3 The Midnight Visitor精品分析.docxVIP

The Midnight Visitor Robert Arthur 1 Ausable did not fit the description of any secret agent Fowler had ever read about. Following him down the corridor of the gloomy French hotel where Ausable had a room, Fowler felt disappointed. It was a small room on the sixth floor and hardly a setting for a romantic figure. 2 Ausable was, for one thing, fat. Very fat. And then there was his accent. Though he spoke French and German passably, he had never altogether lost New England accent he had brought to Paris from Boston twenty years ago. 3 You are disappointed, Ausable said wheezily over his shoulder. You were told that I was a secret agent, a spy, dealing in espionage and danger. You wished to meet me because you are a writer, young and romantic. You thought you would have mysterious figures in the night, the crack of pistols, drugs in the wine. 4 Instead, you have spent a dull evening in a French music hall with a sloppy fat man who, instead of having messages slipped into his hand by dark-eyed beauties, gets only an ordinary telephone call making an appointment in his room. You have been bored! The fat man chuckled to himself as he unlocked the door of his room and stood aside to let his frustrated guest enter. 5 You are disillusioned, Ausable told him. But take cheer, my young friend. Before long you will see a paper, a quite important paper for which several men and women have risked their lives, come to me in the next-to-last step of its journey into official hands. Someday soon that paper may well affect the course of history. There is drama in that thought, dont you think? As he spoke, Ausable closed the door behind him. Then he switched on the light. 6 And as the light came on, Fowler had his first real thrill of the day. For halfway across the room, a small automatic pistol in his hand, stood a man. 7 Ausable blinked a few times. 8 Max, he wheezed, you gave me quite a start. I thought you were in Berlin. What are you doing in my room? 9 M