The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes

Chapter 55 Four Signatures (39)
"The reason they justify their actions. You can learn all about it from what happened. When I first came here, Mr. Lucasle took me here in a carriage to Copper Beeches. As he said, The view was beautiful indeed, but the house was not. It was a large, square, whitewashed house, but the damp steam had eroded the top of it into spots. Around it, on three sides The ring forest, with sloping ground on one side, leads to the Southampton Highway, a hundred yards before the house. The open space in front of the house belongs to the owner, while the surrounding woods are part of the Lord Sutherton's shelter forest. Because There is a large clump of copper beech growing directly opposite the house, so the place is named copper beech.

"The employer was equally genial when he drove me up. In the evening he introduced me to his family--wife and children. Mr. Holmes, at your house in Baker Street, our guesses are not accurate. Mrs. Lucasle is not crazy, she is a very quiet woman, a little pale, much younger than her husband. I guess she will not be more than 30 years old, and he must be at least 45 years old I learned from the conversation that they have been married for about seven years. He was a widower, and his ex-wife left the only child, which is the daughter who has gone to Philadelphia in the United States. Lucastle told me privately that his daughter The reason for leaving was that she had some prejudice against her stepmother. His daughter should be in her 20s. It is not difficult to imagine how awkward and embarrassing the situation is for her to live with her father's young wife.

"In my opinion, Mrs. Lucasle is very ordinary in mind or appearance. I don't make any special impression on me, good or bad. But it is obvious that she loves her husband and her husband very much. Youngest son. Light gray eyes roll from time to time, and once she sees that they have a little need, she tries to meet them as much as possible. He is also very good to her, but sometimes in a rough way. Overall, they are still a happy couple Loving couple. But she still has some secret sorrows, she will enter into a state of contemplation from time to time, with a sad face. I have seen her cry many times, and sometimes I think it is because of her child's bad temper. Let her make it like this! In fact, this is the first time I have seen such a domineering and evil-minded little guy. He is not tall, but his head is big. He is not wild all day long, Just silent. His sole pleasure is inflicting violent torture on weak animals. He has a real talent for catching mice, birds, and worms. But let's not talk about this little fellow, Holmes. In truth, sir, he is an insignificant character."

My friend said, "I'm ready to hear anything you have to say, no matter how much you think it's relevant to you."

"Then I try not to miss any detail. The thing that displeases me most in the house is the behavior of the servants. There are only two servants in the house, Toller and his wife. Toller is rude and clumsy, with gray He has sideburns and hair, and he smells of alcohol all day. Twice when we were together, he was very drunk, but Mr. Lucasle didn't seem to mind. Toller's wife was A tall, stocky woman with a somewhat grim face, as taciturn as Mrs Lucasle, but far less approachable. They were a repulsive couple. Luckily I spent most of my time in the nursery with my In the bedroom, and the two rooms are connected, in the corner of the house.

"The first two days I was in Copper Beeches, life was quiet. On the third morning, after breakfast, Mrs. Lucasle came downstairs, and she whispered something to her husband. Then, He turned to me and said: 'Oh, yes. We are very grateful to you, Miss Hunter! You have cut your hair short to accommodate our shortcomings, but I can assure you that it does not take away one iota of your beauty. In your room Bed, we've got that iron blue dress for you, and we'd be very glad if you'd wear it.' The dress did go on my bed, it was dark blue, a fine It was made of serge, but it was obvious that it had been worn. It fit me very well, as if it had been made to my proportions. Mr. and Mrs. Lucasle were very happy to see it, and even a Overhead. We came to the spacious living room, which took up the front half of the house, and had three French windows. The middle one had a chair with the back facing the window. They asked me to sit on the chair. Then, Luca Mr. Searle was just walking up and down the other side of the room and told me jokes I'd never heard before. You can't imagine how funny he was, and I was even a little tired of laughing. But Mrs. Lucasle He didn't have any sense of humor, and he didn't even smile. He just sat with his hands on his knees, with a slightly depressed and anxious face. An hour later, Mr. Lucastle suddenly said that it was time to start working, and I could change Go back to the clothes and go to the nursery to take care of little Edward.

"Two days later, the same situation happened again. I changed my clothes, sat by the window, and listened to my employer's jokes. I laughed again. Later, he gave me a book with a yellow cover and moved my chair. Moved to the side so my shadow wasn't in the way of the book. He begged me to read it aloud to him. I found a chapter and read it for about 10 minutes. Suddenly, just as I was halfway through the sentence, he said Tell me to stop and go and change back into my clothes.

