Chapter 17 seventh scene

Ryan spent the next two hours alone.He felt the need to be alone.He was irritated with himself, why had he taken this particular case so upon himself?he questioned himself.After all, his duty, if he had a duty, was to answer to the law.Is not it?Perhaps justice demands more from him— Dromeo drove him uptown to the Friars' Club, and he kept questioning himself all the way.His conscience won't let him go, and even calmly dining alone in his favorite corner of the club, mechanically replying to friends, old acquaintances, and old colleagues in the theater, can't ease his mood.He fiddled with the food, his face stretched longer and longer.Today even the English style lamb is not tasty.

After lunch, like moths to a flame, Mr. Jerry Lane asked Dromeo to drive him down to Het House in the lower town. It was very quiet in the house, and he secretly praised himself in his heart.The servant, George Abuko, with a savage face, stared at him angrily as he walked from the vestibule into the corridor. "Is Inspector Sam there?" "Upstairs in Mr. Peary's room." "Invite him to the lab." Ren climbed the stairs thoughtfully.The door of the laboratory was open, and Mo Xiu sat listlessly on a stool by the window. Inspector Sam's snub nose appeared in front of his eyes, and he greeted with a long voice.Moxiu jumped off the chair, Sam waved him to the side, and then stood there staring at Ren who was busy looking through the file cabinet.In a moment Ryan straightened up, holding a stack of index cards with a list of lab supplies.

"Ah," he said, "I found it. Wait a minute, Inspector." He sat down in a half-blackened swivel chair beside the old rolltop desk and began examining the index cards.He only took a quick glance at each sheet, and then flipped to the next sheet without any pause. In short, when he reached the thirtieth sheet, he stopped with a soft cry.Sam leaned over and stood behind him to see what made him so happy.The card bears the number 30; under the number there is the words "Bacterial Culture Medium".But what caught Ryan's interest seemed to be the words "Bacterial Culture Medium" neatly crossed out, and the words "Peruvian Sesame Oil" written underneath.

"What the hell is that?" Sam blurted out. "Be patient, Inspector." He got up and walked to a corner of the room, where the remaining glass shards were swept away.He rummaged around the debris, seeming to concentrate on examining the least broken jars.Searching in vain, he turned to the charred ledge and looked up to the middle of the top floor, where not a single bottle or jar remained.He nodded, went back to the glass pile, selected a few unbroken bottles and jars, and carefully arranged them in the middle of the top tier. "Excellent," he said, patting the dust off his hands, "excellent. Now, Inspector, may I send Moxiu an errand?"

"of course can." "Moxiu, get Martha Heite." Mo Xiu cheered up, with a smile all over his face, and ran out of the laboratory with a bang.He came back immediately, Martha walked in front, Moxiu closed the door behind him, and then stood at attention with his back to the door in the standard police officer's guard posture. Martha stood hesitantly in front of Sam and Ryan, looking at their expressions questioningly.She looked utterly pathetic, with dark circles under her eyes, a puckered nose, tight-set lips, and a pale, bluish complexion. "Please sit down, Mrs. Hatter," Ryan said cheerfully, "I want to ask some news... As far as I know, your father-in-law was infected with some kind of skin disease?"

She was about to sit down, then stopped, very surprised: "Why—" Then she fell on the swivel chair, "Yes, yes, but how did you find out? I thought no one—" "You think no one but you, York Hatter and Dr. Miriam know. It's a simple matter...you secretly help Mr. Hatter apply ointment and bandage his arm?" "What the hell is going on?" Sam murmured. "Excuse me, Inspector . . . are you, Mrs. Hatter?" "Yes, I helped, and sometimes he asked me to come in and help." "What's the name of that ointment, Mrs Hatter?"

"I really don't remember the name." "Do you know where Mr. Hatter put it?" "Oh, yes! One of the jars over there..." She stood up and hurried over to the ledge.In front of the middle shelf, she stood on tiptoe and reached just in time to reach one of the jars that Ryan had put on the shelf not long ago.Ryan stared at her, and he saw that she was holding the can in the middle of the shelf. She handed him the jar, but he shook his head. "Open the lid, please, and smell the inside, Mrs. Hatter." She complied suspiciously: "Oh, no," she cried out as soon as she smelled it, "it's not the ointment. It should look like honey syrup, which is one of the things, and it should smell like—" she said In the middle of speaking, she immediately fell silent, her teeth clenched her lower lip tightly, and a panic covered her overworked face. She put her hands down, and the jar fell to the ground and shattered.

