THE MUSGRAVE RITUAL

マスグレーヴ家の儀式

AN ANOMALY which often struck me in the character of my friend Sherlock Holmes was that, although in his methods of thought he was the neatest and most methodical of mankind, and although also he affected a certain quiet primness of dress, he was none the less in his personal habits one of the most untidy men that ever drove a fellow-lodger to distraction. Not that I am in the least conventional in that respect myself. The rough-and-tumble work in Afghanistan, coming on the top of natural Bohemianism of disposition, has made me rather more lax than befits a medical man. But with me there is a limit, and when I find a man who keeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin to give myself virtuous airs. I have always held, too, that pistol practice should be distinctly an open-air pastime; and when Holmes, in one of his queer humours, would sit in an armchair with his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V. R. done in bullet-pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved by it.

異常性がしばしば私を驚かせた / 我が友人のシャーロックホームズの性格の中の / もちろん彼の思考様式については / 彼は非常に几帳面で体系的な人物だったが / そして服装もきちんとしている事を好んだが / それでも個人的習慣は / 最もだらしない人間であり / 非常に同居人を落ち着かなくさせる◆そう言う観点では私自身も決して人並みとは言えなかった◆アフガニスタンでの厳しい生活は / 自然に奔放な性格を形作り / 私を医者として相応しくない程だらしない人間にした◆しかしその私にも限界はあり / こういう男を見た時には / 石炭入れに葉巻を入れていたり / ペルシャスリッパの爪先に煙草を入れ / 返事をしていない手紙が突き刺されていた / ジャックナイフで木のマントルピースのちょうど真中に / そうなれば私も道徳的な事を言いたくなる◆私はいつもそうして来た / 拳銃の練習は必ず戸外の娯楽であるべきだと / しかしホームズときたら / 彼の奇妙な気まぐれで / 彼は肘掛け椅子に座り / 引き金に軽くさわれば発射する銃とボクサーというブランドの弾丸100個を使って / 反対側の壁に愛国心高く V. R. の文字を◆弾丸の跡で飾り / 私は強く思うのだった / 我々の部屋の雰囲気も見栄えもそれによって良くなりはしなかったと

Our chambers were always full of chemicals and of criminal relics which had a way of wandering into unlikely positions, and of turning up in the butter-dish or in even less desirable places. But his papers were my great crux. He had a horror of destroying documents, especially those which were connected with his past cases, and yet it was only once in every year or two that he would muster energy to docket and arrange them; for, as I have mentioned somewhere in these incoherent memoirs, the outbursts of passionate energy when he performed the remarkable feats with which his name is associated were followed by reactions of lethargy during which he would lie about with his violin and his books, hardly moving save from the sofa to the table. Thus month after month his papers accumulated until every corner of the room was stacked with bundles of manuscript which were on no account to be burned, and which could not be put away save by their owner. One winter’s night, as we sat together by the fire, I ventured to suggest to him that, as he had finished pasting extracts into his commonplace book, he might employ the next two hours in making our room a little more habitable. He could not deny the justice of my request, so with a rather rueful face he went off to his bedroom, from which he returned presently pulling a large tin box behind him. This he placed in the middle of the floor, and, squatting down upon a stool in front of it, he threw back the lid. I could see that it was already a third full of bundles of paper tied up with red tape into separate packages.

我々の部屋はすでに埋め尽くされていた / 化学薬品と / 思いもよらない場所に迷い込んだ犯罪の遺物 / バター皿の中やもっと望ましくない場所から登場する◆しかし、書類が一番の難問だった◆彼は文書が失われる事を恐れ / 特に彼が過去に関係した事件のものは / しかし一・二年にたった一度だけだった / 摘要を作り並べ替えるという精力を掻き集めるのは / 私のまとまりのない回顧録のどこかで既に触れたが / 短期的なエネルギーの爆発は / 彼が著しい快挙を成し遂げたときの / 彼の名前を思い起こさせるような / それに反動としての倦怠が続く / その間彼は書籍とバイオリンを周りに置いて横になっている / ソファとテーブルの間を移動する以外にはほとんど動かずに◆月が過ぎる毎に彼の書類は溜まって行き / ついには書類の束が部屋の四隅に積みあがるまでになった / これらは決して焼却されず / 所有者以外には片付けることもできなかった◆冬のある夜 / 我々が暖炉の側に一緒に座っていた時 / 私はあえて彼に言ってみた / 彼が備忘録に抜粋を貼り付け終わった時 / 我々の部屋をもう少し住み心地よくするためにこれから二時間費やしてはどうかと◆彼は私の正当な申し入れを拒む事が出来ず / ちょっと悲しそうな顔をして寝室に消えた / そこからやがて彼は大きなブリキの箱を引っ張り出してきた◆これを彼は部屋の真中に置き / そして / その前の丸椅子に腰を降ろし / 蓋をぱっと開けた◆見ると / そこにはすでに三分の一ほど書類の束で埋まっており / 赤い帯で括って分類されていた

“There are cases enough here, Watson,” said he, looking at me with mischievous eyes. “I think that if you knew all that I had in this box you would ask me to pull some out instead of putting others in.”

