A Study in Scarlet - Part 1, Chapter 2: The Science of Deduction

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Part one, Chapter two of A Study in Scarlet presented
by Dream Audio Books. A Study in Scarlet by Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle, Part one, Chapter two, The Science of Deduction.
We met next day as he had arranged and inspected
the rooms at number two twenty one B Baker Street
of which he had spoken at our meeting. They consisted

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of a couple of comfortable bedrooms and a single large
airy sitting room, cheerfully furnished and eliminated by two broad windows.
So desirable in every way were the apartments, and so
moderate did the term seem when divided between us, that
the bargain was concluded upon the spot, and we at
once entered into possession. That very evening I moved my

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things round from the hotel, and on the following morning
Sherlock Holmes followed me with several boxes and portmanteaus. For
a day or two we were busily employed in unpacking
and laying out our property to the best advantage. That done,
we gradually began to settle down and to accommodate ourselves
to our new surroundings. Holmes was certainly not a difficult

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man to live with. He was quiet in his ways,
and his habits were regular. It was rare for him
to be up after ten at night, and he had
invariably breakfasted and gone out before I rose in the morning.
Sometimes he spent his day at the chemical laboratory, sometimes
in the dissecting rooms, and occasionally in long walks which
appeared to take him into the lowest portions of the city.

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Nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was
upon him, But now and again a reaction would seize him,
and for days on end he would lie upon the
sofa in the sitting room, hardly uttering a word or
moving a muscle, from morning to night. On these occasions
I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his
eyes that I might have suspected him of being addicted

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to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance
and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion.
As the weeks went by, my interest in him, and
my curiosity as to his aims in life, gradually deepened
and increased. His very person and appearance were such as
to strike the attention of the most casual observer. In height,
he was rather over six feet and so excessively lean

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that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were
sharp and piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to
which I have alluded, and his thin, hawk like nose
gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision.
His chin, too had the prominence and squareness which mark
the man of determination. His hands were invariably blotted with

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ink and stained with chemicals, Yet he was possessed of
extraordinary delicacy of touch, as I frequently had occasion to
observe when I watched him manipulating his fragile philosophical instruments.
The reader may set me down is a hopeless, busy body.
When I confess how much this man stimulated my curiosity,
and how often I endeavored to break through the reticence

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which he showed on all that concerned himself before pronouncing judgment, however,
be it remembered how objectless was my life, and how
little there was to en age my attention. My health
forbade me from venturing out unless the weather was exceptionally genial,
and I had no friends who would call upon me
and break the monotony of my daily existence. Under these circumstances,

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I eagerly hailed the little mystery which hung about my companion,
and spent much of my time in endeavoring to unravel it.
He was not studying medicine. He had himself, in reply
to a question, confirmed Stamford's opinion upon that point. Neither
did he appear to have pursued any course of reading
which might fit him for a degree in science, or

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any other recognized portal which would give him an entrance
into the learned world. Yet his zeal for certain studies
was remarkable, and within eccentric limits. His knowledge was so
extraordinarily ample and minute that his observations have fairly astounded me. Surely,
no man would work so hard or attain such precise
information unless he had some definite end in view. Desultory

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readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning.
No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he
has some very good reason for doing so. His ignorance
was as remarkable as his knowledge of contemporary literature, philosophy,
and politics. He appeared to know next to nothing. Upon
my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way

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who he might be and what he had done. My
surprise reached a climax. However, when I found incidentally that
he was ignorant of the Copernican theory and of the
composition of the solar system. That any civilized human being
in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the
Earth traveled round the Sun appeared to me to be
such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

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You appear to be astonished, he said, smiling at my
expression of surprise. Now that I do know it, I
shall do my best to forget it. To forget it,
you see, he explained, I consider that a man's brain
originally is like a little empty attic, and you have
to stock it with such furniture as you cheer use.
A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort

