A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1)

by Arthur Conan Doyle

“No data yet,” he answered. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.”

I might not have gone but for you, and so have missed the finest study I ever came across: a study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn’t we use a little art jargon. There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.

There is a mystery about this which stimulates the imagination; where there is no imagination there is no horror.

‘Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l’admire.’”

“To a great mind, nothing is little,”

he suited the action to the word.

disremember

travel-stained adventurers

Its invisibility, and the mystery which was attached to it, made this organization doubly terrible. It appeared to be omniscient and omnipotent, and yet was neither seen nor heard. The man who held out against the Church vanished away, and none knew whither he had gone or what had befallen him.

A rash word or a hasty act was followed by annihilation, and yet none knew what the nature might be of this terrible power which was suspended over them. No wonder that men went about in fear and trembling, and that even in the heart of the wilderness they dared not whisper the doubts which oppressed them.

To this day, in the lonely ranches of the West, the name of the Danite Band, or the Avenging Angels, is a sinister and an ill-omened one.

None knew who belonged to this ruthless society. The names of the participators in the deeds of blood and violence done under the name of religion were kept profoundly secret. The very friend to whom you communicated your misgivings as to the Prophet and his mission, might be one of those who would come forth at night with fire and sword to exact a terrible reparation. Hence every man feared his neighbour, and none spoke of the things which were nearest his heart.

We Elders have many heifers, but our children must also be provided.

You may consider me to be a murderer; but I hold that I am just as much an officer of justice as you are.”

“What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence,” returned my companion, bitterly. “The question is, what can you make people believe that you have done.