Александр Левкин - Адаптированный текст повести А. К. Дойла «Знак четырех» на английском языке с транскрипцией и видеопрезентацией. Учебное пособие

That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, – or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world.»

«The only unofficial detective?» I said, raising my eyebrows.

01_017

«The only unofficial consulting detective,» he answered. «I am the last and highest court of appeal in detection. When Gregson or Lestrade or Athelney Jones are out of their depths – which, by the way, is their normal state – the matter is laid before me.

01_018

I examine the data, as an expert, and pronounce a specialist’s opinion. I claim no credit in such cases. My name figures in no newspaper. The work itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar powers, is my highest reward.

01_019

But you have yourself had some experience of my methods of work in the Jefferson Hope case.»

01_020

«Yes, indeed,» said I, cordially. «I was never so struck by anything in my life. I even embodied it in a small brochure with the somewhat fantastic title of „A Study in Scarlet.“»

01_021

He shook his head sadly. «I glanced over it,» said he. «Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner.

01_022

You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.»

«But the romance was there,» I remonstrated. «I could not tamper with the facts.»

01_023

«Some facts should be suppressed, or at least a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from effects to causes by which I succeeded in unraveling it.»

01_024

I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was irritated by the egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should be devoted to his own special doings.

01_025

More than once during the years that I had lived with him in Baker Street I had observed that a small vanity underlay my companion’s quiet and didactic manner. I made no remark, however, but sat nursing my wounded leg.

01_026

I had a Jezail bullet through it some time before, and, though it did not prevent me from walking, it ached wearily at every change of the weather.

01_027

«My practice has extended recently to the Continent,» said Holmes, after a while, filling up his old brier-root pipe. «I was consulted last week by Francois Le Villard, who, as you probably know, has come rather to the front lately in the French detective service.

01_028

He has all the Celtic power of quick intuition, but he is deficient in the wide range of exact knowledge which is essential to the higher developments of his art. The case was concerned with a will, and possessed some features of interest.

01_029

I was able to refer him to two parallel cases, the one at Riga in 1857, and the other at St. Louis in 1871, which have suggested to him the true solution. Here is the letter which I had this morning acknowledging my assistance.»

01_030

He tossed over, as he spoke, a crumpled sheet of foreign notepaper. I glanced my eyes down it, catching a profusion of notes of admiration, with stray «magnifiques,» «coup-de-maitres,» and «tours-de-force,» all testifying to the ardent admiration of the Frenchman.

01_031

«He speaks as a pupil to his master,» said I.

«Oh, he rates my assistance too highly,» said Sherlock Holmes, lightly. «He has considerable gifts himself. He possesses two out of the three qualities necessary for the ideal detective. He has the power of observation and that of deduction.

01_032

He is only wanting in knowledge; and that may come in time. He is now translating my small works into French.»

01_033

«Your works?»

«Oh, didn’t you know?» he cried, laughing. «Yes, I have been guilty of several monographs. They are all upon technical subjects. Here, for example, is one «Upon the Distinction between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccoes.»

01_034

In it I enumerate a hundred and forty forms of cigar-, cigarette-, and pipe-tobacco, with colored plates illustrating the difference in the ash. It is a point which is continually turning up in criminal trials, and which is sometimes of supreme importance as a clue.

01_035

If you can say definitely, for example, that some murder has been done by a man who was smoking an Indian lunkah, it obviously narrows your field of search.

01_036

To the trained eye there is as much difference between the black ash of a Trichinopoly and the white fluff of bird’s-eye as there is between a cabbage and a potato.»

01_037

«You have an extraordinary genius for minutiae,» I remarked.

«I appreciate their importance. Here is my monograph upon the tracing of footsteps, with some remarks upon the uses of plaster of Paris as a preserver of impresses.

01_038

Here, too, is a curious little work upon the influence of a trade upon the form of the hand, with lithotypes of the hands of slaters, sailors, corkcutters, compositors, weavers, and diamond-polishers.

01_039

That is a matter of great practical interest to the scientific detective, – especially in cases of unclaimed bodies, or in discovering the antecedents of criminals. But I weary you with my hobby.»

01_040

«Not at all,» I answered, earnestly. «It is of the greatest interest to me, especially since I have had the opportunity of observing your practical application of it. But you spoke just now of observation and deduction. Surely the one to some extent implies the other.»

01_041

«Why, hardly,» he answered, leaning back luxuriously in his arm-chair, and sending up thick blue wreaths from his pipe. «For example, observation shows me that you have been to the Wigmore Street Post-Office this morning, but deduction lets me know that when there you dispatched a telegram.»

01_042

«Right!» said I. «Right on both points! But I confess that I don’t see how you arrived at it. It was a sudden impulse upon my part, and I have mentioned it to no one.»

01_043

«It is simplicity itself,» he remarked, chuckling at my surprise, – «so absurdly simple that an explanation is superfluous; and yet it may serve to define the limits of observation and of deduction.

01_044