Books at Bedtime by Calming Anxiety.
Sherlock Holmes, the Hounds of the Baskervilles, Chapter 1.
Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, saved upon those not infrequent
occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table.
I stood upon the hathrug and picked up the stick which I visited head 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.
For James Mortimer, MRCS, from his friends of the CCH, 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, 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 visitors 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-estined since those who know
him gave 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 furrow 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 CCH.
I should guess that to be there's 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 accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own
small achievements, you have abitually underrated your own abilities.
It may be that you are not your self 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 peaked 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 to apply it in a way which
earned his approval.
He now took the stick from my hands.
I'll examine it for a few minutes with his naked eyes.
Then, with an expression of interest, he lay down his cigarette and carrying the cane
to the window.
He looked over it again with a convex lens.
Nothing, though elementary, said he, as he returned to his favourite corner of the city.
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'm 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 intent.
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
then from a hunt, and that when the initial CC are placed before the hospitals, the words
cheering cross, will 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 CCH does stand for cheering 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 practiced 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 goodwill?
Obviously, at the moment to induct a Mortimer, we've grew from service of the hospital in
order to start a practice from himself.
We know that there has been a presentation.
We believe that there has been a change from a town hospital to a country practice.
It is then stretching our inference too far to say that the presentation was on the occasion
of the change.
Wait, 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 position, and such 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 sin 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 master.
I laughed incredulously, as Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his setty 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 medallical directory and turned up the name.
There were several mortemers, but only one who could be our visitor.
I read his record aloud.
Mortimer James MRCS 1882 Grimpen Dartmore, Devon
House Surgeon from 1882 to 1884 at Charring Cross Hospital.
Winner of the Jackson Prize for Comparative Pathology with SA entitled "Is Disease a Reversion?"
Corresponding member of the Swedish Pathology Society, author of some freaks of atavism
"Lance it 1882." "Do we progress?" Journal of Psychology, March 1883.
Medical officer for the parishes of Grimpen, Thorzley and High Barrow.
"No mention of that local hunt Watson," said Holmes, with a mischievous smile.
"But a country doctor, as you vary, is stuitly 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 is only an amiable man in his world who receives testimonials.
Only unambitious ones who abandon the 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 your habit of carrying the stick behind his master.
Being a heavy stick, the dog is 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 massive.
It may have been, yes, by Jove, it is a curly-haired spaniel.
He hid 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 first 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 stairs 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 beep, which jutted out between
two keen and gray eyes, set closely together and sparkling brightly from behind a pair of
gold ring glasses.
He was clad in a professional, but rather slavently fashion.
After his fructote 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 and
benevolence.
As he entered his eyes fell upon the stick in Holmes' 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 Charring 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 is that bad?
Only that you have disarranged our little deductions, your marriage," he said.
"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,
"Mr. Sir, Mr. A humble MRCS, and a man of precise mind evidently.
The dabble 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 who 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 dollico-sophalica scale of such well-marked, super-orbital development.
Would you have any objection to my running my finger along your peritial fissure?
A cast of your scale, sir, until the original is available?
It would be an ornament to any anthropological museum.
It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I cover your scale."
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 mind," said
he.
"I observe from your forefinger that you make your own cigarettes.
There is no hesitation in lighting one."
The man drew out paper and tobacco and twirled the one up in the other with supply-sing
decked austerity.
He had long, quivering fingers as our giland wrestlers as the antenna 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 scale, that you have done me the honour to call here last night and again today."
"No, sir, no."
"That I am happy to have had the opportunity of doing that as well."
I came to you, Mr Holmes, because I recognised that I am myself an unpractical man, and because
I am suddenly confronted with the most serious and extraordinary problem, recognising 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, as Holmes, with some sparity?
To the man, of precisely scientific mind, the work of Montsua, Bertilon, 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."