Notes　Scene 30: Near Lee

While Sherlock Holmes had been detailing this singular series of events, we had been whirling through the outskirts of the great town until the last straggling houses had been left behind, and we rattled along with a country hedge upon either side of us. Just as he finished, however, we drove through two scattered villages, where a few lights still glimmered in the windows.

シャーロック・ホームズがこの奇妙な一連の出来事を詳しく語る間、馬車は大都会の外れを疾走し、まばらに残る最後の家並みも過ぎて、両側に田舎の生け垣が続く道をがたがたと進んでいた。だが、話が終わるちょうどそのとき、二つの小さな村を通った。家々はまばらに建ち、窓にはまだいくつか灯りが見えた。

"We are on the outskirts of Lee," said my companion. "We have touched on three English counties in our short drive, starting in Middlesex, passing over an angle of Surrey, and ending in Kent. See that light among the trees? That is The Cedars, and beside that lamp sits a woman whose anxious ears have already, I have little doubt, caught the clink of our horse's feet."

「リーの外れだ」と友人は言った。「この短い道のりでイングランドの三つの州に触れたわけだ。ミドルセックスから出て、サリーの一角を横切り、最後はケントだ。木々の間の灯りが見えるかい。あれが杉の木の家だ。そして、あの灯りのそばには、不安で耳を澄ませ、もう馬の足音を聞きつけているに違いない女性が座っている」

"But why are you not conducting the case from Baker Street?" I asked.

「でも、どうしてベイカー街で捜査を進めないんだい」と私は尋ねた。

"Because there are many inquiries which must be made out here. Mrs. St. Clair has most kindly put two rooms at my disposal, and you may rest assured that she will have nothing but a welcome for my friend and colleague. I hate to meet her, Watson, when I have no news of her husband. Here we are. Whoa, there, whoa!"

「この辺りで調べなければならないことがたくさんあるからだ。セントクレア夫人は実に親切にも部屋を二つ使わせてくれている。私の友人で同僚のきみも、喜んで迎えてくれると安心していい。夫の知らせが何もないのに会うのはつらいよ、ワトソン。さあ、着いた。どうどう、止まれ」