Chapter 4 Chapter 2 Meeting the Dead

Lying at the foot of a conical hill, Leeds is a charming and busy town, the center of an agricultural county, surrounded by rolling fields and rolling blue hills, which, if it weren't for the fortress entrenched on the hill, would have been a sight to behold. It looks like heaven.There are many sentries on the top of the dark gray high wall, and the ugly chimney of the prison mill stretches to the sky. The oppressive and menacing sense of Pontie Prison is like a shroud covering this quiet farm and town.Not even a touch of green forest on the hills can add a touch of tenderness to the picture in front of you.I am very curious.How many desperadoes have been driven into this hopeless high wall, longing for the cool forest that is just a short distance away from the prison, but to them, it seems to be as far away as Mars.

"You'll see, Patty," my father told me after getting off the train and into a taxi, "that most of the people out there are the worst. Boy, this ain't summer camp, don't waste too much empathy on them .” Maybe a lifetime of dealing with criminals has made him ruthless, but that doesn't mean to me that those people should be locked away from green fields and clear skies, and I don't think there's anything Sin can be so serious that it deserves such cruel punishment. On the short drive to Elihu Clay's house, neither of us spoke. Clay's white colonnade-style mansion is full of colonial style. It is located on the hillside at the outer edge of the city. Elihu Clay is waiting for us on the porch.He was a gracious and caring host, and from his demeanor it was impossible to tell we were hired.He had the housekeeper take us to our comfortable bedroom and settle us in immediately.For the rest of the afternoon he chatted with us about the city of Leeds and himself - as if we were old friends of his.We learn that he is a widower.He spoke sadly of his deceased wife, who said that one of her greatest regrets was not having a daughter to take her place.So I naturally changed my opinion of Elihu Clay: when he came to see us in New York, I thought he was just a rough businessman.In the quiet days that followed, I grew to like him more and more.

Father and Clay spent hours in secret conversation in the study, and spent the whole day at the quarry, on the banks of the Chahorie, a few miles outside Leeds.Father set out to find out everything about the enemy. Judging from his nagging complaints from the first day, he must have expected that this case would be very difficult, not only time-consuming, but also likely to be a waste of time in the end. "There's no documentary evidence at all, Patty," he murmured to me. "This Fawcett must be the devil incarnate. No wonder Clay came to us for help. This case is much more difficult than I imagined." .”

As much as I sympathize with him, investigating the case won't help much. Dr. Fawcett was nowhere to be seen. He had left the Leeds on the morning of our arrival—we were still on the way—and no one knew where he had gone. I don't think this is unusual. He is always mysterious in his actions, and his whereabouts are always kept secret and unpredictable.I'd love to use my natural charms on him, given the chance, but I doubt my father would approve of the plan, and it's sure to add a lot of trouble to our father-daughter relationship. The situation becomes more complicated with the appearance of another character.That is the second Mr. Clay—a young Mr. Clay who is tall, outstanding, handsome, and can fascinate beauties from far and near with his smile.His name was Jeremy, and he had curly chestnut hair and a sort of uncaring sarcasm on his lips.With a name like that, and the right attire, it's like a hero out of a romance novel.For various reasons, he had only recently returned from Dartmouth.He weighed one hundred and ninety pounds, used to be a tail rower on the rowing team, was familiar with American football stars, ate nothing but vegetables, and danced as light as a cloud.

On the first day of his arrival in Leeds, he solemnly assured me at the dinner table that in order to arouse the American sense of marble appreciation, he crumpled his diploma and threw it into a stone crusher, in his father's quarry, in Italy with a sweaty vest. Masons work as a team, throwing explosives to mine all day long, and their hair is covered with explosive dust.He also enthusiastically said that he would learn to make better marble products, and the quality would surpass... His father looked proud and suspicious. I found Jeremy to be a very charming boy.For a few days, his ambition to raise awareness of American marble appreciation was gently put aside because his father asked him to leave work and be with me.Jeremy has a nice little stable and we spent many afternoons riding.My long years of foreign education quickly revealed a deficiency: I hadn't learned the art of resistance to the flirting tactics of young American college students.

"You're a puppy at all." One day, he skillfully put our horse bow into a ravine, so narrow that there was no room to turn around. Speak to him. "Let's be puppies together." He smiled and leaned over while sitting on the saddle.I swung my horsewhip and lightly whipped the tip of his nose, only to avoid a small disaster. "Ouch!" he cried, jumping back. "That's not bad, Petty, your heart is beating faster." "I don't!" "You have, you like it." "No way!" "Okay," he said with an inscrutable and profound expression, "I can wait." On the way home, he kept smiling uncontrollably.

