The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Extrait gratuit

ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

“THE GENTLEMAN IN THE PEW HANDED IT UP TO HER”

[Page 238

ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

BY A. CONAN DOYLE AUTHOR OF “MICAH CLARKE” ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE

Copyright, 1892, by Harper & Brothers.

All rights reserved.

CONTENTS

PAGE

I.

—A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA

3

II.

—THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE

29

III.

—A CASE OF IDENTITY

56

IV.

—THE BOSCOMBE VALLEY MYSTERY

76

V.

—THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS

104

VI.

—THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP

126

VII.

—THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLUE CARBUNCLE

153

VIII.

—THE ADVENTURE OF THE SPECKLED BAND

176

IX.

—THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENGINEER’S THUMB

205

X.

—THE ADVENTURE OF THE NOBLE BACHELOR

229

XI.

—THE ADVENTURE OF THE BERYL CORONET

253

XII.

—THE ADVENTURE OF THE COPPER BEECHES

280

ILLUSTRATIONS

“THE GENTLEMAN IN THE PEW HANDED IT UP TO HER”

Frontispiece

“A MAN ENTERED”

Facing p.

8

“THE DOOR WAS SHUT AND LOCKED”

″

40

“ALL AFTERNOON HE SAT IN THE STALLS”

″

46

“SHERLOCK HOLMES WELCOMED HER”

″

60

“GLANCING ABOUT HIM LIKE A RAT IN A TRAP”

″

72

“THEY FOUND THE BODY”

″

80

“THE MAID SHOWED US THE BOOTS”

″

92

“‘HOLMES,’ I CRIED, ‘YOU ARE TOO LATE’”

″

122

“AT THE FOOT OF THE STAIRS SHE MET THIS LASCAR SCOUNDREL”

″

134

“‘HAVE MERCY!’ HE SHRIEKED”

″

172

“‘GOOD-BYE, AND BE BRAVE’”

″

196

“‘NOT A WORD TO A SOUL’”

″

214

“‘I WILL WISH YOU ALL A VERY GOOD NIGHT’”

″

250

“I CLAPPED A PISTOL TO HIS HEAD”

″

278

“‘I AM SO DELIGHTED THAT YOU HAVE COME’”

″

292

ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES Adventure I 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 it, 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 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 20th 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 Scarlet, 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 arisen 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, but with a kindly eye, he waved me to an arm-chair, 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?”