Chapter 3 first scene

Below, silvery in the bluish morning mist, was the Hudson River, with a small white sail skimming briskly and a steamboat rocking upriver. The car smoothly climbed up the narrow ramp with nine bends and eighteen turns.There were two people sitting in the car, and looking out through the window, there was a medieval castle in the mist ahead.Walls stacked with large stones, battlements with arrow eyes, and ancient church-style steeples float above a lush forest like needlework. The two people in the car couldn't help but look at each other. "I feel like I became a Connecticut during the War of Independence in the 18th century." One of them said, his body trembling nervously.

The other, very burly, said gruffly, "Such a samurai in armor, isn't he?" The car stopped at the end of an ancient bridge with a screeching sound. A little old man with a ruddy complexion came out of a thatched hut beside the bridge. Without saying a word, he only pointed to the wooden sign on the door. The cursive script reads: The big man stuck his head out of the car window and said loudly, "We're here to visit Mr. Jerry Lane." "Yes, sir," the little old man jumped forward, "may I have a look at the passports of the two of you?" The two were dumbfounded on the spot. The shorter man shrugged helplessly, while the taller man said impatiently, "Mr. Wren invited us."

"Oh, that's how it is." The little old man who guarded the bridge passage scratched his gray hair and disappeared into his thatched hut. After a while, he reappeared and said loudly, "I'm sorry. Gentlemen, this way, please." He hurried to the end of the bridge, opened the iron gate with a slam, and stood respectfully by the roadside.The car crossed the bridge and accelerated onto a flat and clean gravel road. Passing through a verdant old oak forest, the car came to a wide open space.Like a sleeping giant, the castle lay quietly in front of them, surrounded by low granite walls against the rolling Hudson hills.When the car approached, a heavy door decorated with iron buckles opened abruptly, and another old man stood beside the door, with his hands tightly pressed on his hat, smiling cheerfully at them.

So the car turned onto another section of the road full of flowers, and it can be seen that these gardens have been carefully tended for many years.The yews on both sides of the road seem to have been calculated and measured mathematically, and are neatly spaced and uniform in size.Going further outside, there are several small farmhouses with human-shaped roofs scattered in the vast flower garden, like huts in a fairy tale world.In the central pool of the flower group stands a pair of stone-carved elands, with their heads up and spraying water towards the sky... Finally, the car finally came to the front of the castle.There was also an old man standing at the entrance to greet them, and a huge suspension bridge stretched straight across the sparkling water of the moat.At the other end of the suspension bridge, a gate made of oak and iron with a height of twenty feet opened in response, and another short man with a red face and a bright servant's attire appeared beside the gate, bowing with a smile on his face. waist, that respectful and happy look, as if they were overjoyed at a secret and inappropriate joke.

The two visitors were so surprised that their eyes were like copper bells. They hurriedly got out of the car and walked quickly across the iron bridge. "Is it Prosecutor Bruno and Inspector Sam? This way, please." The chubby old servant gave another salute like calisthenics, and happily walked ahead, leading the two into the sixteen century. In front of you, there is a manor-style aristocratic hall that is so vast that it is astonishing. The huge beams on the ceiling are criss-crossed and criss-crossed. The armor is shining like a traditional warrior, guarding all kinds of ancient ornaments and books hanging in the room alone.On the farthest wall, the majestic and strange momentum is better than the Valhalla Temple in Norse mythology, where the spirits of fallen soldiers are enshrined. A giant comedy mask squints and laughs creepily.On the opposite wall, there is another tragic mask of the same specification, both of which are carved from ancient oak wood. Among the two huge faces, one sad and one happy, is a huge and incomparable mask hanging straight from the ceiling. The exquisite iron candlesticks and the giant candles seem to say that it has nothing to do with wires.

A door in the farthest wall opened: and in came another hunchbacked old man who seemed to have come from antiquity—bald, with a hedgehog beard, wrinkled, and wearing a blacksmith's leather apron.Bruno and Sam couldn't remember how many times they looked at each other, and Sam muttered to himself, "Why are they all old men?" The hunchbacked old man stepped forward to welcome them swiftly: "Good afternoon, gentlemen, welcome to Hamlet Heights." His tone of speech was very strange, like ice beads bouncing, mixed with the sound of rattling metal , as if he had never spoken before.Then, he turned to the old man dressed as a servant and said, "It's all right here, Falstaff." At this moment, Bruno's wide eyes widened even more on the spot.

