A Study in Sherlock. Raymond G. Farney
that it is difficult to avoid treading in it in entering. The earth is of this peculiar reddish tint which is found, as far as I know, nowhere else in the neighbourhood. So much is observation. The rest is deduction.”“How, then, did you deduce the telegram?”“Why, of course I knew that you had not written a letter, since I sat opposite to you all morning. I see also in your open desk there that you have a sheet of stamps and a thick bundle of postcards. What could you go into the post office for, then, but to send a wire? Eliminate all the other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.”“In this case it certainly is so,” I replied after a little thought. “The thing, however, is, as you say, of the simplest.”Holmes’ Observation of Watson’s Watch“I have heard you say it is difficult for man to have any daily object in use without leaving the impress of his individuality upon it in such a way that a trained observer might read it. Now, I have here a watch which has recently come into my possession. Would you have the kindness to let me have an opinion upon the character or habits of the late owner?”I handed him over the watch with some slight feeling of amusement in my heart, for the test was, as I thought, an impossible one, and I intended it as a lesson against the somewhat dogmatic tone which he occasionally assumed. He balanced the watch in his hand, gazed hard at the dial, open the back, and examine the works, first with his naked eyes and then with a powerful convex lens. I could hardly keep from smiling at his crestfallen face when he finally snapped the case to and handed it back.“There are hardly any data,” he remarked. “The watch has been recently cleaned, which robs me of my most suggestive facts.”“You are right,” I answered. “It was cleaned before being sent to me.”In my heart I accused my companion of putting forward the most lame and impotent excuse to cover his failure. What data could be expected from an uncleaned watch?“Though unsatisfactory, my research has not been entirely barren,” he observed, staring up at the ceiling with dreamy lack-lustre eyes. “Subject to your correction, I should judge that the watch belonged to your elderly brother, who inherited it from your father.”“That you gather, no doubt, from the H. W. on the back?”“Quite so. The W. suggests your own name. The date of the watch is nearly fifty years back, and the initials are as old as the watch: so it was made for the last generation. Jewellery usually descends to the eldest son and he is most likely to have the same name as your father. Your father has, if I remember right, been dead many years. It has, therefore, been in the hands of the eldest brother.”“Right, so far,” said I. “Anything else?”“He was a man of untidy habits—very untidy and careless. He was left with good prospects, but he threw away his chances, lived for some time in poverty with occasional short intervals of prosperity, and finally, taking to drink, he died. That is all I can gather.”I sprang from my chair and limped impatiently about the room with considerable bitterness in my heart.“This is unworthy of you, Holmes,” I said. “I could not have believed that you would have descended to this. You have made inquiries into the history of my unhappy brother, and you now pretend to deduce this knowledge in some fanciful way. You cannot expect me to believe that you have read all this from his old watch! It is unkind and, to speak plainly, has your touch of charlatanism in it.”“My dear doctor,” said he kindly, “pray accept my apologies. Viewing the matter as an abstract problem, I had forgotten how personal and painful a thing it might be to you. I assure you, however, I never even knew that you had a brother until you handed me the watch.”“Then how in the name of all that is wonderful did you get these facts? They’re absolutely correct in every particular.”“Ah, that is good luck. I could only say what was the balance of probability. I did not expect to be so accurate.”“But it was not mere guesswork?”“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. For example I began by stating that your brother was careless. When you observe the lower part of the watch-case you notice that it is not only dinted in two places but it is cut and marked all over from the habit of keeping other hard objects, such as coins and keys, in the same pocket. Surely it is no great feat to assume that a man who treats a fifty-guinea watch so cavalierly must be a careless man. Neither is it a very far-fetched inference that a man that inherits one article of such value is pretty well provided for in other respects.