Sherlock Holmes: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Book 0: Sherlock Complete Set

by Arthur Conan Doyle

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

The most recognized detective in all of literature, Sherlock Holmes emerged on the crime scene in A Study in Scarlet in 1887. His deductive reasoning, keen insight, skillful observations, and investigative tactics became the tools necessary to solve riveting and intriguing crimes that continue to delight generations of readers. Discover or rediscover the joys of these fascinating mysteries. Now Signet Classics, the Chamberlain Bros. edition presents Sherlock Holmes in this compelling collection, which contains such classics as: A Scandal in Bohemia The Red-Headed League The Boscombe Valley Mystery The Adventure of the Dancing Men The Five Orange Pips The Man with the Twisted Lip The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle The Adventure of the Speckled Band The Adventure of the Empty House The Adventure of the Norwood Builder The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet The Adventure of the Copper Beeches And ten others!

Release date: August 15, 1986

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 256

Sample

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Picardy Place in Edinburgh on May 22, 1859, son of Charles Altamount Doyle and Mary (Foley)
Doyle, and one of seven children who survived to adulthood. The Doyles were an artistic family, the most successful being
Arthur’s uncle ‘Dickie’ Doyle, the noted illustrator for Punch, but his father suffered from alcoholism and later epilepsy, and was eventually committed to a mental hospital. Conan Doyle
maintained a distant relationship with him, but it was his mother, whom he affectionately referred to as ‘the Ma’am’, who
encouraged his love of literature, and he remained close to her throughout his life. The young Arthur was educated at the
northern Jesuit school Stonyhurst, going on to study medicine at Edinburgh and was an enthusiastic reader and storyteller
from a young age, as well as being an active sportsman.


Conan Doyle incurred the wrath of his rich relations when he announced he was an agnostic. Rejecting their strict Catholicism
and cut off from their patronage, he decided to set up his own practice in Southsea in 1882. There he met his first wife,
Louise Hawkins or ‘Touie’, and the couple were married in 1885, later having two children, a son and a daughter. But in 1897
Conan Doyle met and instantly fell in love with Jean Leckie. They maintained a platonic relationship for ten years and Conan
Doyle struggled with his feelings of guilt and deep affection for his wife and his passion for Jean. When in 1906 Touie died
of consumption, Conan Doyle genuinely mourned her. He finally married Jean in 1907 and they had two sons and a daughter, living
very happily together on their estate in Sussex, Windlesham, until Conan Doyle’s death in 1930.


It was in the year after his first marriage that Conan Doyle began toying with a character called Sherrinford Holmes. This
was to become the first Sherlock Holmes story, his ‘shilling shocker’, A Study in Scarlet, published in 1887. And so the celebrated detective was born, with the faithful Dr Watson at his side. Conan Doyle consistently
gave credit for the character to Dr Joseph Bell, an old tutor of his from Edinburgh University whose precision and powers
of deduction Conan Doyle greatly admired. On the origins of the name, he commented that ‘I made thirty runs [at cricket] against
a bowler by the name of Sherlock, and I always had a kindly feeling for the name’.


But it was in the new, popular literary magazine the Strand that the phenomenon of Sherlock Holmes really took off, with ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ appearing in 1891. It was an instant
hit. Sidney Paget created the distinctive illustrations of Holmes, based on his younger brother Walter, depicted in a deerstalker
(the pipe would come later). This iconic image became etched in the public’s mind and was more glamorous than Conan Doyle
had envisaged; ‘the handsome Walter took the place of the more powerful, but uglier, Sherlock, and perhaps from the point
of view of my lady readers it was as well.’


