The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

by Arthur Conan Doyle

Contents

I. A Scandal in Bohemia
II. The Red-Headed League
III. A Case of Identity
IV. The Boscombe Valley Mystery
V. The Five Orange Pips
VI. The Man with the Twisted Lip
VII. The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
VIII. The Adventure of the Speckled Band
IX. The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb
X. The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor
XI. The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet
XII. The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

I. A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA

I.

To Sherlock Holmes, she is always the woman. I have rarely heard him call her anything else. In his eyes, she outshines her entire sex. This wasn't because he felt anything like love for Irene Adler. Holmes despised all emotions—especially love—because they clashed with his cold, precise, carefully balanced mind. I consider him the most perfect thinking-and-observing machine the world has ever produced, but as a lover, he would have been hopelessly out of his element. He never spoke of romantic feeling except to mock it. Emotions were useful to him only as an observer—wonderful tools for stripping away the disguises people wear and revealing their true motives. But for a man trained in cold logic to let such feelings into his own finely tuned mind was to invite confusion that could throw off all his careful conclusions. A strong emotion in a nature like his would be as disruptive as sand in a delicate machine, or a crack in one of his own high-powered lenses. And yet there was one woman who stood apart in his mind: the late Irene Adler, a woman of questionable reputation.

I had seen little of Holmes recently. My marriage had pulled us apart. My own happiness, along with the responsibilities that come with running a household for the first time, filled my attention completely. Holmes, meanwhile, who hated society in every form with his restless, unconventional spirit, stayed on in our old lodgings on Baker Street. He buried himself among his books, swinging between cocaine use and bursts of ambition—between the drowsy fog of the drug and the fierce energy of his own sharp mind. He remained as devoted as ever to the study of crime, using his enormous abilities and remarkable powers of observation to solve mysteries the police had given up on. From time to time I caught some vague news of his work—his trip to Odessa for the Trepoff murder case, his solving of the strange tragedy involving the Atkinson brothers in Trincomalee, and finally a delicate mission he completed successfully for the ruling family of Holland. Beyond what I read in the newspapers, like everyone else, I knew little about my former friend and roommate.

One night—it was March 20th, 1888—I was coming home from visiting a patient (I had gone back into general medical practice by then), and my route took me through Baker Street. As I passed the familiar door—forever linked in my memory with my courtship, and with the grim events described in A Study in Scarlet—I felt a sudden, strong urge to see Holmes again and learn how he was using his extraordinary talents. His windows were brightly lit, and as I looked up, I saw his tall, thin figure cross the room twice, outlined against the blind. He was pacing quickly and eagerly, head bowed, hands clasped behind his back. I knew his habits and moods well enough to read the story in his posture: he was working again. He had climbed out of his drug-induced haze and was chasing some fresh problem. I rang the bell and was shown up to the room that had once been partly mine as well.

He wasn't one for warm greetings—he never was—but I think he was glad to see me. Without saying much, though with a friendly look in his eye, he waved me toward a chair, tossed me his cigar case, and pointed to a bottle of spirits and a soda-water machine in the corner. Then he stood by the fire and studied me with his usual searching gaze.

"Marriage suits you," he said. "I'd guess you've put on seven and a half pounds since I last saw you, Watson."

"Seven!" I said.

"Really, I'd have guessed a bit more. Just a touch more, I think. And back in practice, I see. You didn't mention you planned to return to work."

"Then how do you know?"

"I see it—I work it out. How do I know you've been getting soaked lately, and that your maid is clumsy and careless?"

"My dear Holmes," I said, "this is too much. A few centuries ago, you'd have been burned as a witch. It's true I took a walk in the country on Thursday and came home a complete mess, but I've since changed clothes, so I can't imagine how you figured that out. As for Mary Jane, she is hopeless, and my wife has already given her notice—but again, I don't see how you worked that out."

He laughed quietly and rubbed his long, restless hands together.

"It's simple enough," he said. "My eyes tell me that on the inside of your left shoe, right where the firelight hits it, the leather shows six almost parallel scratches. Clearly, someone scraped carelessly around the edge of the sole to clean off caked mud. That tells me two things: you were out in terrible weather, and you have an especially destructive London housemaid. As for your medical practice—if a man walks into my rooms smelling of iodoform (a disinfectant used by doctors), with a black stain of silver nitrate on his right forefinger, and a bulge on the right side of his top hat where he's hidden his stethoscope, I'd have to be a fool not to recognize an active physician."

