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Κύρια A Study in Scarlet; The Hound of the Baskervilles; The Valley of Fear; The Sign of Four (Penguin Classics..
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SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE NOVELS A Study in Scarlet · The Sign of Four · The Hound of the Baskervilles · The Valley of Fear In 1886 a doctor living on the southern coast of England decided to try his hand at writing a mystery story. In his notes for A Study in Scarlet, he called his chief characters, if only provisionally, J. Sherrinford Holmes and Ormond Sacker. Wisely, though, Arthur Conan Doyle eventually settled on much better names—indeed just the right names—and so created two of the most beloved figures in all of fiction, the world's first and only consulting detective, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and his friend and chronicler Dr. John H. Watson. Collected here are all four Holmes novels—A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Valley of Fear—with an introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning literary critic and Baker Street Irregular Michael Dirda. These often eerie tales of seemingly impossible crimes, of hidden treasure and supernatural terror and inescapable revenge, have been thrilling readers, young and old, for generation after generation. They move swiftly from cozy 221B Baker Street to the outskirts of gaslit London, or to spooky Dartmoor and its deadly Grimpen Mire, or to distant India and even to the United States. In them Holmes matches wits with some of his most formidable adversaries, including his implacable nemesis Professor James Moriarty. There is ultimately one simple but compelling reason why these four novels have been read and reread, as well as broadcast, filmed, and reinterpreted again and again: they are among the most exciting, atmospheric, and unforgettable stories in all of world literature. "What you are looking at is a kind of narrative perfection: a perfect interplay between dialogue and description, perfect characterization and perfect timing." —John le Carré "Every writer owes something to Holmes." —T.S. Eliot PENGUIN CLASSICS DELUXE EDITION SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE NOVELS SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE was born in Edin; burgh in 1859. Of Irish background, he was first educated at Jesuit schools and then at the University of Edinburgh, from which he received a degree in medicine in 1881. After opening a practice in Southsea, Conan Doyle—already an occasional writer of short stories—produced the detective novel A Study in Scarlet. The hero, Sherlock Holmes, was modeled in part after his teacher Dr. Joseph Bell, a diagnostician with spectacular powers of observation and analysis, and in part after Edgar Allan Poe's fictional mastermind C. Auguste Dupin. Following several rejections, the short novel was finally sold to a British publisher for just £25 and published in the 1887 edition of Beeton's Christmas Annual. Thus was born the world's best-known and most-loved fictional detective. Fifty-nine more Sherlock Holmes adventures followed, nearly all of them first serialized in The Strand magazine. At one point, Conan Doyle—complaining that writing about Holmes kept him from working on better, more important books—killed off his great detective, but popular demand and financial incentives eventually led to the sleuth of Baker Street's resurrection. Apart from his Holmes stories, Conan Doyle published historical fiction, notably The White Company and The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard, the science-fictional adventures of Professor George Edward Challenger (chiefly The Lost World and The Poison Belt), and several autobiographical works, including a charming tour of his library, Through the Magic Door. He became Sir Arthur Conan Doyle when Edward VII knighted him in 1902 for his defense of the British cause in the Boer War. During the last fifteen years of his life, and to the dismay of many, the world-famous writer devoted much of his energy to promoting belief in Spiritualism. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died in Sussex in 1930 at the age of seventy-one. MICHAEL DIRDA, a weekly book columnist for The Washington Post, is the author of the 2012 Edgar Award–winning On Conan Doyle. His other publications include the memoir An Open Book and five collections of essays: Readings, Bound to Please, Book by Book, Classics for Pleasure, and Browsings. In 1993 he received the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism and in recent years has become a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, and several other literary periodicals. His current project is a study of popular fiction during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. PENGUIN BOOKS An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC 375 Hudson Street New York, New York 10014 penguin.com This edition with an introduction by Michael Dirda published in Penguin Books 2015 Introduction copyright © 2015 by Michael Dirda Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader. This book is not authorized by Conan Doyle Estate Limited or any other party. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859–1930. [Novels. Selections] Sherlock Holmes: the novels / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ; introduction by Michael Dirda. pages cm.—(Penguin Classics Deluxe) ISBN 978-1-101-59505-3 1. Holmes, Sherlock—Fiction. 2. Watson, John H. (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Private investigators—England—Fiction. 4. Detective and mystery stories, English. I. Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859–1930. Study in scarlet. II. Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859–1930. Sign of four. III. Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859–1930. Hound of the Baskervilles. IV. Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859–1930. Valley of fear. V. Title. PR4621 2015b 823'.8—dc23 2015011964 Cover art and design by Adam Simpson Version_1 Contents Praise for Sherlock Holmes About the Author Title Page Copyright Introduction by MICHAEL DIRDA A Note on the Text SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE NOVELS A Study in Scarlet The Sign of Four The Hound of the Baskervilles The Valley of Fear Introduction I like books in which things happen, and then keep on happening. —VINCENT STARRETT, AUTHOR OF The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes If you've never read any Sherlock Holmes mystery stories, this omnibus of the four longer adventures will introduce you to the world's one and only "consulting detective." If you already know of Sherlock Holmes from the recent (and very entertaining) movies and television series, you will discover that there is no substitute for the original and best. In either case, you needn't avert your eyes from this opening essay, for it avoids "spoilers" or revealing anything likely to mar the first-time reader's enjoyment. Not that knowing "who done it" or how matters all that much. People who treasure these stories return to them because of the charm of Arthur Conan Doyle's writing and for the pleasure of being, once more, in the company of the great detective and his great-hearted friend and chronicler Dr. John H. Watson. Gaslight and hansom cabs, foggy nights in Victorian London, the snug bachelor quarters at 221B Baker Street—these are what rereaders come back for. The canonical adventures, consisting of four novels and fifty-six short stories, make up the best comfort literature in the world. I myself first discovered Sherlock Holmes as a boy of ten, on a dark and stormy night in November, when I huddled under blankets with a paperback of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Two days later I rode my bicycle to the public library and signed out a worn one-volume edition of the master detective's complete adventures. Tremulous with excitement, I immediately sat down at a secluded desk near an old-fashioned radiator and turned to A Study in Scarlet, described on its title page as "a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D., late of the Army Medical Department." Ever since, I—and many others all around the world—have never stopped reading and rereading those reminiscences. Even now, just murmuring the titles in this Penguin omnibus delivers a little jolt of anticipatory excitement: A Study in Scarlet (1887), The Sign of Four (1890), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), The Valley of Fear (1915). Not only do these four longer adventures offer mystery, they are also richly abundant in humor, romance, social realism, Gothic horror, and even frontier myth. In them Conan Doyle, borrowing elements from nineteenth-century "sensation" fiction, incorporates ancient curses, dark doings at the outposts of empire, criminal masterminds, blackmail, and revenge. The novels are, in short, wonderfully extravagant in plot, setting, and atmosphere, as well as absolutely essential to a full understanding of Holmes and Watson. I love them and you will too. Nonetheless, compared with the tightly composed short stories, these book-length cases are structurally awkward. Three contain protracted "flashbacks" that are effectively separate stories in themselves. Conan Doyle resorts to these historical narratives—which can be quite gripping all on their own—to explain the reasons behind the murders that Holmes has just solved. While The Hound of the Baskervilles doesn't feature one of these extensive tailpieces, its central chapters nonetheless focus on Watson without Holmes. This is a little like Hamlet without the prince. There are several possible reasons why Conan Doyle adopted such a cumbersome framework. During the 1880s the French detective story writer Émile Gaboriau enjoyed immense popularity in England, and he employed just this odd structure for his books. Monsieur Lecoq, for instance, includes such a long explanatory flashback that one modern edition simply drops the second half of the novel entirely. An additional reason may be, quite simply, Conan Doyle's own passion for history. Even though Sherlock Holmes's exploits made him rich and famous, he much preferred to write historical fiction. He relished re-creating an era in detail and would happily immerse himself in background research for months, piling up facts and data with which to give his narratives authenticity. So even though A Study in Scarlet turned out to be the young writer's first published novel, it was soon succeeded by far more ambitious, and much bulkier works, such as Micah Clarke (1889), set in the seventeenth century, and The White Company (1891), set in the fourteenth. The latter, a chivalric romance, was Conan Doyle's own favorite among his novels, especially when read in tandem with its prequel Sir Nigel (1906). To modern eyes, these books' battle sequences still shine, but far too many pages linger over the minutiae of period manners, costume, and weaponry. As Hesketh Pearson observed in a biography of Conan Doyle: "To the end of his life it never occurred to him that the accumulation of detail, however accurate or picturesque, does not vivify an age but nullifies it." That lifelong love for history, coupled to an uneasy fascination with American life, reemerges in A Study in Scarlet and The Valley of Fear, where the second halves are, respectively, a western set in Utah with a titillating sexual theme (Mormon polygamy) and a laconic, hard-boiled account of violence and class warfare in the mining community of "Vermissa Valley, USA." Some readers may recognize Conan Doyle's principal literary sources for these dime-novel episodes: "The Story of the Destroying Angel," part of New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter (1885) by Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife Fanny Stevenson, and The Molly Maguires and the Detectives (1887) by Allan Pinkerton. Matters are slightly different in the other two novels. In The Sign of Four a