By this time Conan Doyle had given up practising medicine entirely to write. He yearned to concentrate on his historical novels
and, despite his success, saw Holmes as ‘taking his mind from better things’. So, after only two years, in 1893 he decided
to kill him off in ‘The Final Problem’, where Holmes famously met his end alongside his nemesis Professor Moriarty. The public
outcry was instant: women wept, men donned black armbands and subscriptions to the Strand plummeted by over 20,000, yet Conan Doyle was unmoved: ‘I feel towards him as I do towards pâté de foie gras, of which I once ate too much, so that the name of it gives me a sickly feeling to this day’. It wasn’t until 1901 that Holmes
reappeared in The Hound of the Baskervilles (a story that predated his death) and, with the public clamouring for more, Doyle finally brought him back to life in ‘The Adventure of the Empty House’ (1903). By the beginning of the twentieth
century the fan base for Sherlock Holmes was massive and far-reaching, from a Boston cabby in America to Abdul Hamid II, the
then Sultan of Turkey, and has continued growing to this day. There have been countless stage productions and films, with
Holmes defined by such actors as Basil Rathbone, Jeremy Brett and Michael Caine. And the stories weren’t merely entertainment;
the investigative methods Conan Doyle used are said to have had a huge influence on police processes at the time.


Although Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s name will always be synonymous with Sherlock Holmes, his volume of works was huge and wide-ranging,
including historical fiction such as Micah Clarke and The White Company, histories of the Boer War and World War One, as well as the Professor Challenger stories, The Lost World (seen as the inspiration for Michael Crichton’s hugely popular Jurassic Park) and The Poison Belt. Conan Doyle’s fascination with spiritualism very much governed his outlook later on in life and he wrote The Coming of the Fairies in response to the case of the Cottingley fairies. Many fans found it hard to associate the creator of a detective so wedded
to cool logic and fact with this ardent champion of the supernatural, but he never swayed in his beliefs.


Conan Doyle died in 1930 at the age of seventy-one, with his beloved Jean by his side and was buried in the grounds of Windlesham,
with the headstone inscribed, at his request, ‘Steel True, Blade Straight’. Sir Winston Churchill said, ‘I had a great admiration
for him. Of course I read every Sherlock Holmes story … [they] have certainly found a permanent place in English literature.’


I

To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her
sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent
to his cold, precise, but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that
the world has seen: but, as a lover, he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions,
save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer – excellent for drawing the veil from men’s motives
and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was
to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or
a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And
yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.


I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away from each other. My own complete happiness, and the home-centred
interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb
all my attention; while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in
Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of
the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature. He was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study of crime, and
occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of observation in following out those clues, and clearing up those
mysteries, which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police. From time to time I heard some vague account of his
doings: of his summons to Odessa in the case of the Trepoff murder, of his clearing up of the singular tragedy of the Atkinson
brothers at Trincomalee, and finally of the mission which he had accomplished so delicately and successfully for the reigning
family of Holland. Beyond these signs of his activity, however, which I merely shared with all the readers of the daily press,
I knew little of my former friend and companion.


One night – it was on the 20th of March, 1888 – I was returning from a journey to a patient (for I had now returned to civil
practice), when my way led me through Baker Street. As I passed the well-remembered door, which must always be associated
in my mind with my wooing, and with the dark incidents of the Study in Scarlet, I was seized with a keen desire to see Holmes
again, and to know how he was employing his extraordinary powers. His rooms were brilliantly lit, and, even as I looked up,
I saw his tall spare figure pass twice in a dark silhouette against the blind. He was pacing the room swiftly, eagerly, with his head sunk upon his chest, and his hands clasped behind him. To me, who knew his every mood and
habit, his attitude and manner told their own story. He was at work again. He had risen out of his drug-created dreams, and
was hot upon the scent of some new problem. I rang the bell, and was shown up to the chamber which had formerly been in part
my own.


His manner was not effusive. It seldom was; but he was glad, I think, to see me. With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly
eye, he waved me to an arm-chair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a spirit case and a gasogene in the corner.
Then he stood before the fire, and looked me over in his singular introspective fashion.


