationships. He said he only had one relative in England it is true." "Well, thank you, Williams. I forgot to ask you, did you see Benny this morning?" "Benny? Oh, yes. That's easy." "Did he yell?" Grant heard Williams laughing. "No, he played a trick this time and pretended to pass out." "What did he cheat?" "He got three cognacs and a bunch of nice symphonies. You know we're in the bar without me telling you. After two cognacs he started complaining about how he was being persecuted, so they gave him a third .I'm pretty unwelcome there." Grant thinks that is an understatement. "Luckily it was a bar on the West End," Williams said.This means that there will be no conflict with his performance. "Did he agree to go with you to the inquest?" "He said he would, as long as I asked him to make a call first. I told him he could call anyone at any time of the day or night and that he shouldn't mind me listening if he was innocent. " "Does he agree?" "He pulled me into the phone booth himself. Guess who the guy called?" "His representative?" "No, I think the polls are pretty fed up with him. He called up a guy who wrote a column in The Watcher and told him the whole thing. He said he was going to be fired by Scotland Yard right away. Brought back by the police for questioning, and you think alone with a bunch of people who don't know him, with a few drinks, is he going to tell the truth? He seemed happy to come with me." "Is he of any help to our police station?" "No, but his girlfriend has.", "Did she tell the secret?" "No, she wears Poppy's earrings, Poppy Blunt's earrings." "No way." "If it wasn't for Benny, I think that girl would have done him already. She was mad, he hadn't been with her in a while. And she kind of wanted to dump him, so Benny' Bought her a pair of diamond earrings. Benny's intelligence is really lower than that of a five-year-old child. " "Did you get anything else from Bobby?" "Yes, Benny vomited it all up. He didn't have time to get it out of it." "Good job. Where's the guy who wrote the column?" "I wanted to read the guy's jokes, but I wasn't allowed to do so. They said it would not cause a lot of unnecessary trouble.So I had to call and tell the guy. ""You get or learn something at least?" "Yeah, I admit, I was amused by the whole thing. I said, 'Mr. Little, this is Officer Williams, and I was right next to Benny Squall when he called you a few hours ago. ’ He said, ‘You were there? But he said something against you! ’ ‘Yes! ’ I said, ‘This is a free speech country. ' 'I don't think speech is so free for some people,' said he, 'and you're going to take him to Scotland Yard for an inquest? don't go. Then he said a lot of things to me about how to treat criminals, why do you have no right to treat him like a criminal and ask questions. 'You've disgraced him in front of his friends,' said Mr. Little, 'and pushed him back into the bottom of despair again.Is Benny Squall all right at Scotland Yard this afternoon?' 'It's worth two thousand pounds. 'I say. 'What? ' he said, 'What are you talking about? ' 'That was the value of the jewelry he stole from Poppy Blunt's Friday night. ' 'How do you know it must have been stolen by Benny? ' he asked. I said Benny handed it over himself--except for the two diamond earrings that dangled from his current girlfriend's earlobes. Then I said: 'Good night to you. ’ very softly, like they do on children’s shows.Then I hung up the phone.I figured he'd probably already written an article about how innocent Benny was.He must have been terribly embarrassed.A writer must feel worthless if no one wants him to write. ""When Mr. Little knows the whole story," said Grant, "he will come and tell us loudly that the criminals will not be spared. " "Yeah, that's funny, isn't it? Especially when this kind of thing happens to them. No news from San Francisco?" "Not yet, but it could be anytime soon. But it doesn't seem to matter much right now." "It doesn't matter. Just like I quipped at the bus driver in Wickham, a whole notebook could go in the trash." "Never lose your notes, Williams." "Would it be useful to leave it in later?" "Keep them, even if it's your autobiography, keep them. It's a pity that you are not allowed to work at present, otherwise I really want you to come back to me and wait with me in the cold wind. ""Hopefully there will be new developments before sunset. " "I hope so too." Grant returned to the river immediately after hanging up the phone.The crowd of onlookers also gradually dispersed as the sky gradually darkened, but some people must see the police salvage the body even if they are hungry and bear the cold wind. Grant looked at the faces of these idiots. He had been a cop for years and still couldn't figure out what they were looking at.But there is one thing he can be sure of: if there is public dissatisfaction someday, it will be more troublesome for him to get in and out of the office. Rogers went back to Wickham, but then a whole host of reporters came—correspondents from the local and London papers in Clones, who wanted to know why the river had been salvaged again.The elders also came.The elder's nose was almost joined to his chin, and it was hard for Grant to imagine how he shaved.Although the time-honored group he represents is not of high status, it is not only respected but also has a lot of weight