这是福尔摩斯系列的第四本短篇小说集，最初于1917年出版。共收录《紫藤居探案》《垂死侦探探案》《最后的致意》等8个短篇故事。

福尔摩斯宝刀未老神秘大案一一破解

The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge



1. The Singular Experience of Mr. John ScottEccles



I find it recorded in my notebook that it wasa bleak and windy day towards the end of March in the year 1892. Holmes hadreceived a telegram while we sat at our lunch, and he had scribbled a reply. Hemade no remark, but the matter remained in his thoughts, for he stood in frontof the fire afterwards with a thoughtful face, smoking his pipe, and casting anoccasional glance at the message. Suddenly he turned upon me with a mischievoustwinkle in his eyes.

“I suppose, Watson, we must look upon you asa man of letters,” said he. “How do you define the word ‘grotesque’?”

“Strange—remarkable,” I suggested.

He shook his head at my definition.

“ There is surely something more than that,”said he; “some underlying suggestion of the tragic and the terrible. If youcast your mind back to some of those narratives with which you have afflicted along-suffering public, you will recognize how often the grotesque has deepenedinto the criminal. Think of that little affair of the red-headed men. That wasgrotesque enough in the outset, and yet it ended in a desperate attempt atrobbery. Or, again, there was that most grotesque affair of the five orangepips, which led straight to a murderous conspiracy. The word puts me on thealert.”

“Have you it there?” I asked.

He read the telegram aloud.

“Have just hadmost incredible and grotesque experience. May I consult you?

“Scott Eccles,

“Post-Office, Charing Cross.”

“Man or woman?” I asked.

“Oh, man, of course. No woman would ever senda reply-paid telegram. She would have come.”

“Will you see him?”

“My dear Watson, you know how bored I havebeen since we locked up Colonel Carruthers. My mind is like a racing engine,tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for whichit was built. Life is commonplace; the papers are sterile; audacity and romanceseem to have passed forever from the criminal world. Can you ask me, then,whether I am ready to look into any new problem, however trivial it may prove?But here, unless I am mistaken, is our client.”

Ameasured step was heard upon the stairs, and a moment later a stout, tall,gray-whiskered and solemnly respectable person was ushered into the room. Hislife history was written in his heavy features and pompous manner. From hisspats to his gold-rimmed spectacles he was a Conservative, a churchman, a goodcitizen, orthodox and conventional to the last degree. But some amazingexperience had disturbed his native composure and left its traces in hisbristling hair, his flushed, angry cheeks, and his flurried, excited manner. Heplunged instantly into his business.