‘Wedlock suits you,’ he remarked. ‘I think, Watson, that you have put on seven and a half pounds since I saw you.’

‘Seven,’ I answered.

‘Indeed, I should have thought a little more. Just a trifle more, I fancy, Watson. And in practice again, I observe. You did
not tell me that you intended to go into harness.’


‘Then, how do you know?’

‘I see it, I deduce it. How do I know that you have been getting yourself very wet lately, and that you have a most clumsy
and careless servant girl?’


‘My dear Holmes,’ said I, ‘this is too much. You would certainly have been burned had you lived a few centuries ago. It is
true that I had a country walk on Thursday and came home in a dreadful mess; but, as I have changed my clothes, I can’t imagine
how you deduce it. As to Mary Jane, she is incorrigible, and my wife has given her notice; but there again I fail to see how
you work it out.’


He chuckled to himself and rubbed his long nervous hands together.

‘It is simplicity itself,’ said he; ‘my eyes tell me that on the inside of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes
it, the leather is scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously they have been caused by someone who has very carelessly
scraped round the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud from it. Hence, you see, my double deduction that you had
been out in vile weather, and that you had a particularly malignant boot-slitting specimen of the London slavey. As to your
practice, if a gentleman walks into my rooms smelling of iodoform, with a black mark of nitrate of silver upon his right forefinger,
and a bulge on the side of his top hat to show where he has secreted his stethoscope, I must be dull indeed if I do not pronounce
him to be an active member of the medical profession.’


I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his process of deduction. ‘When I hear you give your reasons,’
I remarked, ‘the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each
successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled, until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as
good as yours.’


‘Quite so,’ he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself down into an arm-chair. ‘You see, but you do not observe.
The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room.’


‘Frequently.’

‘How often?’

‘Well, some hundreds of times.’

‘Then how many are there?’

‘How many! I don’t know.’

‘Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen.

That is just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed. By the way, since
you are interested in these little problems, and since you are good enough to chronicle one or two of my trifling experiences,
you may be interested in this.’ He threw over a sheet of thick pink-tinted note-paper which had been lying open upon the table.
‘It came by the last post,’ said he. ‘Read it aloud.’


The note was undated, and without either signature or address.

‘There will call upon you tonight, at a quarter to eight o’clock,’ it said, ‘a gentleman who desires to consult you upon a
matter of the very deepest moment. Your recent services to one of the Royal Houses of Europe have shown that you are one who
may safely be trusted with matters which are of an importance which can hardly be exaggerated. This account of you we have
from all quarters received. Be in your chamber then at that hour, and do not take it amiss if your visitor wear a mask.’


‘This is indeed a mystery,’ I remarked. ‘What do you imagine that it means?’

‘I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit
theories, instead of theories to suit facts. But the note itself. What do you deduce from it?’


I carefully examined the writing, and the paper upon which it was written.

‘The man who wrote it was presumably well-to-do,’ I remarked, endeavouring to imitate my companion’s processes. ‘Such paper
could not be bought under half a crown a packet. It is peculiarly strong and stiff.’


‘Peculiar – that is the very word,’ said Holmes. ‘It is not an English paper at all. Hold it up to the light.’

I did so, and saw a large E with a small g,a P, and a large G with a small t woven into the texture of the paper.


‘What do you make of that?’ asked Holmes.

‘The name of the maker, no doubt; or his monogram, rather.’

‘Not at all. The G with the small t stands for “Gesellschaft,” which is the German for “Company.” It is a customary contraction like our “Co.” P, of course, stands for “Papier.” Now for the Eg. Let us glance at our Continental Gazetteer.’ He took down a heavy brown volume from his shelves. ‘Eglow, Eglonitz – here
we are, Egria. It is in a German-speaking country – in Bohemia, not far from Carlsbad. “Remarkable as being the scene of the
death of Wallenstein, and for its numerous glass factories and paper mills.” Ha, ha, my boy, what do you make of that?’ His
eyes sparkled, and he sent up a great blue triumphant cloud from his cigarette.


