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THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES
Arthur Conan Doyle
Table of contents
A Study In Scarlet
The Sign of the Four
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
A Scandal in Bohemia
The Red-Headed League
A Case of Identity
The Boscombe Valley Mystery
The Five Orange Pips
The Man with the Twisted Lip
The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
The Adventure of the Speckled Band
The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb
The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor
The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet
The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
Silver Blaze
The Yellow Face
The Stock-Broker's Clerk
The "Gloria Scott"
The Musgrave Ritual
The Reigate Puzzle
The Crooked Man
The Resident Patient
The Greek Interpreter
The Naval Treaty
The Final Problem
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
The Adventure of the Empty House
The Adventure of the Norwood Builder
The Adventure of the Dancing Men
The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist
The Adventure of the Priory School
The Adventure of Black Peter
The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton
The Adventure of the Six Napoleons
The Adventure of the Three Students
The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez
The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter
The Adventure of the Abbey Grange
The Adventure of the Second Stain
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Valley Of Fear
His Last Bow
Preface
The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge
The Adventure of the Cardboard Box
The Adventure of the Red Circle
The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
The Adventure of the Dying Detective
The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax
The Adventure of the Devil's Foot
His Last Bow
The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
Preface
The Illustrious Client
The Blanched Soldier
The Adventure Of The Mazarin Stone
The Adventure of the Three Gables
The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire
The Adventure of the Three Garridebs
The Problem of Thor Bridge
The Adventure of the Creeping Man
The Adventure of the Lion's Mane
The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger
The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place
The Adventure of the Retired Colourman
A STUDY IN SCARLET
Table of contents
Part I
Mr. Sherlock Holmes
The Science Of Deduction
The Lauriston Garden Mystery
What John Rance Had To Tell
Our Advertisement Brings A Visitor
Tobias Gregson Shows What He Can Do
Light In The Darkness
Part II
On The Great Alkali Plain
The Flower Of Utah
John Ferrier Talks With The Prophet
A Flight For Life
The Avenging Angels
A Continuation Of The Reminiscences Of John Watson, M.D.
The Conclusion
PART I
(Being a reprint from the reminiscences of
John H. Watson, M.D.,
late of the Army Medical Department.)
CHAPTER I
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 some one 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 to-day 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 wine-glass.
"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 to night. If you like, we shall 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 further 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
