第 一 章 · 第1章

The Science of Deduction

Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel-piece and

his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long,

white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back

his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully

upon the sinewy forearm and wrist all dotted and scarred with

innumerable puncture-marks. Finally he thrust the sharp point home,

pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-lined

arm-chair with a long sigh of satisfaction.

Three times a day for many months I had witnessed this performance, but

custom had not reconciled my mind to it. On the contrary, from day to

day I had become more irritable at the sight, and my conscience swelled

nightly within me at the thought that I had lacked the courage to

protest. Again and again I had registered a vow that I should deliver

my soul upon the subject, but there was that in the cool, nonchalant

air of my companion which made him the last man with whom one would

care to take anything approaching to a liberty. His great powers, his

masterly manner, and the experience which I had had of his many

extraordinary qualities, all made me diffident and backward in crossing

him.

Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the Beaune which I had taken

with my lunch, or the additional exasperation produced by the extreme

deliberation of his manner, I suddenly felt that I could hold out no

longer.

“Which is it to-day?” I asked,—“morphine or cocaine?”

He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he

had opened. “It is cocaine,” he said,—“a seven-per-cent. solution.

Would you care to try it?”

“No, indeed,” I answered, brusquely. “My constitution has not got over

the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon

it.”

He smiled at my vehemence. “Perhaps you are right, Watson,” he said. “I

suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however,

so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that its

secondary action is a matter of small moment.”

“But consider!” I said, earnestly. “Count the cost! Your brain may, as

you say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and morbid

process, which involves increased tissue-change and may at last leave a

permanent weakness. You know, too, what a black reaction comes upon

you. Surely the game is hardly worth the candle. Why should you, for a

mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great powers with which

you have been endowed? Remember that I speak not only as one comrade to

another, but as a medical man to one for whose constitution he is to

some extent answerable.”

He did not seem offended. On the contrary, he put his finger-tips

together and leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair, like one who

has a relish for conversation.

“My mind,” he said, “rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me

work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate

analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then

with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence.

I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own

particular profession,—or rather created it, for I am the only one in

the world.”

“The only unofficial detective?” I said, raising my eyebrows.

“The only unofficial consulting detective,” he answered. “I am the last

and highest court of appeal in detection. When Gregson or Lestrade or

Athelney Jones are out of their depths—which, by the way, is their

normal state—the matter is laid before me. I examine the data, as an

expert, and pronounce a specialist’s opinion. I claim no credit in such

cases. My name figures in no newspaper. The work itself, the pleasure

of finding a field for my peculiar powers, is my highest reward. But

you have yourself had some experience of my methods of work in the

Jefferson Hope case.”

“Yes, indeed,” said I, cordially. “I was never so struck by anything in

my life. I even embodied it in a small brochure with the somewhat

fantastic title of ‘A Study in Scarlet.’”

He shook his head sadly. “I glanced over it,” said he. “Honestly, I

cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact

science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner.

You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much

the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the

fifth proposition of Euclid.”

“But the romance was there,” I remonstrated. “I could not tamper with

the facts.”

“Some facts should be suppressed, or at least a just sense of

proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in the

case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from

effects to causes by which I succeeded in unraveling it.”

I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially

designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was irritated by the

egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should be

devoted to his own special doings. More than once during the years that

I had lived with him in Baker Street I had observed that a small vanity

underlay my companion’s quiet and didactic manner. I made no remark,

however, but sat nursing my wounded leg. I had a Jezail bullet through

it some time before, and, though it did not prevent me from walking, it

ached wearily at every change of the weather.

“My practice has extended recently to the Continent,” said Holmes,

after a while, filling up his old brier-root pipe. “I was consulted

last week by François Le Villard, who, as you probably know, has come

rather to the front lately in the French detective service. He has all

the Celtic power of quick intuition, but he is deficient in the wide

range of exact knowledge which is essential to the higher developments

of his art. The case was concerned with a will, and possessed some

features of interest. I was able to refer him to two parallel cases,

the one at Riga in 1857, and the other at St. Louis in 1871, which have

suggested to him the true solution. Here is the letter which I had this

morning acknowledging my assistance.” He tossed over, as he spoke, a

crumpled sheet of foreign notepaper. I glanced my eyes down it,

catching a profusion of notes of admiration, with stray “magnifiques,”

“coup-de-maîtres,” and “tours-de-force,” all testifying to the ardent

admiration of the Frenchman.