similar flashback—in this case to India and the Andaman Islands—is better integrated into the plot, being a criminal's confession made in the presence of Holmes, Watson, and the police. Conan Doyle presumably drew inspiration for this book's treasure story plot from Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone (1868), which centers on the theft of an Indian jewel and the sinister events that later ensue in peaceful England. This leaves The Hound of the Baskervilles, generally regarded as the most aesthetically pleasing of the longer stories because it preserves the unities of time, place, and action, and doesn't get bogged down in ex post facto accounts of earlier events. Instead, Conan Doyle briskly relates the legend of a Dartmoor hell-hound in just a single chapter at the beginning of the novel, then immediately connects that eighteenth-century backstory to the sudden death of Sir Charles Baskerville and the discovery of footprints near his body. When Holmes asks his informant, Dr. Mortimer, whether these last were from a man or a woman, he receives the most thrilling reply in modern literature: "Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!" As a ten-year-old I knew that writing, or reading, couldn't get any better than that. Nonetheless, this spooky novel—even though a popular candidate for the "best mystery ever" trophy—suffers from that bothersome interval in the middle, when Holmes is absent and one must make do with Watson's discoveries both at Baskerville Hall and on the nearby moor. Almost every reader surrenders to the brooding power of the ominous landscape—those ancient stone huts, the deadly Grimpen Mire, the eerie sounds and lights in the darkness—while also wishing that the great detective would reappear. Holmes is where our heart is. And yet. While Sherlock Holmes is the most famous fictional character of modern times, and the most filmed as well, he truly would be nothing without Watson, his chronicler, his Boswell, his friend. Christopher Morley—founder of that quintessential Sherlockian society, the Baker Street Irregulars—once called their collected adventures "a textbook of friendship." The stories record how Holmes saved Watson from going to seed and how the good doctor gradually humanized a great thinking machine. Moreover, as their exploits together continued, this dynamic duo gradually stepped off the page into real life. As Vincent Starrett said of them in his poem "221B": "Here dwell together still two men of note/ Who never lived and so can never die." So real do Holmes and Watson seem even now that people still write to Baker Street pleading for their advice and help. I myself would never trouble those busy men with my problems unless, of course, I were in really serious trouble. But I would certainly argue that these accounts of their adventures are, as much as any Keatsian urn, a joy forever. Nevertheless, it was a very near thing that they were ever recorded at all. A STUDY IN SCARLET AND THE SIGN OF FOUR Before he created the most illustrious residents of Baker Street—whom he nearly called J. Sherrinford Holmes and Ormond Sacker— Arthur Conan Doyle had already written a novel that was lost in the mail and contributed excellent short fiction to various magazines. "The Captain of the Pole-Star" (1883), set in the Arctic, is one of the most haunting Victorian tales of the supernatural. But the young writer could hardly think of quitting his day job as a doctor in Southsea. A Study in Scarlet was turned down by one publisher after another, until it was finally accepted by Ward, Lock, and Co., who offered to buy the British copyright for a derisory twenty-five pounds. Out of desperation, Conan Doyle took the paltry sum, then still had to wait a year before his short novel came out in Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887. Today, that annual may be the most valuable magazine in the world. Only thirty-three copies are known to exist and many are tattered or incomplete. If a truly fine copy were to appear on the market today, it might bring a quarter of a million dollars. Or more. The 1887 Beeton's containing A Study in Scarlet sold moderately well, and the novel was later republished as a book, with rather crude illustrations by Conan Doyle's artist father. And that was all. There was no great hoopla, no recognition of a new star in the nascent detective story firmament. Yet from the very first page, Conan Doyle's storytelling mastery—the genial narrative voice, the fast-moving action—sweeps the reader along. In short order we learn that John H. Watson has been an army doctor, was grievously wounded at the battle of Maiwand in the Second Afghan War, and now, broken in health, has wearily returned to England. In London—"that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained"—he falls into "a comfortless, meaningless existence," spending his money profligately until he finally recognizes the need to economize. One day he encounters an old acquaintance who tells him about a chap looking for someone to share digs with in Baker Street. Watson and Holmes meet at St. Bart's hospital, where Holmes's first recorded words are "I've found it!," that is, the English for "Eureka," exclaimed by Archimedes when he suddenly grasped the displacement of liquids as he sat down in his bath. This is significant because the Holmes stories are leavened throughout with classical tags, biblical references, and literary allusions, as well as perplexing inconsistencies—Was Watson wounded in the leg or the arm?—and myriad tantalizing lacunae. Did Holmes attend Oxford, Cambridge, or some other university? Arguing about such questions and other points of dialectical hullaballoo provide never-ending joy to the members of the Baker Street Irregulars, the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, and the many other literary sodalities devoted to the study of the "canon." The lanky young chemist's reaction to his discovery of a test for bloodstains is also a hint of things to come. "His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand over his heart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his imagination." Sherlock Holmes is nothing if not theatrical; he loves to dazzle and amaze. Some scholars, who play the game that the stories are factual if incomplete biography, speculate that young Holmes was once an actor, perhaps appearing in Hamlet—a play he often quotes from—and that he might possibly have gone on tour in the United States, which would account for his knowledge of that country. Who can say? Watson, however, is surprised when this distinctly histrionic fellow glances at him and declares, "You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive." How, the doctor wonders, did he know that? When the pair set up bachelor quarters at 221B Baker Street, Watson continues to be puzzled by his new roommate. What does Holmes do for a living? Why do all these strange people come to call? Sometimes the man spends hours just lying upon a sofa in the sitting room, "hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night. On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes that I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion." Not for the first time will Watson be proved wrong in his deductions. Nonetheless, putting on his diagnostician's hat, he takes to studying Holmes, listing his strengths and weaknesses, noting his profound knowledge of chemistry and crime. Then, one day, Watson happens upon a magazine article entitled "The Book of Life," which "attempted to show how much an observant man might learn by an accurate and systematic examination of all that came in his way." To Watson's incredulity, his flatmate reveals that he is its author. In fact, Holmes admits that he possesses "a turn both for observation and deduction" and has consequently established himself as a "consulting detective." He serves as the court of last resort when Scotland Yard is stymied. Utterly astonished, Watson interjects that he had no idea such individuals existed "outside of stories," thus subtly imputing to Holmes and himself the reality of flesh and blood. A few pages later a letter from Inspector Tobias Gregson arrives announcing the discovery of a dead man at Lauriston Gardens. The body, it turns out, is that of Enoch J. Drebber, most recently a resident of Cleveland, Ohio. Why was Drebber in London? Since there is no obvious wound, how was he killed? And for what reason? On the wall of the empty room is scribbled, in blood, the single word "Rache." I'll say no more about what happens, beyond pointing out our first glimpse of Holmes at a crime scene: He whipped a tape measure and a large round magnifying glass from his pocket. With these two implements he trotted noiselessly about the room, sometimes stopping, occasionally kneeling, and once lying flat upon his face. So engrossed was he with his occupation that he appeared to have forgotten our presence, for he chattered away to himself under his breath the whole time, keeping up a running fire of exclamations, groans, whistles, and little cries suggestive of encouragement and of hope. As I watched him I was irresistibly reminded of a pure-blooded, well-trained foxhound as it dashes backwards and forward through the covert, whining in its eagerness, until it comes across the lost scent. Conan Doyle admitted that Holmes's armchair wizardry—as when, in "The Blue Carbuncle," he concludes from an old hat that a man's wife has ceased to love him—was derived from the example of his own medical school teacher at the University of Edinburgh, Dr. Joseph Bell. Bell was renowned for both his theatricality and his ability to make startling and accurate deductions upon first meeting a new patient. That said, Holmes the sleuth-hound, nosing about on the ground and talking to himself, derives from Gaboriau's Père Tabaret, who behaves in just this manner in L'Affaire Lerouge (which, as more than one scholar has noticed, could almost be loosely translated as "A Study in Scarlet"). On the way back to Baker Street, Holmes interviews the police constable who discovered the murder and from him learns about a drunk found on the street nearby. At this point he interrupts with an utterly enigmatic question: "Had he a whip in his hand?" Most readers are likely to say to themselves, "What? Where did that come from?" Obviously, Holmes has registered some significant detail which has escaped our attention. But he doesn't tell us what it is. Instead, he withholds his deductions until the right moment for their revelation, thus generating that feather touch of irony running throughout these stories (and most golden-age detective fiction): Holmes always knows more than we do. As he once sternly told Watson, "You see, but you do not observe." What is meaningful to the detective invariably remains mysterious to the reader. In A Study in Scarlet Holmes also flaunts his familiarity with the entire "calendar of crime," remarking, for instance, that in interpreting the Lauriston murder "the cases of Dolsky in Odessa, and of Leturier in Montpellier, will occur at once to any toxicologist." (In later stories Watson matches such name-dropping, frequently referring to cases "for which the world is not yet prepared": What would we give to know more about "The lighthouse, the politician and the trained cormorant" or "The Amateur Mendicant Society" or, best of all, "the giant rat of Sumatra"!) Besides his scientific superiority and criminal expertise, Holmes here exhibits his fundamentally bohemian nature as well. Like a bored aesthete, he listens distractedly, even disdainfully, to Inspector Gregson's report on the testimony of Enoch Drebber's landlady. "'It's all quite exciting,' said Sherlock Holmes, with a yawn. 