The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #4)

by Arthur Conan Doyle

"The dog did nothing in the night-time." "That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.

"What smouldering fire of vengeance had suddenly sprung into flame in this passionate Celtic woman's soul when she saw the man who had wronged her—wronged her, perhaps, far more than we suspected—in her power?

"Elementary," said he. "It is one of those instances where the reasoner can produce an effect which seems remarkable to his neighbor, because the latter has missed the one little point which is the basis of the deduction.

that red-Indian composure which had made so many regard him as a machine rather than a man.

It's about five in the morning, you know, that suicides are most common. That would be about his time for hanging himself. It seems to have been a very deliberate affair."

However, wretch as he was, he was still living under the shield of British law, and I have no doubt, Inspector, that you

will see that, though that shield may fail to guard, the sword of justice is still there to avenge."

It was after tea on a summer evening, and the conversation, which had roamed in a desultory, spasmodic fashion from golf clubs to the causes of the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic, came round at last to the question of atavism and hereditary aptitudes. The point under discussion was, how far any singular gift in an individual was due to his ancestry and how far to his own early training.

But, none the less, my turn that way is in my veins, and may have come with my grandmother, who was the sister of Vernet, the French artist. Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms."

"But how do you know that it is hereditary?" "Because my brother Mycroft possesses it in a larger degree than I do."

Mycroft Holmes was a much larger and stouter man than Sherlock.

His body was absolutely corpulent, but his face, though massive, had preserved something of the sharpness of expression which was so remarkable in that of his brother. His eyes, which were of a peculiarly light, watery gray, seemed to always retain that far-away, introspective look which I had only observed in Sherlock's when he was exerting his full powers.