Собака Баскервилей / The Hound of the Baskervilles

Arthur CONAN DOYLE
THE HOUND  
OF THE BASKERVILLES
DETECTIVE STORY
Комментарии и словарь  
Е. Г
. Тигонен

УДК 	372.881.111.1
ББК 	
81.2 Англ-93
	
Д62
Дойл, Артур Конан.
Д62	      Собака Баскервилей : книга для чтения на английском языке / А. К. Дойл. — Санкт-Петербург : 
КАРО, 2025. — 350 с. — (Detective Story).
ISBN 978-5-9925-1058-4.
Артур Конан Дойл, хотя и написал много рассказов, 
романов и даже 3 тома стихотворений, остается для всех 
автором Шерлока Холмса, который борется с десятками 
всевозможных злодеев.
В предлагаемой читателю неадаптированной повести «Собака Баскервилей» «отшельник с Бейкер-стрит» 
раскрывает очередное запутанное преступление. Занимательная интрига и простота повествования, словарь, 
комментарии и перевод особенно сложных для понимания фразеологических оборотов поможет изучающим английский язык получить удовольствие от чтения в оригинале знакомого с детства детектива.
УДК 372.881.111.1
ББК 81.2 Англ-93
ISBN 978-5-9925-1058-4
©	 КАРО, 2025
Все права защищены

Chapter 1
MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES
Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually
very late in the mornings, save upon those
not infrequent occasions when he was up
all night, was seated at the breakfast table.
I stood upon the hearth rug and picked up
the stick which our visitor had left behind
him the night before. It was a fine, thick
piece of wood, bulbous headed, of the sort
which is known as a “Penang lawyer.” Just
under the head was a broad silver band
nearly an inch across. “To James Mortimer,
M.R.C.S., from his friends of the C.C.H.,”
was engraved upon it, with the date “1884.”
It was just such a stick as the old fash 
ioned family practitioner1 used to carry —
dignified, solid, and reassuring.
1 family practitioner — домашний (семейный) врач
3

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
“Well, Watson, what do you make of it?1”
Holmes was sitting with his back to me,
and I had given him no sign of my occupation.
“How did you know what I was doing?
I believe you have eyes in the back of your
head.”
“I have, at least, a well polished, silver 
plated coffee pot in front of me,” said he.
“But, tell me, Watson, what do you make of
our visitor’s stick? Since we have been so
unfortunate as to miss him and have no no 
tion of his errand, this accidental souvenir
becomes of importance. Let me hear you re 
construct the man by an examination of it.”
“I think,” said I, following as far as
I could the methods of my companion, “that
Dr. Mortimer is a successful, elderly med 
ical man, well esteemed since those who
know him give him this mark of their ap 
preciation.”
“Good!” said Holmes. “Excellent!”
“I think also that the probability is in
favour of his being a country practitioner
1 what do you make of it? — (зд.) что вы об этом ду 
маете?
4

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES
who does a great deal of his visiting on
foot.”
“Why so?”
“Because this stick, though originally a
very handsome one has been so knocked
about that I can hardly imagine a town
practitioner carrying it. The thick iron fer 
rule is worn down, so it is evident that he
has done a great amount of walking with it.”
“Perfectly sound!” said Holmes.
“And then again, there is the ‘friends of
the C.C.H.’ I should guess that to be the
Something Hunt, the local hunt to whose
members he has possibly given some surgi 
cal assistance, and which has made him a
small presentation in return.”
“Really, Watson, you excel yourself,” said
Holmes, pushing back his chair and lighting
a cigarette. “I am bound to say that in all
the accounts which you have been so good
as to give of my own small achievements
you have habitually underrated your own
abilities. It may be that you are not your 
self luminous, but you are a conductor of
light. Some people without possessing genius
have a remarkable power of stimulating it.
5

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very
much in your debt.”
He had never said as much before, and
I must admit that his words gave me keen
pleasure, for I had often been piqued by
his indifference to my admiration and to
the attempts which I had made to give
publicity to his methods. I was proud, too,
to think that I had so far mastered his
system as to apply it in a way which earned
his approval. He now took the stick from
my hands and examined it for a few min 
utes with his naked eyes. Then with an
expression of interest he laid down his cig 
arette, and carrying the cane to the win 
dow, he looked over it again with a convex
lens.
“Interesting, though elementary,” said
he as he returned to his favourite corner of
the settee. “There are certainly one or two
indications upon the stick. It gives us the
basis for several deductions.”
“Has anything escaped me?” I asked with
some self importance. “I trust that there is
nothing of consequence which I have over 
looked?”
6

