“There’s one thing,” said I, as we walked down to the station. “Ifthe husband’s name was James, and the other was Henry, what wasthis talk about David?”
“That one word, my dear Watson, should have told me thewhole story had I been the ideal reasoner which you are so fond ofdepicting. It was evidently a term of reproach.”
“Of reproach?”
“Yes; David strayed a little occasionally, you know, and on oneoccasion in the same direction as Sergeant James Barclay. Youremember the small affair of Uriah and Bathsheba? My biblicalknowledge is a trifle rusty, I fear, but you will find the story in thefirst or second of Samuel.”
The Resident Patient
In glancing over the somewhat incoherent series of Memoirswith which I have endeavored to illustrate a few of the mentalpeculiarities of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have been struckby the difficulty which I have experienced in picking out exampleswhich shall in every way answer my purpose. For in those casesin which Holmes has performed some tour de force of analyticalreasoning, and has demonstrated the value of his peculiar methodsof investigation, the facts themselves have often been so slightor so commonplace that I could not feel justified in laying thembefore the public. On the other hand, it has frequently happenedthat he has been concerned in some research where the facts havebeen of the most remarkable and dramatic character, but wherethe share which he has himself taken in determining their causeshas been less pronounced than I, as his biographer, could wish.
The small matter which I have chronicled under the heading of“A Study in Scarlet,” and that other later one connected with theloss of the Gloria Scott, may serve as examples of this Scylla andCharybdis which are forever threatening the historian. It may bethat in the business of which I am now about to write the partwhich my friend played is not sufficiently accentuated; and yet thewhole train of circumstances is so remarkable that I cannot bringmyself to omit it entirely from this series.
It had been a close, rainy day in October. Our blinds were halfdrawn,and Holmes lay curled upon the sofa, reading and rereadinga letter which he had received by the morning post. Formyself, my term of service in India had trained me to stand heatbetter than cold, and a thermometer of 90 was no hardship. Butthe paper was uninteresting. Parliament had risen. Everybodywas out of town, and I yearned for the glades of the New Forestor the shingle of Southsea. A depleted bank account had causedme to postpone my holiday, and as to my companion, neither thecountry nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to him. Heloved to lie in the very centre of five millions of people, with hisfilaments stretching out and running through them, responsive toevery little rumor or suspicion of unsolved crime. Appreciation ofNature found no place among his many gifts, and his only changewas when he turned his mind from the evil-doer of the town totrack down his brother of the country.
Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation, I hadtossed aside the barren paper, and, leaning back in my chair, I fellinto a brown study. Suddenly my companion’s voice broke in uponmy thoughts.
“You are right, Watson,” said he. “It does seem a very preposterousway of settling a dispute.”
“Most preposterous!” I exclaimed, and then, suddenly realizinghow he had echoed the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in mychair and stared at him in blank amazement.
“What is this, Holmes?” I cried. “This is beyond anything whichI could have imagined.”
He laughed heartily at my perplexity.
“You remember,” said he, “that some little time ago, when I readyou the passage in one of Poe’s sketches, in which a close reasonerfollows the unspoken thought of his companion, you were inclinedto treat the matter as a mere tour de force of the author. On myremarking that I was constantly in the habit of doing the samething you expressed incredulity.”
“Oh, no!”
“Perhaps not with your tongue, my dear Watson, but certainlywith your eyebrows. So when I saw you throw down your paperand enter upon a train of thought, I was very happy to have theopportunity of reading it off, and eventually of breaking into it, asa proof that I had been in rapport with you.”
But I was still far from satisfied. “In the example which you readto me,” said I, “the reasoner drew his conclusions from the actionsof the man whom he observed. If I remember right, he stumbledover a heap of stones, looked up at the stars, and so on. But I havebeen seated quietly in my chair, and what clues can I have givenyou?”
“You do yourself an injustice. The features are given to man asthe means by which he shall express his emotions, and yours arefaithful servants.”
“Do you mean to say that you read my train of thoughts frommy features?”
“Your features, and especially your eyes. Perhaps you cannotyourself recall how your reverie commenced?”
“No, I cannot.”
“Then I will tell you. After throwing down your paper, whichwas the action which drew my attention to you, you sat for half aminute with a vacant expression. Then your eyes fixed themselvesupon your newly framed picture of General Gordon, and I sawby the alteration in your face that a train of thought had beenstarted. But it did not lead very far. Your eyes turned across to theunframed portrait of Henry Ward Beecher, which stands upon thetop of your books. You then glanced up at the wall, and of courseyour meaning was obvious. You were thinking that if the portraitwere framed it would just cover that bare space and correspondwith Gordon’s picture over there.”
“You have followed me wonderfully!” I exclaimed.