📝 您未登录，登录后完成练习可保存成绩、查看最佳记录。
总字符
0
正确字符
0
错误字符
0
错误率
0.00%
耗时(秒)
0
速度 WPM
0
0 / 65
1When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes cases between the years '82 and '90, I am faced by so
2many which present strange and interesting features that it is no easy matter to know which to choose and which to
3leave. Some, however, have already gained publicity through the papers, and others have not offered a field for those
4peculiar qualities which my friend possessed in so high a degree, and which it is the object of these papers to
5illustrate. Some, too, have baffled his analytical skill, and would be, as narratives, beginnings without an ending,
6while others have been but partially cleared up, and have their explanations founded rather upon conjecture and surmise
7than on that absolute logical proof which was so dear to him. There is, however, one of these last which was so
8remarkable in its details and so startling in its results that I am tempted to give some account of it in spite of the
9fact that there are points in connection with it which never have been, and probably never will be, entirely cleared up.
10The year '87 furnished us with a long series of cases of greater or less interest, of which I retain the records. Among
11my headings under this one twelve months I find an account of the adventure of the Paradol Chamber, of the Amateur
12Mendicant Society, who held a luxurious club in the lower vault of a furniture warehouse, of the facts connected with
13the loss of the British barque Sophy Anderson, of the singular adventures of the Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa,
14and finally of the Camberwell poisoning case. In the latter, as may be remembered, Sherlock Holmes was able, by winding
15up the dead man's watch, to prove that it had been wound up two hours before, and that therefore the deceased had gone
16to bed within that time--a deduction which was of the greatest importance in clearing up the case. All these I may
17sketch out at some future date, but none of them present such singular features as the strange train of circumstances
18which I have now taken up my pen to describe. It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales had set
19in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that even
20here in the heart of great, hand-made London we were forced to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of life
21and to recognise the presence of those great elemental forces which shriek at mankind through the bars of his
22civilisation, like untamed beasts in a cage. As evening drew in, the storm grew higher and louder, and the wind cried
23and sobbed like a child in the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the fireplace cross-indexing his
24records of crime, while I at the other was deep in one of Clark Russell's fine sea-stories until the howl of the gale
25from without seemed to blend with the text, and the splash of the rain to lengthen out into the long swash of the sea
26waves. My wife was on a visit to her mother's, and for a few days I was a dweller once more in my old quarters at Baker
27Street. "Why," said I, glancing up at my companion, "that was surely the bell. Who could come to-night? Some friend of
28yours, perhaps?" "Except yourself I have none," he answered. "I do not encourage visitors." "A client, then?" "If so, it
29is a serious case. Nothing less would bring a man out on such a day and at such an hour. But I take it that it is more
30likely to be some crony of the landlady's." Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for there came a step
31in the passage and a tapping at the door. He stretched out his long arm to turn the lamp away from himself and towards
32the vacant chair upon which a newcomer must sit. "Come in!" said he. The man who entered was young, some two-and-twenty
33at the outside, well-groomed and trimly clad, with something of refinement and delicacy in his bearing. The streaming
34umbrella which he held in his hand, and his long shining waterproof told of the fierce weather through which he had
35come. He looked about him anxiously in the glare of the lamp, and I could see that his face was pale and his eyes heavy,
36like those of a man who is weighed down with some great anxiety. "I owe you an apology," he said, raising his golden
37pince-nez to his eyes. "I trust that I am not intruding. I fear that I have brought some traces of the storm and rain
38into your snug chamber." "Give me your coat and umbrella," said Holmes. "They may rest here on the hook and will be dry
39presently. You have come up from the south-west, I see." "Yes, from Horsham." "That clay and chalk mixture which I see
40upon your toe caps is quite distinctive." "I have come for advice." "That is easily got." "And help." "That is not
41always so easy." "I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes. I heard from Major Prendergast how you saved him in the Tankerville
42Club scandal." "Ah, of course. He was wrongfully accused of cheating at cards." "He said that you could solve anything."
43"He said too much." "That you are never beaten." "I have been beaten four times--three times by men, and once by a
44woman." "But what is that compared with the number of your successes?" "It is true that I have been generally
45successful." "Then you may be so with me." "I beg that you will draw your chair up to the fire and favour me with some
46details as to your case." "It is no ordinary one." "None of those which come to me are. I am the last court of appeal."
47"And yet I question, sir, whether, in all your experience, you have ever listened to a more mysterious and inexplicable
48chain of events than those which have happened in my own family." "You fill me with interest," said Holmes. "Pray give
49us the essential facts from the commencement, and I can afterwards question you as to those details which seem to me to
50be most important." The young man pulled his chair up and pushed his wet feet out towards the blaze. "My name," said he,
51"is John Openshaw, but my own affairs have, as far as I can understand, little to do with this awful business. It is a
52hereditary matter; so in order to give you an idea of the facts, I must go back to the commencement of the affair. "You
53must know that my grandfather had two sons--my uncle Elias and my father Joseph. My father had a small factory at
54Coventry, which he enlarged at the time of the invention of bicycling. He was a patentee of the Openshaw unbreakable
55tire, and his business met with such success that he was able to sell it and to retire upon a handsome competence. "My
56uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young man and became a planter in Florida, where he was reported to have
57done very well. At the time of the war he fought in Jackson's army, and afterwards under Hood, where he rose to be a
58colonel. When Lee laid down his arms my uncle returned to his plantation, where he remained for three or four years.
59About 1869 or 1870 he came back to Europe and took a small estate in Sussex, near Horsham. He had made a very
60considerable fortune in the States, and his reason for leaving them was his aversion to the negroes, and his dislike of
61the Republican policy in extending the franchise to them. He was a singular man, fierce and quick-tempered, very
62foul-mouthed when he was angry, and of a most retiring disposition. During all the years that he lived at Horsham, I
63doubt if ever he set foot in the town. He had a garden and two or three fields round his house, and there he would take
64his exercise, though very often for weeks on end he would never leave his room. He drank a great deal of brandy and
65smoked very heavily, but he would see no society and did not want any friends, not even his own brother.
🎉 全部完成！共 65 行