よみうち英語Read the classics by typingNotes Scene 49: Continuing the Explanation
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Notes on this scene
Holmes connects a blow from behind and injuries on the left with a left-handed attacker. The man waited behind the tree and smoked there. Holmes identified Indian cigar ash, found the discarded cigar, and inferred a holder from its condition. The roughly cut end also suggested a blunt folding knife rather than teeth.
Japanese in this scene
- なければ、どうして
- A negative conditional followed by a rhetorical question challenges any alternative explanation. Holmes asks how the wound's position could occur unless the attacker were left-handed, presenting his inference forcefully.
- 書いたことがある
- Past-form verb + ことがある expresses previous experience. Holmes refers to having written a short study of different kinds of tobacco ash, explaining the knowledge he brings to the observation.
- かみ切ったのではなく
- 〜のではなく rejects one explanation before supplying another: the cigar end was cut, rather than bitten off. の turns the preceding action into the proposition being contrasted.
Full text: original English and Japanese translation
"You were yourself struck by the nature of the injury as recorded by the surgeon at the inquest. The blow was struck from immediately behind, and yet was upon the left side. Now, how can that be unless it were by a left-handed man? He had stood behind that tree during the interview between the father and son. He had even smoked there. I found the ash of a cigar, which my special knowledge of tobacco ashes enables me to pronounce as an Indian cigar. I have, as you know, devoted some attention to this, and written a little monograph on the ashes of 140 different varieties of pipe, cigar, and cigarette tobacco. Having found the ash, I then looked round and discovered the stump among the moss where he had tossed it. It was an Indian cigar, of the variety which are rolled in Rotterdam."
「検視審問で医師が記録した傷の具合には、きみ自身も心を引かれていたね。打撃は真後ろから加えられたのに、傷は左側にあった。さて、左利きの男でなければ、どうしてそんなことになるだろう。父子が会っている間、その男はあの木の後ろに立っていた。そこでたばこさえ吸っていたのだ。葉巻の灰が見つかった。たばこの灰についての特別な知識があるので、インド葉巻のものだと断定できる。知ってのとおり、私はこのことにいくらか注意を向け、パイプ、葉巻、紙巻きたばこの百四十もの異なる種類の灰について、小論を書いたことがある。灰を見つけたあと、周りを探すと、投げ捨てられた葉巻の燃えさしが、苔の中に見つかった。インド葉巻で、ロッテルダムで巻かれる種類のものだった」
"And the cigar-holder?"
「それでは、葉巻の吸い口は」
"I could see that the end had not been in his mouth. Therefore he used a holder. The tip had been cut off, not bitten off, but the cut was not a clean one, so I deduced a blunt pen-knife."
「葉巻の端が口に入っていなかったのが見て取れた。だから吸い口を使っていたのだ。先端はかみ切ったのではなく、切り落とされていた。だが切り口がきれいではなかったので、切れ味の鈍い小型の折り畳みナイフだと推理したのだよ」