BY SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is undoubtedly the most popular living writer of detective fiction. Sherlock Holmes is said to have been suggested to the author by a study of the character and talents of Joseph Bell, M.D., F.R.C.S., a professor, while Dr. Doyle was a student at Edinburgh University. He was particularly strong on what the author calls "the science of deduction." He used to tell the students their symptoms, and would even give them details of their past life. No collection of famous detective stories would be complete that omitted "The Sign of the Four."
By SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
CHAPTER I
The Science of Deduction
Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist, all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sunk back into the velvet-lined armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction.
Three times a day for many months I had witnessed this performance, but custom had not reconciled my mind to it. On the contrary, from day to day I had become more irritable at the sight, and my conscience swelled nightly within me at the thought that I had lacked the courage to protest. Again and again I had registered a vow that I should deliver my soul upon the subject, but there was that in the cool, nonchalant air of my companion which made him the last man with whom one would care to take anything approaching to a liberty. His great powers, his masterly manner, and the experience which I had had of his many extraordinary qualities, all made me diffident and backward in crossing him.
Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the claret which I had taken with my lunch, or the additional exasperation produced by the extreme deliberation of his manner, I suddenly felt that I could hold out no longer.
"Which is it to-day?" I asked. "Morphine or cocaine?"