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THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES by ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

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

A Scandal in Bohemia

To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom

heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she

eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that

he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions,

and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but

admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect

reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as

a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He

never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer.

They were admirable things for the observer -- excellent for draw-

ing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained

teasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely

adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which

might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a

sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power

lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a

nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him,

and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and ques-

tionable memory.

I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us

away from each other. My own complete happiness, and the

home-centred interests which rise up around the man who first

finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to

absorb all my attention, while Holmes, who loathed every form

of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodg-

ings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating

from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsi-

ness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature.

He was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study of crime, and

occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of

observation in following out those clues, and clearing up those

mysteries which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official

police. From time to time I heard some vague account of his

doings: of his summons to Odessa in the case of the Trepoff

murder, of his clearing up of the singular tragedy of the Atkinson

brothers at Trincomalee, and finally of the mission which he had

accomplished so delicately and successfully for the reigning

family of Holland. Beyond these signs of his activity, however,

which I merely shared with all the readers of the daily press, I

knew little of my former friend and companion.

One night -- it was on the twentieth of March, 1888 -- I was

returning from a journey to a patient (for I had now returned to

civil practice), when my way led me through Baker Street. As I

passed the well-remembered door, which must always be associ-

ated in my mind with my wooing, and with the dark incidents of

the Study in Scarlet, I was seized with a keen desire to see

Holmes again, and to know how he was employing his extraordi-

nary powers. His rooms were brilliantly lit, and, even as I

looked up, I saw his tall, spare figure pass twice in a dark

silhouette against the blind. He was pacing the room swiftly,

eagerly, with his head sunk upon his chest and his hands clasped

behind him. To me, who knew his every mood and habit, his

attitude and manner told their own story. He was at work again.

He had risen out of his drug-created dreams and was hot upon

the scent of some new problem. I rang the bell and was shown

up to the chamber which had formerly been in part my own.

His manner was not effusive. It seldom was; but he was glad,

I think, to see me. With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly

eye, he waved me to an armchair, threw across his case of

cigars, and indicated a spirit case and a gasogene in the corner.

Then he stood before the fire and looked me over in his singular

introspective fashion.

"Wedlock suits you," he remarked. "I think, Watson, that

you have put on seven and a half pounds since I saw you."

"Seven!" I answered.

"Indeed, I should have thought a little more. Just a trifle

more, I fancy, Watson. And in practice again, I observe. You

did not tell me that you intended to go into harness."

"Then, how do you know?"

"I see it, I deduce it. How do I know that you have been

getting yourself very wet lately, and that you have a most clumsy

and careless servant girl?"

"My dear Holmes," said I, "this is too much. You would

certainly have been burned, had you lived a few centuries ago. It

is true that I had a country walk on Thursday and came home in a

dreadful mess, but as I have changed my clothes I can't imagine

how you deduce it. As to Mary Jane, she is incorrigible, and my

wife has given her notice, but there, again, I fail to see how you

work it out."

He chuckled to himself and rubbed his long, nervous hands

together.

"It is simplicity itself," said he; "my eyes tell me that on the

inside of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it, the

leather is scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously they have

been caused by someone who has very carelessly scraped round

the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud from it.

Hence, you see, my double deduction that you had been out in

vile weather, and that you had a particularly malignant boot-

slitting specimen of the London slavey. As to your practice, if a

gentleman walks into my rooms smelling of iodoform, with a

black mark of nitrate of silver upon his right forefinger, and a

bulge on the right side of his top-hat to show where he has

secreted his stethoscope, I must be dull, indeed, if I do not

pronounce him to be an active member of the medical profession."

I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained

his process of deduction. "When I hear you give your reasons,"

I remarked, "the thing always appears to me to be so ridicu-

lously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each

successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled until you

explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good

as yours."

"Quite so," he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing

himself down into an armchair. "You see, but you do not

observe. The distinction is clear. For example, you have fre-

quently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room."

"Frequently."

"How often?"

"Well, some hundreds of times."

"Then how many are there?"

"How many? I don't know."

"Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen.

That is just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen

steps, because I have both seen and observed. By the way,

since you are interested in these little problems, and since you

are good enough to chronicle one or two of my trifling experi-

ences, you may be interested in this." He threw over a sheet of

thick, pink-tinted note-paper which had been lying open upon

the table. "It came by the last post," said he. "Read it aloud."

The note was undated, and without either signature or address.

"There will call upon you to-night, at a quarter to eight

o'clock [it said], a gentleman who desires to consult you

upon a matter of the very deepest moment. Your recent

services to one of the royal houses of Europe have shown

that you are one who may safely be trusted with matters

which are of an importance which can hardly be exagger-

ated. This account of you we have from all quarters re-

ceived. Be in your chamber then at that hour, and do not

take it amiss if your visitor wear a mask.