"It is not difficult to imagine, Mr. Holmes, that I am full of doubts and puzzles about what this unusual performance means. I find that they always turn my back to the window, so I have the desire to see what is going on behind the scenes." A wish for something. At first, it seemed impossible. But soon I thought of a trick. I had a small mirror broken, and I secretly hid the fragments in a handkerchief. During a performance, when When I laugh, I put the handkerchief in front of my eyes, and with a little flick, I can see behind me out of the window. I have to say I was disappointed at first because I couldn't see anything, at least at first. Yes. But at the second time, I found a man with a mustache and wearing gray clothes standing on the Southampton road and looking towards us. That road is very important, and there is always traffic on the road. but the man was leaning against the fence of the paddock and looking this way. I lowered my handkerchief a little and caught sight of Mrs. Lucasle looking at me with a wary eye.

"She said, 'Jeff Rowe, there's a sleazy fellow on the road staring this way at Miss Hunter.' He said, 'Is that your friend, Miss Hunter?' I said, 'No, it's here I don't know anyone.' He said, 'Oh, that's rude! Please wave him away.' I said, 'I think I'd better ignore him.' He said, 'No, no, Then he'll be here a lot. Please turn around and wave to him, like this, to let him go.' I followed his advice, and Mrs. Lucasle drew down the curtains. This happened a week ago , Since then, I have not been asked to wear that blue dress and sit by the window. And that man has never appeared again."

"Pray go on," said Holmes. "What you have to say may be very interesting."

"I am afraid you will find my story incomplete and incoherent, perhaps to show that there is no connection between the events I have described. On my first day at Copper Beeches, Mr. Lucasle led me to the kitchen door. A hut. As we approached there, I heard the rattle of chains, and the sound of a large creature moving about.

"'Look here!' Mr. Lucasle pointed to the gap between the boards. 'It's beautiful, isn't it?' I looked in through the gap and felt two shining eyes and a vague curled up. My employer said: 'Don't be afraid.' He smiled at my panic. 'That's my mastiff Carlo. Although it is mine, but in fact only old Toller can handle it, He is my keeper. We feed him once a day, not too much, so that he keeps his energy high. Toller puts him out at night, and God bless if anyone breaks in Yes. For God's sake, don't you cross that threshold for anything at night. If you do, it's tantamount to suicide.' This is not alarmist. After two nights, I happened to Looking out from the bedroom window around [-]:[-] am, the moonlight was bright and the lawn in front of the house was shining, and everything looked very clear. I was intoxicated by such a peaceful and beautiful night scene, when suddenly, I realized that something was moving in the shadow of the copper beech. When it appeared in the moonlight I knew what I saw, and it was a gigantic dog the size of a calf, brown, with broad and drooping jaws, a black mouth and A huge protruding skeleton. It slowly disappeared into the shadows at the other corner of the lawn. This terrifying patrol gave me a chill. I don't think even a burglar could have scared me like this.

"Now I'm going to tell you a strange thing. You know I had my hair cut in London, and I put it in the bottom of the box. One night, after I put the baby to bed, I went home. Fix the furniture and pack my own little things. There is an old wardrobe in the room. The upper two drawers are unlocked and empty, so I fill it with my clothes. The third drawer is locked. And I still had something left to put away, so naturally I was a little annoyed. I thought it might have been locked accidentally, so I took out a bunch of keys and tried to open it. It happened that the first key would be locked. It opened, and there was only one thing in the drawer, but I'm sure you'd never guess what it contained. It turned out to be my hair!
"I picked up my hair and looked at it carefully. The rare color and thickness are the same as mine. Seeing the impossible happen in front of me. How could my hair be in this drawer? I trembled Opened my case and emptied the contents and pulled my own hair from the bottom of the case. I compared the two strands side by side and dare I say they were exactly the same. It was so surreal. I was incredulous , I can't think of the reason for this. I put the hair back in the drawer, and didn't say a word to the Lucasles, because it is really wrong to open the lock without permission.

"Mr. Holmes, you may have noticed that I am a naturally observant person, and it didn't take long for me to form in my mind the outline of the whole house. There is a wing that seems to have been unoccupied for a long time, the Toller house. On the opposite side of the house there was a door which would have just led to it, but it was always locked. I went upstairs one day and met Mr. Lucasle coming out of that door with the key in his hand. He was His expression was completely different from his kind appearance in my impression. His cheeks were flushed with anger, his brows were tightly furrowed, and the veins on both sides of his temples were faintly visible. After he locked the door, he hurried past me, what? Neither said nor looked at me.

"It piqued my curiosity a lot. Whenever I take the kids for a walk in the grounds, I purposely go to that side of the house so I can see the windows on that side. There are four windows side by side. , three were filthy, and the fourth was blocked by shutters. These windows were obviously out of use. As I was walking up and down, casting my eyes on them, Mr. Lucasle appeared, and he The joy and joy of the past were restored. He said: 'Ah! My dear young lady, I hope you will forgive my rudeness if I pass you silently. I was busy with some things just now.' I comforted and let him know that I didn't think he was offending me. I said, 'By the way, there seems to be a vacant room up here, with one shutter still closed.' He looked unnatural, even, I thought He was a little taken aback by my words. 'Photography is my hobby.' he said, 'those rooms are my darkroom. Geez, what a thoughtful young lady we met! Who would believe it? Who would Believe it?' he said jokingly. But his eyes were full of doubt and annoyance, he wasn't really kidding me.

