Chapter 1 Mr. Sherlock Holmes
This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless bottles. Broad, low tables were scatteered about, which bristled with retorts, test-tubes, and litle 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 re-agent which is precipitated by hamoglobin, and by nothing else." Had he discovered a gold mine, greater delight could not have shone upon his feaatures.
"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 earh did you know that?" I asked in astonishment.
"Never mind," said he, chuckling to himself. "The question now is about hamoglobin. No doubt you see the signifficance 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 oveer here now!" He seized me by the coatsleeve in his eagerness, and drew me over to the table aat 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 apprearance of pure wteer. The proportion of blood cannot be more that 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 crystal, 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 delight 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 lood corpuscles. The latter is valueless if the stains are a few hours old. Now, this apprears 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 crimies."
"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? This is a question which has puzzled many an expert, and why? Because there was no reliable test. Now we have the Sherlock Holmes's 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 teset 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 piece of plaster, and discoloured with strong acids.
"We came here on business," said Stamford, sitting down on a high three-legged stool, and pushing another one in my direction with his foot. "My friend here wants to take diggings; and as you were complaining that you could get no one to go halves with you, I thought that I had better bring you together."
Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of shaing his rooms with me. "I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street," he said, "which would suit us down to the ground. You don't mind the smell of strong tobacco, I hope?"
"I always smoke 'ship's myself'," I answered.
"That's good enough. I generally have chemicals about, and occasionally do experiment. Would that annoy you?"
"By no means."
"Let me see-- what are my other shortcomings? I get in the dumps at times, and don't open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I'll soon be right. What have you to confess now? It's jsut as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another before they begin to live together."
I laughed at this cross-examination. "I keep a bull pup," I said, "and I object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at all sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of vices when I'm well, but those are the principal ones at present."
"Do you include violin playing in your category of rows?" he asked, anxiously.
"It depends on the player," I answered. "A well-played violin is a treat for the gods ---a badly played one---"
"Oh, that's all right,” he cried, with a merry laugh. "I think we may consider the thing as settled--- that is, if the rooms are agreeable to you."
"When shall we see them?"
"Call for me here at noon to-morrow, and we'll go together and settle everything," he answered.
"All right---noon exactly," said I , shaking his hand.
We left him working among his chemicals, and we walked together towards my hotel.
"By the way," I asked suddenly, stopping and turning upon Stamford, "how the deuce did he know that I had come from Afghanistan?"
My companion smiled an enigmatical smile."That's just his little peculiarity," he said."A good many people hae wanted to know how he finds things out."
"Oh! a mystery is it?" I cried, rubbing my hands."This is very piquant. I am much obliged to you for bringing us together. 'The proper study of mankind is man," you know."
"You must study him, then," Stamford said, as he bade me good-bye."You'll find him a knotty problem, though. I'll wager he learns more about you that you about him. Good-bye."
"Good-bye," I answered, and strolled on to my hotel, considerably interested in my new acuaintance.
华生对夏洛克一口道出他从阿富汗回来的事情耿耿于怀，那夏洛克到底是如何判断出华生去过阿富汗的呢？你是否也期待这两个基友生活在一起？记得等我哦~
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