"I think," said I, following as far as I could the methods of my
companion, "that Dr. Mortimer is a successful, elderly medical man,
well-esteemed since those who know him give him this mark of their
appreciation."
"Good!" said Holmes. "Excellent!"
"I think also that the probability is in favour of his being a
country practitioner who does a great deal of his visiting on foot."
"Why so?"
"Because this stick, though originally a very handsome one has been
so knocked about that I can hardly imagine a town practitioner
carrying it. The thick-iron ferrule is worn down, so it is evident
that he has done a great amount of walking with it."
"Perfectly sound!" said Holmes.
"And then again, there is the 'friends of the C.C.H.' I should guess
that to be the Something Hunt, the local hunt to whose members he has
possibly given some surgical assistance, and which has made him a
small presentation in return."
"Really, Watson, you excel yourself," said Holmes, pushing back his
chair and lighting a cigarette. "I am bound to say that in all the
accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own small
achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. It
may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of
light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power
of stimulating it. I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in
your debt."
He had never said as much before, and I must admit that his words
gave me keen pleasure, for I had often been piqued by his
indifference to my admiration and to the attempts which I had made to
give publicity to his methods. I was proud, too, to think that I had
so far mastered his system as to apply it in a way which earned his
approval. He now took the stick from my hands and examined it for a
few minutes with his naked eyes. Then with an expression of interest
he laid down his cigarette, and carrying the cane to the window, he
looked over it again with a convex lens.
"Interesting, though elementary," said he as he returned to his
favourite corner of the settee. "There are certainly one or two
indications upon the stick. It gives us the basis for several
deductions."
"Has anything escaped me?" I asked with some self-importance. "I
trust that there is nothing of consequence which I have overlooked?"
"I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your conclusions were
erroneous. When I said that you stimulated me I meant, to be frank,
that in noting your fallacies I was occasionally guided towards the
truth. Not that you are entirely wrong in this instance. The man is
certainly a country practitioner. And he walks a good deal."
"Then I was right."
"To that extent."
"But that was all."
"No, no, my dear Watson, not all--by no means all. I would suggest,
for example, that a presentation to a doctor is more likely to come
from a hospital than from a hunt, and that when the initials 'C.C.'
are placed before that hospital the words 'Charing Cross' very
naturally suggest themselves."
"You may be right."
"The probability lies in that direction. And if we take this as a
working hypothesis we have a fresh basis from which to start our
construction of this unknown visitor."
"Well, then, supposing that 'C.C.H.' does stand for 'Charing Cross
Hospital,' what further inferences may we draw?"
"Do none suggest themselves? You know my methods. Apply them!"
"I can only think of the obvious conclusion that the man has
practised in town before going to the country."
"I think that we might venture a little farther than this. Look at it
in this light. On what occasion would it be most probable that such a
presentation would be made? When would his friends unite to give him
a pledge of their good will? Obviously at the moment when Dr.
Mortimer withdrew from the service of the hospital in order to start
in practice for himself. We know there has been a presentation. We
believe there has been a change from a town hospital to a country
practice. Is it, then, stretching our inference too far to say that
the presentation was on the occasion of the change?"
"It certainly seems probable."
"Now, you will observe that he could not have been on the staff of
the hospital, since only a man well-established in a London practice
could hold such a position, and such a one would not drift into the
country. What was he, then? If he was in the hospital and yet not on
the staff he could only have been a house-surgeon or a
house-physician--little more than a senior student. And he left five
years ago--the date is on the stick. So your grave, middle-aged
family practitioner vanishes into thin air, my dear Watson, and there
emerges a young fellow under thirty, amiable, unambitious,
absent-minded, and the possessor of a favourite dog, which I should
describe roughly as being larger than a terrier and smaller than a
mastiff."
I laughed incredulously as Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his settee
and blew little wavering rings of smoke up to the ceiling.
"As to the latter part, I have no means of checking you," said I,
"but at least it is not difficult to find out a few particulars about
the man's age and professional career." From my small medical shelf I
took down the Medical Directory and turned up the name. There were
several Mortimers, but only one who could be our visitor. I read his
record aloud.
"Mortimer, James, M.R.C.S., 1882, Grimpen, Dartmoor, Devon.
House-surgeon, from 1882 to 1884, at Charing Cross Hospital. Winner
of the Jackson prize for Comparative Pathology, with essay entitled
'Is Disease a Reversion?' Corresponding member of the Swedish
Pathological Society. Author of 'Some Freaks of Atavism' (Lancet
1882). 'Do We Progress?' (Journal of Psychology, March, 1883).
Medical Officer for the parishes of Grimpen, Thorsley, and High
Barrow."
"No mention of that local hunt, Watson," said Holmes with a
mischievous smile, "but a country doctor, as you very astutely
observed. I think that I am fairly justified in my inferences. As to
the adjectives, I said, if I remember right, amiable, unambitious,
and absent-minded. It is my experience that it is only an amiable man
in this world who receives testimonials, only an unambitious one who
abandons a London career for the country, and only an absent-minded
one who leaves his stick and not his visiting-card after waiting an
hour in your room."
"And the dog?"
"Has been in the habit of carrying this stick behind his master.
