阿瑟•柯南•道尔（Arthur Conan Doyle，1859—1930），英国杰出的侦探小说家、剧作家，堪称侦探悬疑小说的鼻祖，被誉为“英国侦探小说之父”。他因成功塑造了侦探人物――夏洛克•福尔摩斯而成为侦探小说历史上重要的小说家之一。代表作品有“福尔摩斯探案全集系列”等。

A Scandal in Bohemia

1

To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer—excellent for drawing the veil from men’s motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.

A Scandal in Bohemia..…………………………………………… 001

The Red-headed League...………………………………………… 032

A Case of Identity....….…………………………………………… 063

The Boscombe Valley Mystery.…………………………………… 086

The Five Orange Pips..…………………………………………… 118

The Man with the Twisted Lip…………………………………… 143

The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.…………………………… 174

The Adventure of the Speckled Band..…………………………… 201

The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb.....……………………… 234

The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor…………………………… 261

The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet...…………………………… 290

The Adventure of the Copper Beeches....………………………… 322