福爾摩斯探案經典:《恐怖谷》第3章Part3

"Then if you were in the room within half a minute of the crime, he must have been in the water at that very moment."
"I have not a doubt of it. I wish to heaven that I had rushed to the window! But the curtain screened it, as you can see, and so it never occurred to me. Then I heard the step of Mrs. Douglas, and I could not let her enter the room. It would have been too horrible."
"Horrible enough!" said the doctor, looking at the shattered head and the terrible marks which surrounded it. "I've never seen such injuries since the Birlstone railway smash."
"But, I say," remarked the police sergeant, whose slow, bucolic common sense was still pondering the open window. "It's all very well your saying that a man escaped by wading this moat, but what I ask you is, how did he ever get into the house at all if the bridge was up?"
"Ah, that's the question," said Barker.
"At what o'clock was it raised?"
"It was nearly six o'clock," said Ames, the butler.
"I've heard," said the sergeant, "that it was usually raised at sunset. That would be nearer half-past four than six at this time of year."
"Mrs. Douglas had visitors to tea," said Ames. "I couldn't raise it until they went. Then I wound it up myself."
"Then it comes to this," said the sergeant: "If anyone came from outside--IF they did--they must have got in across the bridge before six and been in hiding ever since, until Mr. Douglas came into the room after eleven."
"That is so! Mr. Douglas went round the house every night the last thing before he turned in to see that the lights were right. That brought him in here. The man was waiting and shot him. Then he got away through the window and left his gun behind him. That's how I read it; for nothing else will fit the facts."
The sergeant picked up a card which lay beside the dead man on the floor. The initials V.V. and under them the number 341 were rudely scrawled in ink upon it.
"What's this?" he asked, holding it up.
Barker looked at it with curiosity. "I never noticed it before," he said. "The murderer must have left it behind him."
"V.V.--341. I can make no sense of that."
The sergeant kept turning it over in his big fingers. "What's V.V.? Somebody's initials, maybe. What have you got there, Dr. Wood?"
It was a good-sized hammer which had been lying on the rug in front of the fireplace--a substantial, workmanlike hammer. Cecil Barker pointed to a box of brass-headed nails upon the mantelpiece.
"Mr. Douglas was altering the pictures yesterday," he said. "I saw him myself, standing upon that chair and fixing the big picture above it. That accounts for the hammer."

“那麼，如果你在罪案發生後不到半分鐘就來到屋中，罪犯當時必然還在水裏。”
“我毫不懷疑這點。那時我要是跑到窗前就好了！可是正象你剛纔看見的那樣，窗簾遮住了窗戶。所以我沒有想到這點。後來我聽到道格拉斯太太的腳步聲，我可不能讓她走進這間屋子。那情況簡直太可怕了。”
“實在太可怕了！"醫生看着炸碎的頭顱和它四周的可怕血印說，“從伯爾斯通火車撞車事件以來，我還沒見過這樣可怕的重傷呢。”
“不過，我看，"警官說道，他那遲緩的、被那鄉巴佬的常識侷限住了的思路仍然停留在洞開的窗戶上面，“你說有一個人蹚水過護城河逃走，是完全對的。不過我想問你，既然吊橋已經吊起來，他又是怎麼走進來的呢？”
“啊，問題就在這裏啊，"巴克說道。
“吊橋是幾點鐘吊起來的呢？”
“將近六點鐘時，"管家艾姆斯說。
“我聽說，"警官說道，“吊橋通常在太陽西下的時候吊起來。那麼在一年中這個季節，日落應該是在四點半左右，而不會是六點鐘。”
“道格拉斯太太請客人們吃茶點，"艾姆斯說道，“客人不走我是不能吊起吊橋的。後來，橋是我親手吊起來的。”
“這樣說來，"警官說道，“如果有人從外面進來——假定是這樣——那他們必須在六點鐘以前通過吊橋來到，而且一直藏到十一點鐘以後，直到道格拉斯先生走進屋中。”
“正是這樣！道格拉斯先生每天晚上都要在莊園四周巡視一番。他上牀睡覺以前最後一件事是察看燭火是否正常。這樣他就來到這裏，那個人正在等着他，就向他開槍了，然後丟下火槍，越過窗子逃跑了。我認爲就是這樣；除此以外，沒有任何其它解釋能與眼前的事實相符。”
警官從死者身旁地板上拾起一張卡片，上面用鋼筆潦草地寫着兩個姓名開頭大寫字母V.V．，下面是數目字341。
“這是什麼？"警官舉起卡片問道。
巴克好奇地看着卡片。“我以前從沒注意到這個，"巴克說道，“這一定是兇手留下來的。”
“V.V．——341。我弄不明白這是什麼意思。”
警官的大手把名片來回翻着說道：“V．V．是什麼？大約是人名的開頭大寫字母。醫生，你找到了什麼？”
壁爐前地毯上放着一把大號鐵錘，是一把堅固而精緻的鐵錘。塞西爾·巴克指了指壁爐臺上的銅頭釘盒子說道：
“昨天道格拉斯先生換油畫來着，我親眼看見他站在椅子上把這張大畫掛在上面。鐵錘就是這麼來的。”