小寫字母案

文/杰克·德拉尼 譯/陳麗

小寫字母案

文/杰克·德拉尼 譯/陳麗

一個寒冷的九月清晨，她翩然走進我的辦公室。我當時正在啜飲一杯星巴克頂級熱咖啡，同時上網瀏覽當地新聞。著名的詞匯語義學家，埃德加·內特爾斯頓教授被發現死亡，頭上有一個槍擊傷口。警方判斷是自殺。

She breezed into my of fi ce one cold September morning. I’d been enjoying a hot cup of Starbuck’s finest and sur fi ng the web for local news. The famous lexical semanticist Professor Edgar Nettleston had been found dead, a gunshot wound to the head. The police verdict was suicide.

[2]她向我悠悠走來的同時伸出一只漂亮的手。我瞥見一枚婚戒，上面的寶石足有一顆MM花生牛奶巧克力豆那么大。

[2] She held out an elegant hand as she fl oated towards me and I glimpsed a wedding band with a stone the size of a peanut M&M1MM豆或譯M&M豆，是美國的一種巧克力豆品牌，有各種口味和顏色，這里的peanut M&M是它的一款經典口味。.

[3]“我是伊迪絲·內特爾斯頓?！?/p>

“你先生的事，真遺憾?！?/p>

“我不遺憾。他愛過我，不過他更愛研究詞語。我長話短說吧，我丈夫去世前正在寫一篇論文，它能撼動詞匯語義學的根基。它用在巡回講學中可值錢了，但是誰也找不到它了。我認為他自殺時留下的便條能提供些線索?！?/p>

[3] “I’m Edith Nettleston.”

“Sorry about the old man.”

“I’m not. He loved me, but he loved words more. I’ll be brief. My husband was working on a paper that will rock the very foundation of lexical semantics. It’s worth a fortune in lecture tours, but nobody can fi nd it. I believe his suicide note is a clue to its whereabouts.”

[4]她從襯衫口袋掏出一小片紙。

“伊迪絲，我沒什么可抱怨的，我這一輩子過得挺好。作為一名教師、一個兜售知識的人，我既掙到了錢，也享受了樂趣。但是我感覺沮喪至極，無藥可救……所以我選擇了這一刻以這一方式來結束我的生命。我對你一直不好。我要求你把棕色卷發染成金色。我以為花錢就能買來你，而其實我應該贏得你的愛。我還罵你女巫。我還抱怨：跟我結婚的那個女人怎么全變了？我批評你吃得太多。假如我想改變你的話，我其實應該用胡蘿卜而不是用大棒。你或許想過要擰斷我的脖子。原諒我。再見?！?/p>

“這封信全是用小寫字母寫成的。我丈夫是個非常注重語法正確的人。我不相信他這么做沒有什么深義?！?/p>

[4] She removed a scrap of paper from her blouse.

“edith. i’m not going to whine, i’ve had a good life. i’ve found wealth and happiness as a teacher, a seller of knowledge. but i find myself depressed beyond hope ... and so i’m choosing the hour and manner of my own demise. i have treated you badly. i demanded you dyed your brown curls blonde. i thought i could buy you when i should have won your love. i called you a witch. i’d complain: where’s the woman i married? i said you ate too much. if i wanted change, i could have used a carrot rather than a stick2此處使用了“胡蘿卜加大棒政策”的典故，起源于在拉車的騾馬前放胡蘿卜誘使它前進，同時在后面用大棒驅趕著它前行。后來該詞語常用于國際關系領域，指用懷柔政策（胡蘿卜）和強硬外交（大棒）來達成某一目的。. you probably wanted to wring my neck. forgive me. farewell.”

“It’s all written in lower case. My husband was a stickler for correct grammar. I refuse to believe it doesn’t mean something.”