‘The paper was made in Bohemia,’ I said.

‘Precisely. And the man who wrote the note is a German Do you note the peculiar construction of the sentence – “This account
of you we have from all quarters received.” A Frenchman or Russian could not have written that. It is the German who is so
uncourteous to his verbs. It only remains, therefore, to discover what is wanted by this German who writes upon Bohemian paper,
and prefers wearing a mask to showing his face. And here he comes, if I am not mistaken, to resolve all our doubts.’


As he spoke there was the sharp sound of horses’ hoofs and grating wheels against the kerb, followed by a sharp pull at the
bell. Holmes whistled.


‘A pair by the sound,’ said he. ‘Yes,’ he continued, glancing out of the window. ‘A nice little brougham and a pair of beauties. A hundred and fifty guineas apiece. There’s money in this case, Watson, if there is nothing else.’


‘I think that I had better go, Holmes.’

‘Not a bit, Doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell. And this promises to be interesting. It would be a pity
to miss it.’


‘But your client—’

‘Never mind him. I may want your help, and so may he. Here he comes. Sit down in that arm-chair, Doctor, and give us your
best attention.’


A slow and heavy step, which had been heard upon the stairs and in the passage, paused immediately outside the door. Then
there was a loud and authoritative tap.


‘Come in!’ said Holmes.

A man entered who could hardly have been less than six feet six inches in height, with the chest and limbs of a Hercules.
His dress was rich with a richness which would, in England, be looked upon as akin to bad taste. Heavy bands of astrakhan
were slashed across the sleeves and fronts of his double-breasted coat, while the deep blue cloak which was thrown over his
shoulders was lined with flame-coloured silk, and secured at the neck with a brooch which consisted of a single flaming beryl.
Boots which extended half-way up his calves, and which were trimmed at the tops with rich brown fur, completed the impression
of barbaric opulence which was suggested by his whole appearance. He carried a broad-brimmed hat in his hand, while he wore
across the upper part of his face, extending down past the cheek-bones, a black vizard mask, which he had apparently adjusted
that very moment, for his hand was still raised to it as he entered. From the lower part of the face he appeared to be a man
of strong character, with a thick, hanging lip, and a long straight chin, suggestive of resolution pushed to the length of obstinacy.


‘You had my note?’ he asked, with a deep, harsh voice and a strongly marked German accent. ‘I told you that I would call.’
He looked from one to the other of us, as if uncertain which to address.


‘Pray take a seat,’ said Holmes. ‘This is my friend and colleague, Dr Watson, who is occasionally good enough to help me in
my cases. Whom have I the honour to address?’


‘You may address me as the Count von Kramm, a Bohemian nobleman. I understand that this gentleman, your friend, is a man of
honour and discretion, whom I may trust with a matter of the most extreme importance. If not, I should much prefer to communicate
with you alone.’


I rose to go, but Holmes caught me by the wrist and pushed me back into my chair. ‘It is both, or none,’ said he. ‘You may
say before this gentleman anything which you may say to me.’


The Count shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Then I must begin,’ said he, ‘by binding you both to absolute secrecy for two years,
at the end of that time the matter will be of no importance. At present it is not too much to say that it is of such weight
that it may have an influence upon European history.’


‘I promise,’ said Holmes.

‘And I.’

‘You will excuse this mask,’ continued our strange visitor. ‘The august person who employs me wishes his agent to be unknown
to you, and I may confess at once that the title by which I have just called myself is not exactly my own.’


‘I was aware of it,’ said Holmes dryly.

‘The circumstances are of great delicacy, and every precaution has to be taken to quench what might grow to be an immense scandal and seriously compromise one of the reigning
families of Europe. To speak plainly, the matter implicates the great House of Ormstein, hereditary kings of Bohemia.’


