The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
elaborate, that I shall lay it all before you, and you shall
judge what is essential and what is not.
“I am compelled, to begin with, to say something of my own
college career. I am a London University man, you know, and I am
sure that you will not think that I am unduly singing my own
praises if I say that my student career was considered by my
professors to be a very promising one. After I had graduated I
continued to devote myself to research, occupying a minor
position in King’s College Hospital, and I was fortunate enough
to excite considerable interest by my research into the pathology
of catalepsy, and finally to win the Bruce Pinkerton prize and
medal by the monograph on nervous lesions to which your friend
has just alluded. I should not go too far if I were to say that
there was a general impression at that time that a distinguished
career lay before me.
“But the one great stumbling-block lay in my want of capital. As
you will readily understand, a specialist who aims high is
compelled to start in one of a dozen streets in the Cavendish
Square quarter, all of which entail enormous rents and furnishing
expenses. Besides this preliminary outlay, he must be prepared to
keep himself for some years, and to hire a presentable carriage
and horse. To do this was quite beyond my power, and I could only
hope that by economy I might in ten years’ time save enough to
enable me to put up my plate. Suddenly, however, an unexpected
incident opened up quite a new prospect to me.
“This was a visit from a gentleman of the name of Blessington,
who was a complete stranger to me. He came up to my room one
morning, and plunged into business in an instant.
“‘You are the same Percy Trevelyan who has had so distinguished a
career and won a great prize lately?’ said he.
“I bowed.
“‘Answer me frankly,’ he continued, ‘for you will find it to your
interest to do so. You have all the cleverness which makes a
successful man. Have you the tact?’
“I could not help smiling at the abruptness of the question.
“‘I trust that I have my share,’ I said.
“‘Any bad habits? Not drawn towards drink, eh?’
“‘Really, sir!’ I cried.
“‘Quite right! That’s all right! But I was bound to ask. With all
these qualities, why are you not in practice?’
“I shrugged my shoulders.
“‘Come, come!’ said he, in his bustling way. ‘It’s the old story.
More in your brains than in your pocket, eh? What would you say
if I were to start you in Brook Street?’
“I stared at him in astonishment.
“‘Oh, it’s for my sake, not for yours,’ he cried. ‘I’ll be
perfectly frank with you, and if it suits you it will suit me
very well. I have a few thousands to invest, d’ye see, and I
think I’ll sink them in you.’
“‘But why?’ I gasped.
“‘Well, it’s just like any other speculation, and safer than
most.’
“‘What am I to do, then?’
“‘I’ll tell you. I’ll take the house, furnish it, pay the maids,
and run the whole place. All you have to do is just to wear out
your chair in the consulting-room. I’ll let you have pocket-money
and everything. Then you hand over to me three quarters of what
you earn, and you keep the other quarter for yourself.’
“This was the strange proposal, Mr. Holmes, with which the man
Blessington approached me. I won’t weary you with the account of
how we bargained and negotiated. It ended in my moving into the
house next Lady Day, and starting in practice on very much the
same conditions as he had suggested. He came himself to live with
me in the character of a resident patient. His heart was weak, it
appears, and he needed constant medical supervision. He turned
the two best rooms of the first floor into a sitting-room and
bedroom for himself. He was a man of singular habits, shunning
company and very seldom going out. His life was irregular, but in
one respect he was regularity itself. Every evening, at the same
hour, he walked into the consulting-room, examined the books, put
down five and three-pence for every guinea that I had earned, and
carried the rest off to the strong-box in his own room.
“I may say with confidence that he never had occasion to regret
his speculation. From the first it was a success. A few good
cases and the reputation which I had won in the hospital brought
me rapidly to the front, and during the last few years I have
made him a rich man.
“So much, Mr. Holmes, for my past history and my relations with
Mr. Blessington. It only remains for me now to tell you what has
occurred to bring me here to-night.
“Some weeks ago Mr. Blessington came down to me in, as it seemed
to me, a state of considerable agitation. He spoke of some
burglary which, he said, had been committed in the West End, and
he appeared, I remember, to be quite unnecessarily excited about
it, declaring that a day should not pass before we should add
stronger bolts to our windows and doors. For a week he continued
to be in a peculiar state of restlessness, peering continually
out of the windows, and ceasing to take the short walk which had
usually been the prelude to his dinner. From his manner it struck
me that he was in mortal dread of something or somebody, but when
I questioned him upon the point he became so offensive that I was
compelled to drop the subject. Gradually, as time passed, his
fears appeared to die away, and he had renewed his former habits,
when a fresh event reduced him to the pitiable state of
prostration in which he now lies.