Being a heavy stick the dog has held it tightly by the middle, and
the marks of his teeth are very plainly visible. The dog's jaw, as
shown in the space between these marks, is too broad in my opinion
for a terrier and not broad enough for a mastiff. It may have
been--yes, by Jove, it is a curly-haired spaniel."
He had risen and paced the room as he spoke. Now he halted in the
recess of the window. There was such a ring of conviction in his
voice that I glanced up in surprise.
"My dear fellow, how can you possibly be so sure of that?"
"For the very simple reason that I see the dog himself on our very
door-step, and there is the ring of its owner. Don't move, I beg you,
Watson. He is a professional brother of yours, and your presence may
be of assistance to me. Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson,
when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life,
and you know not whether for good or ill. What does Dr. James
Mortimer, the man of science, ask of Sherlock Holmes, the specialist
in crime? Come in!"
The appearance of our visitor was a surprise to me, since I had
expected a typical country practitioner. He was a very tall, thin
man, with a long nose like a beak, which jutted out between two keen,
gray eyes, set closely together and sparkling brightly from behind a
pair of gold-rimmed glasses. He was clad in a professional but rather
slovenly fashion, for his frock-coat was dingy and his trousers
frayed. Though young, his long back was already bowed, and he walked
with a forward thrust of his head and a general air of peering
benevolence. As he entered his eyes fell upon the stick in Holmes's
hand, and he ran towards it with an exclamation of joy. "I am so very
glad," said he. "I was not sure whether I had left it here or in the
Shipping Office. I would not lose that stick for the world."
"A presentation, I see," said Holmes.
"Yes, sir."
"From Charing Cross Hospital?"
"From one or two friends there on the occasion of my marriage."
"Dear, dear, that's bad!" said Holmes, shaking his head.
Dr. Mortimer blinked through his glasses in mild astonishment.
"Why was it bad?"
"Only that you have disarranged our little deductions. Your marriage,
you say?"
"Yes, sir. I married, and so left the hospital, and with it all hopes
of a consulting practice. It was necessary to make a home of my own."
"Come, come, we are not so far wrong, after all," said Holmes. "And
now, Dr. James Mortimer--"
"Mister, sir, Mister--a humble M.R.C.S."
"And a man of precise mind, evidently."
"A dabbler in science, Mr. Holmes, a picker up of shells on the
shores of the great unknown ocean. I presume that it is Mr. Sherlock
Holmes whom I am addressing and not--"
"No, this is my friend Dr. Watson."
"Glad to meet you, sir. I have heard your name mentioned in
connection with that of your friend. You interest me very much, Mr.
Holmes. I had hardly expected so dolichocephalic a skull or such
well-marked supra-orbital development. Would you have any objection
to my running my finger along your parietal fissure? A cast of your
skull, sir, until the original is available, would be an ornament to
any anthropological museum. It is not my intention to be fulsome, but
I confess that I covet your skull."
Sherlock Holmes waved our strange visitor into a chair. "You are an
enthusiast in your line of thought, I perceive, sir, as I am in
mine," said he. "I observe from your forefinger that you make your
own cigarettes. Have no hesitation in lighting one."
The man drew out paper and tobacco and twirled the one up in the
other with surprising dexterity. He had long, quivering fingers as
agile and restless as the antennae of an insect.
Holmes was silent, but his little darting glances showed me the
interest which he took in our curious companion.
"I presume, sir," said he at last, "that it was not merely for the
purpose of examining my skull that you have done me the honour to
call here last night and again to-day?"
"No, sir, no; though I am happy to have had the opportunity of doing
that as well. I came to you, Mr. Holmes, because I recognized that I
am myself an unpractical man and because I am suddenly confronted
with a most serious and extraordinary problem. Recognizing, as I do,
that you are the second highest expert in Europe--"
"Indeed, sir! May I inquire who has the honour to be the first?"
asked Holmes with some asperity.
"To the man of precisely scientific mind the work of Monsieur
Bertillon must always appeal strongly."
"Then had you not better consult him?"
"I said, sir, to the precisely scientific mind. But as a practical
man of affairs it is acknowledged that you stand alone. I trust, sir,
that I have not inadvertently--"
"Just a little," said Holmes. "I think, Dr. Mortimer, you would do
wisely if without more ado you would kindly tell me plainly what the
exact nature of the problem is in which you demand my assistance."
CHAPTER II
The Curse of the Baskervilles
"I have in my pocket a manuscript," said Dr. James Mortimer.
"I observed it as you entered the room," said Holmes.
"It is an old manuscript."
"Early eighteenth century, unless it is a forgery."
"How can you say that, sir?"
"You have presented an inch or two of it to my examination all the
time that you have been talking. It would be a poor expert who could
not give the date of a document within a decade or so. You may
possibly have read my little monograph upon the subject. I put that
at 1730."
"The exact date is 1742." Dr. Mortimer drew it from his
breast-pocket. "This family paper was committed to my care by Sir
Charles Baskerville, whose sudden and tragic death some three months
ago created so much excitement in Devonshire. I may say that I was
his personal friend as well as his medical attendant. He was a
strong-minded man, sir, shrewd, practical, and as unimaginative as I
