The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
Shortly after my marriage I had bought a connection in the
Paddington district. Old Mr. Farquhar, from whom I purchased it,
had at one time an excellent general practice; but his age, and
an affliction of the nature of St. Vitus’s dance from which he
suffered, had very much thinned it. The public not unnaturally
goes on the principle that he who would heal others must himself
be whole, and looks askance at the curative powers of the man
whose own case is beyond the reach of his drugs. Thus as my
predecessor weakened his practice declined, until when I
purchased it from him it had sunk from twelve hundred to little
more than three hundred a year. I had confidence, however, in my
own youth and energy, and was convinced that in a very few years
the concern would be as flourishing as ever.
For three months after taking over the practice I was kept very
closely at work, and saw little of my friend Sherlock Holmes, for
I was too busy to visit Baker Street, and he seldom went anywhere
himself save upon professional business. I was surprised,
therefore, when, one morning in June, as I sat reading the
_British Medical Journal_ after breakfast, I heard a ring at the
bell, followed by the high, somewhat strident tones of my old
companion’s voice.
“Ah, my dear Watson,” said he, striding into the room, “I am very
delighted to see you! I trust that Mrs. Watson has entirely
recovered from all the little excitements connected with our
adventure of the Sign of Four.”
“Thank you, we are both very well,” said I, shaking him warmly by
the hand.
“And I hope, also,” he continued, sitting down in the
rocking-chair, “that the cares of medical practice have not
entirely obliterated the interest which you used to take in our
little deductive problems.”
“On the contrary,” I answered, “it was only last night that I was
looking over my old notes, and classifying some of our past
results.”
“I trust that you don’t consider your collection closed.”
“Not at all. I should wish nothing better than to have some more
of such experiences.”
“To-day, for example?”
“Yes, to-day, if you like.”
“And as far off as Birmingham?”
“Certainly, if you wish it.”
“And the practice?”
“I do my neighbour’s when he goes. He is always ready to work off
the debt.”
“Ha! Nothing could be better,” said Holmes, leaning back in his
chair and looking keenly at me from under his half closed lids.
“I perceive that you have been unwell lately. Summer colds are
always a little trying.”
“I was confined to the house by a severe chill for three days
last week. I thought, however, that I had cast off every trace of
it.”
“So you have. You look remarkably robust.”
“How, then, did you know of it?”
“My dear fellow, you know my methods.”
“You deduced it, then?”
“Certainly.”
“And from what?”
“From your slippers.”
I glanced down at the new patent leathers which I was wearing.
“How on earth—” I began, but Holmes answered my question before
it was asked.
“Your slippers are new,” he said. “You could not have had them
more than a few weeks. The soles which you are at this moment
presenting to me are slightly scorched. For a moment I thought
they might have got wet and been burned in the drying. But near
the instep there is a small circular wafer of paper with the
shopman’s hieroglyphics upon it. Damp would of course have
removed this. You had, then, been sitting with your feet
outstretched to the fire, which a man would hardly do even in so
wet a June as this if he were in his full health.”
Like all Holmes’s reasoning the thing seemed simplicity itself
when it was once explained. He read the thought upon my features,
and his smile had a tinge of bitterness.
“I am afraid that I rather give myself away when I explain,” said
he. “Results without causes are much more impressive. You are
ready to come to Birmingham, then?”
“Certainly. What is the case?”
“You shall hear it all in the train. My client is outside in a
four-wheeler. Can you come at once?”
“In an instant.” I scribbled a note to my neighbour, rushed
upstairs to explain the matter to my wife, and joined Holmes upon
the door-step.
“Your neighbour is a doctor,” said he, nodding at the brass
plate.
“Yes; he bought a practice as I did.”
“An old-established one?”
“Just the same as mine. Both have been ever since the houses were
built.”
“Ah! Then you got hold of the best of the two.”
“I think I did. But how do you know?”
“By the steps, my boy. Yours are worn three inches deeper than
his. But this gentleman in the cab is my client, Mr. Hall
Pycroft. Allow me to introduce you to him. Whip your horse up,
cabby, for we have only just time to catch our train.”
The man whom I found myself facing was a well-built,
fresh-complexioned young fellow, with a frank, honest face and a
slight, crisp, yellow moustache. He wore a very shiny top hat and
a neat suit of sober black, which made him look what he was—a
smart young City man, of the class who have been labeled
cockneys, but who give us our crack volunteer regiments, and who
turn out more fine athletes and sportsmen than any body of men in
these islands. His round, ruddy face was naturally full of
cheeriness, but the corners of his mouth seemed to me to be
pulled down in a half-comical distress. It was not, however,
until we were all in a first-class carriage and well started upon
our journey to Birmingham that I was able to learn what the
trouble was which had driven him to Sherlock Holmes.