'What happened next?'" The condescension is unmistakable—and yet Holmes has actually learned a vital piece of information. A Study in Scarlet proves noteworthy, too, for the first appearance of the Baker Street Irregulars, the London street urchins who can go anywhere and overhear anyone, and who consequently serve the detective as a city-wide surveillance system. Most important of all, Watson discovers his own new vocation: Near the story's end, he tells Holmes, "You should publish an account of the case," and then adds, "If you won't, I will for you." The detective shrugs. "You may do what you like, Doctor." The initial characterization of Holmes as part Babbage calculating machine, part decadent aesthete is reinforced in The Sign of Four. This novel opens with the shocking scene of the detective injecting himself with a hypodermic syringe. "Which is it today?" Watson sarcastically inquires. "Morphine or cocaine?" To which Holmes languidly answers, "It is cocaine," then adds, "a seven-percent solution. Would you care to try it?" As disturbing as this vignette can seem to modern sensibilities, bear in mind that cocaine was then regularly prescribed for depression and that Holmes's mild dose would cost him only pennies. In fact, he isn't really a drug addict; he's an adrenaline junkie. By this time the doctor and the detective have been residing together for some while, and Watson knows all too well the moodiness and melancholy of the bored Holmes: "My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work . . . I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation." Holmes requires the constant intellectual challenge of a mystery, the exhilaration of the chase. In The Sign of Four he finds abundant cerebral and physical excitement, culminating in a headlong pursuit down the Thames River after a one-legged man and his devilish (though anthropologically unlikely) companion. How devilish? At one point, Holmes says quietly to the armed Watson, "Fire if he raises his hand." In context, this is one of the most electrifying sentences in the canon. What, though, led Conan Doyle to bring back Holmes, given that he probably never intended to write about him again after A Study in Scarlet? It is a remarkable story. In 1889 J. M. Stoddart of Lippincott's Magazine, published out of Philadelphia, traveled to London in search of new material for his pages. He invited two rising young authors to dinner at the Langham Hotel—which now displays a plaque commemorating the evening—and quickly signed up both for short novels. So Oscar Wilde wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) and Arthur Conan Doyle produced The Sign of the Four (in later British editions, The Sign of Four, 1890). The latter book's portrait of the fussy and hypochondriacal Thaddeus Sholto is, in part, an affectionate caricature of Wilde. Early in this second novel, Conan Doyle establishes a distinct contrast between Holmes as inhuman "automaton" and the all-too-human Watson, who early on admits to "an experience of women which extends over many nations and three separate continents." This would suggest that one of the doctor's vices—obliquely alluded to in A Study in Scarlet—is sexual promiscuity (another, we later surmise, is gambling). After Watson meets Mary Morstan, who has come to Holmes for help, he calculates that "she must be seven-and-twenty now—a sweet age, when youth has lost its self-consciousness and become a little sobered by experience." This certainly sounds like the practiced libertine. Yet Watson falls in love with Miss Morstan at first sight, simply, purely, and totally. Nothing if not atmospheric, The Sign of Four depicts London as a kind of Arabian Nights realm of wonders, Baghdad on the Thames. The novelist Graham Greene once confessed that of all the Holmes adventures only "that dark night in Pondicherry Lodge, Norwood, has never faded from my memory." From the beginning Conan Doyle exerted his considerable descriptive powers (in part because, still living in Southsea, he knew London largely from maps): It was a September evening, and not yet seven o'clock, but the day had been a dreary one, and a dense drizzly fog lay low upon the great city. Mud-coloured clouds drooped sadly over the muddy streets. Down the Strand the lamps were but misty splotches of diffused light, which threw a feeble circular glimmer upon the slimy pavement. The yellow glare from the shop-windows streamed out into the steamy, vaporous air, and threw a murky, shifting radiance across the crowded thoroughfare. There was, to my mind, something eerie and ghost-like in the endless procession of faces which flitted across these narrow bars of light—sad faces and glad, haggard and merry. Like all human kind, they flitted from the gloom into the light, and so back into the gloom once more. I am not subject to impressions but the dull, heavy evening, with the strange business upon which we were engaged, combined to make me nervous and depressed. Consider two details in this passage, the first being Conan Doyle's jarring repetition of the verb "threw." This is probably an indication of the high speed with which he habitually scribbled his Holmes stories. Even by nineteenth-century standards, Conan Doyle could be an astonishingly facile writer. In this instance he signed the contract for The Sign of Four on August 30, 1889 and delivered the manuscript just a month later; A Study in Scarlet was written almost as fast. To complete a short story would seldom require more than a couple of days. Once a plot had been worked out, the actual writing could be done in a single draft, with perhaps a few light corrections afterward. Second, let me draw your attention—as Holmes might say—to the phrase "flitted from the gloom into the light, and so back into the gloom once more." This is another of those many covert allusions that thicken the texture of Conan Doyle's writing. In this instance, the image is drawn from the Venerable Bede, who in a famous passage of his Ecclesiastical History of England (circa AD 731) compares the meaningless life of a pagan to a sparrow that flies from a stormy winter's night into a warm mead hall and then, all too quickly, passes back into the surrounding darkness. In The Sign of Four Mary Morstan brings Holmes several mysteries: What happened to her father after Captain Morstan arrived in London from military service in the East and suddenly vanished? Why has she received a lustrous pearl of great price on each of her birthdays over the past six years? Could there be any importance to a scrap of Indian paper inscribed with four interlinked crosses and the words "the sign of the four"? (To this last, the contemporary response would be "Duh.") And, most immediately pressing, who is the mysterious correspondent asking to meet her at seven that evening "at the third pillar from the left" of the Lyceum Theater? She may bring two friends, if she feels insecure, but no police. Of course, Watson and Holmes agree to accompany their new client. Much will happen that night, but eventually the nervous Thaddeus Sholto will guide the little company to Pondicherry Lodge, once the home of his late father Major Sholto and currently that of his twin brother Bartholomew. At the gates they are stopped by a former prizefighter named McMurdo, now working as a bodyguard. Here Holmes discloses an unexpected detail from his past: As an amateur he once boxed against McMurdo, who remembers his "cross-hit . . . under the jaw." The pugilist then tells the detective, "You're one who has wasted your gifts, you have! You might have aimed high, if you had joined the fancy." (The "fancy" is a slang term for the fight game.) Are there, then, no limits to Holmes's abilities? His subsequent acrobatics on the roof of Pondicherry Lodge will actually be compared to those of Blondin, the aerialist who walked across a wire suspended over Niagara Falls. Detective, aesthete, human calculating machine, actor, music and art lover, bibliophile, boxer, acrobat—Holmes is obviously far more than "a theorist," as the obnoxious Inspector Athelney Jones here calls him. A few chapters further on Holmes even scrapes together a meal of oysters and grouse, telling Watson, "you have never yet recognized my merits as a housekeeper!" Just as A Study in Scarlet is thematically a study of obsession in various forms—passionate love, religious fanaticism, long-planned revenge, detectival relentlessness—so The Sign of Four puts forth a series of ethical stress tests, as Conan Doyle probes the complexities of the riven human heart and conscience. One character is faced with a life-or-death moral dilemma. Another sacrifices his honor for a treasure he never uses. Watson falls in love but tortuously hesitates to declare himself. Holmes himself assumes so many radically different personae that they begin to imply multiple personalities. Thaddeus Sholto is effeminate and generous, while his twin is brutally masculine and miserly. Even the instinctively kind Watson experiences a visceral, but psychologically suspicious, loathing for a disabled military man whose early history closely mirrors his own. As for the villains: they emerge from the shadows as grotesque figures out of medieval allegory or Freudian nightmare. While The Sign of Four is intimately connected to the turmoil and bloodshed of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, its main action takes place in 1888. The 1880s were themselves a particularly violent decade in English history, one that included a series of Fenian dynamite bombings, an attempt to assassinate Queen Victoria (by a man who hated the number four), and, most infamously, the 1888 Whitechapel "Jack the Ripper" murders: at one point Holmes analyzes a letter just as the police analyzed those of the vicious serial killer. This was also the period when scientists began to chart and tabulate human behavior, when Alphonse Bertillon measured skulls (anthropometry) for indications of latent criminality, and Cesare Lombroso argued that crime was an atavistic throwback to the primitive savage. Such classification and typology are regularly alluded to throughout the story. Watson clearly believes in these phrenological pseudo-sciences: Mary Morstan's face, he writes, indicated "a refined and sensitive nature." But Holmes will have none of it: "I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor." Not least, Holmes's second published case proffers the first iteration of what would become his best-known, and most repeated, aphorism: "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." From this viewpoint, much of The Sign of Four certainly does seem improbable or even impossible, like the Muslim-Sikh name Mahomet Singh. But these cavils will occur to the reader only later. Once begun, there's no resisting the sheer rush, the nonstop narrative excitement of this dark and wondrous tale. THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES AND THE VALLEY OF FEAR You might have thought that the second appearance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson would have been greeted with huzzahs from a grateful public. No such luck. The Sign of Four proved only modestly successful. Conan Doyle was still pinning his publishing hopes on The White Company and other "serious" books. But having few patients for his new London medical practice and needing money, in 1891 he decided to submit some short stories to a recently established magazine called The Strand. The first was titled "A Scandal in Bohemia" and opened with the tantalizing sentence: "To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman." In the resourceful and daring Irene Adler, the sleuth of Baker Street truly meets his match: she turns out to be far more than just "the daintiest thing under a bonnet." In the following months, "The Red-Headed League," "The Five Orange Pips," and "The Speckled Band" would finally make Conan Doyle famous and Sherlock Holmes immortal. As the grateful editor of The Strand proclaimed, he had found "the greatest natural-born storyteller of the age." But fairly soon Conan Doyle began to tire of these trivial entertainments; they kept him from "better things." Only the writer's formidable mother persuaded him to continue writing about Holmes and Watson for a while longer. In "The Greek Interpreter" he even doubled the narrative's star power by introducing Sherlock's lazy, corpulent, and smarter older brother Mycroft, whose specialty is "omniscience" and who sometimes "is the British government." And then finally, inevitably, he introduced Holmes's most dangerous and implacable foe, the criminal genius Professor James Moriarty. When, despite the entreaties of friends, family, and editors, Conan Doyle irrevocably determined to kill off Sherlock Holmes in "The Final Problem" (1893), he arranged for the detective to confront the Napoleon of Crime on the treacherous paths high above Switzerland's Reichenbach Falls. The two enemies grappled and, to all appearances, tumbled into the gulf below. Having elected to sacrifice his life to preserve the world from evil, Holmes—once merely an inhuman calculating machine and bohemian aesthete—had now become, in Watson's words, "the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known." Thereafter, among other projects, Conan Doyle took to chronicling the glorious and comic exploits of the Napoleonic soldier Etienne Gerard (in their way, they are as good as the Holmes stories), while The Strand ran a series of mysteries solved by Arthur Morrison's Martin Hewitt, the first of the so-called rivals of Sherlock Holmes. But the world wanted the one, the only. While on a golfing holiday Conan Doyle learned from a younger friend named Bertram Fletcher Robinson about the supernatural folklore of Dartmoor, including occasional sightings of a spectral dog of death. Together the two writers began to sketch out "a real creeper." Before long, Conan Doyle concluded that this was a case for Sherlock Holmes. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) deals with ancient terrors in a desolate landscape of moor and bog, where—to borrow some phrases from that devoted Sherlockian T. S. Eliot—the Grimpen Mire affords no secure foothold and the visitor is menaced by monsters and deadly enchantment. It is a tale, above all, about an aristocratic family haunted by a monstrous beast that brings terror and violent death. Conan Doyle dedicated the book to Robinson, who claimed he'd written parts of it and who sometimes called himself its joint author. No one will ever know for sure the extent of his probably minimal involvement. Still, only one thing really mattered: Holmes was back! Unfortunately, his creator hadn't actually resurrected the great detective. Instead Conan Doyle subtitled his book "Another Adventure of Sherlock Holmes" and set this chilling case sometime before the fatal encounter with Moriarty. Then Watson had memorialized his friend in words originally applied to Socrates in Plato's Phaedo. As The Hound opens, one can again hear echoes of Platonic dialogue in some of the detective's exchanges with his old friend: "Is it then stretching our inference too far to say the presentation was on the occasion of the change?" "It certainly seems probable." Humankind, as the philosophers tell us, swings between the bestial and the angelic, partaking of both flesh and spirit. Throughout The Hound of the Baskervilles Conan Doyle plays up the metaphysical, and practical, issues surrounding the relationship of the body and the soul. Holmes's informant Dr. Mortimer analyzes human skulls for "supra-orbital development" and indications of atavism. When the great detective meditates over a map of Devonshire, he claims to travel there "in spirit." An escaped convict presents "an evil yellow face, a terrible animal face . . . it might have belonged to one of those old savages who dwelt in the burrows on the hillsides." Another villainous character turns out to be "an interesting instance of a throwback, which appears to be both physical and spiritual." When an ominous-seeming figure is dimly glimpsed standing on the summit of a rocky tor, we are left wondering if it is just a passing hiker or the devil surveying this fallen world. Despite Holmes's warning in The Sign of Four, Watson continues to judge people by their physiognomies and the good doctor is wrong in almost every instance. For example, he concludes, quite mistakenly, that the "dry glitter" in a servant's eyes and the "firm set of his thin lips" indicate "a positive and possibly harsh nature." Throughout the novel people continually find themselves confused or deceived by appearances. That animal-like escaped prisoner is mistaken for the aristocratic Sir Henry Baskerville. Dr. Mortimer isn't sure which gentleman at 221B is the sleuth and which his chronicler. A London cabman drives a bearded passenger who claims to be, but isn't, Sherlock Holmes. A young woman named Beryl Stapleton initially assumes that Dr. Watson must be Sir Henry. One of the novel's French commentators, Pierre Bayard, even argues that Holmes fails to identify the actual villain. And then there's the monstrous hound: Is it real or imagined? Out on the moor a shaken Watson hears a "long, low moan, indescribably sad. From a dull murmur it swelled into a deep roar, and then sank back into a melancholy, throbbing murmur once again." Could this be a spectral predator hot on the trail of Sir Henry Baskerville—or the whimper of a beast in pain? The legend of the hound began with the kidnapping and intended rape of a local girl by the eighteenth-century Sir Hugo Baskerville. Continued violence against women—a crucial theme in A Study in Scarlet and many of the short stories—takes multiple forms here as the reader learns of unhappy marriages, thwarted love affairs, and abusive, even sadistic relationships. (Little wonder that Conan Doyle would become a leading voice in divorce law reform.) Yet this richly layered novel also turns on inheritance in multiple senses, whether of property and money, genetic traits, or a family curse. In its construction, the book nearly resembles a case file or murder dossier, since Conan Doyle assembles a panoply of documents: a tattered manuscript, newspaper reports, a warning message made from words cut from printed sentences, the account of a witness cross-examined in the manner of a trial lawyer, Watson's dispatches to Holmes, Watson's own journal, various telegrams, handwritten notes, and letters. One character is even a professional typist and her father obsessed with legal briefs. All this written documentation, so representative of modern order and rationality, is nonetheless eclipsed by the elemental forces of Nature at her most hostile and threatening. While The Hound of the Baskervilles is both structurally more unified than the first two Holmes novels and compelling throughout, it does exhibit minor flaws. Besides the long absence of Holmes in the middle, we also learn the identity of the villain well before the novel's end. No matter. This isn't just a mystery, this is Mystery, a spiritual confrontation with sinister forces as fog rolls across an ancient and haunted terrain: There was a thin, crisp, continuous patter from somewhere in the heart of that crawling bank. The cloud was within fifty yards of where we lay, and we glared at it, all three, uncertain what horror was about to break from the heart of it. I was at Holmes's elbow, and I glanced for an instant at his face. It was pale and exultant, his eyes shining brightly in the moonlight. But suddenly they started forward in a rigid, fixed stare, and his lips parted in amazement. At the same instant Lestrade gave a yell of terror and threw himself face downward upon the ground. I sprang to my feet, my inert hand grasping my pistol, my mind paralysed by the dreadful shape which had sprung out upon us from the shadows of the fog. A hound it was, an enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen. In some lights, The Hound of the Baskervilles could be categorized as a tragic regional novel, like Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights or Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native: the desolate landscape—"the barren waste, the chilling wind, and the darkling sky"—dominates the merely human characters. By contrast, The Valley of Fear (1915) presents itself as a modern novel about business, not just because its second half deals with management/worker clashes, but also because it focuses throughout on contracts, on pledges and oaths, on marital promises and other binding commitments. John Dickson Carr, the grandmaster of the locked-room whodunit (or rather howdunit), once named The Valley of Fear as his favorite Sherlock Holmes novel and called it "a very nearly perfect piece of detective-story writing." The critic Anthony Boucher seconded that judgment, maintaining, "Here is Holmes as the perfect thinking mind, in cryptanalysis, in observation, in deduction. And here, more than in any other Canonical story that comes to mind, is Holmes at his most completely charming. . . . There is, in fact, more overt humour here than is usual in the Canon; there is a certain fey quality in this Holmes." Humor? Holmes laughs regularly during his numerous exploits and he often slyly mocks his friend ("Really, Watson, you excel yourself"), but here, for once, it is the good doctor who temporarily triumphs. The scene opens at Baker Street with an encrypted message that needs to be deciphered, but is quickly followed by an extended discussion of a certain Napoleon of Crime: "'You have heard me speak of Professor Moriarty?' "'The famous scientific criminal, as famous among crooks as—' "'My blushes, Watson!' Holmes murmured in a deprecating voice. "'I was about to say, as he is unknown to the public.' "'A touch! A distinct touch!' cried Holmes. 'You are developing a certain unexpected vein of pawky humour, Watson.'" Note the allusion to the swordplay in Hamlet, first employed in A Study in Scarlet but now part of the repartee between this prince of detectives and his Horatio. All this talk of Professor Moriarty, however, underscores that this novel, like the others, is set before the events chronicled in "The Final Problem." Of course, by now contemporary readers had known for over a decade that Holmes was never really dead. Yielding to popular demand and substantial financial incentives, Conan Doyle had finally explained, in "The Adventure of the Empty House" (1903), how the great detective actually survived his meeting with Moriarty and what he had earlier called, with moving understatement, "the final discussion of those questions that lie between us." After his "great hiatus" (spent partly in Tibet under the name Sigerson), Holmes eventually returned to solve numerous subsequent mysteries before retiring to keep bees on the Sussex Downs. Nonetheless, as here, Watson sometimes reaches back to record an older case. By chapter 3, Holmes, Watson, and two go-getting policemen have arrived at Birlstone Manor, where the master of the house has been found dead in the library. Apparently John Douglas was surprised by an intruder who used a sawed-off shotgun to blow away most of his face. There are, however, some puzzling elements to this apparently run-of-the-mill burglary turned homicide: What is the meaning of the strange mark branded on Douglas's arm? Why has one half of a set of dumbbells gone missing? And why does the oddly cheerful Mrs. Douglas speak so intimately with her husband's friend Cecil Barker? Inevitably, Holmes proclaims, "in all my experience I cannot recall any more singular and interesting study." Of course, attentive readers will smile, remembering that he has made almost precisely the same assertion about the crimes in each of the other novels. For all his vaunted rationality, Holmes is susceptible to bursts of lyrical enthusiasm (for music, art, Nature), to melancholy observations about life, and to exclamatory hyperbole when in the middle of a case. The Valley of Fear is the most metafictional of the novels. It is a book filled with other books and carefully manufactured texts, where truth is stage-managed and nothing is natural. Police inspectors allude to Watson's published works and coyly remark, "when the time comes we'll all hope for a place in your book." One important character refers to Watson as "the historian of this bunch" and then hands him a substantial manuscript with the air of a writing student soliciting