"Falstaff..." Bruno murmured, "This is absolutely impossible, he can't really be called Falstaff!" The hunchbacked old man pulled his beard and said: "Yes, sir, his real name is Jack Peena, he is an actor, but Mr. Wren called him that probably because Jack played the role in 'Henry IV'... This way please." After speaking, the hunchbacked old man led the two of them through the hall, and went out through the door he had just entered.As soon as he touched a button on the wall, a door slid open silently, and it turned out to be an elevator!There is actually an elevator installed in this ancient palace ghost land!Bruno and Sam shook their heads and followed the hunchbacked old man into the elevator. After a while, the elevator stopped silently and opened the door. The hunchbacked old man said, "Here we are, this is Mr. Wren's living room."

Majestic and quaint, the only two words to describe it...everything, every atmosphere, even the smell of the whole room is from the old England of Queen Elizabeth.As far as the eye can see, the only visible textures are leather and oak, or oak and stone.The fireplace is fully twelve feet wide. Years of smoke and years of engraving make the whole fireplace glow with a bronze luster. At this moment, there is still a fire burning quietly.When Bruno saw it, his brown eyes lit up, and his whole body seemed to warm up immediately. After all, the air outside was still a bit cold. Under the guidance of the hunchbacked old man, the two sat comfortably on the big quaint chair, and couldn't help but look at each other again.

The hunchbacked old man stood leaning against the wall, stroking his beard with his hand, followed, his eyes lit up, and he said loudly, "Mr. Wren is here." The two hurriedly jumped up from their chairs, only to see a slender man standing at the door, looking at them fixedly. The hunchbacked old man bowed his head in a deep salute, and a strange smile appeared on his leathery, weather-beaten face. Bruno and The two of Sam, as if they were infected, bowed involuntarily. Ren walked into the room slowly, and stretched out his white but powerful hand: "It's an honor for you two to come, please sit down."

Bruno looked into those gray-green eyes that seemed so alive, and when he spoke, he was horrified to find that those eyes were fixed on his lips. "Mr. Wren, thank you very much for taking the time to meet me and Sam," Bruno hesitated, "We—er, how should we put it, your mansion is really amazing." "Mr. Bruno, it may seem a bit surprising at first glance, but it's just because you look at it through the eyes of the twentieth century, and it's based on a certain impatience with modern life, so sometimes the fun of finding strange things is wrong. " Ren's voice is as steady as his eyes, but Bruno thinks it is the most expressive and intriguing voice he has ever heard, "However, you will really like it after a long stay, Just like me. One of my colleagues said that Hamlet is a set, a large set combined with this beautiful hill, but for me personally, it is alive and breathing and alive , it seems to have been cut directly from the best world of old England, and placed in twentieth-century New York... Quesy!"

