BEING A REPRINT FROM THE REMINISCENCES OF JOHN H. WATSON, M.D., LATE OF THE ARMY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT
IN THE YEAR 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the Army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as assistant surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy's country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties.
The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a pack-horse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.
Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to the base hospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied, and had already improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little upon the veranda, when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse of our Indian possessions. For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to England. I was despatched, accordingly, in the troopship Orontes, and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it.
I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air-or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained. There I stayed for some time at a private hotel in the Strand, leading a comfortless, meaningless existence, and spending such money as I had, considerably more freely than I ought. So alarming did the state of my finances become, that I soon realized that I must either leave the metropolis and rusticate somewhere in the country, or that I must make a complete alteration in my style of living. Choosing the latter alternative, I began by making up my mind to leave the hotel, and take up my quarters in some less pretentious and less expensive domicile.
On the very day that I had come to this conclusion, I was standing at the Criterion Bar, when someone tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round I recognized young Stamford, who had been a dresser under me at Bart's. The sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of London is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man. In old days Stamford had never been a particular crony of mine, but now I hailed him with enthusiasm, and he, in his turn, appeared to be delighted to see me. In the exuberance of my joy, I asked him to lunch with me at the Holborn, and we started off together in a hansom.
"Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Watson?" he asked in undisguised wonder, as we rattled through the crowded London streets. "You are as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut."
I gave him a short sketch of my adventures, and had hardly concluded it by the time that we reached our destination.
"Poor devil!" he said, commiseratingly, after he had listened to my misfortunes. "What are you up to now?"
"Looking for lodgings," I answered. "Trying to solve the problem as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable price."
"That's a strange thing," remarked my companion; "you are the second man to-day that has used that expression to me."
"And who was the first?" I asked.
"A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital. He was bemoaning himself this morning because he could not get someone to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he had found, and which were too much for his purse."
"By Jove!" I cried; "if he really wants someone to share the rooms and the expense, I am the very man for him. I should prefer having a partner to being alone."
Young Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wineglass. "You don't know Sherlock Holmes yet," he said; "perhaps you would not care for him as a constant companion."
"Why, what is there against him?"
"Oh, I didn't say there was anything against him. He is a little queer in his ideas--an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as I know he is a decent fellow enough."
"A medical student, I suppose?" said I.
"No--I have no idea what he intends to go in for. I believe he is well up in anatomy, and he is a first-class chemist; but, as far as I know, he has never taken out any systematic medical classes. His studies are very desultory and eccentric, but he has amassed a lot of out-of-the-way knowledge which would astonish his professors."
"Did you never ask him what he was going in for?" I asked.
"No; he is not a man that it is easy to draw out, though he can be communicative enough when the fancy seizes him."
"I should like to meet him," I said. "If I am to lodge with anyone, I should prefer a man of studious and quiet habits. I am not strong enough yet to stand much noise or excitement. I had enough of both in Afghanistan to last me for the remainder of my natural existence. How could I meet this friend of yours?"
"He is sure to be at the laboratory," returned my companion. "He either avoids the place for weeks, or else he works there from morning till night. If you like, we will drive round together after luncheon."
"Certainly," I answered, and the conversation drifted away into other channels.
As we made our way to the hospital after leaving the Holborn, Stamford gave me a few more particulars about the gentleman whom I proposed to take as a fellow-lodger.
"You mustn't blame me if you don't get on with him," he said; "I know nothing more of him than I have learned from meeting him occasionally in the laboratory. You proposed this arrangement, so you must not hold me responsible."
"If we don't get on it will be easy to part company," I answered. "It seems to me, Stamford," I added, looking hard at my companion, "that you have some reason for washing your hands of the matter. Is this fellow's temper so formidable, or what is it? Don't be mealymouthed about it."
"It is not easy to express the inexpressible," he answered with a laugh. "Holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes--it approaches to cold-bloodedness. I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch of the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you understand, but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea of the effects. To do him justice, I think that he would take it himself with the same readiness. He appears to have a passion for definite and exact knowledge."
"Very right too."
"Yes, but it may be pushed to excess. When it comes to beating the subjects in the dissecting-rooms with a stick, it is certainly taking rather a bizarre shape."
"Beating the subjects!"
"Yes, to verify how far bruises may be produced after death. I saw him at it with my own eyes."
