A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes Book 1)

by Arthur Conan Doyle

About one hundred years ago, Sherlock Holmes was described as one of the three most famous people who ever lived, the other two being Jesus Christ and Houdini.

“You seem to be a walking calendar of crime,”

‘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.”

“This fellow may be very clever,” I said to myself, “but he is certainly very conceited.”

“I’m not sure about whether I shall go. I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather—that is, when the fit is on me, for I can be spry enough at times.”

You may be very smart and clever, but the old hound is the best, when all is said and done.”

As I watched him I was irresistibly reminded of a pure-blooded well-trained foxhound as it dashes backwards and forwards through the covert, whining in its eagerness, until it comes across the lost scent.

“They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains,” he remarked with a smile. “It’s a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work.”

Parthian shot

I’m not going to tell you much more of the case, Doctor. You know a conjuror gets no credit when once he has explained his trick, and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all.”

I had already observed that he was as sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty.

“I am one of the hounds and not the wolf;

That head of yours should be for use as well as ornament.

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.

Leaning back in the cab, this amateur bloodhound carolled away like a lark while I meditated upon the many-sidedness of the human mind.

“It’s quite exciting,” said Sherlock Holmes, with a yawn. “What happened next?”

The keen air of the mountains and the balsamic odour of the pine trees took the place of nurse and mother to the young girl.

“There are two ways out of the room,” cried Ferrier; “there is the door, and there is the window. Which do you care to use?”

What a badass

John Ferrier felt that instant death would be better than the suspense which shook his nerves and chilled his heart.

Amongst them all there was none so fierce and so dangerous as himself.

If he died like a dog among the mountains, what was to become of his revenge then?

There is no murder,’ I answered. ‘Who talks of murdering a mad dog?

The man was apprehended, it appears, in the rooms of a certain Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who has himself, as an amateur, shown some talent in the detective line, and who, with such instructors, may hope in time to attain to some degree of their skill.

Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo Ipse domi simul ac nummos contemplor in arca.’”