Sherlock Holmes: Complete Novels & Stories in One Volume. Arthur Conan Doyle

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      I never realized what an actual living personality Mr. Holmes was to many people until I heard the very pleasing story of the char-à-banc of French schoolboys on a tour to London, who, when asked what they wanted to see first, replied unanimously that they wanted to see Mr. Holmes’ lodgings in Baker Street.

      Rather less pleasing, though flattering in their way, were the letters of abuse which showered upon me when it was thought that I had killed him. “You brute,” was the promising opening of one lady’s epistle.

      The most trenchant criticism of the stories as a series came from a Cornish boatman who remarked to me: “When Mr. Holmes had that fall he may not have been killed, but he was certainly injured, for he was never the same man afterward.” I hope the allegation is not true, and indeed those who have read the stories backward, from the latest to the first, assure me that it is not so; but it was a shrewd thrust none the less.

      One of the quaintest proofs of his reality to many people is that I have frequently received autograph books through the mail, asking me to procure his signature. When it was announced that he was retiring from practice and intended to keep bees on the South Downs, I had several letters offering to help him in his project. Two of them lie before me as I write. One says: “Will Mr. Sherlock Holmes require a housekeeper for his country cottage at Xmas? I know some one who loves a quiet country life, and bees especially—an old-fashioned, quiet woman.” The other, which is addressed to Holmes himself, says: “I see by some of the morning papers that you are about to retire and take up bee keeping. If correct, I shall be pleased to render you service by giving any advice you may require. I trust you will read this letter in the same spirit in which it is written, for I make this offer in return for many pleasant hours.” Many other letters have reached me in which I have been implored to put my correspondents in touch with Mr. Holmes in order that he might elucidate some point in their private affairs.

      Occasionally I have been so far confused with my own character that I have been asked to take up professional work upon these lines. I had, I remember one offer, in the case of an aristocratic murder trial in Poland some years ago, to go across and look into the matter upon my own terms. I need not say that I would not do such a thing for money, since I am diffident as to how far my own services would be of any value; but I have several times, as an amateur, been happy to have been of some assistance to people in distress. I can say, though I touch wood as I say it, that I have never entirely failed in any attempt which I have made to reduce Holmes’ methods to practical use,

      In the case of Mr. Edalji I can claim little credit, for it did not take any elaborate deduction to come to the conclusion that a man who is practically blind did not make a journey at night which involved crossing a main line of railway, and would have tested a trained athlete had he been called upon to do it. The man was obviously innocent, and it is to be regretted, to say the least, that he has never received a penny of compensation for the three years which he spent in gaol.

      A more complex case is that of Oscar Slater, who is still working out his sentence as a convict. I have examined the evidence carefully, including the supplementary evidence given at the very limited and unsatisfactory commission appointed to inquire into the matter, and I have not the faintest doubt that the man is innocent. When the judge asked him at the trial whether he had anything to say why the sentence of death for the murder of Miss Gilchrist should not be pronounced upon him, he cried aloud: “My Lord, I did not know there was such a woman in the world!” I am convinced that this was the literal truth. However, it is proverbially impossible to prove a negative, so there the matter must stand until the people of Scotland insist upon a real investigation into all the circumstances which surround this deplorable case.

      A few of the problems which have come my way have been very similar to some which I had invented for the exhibition of the reasoning of Mr. Holmes. I might perhaps quote one in which that gentleman’s method of thought was copied with complete success. The case was as follows: A gentleman had disappeared. He had drawn a bank balance of forty pounds, which was known to be on him. It was feared that he had been murdered for the sake of the money. He had last been heard of stopping at a large hotel in London, having come from the country that day. In the evening he went to a music-hall performance, came out of it about ten o’clock, returned to his hotel, changed his evening clothes, which were found in his room next day, and disappeared utterly. No one saw him leave the hotel, but a man occupying a neighboring room declared that he had heard him moving during the night. A week had elapsed at the time that I was consulted, but the police had discovered nothing. Where was the man?

      These were the whole of the facts as communicated to me by his relatives in the country. Endeavoring to see the matter through the eyes of Mr. Holmes, I answered by return mail that he was evidently either in Glasgow or in Edinburgh. It proved later that he had, as a fact, gone to Edinburgh, though in the week that had passed he had moved to another part of Scotland.

      There I should leave the matter, for, as Doctor Watson has often shown, a solution explained is a mystery spoiled. At this stage the reader can lay down the magazine and show how simple it all is by working out the problem for himself. He has all the data which were ever given to me. For the sake of those, however, who have no turn for such conundrums, I will try to indicate the links which make the chain. The one advantage which I possessed was that I was familiar with the routine of London hotels—though, I fancy, it differs little from that of hotels elsewhere.

      The first thing was to look at the facts and separate what was certain from what was conjecture. It was all certain except the statement of the person who heard the missing man in the night. How could he tell such a sound from any other sound in a large hotel? That point could be disregarded, if it traversed the general conclusions.

      The first clear deduction was that the man had meant to disappear. Why else should he draw all his money? He had got out of the hotel during the night. But there is a night porter in all hotels, and it is impossible to get out without his knowledge when the СКАЧАТЬ