Приключения Шерлока Холмса

УДК 372.8
ББК 81.2 Англ93
 Д 62

ISBN 9785992502527
© КАРО, 2007

Дойл  А. Конан
Д 62
Приключения Шерлока Холмса: Книга для
чтения на английском языке. — СПб.: КАРО,
2011. — 480 с. — (Detective Story)

ISBN 9785992502527

Артур Конан Дойл (1859–1930) — выдающийся
английский писатель, ввел в детективную литературу образ
сыщикалюбителя Шерлока Холмса.
В сборнике представлены 12 рассказов писателя о
приключениях Шерлока Холмса и доктора Ватсона.
Занимательный сюжет, интрига, неожиданная и неоднозначная развязка, простой и в то же время изящный
язык, легкая ирония делают каждый рассказ уникальным
и запоминающимся.
Неадаптированный текст на языке оригинала снабжен
комментариями и словарем.
УДК 372.8
ББК 81.2 Англ93

A Scandal in Bohemia

I

To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have
seldom heard him mention her under any other name.
In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of
her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love
for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly,
were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it1, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but
as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a
gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the
observer — excellent for drawing the veil from men’s
motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to
admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely
adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting

1 I take it — помоему

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental
results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one
of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his.
And yet there was but one woman to him, and that
woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.
I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had
drifted us away from each other. My own complete happiness, and the home-centred interests which rise up
around the man who first finds himself master of his
own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention, while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and
alternating from week to week between cocaine and
ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce
energy of his own keen nature. He was still, as ever,
deeply attracted by the study of crime, and occupied
his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of observation in following out those clues, and clearing up
those mysteries which had been abandoned as hopeless
by the official police. From time to time I heard some
vague account of his doings: of his summons to Odessa
in the case of the Trepoff murder, of his clearing up of
the singular tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee, and finally of the mission which he had accomplished
so delicately and successfully for the reigning family of

Holland. Beyond these signs of his activity, however,
which I merely shared with all the readers of the daily
press, I knew little of my former friend and companion.
One night — it was on the twentieth of March,
1888 — I was returning from a journey to a patient
(for I had now returned to civil practice), when my way
led me through Baker Street. As I passed the well-remembered door, which must always be associated in
my mind with my wooing, and with the dark incidents
of the Study in Scarlet1, I was seized with a keen desire
to see Holmes again, and to know how he was employing his extraordinary powers. His rooms were brilliantly lit, and, even as I looked up, I saw his tall, spare figure pass twice in a dark silhouette against the blind. He
was pacing the room swiftly, eagerly, with his head sunk
upon his chest and his hands clasped behind him. To
me, who knew his every mood and habit, his attitude
and manner told their own story. He was at work again.
He had risen out of his drug-created dreams and was
hot upon the scent of some new problem. I rang the
bell and was shown up to the chamber which had formerly been in part my own.
His manner was not effusive. It seldom was: but he
was glad, I think, to see me. With hardly a word spoken,

1 Study in Scarlet — «Этюд в багровых тонах» (повесть А. КонанДойля, в которой впервые появились главные персонажи его рассказов — Шерлок Холмс и доктор Ватсон, 1887)

A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

but with a kindly eye, he waved me to an armchair, threw
across his case of cigars, and indicated a spirit case and a
gasogene in the corner. Then he stood before the fire and
looked me over in his singular introspective fashion.
“Wedlock suits you,” he remarked. “I think, Watson,
that you have put on seven and a half pounds since
I saw you.”
“Seven!” I answered.
“Indeed, I should have thought a little more. Just a
trifle more, I fancy, Watson. And in practice again, I observe. You did not tell me that you intended to go into
harness.”
“Then, how do you know?”
“I see it, I deduce it. How do I know that you have
been getting yourself very wet lately, and that you have
a most clumsy and careless servant girl?”
“My dear Holmes,” said I, “this is too much. You would
certainly have been burned, had you lived a few centuries
ago. It is true that I had a country walk on Thursday and
came home in a dreadful mess, but as I have changed my
clothes I can’t imagine how you deduce it. As to Mary
Jane, she is incorrigible, and my wife has given her notice; but there, again, I fail to see how you work it out.”
He chuckled to himself and rubbed his long, nervous hands together.
“It is simplicity itself,” said he; “my eyes tell me that
on the inside of your left shoe, just where the firelight
strikes it, the leather is scored by six almost parallel cuts.