“We have a clear run here of seventy minutes,” Holmes remarked.
“I want you, Mr. Hall Pycroft, to tell my friend your very
interesting experience exactly as you have told it to me, or with
more detail if possible. It will be of use to me to hear the
succession of events again. It is a case, Watson, which may prove
to have something in it, or may prove to have nothing, but which,
at least, presents those unusual and _outré_ features which are
as dear to you as they are to me. Now, Mr. Pycroft, I shall not
interrupt you again.”
Our young companion looked at me with a twinkle in his eye.
“The worst of the story is,” said he, “that I show myself up as
such a confounded fool. Of course it may work out all right, and
I don’t see that I could have done otherwise; but if I have lost
my crib and get nothing in exchange I shall feel what a soft
Johnnie I have been. I’m not very good at telling a story, Dr.
Watson, but it is like this with me:
“I used to have a billet at Coxon & Woodhouse, of Drapers’
Gardens, but they were let in early in the spring through the
Venezuelan loan, as no doubt you remember, and came a nasty
cropper. I had been with them five years, and old Coxon gave me a
ripping good testimonial when the smash came, but of course we
clerks were all turned adrift, the twenty-seven of us. I tried
here and tried there, but there were lots of other chaps on the
same lay as myself, and it was a perfect frost for a long time. I
had been taking three pounds a week at Coxon’s, and I had saved
about seventy of them, but I soon worked my way through that and
out at the other end. I was fairly at the end of my tether at
last, and could hardly find the stamps to answer the
advertisements or the envelopes to stick them to. I had worn out
my boots paddling up office stairs, and I seemed just as far from
getting a billet as ever.
“At last I saw a vacancy at Mawson & Williams’, the great
stockbroking firm in Lombard Street. I daresay E.C. is not much
in your line, but I can tell you that this is about the richest
house in London. The advertisement was to be answered by letter
only. I sent in my testimonial and application, but without the
least hope of getting it. Back came an answer by return, saying
that if I would appear next Monday I might take over my new
duties at once, provided that my appearance was satisfactory. No
one knows how these things are worked. Some people say that the
manager just plunges his hand into the heap and takes the first
that comes. Anyhow it was my innings that time, and I don’t ever
wish to feel better pleased. The screw was a pound a week rise,
and the duties just about the same as at Coxon’s.
“And now I come to the queer part of the business. I was in
diggings out Hampstead way—17, Potter’s Terrace. Well, I was
sitting doing a smoke that very evening after I had been promised
the appointment, when up came my landlady with a card which had
‘Arthur Pinner, Financial Agent,’ printed upon it. I had never
heard the name before and could not imagine what he wanted with
me; but, of course, I asked her to show him up. In he walked, a
middle-sized, dark-haired, dark-eyed, black-bearded man, with a
touch of the Sheeny about his nose. He had a brisk kind of way
with him and spoke sharply, like a man who knew the value of
time.”
“‘Mr. Hall Pycroft, I believe?’” said he.
“‘Yes, sir,’ I answered, pushing a chair towards him.
“‘Lately engaged at Coxon & Woodhouse’s?’
“‘Yes, sir.’
“‘And now on the staff of Mawson’s.’
“‘Quite so.’
“‘Well,’ said he, ‘the fact is that I have heard some really
extraordinary stories about your financial ability. You remember
Parker, who used to be Coxon’s manager? He can never say enough
about it.’
“Of course I was pleased to hear this. I had always been pretty
sharp in the office, but I had never dreamed that I was talked
about in the City in this fashion.
“‘You have a good memory?’ said he.
“‘Pretty fair,’ I answered, modestly.
“‘Have you kept in touch with the market while you have been out
of work?’ he asked.
“‘Yes; I read the Stock Exchange List every morning.’
“‘Now that shows real application!’ he cried. ‘That is the way to
prosper! You won’t mind my testing you, will you? Let me see. How
are Ayrshires?’
“‘A hundred and six and a quarter to a hundred and five and
seven-eighths.’
“‘And New Zealand Consolidated?’
“‘A hundred and four.
“‘And British Broken Hills?’
“‘Seven to seven-and-six.’
“‘Wonderful!’ he cried, with his hands up. ‘This quite fits in
with all that I had heard. My boy, my boy, you are very much too
good to be a clerk at Mawson’s!’
“This outburst rather astonished me, as you can think. ‘Well,’
said I, ‘other people don’t think quite so much of me as you seem
to do, Mr. Pinner. I had a hard enough fight to get this berth,
and I am very glad to have it.’
“‘Pooh, man; you should soar above it. You are not in your true
sphere. Now, I’ll tell you how it stands with me. What I have to
offer is little enough when measured by your ability, but when
compared with Mawson’s, it’s light to dark. Let me see. When do