The hunchbacked old man walked up to Ren, and Ren patted his humped back: "Two, he is Kuisi, my closest friend, and I can assure you that he is a peerless genius in makeup. For forty years, he has been doing my makeup." Kuisi bowed to Ryan again. In such simple words and actions, the two guests clearly felt a strange warm feeling. Although the appearance of these two strange characters in front of them was completely different, they were as thick as relatives. The constant, unbroken emotional connection.As a result, Bruno and Sam spoke at the same time, and Ren's eyes were busy looking at their lips respectively. After a while, Leith's original expressionless face softened, and he said with a smile: "Sorry, You’ll have to tell them one by one, I’m totally deaf. Of course, I can only look at one person’s lips at a time — lip reading is a recent academic achievement I’m quite proud of.” Bruno and Sam apologized hastily, and they returned to their seats, and Rain pulled an equally quaint great-grandfather's chair from the fire and sat facing them.Sam noticed that Wren had thoughtfully placed his chair between the guests and the fireplace, so that the light of the fire would be hidden from the guests' eyes, so that Wren himself, sitting in the backlight, was hidden in a great shadow.Quesy had retreated now, and Sam occasionally glanced to the side, and found that the hunchback was motionless, like a statue of a brown monster, huddled in a chair in the farthest corner. Bruno cleared his throat: "Sam and I both feel that it is very presumptuous to bother Mr. Wren like this, especially thinking about that telegram. Of course, if it wasn't for your earth-shattering letter at the beginning, we would have done so in one fell swoop. Helped us solve the Kramer case, today we dare not make such a mistake.” "Mr. Bruno, how can it be called a groundbreaking, you are too polite," a clear and loud voice came from Ren's big chair that looked like an emperor's throne, "It is not without precedent that I did this back then. You will recall that Edgar Allan Poe wrote a series of letters to the local New York newspapers, offering the solution to the Mary Rogers case. The Kramer case, in my personal analysis, was easily The police have been hampered by three unrelated facts which, unfortunately, have led the police astray. I suppose you are here today to discuss the Lone Street murder?" "Mr. Wren, you guessed it right. It's Sam and I—well, of course, we understand you're a busy man." "No no, Mr. Bruno, I'm always happy to play a small cameo role in such an important drama and I can find the time." Ryan's smooth voice began to add a layer of heat, "Until I When I retreated from the stage, I began to realize clearly that human life itself is truly full of drama. After all, the stage is limited, and there is also a certain limit to the creative space that depends on it. Machotio said in his comment on the dream that life is full of drama. The characters in the play are 'just an empty phantom of childish children'." The two mountain-seeking visitors were completely overwhelmed by the magic in Wren's voice, "but the creativity of life itself has no limit They are more real and weighty, and they will never be "like the nothingness of air, more erratic than the breeze" when people's emotional ups and downs are as dramatic as dramatic moments." "I understand," Bruno said gravely. "After you say it, yes, I understand completely now." "Crime—violent crime born of man's controlling passions—is the most delicate product of the drama of human life, and at its culmination is murder, and I have, in my life, been with the most eminent brother of a great family Sisters on the same stage,"—Rayne smiled sadly—"Medjeski Edwin Bupe, Alan Lehan, and all the good actors in their glory—have also acted in the most impassioned Theatre, now, I thought that if I had the opportunity to act in the drama of real passion in my life, I thought I would be able to contribute my own unique talents. In the past, I killed countless people on stage. Before committing murder, I always struggled with it , tortured by the cruelty of conscience. I have also played some characters with a less noble heart, like Hamlet. However, like a child seeing the simplest things in this world for the first time, I realized that the real The world is full of Macbeth, it's full of Hamlet, it's a cliché, but it's incomparable... I've been rigged by the master's strings, and now a powerful impulse springs up within me to play in a play greater than man-made drama In the play, I have to manipulate the cable by myself, and I feel that everything about me fits so well, even my seemingly unfortunate physical weakness,"—Raine pointed to his ear—"It's more It helps to concentrate my will, as long as I close my eyes, I will immediately enter a world of silence and silence, so that even tangible disturbances can be eliminated..." Sam seemed overwhelmed, caught in a mood that didn't quite fit his usual realist tendencies.He was still blinking, wondering if this was—Sam thought to himself, somewhat self-deprecating—some kind of hero worship. "You must know what I mean," Ryan continued, "I have the ability to understand, I have enough basic training, I have the ability to see, I have the ability to observe, I have the ability to concentrate, and I dare to declare that I have The ability to reason and detect." Bruno coughed twice, and Ryan's eyes quickly fixed on Bruno's lips: "Uh, Mr. Ryan, I'm afraid our little case won't get into yours—oh, you have such a magnificent and magnificent detective picture. It's really just a very ordinary murder case..." "It seems that I didn't express my thoughts clearly," Ryan's voice leaked into a smile, "A rather ordinary murder case? Mr. Bruno. But——seriously, you think what I'm looking for is colorful A colorful and extraordinary murder case?" "Anyway," Sam interjected suddenly, "whether ordinary or colorful, it's a rather tricky case, Mr. Bruno thinks you'll be interested in. Is there any report?" "Yes, but the papers are quite unclear and of no real value. I hope to understand this murder case through undistorted information. Inspector, may you trouble me for me from beginning to end? Describe the murder in detail. Include all details and all relevant background information, no matter how irrelevant or unimportant it may appear on the outside, simply, please tell me everything." Bruno and Sam exchanged glances.Afterwards, Bruno nodded, and Sam's expression tightened. His originally ugly face now showed an expression that was about to rain. The tall walls on all sides gradually blurred, and the fire seemed to automatically weaken to match the atmosphere.The entire Hamlet Hill, including Wren, including all the antiquities, ancient times, and these ancient people, at this moment, sank into Sam's rough voice.