Sherlock Holmes Complete Works 1

Chapter 68 Adventure History 28
"'Yes, we want you to keep a secret, which will certainly arouse your curiosity, and we will not commission you to do a thing without letting you know its details. No one will overhear, I suppose? '

"'Absolutely not.'

"'The thing is, then, that fuller's earth, as you may know, is a peculiarly valuable mineral, which is found in only one or two deposits in England.'

"'I have heard.'

"'Not long ago I bought a piece of land not ten miles from Reading, and I was lucky enough to find a deposit of fuller's earth in one of them. But it connects two large deposits on the left and right—but both are in my neighbor's land. These kind people know nothing about the valuable mineral deposits buried in their land. Of course, if they find them It would be a good deal to buy their land before the real value of the land, but, unfortunately, I lack the funds to buy the land of my neighbors. I found a few friends to discuss in secret, and they suggested that I should mine mine quietly and secretly. Small deposits of mines in this way to raise funds for the purchase of neighbors' land. So far we have been working on it for some time. To facilitate operation, we have installed a hydraulic machine, however, this machine is malfunctioning, and we hope that Could have your advice. We are very careful to keep our secrets, but once it becomes known that we have had a water engineer come to the little house, it will arouse curiosity. At that time, if the truth gets out , then the purchase of these lands and the implementation of our plans will be in vain. That is why I want you to promise to conceal that you are going to Ayzin tonight. My purpose is to make the whole situation clear.'

"'I understand that very well,' said I. 'The only thing I don't quite understand is, how does a hydraulic machine help you in digging bleaching earth? As far as I know, fullering earth is dug out as if it were sand from a pit. .'

"'Ah,' said he carelessly, 'we have our own method, and we press the earth into adobes so as not to give away when they are moved, but that is only a detail. Now I have told you I told you how much we trusted you, Mr. Hatherley.' He said, rising to his feet. 'I'll meet you, then, at eleven-fifteen at Eysin.'

"'I'm sure going there.'

"'Absolutely don't tell anyone.' At last he gave me another suspicious look, then, shaking my hand, hurried out of the room.

"Later, when I calmed down and thought about it comprehensively, I was surprised by the sudden commission I had accepted. Of course, on the one hand, I was very happy, because if I set a price for my task, he would at least ten times as much as I asked for, and probably due to the fact that this assignment will lead us to other assignments. On the other hand, I am very uncomfortable with the look and manner of my employer. I feel that his explanation of fuller's earth does not explain the necessity of my late night trip, nor why he was so worried lest I should speak of my business to others. In any case, I put all doubts in In the back of my head, I ate a good dinner and drove to Paddington, strictly obeying my employer's order to keep my mouth shut.

"At Reading, I had to change not only trains, but stations. Fortunately, after eleven o'clock, I reached the little station. I was the only passenger alighting there, and there was no one there but a porter. However, when I walked out of the ticket gate, I found that the employer I just met in the morning was waiting for me in the dark without lights on the other side. Without saying a word, he grabbed my arm and urged me to get on the ticket. Carriage. He closed the windows on both sides, knocked on the wooden boards of the carriage, and the horse galloped."

"Only one horse?" my friend interrupted suddenly.

"Yes, only one."

"Have you noticed the color of the horse?"

"It's a sorrel horse."

"Look tired or refreshed?"

"Oh, it's full of life, and the coat color is very shiny."

"Thank you, sorry to interrupt you. Please continue."

"So we were on our way, and the carriage drove for at least an hour. Colonel Lester Stark said it was only seven miles, but I think it was nearly twelve miles. He was silent the whole time. A few times I looked over to him and noticed he was staring nervously at me. The country roads in that place didn't seem to be all that good because the car was bumping a lot and I tried to look out the window to see us I was somewhere, but the windows were frosted glass, and I couldn't see anything except an occasional blur of light as I passed where there were lights. I kept trying to find words to break the dullness, but the Colonel only said To parry me with a few words, so that the conversation could not go on. At last, there was a smooth drive, and then a stop. Colonel Layder jumped out of the carriage, and I followed, he suddenly pulled me into the car The door opened before us. We stepped into the hall as if from a carriage, so that I did not even have a chance to glance at the front of the house. As soon as I entered the threshold, the door was slammed hard behind me. It was closed, and I faintly heard the creak of the wheels of the carriage as it drove away.

"It was very dark in the house, and the colonel fumbled for matches and muttered under his breath. Then a door opened at the other end of the corridor, and a bright light came in our direction. The light grew brighter, and then a woman appeared She was looking at me with a lamp in her hand. I could see clearly that she was very pretty, and she said something in a foreign language, as if asking a question. When my partner answered roughly in a few words , she looked surprised, and the lamp in her hand almost fell. Colonel Stark walked up to her, whispered something to her, and pushed her into her room. The lamp came towards me again.

"'Perhaps I would like to ask you to wait a moment in this room,' he said, and opened another door. In the center of the room was a round table piled with German books. Colonel Stark put the lamp on On top of the harmonium by the door.

'I won't keep you waiting. ' he said and disappeared.

