Doyle_-_A_Study_in_Scarlet.pdf

A Study in Scarlet

Doyle, Arthur Conan

Published: 1887

Type(s): Novels, Crime/Mystery

Source: Wikisource

About Doyle:

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a

Scottish author most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock

Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field

of crime fiction, and the adventures of Professor Challenger. He was a

prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, historic-

al novels, plays and romances, poetry, and non-fiction.

Conan was originally a given name, but Doyle used it as part of his

surname in his later years.

Source: Wikipedia

Also available on Feedbooks for Doyle:

• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)

• The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1893)

• The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (1923)

• The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905)

• The Lost World (1912)

• The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)

• The Sign of the Four (1890)

• His Last Bow (1917)

• The Valley of Fear (1915)

• The Disintegration Machine (1928)

Life+70.

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Part 1

Study in Scarlet

Chapter 1

Mr. Sherlock Holmes

In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the

University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course

prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there,

I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant

Surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I

could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at Bom-

bay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and was

already deep in the enemy's country. I followed, however, with many

other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded

in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once

entered upon my new duties.

The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it

had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my bri-

gade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal

battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet,

which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should

have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not been for

the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me

across a pack-horse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British

lines.

Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had

undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to

the base hospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied, and had already improved

so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little

upon the verandah, when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse

of our Indian possessions. For months my life was despaired of, and

when at last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak

and emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be

lost in sending me back to England. I was dispatched, accordingly, in the

troopship "Orontes," and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with

my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal gov-

ernment to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it.

I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air

— or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will per-

mit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to Lon-

don, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Em-

pire are irresistibly drained. There I stayed for some time at a private

hotel in the Strand, leading a comfortless, meaningless existence, and

spending such money as I had, considerably more freely than I ought. So

alarming did the state of my finances become, that I soon realized that I

must either leave the metropolis and rusticate somewhere in the country,

or that I must make a complete alteration in my style of living. Choosing

the latter alternative, I began by making up my mind to leave the hotel,

and to take up my quarters in some less pretentious and less expensive

domicile.

On the very day that I had come to this conclusion, I was standing at

the Criterion Bar, when some one tapped me on the shoulder, and turn-

ing round I recognized young Stamford, who had been a dresser under

me at Barts. The sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of Lon-

don is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man. In old days Stamford had

never been a particular crony of mine, but now I hailed him with enthu-

siasm, and he, in his turn, appeared to be delighted to see me. In the ex-

uberance of my joy, I asked him to lunch with me at the Holborn, and we

started off together in a hansom.

"Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Watson?" he asked in

undisguised wonder, as we rattled through the crowded London streets.

"You are as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut."

I gave him a short sketch of my adventures, and had hardly concluded

it by the time that we reached our destination.

"Poor devil!" he said, commiseratingly, after he had listened to my

misfortunes. "What are you up to now?"

"Looking for lodgings," I answered. "Trying to solve the problem as to

whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable price."

"That's a strange thing," remarked my companion; "you are the second

man to-day that has used that expression to me."

"And who was the first?" I asked.

"A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital.

He was bemoaning himself this morning because he could not get

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