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Text File | 1992-04-25 | 16KB | 288 lines

                                  Part 1

              BEING A REPRINT FROM THE REMINISCENCES OF JOHN H.
              WATSON, M.D., LATE OF THE ARMY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT


                                Chapter 1

                          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 veranda, 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 despatched,
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
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 someone 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
wineglass.  "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 refer 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 till night.  If you like, we will 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 farther 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 glanced round and sprang to his feet
with a cry of pleasure.  "I've found it!  I've found it," he
shouted to my companion, running towards us with a test-tube in
his hand.  "I have found a re-agent which is precipitated by
haemoglobin, and by nothing else."  Had he discovered a gold
mine, greater delight could not have shone upon his features.
     "Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said Stamford,
introducing us.
     "How are you?" he said cordially, gripping my hand with a
strength for which I should hardly have given him credit.  "You
have been in Afghanistan, I perceive."
     "How on earth did you know that?" I asked in astonishment.
     "Never mind," said he, chuckling 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 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 if 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 'ship'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 them?"
     "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'll 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.