"And yet you say he is not a medical student?"
"No. Heaven knows what the objects of his studies are. But here we are, and you must form your own impressions about him." As he spoke, we turned down a narrow lane and passed through a small side-door, which opened into a wing of the great hospital. It was familiar ground to me, and I needed no guiding as we ascended the bleak stone staircase and made our way down the long corridor with its vista of whitewashed wall and dun-coloured doors. Near the farther end a low arched passage branched away from it and led to the chemical laboratory.
This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless bottles.
Broad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled with reto"top">
Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt
whatever about that. The register of his burial was
signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker,
and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And
Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he
chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my
own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about
a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to
regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery
in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors
is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands
shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You
will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that
Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did.
How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were
partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge
was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole
assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and
sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully
cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent
man of business on the very day of the funeral,
and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.
The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to
the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley
was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or
nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going
to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that
Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there
would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a
stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts,
than there would be in any other middle-aged
gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy
spot -- say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance --
literally to astonish his son's weak mind. Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name.
There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse
door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as
Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the
business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley,
but he answered to both names. It was all the
same to him. Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind-
stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping,
scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and
sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out
generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary
as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features,
nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek,
stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue;
and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty
rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his
wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always
about with him; he iced his office in the dogdays; and
didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas. External heat and cold had little influence on
Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather
chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he,
no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no
pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't
know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and
snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage
over him in only one respect. They often `came down'
handsomely, and Scrooge never did. Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with
gladsome looks, `My dear Scrooge, how are you?
When will you come to see me?' No beggars implored
him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him
what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all
his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of
Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to
know him; and when they saw him coming on, would
tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and
then would wag their tails as though they said, `No
eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!' But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing
he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths
of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance,
was what the knowing ones call `nuts' to Scrooge. Once upon a time -- of all the good days in the year,
on Christmas Eve -- old Scrooge sat busy in his
counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy
withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside,
go wheezing up and down, beating their hands
upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the
pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had
only just gone three, but it was quite dark already --
it had not been light all day -- and candles were flaring
in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like
ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog
came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was
so dense without, that although the court was of the
narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms.
To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring
everything, one might have thought that Nature
lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale. The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open
that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a
dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying
letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's
fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one
coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept
the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the
clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted
that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore
the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to
warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being
a man of a strong imagination, he failed. `A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!' cried
a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's
nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was
the first intimation he had of his approach. `Bah!' said Scrooge, `Humbug!' He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the
fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was
all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his
eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.
`Christmas a humbug, uncle!' said Scrooge's
nephew. `You don't mean that, I am sure?' `I do,' said Scrooge. `Merry Christmas! What
right have you to be merry? What reason have you
to be merry? You're poor enough.' `Come, then,' returned the nephew gaily. `What
right have you to be dismal? What reason have you
to be morose? You're rich enough.' Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur
of the moment, said `Bah!' again; and followed it up
with `Humbug.' `Don't be cross, uncle!' said the nephew. `What else can I be,' returned the uncle, `when I
live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas!
Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas
time to you but a time for paying bills without
money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but
not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books
and having every item in 'em through a round dozen
of months presented dead against you? If I could
work my will,' said Scrooge indignantly, `every idiot
who goes about with "Merry Christmas" on his lips,
should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried
with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!' `Uncle!' pleaded the nephew. `Nephew!' returned the uncle sternly, `keep Christmas
in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.' `Keep it!' repeated Scrooge's nephew. `But you
don't keep it.' `Let me leave it alone, then,' said Scrooge. `Much
good may it do you! Much good it has ever done
you!' `There are many things from which I might have
derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare
say,' returned the nephew. `Christmas among the
rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas
time, when it has come round -- apart from the
veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything
belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a
good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant
time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar
of the year, when men and women seem by one consent
to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think
of people below them as if they really were
fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race
of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore,
uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or
silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me
good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!' The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded.
Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety,
he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark
for ever. `Let me hear another sound from you,' said
Scrooge, `and you'll keep your Christmas by losing
your situation! You're quite a powerful speaker,
sir,' he added, turning to his nephew. `I wonder you
don't go into Parliament.' `Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us tomorrow.' Scrooge said that he would see him -- yes, indeed he
did. He went the whole length of the expression,
and said that he would see him in that extremity first. `But why?' cried Scrooge's nephew. `Why?' `Why did you get married?' said Scrooge. `Because I fell in love.' `Because you fell in love!' growled Scrooge, as if
that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous
than a merry Christmas. `Good afternoon!' `Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before
that happened. Why give it as a reason for not
coming now?' `Good afternoon,' said Scrooge. `I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you;
why cannot we be friends?' `Good afternoon,' said Scrooge. `I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so
resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I
have been a party. But I have made the trial in
homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas
humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!' `Good afternoon,' said Scrooge. `And A Happy New Year!' `Good afternoon,' said Scrooge. His nephew left the room without an angry word,
notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to
bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who
cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned
them cordially. `There's another fellow,' muttered Scrooge; who
overheard him: `my clerk, with fifteen shillings a
week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry
Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam.' This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had
let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen,
pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off,
in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in
their hands, and bowed to him. `Scrooge and Marley's, I believe,' said one of the
gentlemen, referring to his list. `Have I the pleasure
of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?' `Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,'
Scrooge replied. `He died seven years ago, this very
night.' `We have no doubt his liberality is well represented
by his surviving partner,' said the gentleman, presenting
his credentials. It certainly was; for they had been two kindred
spirits. At the ominous word `liberality,' Scrooge
frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials
back. `At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,'
said the gentleman, taking up a pen, `it is more than
usually desirable that we should make some slight
provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer
greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in
want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands
are in want of common comforts, sir.' `Are there no prisons?' asked Scrooge. `Plenty of prisons,' said the gentleman, laying down
the pen again. `And the Union workhouses?' demanded Scrooge.
`Are they still in operation?' `They are. Still,' returned the gentleman, `I wish
I could say they were not.' `The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour,
then?' said Scrooge. `Both very busy, sir.' `Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first,
that something had occurred to stop them in their
useful course,' said Scrooge. `I'm very glad to
hear it.' `Under the impression that they scarcely furnish
Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,'
returned the gentleman, `a few of us are endeavouring
to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink.
and means of warmth. We choose this time, because
it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt,
and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down
for?' `Nothing!' Scrooge replied. `You wish to be anonymous?' `I wish to be left alone,' said Scrooge. `Since you
ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer.
I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't
afford to make idle people merry. I help to support
the establishments I have mentioned -- they cost
enough; and those who are badly off must go there.' `Many can't go there; and many would rather die.' `If they would rather die,' said Scrooge, `they had
better do it, and decrease the surplus population.
Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know that.' `But you might know it,' observed the gentleman. `It's not my business,' Scrooge returned. `It's
enough for a man to understand his own business, and
not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies
me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!' Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue
their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge returned
his labours with an improved opinion of himself,
and in a more facetious temper than was usual
with him. Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that
people ran about with flaring links, proffering their
services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct
them on their way. The ancient tower of a church,
whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down
at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became
invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the
clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if
its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there.
The cold became intense. In the main street at the
corner of the court, some labourers were repairing
the gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier,
round which a party of ragged men and boys were
gathered: warming their hands and winking their
eyes before the blaze rts,
test-tubes, and little Bunsen lamps, with their blue flickering flames. There
was only one student in the room, who was bending over a distant table absorbed
in his work. At the sound of our steps he glanced round and sprang to his feet
with a cry of pleasure. "I've found it! I've found it," he shouted
to my companion, running towards us with a test-tube in his hand. "I have
found a re-agent which is precipitated by haemoglobin, and by nothing else."
Had he discovered a gold mine, greater delight could not have shone upon his
features. "Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said Stamford, introducing us. "How are you?" he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength
for which I should hardly have given him credit. "You have been in
Afghanistan, I perceive." "How on earth did you know that?" I asked in astonishment. "Never mind," said he, chuckling to himself. "The question
now is about haemoglobin. No doubt you see the significance of this discovery
of mine?" "It is interesting, chemically, no doubt," I answered, "but
practically-- --" "Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years.
