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Once or twice a curious listener might have heard him at the coals,[27] and for the space of five minutes he was audible pacing the room. He seemed to be talking to himself. Then the armchair creaked as he sat down again.
CHAPTER II
MR. TEDDY HENFREY’s FIRST IMPRESSIONS
At four o’clock, when it was fairly dark, and Mrs. Hall was screwing up her courage to go in and ask her visitor if he would take some tea, Teddy Henfrey, the clock–jobber,[1] came into the bar.
“My sakes,[2] Mrs. Hall,” said he, “but this is terrible weather for thin boots!” The snow outside was falling faster.
Mrs. Hall agreed, and then noticed he had his bag with him. “Now you’re here, Mr. Teddy,” said she, “I’d be glad if you’d give th’ old clock in the parlour a bit of a look. ’Tis going, and it strikes well and hearty, but the hour hand won’t do nothin’ but point at six.”
And leading the way, she went across to the parlour door and rapped and entered.
Her visitor, she saw, as she opened the door, was seated in the armchair before the fire, dozing, it would seem, with his bandaged head drooping on one side. The only light in the room was the red glow from the fire. Everything was ruddy, shadowy, and indistinct to her, the more so since she had just been lighting the bar lamp, and her eyes were dazzled. But for a second it seemed to her that the man she looked at had an enormous mouth wide open, a vast and incredible mouth that swallowed the whole of the lower portion of his face. It was the sensation of a moment; the white–bound head, the monstrous goggle eyes, and this huge yawn below it. Then he stirred, started up in his chair, put up his hand. She opened the door wide so that the room was lighter, and she saw him more clearly, with the muffler held to his face, just as she had seen him hold the serviette before. The shadows, she fancied, had tricked her.
“Would you mind, sir, this man a–coming to look at the clock, sir?” she said, recovering from her momentary disorder.
“Look at the clock?” he said, staring round in a drowsy ma
Mrs. Hall went away to get a lamp, and he rose and stretched himself. Then came the light, and Mr. Teddy Henfrey, entering, was confronted by this bandaged person. He was, he says, “taken aback.”
“Good afternoon,” said the stranger, regarding him—as Mr. Henfrey says, with a vivid sense of the dark spectacles—[3] “like a lobster.”
“I hope,” said Mr. Henfrey, “that it’s no intrusion.”
“None whatever,” said the stranger. “Though I understand,” he said, turning to Mrs. Hall, “that this room is really to be mine for my own private use.”
“I thought, sir,” said Mrs. Hall, “you’d prefer the clock—”
“Certainly,” said the stranger, “certainly; but as a rule I like to be alone and undisturbed.”
He turned round with his back to the fireplace, and put his hands behind his back. “And presently,” he said, “when the clock–mending is over, I think I should like to have some tea. But not till the clock–mending is over.”
Mrs. Hall was about to leave the room—she made no conversational advances this time, because she did not want to be snubbed in front of Mr. Henfrey—when her visitor asked her if she had made any arrangements about his boxes at Bramblehurst. She told him she had mentioned the matter to the postman, and that the carrier could bring them over on the morrow.
“You are certain that is the earliest?” he said.
She was certain, with a marked coolness.[4]
“I should explain,” he added, “what I was really too cold and fatigued to do before, that I am an experimental investigator."
“Indeed, sir,” said Mrs. Hall, much impressed.
“And my baggage contains apparatus and appliances.”
“Very useful things indeed they are, sir,” said Mrs. Hall.
“And I’m naturally anxious to get on with my inquiries.”
“Of course, sir.”
“My reason for coming to Iping,” he proceeded, with a certain deliberation of ma
“I thought as much,” said Mrs. Hall to herself.
“Necessitates a certain retirement. My eyes are sometimes so weak and painful that I have to shut myself up in the dark for hours together—lock myself up. Sometimes—now and then. Not at present, certainly. At such times the slightest disturbance, the entry of a stranger into the room, is a source of excruciating a
“Certainly, sir,” said Mrs. Hall. “And if I might make so bold as to ask—”
“That, I think, is all,” said the stranger, with that quietly irresistible air of finality he could assume at will. Mrs. Hall reserved her question and sympathy for a better occasion.
After Mrs. Hall had left the room he remained standing in front of the fire, glaring, so Mr. Henfrey puts it, at the clock–mending. Mr. Henfrey worked with the lamp close to him, and the green shade threw a brilliant light upon his hands and upon the frame and wheels, and left the rest of the room shadowy. When he looked up coloured patches swam in his eyes. Being constitutionally of a curious nature, he had removed the works—a quite u
He looked up as if to take aim with that introductory shot. "The weather—" he began.
“Why don’t you finish and go?” said the rigid figure, evidently in a state of painfully suppressed rage. “All you’ve got to do is to fix the hour hand on its—axle. You’re simply humbugging.”
“Certainly, sir—one minute more. I overlooked…” And Mr. Henfrey finished and went.
But he went off feeling excessively a
And again, “Can’t a man look at you? Ugly!”
And yet again, “Seemingly not. If the police was wanting you, you couldn’t be more wrapped and bandaged.”
At Gleeson’s corner he saw Hall, who had recently married the stranger’s hostess at the “Coach and Horses,” and who now drove the Iping conveyance, when occasional people required it, to Sidderbridge Junction, coming towards him on his return from that place. Hall had evidently been “stopping a bit” at Sidderbridge, to judge by his driving. “’Ow do, Teddy?” he said, passing.
“You got a rum un[5] up home!” said Teddy.
Hall very sociably pulled up. “What’s that?” he asked.
“Rum–looking customer stopping at the ‘Coach and Horses,’ ” said Teddy. “My sakes!”
And he proceeded to give Hall a vivid description of his wife’s grotesque guest. “Looks a bit like a disguise, don’t it? I’d like to see a man’s face if I had him stopping in my place,” said Henfrey. “But women are that trustful—where strangers are concerned. He’s took your rooms, and he ain’t even given a name, Hall.”
1.27
might have heard him at the coals — мог слышать как он мешает уголь в камине
2.1
clock–jobber (устар.) — часовщик
2.2
My sakes! — восклицание удивления
2.3
with a vivid sense of the dark spectacles — образно передавая впечатление от чёрных очков
2.4
She was certain, with a marked coolness. — Первая часть предложения — несобственно прямая речь. За ней следует авторская ремарка, показывающая, каким тоном миссис Холл отвечала постояльцу. Сочетание ремарки с несобственно прямой речью хорошо передаёт настороженность миссис Холл.
2.5
rum up (правильно: one) и ниже rum–looking customer — подозрительный человек