The Sign of the Four
by Arthur Conan Doyle
Contents
Chapter I
The Science of Deduction
Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel-piece and hishypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervousfingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff.For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm andwrist all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally he thrustthe sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into thevelvet-lined arm-chair with a long sigh of satisfaction.
Three times a day for many months I had witnessed this performance, but customhad not reconciled my mind to it. On the contrary, from day to day I had becomemore irritable at the sight, and my conscience swelled nightly within me at thethought that I had lacked the courage to protest. Again and again I hadregistered a vow that I should deliver my soul upon the subject, but there wasthat in the cool, nonchalant air of my companion which made him the last manwith whom one would care to take anything approaching to a liberty. His greatpowers, his masterly manner, and the experience which I had had of his manyextraordinary qualities, all made me diffident and backward in crossing him.
Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the Beaune which I had taken with mylunch, or the additional exasperation produced by the extreme deliberation ofhis manner, I suddenly felt that I could hold out no longer.
“Which is it to-day?” I asked,—“morphine orcocaine?”
He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he hadopened. “It is cocaine,” he said,—“a seven-per-cent.solution. Would you care to try it?”
“No, indeed,” I answered, brusquely. “My constitution has notgot over the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strainupon it.”
He smiled at my vehemence. “Perhaps you are right, Watson,” hesaid. “I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it,however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that itssecondary action is a matter of small moment.”<