Don't you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains? Come over
here now!" He seized me by the coat-sleeve in his eagerness, and drew me
over to the table at which he had been working. "Let us have some fresh
blood," he said, digging a long bodkin into his finger, and drawing off the
resulting drop of blood in a chemical pipette. "Now, I add this small
quantity of blood to a litre of water. You perceive that the resulting mixture
has the appearance of pure water. The proportion of blood cannot be more than
one in a million. I have no doubt, however, that we shall be able to obtain the
characteristic reaction." As he spoke, he threw into the vessel a few
white crystals, and then added some drops of a transparent fluid. In an instant
the contents assumed a dull mahogany colour, and a brownish dust was
precipitated to the bottom of the glass jar. "Ha! ha!" he cried, clapping his hands, and looking as delighted
as a child with a new toy. "What do you think of that?" "It seems to be a very delicate test," I remarked. "Beautiful! beautiful! The old guaiacum test was very clumsy and
uncertain. So is the microscopic examination for blood corpuscles. The latter
is valueless if the stains are a few hours old. Now, this appears to act as
well whether the blood is old or new. Had this test been invented, there are
hundreds of men now walking the earth who would long ago have paid the penalty
of their crimes." "Indeed!" I murmured. "Criminal cases are continually hinging upon that one point. A man is
suspected of a crime months perhaps after it has been committed. His linen or
clothes are examined and brownish stains discovered upon them. Are they blood
stains, or mud stains, or rust stains, or fruit stains, or what are they? That
is a question which has puzzled many an expert, and why? Because there was no
reliable test. Now we have the Sherlock Holmes's test, and there will no longer
be any difficulty." His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand over his heart
and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his imagination. "You are to be congratulated," I remarked, considerably surprised
at his enthusiasm. "There was the case of Von Bischoff at Frankfort last year. He would
certainly have been hung had this test been in existence. Then there was Mason
of Bradford, and the notorious Muller, and Lefevre of Montpellier, and Samson of
New Orleans. I could name a score of cases in which it would have been
decisive." "You seem to be a walking calendar of crime," said Stamford with a
laugh. "You might start a paper on those lines. Call it the 'Police News
of the Past.'" "Very interesting reading it might be made, too," remarked
Sherlock Holmes, sticking a small piece of plaster over the prick on his finger.
"I have to be careful," he continued, turning to me with a smile, "for
I dabble with poisons a good deal." He held out his hand as he spoke, and
I noticed that it was all mottled over with similar pieces of plaster, and
discoloured with strong acids. "We came here on business," said Stamford, sitting down on a high
three-legged stool, and pushing another one in my direction with his foot. "My
friend here wants to take diggings; and as you were complaining that you could
get no one to go halves with you, I thought that I had better bring you
together." Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his rooms with me. "I
have my eye on a suite in Baker Street," he said, "which would suit us
down to the ground. You don't mind the smell of strong tobacco, I hope?" "I always smoke 'ship's' myself," I answered. "That's good enough. I generally have chemicals about, and
occasionally do experiments. Would that annoy you?" "By no means." "Let me see--what are my other shortcomings? I get in the dumps at
times, and don't open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky
when I do that. Just let me alone, and I'll soon be right. What have you to
confess now? It's just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another
before they begin to live together." I laughed at this cross-examination. "I keep a bull pup," I said,
"and I object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at all
sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of vices
when I'm well, but those are the principal ones at present." "Do you include violin playing in your category of rows?" he
asked, anxiously. "It depends on the player," I answered. "A well-played
violin is a treat for the gods--a badly played one-- --" "Oh, that's all right," he cried, with a merry laugh. "I
think we may consider the thing as settled--that is, if the rooms are agreeable
to you." "When shall we see them?" "Call for me here at noon to-morrow, and we'll go together and settle
everything," he answered. "All right--noon exactly," said I, shaking his hand. We left him working among his chemicals, and we walked together towards my
hotel. "By the way," I asked suddenly, stopping and turning upon
Stamford, "how the deuce did he know that I had come from Afghanistan?" My companion smiled an enigmatical smile. "That's just his little
peculiarity," he said. "A good many people have wanted to know how he
finds things out." "Oh! a mystery is it?" I cried, rubbing my hands. "This is
very piquant. I am much obliged to you for bringing us together. 'The proper study of
mankind is man,' you know." "You must study him, then," Stamford said, as he bade me good-bye.
"You'll find him a knotty problem, though. I'll wager he learns more
about you than you about him. Good-bye." "Good-bye," I answered, and strolled on to my hotel, considerably
interested in my new acquaintance.
Stave 1: Marley's Ghost