Приключения Шерлока Холмса / The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (сборник)
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Vocabulary
7. Complete the carbuncle dossier using the lexis from the chapter.
Speaking
8. Try to sell any precious stone (think of its features). Talk the client into buying it. Use the words given below in your speech.
Facet, to glint, to sparkle, market price, jewel-case, shape, size, pure, radiant, treasure, shiny, brilliantly, to twinkle, unique, grain
Interesting facts about Great Britain
Newspapers played an important social part in the Victorian England. Being the main source of information, they covered historic events, sports, arts etc. Citizens could also communicate through them giving various advertisements, arranging meetings and announcing somebody’s birth, death, marriage and anniversary. Everybody read newspapers, so it was the shortest way to spread the information. Sherlock Holmes uses it very often to find out the news or manipulate criminals.
9. Find out some information about the newspapers where Sherlock Holmes placed his advertisement (Globe, Star, Pall Mall, St. James’s, Evening News Standard, Echo).
10. Why did he choose them? When did they appear? What other English papers did already exist at that time?
11. Have newspapers lost their importance in the modern world? What changes have they undergone? What could Holmes use instead nowadays?
III
It was a cold night, so we wrapped cravats about our throats. Outside, the stars were shining in a cloudless sky, and the breath of the passers-by blew out into smoke like so many pistol shots. Our footfalls rang out crisply and loudly as we walked through the doctors’ quarter, Wimpole Street, Harley Street, and so through Wigmore Street into Oxford Street. In a quarter of an hour we were in Bloomsbury at the Alpha Inn, which is a small public-house at the corner of one of the streets which runs down into Holborn. Holmes opened the door of the private bar and ordered two glasses of beer from the red-faced landlord.
“Your beer should be excellent if it is as good as your geese,” said he.
“My geese!” The man seemed surprised.
“Yes. I was speaking only half an hour ago to Mr. Henry Baker, who was a member of your goose club.”
“Ah! yes, I see. But you see, sir, they are not our geese.”
“Indeed! Whose, then?”
“Well, I got the two dozen from a salesman in Covent Garden.”
“Indeed? I know some of them. Which was it?”
“Breckinridge is his name.”
“Ah! I don’t know him. Well, here’s your good health landlord, and prosperity to your house. Good-night.”
“Now for Mr. Breckinridge,” he continued, buttoning up his coat as we came out into the frosty air. “Remember, Watson that though we have so homely a thing as a goose at one end of this chain, we have at the other a man who will certainly get seven years’ penal servitude unless we can prove his innocence. It is possible that our inquiry may confirm his guilt but, in any case, we have a line of investigation which has been missed by the police. A unique chance has placed it in our hands. Let us follow it out to the bitter end [64] . Faces to the south, then, and quick march!”
64
to the bitter end –
We passed across Holborn, down Endell Street, and so through a zigzag of slums to Covent Garden Market. There was the name of Breckinridge upon one of the largest stalls, and the owner a horsy-looking man, with a sharp face and trim side-whiskers was helping a boy to put up the shutters.
“Good-evening. It’s a cold night,” said Holmes.
The salesman nodded and glanced questioningly at my companion.
“Sold out of geese, I see,” continued Holmes, pointing at the bare slabs of marble.
“Let you have five hundred tomorrow morning.”
“That’s no good.”
“Well, there are some on the stall with the gas-flare.”
“Ah, but I was recommended to you.”
“Who by?”
“The landlord of the Alpha.”
“Oh, yes; I sent him a couple of dozen.”
“Fine birds they were, too. Now where did you get them from?”
To my surprise the question provoked a burst of anger from the salesman.
“Now, then, mister,” said he, with his head tossed and his arms akimbo, “what are you driving at? Let’s have it straight, now.”
“It is straight enough. I should like to know who sold you the geese which you supplied to the Alpha.”
“Well then, I won’t tell you. So now!”
“Oh, it is not important; but I don’t know why you should be so angry over such a trifle.”
“Angry! You’d be as angry as me, maybe, if you were as annoyed as I am. When I pay good money for a good thing there should be an end of the business; but it’s ‘Where are the geese?’ and ‘Who did you sell the geese to?’ and ‘What will you take for the geese?’ One would think they were the only geese in the world, to hear the fuss that is made over them.”
“Well, I have no connection with any other people who have been making inquiries,” said Holmes carelessly. “If you won’t tell us the bet is off, that is all. But I’m always ready to back my opinion on a matter of fowls, and I have a fiver [65] on it that the bird I ate is country bred.”
“Well, then, you’ve lost your fiver, for it’s town bred,” snapped the salesman.
“It’s nothing of the kind. [66] ”
“I say it is.”
65
fiver – пятак (5 фунтов)
66
it’s nothing of the kind – ничего подобного