there, and everywhere, feeling, pressing, unbuttoning, examining, while his eyes wore the same faraway expression which I have already remarked upon. So swiftly was the examination made, that one would hardly have guessed the minuteness with which it was conducted. Finally, he sniffed the dead man’s lips, and then glanced at the soles of his patent leather boots.”“I have not had time to examine this room yet, but with your permission I shall do so now.” As we spoke, 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 backward and forward through the convert, whining in its eagerness, until it comes across the lost scent. For twenty minutes or more he continued his researches, measuring with the most exact care the distance between marks which were entirely invisible to me, and occasionally applying his tape to the walls in an even an equally incomprehensible manner. In one place he gathered up very carefully a little pile of gray dust from the floor, and packed away in an envelope. Finally he examined with his glass the word upon the wall, going over every letter of it with the most minute exactness. This done, he appeared to be satisfied, for he replaced the tape and his glass in his pocket.Watson’s Questions“My head is in a whirl,” I remarked; “the more one thinks of it the more mysterious it grows. How came these two men—if there were two men—into an empty house? What became of the cabman who drove them? How could one man compel another to take poison? Where did the blood come from? What was the object of the murderer, since robbery had no part in it? How came the woman’s ring there? Above all, why should the second man write up the German word RACHE before decamping?”Holmes’ Analysis and Deduction of the Criminal:“There has been murder done, and the murderer was a man. He was more than six foot high, was in the prime of his life, had small feet for his height, wore coarse, square-toed boots and smoked a Trichinopoly cigar. He came here with his victim in a four-wheeler cab, which was drawn by a horse with three old shoes and one new one on his off fore-leg. In all probability the murderer had a florid face, and the finger-nails of his right hand were remarkably long.“Now, up to last night, we have had no rain for a week, so that those wheels which left such a deep impression must have been there during the night. There were the marks of the horse’s hoofs, too, the outline of one of which was far more clearly cut than that of the other three, showing that that was a new shoe. Since the cab was there after the rain began, and was not there at any time during the morning it follows that it must have been there during the night, and therefore, that it brought those two individuals to the house.”“That seems quite simple enough,” said I; “but how about the other man’s height?”“Why, the height of a man, in nine cases out of ten, can be told from the length of his stride. It is a simple calculation enough, though there is no reason for my boring you with figures. I had this fellow’s stride both on the clay outside and on the dust within. Then I had a way of checking my calculations. When a man writes on a wall, his instinct leads him to write above the level of his eyes. Now that writing was just over six feet from the ground. It was child’s play.”“And his age?” I asked.“Well, if a man can stride four and a half feet without the smallest effort, he can’t be quite in the spry and yellow. That was the breath of a puddle on the garden walk which he had evidently walked across. Patent-leather boots had gone round, and Square-toes had hopped over. There is no mystery about it at all. I am simply applying to ordinary life a few of those precepts of observation and deduction which I advocated in that article. Is there anything else that puzzles you?”“The finger-nails in the Trichinopoly,” I suggested.“The writing on the wall was done with a man’s forefinger dipped in blood. My glass allowed me to observe that the plaster was slightly scratched in doing it, which would not have been the case if the man’s nail had been trimmed. I gathered up some scattered ash from the floor. It was dark in colour and flaky—such an ash is only made by Trichinopoly. I made a special study of cigar ashes—in fact, I have written a monograph upon the subject. I flatter myself that I can distinguish at a glance the ash of any known brand either of cigar or of tobacco. It is just in such details that the skilled detective differs from the Gregson and Lestrade type.”“And the florid-face?” I asked.“Ah, that was a more daring shot, though I have no doubt that I was right. You must not ask me that at the present state of the affair.”
NotesKnown as the “Brixton Mystery” in the newspapers.
The Sign of Four
The Problem of the Sholtos
Publication & Dates:Lippincott’s Magazine, London & Philadelphia (serialized in nine parts) February 1890Book form October 1890Illustrations: Charles H.M. KerrConan Doyle’s 2nd storyHolmes 19th case
Story Introduction:Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel, 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 armchair 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, for 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 of his many extraordinary qualities, all made me different 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 today,” 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 least 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 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
