The Adventure of the Cardboard Box(硬纸壳盒子历险记)

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The Adventure of the Cardboard Box

The Adventure of the

Cardboard Box

By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventure of the Cardboard Box

In choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkable mental

qualities of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavoured, as far as

possible, to select those which presented the minimum of sensationalism,

while offering a fair field for his talents. It is, however, unfortunately

impossible entirely to separate the sensational from the criminal, and a

chronicler is left in the dilemma that he must either sacrifice details which

are essential to his statement and so give a false impression of the problem,

or he must use matter which chance, and not choice, has provided him

with. With this short preface I shall turn to my notes of what proved to

be a strange, though a peculiarly terrible, chain of events.

It was a blazing hot day in August. Baker Street was like an oven,

and the glare of the sunlight upon the yellow brickwork of the house

across the road was painful to the eye. It was hard to believe that these

were the same walls which loomed so gloomily through the fogs of winter.

Our blinds were half-drawn, and Holmes lay curled upon the sofa, reading

and re-reading a letter which he had received by the morning post. For

myself, my term of service in India had trained me to stand heat better

than cold, and a thermometer at ninety was no hardship. But the morning

paper was uninteresting. Parliament had risen. Everybody was out of

town, and I yearned for the glades of the New Forest or the shingle of

Southsea. A depleted bank account had caused me to postpone my

holiday, and as to my companion, neither the country nor the sea presented

the slightest attraction to him. He loved to lie in the very center of five

millions of people, with his filaments stretching out and running through

them, responsive to every little rumour or suspicion of unsolved crime.

Appreciation of nature found no place among his many gifts, and his only

change was when he turned his mind from the evil-doer of the town to

track down his brother of the country.

Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation I had tossed

side the barren paper, and leaning back in my chair I fell into a brown

study. Suddenly my companion's voice broke in upon my thoughts:

"You are right, Watson," said he. "It does seem a most preposterous

way of settling a dispute."

"Most preposterous!" I exclaimed, and then suddenly realizing how he

The Adventure of the Cardboard Box

had echoed the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in my chair and stared

at him in blank amazement.

"What is this, Holmes?" I cried. "This is beyond anything which I

could have imagined."

He laughed heartily at my perplexity.

"You remember," said he, "that some little time ago when I read you

the passage in one of Poe's sketches in which a close reasoner follows the

unspoken thoughts of his companion, you were inclined to treat the matter

as a mere tour-de-force of the author. On my remarking that I was

constantly in the habit of doing the same thing you expressed incredulity."

"Oh, no!"

"Perhaps not with your tongue, my dear Watson, but certainly with

your eyebrows. So when I saw you throw down your paper and enter

upon a train of thought, I was very happy to have the opportunity of

reading it off, and eventually of breaking into it, as a proof that I had been

in rapport with you."

But I was still far from satisfied. "In the example which you read to

me," said I, "the reasoner drew his conclusions from the actions of the

man whom he observed. If I remember right, he stumbled over a heap of

stones, looked up at the stars, and so on. But I have been seated quietly

in my chair, and what clues can I have given you?"

"You do yourself an injustice. The features are given to man as the

means by which he shall express his emotions, and yours are faithful

servants."

"Do you mean to say that you read my train of thoughts from my

features?"

"Your features and especially your eyes. Perhaps you cannot yourself

recall how your reverie commenced?"

"No, I cannot."

"Then I will tell you. After throwing down your paper, which was

the action which drew my attention to you, you sat for half a minute with a

vacant expression. Then your eyes fixed themselves upon your newly

framed picture of General Gordon, and I saw by the alteration in your face

that a train of thought had been started. But it did not lead very far.

The Adventure of the Cardboard Box

Your eyes flashed across tho the unframed portrait of Henry Ward Beecher

which stands upon the top of your books. Then you glanced up at the

wall, and of course your meaning was obvious. You were thinking that if

the portrait were framed it would just cover that bare space and correspond

with Gordon's picture there."

