"This was the first point gained. I then walked slowly down the garden path, which happened to be composed of a clay soil, peculiarly suitable for taking impressions. No doubt it appeared to you to be a mere trampled line of slush, but to my trained eyes every mark upon its surface had a meaning. There is no branch of detective science which is so important and so much neglected as the art of tracing footsteps. Happily, I have always laid great stress upon it, and much practice has made it second nature to me. I saw the heavy footmarks of the constables, but I saw also the track of the two men who had first passed through the garden. It was easy to tell that they had been before the others, because in places their marks had been entirely obliterated by the others coming upon the top of them. In this way my second link was formed, which told me that the nocturnal visitors were two in number, one remarkable for his height (as I calculated from the length of his stride), and the other fashionably dressed, to judge from the small and elegant impression left by his boots.

"On entering the house this last inference was confirmed (когда я вошел в дом, эта моя последняя догадка подтвердилась; inference — вывод, умозаключение; догадка, предположение; to infer — заключать; делать /логический/ вывод; делать предположение, высказывать догадку). My well-booted man lay before me (мой человек в изящных туфлях: «хорошо обутый» лежал передо мной). The tall one, then, had done the murder, if murder there was (следовательно, высокий совершил убийство, если убийство имело место). There was no wound upon the dead man's person (на теле мертвого не было ран), but the agitated expression upon his face assured me (но взволнованное выражение его лица ясно мне сказало; to assure — убеждать) that he had foreseen his fate before it came upon him (что он предвидел свою участь до того, как она его настигла). Men who die from heart disease, or any sudden natural cause (у умирающих от сердечного приступа или по другой внезапной естественной причине), never by any chance exhibit agitation upon their features (никогда ни при каких обстоятельствах не остается на лице потрясенное выражение; to exhibit — показывать; выказывать; agitation — волнение; возбуждение; тревога; потрясение). Having sniffed the dead man's lips (понюхав губы покойного) I detected a slightly sour smell (я заметил чуть кисловатый запах), and I came to the conclusion that he had had poison forced upon him (и пришел к выводу, что его заставили выпить яд). Again, I argued that it had been forced upon him (опять же, я пришел к выводу, что он был принужден его выпить) from the hatred and fear expressed upon his face (по выражению ненависти и страха, застывшем на лице: «по ненависти и страху, выраженных на его лице»). By the method of exclusion, I had arrived at this result (методом исключения я пришел к этому результату), for no other hypothesis would meet the facts (так как никакая другая гипотеза не согласовывалась с фактами). Do not imagine that it was a very unheard of idea (не думайте, что это была такая уж неслыханная идея). The forcible administration of poison is by no means a new thing in criminal annals (насильственное принятие яда никоим образом не новость в анналах преступности; administration — применение). The cases of Dolsky in Odessa (случаи Дольского в Одессе), and of Leturier in Montpellier (и Летурье в Монпелье), will occur at once to any toxicologist (сразу придут на ум любому токсикологу; to occur — случаться; приходить на ум).

wound [wu:nd], exhibit ['zbt], hatred ['hetrd]