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that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might
be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best
is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so
that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now,
the skillful workman is very careful, indeed, as to what
he takes into his brain attic. He will have nothing
but the tools which may help him in doing his work.
But of these he has a large assortment, and all

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in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to
think that that little room has elastic walls and can
distend to any extent depend upon it. There comes a
time when for every addition of knowledge, you forget something
that you knew before. It is of the highest importance.
Therefore not to have useless facts, elbowing out the useful ones,

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but the solar system, I protested, What the deuce is it?
To me? He interrupted, impatiently, you say that we go
round the sun. If we went round the moon, it
would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or
to my work. I was on the point of asking
him what that work might be, but something in his
manner showed me that the question would be an unwelcome one.

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I pondered over our short conversation, however, and endeavored to
draw my deductions from it. He said that he would
acquire no knowledge which did not bear upon his object. Therefore,
all the knowledge which he possessed was such as would
be useful to him. I enumerated in my own mind
all the various points upon which he had shown me
that he was exceptionally well informed. I even took a

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pencil and jotted them down. I could not help smiling
at the document. When I had completed it. It ran
in this way. Sherlock Holmes his limits. One knowledge of
literature nil. Two knowledge of philosophy nil. Three, knowledge of
astronomy nil. Four, knowledge of politics feeble. Five knowledge of

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botany variable well up in belladonna, opium and poisons. Generally
knows nothing of prac gardening. Six knowledge of geology practical
but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other.
After Walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers and
told me by their color and consistence in what part

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of London he had received them. Seven knowledge of chemistry profound.
Eight knowledge of anatomy accurate but unsystematic. Nine knowledge of
sensational literature immense. He appears to know every detail of
every horror perpetrated in the century. Ten plays the violin well.

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Eleven is an expert singlestick player, boxer and swordsman. Twelve
has a good practical knowledge of British law. When I
had got so far in my list, I threw it
into the fire in despair. If I can only find
what the fellow is driving at by reconciling all these
accomplishments in discovering a calling which needs them all. I

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said to myself, I may as well give up the
attempt at once. I see that I have alluded above
to his powers upon the violin. These were very remarkable,
but as eccentric as all his other accomplishments. That he
could play pieces and difficult pieces I knew well, because
at my request he has played me some of Mendelssohn's
Leader and other favorites. When left to himself, however, he

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would seldom produce any music or attempt any recognized air.
Leaning back in his arm chair of an evening, he
would close his eyes and scrape carelessly at the fiddle,
which was thrown across his knee. Sometimes the chords were
sonorous and melancholy. Occasionally they were fantastic and cheerful. Clearly
they reflected the thoughts which possessed him. But whether the

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music aided those thoughts, or whether the playing was simply
the result of a whim or fancy, was more than
I could determine. I might have rebelled against these exasperating
solos had it not been that he usually terminated them
by playing in quick succession a whole series of my
favorite airs is a slight compensation for the trial upon
my patients. During the first week or so, we had

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no callers, and I had begun to think that my
companion was as friendless a man as I was myself. Presently, however,
I found that he had many acquaintances, and those in
the most different classes of society. There was one little, sallow,
rat faced, dark eyed fellow who was introduced to me
as mister Lestrade, and who came three or four times
in a single week. One morning, a young girl called

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fashionably dressed and stayed for half an hour or more.
The same afternoon brought a gray headed, seedy visitor looking
like a jew peddler, who appeared to me to be
much excited, and who was closely followed by a slipshod
elderly woman. On another occasion, an old, white haired gentleman
had an interview with my companion, and on another a
railway porter in his velveteen uniform. When any of these

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nondescript individuals put in an appearance, Sherlock Holmes used to
beg for the use of the sitting room, and I
would retire to my bedroom. He always apologized to me
for putting me to this inconvenience. I have to use
this room as a place of business, he said, and
these people are my clients. Again I had an opportunity
of asking him a point blank question, and again my

