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杰克不舒服地打了个寒战。他突然感觉到了一月的寒冷。海伦从他的肩膀上抬起头。
Jake shivered unfortably. He had suddenly bee conscious of the January cold. Helene lifted her head from his shoulder.
“求你了，马龙……”
“Please, Malone …”
律师说：“别烦我。”他看着坟墓。突然他厉声说道：“把手电筒给我。”然后又爬进了坟墓。有一会儿，他用手电筒照了照坟墓的四壁，摸了摸，又挖了挖底部堆积的雪。然后他又爬了出来。
The lawyer said, “Don’t bother me.” He looked at the grave. Suddenly he snapped, “Give me that flashlight,” and climbed down into it again. For a moment he ran the light over the sides, felt of them, dug at snow that had drifted about on the bottom. Then he clambered up again.
“这不是一个新挖的坟墓。”他皱着眉头看着坟墓说，“它是很久以前挖的。底部有一些木头碎片，是旧木头，在地下埋了很久了。四壁上也有痕迹。它被挖过，又被填上，然后又被挖开了。从铲子的痕迹我能看出来。天哪，我突然变成考古学家了！”他转向杰克，“这是正确的说法吗？”
“That isn’t a new grave,” he said, scowling at it. “It was dug a long time ago. There’re a few bits of wood at the bottom, old wood, that’s been in the ground a long time. Marks on the sides, too. It was dug, and filled in, and dug out again. I can tell from the shovel marks. Holy Mahoney, I’m an archeologist all of a sudden!” He turned to Jake. “Is that the right name for it?”
“这不是我认为你现在的样子的正确说法。”杰克说着，对着手哈气，“我们现在怎么办，报警吗？”
“It isn’t the right name for what I think you are,” Jake said, blowing on his hands. “What do we do now, call the cops?”
“我想是吧。”律师若有所思地说，“这里也是布雷克县，这意味着要把安迪·阿赫恩叫来。这是他的辖区，而另外两起谋杀案是在冯·弗拉纳根的辖区，这意味着我们会有一个大麻烦。如果这个人一定要被杀，为什么他不能选一个文明点的地方呢？”
“I guess so,” the lawyer said thoughtfully. “This is in Blake County, too, which means calling in Andy Ahearn. This is his territory and the other two murders were in von Flanagan’s, which means we’re going to have one hell of a mess. If this guy had to get himself killed, why couldn’t he have picked a civilized part of the world to do it in?”
“也许他是在芝加哥被刺伤的，然后他的尸体被搬到了这里。”杰克提议道。
“Maybe he did,” Jake suggested. “Maybe he was stabbed down in Chicago and his body was moved up here.”
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“有这种可能。”马龙说，“我倒希望事情是这样发生的。当然，我们可以把事情简单化，把他搬回芝加哥，然后让人在那里发现他。”他又朝坟墓里看了看，“在真正的大雪开始下之前他就被放在这里了，因为坟墓周围没有脚印。不过，还是几乎不可能猜出时间。雪是什么时候停的？”
“It’s possible,” Malone said. “I’d like to have had it happen that way. Of course, we could simplify everything by moving him back to Chicago and having him found there.” He looked into the grave again. “He was put there before the really heavy snow began to fall, because there’s no footprints showing around the grave. Still, it’s next to impossible to guess at the time. It stopped snowing about—when?”
“大概七点左右。”海伦说。
“Somewhere around seven o’clock,” Helene said.
马龙皱起眉头，“但那也没什么用。从那以后风就一直在刮。我们离开这里半小时后，我们自己的脚印就会消失。是飘雪把一切都掩盖了。”
“Malone scowled. “That’s no help, though. The wind has been blowing ever since. Our own footprints will be gone half an hour after we walk away from here. It’s the drifting snow that’s wiped out everything.”
“据莫娜·麦克莱恩说，他失踪了大半天了。”海伦说。
“He’s been missing most of the day, according to what Mona McClane said.”
“那也没什么用。凶手可能花了好几个小时试图弄清楚他到底知道多少，然后才冒险杀了他。然后他放弃了，杀了他，要么在这里，要么在别的地方，然后把他放在这个正好等着他的坟墓里。他要么没时间把坟墓填上，要么没有合适的工具。”
“That’s no help either. The murderer may have spent hours trying to find out how much he really did know, before he risked doing him in. Then he gave up and killed him, either here or somewhere else, and placed him in the grave which was so conveniently waiting for him. He either didn’t have time to fill in the grave, or he didn’t have the right implements with him.”
杰克说：“把你的思考留到以后吧。这里冷得要命。我们要……”他突然停住，盯着马龙。
“Jake said, “Save your mental processes for a later date. It’s damned cold out here. What are we going to—” He stopped short, staring at Malone.
这个小律师的脸本来就很苍白，现在变得灰白。在手电筒怪异的光芒下，他睁得大大的圆眼睛像两个冰球一样闪闪发光。他的嘴张着，一个字只说了一半就冻在了那里。
The little lawyer’s face had been pale, now it had turned ashen. In the weird glow of the flashlight, his wide, round eyes were gleaming like balls of ice. His mouth was open, with a word half formed and frozen there.
“马龙！”杰克叫道，“怎么……”
“Malone!” Jake cried. “What—”
没有回应。杰克盯着他看了一会儿，然后把手电筒照向律师眼睛盯着的方向。海伦尖叫起来。
There was no answer. Jake stared at him for an instant, then turned the flashlight in the direction in which the lawyer’s eyes were fixed. Helene screamed.
罗斯·麦克劳林的尸体正缓慢而吃力地从坟墓里往外爬。
The corpse of Ross McLaurin was climbing, slowly and laboriously, out of its grave.