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Mr. Sherlock Holmes
Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the
mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when
he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. I
stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the stick which
our visitor had left behind him the night before. It was a
fine, thick piece of wood, bulbous-headed, of the sort
which is known as a ?Penang lawyer.? Just under the head
was a broad silver band nearly an inch across. ?To James
Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the C.C.H.,? was
engraved upon it, with the da te ?1884.? It was just such a
stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used to
carry?dignified, solid, and reassuring.
?Well, Watson, what do you make of it??
Holmes was sitting with his back to me, and I had
given him no sign of my occupation.
?How did you know what I was doing? I believe you
have eyes in the back of your head.?
?I have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot
in front of me,? said he. ?But, tell me, Watson, what do
you make of our visitor?s stick? Since we have been so
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unfortunate as to miss him and have no notion of his
errand, this accidental souvenir becomes of importance.
Let me hear you reconstruct the man by an examination
of it.?
?I think,? said I, following as far as I could the methods
of my companion, ?that Dr. Mortimer is a successful,
elderly medical man, well- esteemed since those who
know him give him this mark of their appreciation.?
?Good!? said Holmes. ?Excellent!?
?I think also that the proba bility is in favour of his being
a country practitioner who does a great deal of his visiting
on foot.?
?Why so??
?Because this stick, though originally a very handsome
one has been so knocked about that I can hardly imagine a
town practitioner carrying it. The thick-iron ferrule is
worn down, so it is evident that he has done a great
amount of walking with it.?
?Perfectly sound!? said Holmes.
?And then again, there is the ?friends of the C.C.H.? I
should guess that to be the Something Hunt, the local
hunt to whose members he has possibly given some
surgical assistance, and which has made him a small
presentation in return.?
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?Really, Watson, you excel yourself,? said Holmes,
pushing back his chair and lighting a cigarette. ?I am
bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been
so good as to give of my own small achievements you
have habitually underrated your own abilities. It may be
that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a
conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius
have a remarkable power of stimulating it. I confess, my
dear fellow, that I am very much in your debt.?
He had never said as much before, and I must admit
that his words gave me keen pleasure, for I had often been
piqued by his indifference to my admiration and to the
attempts which I had made to give publicity to his
methods. I was proud, too, to think that I had so far
mastered his system as to apply it in a way which earned
his approval. He now took the stick from my hands and
examined it for a few minutes with his naked eyes. Then
with an expression of interest he laid down his cigarette,
and carrying the cane to the window, he looked over it
again with a convex lens.
?Interesting, though elementary,? said he as he returned
to his favourite corner of the settee. ?There are certainly
one or two indications upon the stick. It gives us the basis
for several deductions.?
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?Has anything escaped me?? I asked with some self-
importance. ?I trust that th ere is nothing of consequence
which I have overlooked??
?I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your
conclusions were erroneous. When I said that you
stimulated me I meant, to be frank, that in noting your
fallacies I was occasionally guided towards the truth. Not
that you are entirely wrong in this instance. The man is
certainly a country practitioner. And he walks a good
deal.?
?Then I was right.?
?To that extent.?
?But that was all.?
?No, no, my dear Watson, not all?by no means all. I
would suggest, for example, that a presentation to a doctor
is more likely to come from a hospital than from a hunt,
and that when the initials ?C.C.? are placed before that
hospital the words ?Charing Cro ss? very naturally suggest
themselves.?
?You may be right.?
?The probability lies in that direction. And if we take
this as a working hypothesis we have a fresh basis from
which to start our construction of this unknown visitor.?
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?Well, then, supposing that ?C.C.H.? does stand for
?Charing Cross Hospital,? w hat further inferences may we
draw??
?Do none suggest themselves? You know my methods.
Apply them!?
?I can only think of the obvious conclusion that the
man has practised in town before going to the country.?
?I think that we might venture a little farther than this.
Look at it in this light. On what occasion would it be
most probable that such a presentation would be made?
When would his friends unite to give him a pledge of
their good will? Obviously at the moment when Dr.
Mortimer withdrew from the service of the hospital in
order to start in practice for himself. We know there has
been a presentation. We belie ve there has been a change
from a town hospital to a country practice. Is it, then,
stretching our inference too far to say that the presentation
was on the occasion of the change??
?It certainly seems probable.?
?Now, you will observe that he could not have been on
the staff of the hospital, sinc e only a man well-established
in a London practice could hold such a position, and such
a one would not drift into the country. What was he,
then? If he was in the hospital and yet not on the staff he
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could only have been a house-surgeon or a house-
physician?little more than a senior student. And he left
five years ago?the date is on the stick. So your grave,
middle-aged family practitioner vanishes into thin air, my
dear Watson, and there emerges a young fellow under
thirty, amiable, unambitious, absent-minded, and the
possessor of a favourite dog, which I should describe
roughly as being larger than a terrier and smaller than a
mastiff.?
I laughed incredulously as Sherlock Holmes leaned
back in his settee and blew little wavering rings of smoke
up to the ceiling.
?As to the latter part, I hav e no means of checking you,?
said I, ?but at least it is not difficult to find out a few
particulars about the man?s age and professional career.?
From my small medical shel f I took down the Medical
Directory and turned up the name. There were several
Mortimers, but only one who could be our visitor. I read
his record aloud.
