Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15 Amy, the coward, started babbling about how they'd have to be really, really careful now. "Whoever's in there had to have heard that chain fall, so they'll be on alert," she whispered. In the dim light from the flashlight, her face looked ghostly and terrified. "They're probably laying a trap for us. We should go back and get Nellie to help. Maybe Hamilton, too— Hamilton's helped us before, he'll help us now. We'll have to make plans, set our own trap—" "What? And let whoever it is escape with the clue? While we're sitting around talking? No way," Dan said. He stepped in through the door and was instantly engulfed in darkness. A plan came to him in that one step. Amy was right about the chain being too loud. Dan might as well use that to his own advantage.

第15章艾美，那个胆小鬼，开始喋喋不休地说他们现在必须非常非常小心。 “里面的人肯定听到了链子掉下来的声音，所以他们会保持警惕的。”她低声说。 在手电筒昏暗的光线下，她的脸显得阴森恐怖。 “他们可能在给我们设陷阱。 我们应该回去找内莉帮忙。 也许汉密尔顿也会，汉密尔顿以前帮过我们，他现在也会帮我们。 我们得制定计划，自己设陷阱——”“什么？ 让凶手带着线索逃走吗？ 当我们坐在一起聊天的时候？ 不可能，”丹说。他一进门就被黑暗吞没了。 就在那一步，他想到了一个计划。 艾米是对的，链子太吵了。 丹也可以利用这一点为自己谋利。

He swung the beam of the flashlight toward the front of the church. "Police!" he shouted. "Freeze!" Nobody was there. Quickly, he flashed the light around the entire church. He listened for panicky breaths from someone hiding in the pews. He poked his head back out the door and said to Amy, "Come on in. The coast is clear." "You idiot," Amy muttered. "Moron." But Dan noticed that she walked into the church. Dan pulled the door shut behind her. "You forgot 'poisonous bunch-back'd toad,' 'knottypated fool' and 'vile standing tuck,'" Dan said. "But at least I'm not 'pigeon-livered and lacking gall' like you." "More Shakespeare insults?" Amy asked. "Want me to go on?" Dan asked cheerfully. "I know dozens of them now." "No," Amy said. "I want you to be quiet so we can hear if anyone comes." This actually struck Dan as a good idea. He shut

他把手电的光束朝教堂前面一照。 “警察！”他喊道。“冻结!”没有人在那里。 他迅速地用灯照亮了整个教堂。 他听着有人躲在长椅上发出恐慌的呼吸声。 他把头探出门外，对艾米说：“进来吧。 没有危险了。”“你这个白痴，”艾米喃喃地说。 “白痴。”但丹注意到她走进了教堂。 丹在她身后把门关上。 “你忘了‘有毒的驼背蟾蜍’、‘结型傻瓜’和‘可恶的立塔克’，”丹说。 “但至少我不像你那样‘胆小怕事’。” “更多莎士比亚的侮辱？”艾米问。 “要我继续讲下去吗？”丹高兴地问。 “我现在认识很多这样的人。” “不，”艾米说。“我要你保持安静，这样我们就能听到有人来了。” 丹觉得这是个好主意。 他关

up, and they both tiptoed toward Shakespeare's grave. Dan held the flashlight low to the ground to light the uneven stone floor. But all sorts of dangers seemed to lurk in the darkness just beyond the flashlight beam. If one of the other teams isn't here digging up Shakespeare's grave, then— who did leave that door unlocked? Dan wondered. Is this a trap? There was nothing he could do but keep walking toward the grave. "Shakespeare died in 1616," Amy whispered. "I hope no one's replaced the mortar around his tombstone since then. Four-hundred-year-old mortar should be crumbly and easy to dig through. But if it's newer than that…" "We'll be fine," Dan whispered back. They were at the gravestone now. Dan bent down and moved the bouquet of flowers once again. His fingers brushed the secret carved words that had shown up on the grave rubbing— vague, random-seeming lines in the stone. It wasn't surprising that they could have gone undetected for almost four hundred years.

