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The Hound of the BaskervillesBy
Arthur Conan Doyle
THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES
Chapter 1. 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 date
"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 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 probability 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."
"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."
,"Has anything escaped me?" I asked with some self-importance. "I trust that
there 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 Cross' 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."
"Well, then, supposing that 'C.C.H.' does stand for 'Charing Cross Hospital,'
what 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 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?"
"It certainly seems probable."
"Now, 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-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 have 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 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.
"Mortimer, James, M.R.C.S., 1882, Grimpen, Dartmoor, Devon.
House-surgeon, from 1882 to 1884, at Charing Cross Hospital.
Winner of the Jackson prize for Comparative Pathology,
with essay entitled 'Is Disease a Reversion?' Corresponding
member of the Swedish 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 adjectives, 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 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 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."
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?"
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