Part I 1
Chapter I Mr. Sherlock Holmes 3
Chapter II The Science of Deduction 13
Chapter III The Lauriston Garden Mystery 25
Chapter IV What John Rance Had to Tell 39
Chapter V Our Advertisement Brings A Visitor 48
Chapter VI Tobias Gregson Shows What He Can Do 57
Chapter VII Light in the Darkness 68
Part II 79
Chapter I On the Great Alkali Plain 81
Chapter II The Flower of Utah 93
Chapter III John Ferrier Talks with the Prophet 101
Chapter IV A Flight for Life 107
Chapter V The Avenging Angels 118
Chapter VI A Continuation of the Reminiscences of John Watson, M. D. 129
Chapter VII The Conclusion 142
內容試閱：
This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with
countless bottles. Broad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled with retorts,
test-tubes, and little Bunsen lamps, with their blue flickering flames. There
was only one student in the room, who was bending over a distant table absorbed
in his work. At the sound of our steps he glanced round and sprang to his feet
with a cry of pleasure. “I’ve found it! I’ve found it,” he shouted to my
companion, running towards us with a test-tube in his hand. “I have found a
reagent which is precipitated by haemoglobin, and by nothing else.” Had he
discovered a gold mine, greater delight could not have shone upon his features.
“Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said Stamford,
introducing us.
“How are you?” he said cordially, gripping my
hand with a strength for which I should hardly have given him credit. “You have
been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”
“How on earth did you know that?” I asked in
astonishment.
“Never mind,” said he, chuckling to himself. “The
question now is about haemoglobin. No doubt you see the significance of this discovery
of mine?”
“It is interesting, chemically, no doubt,” I
answered, “but practically—”
“Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal
discovery for years. Don’t you see that it gives us an infallible test for
blood stains? Come over here now!” He seized me by the coat-sleeve in his
eagerness, and drew me over to the table at which he had been working. “Let us
have some fresh blood,” he said, digging a long bodkin into his finger, and
drawing off the resulting drop of blood in a chemical pipette. “Now, I add this
small quantity of blood to a litre of water. You perceive that the resulting
mixture has the appearance of pure water. The proportion of blood cannot be
more than one in a million. I have no doubt, however, that we shall be able to
obtain the characteristic reaction.” As he spoke, he threw into the vessel a
few white crystals, and then added some drops of a transparent fluid. In an instant
the contents assumed a dull mahogany colour, and a brownish dust was
precipitated to the bottom of the glass jar.
“Ha! ha!” he cried, clapping his hands, and
looking as delighted as a child with a new toy. “What do you think of that?”
“It seems to be a very delicate test,” I
remarked.
“Beautiful! beautiful! The old guaiacum test was
very clumsy and uncertain. So is the microscopic examination for blood
corpuscles.
The latter is valueless if the stains are a few
hours old. Now, this appears to act as well whether the blood is old or new.
Had this test been invented, there are hundreds of men now walking the earth
who would long ago have paid the penalty of their crimes.”
“Indeed!” I murmured.
“Criminal cases are continually hinging upon that
one point.
A man is suspected of a crime months perhaps
after it has been committed. His linen or clothes are examined and brownish
stains discovered upon them. Are they blood stains, or mud stains, or rust stains,
or fruit stains, or what are they? That is a question which has puzzled many an
expert, and why? Because there was no reliable test.
Now we have the Sherlock Holmes’ test, and there
will no longer be any difficulty.”
His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put
his hand over his heart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by
his imagination.
“You are to be congratulated,” I remarked,
considerably surprised at his enthusiasm.
“There was the case of Von Bischoff at Frankfort
last year. He would certainly have been hung had this test been in existence.
Then there was Mason of Bradford, and the notorious Muller, and Lefevre of
Montpellier, and Samson of New Orleans. I could name a score of cases in which
it would have been decisive.”
“You seem to be a walking calendar of crime,”
said Stamford with a laugh. “You might start a paper on those lines. Call it
the ‘Police News of the Past.’”
“Very interesting reading it might be made, too,”
remarked Sherlock Holmes, sticking a small piece of plaster over the prick on his
finger. “I have to be careful,” he continued, turning to me with a smile, “for
I dabble with poisons a good deal.” He held out his hand as he spoke, and I
noticed that it was all mottled over with similar pieces of plaster, and
discoloured with strong acids.
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