[5]“內特爾斯頓夫人，我想我能對您有所幫助。這封信有幾處很古怪。首先，正如您所說，它全部使用小寫字母。內特爾斯頓先生是世界知名的詞匯語義學家，可不是正給鐵哥們發短信的中學生。

“其次，這封信里的同音異義詞出乎尋常得多，有些詞與它們讀音相同，但是拼寫和意義卻不相同。既然作者是一位詞匯語義學家，那么這種情況就肯定不是偶然了。

“我們按順序來念這些詞：whine、seller、hour、 manner。將它們轉換成各自的同音異義詞，就得到了：wine cellar our manor （酒窖，我們的莊園）?！?/p>

[5] “Mrs. Nettleston, I think I can help you. There’s a couple of odd things about this letter. Firstly, as you say, it’s written entirely in lower case. Mr. Nettleston was a world-renowned lexical semanticist, not a teenager texting his BFFs3BFF = Best Friend Forever，首字母縮略詞。.”

“Secondly, it has a more than usual number of homophones, words where there is another word with the same sound but different spelling and meaning. When dealing with a lexical semanticist, that’s surely no accident.”

“If we read those homophones in order, we have: whine, seller, hour, manner. And translating to their homophones: wine cellar our manor.”

[6]幾個小時后，我們就到達了內特爾斯頓的鄉間宅邸，直奔地窖而去。燈光一打開，展露在我們面前的就是一排排隧道，架子上滿是黑黑的瓶子。

[6] Several hours later, we arrived at the Nettlestons’country house and immediately headed for the basement. A fl ip of a light switch revealed tunnels fi lled with rows of dark bottles.

[7]“它在哪兒呢？這地方要花好幾年時間才能翻個遍啊?！?/p>

“不用這么著急，內特爾斯頓夫人。首先我想問您個問題：您的婚戒鉆石，它有多大？”

“8克拉。埃德加以前總是把這事掛在嘴上?！?/p>

“果然被我不幸猜中了。”我拔出我可靠的左輪手槍?！澳阍撌嵌嗝赐春匏退脑~匯語義學啊！你以為你能殺掉他，然后獨吞那篇論文的錢。你強迫他寫下那個自殺便條，以為你知道論文在哪里。但是他早有所察覺，先把論文藏起來了。而且他還給你準備了一個驚喜：便條的剩余部分并沒有指出論文藏在哪里，它反而指出了兇手是誰。最后幾個同音異義詞是dyed buy won witch where’s ate carrot wring，也 即 died by one which wears eight carat ring（被一個戴8克拉鉆戒的人殺死）。”

[7] “Where is it? It would take years to search this place.”

“Not so fast, Mrs. Nettleston. First I have to ask you something: your wedding ring diamond, how large is it?”

“It’s eight carats. Edgar wouldn’t stop talking about it.”

“That’s what I feared.” I pulled out my trusty revolver. “How you must have hated him and his lexical semantics! You figured you’d kill him and keep the money from the paper yourself. You forced him to write that suicide note, thinking you knew where it was. But he was suspicious and he’d already hidden it. And he had another surprise for you: the rest of the note, it doesn’t reveal where the paper is, it reveals his killer. The fi nal homophones: dyed buy won witch where’s ate carrot wring. That is: died by one which wears eight carat ring. ”

[8]警察押著內特爾斯頓夫人離開之后，我迅速地在那個隧道迷宮里走了一圈，沒花多少時間就找到了它。大多數的酒都是沒開封地安放在架子上，但是在一個角落里，兩個盒子隨意摞在一起，一個盒子壓在另一個的上面。我小心翼翼地打開了下面那盒。 □

[8] As the cops left with Mrs. Nettleston I took a quick trip round the maze of tunnels. It didn’t take me long to fi nd it. Most of the wine lay unpacked on racks but in one corner two cases sat stacked, one on top of each other. Carefully, I opened the lower one4自殺便條上的小寫字母（lower case）是關鍵的線索，它在此處是個雙關語，既指小寫字母，也指下面的盒子。.

The Case of the Lower Case Letter

ByJack Delany