‘I was also aware of that,’ murmured Holmes, settling himself down in his arm-chair, and closing his eyes.

Our visitor glanced with some apparent surprise at the languid, lounging figure of the man who had been no doubt depicted
to him as the most incisive reasoner, and most energetic agent in Europe. Holmes slowly reopened his eyes, and looked impatiently
at his gigantic client.


‘If your Majesty would condescend to state your case,’ he remarked, ‘I should be better able to advise you.’

The man sprang from his chair, and paced up and down the room in uncontrollable agitation. Then, with a gesture of desperation,
he tore the mask from his face and hurled it upon the ground. ‘You are right,’ he cried, ‘I am the King. Why should I attempt
to conceal it?’


‘Why, indeed?’ murmured Holmes. ‘Your Majesty had not spoken before I was aware that I was addressing Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond
von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Falstein, and hereditary King of Bohemia.’


‘But you can understand,’ said our strange visitor, sitting down once more and passing his hand over his high, white forehead,
‘you can understand that I am not accustomed to doing such business in my own person. Yet the matter was so delicate that
I could not confide it to an agent without putting myself in his power. I have come incognito from Prague for the purpose of consulting you.’


‘Then, pray consult,’ said Holmes, shutting his eyes once more.

‘The facts are briefly these: some five years ago, during a lengthy visit to Warsaw, I made the acquaintance of the well-known
adventuress Irene Adler. The name is no doubt familiar to you.’


‘Kindly look her up in my index, Doctor,’ murmured Holmes, without opening his eyes. For many years he had adopted a system
of docketing all paragraphs concerning men and things, so that it was difficult to name a subject or a person on which he
could not at once furnish information. In this case I found her biography sandwiched in between that of a Hebrew Rabbi and
that of a staff-commander who had written a monograph upon the deep-sea fishes.


‘Let me see,’ said Holmes. ‘Hum! Born in New Jersey in the year 1858. Contralto – hum! La Scala, hum! Prima donna Imperial
Opera of Warsaw – Yes! Retired from operatic stage – ha! Living in London – quite so! Your Majesty, as I understand, became
entangled with this young person, wrote her some compromising letters, and is now desirous of getting those letters back.’


‘Precisely so. But how—’

‘Was there a secret marriage?’

‘None.’

‘No legal papers or certificates?’

‘None.’

‘Then I fail to follow Your Majesty. If this young person should produce her letters for blackmailing or other purposes, how
is she to prove their authenticity?’


‘There is the writing.’

‘Pooh, pooh! Forgery.’

‘My private note-paper.’

‘Stolen.’

‘My own seal.’

‘Imitated.’


‘My photograph.’

‘Bought.’

‘We were both in the photograph.’

‘Oh, dear! That is very bad! Your Majesty has indeed committed an indiscretion.’

‘I was mad – insane.’

‘You have compromised yourself seriously.’

‘I was only Crown Prince then. I was young. I am but thirty now.’

‘It must be recovered.’

‘We have tried and failed.’

‘Your Majesty must pay. It must be bought.’

‘She will not sell.’

‘Stolen, then.’

‘Five attempts have been made. Twice burglars in my pay ransacked her house. Once we diverted her luggage when she travelled.
Twice she has been waylaid. There has been no result.’


‘No sign of it?’

‘Absolutely none.’

Holmes laughed. ‘It is quite a pretty little problem,’ said he.

‘But a very serious one to me,’ returned the King, reproachfully.

‘Very, indeed. And what does she propose to do with the photograph?’

‘To ruin me.’

‘But how?’

‘I am about to be married.’

‘So I have heard.’

‘To Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meningen, second daughter of the King of Scandinavia. You may know the strict principles of her family. She is herself the very soul of delicacy.
A shadow of a doubt as to my conduct would bring the matter to an end.’


‘And Irene Adler?’