“What happened was this. Two days ago I received the letter which
I now read to you. Neither address nor date is attached to it.
“‘A Russian nobleman who is now resident in England,’ it runs,
‘would be glad to avail himself of the professional assistance of
Dr. Percy Trevelyan. He has been for some years a victim to
cataleptic attacks, on which, as is well known, Dr. Trevelyan is
an authority. He proposes to call at about quarter past six
to-morrow evening, if Dr. Trevelyan will make it convenient to be
at home.’
“This letter interested me deeply, because the chief difficulty
in the study of catalepsy is the rareness of the disease. You may
believe, then, that I was in my consulting-room when, at the
appointed hour, the page showed in the patient.
“He was an elderly man, thin, demure, and commonplace—by no means
the conception one forms of a Russian nobleman. I was much more
struck by the appearance of his companion. This was a tall young
man, surprisingly handsome, with a dark, fierce face, and the
limbs and chest of a Hercules. He had his hand under the other’s
arm as they entered, and helped him to a chair with a tenderness
which one would hardly have expected from his appearance.
“‘You will excuse my coming in, doctor,’ said he to me, speaking
English with a slight lisp. ‘This is my father, and his health is
a matter of the most overwhelming importance to me.’
“I was touched by this filial anxiety. ‘You would, perhaps, care
to remain during the consultation?’ said I.
“‘Not for the world,’ he cried with a gesture of horror. ‘It is
more painful to me than I can express. If I were to see my father
in one of these dreadful seizures I am convinced that I should
never survive it. My own nervous system is an exceptionally
sensitive one. With your permission, I will remain in the
waiting-room while you go into my father’s case.’
“To this, of course, I assented, and the young man withdrew. The
patient and I then plunged into a discussion of his case, of
which I took exhaustive notes. He was not remarkable for
intelligence, and his answers were frequently obscure, which I
attributed to his limited acquaintance with our language.
Suddenly, however, as I sat writing, he ceased to give any answer
at all to my inquiries, and on my turning towards him I was
shocked to see that he was sitting bolt upright in his chair,
staring at me with a perfectly blank and rigid face. He was again
in the grip of his mysterious malady.
“My first feeling, as I have just said, was one of pity and
horror. My second, I fear, was rather one of professional
satisfaction. I made notes of my patient’s pulse and temperature,
tested the rigidity of his muscles, and examined his reflexes.
There was nothing markedly abnormal in any of these conditions,
which harmonised with my former experiences. I had obtained good
results in such cases by the inhalation of nitrite of amyl, and
the present seemed an admirable opportunity of testing its
virtues. The bottle was downstairs in my laboratory, so leaving
my patient seated in his chair, I ran down to get it. There was
some little delay in finding it—five minutes, let us say—and then
I returned. Imagine my amazement to find the room empty and the
patient gone.
“Of course, my first act was to run into the waiting-room. The
son had gone also. The hall door had been closed, but not shut.
My page who admits patients is a new boy and by no means quick.
He waits downstairs, and runs up to show patients out when I ring
the consulting-room bell. He had heard nothing, and the affair
remained a complete mystery. Mr. Blessington came in from his
walk shortly afterwards, but I did not say anything to him upon
the subject, for, to tell the truth, I have got in the way of
late of holding as little communication with him as possible.
“Well, I never thought that I should see anything more of the
Russian and his son, so you can imagine my amazement when, at the
very same hour this evening, they both came marching into my
consulting-room, just as they had done before.
“‘I feel that I owe you a great many apologies for my abrupt
departure yesterday, doctor,’ said my patient.
“‘I confess that I was very much surprised at it,’ said I.
“‘Well, the fact is,’ he remarked, ‘that when I recover from
these attacks my mind is always very clouded as to all that has
gone before. I woke up in a strange room, as it seemed to me, and
made my way out into the street in a sort of dazed way when you
were absent.’
“‘And I,’ said the son, ‘seeing my father pass the door of the
waiting-room, naturally thought that the consultation had come to
an end. It was not until we had reached home that I began to
realize the true state of affairs.’
“‘Well,’ said I, laughing, ‘there is no harm done except that you
puzzled me terribly; so if you, sir, would kindly step into the
waiting-room I shall be happy to continue our consultation which
was brought to so abrupt an ending.’
“‘For half an hour or so I discussed that old gentleman’s
symptoms with him, and then, having prescribed for him, I saw him
go off upon the arm of his son.
“I have told you that Mr. Blessington generally chose this hour
of the day for his exercise. He came in shortly afterwards and