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Books at Bedtime by Calming Anxiety.

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Sherlock Holmes, the Hounds of the Baskervilles, Chapter 1.

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Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, saved upon those not infrequent

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occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table.

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I stood upon the hathrug and picked up the stick which I visited head left behind him

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the night before.

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It was a fine, thick piece of wood, bulbous-headed, of the sort which is known as a penang lawyer.

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Just under the head was a broad silver band nearly an inch across.

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For James Mortimer, MRCS, from his friends of the CCH, was engraved upon it with the

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date 1884.

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It was just such a stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used to carry, dignified,

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solid, reassuring.

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Well Watson, what do you make of it?

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Holmes was sitting with his back to me and I had given him no sign of my occupation.

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How did you know what I was doing?

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I believe you have eyes in the back of your head.

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I have, at least, a well-polished silver-plated coffee pot in front of me said he.

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But tell me Watson, what do you make of our visitors stick?

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Since we have been so unfortunate as to miss him and have no notion of his errand.

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This accidental souvenir becomes of importance.

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Let me hear you, reconstruct the man by an examination of it.

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I think, said I, following as far as I could, the methods of my companion.

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That Dr Mortimer is a successful, elderly medical man, well-estined since those who know

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him gave him this mark of their appreciation.

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Good, said Holmes, excellent.

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I think also that the probability is in favour of his being a country practitioner who does

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a great deal of his visiting on foot.

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Why so?

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Because this stick, though originally a very handsome one, has been so knocked about that

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I can hardly imagine a town practitioner carrying it.

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The thick iron furrow is worn down, so it is evident that he has done a great amount of

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walking with it.

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"Perfectly sound," said Holmes.

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And then again, there is the "friends" of the CCH.

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I should guess that to be there's something hunt, the local hunt, to whose members he

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has possibly given some surgical assistance, and which has made him a small presentation

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in return.

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"Really?

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Watson, you excel yourself," said Holmes, pushing back his chair and lighting a cigarette.

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I am bound to say that in all accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own

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small achievements, you have abitually underrated your own abilities.

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It may be that you are not your self luminous, but you are a conductor of light.

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Some people, without possessing genius, have a remarkable power of stimulating it.

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I confess my dear fellow that I am very much in your debt.

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He had never said as much before, and I must admit that his words gave me keen pleasure.

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For I had often been peaked by his indifference to my admiration and to the attempts which

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I had made to give publicity to his methods.

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I was proud, too, to think that I had so far mastered his system to apply it in a way which

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earned his approval.

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He now took the stick from my hands.

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I'll examine it for a few minutes with his naked eyes.

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Then, with an expression of interest, he lay down his cigarette and carrying the cane

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to the window.

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He looked over it again with a convex lens.

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Nothing, though elementary, said he, as he returned to his favourite corner of the city.

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There are certainly one or two indications upon the stick.

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It gives us the basis for several deductions.

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Has anything escaped me?

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I asked with some self-importance.

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I trust that there is nothing of consequence which I have overlooked.

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I'm afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your conclusions were erroneous.

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When I said that you stimulated me, I meant to be frank, that in noting your fallacies,

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I was occasionally guided towards the truth, not that you are entirely wrong in this instance.

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The man is certainly a country practitioner and he walks a good deal.

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Then I was right.

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To that intent.

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But that was all?

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No, no my dear Watson, not all.

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By no means all.

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I would suggest, for example, that a presentation to a doctor is more likely to come from a hospital

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then from a hunt, and that when the initial CC are placed before the hospitals, the words

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cheering cross, will naturally suggest themselves.

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You may be right.

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The probability lies in that direction.

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And if we take this as a working hypothesis, we have a fresh basis from which to start

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our construction of this unknown visitor.

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Well, then, supposing that CCH does stand for cheering cross hospital, what further inferences

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may we draw?

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Do none suggest themselves?

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You know my methods?

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Apply them.

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I can only think of the obvious conclusion that the man has practiced in town before going

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to the country.

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I think that we might venture a little farther than this.

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Look at it in this light.

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On what occasion would it be most probable that such a presentation would be made?

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When would his friends unite to give him a pledge of their goodwill?

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Obviously, at the moment to induct a Mortimer, we've grew from service of the hospital in

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order to start a practice from himself.

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We know that there has been a presentation.

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We believe that there has been a change from a town hospital to a country practice.

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It is then stretching our inference too far to say that the presentation was on the occasion

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of the change.

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Wait, it certainly seems probable.

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Now, you will observe that he could not have been on the staff of the hospital, since only

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a man well established in a London practice could hold such position, and such one would

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not drift into the country.

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What was he then?

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If he was in the hospital and yet not on the staff, he could only have been a house surgeon

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or a house physician, little more than a senior student.

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And he left five years ago, the date is on the stick.

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So your grave, middle-aged family practitioner vanishes into sin air, my dear Watson, and

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there emerges a young fellow under thirty, amiable, unambitious, absent-minded, and the possessor

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of a favourite dog, which I should describe roughly as being larger than a terrier, and

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smaller than a master.

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I laughed incredulously, as Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his setty and blew little wavering

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rings of smoke up to the ceiling.

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As to the latter part, I have no means of checking you, said I, but at least it is not difficult

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to find out a few particulars about the man's age and professional career.

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From my small medical shelf, I took down the medallical directory and turned up the name.

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There were several mortemers, but only one who could be our visitor.

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I read his record aloud.