"Well, Mr. Holmes, ever since I realized that there were things in that room which were hidden from me, I have been eager to find out. Curiosity, I suppose, as much as anyone else, but more precisely It should be a sense of responsibility, a feeling that I might have done a good thing by finding out the insider. People always say that a woman's intuition, maybe it's this intuition that made me think this way. So I started to keep an eye out for opportunities that could Go in there. Until yesterday, when the chance came! Listen, besides Mr. Lucasle, Toller and his wife have been in and out of that room. I saw Toller with a The big black bag came out of the room. He was often drunk these days. Last night he was drunk again. When I went upstairs, I found the key was still in the lock. I didn't have the slightest doubt that he did it on purpose. They stayed there. Mr. and Mrs. Lucasle were downstairs, and the child was with them. So I turned the key, opened the door, and went in quietly.

"Before me came a small passage, unpainted and uncarpeted. It turned at a right angle at the end. After the bend I saw three doors, the first and third of which were open. Every Inside each of the doors was an empty room, dirty and dark, with two windows in one and one window in the other, all covered with thick dust and dim in the evening light. One door was closed, with a thick iron rod across the outside, locked at one end to a ring in the wall and fastened to the wall at the other end with a thick rope. The door itself was also locked, but the key was not there. The lock was Such a tight door and the closed window obviously belong to the same room from the outside. From the dim light from under the door, I can see that the room is not very dark, there must be a skylight inside, but from above Light came in. I stood in the hallway looking at this frightening door, wondering what secrets were hidden inside. Suddenly, I heard footsteps in the room, and in the dim light from the gap below , I saw a person walking back and forth. This happened to me with a great sense of terror. Mr. Holmes, I was so nervous that I lost my mind, and I turned around and ran, as if there was a hand behind me to grab Like my skirt. I ran down the aisle and through the door until I bumped into Mr. Lucasle's arms outside.

"He smiled and said, 'Yes, when I saw the door open, I thought it was you.' I gasped and said, 'Ah, I was scared to death!' He said, 'My dear young Miss!' You cannot imagine the tenderness and delicacy of his tone and manner, 'how can you be so frightened, my dear young lady?' But his voice sounded as if he were coaxing a child, and it was too much I guarded my head carefully and cautiously. 'I was so stupid to walk into that empty room.' I said, 'but in the dim light, it was so frightening and desolate in there! I was so frightened that I immediately He ran out. Ah, it is eerily quiet in there!' 'That's all?' He looked brightly. 'What? What do you mean?' I asked. He said, 'I lock this door and you have What do you think?' I said, 'I really don't know.' He said, 'It's just no entry, do you understand?' He still smiled kindly as usual. I explained, 'If I knew, I wouldn't Will..." He interrupted me to say: 'Well, well, you understand now!If you still dare to step through that door—” At this time, his face suddenly showed a grin, and he stared at me like a devil, “I will feed you to the dog. '

"I was so frightened that my mind went blank. I probably ran all the way back to my room. I couldn't remember anything until I lay trembling on the bed. At this time, I thought of you, Mr. Holmes. If If no one tells me, I will definitely get out of there. I am afraid of everything there, the house, the men, women, servants, and even the child. If only I could show you there. Of course, I could have escaped, but my curiosity, which was as strong as a sense of fear, made me decide that I would send you a telegram. When I was dressed, I went to the post office half a mile away. When I came back, I felt much more at ease But as I approached the gate I began to feel uneasy again, fearing that the dog had been let out. But I remembered that Toller was drunk that night, and that this beast could only be handled by this man in the family , no one dared to approach it. I slipped in and was not noticed. At night, I was so happy that I thought I would see you guys that I was so happy that I didn't fall asleep most of the night. This morning I successfully asked for leave to Winchester But I must be back before three o'clock. Mr. Lucasle and Mrs. Lucasle are going out and will not come back in the evening, so the child must be taken care of by me. I have told you the whole story. Mr. Holmes, I would be most obliged if you could tell me what all this is about, and what I should do, which is really the most important thing."

We are deeply attracted by this bizarre story.My friend got up and walked around the room with his hands in his pockets, his face full of seriousness and silence.

"Toller isn't sober yet?" he asked.

"Yes, I heard his wife tell Mrs. Lucasle that there was nothing she could do with him."

"Very well, are the Lucasles going out tonight?"

"Yes."

"Do you have a cellar and a strong lock?"

"There is a wine cellar."

"Miss Hunter, your handling of this matter shows that you are a particularly resourceful and brave girl. I would like to implore you to do one more great thing. If I don't think in my heart that you are a woman who is more than ordinary, I wouldn't ask you to do that."

(End of this chapter)