"This is indeed a mystery," I remarked. "What do you

imagine that it means?"

"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before

one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories,

instead of theories to suit facts. But the note itself. What do you

deduce from it?"

I carefully examined the writing, and the paper upon which it

was written.

"The man who wrote it was presumably well to do," I

remarked, endeavouring to imitate my companion's processes.

"Such paper could not be bought under half a crown a packet. It

is peculiarly strong and stiff."

"Peculiar -- that is the very word," said Holmes. "It is not an

English paper at all. Hold it up to the light."

I did so, and saw a large "E" with a small "g," a "P," and a

large "G" with a small "f" woven into the texture of the paper.

"What do you make of that?" asked Holmes.

"The name of the maker, no doubt; or his monogram, rather."

"Not at all. The 'G' with the small 't' stands for 'Gesell-

schaft,' which is the German for 'Company.' It is a customary

contraction like our 'Co.' 'P,' of course, stands for 'Papier.'

Now for the 'Eg.' Let us glance at our Continental Gazetteer."

He took down a heavy brown volume from his shelves. "Eglow,

Eglonitz -- here we are, Egria. It is in a German-speaking

country -- in Bohemia, not far from Carlsbad. 'Remarkable as

being the scene of the death of Wallenstein, and for its numerous

glass-factories and paper-mills.' Ha, ha, my boy, what do you

make of that?" His eyes sparkled, and he sent up a great blue

triumphant cloud from his cigarette.

"The paper was made in Bohemia," I said.

"Precisely. And the man who wrote the note is a German. Do

you note the peculiar construction of the sentence -- 'This ac-

count of you we have from all quarters received.' A Frenchman

or Russian could not have written that. It is the German who is

so uncourteous to his verbs. It only remains, therefore, to dis-

cover what is wanted by this German who writes upon Bohemian

paper and prefers wearing a mask to showing his face. And here

he comes, if I am not mistaken, to resolve all our doubts."

As he spoke there was the sharp sound of horses' hoofs and

grating wheels against the curb, followed by a sharp pull at the

bell. Holmes whistled.

"A pair, by the sound," said he. "Yes," he continued,

glancing out of the window. "A nice little brougham and a pair

of beauties. A hundred and fifty guineas apiece. There's money

in this case, Watson, if there is nothing else."

"I think that I had better go, Holmes."

"Not a bit, Doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my

Boswell. And this promises to be interesting. It would be a pity

to miss it."

"But your client --"

"Never mind him. I may want your help, and so may he.

Here he comes. Sit down in that armchair, Doctor, and give us

your best attention."

A slow and heavy step, which had been heard upon the stairs

and in the passage, paused immediately outside the door. Then

there was a loud and authoritative tap.

"Come in!" said Holmes.

A man entered who could hardly have been less than six feet

six inches in height, with the chest and limbs of a Hercules. His

dress was rich with a richness which would, in England, be

looked upon as akin to bad taste. Heavy bands of astrakhan were

slashed across the sleeves and fronts of his double-breasted coat,

while the deep blue cloak which was thrown over his shoulders

was lined with flame-coloured silk and secured at the neck with a

brooch which consisted of a single flaming beryl. Boots which

extended halfway up his calves, and which were trimmed at the

tops with rich brown fur, completed the impression of barbaric

opulence which was suggested by his whole appearance. He

carried a broad-brimmed hat in his hand, while he wore across

the upper part of his face, extending down past the cheekbones,

a black vizard mask, which he had apparently adjusted that very

moment, for his hand was still raised to it as he entered. From

the lower part of the face he appeared to be a man of strong

character, with a thick, hanging lip, and a long, straight chin

suggestive of resolution pushed to the length of obstinacy.

"You had my note?" he asked with a deep harsh voice and a

strongly marked German accent. "I told you that I would call."

He looked from one to the other of us, as if uncertain which to

address.

"Pray take a seat," said Holmes. "This is my friend and

colleague, Dr. Watson, who is occasionally good enough to help

me in my cases. Whom have I the honour to address?"

"You may address me as the Count Von Kramm, a Bohemian

nobleman. I understand that this gentleman, your friend, is a

man of honour and discretion, whom I may trust with a matter of

the most extreme importance. If not, I should much prefer to

communicate with you alone."

I rose to go, but Holmes caught me by the wrist and pushed

me back into my chair. "It is both, or none," said he. "You

may say before this gentleman anything which you may say to

me."

The Count shrugged his broad shoulders. "Then I must be-

gin," said he, "by binding you both to absolute secrecy for two

years; at the end of that time the matter will be of no importance.

At present it is not too much to say that it is of such weight it

may have an influence upon European history."