"I looked at the books on the table, and though I didn't know German, I could tell that two of them were scientific treatises and the rest were poetry. Then I went to the door to see the countryside, but what? I couldn't see it either. The room was strangely quiet, and a feeling of uneasiness gradually took hold of me. Who are these Germans? What are they doing in this backwater? Where is this place? It's about a mile, but you can't even tell north, south, east, and west.

I walked up and down the room, humming a little tune for courage, and feeling that I was all there for the paycheck.

"Suddenly, in the midst of the utter stillness, without hearing a sound beforehand, the door of my room opened slowly. The woman stood in the crack of the door, the dark hall behind her, and the light from my lamp The dim light shone on her earnest and beautiful face. She raised her finger to signal me not to speak and spoke to me quickly. Then, like a frightened pony, she hurriedly looked back to the dark place behind her.

"'I would go away,' said she, 'and if I were you I would go away, and I wouldn't stay, and it wouldn't do you any good.'

"'But, ma'am,' said I, 'I haven't done my scheduled work. I can't leave here until I have checked the machinery.'

"'It's not worth waiting,' she went on, 'you can go out this door, and no one will stop you.' When she saw me shaking her head, she shook off her embarrassment and took a step forward, she said in a low voice. , 'Run away before it's too late!'

"But I am a bit stubborn by nature, and I persevere even more when I am thwarted in doing my work. I think of the rewards, of the tiring journey, and of what seems to be a very unpleasant prospect before me. Night. Shall I let it all go to waste for nothing? Why should I sneak away without completing my task and taking my due reward? Therefore, though her manner shocked me far More than I'd like to admit, but I still shook my head obstinately to show that I wanted to stay. She was about to plead again when she heard the door shut upstairs, followed by footsteps up the stairs. She listened for a while, raised her hands in a gesture of despair, and suddenly disappeared.

"In came Colonel Lysander Stark and a stocky, bearded man. The colonel introduced me to Mr. Foglin.

"'This is my secretary-manager,' said the colonel. 'By the way, I just left this door shut. I was afraid the draft would blow you.'

"'On the contrary,' I said, 'I opened the door myself, and the room seemed stuffy to me."

"He gave me a suspicious look. 'Well, we'd better go about our business,' said he. 'Mr. Foglin and I are going to show you the machine.'

"'I'd better put on my hat and go there.'

"'Oh, no need, it's in this house.'

"'What? You dug fuller's earth in the house?'

"'No, no. This is just where we press the bricks. But it doesn't matter, all we want you to do is check the machine and tell us what's wrong.'

"So we went upstairs, the Colonel leading with a lamp, and the fat manager and I following. It was a maze of old houses, with many passages, passages, narrow spiral staircases, low little doors , all the thresholds are dented with use. There is no carpet on the subfloor, no signs of previous furniture, the white plaster has peeled off the walls, and the green stains are still steaming. I try to I seemed indifferent, but I did not forget the lady's warning, and although I did not take it seriously, I still paid attention to my two companions. Fulgreen is a withdrawn man, but from his From a few words, it can be judged that he is at least a compatriot.

"Finally the colonel stopped in front of a low door and unlocked it. Inside was a small square room. Three people could not enter at the same time. Foglin stayed outside, and the colonel led me in.

"'We,' he said, 'are actually in the hydraulic press now, and it would be very unpleasant for us if someone started it. The ceiling of the room, which is actually the terminal of the descending piston, it The pressure of the fall is several tons. There are some horizontal water columns outside. After the water is under pressure, it will conduct and equalize the pressure in the way you are familiar with. The machine is easy to rotate, but it is not very flexible when it is running. Waste A small amount of stress. Please take the trouble to check it out and let us know how we can fix it.'

"I took the light out of his hand and went over the machine thoroughly. It's a huge machine indeed, capable of tremendous pressure. However, when I got to the front and pushed down on the lever, I heard a swish. I immediately knew that there must be a slight crack in the machine that allowed water to flow back through a side piston. Inspection showed that a rubber gasket on the transmission rod had shrunk and was not plugging the rod housing in it. It was obvious. wasted stress, I pointed this out to my partner. He listened to me carefully and asked a few practical questions about how the machine could be repaired. After explaining to them, I went back to The main room of the machine. To satisfy my curiosity, I looked at this small room carefully, and at a glance I realized that the story about Fuller's earth is pure nonsense. Because if you think that this powerful machine is so powerful How absurd that it was designed for a proper purpose. The walls of the room were wooden, but the floor was made of a large iron gutter. When I looked, I saw that the top was covered with a layer of metal shavings, I bent down and was digging with my fingers when I heard a low German exclamation and saw the Colonel looking down at me.

"'What are you doing?' he asked.

"I was annoyed to have been taken in by him. 'I'm admiring your fuller's earth,' I said, 'I think if I knew what I was really using this machine for, I wouldn't be able to give you some more details about it. suggestion?"

"But once the words were spoken, I immediately regretted them. His face became more and more ugly, and an evil light shot out of his eyes.

"'Very well,' he said, 'you'll know all about the machine!' He stepped back and slammed the little door shut and locked it. I rushed to the door and pulled hard on the handle, but the door It was locked tightly, and even though I kicked and pushed it, it didn't budge.

"'Hey, let me out, Colonel.'" I yelled.

(End of this chapter)