‘Threatens to send them the photograph. And she will do it. I know that she will do it. You do not know her, but she has a
soul of steel. She has the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men. Rather than I should
marry another woman, there are no lengths to which she would not go – none.’


‘You are sure that she has not sent it yet?’

‘I am sure.’

‘And why?’

‘Because she has said that she would send it on the day when the betrothal was publicly proclaimed. That will be next Monday.’

‘Oh, then, we have three days yet,’ said Holmes, with a yawn. ‘That is very fortunate, as I have one or two matters of importance
to look into just at present. Your Majesty will, of course, stay in London for the present?’


‘Certainly. You will find me at the Langham, under the name of the Count von Kramm.’

‘Then I shall drop you a line to let you know how we progress.’

‘Pray do so. I shall be all anxiety.’

‘Then, as to money?’

‘You have carte blanche.’


‘Absolutely?’

‘I tell you that I would give one of the provinces of my kingdom to have that photograph.’

‘And for present expenses?’

The King took a heavy chamois leather bag from under his cloak, and laid it on the table.


‘There are three hundred pounds in gold, and seven hundred in notes,’ he said.

Holmes scribbled a receipt upon a sheet of his notebook, and handed it to him.

‘And mademoiselle’s address?’ he asked.

‘Is Briony Lodge, Serpentine Avenue, St John’s Wood.’

Holmes took a note of it. ‘One other question,’ said he. ‘Was the photograph a cabinet?’

‘It was.’

‘Then, good night, Your Majesty, and I trust that we shall soon have some good news for you. And good night, Watson,’ he added,
as the wheels of the Royal brougham rolled down the street. ‘If you will be good enough to call tomorrow afternoon, at three
o’clock, I should like to chat this little matter over with you.’


II

At three o’clock precisely I was at Baker Street, but Holmes had not yet returned. The landlady informed me that he had left
the house shortly after eight o’clock in the morning. I sat down beside the fire, however, with the intention of awaiting
him, however long he might be. I was already deeply interested in his enquiry, for, though it was surrounded by none of the
grim and strange features which were associated with the two crimes which I have elsewhere recorded, still, the nature of
the case and the exalted station of his client gave it a character of its own. Indeed, apart from the nature of the investigation
which my friend had on hand, there was something in his masterly grasp of a situation, and his keen, incisive reasoning, which made it a pleasure to me to study
his system of work, and to follow the quick, subtle methods by which he disentangled the most inextricable mysteries. So accustomed
was I to his invariable success that the very possibility of his failing had ceased to enter into my head.


It was close upon four before the door opened, and a drunken-looking groom, ill-kempt and side-whiskered with an inflamed
face and disreputable clothes, walked into the room. Accustomed as I was to my friend’s amazing powers in the use of disguises,
I had to look three times before I was certain that it was indeed he. With a nod he vanished into the bedroom, whence he emerged
in five minutes tweed-suited and respectable, as of old. Putting his hands into his pockets, he stretched out his legs in
front of the fire, and laughed heartily for some minutes.


‘Well, really!’ he cried, and then he choked; and laughed again until he was obliged to lie back, limp and helpless, in the
chair.


‘What is it?’

‘It’s quite too funny. I am sure you could never guess how I employed my morning, or what I ended by doing.’

‘I can’t imagine. I suppose that you have been watching the habits, and perhaps the house, of Miss Irene Adler.’

‘Quite so, but the sequel was rather unusual. I will tell you, however. I left the house a little after eight o’clock this
morning, in the character of a groom out of work. There is a wonderful sympathy and freemasonry among horsey men. Be one of
them, and you will know all that there is to know. I soon found Briony Lodge. It is a bijou villa, with a garden at the back,
but built out in front right up to the road, two stories. Chubb lock to the door. Large sitting-room on the right side, well furnished, with long windows almost to the floor, and those preposterous English window fasteners which a
child could open. Behind there was nothing remarkable, save that the passage window could be reached from the top of the coach-house.
I walked round it and examined it cl