「ここには一杯事件がある / ワトソン」 / 彼は言った / いたずらっぽい目で私を見ながら◆「もしこの箱の中にあるものを全部見たら / 片付けるのではなく何か出してくれと頼むと思うよ」

“These are the records of your early work, then?” I asked. “I have often wished that I had notes of those cases.”

「じゃ、これは君の初期の仕事の記録か？」 / 私は尋ねた◆「そういう事件を知りたいと常々思っていたんだ」

“Yes, my boy, these were all done prematurely before my biographer had come to glorify me.” He lifted bundle after bundle in a tender, caressing sort of way. “They are not all successes, Watson,” said he. “But there are some pretty little problems among them. Here’s the record of the Tarleton murders, and the case of Vamberry, the wine merchant, and the adventure of the old Russian woman, and the singular affair of the aluminum crutch, as well as a full account of Ricoletti of the club-foot, and his abominable wife. And here –ah, now, this really is something a little recherché.”

「そうだろう / これは全部僕の伝記作家が僕を賛美してくれるようになる以前に手がけたものだ」 / 彼は次から次へと束を持ち上げた / 優しく慈しむように◆「全部が成功したわけではない / ワトソン」 / 彼は言った◆「しかし、これらの中にはかなり興味を引くものがある◆これはタールトン殺人事件の記録だ / そしてワイン商人のバンベリー事件 / ロシア老婦人の面白い事件 / アルミ製松葉杖の奇妙な事件 / 内半足のリコレッティとひどい妻の完全な記録◆そしてこれは / ああ / これは本当に珍しいものだ」

He dived his arm down to the bottom of the chest and brought up a small wooden box with a sliding lid such as children’s toys are kept in. From within he produced a crumpled piece of paper, an old-fashioned brass key, a peg of wood with a ball of string attached to it, and three rusty old discs of metal.

彼は箱の底に腕を突っ込み / 滑り蓋のついた小さな木箱を取り出した / 子供のおもちゃを入れているような◆その中から / 彼は取り出した / しわくちゃの紙片 / 古い形の真鍮の鍵 / 丸めた紐がついた木の釘 / 錆びた古い金属の円盤が三枚

“Well, my boy, what do you make of this lot?” he asked, smiling at my expression.

「さて / これをどう思う？」 / 彼は尋ねた / 私が不思議そうな顔をしているのを笑いながら

“It is a curious collection.”

「奇妙な組み合わせだな」

“Very curious, and the story that hangs round it will strike you as being more curious still.”

「非常に奇妙だ / さらに、これにまつわる話は / もっと奇妙なもので驚くだろうな」

“These relics have a history, then?”

「じゃ、それはいわく付きの記念品なんだね？」

“So much so that they are history.”

「いわくそのものだ」

“What do you mean by that?”

「どういうことだ？」

Sherlock Holmes picked them up one by one and laid them along the edge of the table. Then he reseated himself in his chair and looked them over with a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.

シャーロックホームズはそれらを一つづつ摘み上げて / テーブルの端にそって並べた◆それから椅子に座り直し / 満足げな輝きを目に浮かべながら見つめた

“These,” said he, “are all that I have left to remind me of the adventure of the Musgrave Ritual.”

「これらは」 / 彼は言った / 「みんな僕がマスグレーヴ家の儀式事件を思い出すために残しておいたものだ」

I had heard him mention the case more than once, though I had never been able to gather the details. “I should be so glad,” said I, “if you would give me an account of it.”

私は彼がその事件について語るのを一度ならず聞いたことがある / しかし詳細について聞いたことは無かった◆「それは非常に嬉しいな」 / 私は言った / 「僕にそれについて話してくれると」

“And leave the litter as it is?” he cried mischievously. “Your tidiness won’t bear much strain, after all, Watson. But I should be glad that you should add this case to your annals, for there are points in it which make it quite unique in the criminal records of this or, I believe, of any other country. A collection of my trifling achievements would certainly be incomplete which contained no account of this very singular business.

「この散らかりようはそのままにして？」 / 彼はいたずらっぽく叫んだ◆「君の整頓好きはそれほど厳格じゃないな / 結局 / ワトソン◆しかし僕は君がこの事件を記録に加えてくれると嬉しい / これには極めて独特な点があるから / この国の、いや僕の考えではあらゆる国の犯罪記録と比べても◆僕の僅かな成果のコレクションは / 間違いなく不完全だろう / この非常に変わった事件を欠いていては」