Table of Contents
A Study in Scarlet
PART ONE
003 Chapter 1 Mr. Sherlock Holmes
006 Chapter 2 The Science of Deduction
012 Chapter 3 The Lauriston Garden Mystery
018 Chapter 4 What John Rance Had to Tell
022 Chapter 5 Our Advertisement Brings a Visitor
026 Chapter 6 Tobias Gregson Shows What He Can Do
031 Chapter 7 Light in the Darkness
PART TWO
036 Chapter 1 On the Great Alkali Plain
041 Chapter 2 The Flower of Utah
045 Chapter 3 John Ferrier Talks with the Prophet
048 Chapter 4 A Flight for Life
053 Chapter 5 The Avenging Angels
058 Chapter 6 A Continuation of the
Reminiscences of John Watson? M.D.
064 Chapter 7 The Conclusion
The Sign of Four
070 Chapter 1 The Science of Deduction
074 Chapter 2 The Statement of the Case
077 Chapter 3 In Quest of a Solution
080 Chapter 4 The Story of the Bald-Headed Man
085 Chapter 5 The Tragedy of Pondicherry Lodge
089 Chapter 6 Sherlock Holmes Gives a Demonstration
094 Chapter 7 The Episode of the Barrel
100 Chapter 8 The Baker Street Irregulars
105 Chapter 9 A Break in the Chain
111 Chapter 10 The End of the Islander
116 Chapter 11 The Great Agra Treasure
119 Chapter 12 The Strange Story of Jonathan Small
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
134 A Scandal in Bohemia
148 The Red-headed League
161 A Case of Identity
172 The Boscombe Valley Mystery
186 The Five Orange Pips
197 The Man with the Twisted Lip
211 The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
223 The Adventure of the Speckled Band
237 The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb
249 The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor
262 The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet
276 The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
292 Silver Blaze
306 The Yellow Face
317 The Stock-Broker’s Clerk
327 The “Gloria Scott”
338 The Musgrave Ritual
349 The Reigate Puzzle
360 The Crooked Man
370 The Resident Patient
382 The Greek Interpreter
393 The Naval Treaty
413 The Final Problem
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
426 The Adventure of the Abbey Grange
439 The Adventure of Black Peter
451 The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton
461 The Adventure of the Dancing Men
475 The Adventure of the Empty House
487 The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez
500 The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter
513 The Adventure of the Norwood Builder
527 The Adventure of the Priory School
545 The Adventure of the Second Stain
560 The Adventure of the Six Napoleons
572 The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist
584 The Adventure of the Three Students
內容試閱：
Chapter 1
Mr. Sherlock Holmes
I
N the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the
University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the
course prescribed for surgeons in the Army. Having completed my
studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland
Fusiliers as assistant surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India
at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war had
broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had
advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy’s
country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in
the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar in
safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new
duties.
The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it
had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my
brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the
fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a
Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian
artery. I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis
had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my
orderly, who threw me across a packhorse, and succeeded in bringing
me safely to the British lines.
Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had
undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers,
to the base hospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied, and had already
improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to
bask a little upon the veranda, when I was struck down by enteric
fever, that curse of our Indian possessions. For months my life was
despaired of, and when at last I came to myself and became
convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board
determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to
England. I was dispatched, accordingly, in the troopship Orontes,
and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health
irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal
government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve
it.
I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free
as air—or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a
day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances I naturally
gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the
loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained. There I
stayed for some time at a private hotel in the Strand, leading a
comfortless, meaningless existence, and spending such money as I
had, considerably more freely than I ought. So alarming did the
state of my finances become, that I soon realized that I must
either leave the metropolis and rusticate somewhere in the country,
or that I must make a complete alteration in my style of living.
Choosing the latter alternative, I began by making up my mind to
leave the hotel, and take up my quarters in some less pretentious
and less expensive domicile.
On the very day that I had come to this conclusion, I was
standing at the Criterion Bar, when someone tapped me on the
shoulder, and turning round I recognized young Stamford, who had
been a dresser under me at Bart’s. The sight of a friendly face in
the great wilderness of London is a pleasant thing indeed to a
lonely man. In old days Stamford had never been a particular crony
of mine, but now I hailed him with enthusiasm, and he, in his turn,
appeared to be delighted to see me. In the exuberance of my joy, I
asked him to lunch with me at the Holborn, and we started off
together in a hansom.
“Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Watson?” he asked in
undisguised wonder, as we rattled through the crowded London
streets. “You are as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut.”
I gave him a short sketch of my adventures, and had hardly
concluded it by the time that we reached our destination.
“Poor devil!” he said, commiseratingly, after he had listened to
my misfortunes. “What are you up to now?”
“Looking for lodgings,” I answered. “Trying to solve the problem
as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a
reasonable price.”
“That’s a strange thing,” remarked my companion; “you are the
second man today that has used that expression to me.”