Obviously they have been caused by someone who has
very carelessly scraped round the edges of the sole in
order to remove crusted mud from it. Hence, you see,
my double deduction that you had been out in vile
weather, and that you had a particularly malignant bootslitting specimen of the London slavey. As to your practice, if a gentleman walks into my rooms smelling of
iodoform, with a black mark of nitrate of silver upon
his right forefinger, and a bulge on the right side of his
top-hat to show where he has secreted his stethoscope,
I must be dull, indeed, if I do not pronounce him to be
an active member of the medical profession.”
I could not help laughing at the ease with which he
explained his process of deduction. “When I hear you
give your reasons,” I remarked, “the thing always appears
to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it
myself, though at each successive instance of your
reasoning I am baffled until you explain your process.
And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours.”
“Quite so,” he answered, lighting a cigarette, and
throwing himself down into an armchair. “You see, but
you do not observe. The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up
from the hall to this room.”
“Frequently.”
“How often?”
“Well, some hundreds of times.”
“Then how many are there?”

A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

“How many? I don’t know.”
“Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have
seen. That is just my point. Now, I know that there are
seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed.
By the way, since you are interested in these little problems, and since you are good enough to chronicle one
or two of my trifling experiences, you may be interested
in this.” He threw over a sheet of thick, pink-tinted notepaper which had been lying open upon the table. “It
came by the last post,” said he. “Read it aloud.”
The note was undated, and without either signature or address.

‘There will call upon you to-night, at a quarter to
eight o’clock [it said], a gentleman who desires to consult you upon a matter of the very deepest moment. Your
recent services to one of the royal houses of Europe have
shown that you are one who may safely be trusted with
matters which are of an importance which can hardly be
exaggerated. This account of you we have from all quarters received. Be in your chamber then at that hour, and
do not take it amiss if your visitor wear a mask.

“This is indeed a mystery,” I remarked. “What do
you imagine that it means?”
“I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize
before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts
to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. But the
note itself. What do you deduce from it?”

I carefully examined the writing, and the paper upon
which it was written.
“The man who wrote it was presumably well to do,”
I remarked, endeavouring to imitate my companion’s
processes. “Such paper could not be bought under half
a crown a packet. It is peculiarly strong and stiff.”
“Peculiar — that is the very word,” said Holmes.
“It is not an English paper at all. Hold it up to the light.”
I did so, and saw a large “E” with a small “g,” a “P,”
and a large “G” with a small “t” woven into the texture
of the paper.
“What do you make of that?” asked Holmes.
“The name of the maker, no doubt; or his monogram, rather.”
“Not at all. The ‘G’ with the small ‘t’ stands for ‘Gesellschaft,’ which is the German for ‘Company.’ It is a
customary contraction like our ‘Co.’ ‘P,’ of course, stands
for ‘Papier.’ Now for the ‘Eg.’ Let us glance at our Continental Gazetteer.” He took down a heavy brown volume from his shelves. “Eglow, Eglonitz — here we are,
Egria. It is in a German-speaking country — in Bohemia, not far from Carlsbad. ‘Remarkable as being the
scene of the death of Wallenstein1, and for its numerous glass-factories and paper-mills.’ Ha, ha, my boy,

1 Wallenstein — Альбрехт Валленштейн (1583–1634), немецкий
полководец, главнокомандующий войсками габсбургского
блока в Тридцатилетней войне

A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

what do you make of that?” His eyes sparkled, and he
sent up a great blue triumphant cloud from his cigarette.
“The paper was made in Bohemia,” I said.
“Precisely. And the man who wrote the note is a German. Do you note the peculiar construction of the sentence — ‘This account of you we have from all quarters
received.’ A Frenchman or Russian could not have written that. It is the German who is so uncourteous to his
verbs. It only remains, therefore, to discover what is wanted by this German who writes upon Bohemian paper
and prefers wearing a mask to showing his face. And here
he comes, if I am not mistaken, to resolve all our doubts.”
As he spoke there was the sharp sound of horses’
hoofs and grating wheels against the curb, followed by
a sharp pull at the bell. Holmes whistled.
“A pair, by the sound,” said he. “Yes,” he continued,
glancing out of the window. “A nice little brougham
and a pair of beauties. A hundred and fifty guineas
apiece. There’s money in this case, Watson, if there is
nothing else.”
“I think that I had better go, Holmes.”
“Not a bit, Doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost
without my Boswell1. And this promises to be interesting. It would be a pity to miss it.”

1 Boswell — Джеймс Босвелл (1740–1795), биограф Сэмюэля
Джонсона