?Mortimer, James, M.R.C.S., 1882, Grimpen,
Dartmoor, Devon. House-su rgeon, from 1882 to 1884, at
Charing Cross Hospital. Winner of the Jackson prize for
Comparative Pathology, with es say entitled ?Is Disease a
Reversion?? Corresponding member of the Swedish
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Pathological Society. Author of ?Some Freaks of Atavism?
(Lancet 1882). ?Do We Progress?? (Journal of Psychology,
March, 1883). Medical Officer for the parishes of
Grimpen, Thorsley, and High Barrow.?
?No mention of that local hunt, Watson,? said Holmes
with a mischievous smile, ?but a country doctor, as you
very astutely observed. I think that I am fairly justified in
my inferences. As to the adje ctives, I said, if I remember
right, amiable, unambitious, and absent-minded. It is my
experience that it is only an amiable man in this world
who receives testimonials, only an unambitious one who
abandons a London career for the country, and only an
absent-minded one who leaves his stick and not his
visiting-card after waiting an hour in your room.?
?And the dog??
?Has been in the habit of ca rrying this stick behind his
master. Being a heavy stick the dog has held it tightly by
the middle, and the marks of his teeth are very plainly
visible. The dog?s jaw, as shown in the space between
these marks, is too broad in my opinion for a terrier and
not broad enough for a mastiff. It may have been?yes, by
Jove, it is a curly-haired spaniel.?
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He had risen and paced the room as he spoke. Now he
halted in the recess of the window. There was such a ring
of conviction in his voice that I glanced up in surprise.
?My dear fellow, how can you possibly be so sure of
that??
?For the very simple reason that I see the dog himself
on our very door-step, and there is the ring of its owner.
Don?t move, I beg you, Watson. He is a professional
brother of yours, and your presence may be of assistance
to me. Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson,
when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into
your life, and you know not whether for good or ill. What
does Dr. James Mortimer, the man of science, ask of
Sherlock Holmes, the specialist in crime? Come in!?
The appearance of our visitor was a surprise to me,
since I had expected a typical country practitioner. He was
a very tall, thin man, with a long nose like a beak, which
jutted out between two keen, gray eyes, set closely
together and sparkling brightly from behind a pair of gold-
rimmed glasses. He was clad in a professional but rather
slovenly fashion, for his frock-coat was dingy and his
trousers frayed. Though young, his long back was already
bowed, and he walked with a forward thrust of his head
and a general air of peering benevolence. As he entered his
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eyes fell upon the stick in Holmes?s hand, and he ran
towards it with an exclamation of joy. ?I am so very glad,?
said he. ?I was not sure whether I had left it here or in the
Shipping Office. I would not lose that stick for the world.?
?A presentation, I see,? said Holmes.
?Yes, sir.?
?From Charing Cross Hospital??
?From one or two friends there on the occasion of my
marriage.?
?Dear, dear, that?s bad!? said Holmes, shaking his head.
Dr. Mortimer blinked through his glasses in mild
astonishment.
?Why was it bad??
?Only that you have disarranged our little deductions.
Your marriage, you say??
?Yes, sir. I married, and so left the hospital, and with it
all hopes of a consulting practi ce. It was necessary to make
a home of my own.?
?Come, come, we are not so far wrong, after all,? said
Holmes. ?And now, Dr. James Mortimer ????
?Mister, sir, Mister?a humble M.R.C.S.?
?And a man of precise mind, evidently.?
?A dabbler in science, Mr. Holmes, a picker up of shells
on the shores of the great unk nown ocean. I presume that
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it is Mr. Sherlock Holmes whom I am addressing and not
????
?No, this is my friend Dr. Watson.?
?Glad to meet you, sir. I have heard your name
mentioned in connection with that of your friend. You
interest me very much, Mr. Holmes. I had hardly
expected so dolichocephalic a skull or such well-marked
supra-orbital development. Would you have any objection
to my running my finger along your parietal fissure? A cast
of your skull, sir, until the original is available, would be
an ornament to any anthropological museum. It is not my
intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your
skull.?
Sherlock Holmes waved our str ange visitor into a chair.
?You are an enthusiast in your line of thought, I perceive,
sir, as I am in mine,? said he. ?I observe from your
forefinger that you make y our own cigarettes. Have no
hesitation in lighting one.?
The man drew out paper and tobacco and twirled the
one up in the other with surprising dexterity. He had
long, quivering fingers as agile and restless as the antennae
of an insect.
Holmes was silent, but his little darting glances showed
me the interest which he took in our curious companion.
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?I presume, sir,? said he at last, ?that it was not merely
for the purpose of examining my skull that you have done
me the honour to call here last night and again to-day??
?No, sir, no; though I am happy to have had the
opportunity of doing that as well. I came to you, Mr.
Holmes, because I recognized that I am myself an
unpractical man and because I am suddenly confronted
with a most serious and extraordinary problem.
Recognizing, as I do, that you are the second highest
expert in Europe ????
?Indeed, sir! May I inquire who has the honour to be
the first?? asked Holmes with some asperity.
?To the man of precisely scientific mind the work of
Monsieur Bertillon must always appeal strongly.?
?Then had you not better consult him??
?I said, sir, to the precisely scientific mind. But as a
practical man of affairs it is acknowledged that you stand
alone. I trust, sir, that I have not inadvertently ????
?Just a little,? said Holmes. ?I think, Dr. Mortimer, you
would do wisely if without more ado you would kindly
tell me plainly what the exact nature of the problem is in
which you demand my assistance.?
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