the attention of a published author. The man even insists, "You've never had such a story as that pass through your hands before, and I'll lay my last dollar on that." In part 2 Watson presents that gritty hard-boiled narrative, a third-person account of a rebellious young bravo's induction into a murderous Irish-American secret society called the Scowrers. Like some fearsome provincial Moriarty, its leader, "Bodymaster" McGinty, has spies everywhere and "every whisper goes back to him." His word is law among the lawless. In tone the two halves of The Valley of Fear are radically different. "The Tragedy of Birlstone," as the first part is called, prefigures those elaborately contrived puzzle-murders of the 1920s and '30s, in which witty amateur detectives solve impossible crimes. But the second part, "The Scowrers," could have been published in Black Mask; it is abrupt and violent in word, action, and denouement, almost a foreshadowing of Dashiell Hammett's brutal Red Harvest. Among Conan Doyle's contemporaries it somewhat resembles a social-realist novel by Jack London or Upton Sinclair, while some aspects of its plot call to mind Conan Doyle's nasty stories about the murderous pirate Captain Sharkey. In Conan Doyle's work, violence—usually in conjunction with ill-gotten wealth—nearly always originates outside England's green and peaceful land, typically in gangsterish America. Consequently Holmes, like the medieval knights his creator idolized, often works to preserve the civilized values of the British Empire against barbarity and disorder. That said, The Valley of Fear is only partly about the danger of lawlessness. On closer inspection, both halves are built around a tangled spiderweb of promises, oaths, and pledges. No matter what the cost or how long it takes, contracts—whether honorable or ignoble—must always be fulfilled. Throughout, Conan Doyle sets up, and quickly skates over, a series of moral ambiguities. Under what circumstances, if any, can a man stand by and allow bloodshed to occur without acting? Does Sherlock Holmes himself cause the death of two men? Is John Douglas's wife betraying him with his best friend? And, most troubling of all, has Holmes's deductive genius actually been subverted by Moriarty to assist the professor's nefarious purposes? An epilogue, set amid the seeming security of Baker Street, adds further twists to this most intricate, most Heisenbergian of all the Sherlock Holmes novels. After all, nearly every element in the narrative is susceptible to multiple interpretations, so much so that reality itself comes to seem labile, any truth undecidable. Even more than in the other novel-length adventures, Conan Doyle actually avoids neat and tidy closure. Mysteries remain. The modern world has arrived. Arthur Conan Doyle once wrote, "So elementary a form of fiction as the detective story hardly deserves the dignity of a preface." But are the Holmes adventures so "elementary"? I'm writing this during the centennial year of The Valley of Fear. Over the past century and more, the Sherlock Holmes "canon" has received the kind of microscopic attention usually bestowed on the Bible, Shakespeare, and James Joyce. Every word has been studied, every angle explored, multiple interpretations expounded. There have been annotated editions, scholarly editions, and even manuscript editions of the stories; there are critical studies, journal articles, and Internet rants about Holmes; conferences and blogs are devoted to every aspect of his life and times. I myself have contributed to this plenty. In 2002 I was invested into the Baker Street Irregulars and given the canonical name "Langdale Pike." Pike is a journalist, a gossip columnist really, who appears in arguably the worst Sherlock Holmes story, "The Three Gables." Since then I've written playful accounts of Pike's various misadventures, a book about Arthur Conan Doyle, and presented numerous talks on Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Still, most important of all, I've been privileged to share with many others—artists and scientists, businessmen and bureaucrats, lawyers and doctors, people of every age and from every walk of life—a common delight in the world of 221B Baker Street. After you read these four novels, and then go on to the short stories, you might want to be part of that world too. In the end, though, it is worth remembering that Holmes's adventures, while inviting endless annotation and exegesis, chiefly aim to provide, as Conan Doyle once said, "distraction from the worries of life." So turn to A Study in Scarlet, let the introduction be made—"Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes"—and settle back with a contented sigh. The game is afoot! MICHAEL DIRDA A Note on the Text The texts of these novels have been drawn from the individual Penguin Classics editions. Interested readers should turn to the following 2001 Penguin Classics editions: A Study in Scarlet, with an introduction by Iain Sinclair and notes by Ed Glinert; The Hound of the Baskervilles, edited with an introduction and notes by Christopher Frayling; and The Sign of Four, with an introduction by Peter Ackroyd and notes by Ed Glinert. A STUDY IN SCARLET CONTENTS PART ONE Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson MD, late of the Army Medical Department 1 Mr Sherlock Holmes 2 The Science of Deduction 3 The Lauriston Gardens Mystery 4 What John Rance Had to Tell 5 Our Advertisement Brings a Visitor 6 Tobias Gregson Shows What He Can Do 7 Light in the Darkness PART TWO The Country of the Saints 1 On the Great Alkali Plain 2 The Flower of Utah 3 John Ferrier Talks with the Prophet 4 A Flight for Life 5 The Avenging Angels 6 A Continuation of the Reminiscences of John Watson MD 7 The Conclusion PART ONE Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson MD, late of the Army Medical Department 1 Mr Sherlock Holmes In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy's country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties. The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a pack-horse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines. Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to the base hospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied, and had already improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little upon the verandah, when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse of our Indian possessions. For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to England. I was dispatched accordingly in the troopship Orontes, and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it. I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air – or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained. There I stayed for some time at a private hotel in the Strand, leading a comfortless, meaningless existence, and spending such money as I had, considerably more freely than I ought. So alarming did the state of my finances become that I soon realized that I must either leave the metropolis and rusticate somewhere in the country, or that I must make a complete alteration in my style of living. Choosing the latter alternative, I began by making up my mind to leave the hotel, and to take up my quarters in some less pretentious and less expensive domicile. On the very day that I had come to this conclusion, I was standing at the Criterion Bar, when someone tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round I recognized young Stamford, who had been a dresser under me at Bart's. The sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of London is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man. In old days Stamford had never been a particular crony of mine, but now I hailed him with enthusiasm, and he, in his turn, appeared to be delighted to see me. In the exuberance of my joy, I asked him to lunch with me at the Holborn, and we started off together in a hansom. 'Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Watson?' he asked in undisguised wonder, as we rattled through the crowded London streets. 'You are as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut.' I gave him a short sketch of my adventures, and had hardly concluded it by the time that we reached our destination. 'Poor devil!' he said, commiseratingly, after he had listened to my misfortunes. 'What are you up to now?' 'Looking for lodgings,' I answered. 'Trying to solve the problem as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable price.' 'That's a strange thing,' remarked my companion, 'you are the second man today that has used that expression to me.' 'And who was the first?' I asked. 'A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital. He was bemoaning himself this morning because he could not get someone to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he had found, and which were too much for his purse.' 'By Jove!' I cried; 'if he really wants someone to share the rooms and the expense, I am the very man for him. I should prefer having a partner to being alone.' Young Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wineglass. 'You don't know Sherlock Holmes yet,' he said; 'perhaps you would not care for him as a constant companion.' 'Why, what is there against him?' 'Oh, I didn't say there was anything against him. He is a little queer in his ideas – an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as I know he is a decent fellow enough.' 'A medical student, I suppose?' said I. 'No – I have no idea what he intends to go in for. I believe he is well up in anatomy, and he is a first-class chemist; but, as far as I know, he has never taken out any systematic medical classes. His studies are very desultory and eccentric, but he has amassed a lot of out-of-the-way knowledge which would astonish his professors.' 'Did you never ask him what he was going in for?' I asked. 'No; he is not a man that it is easy to draw out, though he can be communicative enough when the fancy seizes him.' 'I should like to meet him,' I said. 'If I am to lodge with anyone, I should prefer a man of studious and quiet habits. I am not strong enough yet to stand much noise or excitement. I had enough of both in Afghanistan to last me for the remainder of my natural existence. How could I meet this friend of yours?' 'He is sure to be at the laboratory,' returned my companion. 'He either avoids the place for weeks, or else he works there from morning till night. If you like, we will drive round together after luncheon.' 'Certainly,' I answered, and the conversation drifted away into other channels. As we made our way to the hospital after leaving the Holborn, Stamford gave me a few more particulars about the gentleman whom I proposed to take as a fellow-lodger. 'You mustn't blame me if you don't get on with him,' he said; 'I know nothing more of him than I have learned from meeting him occasionally in the laboratory. You proposed this arrangement, so you must not hold me responsible.' 'If we don't get on it will be easy to part company,' I answered. 'It seems to me, Stamford,' I added, looking hard at my companion, 'that you have some reason for washing your hands of the matter. Is this fellow's temper so formidable, or what is it? Don't be mealy-mouthed about it.' 'It is not easy to express the inexpressible,' he answered with a laugh. 'Holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes – it approaches to cold-bloodedness. I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch of the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you understand, but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea of the effects. To do him justice, I think that he would take it himself with the same readiness. He appears to have a passion for definite and exact knowledge.' 'Very right too.' 'Yes, but it may be pushed to excess. When it comes to beating the subjects in the dissecting-rooms with a stick, it is certainly taking rather a bizarre shape.' 'Beating the subjects!' 'Yes, to verify how far bruises may be produced after death. I saw him at it with my own eyes.' 