It was in the year 1880 while I was stationed with my regiment at Candahar that I first made my acquaintance with Sherlock Holmes.
The campaign was going well, the British having just achieved a victory in the Battle of Ahmed Khel, and everyone's spirits were high. Little did we know that we soon would be thrust in a dark and macabre mystery that would prove to be even more terrifying than the battlefront.
Murray, my orderly, came to wake me up in the middle of night.
"Sir, the Colonel asks you to come at once," he said, shaking me by the shoulder. I rose, shielding my eyes from the glare of the lamp-light and noting that it was still many hours before dawn.
"What for?" I asked, even as I started to pull on my trousers. The man seemed truly agitated, much unlike his usual self, and I feared that some tragedy must have happened.
The lamp shook in Murray's hands. "An awful thing, sir," he said. "Dr. Russell is dead."
"Dead!" I ejaculated, stopping dead in my tracks. This was truly a terrible piece of news, for Russell was the army surgeon assigned to the regiment and a good friend of mine.
I made haste to his tent, where already a small crowd was gathered.
Colonel McCarthy clasped me by the hand as I arrived. "Terrible business, Watson," he said, his brown face unnaturally pale and grey in the lamp-light.
I opened the tent-flap and surveyed the grim spectacle inside.
There laid my friend, slumped on his camp bed, blank eyes staring upwards. I felt pained as I remembered that I had supped with him only that evening.
"Sir, how did he die?" I asked the Colonel.
The Colonel shrugged his shoulders. "I was rather hoping that you'd tell me. There is no blood and he shows no traces of injuries. It is a most damned affair."
I promptly set out to make an examination of the body, but I found absolutely nothing. Indeed, I couldn't see what could have caused the poor Doctor's death.
I said as much to the Colonel as we reconvened outside. He shook his head pensively.
"Is it possible that he died from natural causes?" he suggested.
I shook my head and lowered my voice. "Dr. Russell was a healthy man, I think it unlikely that he had a heart attack. It is more likely that he was poisoned."
"Poisoned!" cried the Colonel. " This is preposterous. Are you saying that he was murdered by one of my own men?"
Another possibility came to my mind, and though the very idea seemed repulsive I had a duty to speak.
"It is also possible that he took his own life, " said I.
"I will not believe it," the Colonel replied vehemently. "He wasn't that kind of man."
"I am inclined to agree with you, Colonel," said a voice.
The speaker was one of the men standing outside the tent, a tall and lean Captain whose face I didn't recognize.
"You will forgive me the intrusion," the stranger said. "But under the circumstances I thought it better to inform you of what happened."
"Do you mean to say that you know what happened to Dr. Russell?" asked the Colonel.
"Precisely," said he. "I still don't possess enough information to completely solve this case, but I can tell you one thing for certain: that Dr. Russell was poisoned tonight by a short, left-handed man."
I stared at him in surprise. Colonel McCarthy seemed equally surprised at this sudden revelation.
"But how in the name of God would you say that?" he cried out. "Did you perchance see the murderer?"
Our new companion shrugged. "I have only now arrived from Bombay. All I know is what I saw in that tent." He turned to me. "Sir, you were the late Dr. Russell's assistant. Having known him for eleven months, perhaps you could help me shed some light over this mystery."
"Of course," I said, wondering how this man could know that I had met Russell scarcely a year ago.
The Colonel, his patience wearing thin, made a brusque gesture. "But who are you, sir?" he asked.
"I have just been assigned to the Fifth," the man replied. "I'm Captain Sherlock Holmes."