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Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.”
“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.
“I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule.
If she were seventeen at the time of her father’s disappearance she must be seven-and-twenty now—a sweet age, when youth has lost its self-consciousness and become a little sobered by experience.
If my future were black, it was better surely to face it like a man than to attempt to brighten it by mere will-o’-the-wisps of the imagination.
I am a man of somewhat retiring, and I might even say refined, tastes, and there is nothing more unesthetic than a policeman.
“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?
“I would not tell them too much,” said Holmes. “Women are never to be entirely trusted—not the best of them.”
“Dirty-looking rascals, but I suppose every one has some little immortal spark concealed about him. You would not think it, to look at them. There is no a priori probability about it. A strange enigma is man!”
And now, Doctor, we’ve done our work, so it’s time we had some play. A sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then off to violin-land, where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony, and there are no red-headed clients to vex us with their conundrums.”
I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbours, but I was always oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with Sherlock Holmes. Here I had heard what he had heard, I had seen what he had seen, and yet from his words it was evident that he saw clearly not only what had happened but what was about to happen, while to me the whole business was still confused, and grotesque.
You may remember the old Persian saying, ‘There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman.’
“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact,”
“I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner.
think, Watson, that you are now standing in the presence of one of the most absolute fools in Europe. I deserve to be kicked from here to Charing Cross.
“I confess that I have been as blind as a mole, but it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all.”
“You are certainly joking, Holmes.” “Not in the least. Is it possible that even now, when I give you these results, you are unable to see how they are attained?”
Holmes took up the stone and held it against the light. “It’s a bonny thing,” said he. “Just see how it glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil’s pet baits. In the larger and older jewels every facet may stand for a bloody deed. This stone is not yet twenty years old. It was found in the banks of the Amoy River in southern China and is remarkable in having every characteristic of the carbuncle, save that it is blue in shade instead of ruby red. In spite of its youth, it has already a sinister history. There have been two
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They have been identified as her clothes, and it seemed to me that if the clothes were there the body would not be far off.” “By the same brilliant reasoning, every man’s body is to be found in the neighbourhood of his wardrobe.
“It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell. You have degraded what should have been a course of lectures into a series of tales.”
“Pshaw, my dear fellow, what do the public, the great unobservant public, who could hardly tell a weaver by his tooth or a compositor by his left thumb, care about the finer shades of analysis and deduction!
I have always held, too, that pistol practice should be distinctly an open-air pastime; and when Holmes, in one of his queer humours, would sit in an armchair with his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V. R. done in bullet-pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved by it.
Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms.”
Sir Charles was a retiring man, but the chance of his illness brought us together, and a community of interests in science kept us so. He had brought back much scientific information from South Africa, and many a charming evening we have spent together discussing the comparative anatomy of the Bushman and the Hottentot.
My body has remained in this armchair and has, I regret to observe, consumed in my absence two large pots of coffee and an incredible amount of tobacco.
There is as much difference to my eyes between the leaded bourgeois type of a Times article and the slovenly print of an evening half-penny paper as there could be between your negro and your Esquimau. The detection of types is one of the most elementary branches of knowledge to the special expert in crime, though I confess that once when I was very young I confused the Leeds Mercury with the Western Morning News. But a Times leader is entirely distinctive, and these words could have been taken from nothing else.
Stapleton may fall in with such a superstition, and Mortimer also; but if I have one quality upon earth it is common sense, and nothing will persuade me to believe in such a thing. To do so would be to descend to the level of these poor peasants,
To all the world he was the man of violence, half animal and half demon; but to her he always remained the little wilful boy of her own girlhood, the child who had clung to her hand. Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him.
He burst into one of his rare fits of laughter as he turned away from the picture. I have not heard him laugh often, and it has always boded ill to somebody.
“Are you armed, Lestrade?” The little detective smiled. “As long as I have my trousers I have a hip-pocket, and as long as I have my hip-pocket I have something in it.”
it is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central inferences and presents one’s audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though possibly a meretricious, effect.
“I guess the very best case I can make for myself is the absolute naked truth.” “It is my duty to warn you that it will be used against you,” cried the inspector, with the magnificent fair play of the British criminal law.
A criminal who was capable of such a thought is a man whom I should be proud to do business with.
“Holmes,” I cried, “this is impossible.” “Admirable!” he said. “A most illuminating remark. It is impossible as I state it, and therefore I must in some respect have stated it wrong.
When once the law is evoked it cannot be stayed again,
“One hardly likes to throw suspicion where there are no proofs.” “Let us hear the suspicions. I will look after the proofs.”
Halloa! halloa! halloa! What’s this?”
cab which I had seen had pulled up at our door. “What can he want?” I ejaculated, as a man stepped out of it. “Want? He wants us. And we, my poor Watson, want overcoats and cravats and goloshes, and every aid that man ever invented to fight the weather.
What did you do, Hopkins, after you had made certain that you had made certain of nothing?”
“We have only to find to whom that telegram is addressed,” I suggested. “Exactly, my dear Watson. Your reflection, though profound, had already crossed my mind. But I daresay it may have come to your notice that, if you walk into a postoffice and demand to see the counterfoil of another man’s message, there may be some disinclination on the part of the officials to oblige you.
In the meantime spare no pains, Mr. Detective! I beg you to leave no stone unturned to bring him safely back. As to money, well, so far as a fiver or even a tenner goes you can always look to me.”
“Do not ring, Lady Hilda. If you do, then all my earnest efforts to avoid a scandal will be frustrated. Give up the letter and all will be set right. If you will work with me I can arrange everything. If you work against me I must expose you.”
You have heard me speak of Professor Moriarty?” “The famous scientific criminal, as famous among crooks as—” “My blushes, Watson!” Holmes murmured in a deprecating voice. “I was about to say, as he is unknown to the public.” “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.
“What do you make of it, Holmes?” “It is obviously an attempt to convey secret information.”
There, Watson! What do you think of pure reason and its fruit? If the green-grocer had such a thing as a laurel wreath, I should send Billy round for it.”
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius,
One dumb-bell, Watson! Consider an athlete with one dumb-bell! Picture to yourself the unilateral development, the imminent danger of a spinal curvature. Shocking, Watson, shocking!”
“You may argue—but I have too much respect for your judgment, Watson, to think that you will do so—that the ring may have been taken before the man was killed.
Should I ever marry, Watson, I should hope to inspire my wife with some feeling which would prevent her from being walked off by a housekeeper when my corpse was lying within a few yards of her.