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES
“I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most
of your conclusions were erroneous. When
I said that you stimulated me I meant, to be
frank, that in noting your fallacies I was
occasionally guided towards the truth. Not
that you are entirely wrong in this instance.
The man is certainly a country practitioner.
And he walks a good deal.”
“Then I was right.”
“To that extent.”
“But that was all.”
“No, no, my dear Watson, not all — by no
means all. I would suggest, for example, that
a presentation to a doctor is more likely to
come from a hospital than from a hunt, and
that when the initials ‘C.C.’ are placed before
that hospital the words ‘Charing Cross’ very
naturally suggest themselves.”
“You may be right.”
“The probability lies in that direction.
And if we take this as a working hypothesis
we have a fresh basis from which to start
our construction of this unknown visitor.”
“Well, then, supposing that ‘C.C.H.’ does
stand for ‘Charing Cross Hospital,’ what
further inferences may we draw?”
7

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
“Do none suggest themselves? You know
my methods. Apply them!”
“I can only think of the obvious conclu 
sion that the man has practised in town be 
fore going to the country.”
“I think that we might venture a little
farther than this. Look at it in this light. On
what occasion would it be most probable
that such a presentation would be made?
When would his friends unite to give him a
pledge of their good will? Obviously at the
moment when Dr. Mortimer withdrew from
the service of the hospital in order to start
in practice for himself. We know there has
been a presentation. We believe there has
been a change from a town hospital to a
country practice. Is it, then, stretching our
inference too far to say that the presenta 
tion was on the occasion of the change?”
“It certainly seems probable.”
“Now, you will observe that he could not
have been on the staff of the hospital, since
only a man well established in a London
practice could hold such a position, and such
a one would not drift into the country. What
was he, then? If he was in the hospital and
8

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES
yet not on the staff he could only have been
a house surgeon or a house physician —
little more than a senior student. And he left
five years ago — the date is on the stick. So
your grave, middle aged family practitioner
vanishes into thin air, my dear Watson, and
there emerges a young fellow under thirty,
amiable, unambitious, absent minded, and
the possessor of a favourite dog, which
I should describe roughly as being larger
than a terrier and smaller than a mastiff.”
I laughed incredulously as Sherlock
Holmes leaned back in his settee and blew
little wavering rings of smoke up to the
ceiling.
“As to the latter part, I have no means
of checking you,” said I, “but at least it is
not difficult to find out a few particulars
about the man’s age and professional ca 
reer.” From my small medical shelf I took
down the Medical Directory and turned up
the name. There were several Mortimers,
but only one who could be our visitor. I read
his record aloud.
“Mortimer, James, M.R.C.S., 1882, Grimpen,
Dartmoor, Devon. House surgeon, from 1882
9

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
to 1884, at Charing Cross Hospital. Winner of
the Jackson prize for Comparative Pathol 
ogy, with essay entitled ‘Is Disease a Rever 
sion?’ Corresponding member of the Swedish
Pathological Society. Author of ‘Some Freaks
of Atavism’ (Lancet, 1882). ‘Do We Progress?’
(Journal of Psychology, March, 1883). Medical
Officer for the parishes of Grimpen, Thorsley,
and High Barrow.”
“No mention of that local hunt, Watson,”
said Holmes with a mischievous smile, “but
a country doctor, as you very astutely ob 
served. I think that I am fairly justified in
my inferences. As to the adjectives, I said,
if I remember right, amiable, unambitious,
and absent minded. It is my experience that
it is only an amiable man in this world who
receives testimonials, only an unambitious
one who abandons a London career for the
country, and only an absent minded one
who leaves his stick and not his visiting 
card after waiting an hour in your room.”
“And the dog?”
“Has been in the habit of carrying this
stick behind his master. Being a heavy stick
the dog has held it tightly by the middle,
10