“He speaks as a pupil to his master,” said I.

“Oh, he rates my assistance too highly,” said Sherlock Holmes, lightly.

“He has considerable gifts himself. He possesses two out of the three

qualities necessary for the ideal detective. He has the power of

observation and that of deduction. He is only wanting in knowledge; and

that may come in time. He is now translating my small works into

French.”

“Your works?”

“Oh, didn’t you know?” he cried, laughing. “Yes, I have been guilty of

several monographs. They are all upon technical subjects. Here, for

example, is one ‘Upon the Distinction between the Ashes of the Various

Tobaccoes.’ In it I enumerate a hundred and forty forms of cigar-,

cigarette-, and pipe-tobacco, with coloured plates illustrating the

difference in the ash. It is a point which is continually turning up in

criminal trials, and which is sometimes of supreme importance as a

clue. If you can say definitely, for example, that some murder has been

done by a man who was smoking an Indian lunkah, it obviously narrows

your field of search. To the trained eye there is as much difference

between the black ash of a Trichinopoly and the white fluff of

bird’s-eye as there is between a cabbage and a potato.”

“You have an extraordinary genius for minutiæ,” I remarked.

“I appreciate their importance. Here is my monograph upon the tracing

of footsteps, with some remarks upon the uses of plaster of Paris as a

preserver of impresses. Here, too, is a curious little work upon the

influence of a trade upon the form of the hand, with lithotypes of the

hands of slaters, sailors, corkcutters, compositors, weavers, and

diamond-polishers. That is a matter of great practical interest to the

scientific detective,—especially in cases of unclaimed bodies, or in

discovering the antecedents of criminals. But I weary you with my

hobby.”

“Not at all,” I answered, earnestly. “It is of the greatest interest to

me, especially since I have had the opportunity of observing your

practical application of it. But you spoke just now of observation and

deduction. Surely the one to some extent implies the other.”

“Why, hardly,” he answered, leaning back luxuriously in his arm-chair,

and sending up thick blue wreaths from his pipe. “For example,

observation shows me that you have been to the Wigmore Street

Post-Office this morning, but deduction lets me know that when there

you dispatched a telegram.”

“Right!” said I. “Right on both points! But I confess that I don’t see

how you arrived at it. It was a sudden impulse upon my part, and I have

mentioned it to no one.”

“It is simplicity itself,” he remarked, chuckling at my surprise,—“so

absurdly simple that an explanation is superfluous; and yet it may

serve to define the limits of observation and of deduction. Observation

tells me that you have a little reddish mould adhering to your instep.

Just opposite the Wigmore Street Office they have taken up the pavement

and thrown up some earth which lies in such a way that it is difficult

to avoid treading in it in entering. The earth is of this peculiar

reddish tint which is found, as far as I know, nowhere else in the

neighbourhood. So much is observation. The rest is deduction.”

“How, then, did you deduce the telegram?”

“Why, of course I knew that you had not written a letter, since I sat

opposite to you all morning. I see also in your open desk there that

you have a sheet of stamps and a thick bundle of post-cards. What could

you go into the post-office for, then, but to send a wire? Eliminate

all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.”

“In this case it certainly is so,” I replied, after a little thought.

“The thing, however, is, as you say, of the simplest. Would you think

me impertinent if I were to put your theories to a more severe test?”

“On the contrary,” he answered, “it would prevent me from taking a

second dose of cocaine. I should be delighted to look into any problem

which you might submit to me.”

“I have heard you say that it is difficult for a man to have any object

in daily use without leaving the impress of his individuality upon it

in such a way that a trained observer might read it. Now, I have here a

watch which has recently come into my possession. Would you have the

kindness to let me have an opinion upon the character or habits of the

late owner?”

I handed him over the watch with some slight feeling of amusement in my

heart, for the test was, as I thought, an impossible one, and I

intended it as a lesson against the somewhat dogmatic tone which he

occasionally assumed. He balanced the watch in his hand, gazed hard at

the dial, opened the back, and examined the works, first with his naked

eyes and then with a powerful convex lens. I could hardly keep from

smiling at his crestfallen face when he finally snapped the case to and

handed it back.

