《福尔摩斯探案集·歪唇男人》第19节
“Well, we will take it as a working hypothesis for want of a better. Boone, as I have told you, was arrested and taken to the station, but it could not be shown that there had ever before been anything against him. He had for years been known as a professional beggar, but his life appeared to have been a very quiet and innocent one. There the matter stands at present, and the questions which have to be solved—what Neville St. Clair was doing in the opium den, what happened to him when there, where is he now, and what Hugh Boone had to do with his disappearance—are all as far from a solution as ever. I confess that I cannot recall any case within my experience which looked at the first glance so simple and yet which presented such difficulties.” 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.
注释摘要
福尔摩斯刚才自己推演了一整套博恩如何把圣克莱尔推出窗户、又如何用铜板硬币给外套加重使其沉入河底的作案过程，但话锋一转，他立刻主动降格了这套叙述的权威性。他说，这只是“因为暂时没有更好的解释，暂且当作可操作的假说”。这个表态值得留意：福尔摩斯在华生面前极少如此坦诚地说“我这只是一个假设”——这既表明他此刻心中其实没有真正被这套说法说服，也透露出他惯常的思维方…