The Sign of the Four(那四个的记号)

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The Sign of the Four

By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Sign of the Four

CHAPTER 1 The Science of

Deduction

Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel- piece

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 sank back into the velvet-lined arm-chair 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 Beaune 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?"

He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he

had opened. "It is cocaine," he said,--"a seven-per- cent. solution.

Would you care to try it?"

"No, indeed," I answered, brusquely. "My constitution has not got

over the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain

upon it."

He smiled at my vehemence. "Perhaps you are right, Watson," he

The Sign of the Four

said. "I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it,

however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that its

secondary action is a matter of small moment."

"But consider!" I said, earnestly. "Count the cost! Your brain may,

as you say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and morbid

process, which involves increased tissue-change and may at last leave a

permanent weakness. You know, too, what a black reaction comes upon

you. Surely the game is hardly worth the candle. Why should you, for

a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great powers with which

you have been endowed? Remember that I speak not only as one

comrade to another, but as a medical man to one for whose constitution he

is to some extent answerable."

He did not seem offended. On the contrary, he put his finger- tips

together and leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair, like one who has a

relish for conversation.

"My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give

me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate

analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then

with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I

crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own

particular profession,--or rather created it, for I am the only one in the

world."

"The only unofficial detective?" I said, raising my eyebrows.

"The only unofficial consulting detective," he answered. "I am the

last and highest court of appeal in detection. When Gregson or Lestrade

or Athelney Jones are out of their depths--which, by the way, is their

normal state--the matter is laid before me. I examine the data, as an

expert, and pronounce a specialist's opinion. I claim no credit in such

cases. My name figures in no newspaper. The work itself, the pleasure

of finding a field for my peculiar powers, is my highest reward. But you

have yourself had some experience of my methods of work in the

Jefferson Hope case."

"Yes, indeed," said I, cordially. "I was never so struck by anything in

my life. I even embodied it in a small brochure with the somewhat

The Sign of the Four

fantastic title of 'A Study in Scarlet.'"

He shook his head sadly. "I glanced over it," said he. "Honestly, I

cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact

science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner.

You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much

the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth

proposition of Euclid."

"But the romance was there," I remonstrated. "I could not tamper

with the facts."

"Some facts should be suppressed, or at least a just sense of proportion

should be observed in treating them. The only point in the case which

deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from effects to

causes by which I succeeded in unraveling it."

I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially

designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was irritated by the egotism

which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should be

devoted to his own special doings. More than once during the years that

I had lived with him in Baker Street I had observed that a small vanity

underlay my companion's quiet and didactic manner. I made no remark,

however, but sat nursing my wounded leg. I had a Jezail bullet through it

some time before, and, though it did not prevent me from walking, it

ached wearily at every change of the weather.

"My practice has extended recently to the Continent," said Holmes,

after a while, filling up his old brier-root pipe. "I was consulted last

week by Francois Le Villard, who, as you probably know, has come rather

to the front lately in the French detective service. He has all the Celtic

power of quick intuition, but he is deficient in the wide range of exact

knowledge which is essential to the higher developments of his art. The

case was concerned with a will, and possessed some features of interest.

I was able to refer him to two parallel cases, the one at Riga in 1857, and

the other at St. Louis in 1871, which have suggested to him the true

solution. Here is the letter which I had this morning acknowledging my

assistance." He tossed over, as he spoke, a crumpled sheet of foreign

notepaper. I glanced my eyes down it, catching a profusion of notes of

The Sign of the Four

admiration, with stray "magnifiques," "coup-de-maitres," and "tours-de-

force," all testifying to the ardent admiration of the Frenchman.

"He speaks as a pupil to his master," said I.

"Oh, he rates my assistance too highly," said Sherlock Holmes, lightly.

"He has considerable gifts himself. He possesses two out of the three

qualities necessary for the ideal detective. He has the power of

observation and that of deduction. He is only wanting in knowledge; and

that may come in time. He is now translating my small works into

French."

"Your works?"

"Oh, didn't you know?" he cried, laughing. "Yes, I have been guilty

of several monographs. They are all upon technical subjects. Here, for

example, is one 'Upon the Distinction between the Ashes of the Various

Tobaccoes.' In it I enumerate a hundred and forty forms of cigar-,

cigarette-, and pipe-tobacco, with colored plates illustrating the difference

in the ash. It is a point which is continually turning up in criminal trials,

and which is sometimes of supreme importance as a clue. If you can say

definitely, for example, that some murder has been done by a man who

was smoking an Indian lunkah, it obviously narrows your field of search.

To the trained eye there is as much difference between the black ash of a

Trichinopoly and the white fluff of bird's-eye as there is between a

cabbage and a potato."

