A Study in Sherlock. Raymond G. Farney
Joseph Stangerson is murdered at Halliday’s Private Hotel.8:00 a.m., Lestrade discovers Stangerson dead in his room.Morning, Holmes and Watson sit at breakfast reading news articles about the murder. The Irregulars arrive to report on being unsuccessful in a unknown task Holmes had for them, and as they leave Gregson arrives, boasting that he has arrested Arthur Charpentier for Drebber’s murder, and as he is giving Holmes the details, Lestrade enters telling everyone that Joseph Stangerson has also been murdered. Holmes, after sitting much in thought, tells everyone that he now knows the name of the assassin. Wiggins is back and shown into the room; he tells Holmes that he has the cabman he wanted waiting downstairs, and Holmes has him come up. When the cabman enters, Holmes quickly handcuffs him and says to all, “Let me introduce you to Mr. Jefferson Hope, the murderer of Enoch Drebber and of Joseph Stangerson.” Jefferson Hope is taken into custody and they all leave for Scotland Yard with the prisoner.Evening, at Scotland Yard Hope tells Holmes and the others about the events of twenty years past, in Utah, and how he has spent those years since tracking Drebber and Stangerson to get his revenge. Hope is lead off by two wardens and Holmes and Watson return to Baker St.Night, while in custody at Scotland Yard Jefferson Hope’s aneurism bursts.3rd DayMorning, “Jefferson Hope is found dead on the floor of his cell. With a placid smile upon his face, as though he had been able in his dying moments to look back upon a useful life, and on work well done.”Evening, Holmes and Watson sit in Baker St., discuss the case and a newspaper article about its conclusion.
Story Conclusion:It was the Echo for the day, and the paragraph to which he pointed was devoted to the case in question.“The public,” it said, “have lost a sensational treat through the sudden death of the man Hope, who was suspected of the murder of Mr. Enoch Drebber and of Mr. Joseph Stangerson. The details of the case will probably be never known now, though we are informed upon good authority that the crime was of an old standing and romantic feud, in which love and Mormonism bore part. It seems that both victims belonged, in their younger days, to the Latter Day Saints, and Hope, the deceased prisoner, hails also from Salt Lake City. If the case has had no other effect, it at least brings out in the most striking manner the efficiency of our detective police force, and will serve as a lesson to all foreigners that they will do wisely to settle their feuds at home, and not to carry them on to British soil. It is an open secret that the credit of this smart capture belongs entirely to the well-known Scotland Yard officials, Messrs. Lestrade and Gregson. 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 skills. It is expected that a testimonial of some sort will be presented to the two officers as a fitting recognition of their services.”“Didn’t I tell you so when we started?” cried Sherlock Holmes with a laugh. “That’s the result of all our Study in Scarlet: to get them a testimonial!”“Never mind,” I answered; “I have all the facts in my journal, and the public shall know them. In the meantime you must make yourself contented by the consciousness of success, like the Roman miser—“Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo Ipse domi simul ac nummos contemplar in arca.”
Weather:Night before, “The whole place was very sloppy from the rain which had fallen through the night.”“Up to last night, we have had no rain for a week.”Night of Drebber’s murder, “At one o’clock it began to rain.”—“A wild, bleak night, blowing hard and raining in torrents.”1st Day “It was a foggy, cloudy morning, and a dun-coloured veil hung over the house tops.”
Payment/credit:“My dear fellow, what does it matter to me? Supposing I unravel the whole matter, you may be sure that Gregson, Lestrade, and Co. will pocket all the credit. That comes of being an unofficial personage.”“It is an open secret that the credit of this smart capture belongs entirely to the well-known Scotland Yard officials, Messrs. Lestrade and Gregson. 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 skills. It is expected that a testimonial of some sort will be presented to the two officers as a fitting recognition of their services.”“Didn’t I tell you so when we started?” cried Sherlock Holmes with a laugh. “That’s the result of all our Study in Scarlet: to get them a testimonial!”
Quotes:“No data yet,” he answered. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.”“I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street.”“Doctor … I must thank you for it all. I might not have gone but for you, and so have missed the finest study I ever came across: 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.”HolmesYoung Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wineglass. “You don’t know Sherlock Holmes yet,” he said; “perhaps you would not care for him as a constant companion.”“Why, what is there against him?”“Oh, I don’t say there is anything against him. He is a little queer in his ideas—an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as I know he is a decent fellow enough.”“A medical student, I suppose?” said I.“No—I have no idea what he intends to go in for. I believe he is well up in anatomy, and he is a first-class chemist; but, as far as I know, he has never taken out any symptomatic medical classes. His studies are very desultory and eccentric, but he has amassed a lot of out-of-the-way knowledge which would astonish professors.”“Did you ever ask him what he was going in for?” I asked.“No; he is not a man that it is easy to draw out, though he can be communicative enough when the fancy seizes him.”“It is not easy to express the inexpressible,” he answered with a laugh. “Holmes is a little too scientific to my tastes—it approaches to cold-bloodedness. I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch of the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you understand, but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea of its effects. To do him justice, I think that he would take it himself with the same readiness. He appears to have a passion for definite and exact knowledge.”“Very right to.”“Yes, but it may be pushed to excess. When it comes to beating the subjects in the dissecting-rooms with a stick, it is certainly taking rather a bizarre shape.”“Beating the subject!”“Yes, to verify how far bruise may be produced after death. I saw him at it with my own eyes.”“And yet you say he is not a medical student?”“No. Heaven knows what the object of the studies are.”“Do you include violin playing in your category of rows?” he asked anxiously.“It depends on the player,” I answered. “A well-played violin is a treat for the gods—a badly played one—”“Oh, that’s all right,” he cried, with a merry laugh. “I think we may consider the thing as settled—that is, if the rooms are agreeable to you.”“Let me see—what are my other shortcomings? I get in the dumps at times, and don’t open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I’ll soon be right. What have you to confess now? It’s just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another before they begin to live together. Now we have the Sherlock Holmes’s test and there will no longer be any difficulty.”“Very interesting reading it might be made, too,” remarked Sherlock Holmes, sticking a small piece of plaster over the prick on his finger. “I have to be careful,” he continued, turning to me with a smile, “for I dabble with poisons a good deal.” He held out his hand as he spoke, and I noticed that it was all mottled over with similar pieces of plaster, and discoloured with strong acids.“Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with. He was quiet in his ways, and his habits were regular. It was rare for him to be up after ten at night, and he had invariably breakfasted and gone out before I rose in the morning. Sometimes he spent his day at the chemical laboratory, sometimes in the dissecting-rooms, and occasionally in long walks, which appear to take him into the lowest portions of the city. Nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him; but now again a reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting-room, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night. On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected him of being addicted to some use of some narcotics, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion.”“As the weeks went by, my interest in him and my curiosity as