One of the most famous Sherlock Holmes stories is the "Hound of the Baskervilles". In this story Sir Arthur Conan Doyle describes how Sherlock Holmes reaches his conclusions.
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Source of text: 221bbakerstreet.info.
Source of audio file: Project
Gutenberg.
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?"
"For the very simple reason that I
see the dog himself on our very
door-step, and there is the ring of its owner. Don't 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!"
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 Holmes's hand, and he ran
towards it with an exclamation of joy. "I
am so very glad," said he. "I
was not sure whether I had left it here or in the Shipping Office. I
would not lose that stick for the world."
"A presentation, I see,"
said Holmes.
"Yes, sir."
"From Charing Cross Hospital?"
"From one or two friends there on
the occasion of my marriage."
"Dear, dear, that's bad!"
said Holmes, shaking his head.
Dr. Mortimer blinked through his glasses in mild astonishment. "Why was
it bad?"
"Only that you have disarranged our
little deductions. Your marriage,
you say?"
"Yes, 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."
"Come, come, we are not so far wrong,
after all," said Holmes. "And
now, Dr. James Mortimer -"
"Mister, sir, Mister - a humble
M.R.C.S."
"And a man of precise mind,
evidently."
"A 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 not -"
"No, this is my friend Dr. Watson."
"Glad 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."
Sherlock Holmes waved our strange visitor into a chair. "You are an
enthusiast in your line of thought, I perceive, sir, as I am in mine,"
said he. "I observe from your
forefinger that you make your own
cigarettes. Have no hesitation in lighting one."
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. "I presume, sir," said
he at last, "that 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?"
"No, 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 Europe -"
"Indeed, sir! May I inquire who has
the honour to be the first?" asked
Holmes with some asperity.
"To the man of precisely scientific
mind the work of Monsieur Bertillon
must always appeal strongly."
"Then had you not better consult him?"
"I 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 inadvertently -"
"Just a little," said
Holmes. "I 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."
Für Anregungen, Hinweise und Korrekturen an mattgig@freesurf.ch ist ihnen der Autor dankbar.
Matthias Giger, 2006 (Update:18.010.2006)