'And yet you say he is not a medical student?' 'No. Heaven knows what the objects of his studies are. But here we are, and you must form your own impressions about him.' As he spoke, we turned down a narrow lane and passed through a small side-door which opened into a wing of the great hospital. It was familiar ground to me, and I needed no guiding as we ascended the bleak stone staircase and made our way down the long corridor with its vista of whitewashed wall and dun-coloured doors. Near the farther end a low arched passage branched away from it and led to the chemical laboratory. This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless bottles. Broad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled with retorts, test-tubes, and little Bunsen lamps with their blue flickering flames. There was only one student in the room, who was bending over a distant table absorbed in his work. At the sound of our steps he glanced round and sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure. 'I've found it! I've found it,' he shouted to my companion, running towards us with a test-tube in his hand. 'I have found a re-agent which is precipitated by haemoglobin, and by nothing else.' Had he discovered a gold mine, greater delight could not have shone upon his features. 'Dr Watson, Mr Sherlock Holmes,' said Stamford, introducing us. 'How are you?' he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength for which I should hardly have given him credit. 'You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.' 'How on earth did you know that?' I asked in astonishment. 'Never mind,' said he, chuckling to himself. 'The question now is about haemoglobin. No doubt you see the significance of this discovery of mine?' 'It is interesting, chemically, no doubt,' I answered, 'but practically –' 'Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years. Don't you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains. Come over here now!' He seized me by the coat-sleeve in his eagerness, and drew me over to the table at which he had been working. 'Let us have some fresh blood,' he said, digging a long bodkin into his finger, and drawing off the resulting drop of blood in a chemical pipette. 'Now, I add this small quantity of blood to a litre of water. You perceive that the resulting mixture has the appearance of pure water. The proportion of blood cannot be more than one in a million. I have no doubt, however, that we shall be able to obtain the characteristic reaction.' As he spoke, he threw into the vessel a few white crystals, and then added some drops of a transparent fluid. In an instant the contents assumed a dull mahogany colour, and a brownish dust was precipitated to the bottom of the glass jar. 'Ha! ha!' he cried, clapping his hands, and looking as delighted as a child with a new toy. 'What do you think of that?' 'It seems to be a very delicate test,' I remarked. 'Beautiful! beautiful! The old guaiacum test was very clumsy and uncertain. So is the microscopic examination for blood corpuscles. The latter is valueless if the stains are a few hours old. Now, this appears to act as well whether the blood is old or new. Had this test been invented, there are hundreds of men now walking the earth who would long ago have paid the penalty of their crimes.' 'Indeed!' I murmured. 'Criminal cases are continually hinging upon that one point. A man is suspected of a crime months perhaps after it has been committed. His linen or clothes are examined and brownish stains discovered upon them. Are they blood stains, or mud stains, or rust stains, or fruit stains, or what are they? That is a question which has puzzled many an expert, and why? Because there was no reliable test. Now we have the Sherlock Holmes test, and there will no longer be any difficulty.' His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand over his heart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his imagination. 'You are to be congratulated,' I remarked, considerably surprised at his enthusiasm. 'There was the case of Von Bischoff at Frankfort last year. He would certainly have been hung had this test been in existence. Then there was Mason of Bradford, and the notorious Muller, and Lefevre of Montpellier, and Samson of New Orleans. I could name a score of cases in which it would have been decisive.' 'You seem to be a walking calendar of crime,' said Stamford with a laugh. 'You might start a paper on those lines. Call it the "Police News of the Past".' 'Very interesting reading it might be made, too,' remarked Sherlock Holmes, sticking a small piece of plaster over the prick on his finger. 'I have to be careful,' he continued, turning to me with a smile, 'for I dabble with poisons a good deal.' He held out his hand as he spoke, and I noticed that it was all mottled over with similar pieces of plaster, and discoloured with strong acids. 'We came here on business,' said Stamford, sitting down on a high three-legged stool, and pushing another one in my direction with his foot. 'My friend here wants to take diggings; and as you were complaining that you could get no one to go halves with you, I thought that I had better bring you together.' Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his rooms with me. 'I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street,' he said, 'which would suit us down to the ground. You don't mind the smell of strong tobacco, I hope?' 'I always smoke "ship's" myself,' I answered. 'That's good enough. I generally have chemicals about, and occasionally do experiments. Would that annoy you?' 'By no means.' 'Let me see – what are my other shortcomings. I get in the dumps at times, and don't open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I'll soon be right. What have you to confess now? It's just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another before they begin to live together.' I laughed at this cross-examination. 'I keep a bull pup,' I said, 'and I object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at all sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of vices when I'm well, but those are the principal ones at present.' 'Do you include violin playing in your category of rows?' he asked, anxiously. 'It depends on the player,' I answered. 'A well-played violin is a treat for the gods – a badly-played one –' 'Oh, that's all right,' he cried, with a merry laugh. 'I think we may consider the thing as settled – that is, if the rooms are agreeable to you.' 'When shall we see them?' 'Call for me here at noon tomorrow, and we'll go together and settle everything,' he answered. 'All right – noon exactly,' said I, shaking his hand. We left him working among his chemicals, and we walked together towards my hotel. 'By the way,' I asked suddenly, stopping and turning upon Stamford, 'how the deuce did he know that I had come from Afghanistan?' My companion smiled an enigmatical smile. 'That's just his little peculiarity,' he said. 'A good many people have wanted to know how he finds things out.' 'Oh! a mystery is it?' I cried, rubbing my hands. 'This is very piquant. I am much obliged to you for bringing us together. "The proper study of mankind is man," you know.' 'You must study him, then,' Stamford said, as he bade me good-bye. 'You'll find him a knotty problem, though. I'll wager he learns more about you than you about him. Good-bye.' 'Good-bye,' I answered, and strolled on to my hotel, considerably interested in my new acquaintance. 2 The Science of Deduction We met next day as he had arranged, and inspected the rooms at No. 221B, Baker Street, of which he had spoken at our meeting. They consisted of a couple of comfortable bedrooms and a single large airy sitting-room, cheerfully furnished, and illuminated by two broad windows. So desirable in every way were the apartments, and so moderate did the terms seem when divided between us, that the bargain was concluded upon the spot, and we at once entered into possession. That very evening I moved my things round from the hotel, and on the following morning Sherlock Holmes followed me with several boxes and portmanteaux. For a day or two we were busily employed in unpacking and laying out our property to the best advantage. That done, we gradually began to settle down and to accommodate ourselves to our new surroundings. Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with. He was quiet in his ways, and his habits were regular. It was rare for him to be up after ten at night, and he had invariably breakfasted and gone out before I rose in the morning. Sometimes he spent his day at the chemical laboratory, sometimes in the dissecting-rooms, and occasionally in long walks, which appeared to take him into the lowest portions of the city. Nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him; but now and again a reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting-room, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night. On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion. As the weeks went by, my interest in him and my curiosity as to his aims in life gradually deepened and increased. His very person and appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual observer. In height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to which I have alluded; and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the prominence and squareness which mark the man of determination. His hands were invariably blotted with ink and stained with chemicals, yet he was possessed of extraordinary delicacy of touch, as I frequently had occasion to observe when I watched him manipulating his fragile philosophical instruments. The reader may set me down as a hopeless busybody, when I confess how much this man stimulated my curiosity, and how often I endeavoured to break through the reticence which he showed on all that concerned himself. Before pronouncing judgement, however, be it remembered how objectless was my life, and how little there was to engage my attention. My health forbade me from venturing out unless the weather was exceptionally genial, and I had no friends who would call upon me and break the monotony of my daily existence. Under these circumstances I eagerly hailed the little mystery which hung around my companion, and spent much of my time in endeavouring to unravel it. He was not studying medicine. He had himself, in reply to a question, confirmed Stamford's opinion in that point. Neither did he appear to have pursued any course of reading which might fit him for a degree in science or any other recognized portal which would give him an entrance into the learned world. Yet his zeal for certain studies was remarkable, and within eccentric limits his knowledge was so extraordinarily ample and minute that his observations have fairly astounded me. Surely no man would work so hard or attain such precise information unless he had some definite end in view. Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning. No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so. His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naïvest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. 'You appear to be astonished,' he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. 'Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.' 'To forget it!' 'You see,' he explained, 'I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.' 'But the Solar System!' I protested. 'What the deuce is it to me?' he interrupted impatiently: 'you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a penny-worth of difference to me or to my work.' I was on the point of asking him what that work might be, but something in his manner showed me that the question would be an unwelcome one. I pondered over our short conversation, however, and endeavoured to draw my deductions from it. He said that he would acquire no knowledge which did not bear upon his object. Therefore all the knowledge which he possessed was such as would be useful to him. I enumerated in my own mind all the various points upon which he had shown me that he was exceptionally well-informed. I even took a pencil and jotted them down. I could not help smiling at the document when I had completed it. It ran in this way: Sherlock Holmes – his limits 1 Knowledge of Literature: Nil. 2 Knowledge of Philosophy: Nil. 3 Knowledge of Astronomy: Nil. 4 Knowledge of Politics: Feeble. 