"You have an extraordinary genius for minutiae," I remarked.

"I appreciate their importance. Here is my monograph upon the

tracing of footsteps, with some remarks upon the uses of plaster of Paris as

a preserver of impresses. Here, too, is a curious little work upon the

influence of a trade upon the form of the hand, with lithotypes of the

hands of slaters, sailors, corkcutters, compositors, weavers, and diamond-

polishers. That is a matter of great practical interest to the scientific

detective,--especially in cases of unclaimed bodies, or in discovering the

antecedents of criminals. But I weary you with my hobby."

"Not at all," I answered, earnestly. "It is of the greatest interest to me,

especially since I have had the opportunity of observing your practical

application of it. But you spoke just now of observation and deduction.

The Sign of the Four

Surely the one to some extent implies the other."

"Why, hardly," he answered, leaning back luxuriously in his arm- chair,

and sending up thick blue wreaths from his pipe. "For example,

observation shows me that you have been to the Wigmore Street Post-

Office this morning, but deduction lets me know that when there you

dispatched a telegram."

"Right!" said I. "Right on both points! But I confess that I don't see

how you arrived at it. It was a sudden impulse upon my part, and I have

mentioned it to no one."

"It is simplicity itself," he remarked, chuckling at my surprise,--"so

absurdly simple that an explanation is superfluous; and yet it may serve to

define the limits of observation and of deduction. Observation tells me

that you have a little reddish mould adhering to your instep. Just

opposite the Seymour Street Office they have taken up the pavement and

thrown up some earth which lies in such a way that it is difficult to avoid

treading in it in entering. The earth is of this peculiar reddish tint which

is found, as far as I know, nowhere else in the neighborhood. So much is

observation. The rest is deduction."

"How, then, did you deduce the telegram?"

"Why, of course I knew that you had not written a letter, since I sat

opposite to you all morning. I see also in your open desk there that you

have a sheet of stamps and a thick bundle of post- cards. What could you

go into the post-office for, then, but to send a wire? Eliminate all other

factors, and the one which remains must be the truth."

"In this case it certainly is so," I replied, after a little thought. "The

thing, however, is, as you say, of the simplest. Would yo think me

impertinent if I were to put your theories to a more severe test?"

"On the contrary," he answered, "it would prevent me from taking a

second dose of cocaine. I should be delighted to look into any problem

which you might submit to me."

"I have heard you say that it is difficult for a man to have any object in

daily use without leaving the impress of his individuality upon it in such a

way that a trained observer might read it. Now, I have here a watch

which has recently come into my possession. Would you have the

The Sign of the Four

kindness to let me have an opinion upon the character or habits of the late

owner?"

I handed him over the watch with some slight feeling of amusement in

my heart, for the test was, as I thought, an impossible one, and I intended

it as a lesson against the somewhat dogmatic tone which he occasionally

assumed. He balanced the watch in his hand, gazed hard at the dial,

opened the back, and examined the works, first with his naked eyes and

then with a powerful convex lens. I could hardly keep from smiling at

his crestfallen face when he finally snapped the case to and handed it back.

"There are hardly any data," he remarked. "The watch has been

recently cleaned, which robs me of my most suggestive facts."

"You are right," I answered. "It was cleaned before being sent to

me." In my heart I accused my companion of putting forward a most

lame and impotent excuse to cover his failure. What data could he

expect from an uncleaned watch?

"Though unsatisfactory, my research has not been entirely barren," he

observed, staring up at the ceiling with dreamy, lack-lustre eyes.

"Subject to your correction, I should judge that the watch belonged to your

elder brother, who inherited it from your father."

"That you gather, no doubt, from the H. W. upon the back?"

"Quite so. The W. suggests your own name. The date of the watch

is nearly fifty years back, and the initials are as old as the watch: so it

was made for the last generation. Jewelry usually descents to the eldest

son, and he is most likely to have the same name as the father. Your

father has, if I remember right, been dead many years. It has, therefore,

been in the hands of your eldest brother."

"Right, so far," said I. "Anything else?"

"He was a man of untidy habits,--very untidy and careless. He was

left with good prospects, but he threw away his chances, lived for some

time in poverty with occasional short intervals of prosperity, and finally,

taking to drink, he died. That is all I can gather."

I sprang from my chair and limped impatiently about the room with

considerable bitterness in my heart.

"This is unworthy of you, Holmes," I said. "I could not have

The Sign of the Four

believed that you would have descended to this. You have made inquires

into the history of my unhappy brother, and you now pretend to deduce

this knowledge in some fanciful way. You cannot expect me to believe

that you have read all this from his old watch! It is unkind, and, to speak

plainly, has a touch of charlatanism in it."