because it is related to "racial memory". "It's no use salvaging like this," he said to Grant, as a master addresses his apprentice. "No use?" "It's no use, it's no use. She's swallowed everything, into the mud." Obviously, "she" refers to the river. "why? " "She walked very slowly, as if she was tired. Everything was sinking. Then when she got to Wickham she was refreshed again.Ah, that's how she is, sinking everything she brings into the mud.Then she would walk quietly to Wickham. "He gave Grant a sudden wink. "Sly," he said, "that's what she is, sly!" Why it didn't work, and now this representative of "racial memory" is explaining to him why. "No matter how hard you try to fish it, it's useless." He said contemptuously while wiping his nose. "Why? Don't you think there's a body at the bottom of the river?" "Ah! There are dead bodies at the bottom of the river. But the mud at the bottom of the river, it won't spit back what you want until it's happy." "Then please tell me when?" "Oh! It's possible within a thousand years, such sticky sludge, sludge. My grandfather had a ball when he was a kid, and once the ball dropped and it kept rolling, it rolled into the river. It was shallow enough to reach the ball, but he dared not go in and pick it up.He ran home to fetch his father to help him retrieve the ball, but the mud had swallowed it.There's nothing you can do after the sludge swallows it.They went back and got rakes to pick it up to no avail, the sludge ate it.Sludge that eats, I tell you, it's sludge that eats. "But didn't you say it sometimes spits it back out to you when it swallows it?" "Ah! Yes. Occasionally." "When? When it's flooded?" "No! When flooded she just spreads herself more and brings more silt. But sometimes she'll startle and spit out what she's swallowed and give it back to you." "Scared?" "Ah, just like she did last week, big clouds drifted over to Otley and the rain poured down the river like someone was pouring bath water. Before she could spread out, the rain brought a torrent of water down the river , washed over her like a big brush, and occasionally something was spit out of the sludge." This is not good news for Grant, which means that if he wants to find Seale's body, he will have to wait until the next heavy rain.The darkening sky was also sinking his spirits; in a few hours they would have to call it a day.By that time, they'd probably be done salvaging the Shaka section, too, and if they didn't get anything, what hope was there for them? He'd been thinking all day that they were just looking for a needle in a haystack. And what if nothing came of this second salvage effort? No questioning, no case, nothing. Just as the sun was setting and their salvage was about fifty yards to finish, Rogers appeared suddenly, and he took a letter from his pocket: "Here is for you. Report from America .” It wasn't urgent at all now, but he still opened the envelope and took out the report to read. There is no record of Leslie Seale in the San Francisco Police Department, and nothing is known about him. He always likes to come to the West Bank in winter, and the rest of the time he travels around the world for photography.He lived comfortably and peacefully, without any extravagance or indiscretion.He has no wife, and has never had a lingering relationship.There was no record of him in the San Francisco Police Department, and he had to be checked by the PR department of Oceania Photography.According to their information, Seale was born in Zhou Berlin, Connecticut, as Duffy. Seale and Christina Mason's only child.After investigation by the Zhou Berlin City Police Department in Connecticut, it was found that they had immigrated to the southern United States 20 years ago. Seale was a pharmacist and was also interested in photography, but that was the only impression they had of them. What a tedious report, boring and useless.There were no clues about Seale's relatives and friends in the United States that he wanted to know, and there were no materials describing Seale.Still, there was a little bit of it that seemed to confuse him. He read it carefully again, hoping for some sudden inspiration, but this time there was no response. Bewildered, he slowly re-read it.What was it that made him wonder? He couldn't find it. Full of doubts, he folded up the report and temporarily put it in his pocket. "Looks like we're screwed, I guess you know?" Rogers said. "We haven't found anything so far. There's nothing in the river in Shaka. There's a saying around here, when you say 'give it up', or 'don't think about it again', they say 'throw it under the bridge in Shaka'. "Why don't people just dig the river bed now and then and let it silt up like this. "Grant said angrily, "No wonder the river floods the houses here next winter. " Rogers' displeased face instantly became interesting, and he said kindly, "If you smell the mud in Roschmere, you will think about whether to dig it out and let the trucks drive it away through the street. . Shall I order them to stop now?" "No," Grant said stubbornly. "Tell them to continue the salvage until the sun goes down. God knows, maybe we'll set a record and become the first person ever to dig a treasure out of Shaka's river. I don't believe it anyway." What country superstition." They salvaged until the sun went down, but found nothing.