巴斯克维尔的猎犬 沼地的惨剧（8）

 

"Because he foresaw that she would be very much more useful to him in the character of afree woman."

“因为他早就看了出来， 让她扮成一个未婚的女子对他要有用得多。”

All my unspoken instincts, my vague suspicions, suddenly took shape and centred upon thenaturalist. In that impassive colourless man, with his straw hat and his butterfly-net, I seemed tosee something terrible -- a creature of infinite patience and craft, with a smiling face and amurderous heart.

我的全部猜测， 我那模糊的怀疑突然变得具体起来， 并且全都集中到生物学家身 上了。

在这戴着草帽拿着捕蝶网的、 缺乏热情和特色的人身上， 我好象看出了什么可怕的东西——无限的耐性和狡黠， 一副佯装的笑脸和狠毒的心肠。

"It is he, then, who is our enemy -- it is he who dogged us in London?"“那么说咱们的敌人就是他罗， 在伦敦尾随咱们的也就是他罗？ ”

"So I read the riddle."

“我就是这样看破了 这个谜的。”

"And the warning -- it must have come from her!"“那个警告一定是她发的罗？ ”

"Exactly."

“正是。”

The shape of some monstrous villainy, half seen, half guessed, loomed through the darknesswhich had girt me so long.

在我心头萦绕已久的， 似有似无、 半是猜想的一桩极为可怕的罪行已在黑暗之中隐隐约约地现出来了。

"But are you sure of this, Holmes? How do you know that the woman is his wife?"“可是这一点你敢肯定吗， 福尔摩斯？ 你怎么知道那女人就是他的妻子呢？ ”

"Because he so far forgot himself as to tell you a true piece of autobiography upon theoccasion when he first met you, and I dare say he has many a time regretted it since. He was oncea schoolmaster in the north of England. Now, there is no one more easy to trace than aschoolmaster. There are scholastic agencies by which one may identify any man who has been inthe profession. A little investigation showed me that a school had come to grief under atrociouscircumstances, and that the man who had owned it -- the name was different -- had disappearedwith his wife. The descriptions agreed. When I learned that the missing man was devoted toentomology the identification was complete."

“因为在他第一次和你见面的时候， 曾经不由自 主地把他身 世之中真实的一段告诉了你。 我敢说， 从那时以后， 他曾不止一次因此而感到后悔。 他从前曾在英格兰北部一度作过小学校长， 现在说来， 再没有比一个小学校长更容易被人调查清楚的了， 通过教育机关就能弄清任何在教育界里工作过的人。 我稍微调查了一下， 就弄清了曾有一所小学， 在极为恶劣的情况下垮了台， 而学校的主人——姓名可不相同——和他的妻子就不知去向了 。 他们的相貌特征与咱们在这里所看到的都符合。 当我知道了那失踪的人也同样热衷于昆虫学之后， 鉴别人物的工作就算是完满地结束了 。”