"You have followed me wonderfully!" I exclaimed.

"So far I could hardly have gone astray. But now your thoughts went

back to Beecher, and you looked hard across as if you were studying the

character in his features. Then your eyes ceased to pucker, but you

continued to look across, and your face was thoughtful. You were

recalling the incidents of Beecher's career. I was well aware that you

could not do this without thinking of the mission which he undertook on

behalf of the North at the time of the Civil War, for I remember your

expressing your passionate indignation at the way in which he was

received by the more turbulent of our people. You felt so strongly about

it that I knew you could not think of Beecher without thinking of that also.

When a moment later I saw your eyes wander away from the picture, I

suspected that your mind had now turned to the Civil War, and when I

observed that your lips set, your eyes sparkled, and your hands clenched I

was positive that you were indeed thinking of the gallantry which was

shown by both sides in that desperate struggle. But then, again, your face

grew sadder, you shook your head. You were dwelling upon the sadness

and horror and useless waste of life. Your hand stole towards your own

old wound and a smile quivered on your lips, which showed me that the

ridiculous side of this method of settling international questions had forced

itself upon your mind. At this point I agreed with you that it was

preposterous and was glad to find that all my deductions had been

correct."

"Absolutely!" said I. "And now that you have explained it, I confess

that I am as amazed as before."

"It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assure you. I should not

have intruded it upon your attention had you not shown some incredulity

the other day. But I have in my hands here a little problem which may

prove to be more difficult of solution than my small essay I thought

The Adventure of the Cardboard Box

reading. Have you observed in the paper a short paragraph referring to

the remarkable contents of a packet sent through the post to Miss Cushing,

of Cross Street, Croydon?"

"No, I saw nothing."

"Ah! then you must have overlooked it. Just toss it over to me. Here

it is, under the financial column. Perhaps you would be good enough to

read it aloud."

I picked up the paper which he had thrown back to me and read the

paragraph indicated. It was headed, "A Gruesome Packet."

"Miss Susan Cushing, living at Cross Street, Croydon, has been made

the victim of what must be regarded as a peculiarly revolting practical joke

unless some more sinister meaning should prove to be attached to the

incident. At two o'clock yesterday afternoon a small packet, wrapped in

brown paper, was handed in by the postman. A cardboard box was inside,

which was filled with coarse salt. On emptying this, Miss Cushing was

horrified to find two human ears, apparently quite freshly severed. The

box had been sent by parcel post from Belfast upon the morning before.

There is no indication as to the sender, and the matter is the more

mysterious as Miss Cushing, who is a maiden lady of fifty, has led a most

retired life, and has so few acquaintances or corespondents that it is a rare

event for her to receive anything through the post. Some years ago,

however, when she resided at Penge, she let apartments in her house to

three young medical students, whom she was obliged to get rid of on

account of their noisy and irregular habits. The police are of opinion that

this outrage may have been perpetrated upon Miss Cushing by these

youths, who owed her a grudge and who hoped to frighten her by sending

her these relics of the dissecting-rooms. Some probability is lent to the

theory by the fact that one of these students came from the north of Ireland,

and, to the best of Miss Cushing's belief, from Belfast. In the meantime,

the matter is being actively investigated, Mr. Lestrade, one of the very

smartest of our detective officers, being in charge of the case."

"So much for the Daily Chronicle," said Holmes as I finished reading.

"Now for our friend Lestrade. I had a note from him this morning, in

which he says:

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TheAdventureoftheCardboardBox1TheAdventureoftheCardboardBoxBySirArthurConanDoyleTheAdventureoftheCardboardBox2Inchoosingafewtypicalcaseswhichillustratetheremarkablementalqualitiesofmyfriend,SherlockHolmes,Ihaveendeavoured,asfaraspossible,toselectthosewhichpresentedtheminimumofsensationalism,whileoff...

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