2 Birlstone Manor

Chapter 2 Birlstone Manor White Mason met us at Birlstone Station and drove with us to our rooms at the local inn. We gathered in the inn's front room, and he sketched out the background of the case. "John Douglas, the victim, was around fifty years old. From what I've heard, he spent part of his life in America and made his fortune from California gold. He bought Birlstone Manor in Sussex around five years ago and quickly became a popular figure in the village. His wife, an Englishwoman, is some twenty years younger. "Last night, they had a guest staying, a fellow named Cecil Barker. He's a tall, handsome, easygoing fellow and a good friend of the Douglases. It was Barker who discovered the body. He came into the village police station at 11:45 p.m. to report it, then returned with me to the house at a little after midnight.

白梅森在伯尔斯通车站接我们，开车送我们到当地旅馆的房间。 我们聚集在客店的前厅，他简略地介绍了案件的背景。 “受害者约翰·道格拉斯大约50岁。 据我所知，他在美国生活过一段时间，靠加利福尼亚的黄金发了财。 大约五年前，他买下了苏塞克斯郡的伯尔斯通庄园，并迅速成为村里的热门人物。 他的妻子是一位英国妇女，比他年轻20岁左右。 “昨晚，他们有一个客人住在那里，一个叫塞西尔·巴克的家伙。 他是个高大、英俊、随和的家伙，是道格拉斯家的好朋友。 是巴克发现了尸体。 他在晚上11点45分来到村警察局。 他去报告这件事，然后在午夜刚过的时候和我一起回到家里。

"The victim was in his study, lying sprawled on his back. A shotgun had been laid across his chest—presumably the murder weapon. He had received the blast directly in his face. "Barker told me he'd heard the gunshot from his bedroom and rushed downstairs. He showed me a bloody footprint on the sill where the murderer must have stood as he made his escape. The house is surrounded by a moat and the drawbridge had been raised, as it was every evening, so the killer would have had to wade across the moat.

“受害者当时躺在书房里，仰面朝天。 一把猎枪横放在他的胸前——大概是凶器。 他的脸直接受到了爆炸的袭击。 巴克告诉我，他听到卧室里传来枪声，就冲到楼下。 他给我看了窗台上血迹斑斑的脚印，凶手一定是站在那里逃跑的。 房子周围有护城河，吊桥被抬高了，就像每天晚上一样，所以凶手必须涉水过河。

"I asked Barker how he didn't see him making his escape if he arrived within seconds of the murder. He replied that the curtain was closed and he was busy keeping the servants and Mrs. Douglas out of the room to spare them the sight of Mr. Douglas. "After questioning the servants, I discovered that the drawbridge had been raised at six o'clock the previous evening. From this, I deduced that the intruder must have entered the house before six and hidden in the room—probably behind the curtain—waiting for Douglas to enter.

“我问巴克，如果他在凶案发生后几秒钟内赶到，他怎么没看到他逃跑。 他回答说，窗帘是拉着的，他正忙着不让仆人和道格拉斯太太进来，免得他们看见道格拉斯先生。 “在询问了仆人之后，我发现吊桥是在前一天晚上六点升起的。 据此，我推断，闯入者一定是在六点以前进了房子，藏在房间里——很可能藏在窗帘后面——等着道格拉斯进来。

"There was one other odd item in the room: on the floor next to the body was a card reading V. V. "Turning to the body, I saw a strange brown design—a triangle inside a circle—on Douglas's forearm. It wasn't a tattoo but a burn scar, as if the man had been branded.

房间里还有一件奇怪的东西：尸体旁边的地板上有一张写着“V”的卡片。 V。我转向尸体，在道格拉斯的前臂上看到一个奇怪的棕色图案——一个圆圈里的三角形。 那不是纹身，而是烧伤留下的疤痕，好像那个人被烙上了烙印。

"Then the elderly butler, Ames, cried out: 'They've taken his wedding ring! The master always wore it on the little finger of his left hand, below that twisted snake ring. Now it's gone.' "So the murderer must have removed the snake ring to take the wedding ring, then put the snake ring back," said Mason. "If you ask me, Mr. Holmes, this wasn't a burglary. The ring business and that odd card suggests it was a planned murder. What I don't understand is why the murderer chose a noisy shotgun for a weapon, when it was bound to alert everyone in the house, making an escape across the moat highly risky." "That, indeed, is a mystery," agreed Holmes. We left the inn and walked through the village to Birlstone Manor. It was a beautiful, seventeenth-century house with red-brick walls, gabled roofs, and diamond-paned windows. Built on the site of a castle, the house was surrounded by a moat—a shallow, forty-footwide ring of water—and the only approach was by a drawbridge.

“这时，老管家艾姆斯喊道：‘他们拿走了他的结婚戒指！大师总是把它戴在左手小指上，在那只扭曲的蛇环下面。 现在它不见了。“所以凶手一定是取下了蛇戒指，拿走了结婚戒指，然后又把蛇戒指放回去了，”梅森说。 “福尔摩斯先生，要我说，这不是入室行窃。 戒指生意和那张奇怪的卡片表明这是一起有计划的谋杀。 我不明白的是为什么凶手选择了一把发出声音的猎枪作为武器，而它肯定会惊动房子里的每一个人，使穿过护城河逃跑变得非常危险。” “这的确是个谜，”福尔摩斯表示赞同。 我们离开旅馆，穿过村子来到伯尔斯通庄园。 这是一座美丽的17世纪的房子，红砖墙，山形屋顶，镶着菱形玻璃的窗户。 这所房子建在一座城堡的旧址上，周围有一条护城河——一条四十英尺宽的浅水环——唯一的通道是一座吊桥。

Ahead of us, the tranquil moat shone like quicksilver in the winter sunshine. Mason pointed out a window on the immediate right of the drawbridge. "That's the window of the study —open as it was last night." Holmes examined the stone edge of the moat and the grass border beyond. "I took a good look earlier, Mr. Holmes," said Mason. "There are no footprints." On the far side of the drawbridge, we were greeted by Ames the butler, who escorted us to the scene of the murder. Holmes knelt beside the body. The injury to his head was, indeed, terrible.

在我们前面，宁静的护城河在冬日的阳光下像水银一样闪闪发光。 梅森指了指吊桥右边的一扇窗户。 “那是书房的窗户——就像昨晚一样开着。” 福尔摩斯仔细观察了护城河的石头边缘和远处的草地边缘。 “福尔摩斯先生，我刚才仔细看了一下，”梅森说。 “没有脚印。” 在吊桥的另一边，管家艾姆斯迎接了我们，他把我们护送到谋杀现场。 福尔摩斯跪在尸体旁边。 他头上的伤确实很可怕。