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Mortimer James MRCS 1882 Grimpen Dartmore, Devon

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House Surgeon from 1882 to 1884 at Charring Cross Hospital.

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Winner of the Jackson Prize for Comparative Pathology with SA entitled "Is Disease a Reversion?"

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Corresponding member of the Swedish Pathology Society, author of some freaks of atavism

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"Lance it 1882." "Do we progress?" Journal of Psychology, March 1883.

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Medical officer for the parishes of Grimpen, Thorzley and High Barrow.

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"No mention of that local hunt Watson," said Holmes, with a mischievous smile.

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"But a country doctor, as you vary, is stuitly observed."

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I think that I am fairly justified in my inferences.

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As to the adjectives, I said, "If I remember right, amiable, unambitious and absent-minded."

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It is my experience that is only an amiable man in his world who receives testimonials.

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Only unambitious ones who abandon the London career for the country.

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And only an absent-minded one who leaves his stick and not his visiting card after waiting

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an hour in your room.

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And the dog has been in your habit of carrying the stick behind his master.

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Being a heavy stick, the dog is held it tightly by the middle, and the marks of his teeth

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are very plainly visible.

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The dog's jaw, as shown in the space between these marks, is too broad in my opinion for

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a terrier, and not broad enough for a massive.

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It may have been, yes, by Jove, it is a curly-haired spaniel.

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He hid Risen and paced the room as he spoke.

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Now he halted in the recess of the window.

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There was such a ring of conviction in his voice that I glanced up in surprise.

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My dear fellow, how can you possibly be so sure of that?

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For the very simple reason that I see the dog himself on our very first step, and there

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is the ring of its owner.

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Don't move.

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I beg you, Watson.

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He is a professional brother of yours, and your presence may be of assistance to me.

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Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stairs which is

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walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill.

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What does Dr. James Mortimer, the man of science, ask of Sherlock Holmes, the specialist

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in crime?

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Come in.

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The appearance of our visitor was a surprise to me, since I had expected a typical country

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practitioner.

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He was a very tall, thin man, with a long nose like a beep, which jutted out between

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two keen and gray eyes, set closely together and sparkling brightly from behind a pair of

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gold ring glasses.

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He was clad in a professional, but rather slavently fashion.

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After his fructote was dingy and his trousers frayed, though young, his long back was already

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bowed, and he walked with a forward thrust of his head and a general air of peering and

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benevolence.

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As he entered his eyes fell upon the stick in Holmes' hand, and he ran towards it with

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an exclamation of joy.

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"I am so very glad," said he.

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"I was not sure whether I had left it here or in the shipping office.

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I would not lose that stick for the world."

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"A presentation, I see," said Holmes.

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"Yes, sir, from Charring Cross Hospital?

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From one or two friends there on the occasion of my marriage.

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Dear, dear, that's bad," said Holmes, shaking his head.

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Dr. Mortimer blinked through his glasses in mild astonishment.

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"Why is that bad?

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Only that you have disarranged our little deductions, your marriage," he said.

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"Yes, sir, I married and so left the hospital and with it all hopes of a consulting practice.

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It was necessary to make a home of my own."

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"Come, come, we are not so far wrong after all," said Holmes, and now Dr. James Mortimer,

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"Mr. Sir, Mr. A humble MRCS, and a man of precise mind evidently.

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The dabble in science, Mr. Holmes, a picker up of shells on the shores of the great unknown

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ocean.

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I presume that it is Mr. Sherlock Holmes who I am addressing and not no.

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This is my friend, Dr. Watson."

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"Glad to meet you, sir.

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I have heard your name mentioned in connection with that of your friend.

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You interest me very much, Mr. Holmes.

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I had hardly expected, so dollico-sophalica scale of such well-marked, super-orbital development.

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Would you have any objection to my running my finger along your peritial fissure?

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A cast of your scale, sir, until the original is available?

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It would be an ornament to any anthropological museum.

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It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I cover your scale."

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Sherlock Holmes waved our strange visitor into a chair.

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"You are an enthusiast in your line of thought I perceive, sir, as I am in mind," said

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he.

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"I observe from your forefinger that you make your own cigarettes.

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There is no hesitation in lighting one."

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The man drew out paper and tobacco and twirled the one up in the other with supply-sing

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decked austerity.

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He had long, quivering fingers as our giland wrestlers as the antenna of an insect.

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Holmes was silent, but his little darting glances showed me the interest which he took in our

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curious companion.

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"I presume, sir," said he at last, "that it was not merely for the purpose of examining

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my scale, that you have done me the honour to call here last night and again today."

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"No, sir, no."

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"That I am happy to have had the opportunity of doing that as well."

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I came to you, Mr Holmes, because I recognised that I am myself an unpractical man, and because

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I am suddenly confronted with the most serious and extraordinary problem, recognising as

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I do that you are the second highest expert in Europe.

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Indeed, sir, may I inquire who has the honour to be the first, as Holmes, with some sparity?

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To the man, of precisely scientific mind, the work of Montsua, Bertilon, must always appeal

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strongly.

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Then had you not better consult him.

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I said, sir, to the precisely scientific mind, but as a practical man of affairs it is acknowledged

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that you stand alone.

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I trust, sir, that I have not inadvertently, just a little," said Holmes, "I think, Dr. Mortimer,

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you would do wisely, if without more ado, you would kindly tell me, plainly, what the exact

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nature of the problem is in which you demand my assistance."

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