他们都踮着脚尖走向莎士比亚的坟墓。 丹把手电筒举得很低，照着凹凸不平的石头地板。 但是各种危险似乎就潜伏在手电筒光线之外的黑暗中。 如果不是别的队伍来挖莎士比亚的坟墓，那是谁没锁门的？ 丹奇怪。这是个陷阱吗？ 他没有办法，只能继续朝坟墓走去。 “莎士比亚死于1616年，”艾米低声说。 “我希望从那以后没有人再替换他墓碑上的灰泥。 有四百年历史的砂浆应该是易碎的，很容易挖穿。 但如果它比那新……”“我们会没事的。”丹小声回答。 他们现在到了墓碑前。 丹弯下腰，再次移动了那束花。 他的手指擦了擦墓碑上的秘密雕刻的文字——石头上模糊的、看似随意的线条。 它们能在近四百年的时间里不被发现，这并不奇怪。

Amy bit her lip. "Don't break the stone or anything," she said. "Amy, it's a stone," Dan said. "How would I break it?" "Superpowers?" Amy said. For her, that was a really, really good attempt at a joke. Not that it was actually funny. Dan moved his hand to feel along the crack between Shakespeare's gravestone and the one beside it. He touched the mortar in the crack— and then jerked his hand back. "Amy!" he whispered. "That's not mortar! It's fake!" "What?" Amy said. Dan pulled her hand toward the fake mortar so she could feel it, too. "It's just— rubber?" she asked. "Made to look like crumbly mortar?" Dan began pulling on the rubbery fake mortar. It came up in one long strip. "Careful," Amy said. "One of the other clue- hunting teams might have put it there to cover

艾米咬着嘴唇。“不要打碎石头之类的东西，”她说。 “艾米，这是一块石头，”丹说。 “我要怎么打破它？”“超级大国?”艾米说。 对她来说，这是一个非常非常好的玩笑。 其实这并不好笑。 丹用手摸着莎士比亚墓碑和旁边墓碑之间的缝隙。 他摸了摸裂缝里的灰浆——然后把手猛地抽了回来。 “艾米！”他低声说。“那不是迫击炮！”这是假的!”“什么?”艾米说。 丹把她的手拉向假臼，这样她也能感觉到。 “这只是——橡胶？”她问。 “弄得像易碎的灰泥？”丹开始拉橡胶假砂浆。 它出现在一条长条上。 “小心，”艾米说。“可能是其他寻找线索的队伍把它放在那里做掩护的

their tracks. It might be set to explode—" "Or someone's making this really easy for us," Dan said. He pointed to a set of hinges that had been hidden under the fake mortar. He used the nail file like a lever. One side of the stone began to creak upward, moving under its own power now. Dan shone the flashlight beam down into the grave. He was braced for some horrifying decaying skeleton. But all he could see was a coffin. Something gleamed on top of the coffin: an irregularly shaped metal pole. Words ran around the pole, circling it again and again and again. Dan rolled the pole to the side and realized that there were only five words, repeating over and over: Madrigal Stronghold Cahill Ancestral Home Madrigal Stronghold Cahill Ancestral Home…

他们的踪迹。它可能会爆炸——”“或者有人让我们很容易做到这一点，”丹说。 他指了指藏在假灰泥下面的一组铰链。 他把指甲锉当杠杆用。 石头的一边开始吱吱作响地向上移动，现在它靠自己的力量移动了。 丹把手电筒的光束照进坟墓里。 他准备面对一具可怕的腐烂的骷髅。 但他只能看到一口棺材。 棺材顶上有什么东西在闪烁：一根形状不规则的金属杆。 文字绕着杆子转，一圈又一圈。 丹把杆子滚到一边，发现上面只有五个字，一遍又一遍地重复着：牧歌大本营卡希尔祖宅牧歌大本营卡希尔祖宅……

"It's telling us where to go next!" Dan whispered. "The Madrigal stronghold," Amy said. "Of course." The Clue hunt had taken them to strongholds for all the other branches: for the Lucians in Paris; the Janus in Venice; the Ekats in Egypt; and the Tomas in South Africa. It made so much sense that they'd have to go to the Madrigals' headquarters, too. "'Cahill Ancestral Home'— think that means where Gideon and Olivia Cahill lived?" Dan asked. "Yeah— the last place the Cahill family was all together," Amy said sadly. "Of course the Madrigals would build their headquarters there." Dan rolled the pole again, scanning the words looping down its side.

“它告诉我们下一步该去哪里！”丹低声说。 “牧歌大本营，”艾米说。 “当然。”在寻找线索的过程中，他们找到了其他所有分支的据点：在巴黎的卢西亚人；威尼斯的两面神；埃及的伊卡特人；以及南非的托马斯家族。 他们也得去牧歌队的总部，这是很有道理的。 “‘卡荷尔祖宅’——你觉得是指吉迪恩和奥利维亚·卡荷尔住过的地方吗？”丹问道。 “是啊——卡希尔一家最后一次聚在一起的地方，”艾米悲伤地说。 “牧歌合唱团当然会把他们的总部建在那里。” 丹又滚了一遍电线杆，一边浏览着电线杆上的字。