Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who usually got up very late in the mornings, except on those occasions when he was up all night, was sitting at the breakfast table. I stood near the fireplace and picked up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before. It was a fine, thick piece of wood. Under the head was a broad silver band. “To Dr. James Mortimer, from his friends of the C.C.H.,” was engraved upon it, with the date “1884.” It was just such a stick as old-fashioned family doctors carried.
“Well, Watson, what do you make of it?” Holmes was sitting with his back to me.
“How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes in the back of your head.”
“I have a well-polished, silver coffee-pot in front of me,” said he. “But, tell me, Watson, what do you make of our visitor’s stick? Since we have missed him and have no idea why he came, this souvenir becomes of importance.”
“I think,” said I, following as far as I could the methods of my companion, “that Dr. Mortimer is a successful, elderly medical man, since those who know him give him this mark of their respect.”
“Good!” said Holmes. “Excellent!”
“I think also that he is probably a country doctor who does a good deal of his visiting on foot.”
“Why so?”
“Because this stick has been so worn out that I can hardly imagine a town doctor carrying it. It is evident that he has done a lot of walking with it.”
“Perfect!” said Holmes, pushing back his chair and lighting a cigarette. “I must say that in all the accounts which you have given of my investigations you have written very little about yourself. It may be that you do not have genius yourself, but you are very good at stimulating it. My dear fellow, I am very much in your debt.”
He had never said as much before, and his words gave me keen pleasure. I was proud, too, to think that I had mastered his system. He now took the stick from my hands and examined it for a few minutes, then he carried it to the window and looked over it again with a lens.
“Interesting, though elementary,” said he. “There are one or two marks on the stick, which allow us to make several deductions.
“I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your conclusions were wrong. When I said that you stimulated me I meant, that your mistakes guided me towards the truth. Not that you are entirely wrong in this case. The man is certainly a country doctor. And he walks a good deal.”
“Then I was right.”
“No, no, my dear Watson. A present to a doctor is more likely to come from a hospital, and when the initials ‘C.C.’ are placed before that hospital the words ‘Charing Cross’ very naturally occur to you.”
“You may be right.”
“Now, you will see that he could not be a doctor at the hospital, since only a man with a good London practice could have such a position, and such a man would not go to live in the country. What was he, then? A student. And he left five years ago—the date is on the stick. So your middle-aged family doctor turns into a young fellow under thirty, with a favourite dog, larger than a terrier and smaller than a mastiff.”
“A dog?”
“A dog has been in the habit of carrying this stick behind his master. The marks of his teeth are very well seen. These marks are too broad for a terrier and not broad enough for a mastiff. It may be—yes, it is a spaniel.”
I looked at him in surprise. He was now standing at the window.
“How can you be so sure of that?”
“For the very simple reason that I see the dog himself at our door, and there is the ring of its owner. Don’t go away, Watson. He is a professional brother of yours, and your presence may help me. What does Dr. James Mortimer, the man of science, ask of Sherlock Holmes, the specialist in crime? Come in!”
The appearance of our visitor was a surprise to me, since I had expected a typical country doctor.
He was a very tall, thin man, with a long nose like a beak, keen, gray eyes, sparkling brightly from behind a pair of glasses. Though he was young, his long back was already bowed. As he entered his eyes fell upon the stick in Holmes’s hand, and he ran towards it with an exclamation of joy. “I am so very glad,” said he. “I was not sure that I had left it here. I would not like to lose that stick.”
“A present, I see,” said Holmes.
“Yes, sir.”
“From Charing Cross Hospital?”
“From one or two friends there on the day of my marriage.”
“Your marriage, you say?”
“Yes, sir. I married, and so left the hospital. It was necessary to make a home of my own.”
“We are not so wrong, after all,” said Holmes. “And now, Dr. James Mortimer—”
“I think that it is Mr. Sherlock Holmes to whom I am speaking—”
“Yes, and this is my friend Dr. Watson.”
“Glad to meet you, sir. I have heard your name and that of your friend. You interest me very much, Mr. Holmes.”
Sherlock Holmes asked our strange visitor to take a seat.
“I came to you, Mr. Holmes, because I have a very serious and extraordinary problem. I called here last night and again today—”
“Indeed, sir! I would like to know, Dr. Mortimer, what your problem is in which you want my help.”