Sherlock Holmes.

Chapter 50 Adventure History (28)
"The dress I'm going to wear is on the bed. It's a very peculiar color, dark blue, made of a rather fine serge material, but I can tell it's old. It fits me well, It seemed to be tailor-made, and the Rochesers were very pleased with it. They were waiting for me in the living room. The living room occupied the front half of the house. It was very spacious and had three French windows. A chair with its back to the window, and they told me to sit in it, and then Mr. Rocheser walked up and down the other side of the room, and began to tell me some funny things I'd never heard. You don't know how funny he is I was dying of laughter. But Mrs. Rachael had no sense of humour. She didn't laugh at all, but just sat there. Her hands were on her knees, and her face was sad and anxious. After about an hour, he Suddenly said that I should go to work, and I can change clothes.

"Two days later, the same thing happened again. I had to put on blue clothes again, and sat in front of the window, listening to my boss tell weird jokes for a long time. He told wonderfully, it was difficult for others to imitate, I laughed He also handed me a novel with a yellow cover and told me to move my chair sideways so my shadow wouldn't block the book. He asked me to read it aloud to him, starting in the middle of a chapter, But after about 10 minutes of reading, he stopped suddenly and asked me to go back and change my clothes.

"You can imagine, Mr. Holmes, how perplexed I was by this peculiar display. I found myself carefully kept with my back to the window, and I became suspicious and wondered what was going on behind me. At first I found it difficult to look back in front of them, but soon I came up with a solution. One of my mirrors broke, and I quietly hid a piece of it in a handkerchief. At the next performance, I laughed Sometimes I hold the handkerchief in front of my eyes, fiddle with it casually, and I can see everything behind me. The first time I saw nothing. The second time I looked again, I found a man with a mustache and wearing gray clothes Standing on the Southampton Road, as if looking our way. It is an important road, and there is a constant stream of pedestrians. The man is leaning on the railing around the grounds, looking this way very carefully. I put Lowering my handkerchief, I glanced at Mrs. Rachael, and saw that she too was looking at me keenly. She said nothing, but I am sure she had noticed that I was holding a mirror in my hand, and had seen what was behind me. She stood up immediately.

"'Jeffort,' she said, 'there's a dude over the road looking at Miss Hunter.'

"'Miss Hunter, is that your friend?' he asked.

"'No, I don't know anyone here.'

"'Hmph! How rude! You turn away and wave him away.'

"'Better leave him alone.'

"No, he'll be here often then, please turn around and wave him away like this.'

"I did as he said. At the same time, Mrs. Rachael drew the curtains. This happened a week ago, and I didn't sit by the window anymore, and I didn't wear the blue dress, and the man didn't Never showed up."

"Go on, it's very interesting," said Holmes.

"You may feel fragmented and disorganized. Because the events I experienced were separated from each other. On the first day here, Mr. Rocheser took me to a small room near the kitchen. When I approached , I heard a chain clanking and a big animal moving.

"'Look here!' Mr. Rocheser told me to look through a gap between two boards. 'A lovely chap, isn't he?'

"Looking through the crack of the door, I saw a vague thing crouching in the darkness, its eyes gleaming.

"'Don't be afraid,' said my master, and he smiled at my astonishment, 'he is our watch-dog Corot. Though I am the master, only my keeper, Old Toller, can handle him. We Feed it once a day, not too much, so it always has a mustard-like hotness. Tuole puts it out every night, and if anyone trespasses and touches its sharp teeth, it will be killed. I beseech God. For God's sake, you must not cross that threshold, or you will die.'

"His warning was valid. Two days later, at about two o'clock in the morning, I looked out of my bedroom and saw that the moon was bright and the lawn in front of the house was shining silver like daytime. I was standing there Enjoying the quiet and beautiful night, I suddenly found something moving under the shadow of the purple-leaf beech. When it came to the moonlight, I saw that it was a giant dog the size of a calf. Its coat was brown and yellow, and its jaw Broad-boned and pendulous, with a black muzzle and large protruding bones. It walked slowly across the lawn and disappeared into the other corner. This fearsome watchdog gave me a chill that no thief would Like it can scare me.

"And I must tell you a very strange thing. I cut my hair in London, and put a great lock of it under a box. One night, after I had put the little one to bed, So I started to look at the furniture in the house and organize my things to pass the time. There was an old wardrobe in the house. The upper two drawers were unlocked and there was nothing in it, but the lower one was locked. My The top two drawers were filled with clothes, but there was still plenty of room to put them. I was annoyed at not being able to use the third drawer, and it occurred to me that it might have been locked by accident, so I found a bunch of keys to try. Open it. Just the first key unlocks it. There's only one thing in the drawer, and I don't think you'll ever guess what it is—a lock of my hair!