I couldn't help laughing at how easily he laid out his reasoning. "When you explain your logic," I said, "it always sounds so simple that I feel I could work it out myself—yet each time you reason something through, I'm baffled until you spell it out. And I'd like to think my eyes are just as sharp as yours."

"Quite so," he answered, lighting a cigarette and settling into an armchair. "You see, but you don't observe. There's a real difference. For instance, you've walked up the stairs to this room countless times."

"Countless times."

"How many, exactly?"

"Well—hundreds, I suppose."

"Then how many steps are there?"

"How many? I have no idea."

"Exactly! You've seen, but you haven't observed. That's my whole point. I happen to know there are seventeen steps, because I've both seen and observed. Since you're interested in these small puzzles, and kind enough to write up a few of my minor cases, this might interest you." He tossed me a sheet of thick, pink-tinted notepaper that had been lying open on the table. "It arrived in the last mail," he said. "Read it out loud."

The note had no date, no signature, and no address.

"There will call upon you tonight, at a quarter to eight," it read, "a gentleman who wishes to consult you on a matter of the utmost importance. Your recent service to one of the royal houses of Europe proves that you can be trusted with matters of the highest consequence. We have heard this said of you from every quarter. Be in your rooms at that hour, and do not be offended if your visitor wears a mask."

"This is certainly mysterious," I said. "What do you think it means?"

"I don't have enough facts yet. It's a serious mistake to form theories before you have the facts. Without meaning to, people start twisting facts to fit their theories, instead of building theories to fit the facts. But let's look at the note itself. What do you make of it?"

I examined the handwriting and the paper closely.

"The writer is probably wealthy," I said, trying to copy my friend's method. "Paper like this wouldn't sell for less than half a crown a packet. It's unusually thick and stiff."

"Unusual—that's exactly the word," said Holmes. "This isn't English paper at all. Hold it up to the light."

I did, and saw a large "E" with a small "g," then a "P," and a large "G" with a small "t," all woven into the paper itself.

"What do you make of that?" Holmes asked.

"The manufacturer's name, I'd guess—or perhaps his monogram."

"Not quite. The 'G' with the small 't' stands for 'Gesellschaft'—German for 'Company,' a common abbreviation like our 'Co.' The 'P,' naturally, stands for 'Papier,' meaning paper. Now for the 'Eg.' Let's check our Continental atlas." He pulled a thick brown volume from the shelf. "Eglow, Eglonitz—here it is: Egria. It's in a German-speaking region, in Bohemia, not far from Carlsbad. 'Notable as the site of Wallenstein's death, and for its many glass factories and paper mills.' Ha! What do you make of that, my friend?" His eyes lit up, and he sent a triumphant cloud of cigarette smoke into the air.

"The paper was made in Bohemia," I said.

"Precisely. And the man who wrote this note is German. Notice the odd phrasing— 'We have heard this said of you from every quarter.' No Frenchman or Russian would write a sentence like that. Only a German mangles his verbs that way. So all that remains is to discover what this German wants—a man who writes on Bohemian paper and prefers wearing a mask to showing his face. And here he comes now, unless I'm mistaken, to answer all our questions."

Just then came the sharp clatter of horses' hooves and wheels scraping against the curb, followed by a firm ring of the doorbell. Holmes let out a low whistle.

"A pair of horses, by the sound of it," he said. Glancing out the window, he added, "Yes—a handsome little carriage, and two beautiful horses. Worth about a hundred and fifty guineas each. There's money in this case, Watson, whatever else there may be."

"I think I should probably leave, Holmes."

"Not at all, Doctor. Stay right where you are. I'm lost without my biographer. And this promises to be interesting—it would be a shame to miss it."

"But your client—"

"Never mind him. I may need your help, and so may he. Here he comes now. Sit back down, Doctor, and pay close attention."

Slow, heavy footsteps, audible on the stairs and in the hallway, stopped just outside the door. Then came a loud, commanding knock.

"Come in!" Holmes called.

A man entered who stood at least six feet six inches tall, built like a giant. His clothing was rich to the point of being, by English standards, almost tasteless. Thick bands of curly fur trimmed the sleeves and front of his double-breasted coat, while a deep blue cloak draped over his shoulders was lined with flame-colored silk and fastened at the neck with a brooch set with a single glowing gem. Boots reaching halfway up his calves, trimmed at the top with rich brown fur, completed an impression of almost barbaric wealth. He carried a wide-brimmed hat in one hand, and wore across the upper half of his face—down past his cheekbones—a black mask, which he seemed to have just put on, since his hand was still raised to it as he walked in. Below the mask, he appeared to be a man of strong character, with a thick, heavy lower lip and a long, straight chin sugge