The Complete Sherlock Holmes

by Arthur Conan Doyle

Things had indeed been very slow with us, and I had learned to dread such periods of inaction, for I knew by experience that my companion’s brain was so abnormally active that it was dangerous to leave it without material upon which to work.

For years I had gradually weaned him from that drug mania which had threatened once to check his remarkable career. Now I knew that under ordinary conditions he no longer craved for this artificial stimulus, but I was well aware that the fiend was not dead but sleeping, and I have known that the sleep was a light one and the waking near when in periods of idleness I have seen the drawn look upon Holmes’s ascetic face, and the brooding of his deep-set and inscrutable eyes. Therefore I blessed this Mr. Overton, whoever he might be, since he had come with his enigmatic message to break that dangerous calm which brought more peril to my friend than all the storms of his tempestuous life.

“The game is afoot.

“I AM INCLINED to think—” said I. “I should do so,” Sherlock Holmes remarked impatiently. I believe that I am one of the most long-suffering of mortals; but I’ll admit that I was annoyed at the sardonic interruption. “Really, Holmes,” said I severely, “you are a little trying at times.”

“A touch! A distinct touch!” cried Holmes. “You are developing a certain unexpected vein of pawky humour, Watson, against which I must learn to guard myself.

“Your native shrewdness, my dear Watson, that innate cunning which is the delight of your friends,

“Perhaps there are points which have escaped your Machiavellian intellect.

“Brilliant, Watson. You are scintillating this morning.

Holmes had the impersonal joy of the true artist in his better work, even as he mourned darkly when it fell below the high level to which he aspired.

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius,

IT WAS ONE of those dramatic moments for which my friend existed.

I am not a whole-souled admirer of womankind, as you are aware, Watson,

It was late that night when Holmes returned from his solitary excursion. We slept in a double-bedded room, which was the best that the little country inn could do for us. I was already asleep when I was partly awakened by his entrance. “Well, Holmes,” I murmured, “have you found anything out?” He stood beside me in silence, his candle in his hand. Then the tall, lean figure inclined towards me. “I say, Watson,” he whispered, “would you be afraid to sleep in the same room with a lunatic, a man with softening of the brain, an idiot whose mind has lost its grip?” “Not in the least,” I answered in astonishment. “Ah, that’s lucky,” he said, and not another word would he utter that night.

“Is it not? Is it not? Breadth of

view, my dear Mr. Mac, is one of the essentials of our profession. The interplay of ideas and the oblique uses of knowledge are often of extraordinary interest.

I fell into a brown study.

“Perhaps not with your tongue, my dear Watson, but certainly with your eyebrows.

‘Every day my heart longs—’ Bleat, Watson—unmitigated bleat!

“I knew you would not shrink at the last,” said he, and for a moment I saw something in his eyes which was nearer to tenderness than I had ever seen. The next instant he was his masterful, practical self once more.

he had a remarkable gentleness and courtesy in his dealings with women. He disliked and distrusted the sex, but he was always a chivalrous opponent.

“Good heavens, Holmes! Do you suppose that such a consideration weighs with me for an instant? It would not affect me in the case of a stranger. Do you imagine it would prevent me from doing my duty to so old a friend?”

You fidget me beyond endurance.

You will realize that among your many talents dissimulation finds no place,

unless, like a sensible man, you determine to have nothing to do with the affair. Oh, you will see it out, will you? I thought I knew my Watson.

“I owe you both my thanks and an apology. It was an unjustifiable experiment even for one’s self, and doubly so for a friend. I am really very sorry.” “You know,” I answered with some emotion, for I had never seen so much of Holmes’s heart before, “that it is my greatest joy and privilege to help you.” He relapsed at once into the half-humorous, half-cynical vein which was his habitual attitude to those about him. “It would be superfluous to drive us mad, my dear Watson,” said he. “A candid observer would certainly declare that we were so already before we embarked upon so wild an experiment.

And yet I live and keep bees upon the South Downs.”

His career has been a long one—though it is possible to exaggerate it; decrepit gentlemen who approach me and declare that his adventures formed the reading of their boyhood do not meet the response from me which they seem to expect. One is not anxious to have one’s personal dates handled so unkindly.

romance.

Both Holmes and I had a weakness for the Turkish bath.

I was nearer him than anyone else, and yet I was always conscious of the gap between.

Speaking of my old friend and biographer, I would take this opportunity to remark that if I burden myself with a companion in my various little inquiries it is not done out of sentiment or caprice, but it is that Watson has some remarkable characteristics of his own to which in his modesty he has given small attention amid his exaggerated estimates of my own performances.

A confederate who foresees your conclusions and

course of action is always dangerous, but one to whom each development comes as a perpetual surprise, and to whom the future is always a cl...

“I see no more than you, but I have trained myself to notice what I see.

“Mr. Holmes always knows whatever there is to know.”

I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.

This agency stands flat-footed upon the ground, and there it must remain. The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply.

“I never get your limits, Watson,” said he. “There are unexplored possibilities about you.

jealous with all the strength of her fiery tropical love.”

possess our souls in patience

Then my friend’s wiry arms were round me, and he was leading me to a chair. “You’re not hurt, Watson? For God’s sake, say that you are not hurt!” It was worth a wound—it was worth many wounds—to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded

minded service culminated in that moment of revelation. “It’s nothing, Holmes. It’s a mere scratch.” He had ripped up my trousers with his pocket-knife. “You are right,” he cried with an immense sigh of relief. “It is quite superficial.” His face set like flint as he glared at our prisoner, who was sitting up with a dazed face. “By the Lord, it is as well for you. If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive. Now, sir, what have you to say for yourself?”

“Thank you, Mr. Gibson, I do not think that I am in need of booming.

but if you insist upon the word I will not contradict you.”

He was a man of habits, narrow and concentrated habits, and I had become one of them.

“Excellent, Watson! Compound of the Busy Bee and Excelsior. We can but try—