All in all, from that day on, Mr. Jeremy Clay had to ride alone, but he was still a dangerous pretty boy.In fact, I was distressed to find that I really seemed to enjoy letting disasters like that happen. That storm fell on this idyllic pastoral. Like a sudden thunderstorm in summer, people are caught off guard.The news came in the quiet and lazy night.Jeremy was in a bad mood that day. For two hours, he kept combing his hair neatly, while I messed it up again and again, joking with him.Father was away on some private research, and Elihu Clay was in the office all day.He didn't come back for dinner, and neither did Father.

Jeremy channeled all his anger at his hair into an attitude that was almost polite, saying "Miss Sam" here and there, "Miss Sam" here, courteous but without enthusiasm.He insisted on fetching chair cushions for me, ordered the kitchen to prepare an array of delicacies for my supper, lit my cigarettes and poured my cocktails—with a world-hating distaste, outwardly polite social manners, yet sleepy. Thoughts of destroying himself were boiling in his mind. Father came back after dark, hurried, cranky, sweaty, and very irritable.He locked the bedroom as soon as he entered, soaked in the tub, and smoked a cigar on the porch an hour later.Jeremy was strumming sadly on his guitar while I sang softly a slang ditty I'd learned in a café in Marseilles.Fortunately, I thought, my father knew nothing of French.Even Jeremy, who was immersed in sadness, showed a shocked expression.However, maybe the moon and some kind of atmosphere in the air encouraged me. I still remember that I had a hazy dream at that time, and I wanted to go away hand in hand with Jeremy...

I was about to start the third song - and the most ecstatic one - when Mr. Elihu Clay drove back, looking tired too, muttering apologies for his late arrival, obviously the office Something happened here that made him unable to separate himself.He sat down to take his father's cheap cigars when the phone in his study rang. "Don't bother, Martha," he called to the housekeeper, "I'll pick it up myself." Then he took his leave and went into the house. His study was at the front of the house, with windows facing the porch, so through the wide-open windows we could hear his conversations, harsh and urgent from the microphone.

His first words were, "My God," in a tone of shock that made his father jump, and Jeremy's plucking hand stopped abruptly, and then, "Horrible, horrific...it's unimaginable— —No, I don't know where he's been at all. He said he'd be back in a few days...Jesus, oh, I can't—I can't believe it!" Jeremy ran into the house: "Dad, what happened?" Mr. Clay waved Jeremy out with a trembling hand, "What...Of course, I will do it...Of course this matter must be kept secret, but I have a guest who may help you...Yes, New York Inspector Sam of the City...yes, that's him—retired years ago, but you know his reputation...yes, yes! I'm so sorry, man."