5 Knowledge of Botany: Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening. 6 Knowledge of Geology: Practical, but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them. 7 Knowledge of Chemistry: Profound. 8 Knowledge of Anatomy: Accurate, but unsystematic. 9 Knowledge of Sensational Literature: Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century. 10 Plays the violin well. 11 Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman. 12 Has a good practical knowledge of British law. When I had got so far in my list I threw it into the fire in despair. 'If I can only find what the fellow is driving at by reconciling all these accomplishments, and discovering a calling which needs them all,' I said to myself, 'I may as well give up the attempt at once.' I see that I have alluded above to his powers upon the violin. These were very remarkable, but as eccentric as all his other accomplishments. That he could play pieces, and difficult pieces, I knew well, because at my request he has played me some of Mendelssohn's Lieder, and other favourites. When left to himself, however, he would seldom produce any music or attempt any recognizing air. Leaning back in his arm-chair of an evening, he would close his eyes and scrape carelessly at the fiddle which was thrown across his knee. Sometimes the chords were sonorous and melancholy. Occasionally they were fantastic and cheerful. Clearly they reflected the thoughts which possessed him, but whether the music aided those thoughts, or whether the playing was simply the result of a whim or fancy, was more than I could determine. I might have rebelled against these exasperating solos had it not been that he usually terminated them by playing in quick succession a whole series of my favourite airs as a slight compensation for the trial upon my patience. During the first week or so we had no callers, and I had begun to think that my companion was as friendless a man as I was myself. Presently, however, I found that he had many acquaintances, and those in the most different classes of society. There was one little sallow, rat-faced, dark-eyed fellow, who was introduced to me as Mr Lestrade, and who came three or four times in a single week. One morning a young girl called, fashionably dressed, and stayed for half an hour or more. The same afternoon brought a grey-headed, seedy visitor, looking like a Jew pedlar, who appeared to me to be much excited, and who was closely followed by a slip-shod elderly woman. On another occasion an old white-haired gentleman had an interview with my companion; and on another, a railway porter in his velveteen uniform. When any of these nondescript individuals put in an appearance, Sherlock Holmes used to beg for the use of the sitting-room, and I would retire to my bedroom. He always apologized to me for putting me to this inconvenience. 'I have to use this room as a place of business,' he said, 'and these people are my clients.' Again I had an opportunity of asking him a point-blank question, and again my delicacy prevented me from forcing another man to confide in me. I imagined at the time that he had some strong reason for not alluding to it, but he soon dispelled the idea by coming round to the subject of his accord. It was upon the 4th of March, as I have good reason to remember, that I rose somewhat earlier than usual, and found that Sherlock Holmes had not yet finished his breakfast. The landlady had become so accustomed to my late habits that my place had not been laid nor my coffee prepared. With the unreasonable petulance of mankind I rang the bell and gave a curt intimation that I was ready. Then I picked up a magazine from the table and attempted to while away the time with it, while my companion munched silently at his toast. One of the articles had a pencil mark at the heading, and I naturally began to run my eye through it. Its somewhat ambitious title was 'The Book of Life', and it attempted to show how much an observant man might learn by an accurate and systematic examination of all that came in his way. It struck me as being a remarkable mixture of shrewdness and of absurdity. The reasoning was close and intense, but the deductions appeared to me to be far-fetched and exaggerated. The writer claimed by a momentary expression, a twitch of a muscle or a glance of an eye, to fathom a man's inmost thoughts. Deceit, according to him, was an impossibility in the case of one trained to observation and analysis. His conclusions were as infallible as so many propositions of Euclid. So startling would his results appear to the uninitiated that until they learned the processes by which he had arrived at them they might well consider him as a necromancer. 'From a drop of water,' said the writer, a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other. So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a single link of it. Like all other arts, the Science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can only be acquired by long and patient study, nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest possible perfection in it. Before turning to these moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest difficulties, let the inquirer begin by mastering more elementary problems. Let him on meeting a fellow-mortal, learn at a glance to distinguish the history of the man, and the trade or profession to which he belongs. Puerile as such an exercise may seem, it sharpens the faculties of observation, and teaches one where to look and what to look for. By a man's finger-nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boot, by his trouser-knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his shirt-cuffs – by each of these things a man's calling is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten the competent inquirer in any case is almost inconceivable. 'What ineffable twaddle!' I cried, slapping the magazine down on the table; 'I never read such rubbish in my life.' 'What is it?' asked Sherlock Holmes. 'Why, this article,' I said, pointing at it with my egg-spoon as I sat down to my breakfast. 'I see that you have read it since you have marked it. I don't deny that it is smartly written. It irritates me, though. It is evidently the theory of some armchair lounger who evolves all these neat little paradoxes in the seclusion of his own study. It is not practical. I should like to see him clapped down in a third-class carriage on the Underground, and asked to give the trades of all his fellow-travelers. I would lay a thousand to one against him.' 'You would lose your money,' Holmes remarked calmly. 'As for the article, I wrote it myself.' 'You!' 'Yes; I have a turn both for observation and for deduction. The theories which I have expressed there, and which appear to you to be so chimerical, are really extremely practical – so practical that I depend upon them for my bread and cheese.' 'And how!' I asked involuntarily. 'Well, I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one in the world. I'm a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is. Here in London we have lots of Government detectives and lots of private ones. When these fellows are at fault, they come to me, and I manage to put them on the right scent. They lay all the evidence before me, and I am generally able, by the help of my knowledge of the history of crime, to set them straight. There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds, and if you have all the details of a thousand at your finger ends, it is odd if you can't unravel the thousand and first. Lestrade is a well-known detective. He got himself into a fog recently over a forgery case, and that was what brought him here.' 'And these other people?' 'They are mostly sent on by private inquiry agencies. They are all people who are in trouble about something and want a little enlightenment. I listen to their story, they listen to my comments, and then I pocket my fee.' 'But do you mean to say,' I said, 'that without leaving your room you can unravel some knot which other men can make nothing of, although they have seen every detail for themselves?' 'Quite so. I have a kind of intuition that way. Now and again a case turns up which is a little more complex. Then I have to bustle about and see things with my own eyes. You see I have a lot of special knowledge which I apply to the problem, and which facilitates matters wonderfully. Those rules of deduction laid down in that article which aroused your scorn are invaluable to me in practical work. Observation with me is second nature. You appeared to be surprised when I told you, on our first meeting, that you had come from Afghanistan.' 'You were told, no doubt.' 'Nothing of the sort. I knew you came from Afghanistan. From long habit the train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind that I arrived at the conclusion without being conscious of intermediate steps. There were such steps, however. The train of reasoning ran: "Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of a military man. Clearly an army doctor then. He has just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and that is not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan." The whole train of thought did not occupy a second. I then remarked that you came from Afghanistan, and you were astonished.' 'It is simple enough as you explain it,' I said, smiling. 'You remind me of Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did exist outside of stories.' Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. 'No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin,' he observed. 'Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends' thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour's silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine.' 'Have you read Gaboriau's works?' I asked. 'Does Lecoq come up to your idea of a detective?' Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. 'Lecoq was a miserable bungler,' he said, in an angry voice; 'he had only one thing to recommend him, and that was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The question was how to identify an unknown prisoner. I could have done it in twenty-four hours. Lecoq took six months or so. It might be made a text-book for detectives to teach them what to avoid.' I felt rather indignant at having two characters whom I had admired treated in this cavalier style. I walked over to the window, and stood looking out into the busy street. 'This fellow may be very clever,' I said to myself, 'but he is certainly very conceited.' 'There are no crimes and no criminals in these days,' he said, querulously. 'What is the use of having brains in our profession? I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done. And what is the result? There is no crime to detect, or, at most, some bungling villainy with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland Yard official can see through it.' I was still annoyed at his bumptious style of conversation. I thought it best to change the topic. 'I wonder what that fellow is looking for?' I asked, pointing to a stalwart, plainly-dressed individual who was walking slowly down the other side of the street, looking anxiously at the numbers. He had a large blue envelope in his hand, and was evidently the bearer of a message. 'You mean the retired sergeant of Marines,' said Sherlock Holmes. 'Brag and bounce!' thought I to myself. 'He knows that I cannot verify his guess.' The thought had hardly passed through my mind when the man whom we were watching caught sight of the number on our door, and ran rapidly across the roadway. We heard a loud knock, a deep voice below, and heavy steps ascending the stair. 