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 armchair,
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 Seymour 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 neighborhood. 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 postcards. 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 descents 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 know 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 duncolored 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."
CHAPTER II
The Statement of the Case
Miss Morstan entered the room with a firm step and an outward
composure of manner. She was a blonde young lady, small, dainty, well
gloved, and dressed in the most perfect taste. There was, however, a
plainness and simplicity about her costume which bore with it a
suggestion of limited means. The dress was a sombre grayish beige,
untrimmed and unbraided, and she wore a small turban of the same dull
hue, relieved only by a suspicion of white feather in the side. Her
face had neither regularity of feature nor beauty of complexion, but
her expression was sweet and amiable, and her large blue eyes were
singularly spiritual and sympathetic. In an experience of women which
extends over many nations and three separate continents, I have never
looked upon a face which gave a clearer promise of a refined and
sensitive nature. I could not but observe that as she took the seat
which Sherlock Holmes placed for her, her lip trembled, her hand
quivered, and she showed every sign of intense inward agitation.
"I have come to you, Mr. Holmes," she said, "because you once enabled
my employer, Mrs. Cecil Forrester, to unravel a little domestic
complication. She was much impressed by your kindness and skill."
"Mrs. Cecil Forrester," he repeated thoughtfully. "I believe that I
was of some slight service to her. The case, however, as I remember
it, was a very simple one."
"She did not think so. But at least you cannot say the same of mine.
I can hardly imagine anything more strange, more utterly
inexplicable, than the situation in which I find myself."
Holmes rubbed his hands, and his eyes glistened. He leaned forward in
his chair with an expression of extraordinary concentration upon his
clear-cut, hawklike features. "State your case," said he, in brisk,
business tones.
I felt that my position was an embarrassing one. "You will, I am
sure, excuse me," I said, rising from my chair.
To my surprise, the young lady held up her gloved hand to detain me.
"If your friend," she said, "would be good enough to stop, he might
be of inestimable service to me."
I relapsed into my chair.
"Briefly," she continued, "the facts are these. My father was an
officer in an Indian regiment who sent me home when I was quite a
child. My mother was dead, and I had no relative in England. I was
placed, however, in a comfortable boarding establishment at
Edinburgh, and there I remained until I was seventeen years of age.
In the year 1878 my father, who was senior captain of his regiment,
obtained twelve months' leave and came home. He telegraphed to me
from London that he had arrived all safe, and directed me to come
down at once, giving the Langham Hotel as his address. His message,
as I remember, was full of kindness and love. On reaching London I
drove to the Langham, and was informed that Captain Morstan was
staying there, but that he had gone out the night before and had not
yet returned. I waited all day without news of him. That night, on
the advice of the manager of the hotel, I communicated with the
police, and next morning we advertised in all the papers. Our
inquiries let to no result; and from that day to this no word has
ever been heard of my unfortunate father. He came home with his heart
full of hope, to find some peace, some comfort, and instead--" She
put her hand to her throat, and a choking sob cut short the sentence.
"The date?" asked Holmes, opening his note-book.
"He disappeared upon the 3d of December, 1878,--nearly ten years
ago."
"His luggage?"
"Remained at the hotel. There was nothing in it to suggest a
clue,--some clothes, some books, and a considerable number of
curiosities from the Andaman Islands. He had been one of the officers
in charge of the convict-guard there."
"Had he any friends in town?"
"Only one that we know of,--Major Sholto, of his own regiment, the
34th Bombay Infantry. The major had retired some little time before,
and lived at Upper Norwood. We communicated with him, of course, but
he did not even know that his brother officer was in England."
"A singular case," remarked Holmes.
"I have not yet described to you the most singular part. About six
years ago--to be exact, upon the 4th of May, 1882--an advertisement
appeared in the Times asking for the address of Miss Mary Morstan and
stating that it would be to her advantage to come forward. There was
