“I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson,” said he. “When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long one you use a hansom. As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by no means dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at present busy enough to justify the hansom.”
“I fancy,” said Psmith, “that this is one of those moments when it is necessary for me to unlimber my Sherlock Holmes system. As thus. If the rent collector had been there, it is certain, I think, that Comrade Spaghetti, or whatever you said his name was, wouldn’t have been. That is to say, if the rent collector had called and found no money waiting for him, surely Comrade Spaghetti would have been out in the cold night instead of under his own roof-tree. Do you follow me, Comrade Maloney?”
“That’s right,” said Billy Windsor. “Of course.”
“Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary,” murmured Psmith.
When you have eliminated the impossible,whatever remains,however improbable,must be the truth.
這句話原著出處是:四個簽名
“You will not apply my precept,” he said, shaking his head. “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? We know that he did not come through the door, the window, or the chimney. We also know that he could not have been concealed in the room, as there is no concealment possible. When, then, did he come?”
The Sign of the Four, ch. 6 (1890) Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of the Four (Doubleday p. 111)
中文翻譯成
當你排除所有不可能之後,剩下的即便再不可思議的事情,也是唯一的真相。
雖然沒有完全一致,但在電影版中他欲拯救的男主人死去,華生又看到新娘的鬼魂之後,說出這樣的話。
這句話其實經常被日本漫畫「名偵探-科南」使用,原因就是因為整部的命名就是來自於「柯南道爾」
From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other.