Артур Дойл - Лучшие расследования Шерлока Холмса / The Best of Sherlock Holmes

“It only remains to indicate the part which she had played throughout. There can be no doubt that Stapleton exercised an influence over her which may have been love or may have been fear, or very possibly both, since they are by no means incompatible emotions. It was, at least, absolutely effective. At his command she consented to pass as his sister, though he found the limits of his power over her when he endeavoured to make her the direct accessory to murder. She was ready to warn Sir Henry so far as she could without implicating her husband, and again and again she tried to do so. Stapleton himself seems to have been capable of jealousy, and when he saw the baronet paying court to the lady, even though it was part of his own plan, still he could not help interrupting with a passionate outburst which revealed the fiery soul which his self-contained manner so cleverly concealed. By encouraging the intimacy he made it certain that Sir Henry would frequently come to Merripit House and that he would sooner or later get the opportunity which he desired. On the day of the crisis, however, his wife turned suddenly against him. She had learned something of the death of the convict, and she knew that the hound was being kept in the outhouse [405]on the evening that Sir Henry was coming to dinner. She taxed her husband with his intended crime, and a furious scene followed in which he showed her for the first time that she had a rival in his love. Her fidelity turned in an instant to bitter hatred, and he saw that she would betray him. He tied her up, therefore, that she might have no chance of warning Sir Henry, and he hoped, no doubt, that when the whole countryside put down the baronet’s death to the curse of his family, as they certainly would do, he could win his wife back to accept an accomplished fact and to keep silent upon what she knew. In this I fancy that in any case he made a miscalculation, and that, if we had not been there, his doom would none the less have been sealed. A woman of Spanish blood does not condone such an injury so lightly. And now, my dear Watson, without referring to my notes, I cannot give you a more detailed account of this curious case. I do not know that anything essential has been left unexplained.”

“He could not hope to frighten Sir Henry to death as he had done the old uncle with his bogie hound.”

“The beast was savage and half-starved. If its appearance did not frighten its victim to death, at least it would paralyze the resistance which might be offered.”

“No doubt. There only remains one difficulty. If Stapleton came into the succession, how could he explain the fact that he, the heir, had been living unannounced under another name so close to the property? How could he claim it without causing suspicion and inquiry?”

“It is a formidable difficulty, and I fear that you ask too much when you expect me to solve it. The past and the present are within the field of my inquiry, but what a man may do in the future is a hard question to answer. Mrs. Stapleton has heard her husband discuss the problem on several occasions. There were three possible courses. He might claim the property from South America, establish his identity before the British authorities there and so obtain the fortune without ever coming to England at all, or he might adopt an elaborate disguise during the short time that he need be in London; or, again, he might furnish an accomplice with the proofs and papers, putting him in as heir, and retaining a claim upon some proportion of his income. We cannot doubt from what we know of him that he would have found some way out of the difficulty. And now, my dear Watson, we have had some weeks of severe work, and for one evening, I think, we may turn our thoughts into more pleasant channels. I have a box [406]for Les Huguenots. [407]Have you heard the De Reszkes [408]? Might I trouble you then to be ready in half an hour, and we can stop at Marcini’s for a little dinner on the way?”

Dear readers,

to have all the clues for the crimes you might need the following information:

Units of mass

ounce (oz) = 28.35 grams

Pound (lb) = 16 oz, 453,6 grams

Quarter = 28 lb

Stone (st) = 14 lb

Units of volume

fluid ounce (fl. oz.) = 28.4 ml

Pint = 20 fl.oz.

Quart = 40 fl.oz.

Gallon = 160 fl.oz.

Units of length and area

inch (in) = 2.54 cm

foot (ft) = 12 inches

yard (yd) = 3 feet, 36 inches

furlong = 220 (yd)

Mile = 5280 feet

League = 3 miles

Acre = 4 840 sq yards, 4047 sq metres

Britain monetary units (Pre-decimal)

Pound sterling (£), the official currency of the UK

Shilling (s) = 1/20 £, 12 pence

Penny (d) = 1/12 s, 1/240 £

Britain coinage (Pre-decimal)

Farthing, a copper or (later) bronze coin with value of ¼ d

Penny, a copper or (later) bronze coin with value of 1 d

Florin, a silver coin with value of 2 s

Crown, a silver coin with value of 5 s

Sovereign, a gold coin with value of 1 £ (used mostly as an investment rather than as a legal tender)

Guinea, a gold coin that was minted in the UK till 1815 with value of 1£ 1s; when the coin got out of circulation the term was still used with the meaning of 1£ 1s

Cocainewas a legal drug at that time.

Trincomalee – a port in Sri Lanka

a spirit case and a gasogene – a spirit case (aka tantalus) was a Victorian locked cabinet to store spirits. A gasogene was a special decanter for making carbonated water.

Bohemia – a historical region in Central Europe; now it’s a part of Czech Republic. By the end of the 19 thcentury Bohemia was a part of Austro-Hungarian Empire.

von Wallenstein, Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius (1583–1634) – Bohemian military leader who headed the armies of emperor Ferdinand II during the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648). He was assassinated in Cheb (Eger) in 1634. The name “Egria” (mentioned above) is a variation from Eger.

brougham – a closed horse-drawn four-wheeled carriage with the driver’s seat outside in the front. It was named after Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux who is believed to invent it.

Boswell,James (1740–1795) – a biographer of famous English writer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson. Boswell’s “Life of Samuel Johnson” is claimed to be the greatest life story ever written in English. The name of Boswell has become a household name for a very scrupulous diarist.

Astrakhan – a karakul lambskin. King’s clothes looked exotic and vulgar in Victorian Britain.

Langham – a luxury hotel founded in 1865 as the largest and most modern hotel in London. It still exists as a luxury hotel.

bijou villa – “bijou” is a French term for “jewel.” Bijou villa is a French-style small pretty cottage.

Chubb lock – a prominent British brand of locks. In the 19 thcentury Chubb locks were widely known for their high security and were used by General Post Office and Her Majesty’s Prison Service.

ostlers – it’s a cockney pronunciation of “hostlers”