“There are hardly any data,” he remarked. “The watch has been recently

cleaned, which robs me of my most suggestive facts.”

“You are right,” I answered. “It was cleaned before being sent to me.”

In my heart I accused my companion of putting forward a most lame and

impotent excuse to cover his failure. What data could he expect from an

uncleaned watch?

“Though unsatisfactory, my research has not been entirely barren,” he

observed, staring up at the ceiling with dreamy, lack-lustre eyes.

“Subject to your correction, I should judge that the watch belonged to

your elder brother, who inherited it from your father.”

“That you gather, no doubt, from the H. W. upon the back?”

“Quite so. The W. suggests your own name. The date of the watch is

nearly fifty years back, and the initials are as old as the watch: so

it was made for the last generation. Jewelry usually descends to the

eldest son, and he is most likely to have the same name as the father.

Your father has, if I remember right, been dead many years. It has,

therefore, been in the hands of your eldest brother.”

“Right, so far,” said I. “Anything else?”

“He was a man of untidy habits,—very untidy and careless. He was left

with good prospects, but he threw away his chances, lived for some time

in poverty with occasional short intervals of prosperity, and finally,

taking to drink, he died. That is all I can gather.”

I sprang from my chair and limped impatiently about the room with

considerable bitterness in my heart.

“This is unworthy of you, Holmes,” I said. “I could not have believed

that you would have descended to this. You have made inquires into the

history of my unhappy brother, and you now pretend to deduce this

knowledge in some fanciful way. You cannot expect me to believe that

you have read all this from his old watch! It is unkind, and, to speak

plainly, has a touch of charlatanism in it.”

“My dear doctor,” said he, kindly, “pray accept my apologies. Viewing

the matter as an abstract problem, I had forgotten how personal and

painful a thing it might be to you. I assure you, however, that I never

even knew that you had a brother until you handed me the watch.”

“Then how in the name of all that is wonderful did you get these facts?

They are absolutely correct in every particular.”

“Ah, that is good luck. I could only say what was the balance of

probability. I did not at all expect to be so accurate.”

“But it was not mere guess-work?”

“No, no: I never guess. It is a shocking habit,—destructive to the

logical faculty. What seems strange to you is only so because you do

not follow my train of thought or observe the small facts upon which

large inferences may depend. For example, I began by stating that your

brother was careless. When you observe the lower part of that

watch-case you notice that it is not only dinted in two places, but it

is cut and marked all over from the habit of keeping other hard

objects, such as coins or keys, in the same pocket. Surely it is no

great feat to assume that a man who treats a fifty-guinea watch so

cavalierly must be a careless man. Neither is it a very far-fetched

inference that a man who inherits one article of such value is pretty

well provided for in other respects.”

I nodded, to show that I followed his reasoning.

“It is very customary for pawnbrokers in England, when they take a

watch, to scratch the number of the ticket with a pin-point upon the

inside of the case. It is more handy than a label, as there is no risk

of the number being lost or transposed. There are no less than four

such numbers visible to my lens on the inside of this case.

Inference,—that your brother was often at low water. Secondary

inference,—that he had occasional bursts of prosperity, or he could not

have redeemed the pledge. Finally, I ask you to look at the inner

plate, which contains the key-hole. Look at the thousands of scratches

all round the hole,—marks where the key has slipped. What sober man’s

key could have scored those grooves? But you will never see a

drunkard’s watch without them. He winds it at night, and he leaves

these traces of his unsteady hand. Where is the mystery in all this?”

“It is as clear as daylight,” I answered. “I regret the injustice which

I did you. I should have had more faith in your marvellous faculty. May

I ask whether you have any professional inquiry on foot at present?”

“None. Hence the cocaine. I cannot live without brain-work. What else

is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary,

dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the

street and drifts across the dun-coloured houses. What could be more

hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers,

doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them? Crime is

commonplace, existence is commonplace, and no qualities save those

which are commonplace have any function upon earth.”

I had opened my mouth to reply to this tirade, when with a crisp knock

our landlady entered, bearing a card upon the brass salver.

“A young lady for you, sir,” she said, addressing my companion.

“Miss Mary Morstan,” he read. “Hum! I have no recollection of the name.

Ask the young lady to step up, Mrs. Hudson. Don’t go, doctor. I should

prefer that you remain.”