解説　場面 30「返事を待つまで」

"No, that was not the point. However, I shall write two letters, which should settle the matter. One is to a firm in the City, the other is to the young lady's stepfather, Mr. Windibank, asking him whether he could meet us here at six o'clock to-morrow evening. It is just as well that we should do business with the male relatives. And now, Doctor, we can do nothing until the answers to those letters come, so we may put our little problem upon the shelf for the interim."

「いや、そこが要点ではない。ともかく、手紙を二通書こう。それで決着がつくはずだ。一通はシティの商会へ、もう一通はあの娘さんの継父、ウィンディバンクさんへだ。明日の夕方六時に、ここで会えないかと尋ねるのさ。男性の親族とも話をしておくほうがよい。さて、先生、その返事が来るまでは何もできない。このちょっとした問題は、当面、棚へ上げておこう」

I had had so many reasons to believe in my friend's subtle powers of reasoning and extraordinary energy in action that I felt that he must have some solid grounds for the assured and easy demeanour with which he treated the singular mystery which he had been called upon to fathom. Once only had I known him to fail, in the case of the King of Bohemia and of the Irene Adler photograph; but when I looked back to the weird business of the Sign of Four, and the extraordinary circumstances connected with the Study in Scarlet, I felt that it would be a strange tangle indeed which he could not unravel.

友人の巧妙な推理力と、行動の際に発揮する並外れた活力を信じる理由を、私はこれまで何度も得ていた。それで、解明を求められたこの奇妙な謎を、あれほど確信に満ち、ゆったりした態度で扱うからには、確かな根拠があるはずだと感じた。ボヘミア国王とアイリーン・アドラーの写真の件で、一度だけ彼が失敗したのを知っていたが、『四つの署名』の奇妙な事件や、『緋色の研究』にまつわる並外れた事情を振り返ると、彼にも解きほぐせないほどのもつれなど、よほど奇妙なものに違いないと思った。

I left him then, still puffing at his black clay pipe, with the conviction that when I came again on the next evening I would find that he held in his hands all the clues which would lead up to the identity of the disappearing bridegroom of Miss Mary Sutherland.

そうして、黒い陶製パイプをなおもくゆらせる彼を残して帰った。翌日の夕方にまた来るときには、メアリー・サザーランド嬢の、姿を消した花婿の身元へとつながる手掛かりを、彼はすべて手にしているだろうと確信していた。