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。

Preface

I fear that Mr. Sherlock Holmes may become like one of those popular tenors who, having outlived their time, are still tempted to make repeated farewell bows to their indulgent audiences. This must cease and he must go the way of all flesh, material or imaginary. One likes to think that there is some fantastic limbo for the children of imagination, some strange, impossible place where the beaux of Fielding may still make love to the belles of Richardson, where Scott’s heroes still may strut, Dickens’s delightful Cockneys still raise a laugh, and Thackeray’s worldlings continue to carry on their reprehensible careers. Perhaps in some humble corner of such a Valhalla, Sherlock and his Watson may for a time find a place, while some more astute sleuth with some even less astute comrade may fill the stage which they have vacated.

His career has been a long one—though it is possible to exaggerate it; decrepit gentlemen who approach me and declare that his adventures formed the reading of their boyhood do not meet the response from me which they seem to expect. One is not anxious to have one’s personal dates handled so unkindly. As a matter of cold fact, Holmes made his début in A Study in Scarlet and in The Sign of Four, two small booklets which appeared between 1887 and 1889. It was in 1891 that “A Scandal in Bohemia,” the first of the long series of short stories, appeared in The Strand Magazine. The public seemed appreciative and desirous of more, so that from that date, thirty-nine years ago, they have been produced in a broken series which now contains no fewer than fifty-six stories, republished in The Adventures, The Memoirs, The Return, and His Last Bow, and there remain these twelve published during the last few years which are here produced under the title of The Case-book of Sherlock Holmes. He began his adventures in the very heart of the later Victorian era, carried it through the all-too-short reign of Edward, and has managed to hold his own little niche even in these feverish days. Thus it would be true to say that those who first read of him, as young men, have lived to see their own grown-up children following the same adventures in the same magazine. It is a striking example of the patience and loyalty of the British public.

Preface…………………………………………………………… 001

The Adventure of the Illustrious Client. .………………………… 005

The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier……………………………038

The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone………………… .………… 063

The Adventure of the Three Gables………………………………085

The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire……………………………107

The Adventure of the Three Garridebs. .………………………… 129

The Problem of Thor Bridge..…………………………………… 150

The Adventure of the Creeping Man..…………………………… 183

The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane.……………………………… 210

The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger..…………………………… 235

The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place………………………… 250

The Adventure of the Retired Colourman..……………………… 272