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delicacy prevented me from forcing another man to confide in me.
I imagined at the time that he had some strong
reason for not alluding to it, but he soon dispelled
the idea by coming round to the subject of his
own accord. It was upon the fourth of March, as
I have good reason to remember, that I rose somewhat
earlier than usual, and found that Sherlock Holmes had not

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yet finished his breakfast. The landlady had become so accustomed
to my late habits that my place had not been laid,
nor my coffee prepared. With the unreasonable petulance of mankind,
I rang the bell and gave a curt intimation that
I was ready. Then I picked up a magazine from
the table and attempted to while away the time with
it while my companion munched silently at his toast. One

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of the articles had a pencil mark at the heading,
and I naturally began to run my eye through it.
Its somewhat ambitious title was the Book of Life, and
it attempted to show how much an observant man might
learn by an accurate and systematic examination of all that
came in his way. It struck me as being a
remarkable mixture of shrewdness and of absurdity. The reasoning was

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close and intense, but the deductions appeared to me to
be far fetched and exaggerated. The writer claimed by a
momentary expression, a twitch of muscle, or a glance of
an eye to fathom a man's inmost thoughts de seit,
according to him, was an impossibility in the case of
one trained to observation and analysis. His conclusions were as

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infallible as so many propositions of euclid. So startling would
his results appear to the uninitiated, that until they learned
the processes by which he had arrived at them, they
might well consider him as a necromancer. From a drop
of water, said the writer, a logician could infer the
possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen

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or heard of one or the other. So all life
is a great chain, the nature of which is known
whenever we are shown a single link of it. Like
all other arts, the science of deduction and analysis is
one which can only be acquired by long and patient study.
Nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to
attain the highest possible perfection in it. Before turning to

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those moral and mental aspects of the matter which present
the greatest difficulties, let the inquirer begin by mastering more
elementary problems. Let him, on meeting a fellow mortal, learn
at a glance to distinguish the history of the man
and the trade or profession to which he belongs. Puerile
as such an exercise may seem, it sharpens the faculties
of observation, and teaches one where to look and what

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to look for. By a man's finger nails, by his
coat sleeve, by his boots, by his trouser knees, by
the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression,
by his shirt cuffs. By each of these things, a
man's calling is plainly revealed. That all united should fail
to enlighten the competent inquirer in any case is almost inconceivable.

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What ineffable twaddle I cried slapping the magazine down on
the table. I never read such rubbish in my life.
What is it, asked Sherlock Holmes. Why this article, I said,
pointing at it with my egg spoon as I sat
down to my breakfast. I see that you have read it,
since you have marked it. I don't deny that it
is smartly written. It irritates me. Though it is evidently

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the theory of some arm chair lounger who evolves all
these neat little paradoxes in the seclusion of his own study.
It is not practical. I should like to see him
clap down in a third class carriage on the underground
and asked to give the trades of all his fellow travelers.
I would lay a thousand to one against him. You
would lose your money. Holmes remarked calmly. As for the article,

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I wrote it myself. You yes, I have a turn
both for observation and for deduction. The theories which I
have expressed there, and which appear to you to be
so chimerical, are really extremely practical, so practical that I
depend upon them for my bread and cheese. And how
I asked, involuntarily, well, I have a trade of my

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own I suppose I am the only one in the world.
I am a consulting detective, if you can understand what
that is. Here in London we have lots of government
detectives and lots of private ones. When these fellows are
at fault, they come to me and I manage to
put them on the right scent. They lay all the
evidence before me, and I am generally able, by the
help of my knowledge of the history of crime, to

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set them straight. There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds,
and if you have all the details of a thousand
at your finger ends, it is odd if you can't
unravel the thousand. In first Lestrade is a well known detective.
He got himself into a fog recently over a forgery case,
and that was what brought him here. And these other people,

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they are mostly sent on by private inquiry agencies. They
are all people who are in trouble about something and
want a little enlightening. I listen to their story, They
listened to my comments, and then I pocket my fee.
But do you mean to say I said that without
leaving your room, you can unravel some nott which other
men can make nothing of, although they have seen every

