皮漏斗之谜（16）（在线收听）

“‘She gazed without wincing upon the wooden horse and rings which had twisted so many limbs and caused so many shrieks of agony. When her eyes fell upon the three pails of water, which were all ready for her, she said with a smile, “All that water must have been brought here for the purpose of drowning me, Monsieur. You have no idea, I trust, of making a person of my small stature swallow it all.”’ Shall I read the details of the torture?”

“No, for Heaven’s sake, don’t.”

“Here is a sentence which must surely show you that what is here recorded is the very scene which you have gazed upon tonight: ‘The good Abbe Pirot, unable to contemplate the agonies which were suffered by his penitent, had hurried from the room.’ Does that convince you?”

“It does entirely. There can be no question that it is indeed the same event. But who, then, is this lady whose appearance was so attractive and whose end was so horrible?”

For answer Dacre came across to me, and placed the small lamp upon the table which stood by my bed. Lifting up the ill-omened filler, he turned the brass rim so that the light fell full upon it. Seen in this way the engraving seemed clearer than on the night before.

“We have already agreed that this is the badge of a marquis or of a marquise,” said he. “We have also settled that the last letter is B.”

“It is undoubtedly so.”

“她毫不畏缩地望着木马和铁环，这里不知扭断过多少肢体，不知多少人被折磨得发出痛苦的尖叫。她的目光落在三只水桶上，那全是为她准备的，她面带微笑地说：“先生，这么多水，一定是为淹死我用的。我相信，你并不知道像我这样小的身体是否能装下这么多水。”还要我接着读行刑的细节吗？"“不，看在上帝的面上，别念了。"

“有句话一定要读给你听，那可以证明你今晚看见的一幕就是这本书所记载的事情！善良的皮罗神父无法看着他的忏悔者遭受酷刑，已经走出房间。这回你相信了吧？”

“我完全相信了。毫无疑问，这确实是同一件事情。可是，这个女子，容貌如此美丽，而结局如此悲惨，她究竟是谁”

达克走到我身边，把小小的油灯放在床前的桌上，拿起那个不吉利的皮漏斗，把铜镶边对着灯光，上面的雕刻显得比原先清晰了些。

“我们已经知道，这是侯爵的标志，”他说道，“我们也已经认出最后的字母是B。"“毫无疑问。”