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 to 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 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’s 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 ‘ships’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 then?”“Call for me here at noon to-morrow, 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 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.12:00 Next dayWe met the next day as he had arranged and inspected the rooms at no. 221b, of which we 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 portmanteaus. 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.“Well, I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one in the world. I am a consulting detective.”Case Information
Date:4th of March
Duration:3 Days“I was able to lay my hands on the criminal within three days.”
Crime:Murder. Poisoned & Stabbed
Client:Tobias Gregson, Scotland Yard Inspector
Victims:Enoch J. Drebber, Poisoned, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A. Wealthy son of one of the four Principal Elders of the Mormon Church. “There has been no robbery, nor is there any evidence as to how the man met his death. There were marks of blood in the room, but there is no wound upon his person.”-----” “A 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, stubby 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 the 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.”“I closed my eyes. I saw before me the distorted, baboon-like countenance of the murdered man. So sinister was the impression which that face had produced upon me that I found it difficult to feel anything but gratitude for him who had removed its owner from the world. If ever human features bespoke vice of the most malignant type, they were certainly those of Enoch J. Drebber.”“He was coarse in his habits and brutish in his ways.”— “He became very much the worse for drink, and, indeed after twelve o’clock in the day he could hardly ever be