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detail for themselves. Quite so, I have a kind of
intuition that way. Now and again a case turns up
which is a little more complex. Then I have to
bustle about and see things with my own eyes. You see,
I have a lot of special knowledge which I apply
to the problem, and which facilitates matters wonderfully. Those rules
of deduction lay down in that article which aroused your scorn,

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are invaluable to me in practical work. Observation with me
is second nature. You appeared to be surprised when I
told you on our first meeting that you had come
from Afghanistan. You were told, no doubt, nothing of the sort.
I knew you came from Afghanistan. From long habit. The
train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind that

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I arrived at the conclusion without being conscious of intermediate steps.
There were such steps, however, the train of reasoning ran.
Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with
the air of a military man, clearly an army doctor.
Then he has just come from the tropics. For his
face is dark, and that is not the natural tent
of his skin. For his wrists are fair. He has

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undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly
his left arm has been injured. He holds it in
a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could
an English army doctor have seen much hardship and got
his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan. The whole train of
thought did not occupy a second. I then remarked that

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you came from Afghanistan and you were astonished. It is
simple enough as you explain it, I said, smiling. You
remind me of Edgar Allan Poe's Dupenn. I had no
idea that such individuals did exist outside of stories. Sherlock
Holms rose and lit his pipe. No doubt you think
that you are compliment me in comparing me to du Penn.

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He observed. Now, in my opinion, du Penn was a
very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in
on his friend's thoughts with an apropos remark after a
quarter of an hour's silence is really very showy and superficial.
He had some analytical genius, no doubt, but he was
by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine.

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Have you read Goeboyot's works, I asked, does Lecoq come
up to your idea of a detective? Sherlock Holm sniffed sardonically.
Lecoq was a miserable bungler, he said in an angry voice.
He had only one thing to recommend him, and that
was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The
question was how to identify an unknown prisoner. I could

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have done it in twenty four hours. Lecoq took six
months or so. It might be made a text book
for detectives to teach them what to avoid. I felt
rather indignant at having two characters whom I had admired
treated in this cavalier's style. I walked over to the
window and stood looking out into the busy street. This
fellow may be very clever, I said to myself, but

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he is certainly very conceited. There are no crimes and
no criminals in these days, he said, querulously, What is
the use of having brains in our profession? I know
well that I have it in me to make my
name famous. No man lives, or has ever lived, who
has brought the same amount of study and of natural
talent to the detection of crime which I have done,

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and what is the result. There is no crime to detect,
or at most some bungling villainy with a motive so
transparent that even a Scotland Yard official can see through it.
I was still annoyed at his bumptious style of conversation.
I thought it best to change the topic. I wonder
what that fellow is looking for, I asked, pointing to
a stalwart, plainly dressed individual who was walking slowly down

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the other side of the street, looking anxiously at the numbers.
He had a large blue envelope in his hand and
was evidently the bearer of a message. You mean, the
retired sergeant of Marine's, said Sherlock Holmes. Brag and bounce,
thought I to myself. He knows that I cannot verify
his guests. The thought had hardly passed through my mind

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when the man whom we were watching caught sight of
the number on our door and ran rapidly across the roadway.
We heard a loud knock, a deep voice below, and
heavy steps ascending the stair. For mister Sherlock Holmes, he said,
stepping into the room and handing my friend the letter
here was an opportunity of taking the conceit out of him.
He little thought of this when he made that random shot.

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May I ask my lad, I said, in the blandest voice,
what your trade may be? Commissionaire sir, he said, gruffly,
uniform away for repairs, and you were, I asked, with
a slightly malicious glance at my companion, a sergeant Sir,
Royal Marine Light Infantry. Sir. No answer, write sir. He

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clicked his heels together, raised his hand in salute, and
was end of Part one, Chapter two,