"I took the lock of hair and examined it carefully. The rare color and density were exactly the same as mine. This is impossible, how did my hair get locked here? With shaking hands, I opened my box and poured out the whole thing , took my own lock of hair from under the box. I put two locks together and they were exactly the same. Isn't it strange? The hair was put back in the drawer, and I didn't mention it to Rocheser. I think I should have opened the locked drawer.

"Perhaps you have noticed that I am naturally fond of observing things, Mr. Holmes. I soon had a clear outline of the whole house: there was no one in the wing on one side, and there was a door on the opposite side of the passage where the Tollers lived. A locked door. I was going upstairs one day when I suddenly saw Rocheser coming out of that door with a key in his hand. At that time, he was a different person than usual, his face was flushed with anger, and his brows were tightly frowned. , His forehead showed blue veins due to excitement. He locked the door and hurried past me without saying a word or looking at me.

"It struck me as odd, so when I went for a walk with the children, I went around to the other side of the house so I could see some of its windows. There were four windows in a row, three of them One was very old and dirty, and the fourth had its shutters drawn and shut, and had obviously not been used for a long time. I paced up and down and looked at them from time to time, and Mr. Rocheser appeared, as happy as ever, 'ah ' said he, 'if I pass you quietly, my dear lady, please don't take me for being rude, I have just finished some business.'

"I reassured him that I didn't think he had offended me. I said: 'By the way, there seems to be a whole suite of rooms up there, and one of them has the shutters shut.'

"He looked surprised and I think I took him by surprise."

"'I like to take pictures,' said he, 'and use those as darkrooms. Look at how careful our young lady is! Who would have thought of that?' he said jokingly. But his eyes were not joking, It was confusion and annoyance, not a joke at all.

"Oh, Mr. Holmes, when I realized that there might be dark secrets in that house, I couldn't wait to know all about it. I was as curious as everyone else, and I thought that there might be good things to come out of it. .So it's not so much my curiosity as it is my sense of purpose. This feeling may be what people call a woman's instinct. But anyway, there is a feeling. I watched closely, Whenever there is a chance, I want to break through this forbidden door.

"Until yesterday, the opportunity finally appeared. Except for Mr. Rocheser, Tole and his wife had been busy in this empty house. Once, I saw Tole walking out of it with a big black cloth bag in his arms. Come out. He has been drinking a lot lately, and he was drunk again last night. When I went upstairs, I found the key still in the door. They must have left it behind. The Rachaisers and the children were downstairs at that time. So I quietly turned the key, opened the door, and slipped in.

"There is a small passage ahead, neither papered nor carpeted. At the end it turns at a right angle, and at the turn there are three doors side by side, the first and third open, all empty , dark and dirty. One of them has two windows, the other has only one, and the window sill is covered with thick soil, which makes the room even darker in the evening light. The middle door is closed, and the outside is blocked A thick iron bar on an iron bed, locked at one end to a ring in the wall, and at the other end was tied to the wall with a thick rope. The door itself was locked, but the key was absent. The sealed door had nothing to do with the The closed window seen from the outside belongs to the same room. There is a little light from under the crack of the door, which shows that the room is not very dark. Maybe there is a skylight inside to let in the light. I stood in the corridor and looked at the door. I couldn't guess what secrets were hidden inside. At this moment, I suddenly heard footsteps inside, and in the dim light from the crack of the door, I saw a figure walking back and forth, which made me immediately have a huge feeling. I was so frightened, Mr. Holmes, that I turned and ran, with what seemed to be a dreadful hand behind me clutching at my clothes. I hurried down the passage, stepped through the door, and ran headlong into Lo, who was waiting outside. Mr. Kaiser's arms. He smiled and said, "Yes, it's really you. I guessed it was you when I saw the door was open."

"'Oh, I'm scared to death!' I gasped.

"'Oh, my dear lady! My dear lady!' You cannot imagine how tender and considerate he was then, 'What frightens you so much?'

"His voice sounded like he was coaxing a child, it was quite contrived, and I was on high alert for him.

"'I'm so stupid to walk up to that empty house,' said I, 'it's so dreary in the dim light! It's horrible! I ran out of it, my God, it's so dead and terribly quiet in there !"

"'That's all?' He looked at me suspiciously.

"'What do you mean?' I asked.

"'Do you know why that door I locked?'

"'I have no idea.'

"'No one is allowed in, you understand?' He still smiled affectionately.

"'If I had known earlier, I would have...'

"'Well, it's not too late for you to know now! If you dare to step through that door again...'Here, his smile suddenly turned into a terrifying grin, and he looked at me with a devilish face,'Then I Just throw you to that watchdog.'

(End of this chapter)