“And who was the first?” I asked.
“A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the
hospital. He was bemoaning himself this morning because he could
not get someone to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he
had found, and which were too much for his purse.”
“By Jove!” I cried; “if he really wants someone to share the
rooms and the expense, I am the very man for him. I should prefer
having a partner to being alone.”
Young 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 didn’t say there was 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 systematic medical classes. His
studies are very desultory and eccentric, but he has amassed a lot
of out-of-the-way knowledge which would astonish his
professors.”
“Did you never 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.”
“I should like to meet him,” I said. “If I am to lodge with
anyone, I should prefer a man of studious and quiet habits. I am
not strong enough yet to stand much noise or excitement. I had
enough of both in Afghanistan to last me for the remainder of my
natural existence. How could I meet this friend of yours?”
“He is sure to be at the laboratory,” returned my companion. “He
either avoids the place for weeks, or else he works there from
morning till night. If you like, we will drive round together after
luncheon.”
“Certainly,” I answered, and the conversation drifted away into
other channels.
As we made our way to the hospital after leaving the Holborn,
Stamford gave me a few more particulars about the gentleman whom I
proposed to take as a fellow-lodger.
“You mustn’t blame me if you don’t get on with him,” he said; “I
know nothing more of him than I have learned from meeting him
occasionally in the laboratory. You proposed this arrangement, so
you must not hold me responsible.”
“If we don’t get on it will be easy to part company,” I answered.
“It seems to me, Stamford,” I added, looking hard at my companion,
“that you have some reason for washing your hands of the matter. Is
this fellow’s temper so formidable, or what is it? Don’t be
mealy-mouthed about it.”
“It is not easy to express the inexpressible,” he answered with a
laugh. “Holmes is a little too scientific for 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 the 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 too.”
“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 subjects!”
“Yes, to verify how far bruises 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 objects of his studies are. But here
we are, and you must form your own impressions about him.” As he
spoke, we turned down a narrow lane and passed through a small side
door, which opened into a wing of the great hospital. It was
familiar ground to me, and I needed no guiding as we ascended the
bleak stone staircase and made our way down the long corridor with
its vista of whitewashed wall and dun-coloured doors. Near the
farther end a low arched passage branched away from it and led to
the chemical laboratory.
This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless
bottles. Broad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled
with retorts, test-tubes, and little Bunsen lamps, with their blue
flickering flames. There was only one student in the room, who was
bending over a distant table absorbed in his work. At the sound of
our steps he glanced round and sprang to his feet with a cry of
pleasure. “I’ve found it! I’ve found it,” he shouted to my
companion, running towards us with a test-tube in his hand. “I have
found a re-agent which is precipitated by hemoglobin, and by
nothing else.” Had he discovered a gold mine, greater delight could
not have shone upon his features.
“Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said Stamford, introducing
us.
“How are you?” he said cordially, gripping my hand with a
strength for which I should hardly have given him credit. “You have
been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”
“How on earth did you know that?” I asked in astonishment.
“Never mind,” said he, chuckling to himself. “The question now is
about hemoglobin. No doubt you see the significance of this
discovery of mine?”
“It is interesting, chemically, no doubt,” I answered, “but
practically—”
“Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for
years. Don’t you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood
stains? Come over here now!” He seized me by the coat-sleeve in his
eagerness, and drew me over to the table at which he had been
working. “Let us have some fresh blood,” he said, digging a long
bodkin into his finger, and drawing off the resulting drop of blood
in a chemical pipette. “Now, I add this small quantity of blood to
a litre of water. You perceive that the resulting mixture has the
appearance of pure water. The proportion of blood cannot be more
than one in a million. I have no doubt, however, that we shall be
able to obtain the characteristic reaction.” As he spoke, he threw
into the vessel a few white crystals, and then added some drops of
a transparent fluid. In an instant the contents assumed a dull
mahogany colour, and a brownish dust was precipitated to the bottom
of the glass jar.
“Ha! Ha!” he cried, clapping his hands, and looking as delighted
as a child with a new toy. “What do you think of that?”
“It seems to be a very delicate test,” I remarked.
“Beautiful! Beautiful! The old guaiacum test was very clumsy and
uncertain. So is the microscopic examination for blood corpuscles.
The latter is valueless if the stains are a few hours old. Now,
this appears to act as well whether the blood is old or new. Had
this test been invented, there are hundreds of men now walking the
earth who would long ago have paid the penalty of their
crimes.”
“Indeed!” I murmured.
“Criminal cases are continually hinging upon that one point. A
man is suspected of a crime months perhaps after it has been
committed. His linen or clothes are examined and brownish stains
discovered upon them. Are they blood stains, or mud stains, or rust
stains, or fruit stains, or what are they? That is a question which
has puzzled many an expert, and why? Because there was no reliable
test. Now we have the Sherlock Holmes’s test, and there will no
longer be any difficulty.”