"My dear doctor," said he, kindly, "pray accept my apologies.

Viewing the matter as an abstract problem, I had forgotten how personal

and painful a thing it might be to you. I assure you, however, that I never

even know that you had a brother until you handed me the watch."

"Then how in the name of all that is wonderful did you get these facts?

They are absolutely correct in every particular."

"Ah, that is good luck. I could only say what was the balance of

probability. I did not at all expect to be so accurate."

"But it was not mere guess-work?"

"No, no: I never guess. It is a shocking habit,--destructive to the

logical faculty. What seems strange to you is only so because you do not

follow my train of thought or observe the small facts upon which large

inferences may depend. For example, I began by stating that your

brother was careless. When you observe the lower part of that watch-

case you notice that it is not only dinted in two places, but it is cut and

marked all over from the habit of keeping other hard objects, such as coins

or keys, in the same pocket. Surely it is no great feat to assume that a

man who treats a fifty-guinea watch so cavalierly must be a careless man.

Neither is it a very far-fetched inference that a man who inherits one

article of such value is pretty well provided for in other respects."

I nodded, to show that I followed his reasoning.

"It is very customary for pawnbrokers in England, when they take a

watch, to scratch the number of the ticket with a pin-point upon the inside

of the case. It is more handy than a label, as there is no risk of the

number being lost or transposed. There are no less than four such

numbers visible to my lens on the inside of this case. Inference,--that

your brother was often at low water. Secondary inference,--that he had

occasional bursts of prosperity, or he could not have redeemed the pledge.

Finally, I ask you to look at the inner plate, which contains the key-hole.

The Sign of the Four

Look at the thousands of scratches all round the hole,--marks where the

key has slipped. What sober man's key could have scored those grooves?

But you will never see a drunkard's watch without them. He winds it at

night, and he leaves these traces of his unsteady hand. Where is the

mystery in all this?"

"It is as clear as daylight," I answered. "I regret the injustice which I

did you. I should have had more faith in your marvellous faculty. May

I ask whether you have any professional inquiry on foot at present?"

"None. Hence the cocaine. I cannot live without brain-work.

What else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such

a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls

down the street and drifts across the dun- colored houses. What could be

more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers,

doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them? Crime is

commonplace, existence is commonplace, and no qualities save those

which are commonplace have any function upon earth."

I had opened my mouth to reply to this tirade, when with a crisp knock

our landlady entered, bearing a card upon the brass salver.

"A young lady for you, sir," she said, addressing my companion.

"Miss Mary Morstan," he read. "Hum! I have no recollection of the

name. Ask the young lady to step up, Mrs. Hudson. Don't go, doctor.

I should prefer that you remain."

The Sign of the Four

CHAPTER II The Statement of the

Case

Miss Morstan entered the room with a firm step and an outward

composure of manner. She was a blonde young lady, small, dainty, well

gloved, and dressed in the most perfect taste. There was, however, a

plainness and simplicity about her costume which bore with it a

suggestion of limited means. The dress was a sombre grayish beige,

untrimmed and unbraided, and she wore a small turban of the same dull

hue, relieved only by a suspicion of white feather in the side. Her face

had neither regularity of feature nor beauty of complexion, but her

expression was sweet and amiable, and her large blue eyes were singularly

spiritual and sympathetic. In an experience of women which extends

over many nations and three separate continents, I have never looked upon

a face which gave a clearer promise of a refined and sensitive nature. I

could not but observe that as she took the seat which Sherlock Holmes

placed for her, her lip trembled, her hand quivered, and she showed every

sign of intense inward agitation.

"I have come to you, Mr. Holmes," she said, "because you once

enabled my employer, Mrs. Cecil Forrester, to unravel a little domestic

complication. She was much impressed by your kindness and skill."

"Mrs. Cecil Forrester," he repeated thoughtfully. "I believe that I was

of some slight service to her. The case, however, as I remember it, was a

very simple one."

"She did not think so. But at least you cannot say the same of mine.

I can hardly imagine anything more strange, more utterly inexplicable,

than the situation in which I find myself."

Holmes rubbed his hands, and his eyes glistened. He leaned forward

in his chair with an expression of extraordinary concentration upon his

clear-cut, hawklike features. "State your case," said he, in brisk, business

tones.

I felt that my position was an embarrassing one. "You will, I am sure,

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TheSignoftheFour1TheSignoftheFourBySirArthurConanDoyleTheSignoftheFour2CHAPTER1TheScienceofDeductionSherlockHolmestookhisbottlefromthecornerofthemantel-pieceandhishypodermicsyringefromitsneatmoroccocase.Withhislong,white,nervousfingersheadjustedthedelicateneedle,androlledbackhisleftshirt-cuff.Forsom...

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