The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

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"Ah!" said Holmes. "I think that what you have been good enough to tell us makes the matter fairly clear, and that I can deduce all that remains. Mr. Rucastle, then, I presume, took to this system of imprisonment?" "Yes, sir." "And brought Miss Hunter down from London in order to get rid of the disagreeable persistence of Mr. Fowler." "That was it, sir." "But Mr. Fowler being a persevering man..."

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"Then how do you know?" "I see it, I deduce it. How do I know that you have been getting yourself very wet lately, and that you have a most clumsy and careless servant girl?" "My dear Holmes," said I, "this is too much. You would certainly have been burned had you lived a few centuries ago. It is true that I had a country walk on Thursday and came home in a dreadful mess, but as I have changed my clothes, I can't imagine how you deduce it. As to Mary Jane, she is incorrigible, and my wife has given her notice. But there again I fail to see how you work it out."

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"There can be no question as to their nature," he answered. "Then what are they? Who is this K.K.K., and why does he pursue this unhappy family?" Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes and placed his elbows upon the arms of his chair with his fingertips together. "The ideal reasoner," he remarked, "would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only the chain of events which led up to it but also all the res-

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I knew that we should find a ventilator before ever we came to Stoke Moran. My dear Holmes! Oh, yes, I did. You remember in her statement she said that her sister could smell Dr. Roylott's cigar. Now, of course, that suggested at once that there must be a communication between the two rooms. It could only be a small one, or it would have been remarked upon at the coroner's inquiry. I deduced a ventilator. But what harm can there be in that?

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You're certainly joking, Holmes. Not in the least. Is it possible that even now, when I give you these results, you are unable to see how they are attained? I have no doubt that I'm very stupid, but I must confess that I'm unable to follow you. For example, how did you deduce that this man was intellectual? For answer, Holmes clapped the hat upon his head. It came right over the forehead and settled upon the bridge of his nose. "It is a question of cubic capacity," said he. "A man with so large a brain must have something in it."

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"Hmm So much for the police court," said Holmes thoughtfully, tossing aside the paper. "The question for us now to solve is the sequence of events leading from a rifled jewel case at one end to the crop of a goose in Tottenham Court Road at the other You see, Watson, our little deductions have suddenly assumed a much more important and less innocent aspect

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It is the more strange since we know that Turner himself was averse to the idea. The daughter told us as much. Do you not deduce something from that? We have got to the deductions and the inferences, said Lestrade, winking at me. I find it hard enough to tackle facts, Holmes, without flying away after theories and fancies. You are right, said Holmes demurely. You do find it very hard to tackle the facts.

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"I could hardly imagine a more damning case," I remarked. "If ever circumstantial evidence pointed to a criminal, it does so here." "Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing," answered Holmes thoughtfully. "It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different. It must be confessed, however..."

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My dear Holmes I have notes of several similar cases, though none, as I remarked before, which were quite as prompt. My whole examination served to turn my conjecture into a certainty. Circumstantial evidence is occasionally very convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau's example. But I've heard all that you've heard.