Sam stared at her intently. "Well, tell me," he said rough, "what does it smell like, Mrs. Hatter?" "How, Mrs. Hatter?" Ryan asked softly. She shook her head like a wind-up doll: "I don't... remember." "Like vanilla, isn't it, Mrs Hatter?" She started to step back towards the door, staring at Ren in horror.He sighed, straightened up, patted her arm with a fatherly attitude, waved Mo Xiu to make way, and then opened the door for her himself.She walked out slowly as if suffering from sleepwalking. "Tsk tsk!" Sam yelled, jumping to his feet. "Skin Remedies—Vanilla! That's a thing, God, a thing!"

Mr. Jerry Lane went to the fireplace and stood with his back to the empty mantel. "Yes," he said thoughtfully, "I believe we have finally discovered the source of the smell that Miss Kabian testified against, Inspector." Sam was excited, pacing up and down, not so much talking to Ryan as he was saying to himself, "Brilliant! Breakthrough... Now that I think about Peary... oh my god !Vanilla-ointment . . . What do you think, Mr. Wren?" "I don't think you're right to put Mr. Peary in prison, Inspector." Lane smiled. "Oh, that's it! Well, I'm beginning to think so, too. Yes, sir," went on Sam, with clever eyes, "I'm beginning to see the light."

"Eh?" Ren snapped back, "What did you say?" "Oh, no, you don't know," grinned the inspector. "You have your chance, Mr. Wren, and I think I'm entitled to mine. Can't tell just yet. But as far as the damned case goes, I finally had something serious to do for the first time." Ren stared at him intently: "Have you found a theory?" "You can say it, you can say it," Sam smiled smugly. "I just thought of it. It was one of your ideas, Mr. Wren. That's great! Hell, if it could be..." He said He walked towards the door loudly, "Moxiu," he said seriously, "you and Pixon are in charge of this room, do you understand?" He glanced at the windows, which were all boarded up, "Not even a second Go away, remember!"

"Yes, Inspector." "If you are careless, I will tell you to walk. Come with me, Mr. Wren?" "I don't know where you're going, Inspector. I don't think it's better not to... Before you go, by the way—do you have a tape measure?" Sam stopped in front of the door, stunned for a moment: "Soft ruler? What do you want that for?" He took out a portable folding ruler from his vest and handed it to Ren. Ren took it with a smile on his face and walked towards the ledge again.He pulled the ruler away and measured the distance from the bottom of the top tier to the top of the second tier: "Well," he murmured, "six inches...well, good! And the thickness of the shelf an inch..." He stroked He stroked his chin, nodded, and then with a gloomy and satisfied expression on his face, he folded the ruler back to its original shape and returned it to Sam. Sam's original cheerfulness seemed to fade in an instant: "It occurred to me," he growled, "that you said yesterday that you had two leads. The vanilla smell was one—is that the second?" "Eh? Oh, you mean this measurement? I'm afraid not." Ren shook his head absently, "I have to investigate another one." The inspector hesitated, hesitated, then, shaking his head as though he had had enough, left the room. Moxiu watched with a look of indifference. Ren followed Sam and walked out of the laboratory slowly. He probed into Miss Smith's bedroom next door. It was empty.He walked down the hall, stopped at a door in the southeast corner, and knocked, but no one answered.He went down the stairs, met no one, and continued walking towards the back garden.Although the wind was very cool outside, Miss Smith sat reading under the big parasol, and beside her Louisa Kabian was lying on a sun lounger, apparently asleep.Near them, Jackie and Billy squatted on the grass and looked down intently. It was a rare time for them to play quietly; they were observing an ant hole, and both of them seemed to be fascinated by such a group of busy insects. up. "Miss Smith," Wren said, "can you tell me where I can find Miss Barbara Height?" "Oh!" gasped Miss Smith, dropping her book. "I'm sorry you startled me. I think Miss Hatter got permission from the inspector to go out, but I don't know where she went or when she went out." Will be back." "I see." He looked down to see who was pulling his trousers, and it turned out to be Billy, with a bright red face looking up at him, shouting: "Give me candy, give me candy!" "Hello, Billy." Ryan said sullenly. "Barbara's going to jail, Barbara's going to see Mr. Peary in jail!" cried thirteen-year-old Jackie, tugging on his cane curiously. Wren graciously broke away from the tug of the two boys—he didn't seem in the mood for play—and walked around the house to Waverly Road by the back alley.His car and Dromeo were waiting by the pavement, and he turned and looked back with disgust before getting into the car with a heavy heart.