Page 246 - 血字的研究·四签名(外研社双语读库) (福尔摩斯探案全集)

做了，这时，他忽然替我解决了这个难题。他的酒瘾又发作了，叫我

在一家大酒店外面停下来。他吩咐我等着他，自己走了进去。他在里
面一直呆到酒店打烊，等出来的时候已经烂醉如泥，我知道，我胜券

在握。”

"Don't imagine that I intended to kill him in cold blood. It
would only have been rigid justice if I had done so, but I

could not bring myself to do it. I had long determined that
he should have a show for his life if he chose to take
advantage of it. Among the many billets which I have filled
in America during my wandering life, I was once janitor and

sweeper out of the laboratory at York College. One day the
professor was lecturing on poisons, and he showed his
students some alkaloid, as he called it, which he had
extracted from some South American arrow poison, and

which was so powerful that the least grain meant instant
death. I spotted the bottle in which this preparation was
kept, and when they were all gone, I helped myself to a little
of it. I was a fairly good dispenser, so I worked this alkaloid

into small, soluble pills, and each pill I put in a box with a
similar pill made without the poison. I determined at the
time that when I had my chance, my gentlemen should each
have a draw out of one of these boxes, while I ate the pill

that remained. It would be quite as deadly, and a good deal
less noisy than firing across a handkerchief. From that day I
had always my pill boxes about with me, and the time had
now come when I was to use them."

“你们不要以为，我会冷不防给他一刀，把他结果了就算了事。如
果我真这样做了，那只不过是死板地执行审判而已，但是，我不会这

样干的。我早已决定给他一个机会，如果他能把握住这个机会的话，
还可以有一线生机。在美洲流浪的那些日子里，我干过各种各样的差

事，曾经一度做过约克学院实验室的看门人和扫地工。有一天，教授
在讲解毒药问题时，把一种叫做生物碱的东西给学生们看，那是他从

南美洲土著人的箭毒中提炼出来的，这种毒药毒性非常猛烈，只要沾