Page 277 - 血字的研究·四签名(外研社双语读库) (福尔摩斯探案全集)

时间的推移，他也一定会得到。他现在正把我的几篇小作品译成法

文。”

"Your works?"

“你的作品？”

"Oh, didn't you know?" he cried, laughing. "Yes, I have
been guilty of several monographs. They are all upon
technical subjects. Here, for example, is one 'Upon the
Distinction between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccos.' In it

I enumerate a hundred and forty forms of cigar, cigarette,
and pipe tobacco, with coloured plates illus- trating the
difference in the ash. It is a point which is continually

turning up in criminal trials, and which is sometimes of
supreme importance as a clue. If you can say definitely, for
example, that some murder had been done by a man who
was smoking an Indian lunkah, it obviously narrows your
field of search. To the trained eye there is as much

difference between the black ash of a Trichinopoly and the
white fluff of bird's-eye as there is between a cabbage and a
potato."

“噢，你不知道吗？”他大声笑起来，“是的，很惭愧，我写过几

篇专论。全部都是技术方面的。嗯，比如说那篇《论各种烟草的烟灰

辨认》。在那篇文章里，我列举了一百四十种雪茄、烟卷和烟斗丝的
烟灰，还用彩色的插图来说明各种烟灰的区别。这是一个在罪案中常
常出现的要点，而许多时候会成为极其重要的线索。比如，如果你可

以确切地说，某件凶案是一个抽印度雪茄烟的人犯下的，这很显然就

可以把你的侦查范围缩小了。对于训练有素的人来说，印度特里奇雪
茄烟的黑灰和‘鸟眼’烟的白灰之间的区别，就跟白菜和土豆一样显

著。”

"You have an extraordinary genius for minutiae," I
remarked.

“你对细微事物的洞察确实有独特的才能。”我说。