'For Mr Sherlock Holmes,' he said, stepping into the room and handing my friend the letter. Here was an opportunity of taking the conceit out of him. He little thought of this when he made that random shot. 'May I ask, my lad,' I said, in the blandest voice, 'what your trade may be?' 'Commissionaire, sir,' he said, gruffly. 'Uniform away for repairs.' 'And you were?' I asked, with a slightly malicious glance at my companion. 'A sergeant, sir, Royal Marine Light Infantry, sir. No answer? Right, sir.' He clicked his heels together, raised his hand in a salute, and was gone. 3 The Lauriston Gardens Mystery I confess that I was considerably startled by this fresh proof of the practical nature of my companion's theories. My respect for his powers of analysis increased wondrously. There still remained some lurking suspicion in my mind, however, that the whole thing was a prearranged episode, intended to dazzle me, though what earthly object he could have in taking me in was past my comprehension. When I looked at him, he had finished reading the note, and his eyes had assumed the vacant, lack-lustre expression which showed mental abstraction. 'How in the world did you deduce that?' I asked. 'Deduce what?' said he, petulantly. 'Why, that he was a retired sergeant of Marines.' 'I have no time for trifles,' he answered brusquely. Then with a smile: 'Excuse my rudeness. You broke the thread of my thoughts; but perhaps it is as well. So you actually were not able to see that that man was a sergeant of Marines?' 'No, indeed.' 'It was easier to know it than to explain why I know it. If you were asked to prove that two and two made four, you might find some difficulty, and yet you are quite sure of the fact. Even across the street I could see a great blue anchor tattooed on the back of the fellow's hand. That smacked of the sea. He had a military carriage, however, and regulation side whiskers. There we have the marine. He was a man with some amount of self-importance and a certain air of command. You must have observed the way in which he held his head and swung his cane. A steady, respectable, middle-aged man, too, on the face of him – all facts which led me to believe that he had been a sergeant.' 'Wonderful!' I ejaculated. 'Commonplace,' said Holmes, though I thought from his expression that he was pleased at my evident surprise and admiration. 'I said just now that there were no criminals. It appears that I am wrong – look at this!' He threw me over the note which the commissionaire had brought. 'Why,' I cried, as I cast my eye over it, 'this is terrible!' 'It does seem to be a little out of the common,' he remarked, calmly. 'Would you mind reading it to me aloud?' This is the letter which I read to him: '"My dear Mr Sherlock Holmes, There has been a bad business during the night at 3, Lauriston Gardens, off the Brixton Road. Our man on the beat saw a light there about two in the morning, and as the house was an empty one, suspected that something was amiss. He found the door open, and in the front room, which is bare of furniture, discovered the body of a gentleman, well dressed, and having cards in his pocket bearing the name of 'Enoch J. Drebber, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A.' There had been no robbery, nor is there any evidence as to how the man met his death. There are marks of blood in the room, but there is no wound upon his person. We are at a loss as to how he came into the empty house; indeed the whole affair is a puzzler. If you can come round to the house any time before twelve, you will find me there. I have left everything in statu quo until I hear from you. If you are unable to come, I shall give you fuller details, and would esteem it a great kindness if you would favour me with your opinion. Yours faithfully, TOBIAS GREGSON."' 'Gregson is the smartest of the Scotland Yarders,' my friend remarked; 'he and Lestrade are the pick of a bad lot. They are both quick and energetic, but conventional – shockingly so. They have their knives into one another, too. They are as jealous as a pair of professional beauties. There will be some fun over this case if they are both put upon the scent.' I was amazed at the calm way in which he rippled on. 'Surely there is not a moment to be lost,' I cried; 'shall I go and order you a cab?' 'I'm not sure about whether I shall go. I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather – that is, when the fit is on me, for I can be spry enough at times.' 'Why, it is just such a chance as you have been longing for.' 'My dear fellow, what does it matter to me? Supposing I unravel the whole matter, you may be sure that Gregson, Lestrade, and Co. will pocket all the credit. That comes of being an unofficial personage.' 'But he begs you to help him.' 'Yes. He knows that I am his superior, and acknowledges it to me; but he would cut his tongue out before he would own it to any third person. However, we may as well go and have a look. I shall work it out on my own hook. I may have a laugh at them, if I have nothing else. Come on!' He hustled on his overcoat, and bustled about in a way that showed that an energetic fit had superseded the apathetic one. 'Get your hat,' he said. 'You wish me to come?' 'Yes, if you have nothing better to do.' A minute later we were both in a hansom, driving furiously for the Brixton Road. It was a foggy, cloudy morning, and a dun-coloured veil hung over the house-tops, looking like the reflection of the mud-coloured streets beneath. My companion was in the best of spirits, and prattled away about Cremona fiddles, and the difference between a Stradivarius and an Amati. As for myself, I was silent, for the dull weather and the melancholy business upon which we were engaged, depressed my spirits. 'You don't seem to give much thought to the matter in hand,' I said at last, interrupting Holmes's musical disquisition. 'No data yet,' he answered. 'It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgement.' 'You will have your data soon,' I remarked, pointing with my finger; 'this is the Brixton Road, and that is the house, if I am not very much mistaken.' 'So it is. Stop, driver, stop!' We were still a hundred yards or so from it, but he insisted upon our alighting, and we finished our journey upon foot. Number 3, Lauriston Gardens, wore an ill-omened and minatory look. It was one of four which stood back some little way from the street, two being occupied and two empty. The latter looked out with three tiers of vacant melancholy windows, which were blank and dreary, save that here and there a 'To Let' card had developed like a cataract upon the bleared panes. A small garden sprinkled over with a scattered eruption of sickly plants separated each of these houses from the street, and was traversed by a narrow pathway, yellowish in colour, and consisting apparently of a mixture of clay and gravel. The whole place was very sloppy from the rain which had fallen through the night. The garden was bounded by a three-foot brick wall with a fringe of wood rails upon the top, and against this wall was leaning a stalwart police constable, surrounded by a small knot of loafers, who craned their necks and strained their eyes in the vain hope of catching some glimpse of the proceedings within. I had imagined that Sherlock Holmes would at once have hurried into the house and plunged into a study of the mystery. Nothing appeared to be further from his intention. With an air of nonchalance which, under the circumstances, seemed to me to border upon affectation, he lounged up and down the pavement, and gazed vacantly at the ground, the sky, the opposite houses and the line of railings. Having finished his scrutiny, he proceeded slowly down the path, or rather down the fringe of grass which flanked the path, keeping his eyes riveted upon the ground. Twice he stopped and once I saw him smile, and heard him utter an exclamation of satisfaction. There were many marks of footsteps upon the wet clayey soil; but since the police had been coming and going over it, I was unable to see how my companion could hope to learn anything from it. Still, I had had such extraordinary evidence of the quickness of his perceptive faculties, that I had no doubt that he could see a great deal which was hidden from me. At the door of the house we were met by a tall, white-faced, flaxen-haired man, with a notebook in his hand, who rushed forward and wrung my companion's hand with effusion. 'It is indeed kind of you to come,' he said, 'I have had everything left untouched.' 'Except that!' my friend answered, pointing at the pathway. 'If a herd of buffaloes had passed along there could not be a greater mess. No doubt, however, you had drawn your own conclusions, Gregson, before you permitted this.' 'I have had so much to do inside the house,' the detective said evasively. 'My colleague, Mr Lestrade, is here. I had relied upon him to look after this.' Holmes glanced at me and raised his eyebrows sardonically. 'With two such men as yourself and Lestrade upon the ground, there will not be much for a third party to find out,' he said. Gregson rubbed his hands in a self-satisfied way. 'I think we have done all that can be done,' he answered; 'it's a queer case though, and I knew your taste for such things.' 'You did not come here in a cab?' asked Sherlock Holmes. 'No, sir.' 'Nor Lestrade?' 'No, sir.' 'Then let us go and look at the room.' With which inconsequent remark he strode on into the house, followed by Gregson, whose features expressed his astonishment. A short passage, bare-planked and dusty, led to the kitchen and offices. Two doors opened out of it to the left and to the right. One of these had obviously been closed for many weeks. The other belonged to the dining-room, which was the apartment in which the mysterious affair had occurred. Holmes walked in, and I followed him with that subdued feeling at my heart which the presence of death inspires. It was a large square room, looking all the larger from the absence of all furniture. A vulgar flaring paper adorned the walls, but it was blotched in places with mildew, and here and there great strips had become detached and hung down, exposing the yellow plaster beneath. Opposite the door was a showy fireplace, surmounted by a mantelpiece of imitation white marble. On one corner of this was stuck the stump of a red wax candle. The solitary window was so dirty that the light was hazy and uncertain, giving a dull grey tinge to everything, which was intensified by the thick layer of dust which coated the whole apartment. All these details I observed afterwards. At present my attention was centred upon the single, grim, motionless figure which lay stretched upon the boards, with vacant, sightless eyes staring up at the discoloured ceiling. It was that of a man about forty-three or forty-four years of age, middle-sized, broad-shouldered, with crisp curling black hair, and a short, stubbly beard. He was dressed in a heavy broadcloth frock coat and waistcoat, with light-coloured trousers, and immaculate collar and cuffs. A top hat, well brushed and trim, was placed upon the floor beside him. His hands were clenched and his arms thrown abroad, while his lower limbs were interlocked, as though his death struggle had been a grievous one. On his rigid face there stood an expression of horror, and, as it seemed to me, of hatred, such as I have never seen upon human features. This malignant and terrible contortion, combined with the low forehead, blunt nose, and prognathous jaw, gave the dead man a singularly simious and ape-like appearance, which was increased by his writhing, unnatural posture. I have seen death in many forms, but never has it appeared to me in a more fearsome aspect than in that dark, grimy apartment, which looked out upon one of the main arteries of suburban London. Lestrade, lean and ferret-like as ever, was standing by the doorway, and greeted my companion and myself. 'This case will make a stir, sir,' he remarked. 'It beats anything I have seen, and I am no chicken.' 'There is no clue?' said Gregson. 'None at all,' chimed in Lestrade. Sherlock Holmes appr