布鲁斯—帕廷顿计划（13）

 My friend was standing with an expression of strained intensity upon his face, staring at the railway metals where they curved out of the tunnel. Aldgate is a junction, and there was a network of points. On these his eager, questioning eyes were fixed, and I saw on his keen, alert face that tightening of the lips, that quiver of the nostrils, and concentration of the heavy, tufted brows which I knew so well.

“Points,” he muttered; “the points.”

“What of it? What do you mean?”

“I suppose there are no great number of points on a system such as this?”

“No; they are very few.”

“And a curve, too. Points, and a curve. By Jove! if it were only so.”

“What is it, Mr. Holmes? Have you a clue?”

“An idea—an indication, no more. But the case certainly grows in interest. Unique, perfectly unique, and yet why not? I do not see any indications of bleeding on the line.”

“There were hardly any.”

“But I understand that there was a considerable wound.”

“The bone was crushed, but there was no great external injury.”

“And yet one would have expected some bleeding. Would it be possible for me to inspect the train which contained the passenger who heard the thud of a fall in the fog?”

“I fear not, Mr. Holmes. The train has been broken up before now, and the carriages redistributed.”

“I can assure you, Mr. Holmes,” said Lestrade, “that every carriage has been carefully examined. I saw to it myself.”

It was one of my friend's most obvious weaknesses that he was impatient with less alert intelligences than his own.