Notes　Scene 1: Opening the Records

When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes cases between the years '82 and '90, I am faced by so many which present strange and interesting features that it is no easy matter to know which to choose and which to leave. Some, however, have already gained publicity through the papers, and others have not offered a field for those peculiar qualities which my friend possessed in so high a degree, and which it is the object of these papers to illustrate. Some, too, have baffled his analytical skill, and would be, as narratives, beginnings without an ending, while others have been but partially cleared up, and have their explanations founded rather upon conjecture and surmise than on that absolute logical proof which was so dear to him. There is, however, one of these last which was so remarkable in its details and so startling in its results that I am tempted to give some account of it in spite of the fact that there are points in connection with it which never have been, and probably never will be, entirely cleared up.

一八八二年から九〇年までのシャーロック・ホームズの事件に関する覚え書きや記録に目を通すと、奇妙で興味深い特徴を持つものがあまりにも多く、どれを選び、どれを省くべきか、容易には決められない。しかし、あるものはすでに新聞で世に知られており、またあるものでは、友人が並外れて豊かに備え、この記録で示そうとしている独特の資質を発揮する余地がなかった。中には彼の分析の技をもってしても解けず、物語にすれば結末のない書き出しになってしまうものもあり、また一部しか解明されず、その説明が、彼の愛した確かな論理的証明というより、推測や憶測に基づいているものもある。ところが、この最後の種類に属する一件は、細部があまりに異様で、結末があまりに衝撃的だったため、いまだに、そしておそらく今後も完全には解明されない点があるにもかかわらず、幾らかでも語っておきたい気になるのである。