His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand over
his heart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by
his imagination.
“You are to be congratulated,” I remarked, considerably surprised
at his enthusiasm.
“There was the case of Von Bischoff at Frankfort last year. He
would certainly have been hung had this test been in existence.
Then there was Mason of Bradford, and the notorious Muller, and
Lefevre of Montpellier, and Samson of New Orleans. I could name a
score of cases in which it would have been decisive.”
“You seem to be a walking calendar of crime,” said Stamford with
a laugh. “You might start a paper on those lines. Call it the
‘Police News of the Past.’”
“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.
“We came here on business,” said Stamford, sitting down on a high
three-legged stool, and pushing another one in my direction with
his foot. “My friend here wants to take diggings; and as you were
complaining that you could get no one to go halves with you, I
thought that I had better bring you together.”
Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his rooms
with me. “I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street,” he said,
“which would suit us down to the ground. You don’t mind the smell
of strong tobacco, I hope?”
“I always smoke ‘ship’s’ myself,” I answered.
“That’s good enough. I generally have chemicals about, and
occasionally do experiments. Would that annoy you?”
“By no means.”
“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.”
I laughed at this cross-examination. “I keep a bull pup,” I said,
“and I object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at
all sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another
set of vices when I’m well, but those are the principal ones at
present.”
“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.”
“When shall we see them?”
“Call for me here at noon tomorrow, and we’ll go together and
settle everything,” he answered.
“All right—noon exactly,” said I, shaking his hand.
We left him working among his chemicals, and we walked together
towards my hotel.
“By the way,” I asked suddenly, stopping and turning upon
Stamford, “how the deuce did he know that I had come from
Afghanistan?”
My companion smiled an enigmatical smile. “That’s just his little
peculiarity,” he said. “A good many people have wanted to know how
he finds things out.”
“Oh! A mystery is it?” I cried, rubbing my hands. “This is very
piquant. I am much obliged to you for bringing us together. ‘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.”
“Good-bye,” I answered, and strolled on to my hotel, considerably
interested in my new acquaintance.
Chapter 2
The Science of Deduction
W
E met next day as he had arranged, and inspected the rooms at No.
221B, Baker Street, of which he had spoken at our meeting. They
consisted of a couple of comfortable bedrooms and a single large
airy sitting-room, cheerfully furnished, and illuminated by two
broad windows. So desirable in every way were the apartments, and
so moderate did the terms seem when divided between us, that the
bargain was concluded upon the spot, and we at once entered into
possession. That very evening I moved my things round from the
hotel, and on the following morning Sherlock Holmes followed me
with several boxes and portmanteaus. For a day or two we were
busily employed in unpacking and laying out our property to the
best advantage. That done, we gradually began to settle down and to
accommodate ourselves to our new surroundings.
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 appeared to take him into the
lowest portions of the city. Nothing could exceed his energy when
the working fit was upon him; but now and 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 the use of some narcotic, 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 to
his aims in life gradually deepened and increased. His very person
and appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most
casual observer. In height he was rather over six feet, and so
excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes
were sharp and piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to
which I have alluded; and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole
expression an air of alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the
prominence and squareness which mark the man of determination. His
hands were invariably blotted with ink and stained with chemicals,
yet he was possessed of extraordinary delicacy of touch, as I
frequently had occasion to observe when I watched him manipulating
his fragile philosophical instruments.
The reader may set me down as a hopeless busybody, when I confess
how much this man stimulated my curiosity, and how often I
endeavoured to break through the reticence which he showed on all
that concerned himself. Before pronouncing judgment, however, be it
remembered how objectless was my life, and how little there was to
engage my attention. My health forbade me from venturing out unless
the weather was exceptionally genial, and I had no friends who
would call upon me and break the monotony of my daily existence.
Under these circumstances, I eagerly hailed the little mystery
which hung around my companion, and spent much of my time in
endeavouring to unravel it.
He was not studying medicine. He had himself, in reply to a
question, confirmed Stamford’s opinion upon that point. Neither did
he appear to have pursued any course of reading which might fit him
for a degree in science or any other recognized portal which would
give him an entrance into the learned world. Yet his zeal for
certain studies was remarkable, and within eccentric limits his
knowledge was so extraordinarily ample and minute that his
observations have fairly astounded me. Surely no man would work so
hard or attain such precise information unless he had some definite
end in view. Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the
exactness of their learning. No man burdens his mind with small
matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.
His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary
literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to
nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest
way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a
climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of
the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System.
That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should
not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to me
to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize
it.
“You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression
of surprise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget
it.”
“To forget it!”
“You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain
originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it
with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber
of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which
might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up
with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying
his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed
as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but
the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has
a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a
mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can
distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for
every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew
before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have
useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”
“But the Solar System!” I protested.
“What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently, “you
say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would
not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”
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