He hung up the phone and walked slowly back to the porch, wiping the sweat from his forehead. Under the reflection of the gray wall, Elihu Clay's face was as pale as a mask, "Inspector, fortunately I invited you here, something happened that was much more serious than I—than I originally imagined." John Hume, the prosecutor of the District Attorney’s Office, just called, and he wanted to know where my partner, Dr. The Senator was stabbed to death in his own study!" Prosecutor John Hume is obviously eager to help his father, who has spent most of his life investigating murders. Mr. Clay told us wearily that the scene remains intact, waiting for his father to go to see him. Prosecutor Hume asked his father to rush to the murder scene as soon as possible. "I'll drive you there," Jeremy said quickly. "I'll be right here." Then he ran to the garage and disappeared into the darkness. "Of course I'm going," I said. "Pa, you know what Mr. Wren said." "Well, I wouldn't blame Timo if he kicked you out," Father murmured. "A murder scene isn't the place for a young girl, I don't know—" "On the road!" Jeremy yelled.As the car pulled up the driveway, he seemed surprised to see me follow my father into the back seat of the sedan, but he didn't object.Mr. Clay waved to us, having just told us in embarrassment that he was afraid of seeing blood. Jeremy sped down the hill in his car as darkness engulfed us.I turned my head and looked back, the dark clouds in the sky were reflected in the distance, and the lights in the Algonquin Prison were still on.Why would I think of a prison now that we are speeding toward the scene of a murder where nothing more than a dead man's freedom has been taken from him?I didn't understand either, but I got scared and pressed against my father's broad shoulders.Jeremy said nothing, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. We reached the finish line very quickly, but it just seemed too long to me.I will see the horrifying murder scene with my own eyes... It seems like several hours before we pass through two iron gates and stop in front of a brightly lit luxury mansion. There were cars everywhere, and the dark courtyard was filled with state police and police.The front door was wide open, and a man with his hands in his pockets was leaning quietly against the door frame.Everyone was as quiet as he was, no one was talking, not a single human voice.Only the chirping of crickets echoed around. All the memories of that night are still vivid, and to my father it was a trite and unpleasant story; but to me it was a shuddering and--I confess--an experience with a morbid taste. .What do dead people look like?I've never seen dead people.I have seen my mother's death, but she has a very peaceful and kind smile on her face.I believe that this dead man must be very deformed, with a terrifying expression, it will be a bloody nightmare... I found myself standing in a large study, brightly lit and crowded with people.I vaguely remember that some were holding cameras, some were holding small brushes, some were pulling out books and flipping through them, and some were just doing nothing.The only clear sight is that of a solitary figure who appears the calmest and most indifferent compared to the others. He was a bad-looking, stocky, fat fellow in a long-sleeved shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, showing a thick, shaggy forearm, and worn house slippers.There was an expression of rather distress rather than anger and displeasure on the fat, rough face. A loud voice sounded: "Inspector, look at him." What a disrespect to the dead, I thought, watching everything in the room through the shadows floating before my eyes.A murdered man sits quietly and indifferently while a panicked crowd rushes through his room, invades his privacy, rummages through his books, photographs his desk, soils his furniture, brutality Googling through his papers... This is Senator Joel Fawcett, the late Senator Fawcett. The shadow in front of me moved away, and my eyes stayed in front of the person in the white shirt.Senator Fawcett was sitting behind a messy desk, with his thick upper body leaning against the edge of the desk, his head tilted slightly to the side, as if he was inquiring about something.Immediately above the edge of the table, the shirt with pearl-colored buttons has a streak of blood seeping from the center to the right, and a slender paper knife is stuck in the heart, and the blood seeps from the exposed handle come out.Blood, I thought vaguely, did look like dried red ink... and then a little anxious man came into my view, covering the body, and I later learned that he was Coroner Bull, County Tilden Physician.I took a deep breath, shook my head, and tried my best to shake off the sudden dizziness, but I couldn't expose my weakness in front of my father and these men... I felt my father holding my hand tightly, so I straightened my back and tried hard to control myself. Someone was talking, and I looked up to see a pair of young man's eyes.Father was talking about something - I heard the name "Timo" - and at once I understood that this man was the current prosecutor of the Tilden County District Attorney's Office, which is--Jesus!I thought—the dead man's electoral opponent... John Hume was tall, almost as tall as Jeremy—well, where is the Jeremy—he had a pair of very beautiful and intelligent black eyes.A small sense of guilt suddenly rose in my heart, dispelling those shameful thoughts, don't provoke this person.There was a longing expression on his thin face, what was he longing for?that power?or the truth? "Hello, Miss Sam," he said briskly, in a deep, smooth voice, "the inspector said you're also doing detective work. Are you sure you want to stay?" "Very sure." I tried my best to put on a nonchalant tone, but my lips were dry, my voice was trembling, and his eyes lit up. "Oh, good." He shrugged. "Inspector, do you want to examine the body?" "Your coroner is much better than I am. Have you examined his clothes?" "There's nothing special about the body." "He can't be waiting for a woman," the father murmured, "it can't be dressed like that. Look at his lips, and his girly fingernails, it's impossible to wear a shirt to a lady...  . . . is he married, Hume?" "No." "Where's your girlfriend?" "A lot of miles, Inspector. To put it plainly, he's not very good at coaxing women, and I'm sure quite a few of them wanted to stab him with a knife." "Do you have a specific candidate in mind?" Their eyes meet. "No," John Hume said, turning away, and suddenly bowed his head to the door, and a short, stocky man with drooping ears walked towards us listlessly.Prosecutor Hume said he was Chief Kenyon of the local police department.He had the gelatinous eyes of a fish, and I immediately turned against him.And I felt the hatred in his eyes staring at his father's back. The restless little man, Dr. Bull, with a thick tube of ink pen in his hand, scribbled something on an official note, then straightened up and stuffed the pen into his pocket. "How's it going, Doctor?" Chief Kenyon asked. "What conclusion?" "Murder," said Dr. Bull quickly, "undoubtedly. Murder from any point of view, and absolutely not suicide. If nothing else, just looking at the fatal wound, there is no way it could have been self-inflicted." "More than one wound, what does that mean?" the father asked. "Yes, Fawcett was stabbed twice in the chest. As you can see, both wounds bled profusely. However, although the first wound was serious, it was not enough to send him to heaven. Just to be on the safe side, the murderer One more stab." He flicked his fingers towards the paper knife that had been stuck in the dead man's chest. He had pulled the knife out of the dead man before, and now it was on the desk. The thin blade was covered with dark red blood clots.A criminal policeman picked up the knife tremblingly and sprinkled gray powder on it. "Are you sure," put in John Hume, "that it cannot be suicide?" "Pretty sure. The angle and direction of the two wounds point to the conclusion of murder. There is one more thing, though, which you should watch. It's very interesting." Dr. Bull walked around the desk and stood in front of the corpse, as if to explain the artwork.Then he raised the deceased's already stiff right arm completely impersonally.The skin was bloodless, and the long hair on the forearm was densely covered with a strange brilliance, which almost made me forget that it was a corpse... There were two marks on the forearm, one a sharp, long cut above the wrist, and oozing blood; another wound about four inches up, vague and broken, what appeared to be a scratch, odd looking. "Now," said the coroner cheerfully, "the wound on the wrist is undoubtedly a paper-knife, or at least," he added hastily, "is as sharp as a paper-knife." "What about the other wound?" Father asked, frowning. "Your question is the same as mine. I can only confirm that this shattered scratch was not caused by a murder weapon." I sucked my lips and said softly: "Doctor, can you confirm these two scars on your arm, When did you leave it?" Suddenly, everyone turned and stared at me.Hume hesitated to speak, but his father had a thoughtful expression on his face. The coroner smiled and said, "Good question, little girl. Yes, I can be sure. The two wounds occurred very close in time - both occurred during the murder That period—it should be said—almost coincided with the murder." The detective who had just checked the murder weapon stood up with a disgusted expression on his face: "There are no fingerprints on the knife," he announced, "It's difficult." "Well," said Dr. Bull cheerfully, "that's the end of my work. Of course, I know you're waiting to see the official autopsy report, but I'm sure there's no chance of any further findings, and I'll tell you all I can say." I said it. Which of you go to the Public Welfare Bureau and take this guy away." He closed the tool bag, and in came two men in uniform, one chewing gum vigorously, the other sniffing—his was wet and red.These details remain so clearly in my mind that it is impossible to completely forget the relentless process.I turned my head slightly... The two men went to the desk and put a four-handled, basket-shaped object on the floor.The two grabbed the dead man by the armpit, creaked the body off the chair, and slammed it into the wooden crate, closing the batten basket lid.They bent over and continued to chew gum while the other sniffed and moved the basket away. I found myself breathing easier and breathed a sigh of relief, though it took me a long time to work up the courage to approach the desk and the empty chair.Just then, I noticed with some surprise that the tall shadow of Jeremy Clay had appeared in the hall, standing with the policeman leaning against the doorframe, staring at me. "By the way," said the father's voice as the coroner picked up the briefcase and headed for the door. "When did this guy die?" The place is too sloppy.Apparently his meticulous style in New York City was very different from Chief Kenyon's.The chief was lazily pacing up and down in the study, while Dr. Bull was whistling happily. "Oh! By the way, I forgot. I can pinpoint the exact time of death," said Dr. Bull. Twenty..." He smacked his lips, tapped his head, and disappeared through the door. My father looked at his watch and snorted. It was five past midnight. "He's too confident," he muttered. John Hume shook his head impatiently, and walked to the door: "Get that guy named Carmichael." "Who's Carmichael?" "Senator Fawcett's secretary, Kenyon said he could give us a lot of useful information. Anyway, we'll find out soon." "Any fingerprints, Kenyon?" cried the father, looking at the chief of police disdainfully. Kenyon was startled. He was picking his teeth with an ivory toothpick, his eyes blank.Then he took the toothpick out of his mouth, frowned, and asked a subordinate next to him: "Have you found any fingerprints?" The man shook his head, "No outsider. The senator has many fingerprints, including Carmichael's. Whoever did it, the murderer must have been a fan of detective novels and wore gloves on his hands." "He's wearing gloves," said Chief Kenyon, putting the toothpick back in his mouth. John Hume stood by the door and called, "Get that man over, can you?" My father shrugged and lit his cigar, and I could tell he was very disgusted with the whole thing. I felt a hard edge against my buttocks and turned to see Jeremy, smiling and holding a chair. "Take a rest, Holmes," said he, "if you insist on staying here, let your heavy thoughts rest for a while from your beautiful feet." "Please!" I mutter angrily, this is not the place for flirting. He smiled and pushed me into the chair.No one noticed us, so I gave up the idea of ​​resisting, and then I glanced at my father. His cigar rested two inches from his lips, his eyes staring at the door.