Chapter One
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 âPenang lawyer.â Just under the head was a broad silver band nearly an inch across. âTo James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the C.C.H.,â was engraved upon it, with the date â1884.â It was just such a stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used to carryâdignified, solid, and reassuring.
âWell, Watson, what do you make of it?â
Holmes was sitting with his back to me, and I had given him no sign of my occupation.
âHow did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes in the back of your head.â
âI have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffeepot in front of me,â said he. âBut, tell me, Watson, what do you make of our visitorâs stick? Since we have been so 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.â
âI think,â said I, following as far as I could the methods of my companion, âthat Dr. Mortimer is a successful, elderly medical man, well-esteemed since those who know him give him this mark of their appreciation.â
âGood!â said Holmes. âExcellent!â
âI think also that the probability is in favour of his being a country practitioner who does a great deal of his visiting on foot.â
âWhy so?â
âBecause 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.â
âPerfectly sound!â said Holmes.
âAnd then again, there is the âfriends of the C.C.H.â 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.â
âReally, Watson, you excel yourself,â said Holmes, pushing back his chair and lighting a cigarette. âI 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.â
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.
âInteresting, though elementary,â said he as he returned to his favourite corner of the settee. âThere are certainly one or two indications upon the stick. It gives us the basis for several deductions.â
âHas anything escaped me?â I asked with some self-importance. âI trust that there is nothing of consequence which I have overlooked?â
âI 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.â
âThen I was right.â
âTo that extent.â
âBut that was all.â
âNo, no, my dear Watson, not allâby 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 âC.C.â are placed before that hospital the words âCharing Crossâ very naturally suggest themselves.â
âYou may be right.â
âThe 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.â
âWell, then, supposing that âC.C.H.â does stand for âCharing Cross Hospital,â what further inferences may we draw?â
âDo none suggest themselves? You know my methods. Apply them!â
âI can only think of the obvious conclusion that the man has practised in town before going to the country.â
âI 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 a practice for himself. We know there has been a presentation. We believe 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?â
âIt certainly seems probable.â
âNow, you will observe that he could not have been on the staff of the hospital, since 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 could only have been a house surgeon or a house physicianâlittle more than a senior student. And he left five years agoâthe 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.â
I laughed incredulously as Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his settee and blew little wavering rings of smoke up to the ceiling.
âAs to the latter part, I have no means of checking you,â said I, âbut at least it is not difficult to find out a few particulars about the manâs age and professional career.â From my small medical shelf 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.
âAnd the dog?â
âHas been in the habit of carrying 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 dogâs 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 beenâyes, by Jove, it is a curly-haired spaniel.â
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.
âMy dear fellow, how can you possibly be so sure of that?â
âFor the very simple reason that I see the dog himself on our very doorstep, and there is the ring of its owner. Donât 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!â
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 eyes fell upon the stick in Holmesâs hand, and he ran towards it with an exclamation of joy. âI am so very glad,â said he. âI was not sure whether I had left it here or in the Shipping Office. I would not lose that stick for the world.â
âA presentation, I see,â said Holmes.
âYes, sir.â
âFrom Charing Cross Hospital?â
âFrom one or two friends there on the occasion of my marriage.â
âDear, dear, thatâs bad!â said Holmes, shaking his head.
Dr. Mortimer blinked through his glasses in mild astonishment. âWhy was it bad?â
âOnly that you have disarranged our little deductions. Your marriage, you say?â
âYes, sir. I married, and so left the hospital, and with it all hopes of a consulting practice. It was necessary to make a home of my own.â
âCome, come, we are not so far wrong, after all,â said Holmes. âAnd now, Dr. James Mortimerââ
âMister, sir, Misterâa humble M.R.C.S.â
âAnd a man of precise mind, evidently.â
âA dabbler in science, Mr. Holmes, a picker up of shells on the shores of the great unknown ocean. I presume that it is Mr. Sherlock Holmes whom I am addressing and notââ
âNo, this is my friend Dr. Watson.â
âGlad 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.â
Sherlock Holmes waved our strange visitor into a chair. âYou are an enthusiast in your line of thought, I perceive, sir, as I am in mine,â said he. âI observe from your forefinger that you make your own cigarettes. Have no hesitation in lighting one.â
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. âI presume, sir,â said he at last, âthat 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 today?â
âNo, 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 Europeââ
âIndeed, sir! May I inquire who has the honour to be the first?â asked Holmes with some asperity.
âTo the man of precisely scientific mind the work of Monsieur Bertillon must always appeal strongly.â
âThen had you not better consult him?â
âI 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 inadvertentlyââ
âJust a little,â said Holmes. âI 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.â
Chapter Two
The Curse of the Baskervilles
âI have in my pocket a manuscript,â said Dr. James Mortimer.
âI observed it as you entered the room,â said Holmes.
âIt is an old manuscript.â
âEarly eighteenth century, unless it is a forgery.â
âHow can you say that, sir?â
âYou have presented an inch or two of it to my examination all the time that you have been talking. It would be a poor expert who could not give the date of a document within a decade or so. You may possibly have read my little monograph upon the subject. I put that at 1730.â
âThe exact date is 1742.â Dr. Mortimer drew it from his breast-pocket. âThis family paper was committed to my care by Sir Charles Baskerville, whose sudden and tragic death some three months ago created so much excitement in Devonshire. I may say that I was his personal friend as well as his medical attendant. He was a strong-minded man, sir, shrewd, practical, and as unimaginative as I am myself. Yet he took this document very seriously, and his mind was prepared for just such an end as did eventually overtake him.â
Holmes stretched out his hand for the manuscript and flattened it upon his knee. âYou will observe, Watson, the alternative use of the long s and the short. It is one of several indications which enabled me to fix the date.â
I looked over his shoulder at the yellow paper and the faded script. At the head was written: âBaskerville Hall,â and below in large, scrawling figures: â1742.â
âIt appears to be a statement of some sort.â
âYes, it is a statement of a certain legend which runs in the Baskerville family.â
âBut I understand that it is something more modern and practical upon which you wish to consult me?â
âMost modern. A most practical, pressing matter, which must be decided within twenty-four hours. But the manuscript is short and is intimately connected with the affair. With your permission I will read it to you.â
Holmes leaned back in his chair, placed his ...