20 лучших повестей на английском / 20 Best Short Novels

‘I have little more to say, and it’s as well, for I am about done up. I went on cabbing it for a day or so, intending to keep at it until I could save enough to take me back to America. I was standing in the yard when a ragged youngster asked if there was a cabby there called Jefferson Hope, and said that his cab was wanted by a gentleman at 221B, Baker Street. I went round suspecting no harm, and the next thing I knew, this young man here had the bracelets on my wrists, and as neatly shackled as ever I saw in my life. That’s the whole of my story, gentlemen. You may consider me to be a murderer; but I hold that I am just as much an officer of justice as you are.’

So thrilling had the man’s narrative been and his manner was so impressive that we had sat silent and absorbed. Even the professional detectives, blasé[142] as they were in every detail of crime, appeared to be keenly interested in the man’s story. When he finished, we sat for some minutes in a stillness which was only broken by the scratching of Lestrade’s pencil as he gave the finishing touches to his shorthand account.

‘There is only one point on which I should like a little more information,’ Sherlock Holmes said at last. ‘Who was your accomplice who came for the ring which I advertised?’

The prisoner winked at my friend jocosely. ‘I can tell my own secrets,’ he said, ‘but I don’t get other people into trouble. I saw your advertisement, and I thought it might be a plant, or it might be the ring which I wanted. My friend volunteered to go and see. I think you’ll own he did it smartly.’

‘Not a doubt of that,’ said Holmes heartily.

‘Now, gentlemen,’ the inspector remarked, gravely, ‘the forms of the law must be complied with. On Thursday the prisoner will be brought before the magistrates, and your attendance will be required. Until then I will be responsible for him.’ He rang the bell as he spoke, and Jefferson Hope was led off by a couple of warders, while my friend and I made our way out of the station and took a cab back to Baker Street.

Chapter VII The conclusion

We had all been warned to appear before the magistrates upon the Thursday; but when the Thursday came there was no occasion for our testimony. A higher Judge had taken the matter in hand, and Jefferson Hope had been summoned before a tribunal where strict justice would be meted out to him. On the very night after his capture the aneurism burst, and he was found in the morning stretched upon the floor of the cell, with a placid smile upon his face, as though he had been able in his dying moments to look back upon a useful life, and on work well done.

‘Gregson and Lestrade will be wild about his death,’ Holmes remarked, as we chatted it over next evening. ‘Where will their grand advertisement be now?’

‘I don’t see that they had very much to do with his capture,’ I answered.

‘What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence,’ returned my companion bitterly. ‘The question is, what can you make people believe that you have done? Never mind,’ he continued, more brightly, after a pause. ‘I would not have missed the investigation for anything. There has been no better case within my recollection. Simple as it was, there were several most instructive points about it.’

‘Simple!’ I ejaculated.

‘Well, really, it can hardly be described as otherwise,’ said Sherlock Holmes, smiling at my surprise. ‘The proof of its intrinsic simplicity is, that without any help save a few very ordinary deductions I was able to lay my hand upon the criminal within three days.’

‘That is true,’ said I.

‘I have already explained to you that what is out of the common is usually a guide rather than a hindrance. In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. That is a very useful accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practice it much. In the every-day affairs of life it is more useful to reason forwards, and so the other comes to be neglected. There are fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically.’

‘I confess,’ said I, ‘that I do not quite follow you.’

‘I hardly expected that you would. Let me see if I can make it clearer. Most people, if you describe a train of events to them, will tell you what the result would be. They can put those events together in their minds, and argue from them that something will come to pass. There are few people, however, who, if you told them a result, would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result. This power is what I mean when I talk of reasoning backwards, or analytically.’

‘I understand,’ said I.