“It is very customary for pawnbrokers in England, when they take a watch, to scratch the number of the ticket with a pin-point upon the inside of the case. It is more handy than a label as there is no risk of the number being lost or transposed. There are no less than four such numbers visible to my lens on the inside of this case. Inference—that your brother was often at low water. Secondary inference—that he had occasional bursts of prosperity, or he could not have redeemed the pledge. Finally I ask you to look at the inner plate, which contains the keyhole. Look at the thousands of scratches all round the hole—marks where the key has slipped. What sober man’s key could have scored those grooves? But you will never see a drunkard’s watch without them. He winds it at night, and he leaves these traces of his unsteady hand. Where is the mystery in all this?”Holmes’ Observation of Sholto’s Letter“Let us see, now.” He spread out the letters upon the table and gave a little darting glance from one to the other. “They are disguised hands, except the letter,” he said presently. “But there can be no question as to the authorship. See how the irrepressible Greek e will break out, and see the twirl of the final s. They are undoubtedly by the same person. I should not like to suggest false hopes, Miss Morstan, but is there any resemblance between this hand and that of your father?”“Look at his long letters,” he said. “They hardly raise above the common herd. That d might be an a, and that l an e. Men of character always differentiate the long letters, however illegibly they may be written. There is a vacillation in his k’s and self-esteem in his capitals.”Holmes’ Observation of Mary Morstan’s Father’s Curious Paper Found in his DeskHolmes unfolded the paper and smoothed it out upon his knee. He then very methodically examined it all over with his double lens.“It is paper of native Indian manufacture,” he remarked. “It has at some time been pinned to the board. The diagram upon it appears to be a plan of part of a large building with numerous halls, corridors, passages. At one point it’s a small cross done in red ink, and above it is ‘3.37 from left,’ in faded pencil-writing. In the left-hand corner is a curious hieroglyphic like four crosses in a line with their arms touching. Beside it is written, in very rough and coarse characters, ‘The sign of four—Jonathan Small, Mahomet Singh, Abdullah Khan, Dost Akbar.’ No, I confess that I do not see how this bears upon the matter. Yet it is evidently a document of importance. It has been kept carefully in a pocketbook, for the other side is as clean as the other.”Holmes’ Observation of the Crime Scene“That is not a foot-mark,” said I. “It is something much more valuable to us. It is the impression of a wooden stump. You see here on the sill is the boot- mark, a heavy boot with a broad metal heel, and beside it is the mark of the timber-toe.” — “It is the wooden-legged man.”Holmes in DisguiseIn the early dawn I woke with a start and was surprised to find him standing by my bedside, clad in a crude sailor dress with a pea-jacket and coarse red scarf around his neck.He was an aged man, clad in seafaring garb, and with an old pea-jacket buttoned up to his throat. His back was bowed, his knees were shaky, and his breathing was painfully asthmatic. As he leaned upon a thick oaken cudgel his shoulders heaved in the effort to draw the air into his lungs. He had a coloured scarf round his chin, and I could see little of his face save a pair of keen dark eyes, overhung by bushy white brows and long gray side-whiskers. Altogether he gave me the impression of a respectable master Mariner who had fallen into years and poverty.“What is it, my man?” I asked.He looked about him in the slow methodical fashion of old age.“Is Mr. Sherlock Holmes here?” he said.“No; but I am acting for him. You can tell me any message you have for him.”“It was to him himself I was to tell it,” said he.“But I tell you that I am acting for him. Was it about Mordecai Smith’s boat?”“Yes. I knows where it is. An’ I knows where the man he is. An’ I knows with the treasure. I knows all about it.”“Then tell me, and I shall let him know.”“It was to him I was to tell it,” he repeated with the petulant obstinacy of a very old man.“Well, you must wait for him.”“No, no; I am going’ to lose a whole day to please no one. If Mr. Holmes ain’t here, then Mr. Holmes must find it all out for himself. I don’t care about the look of either of you, I won’t tell a word.”He shuffled towards the door, but Athelney Jones got in front of him.“Wait a bit, my friend,” said he, “you have important information, and you must not walk off. We