Disclaimer: I still do not own Sherlock Holmes.

Author's Notes: Awkward situation at the end haha. I hope you guys are enjoying the series. I'll post until chapter five today.


I confess that I was considerably astonished by gush fresh proof of the practical nature of my companion's theories. My respect for his powers of analysis increased wondrously.

There still remained some lurking suspicion in my mind that the whole thing was a prearranged episode, intended to dazzle me, though what earthly object he could have in taking me in was past my comprehension.

When I looked at him, he had finished reading the note; and his eyes had assumed the vacant, lacklustre expression which showed mental abstraction.

"How in the world did you deduce that?" I asked with a sneer.

"Deduce what?" He replied, petulantly. I crossed my arms over my chest.

"Why, that he was a retired sergeant of Marines."

"I have no time for trifles," He answered, brusquely; then with a disarming smile he corrected. "Excuse my rudeness. You broke the thread of my thoughts; but perhaps it is as well. So you actually were not able to see that that man was a sergeant of the Marines?"

"No, indeed." I rolled my eyes at him.

"It was easier to no ut than to explain why I know it. If you were asked to prove that two and two made four, you might find some difficulty, and yet you are quite sure of the fact. Even across the street I could see a great blue anchor tattooed on the back of the fellow's hand. That smacked of the sea. He had a military carriage, however, and regulation side whiskers. ther we have the marine. He was a man with some amount of self-importance and a certain air of command. You musy have observed the way in which he held his head and swung his cane. A steady, respectable, middle-aged man, too, on the face of him –all the facts which let me to believe that he had been a sergeant."

"Wonderful!" I exclaimed with a smile.

"Commonplace." Holmes said, though I thought from his expression that he was pleased at my evident surprise and admiration.

But that all happened two weeks ago. Lets no move onwards to the current events.

Now Sherlock Homes took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat marocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle and rolled back his left shirtcuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forarm and wrist, all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally, he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tine piston, an sank back into the velvet lined armchair with a long sight of satisfaction.

Three times a day for many weeks I had witnessed this performance, but custom had not reconciled my mind to it. On the contrary from day to day I had becomed more and more irritable at the sight, and my conscience swelled nightly within me at the thought that I had lacked the courage to protest. Again and again I had resgistered a vow that I should deliver my opinion upo the subject; but there was that in the cool, nonchalant air of my companion which made him the last man with whom one wuold care to take anything approaching to a liberty.

His great powers, his masterly manner, and the experiences which I had had of his extraordinary qualities, all made me diffident and backward in crossing him.

Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the Beaune which I had taken with my lunch or the additional exasperation produced by the extreme deliberation of his manner, I suddenly felt that I could not hold out any longer.

"Which is it today?" I asked with a sneer. "Morphine or cocaine?"

He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he had opened.

"It is cocaine," He said. "A seven-per-cent solution. Would you care to try it?"

"No, indeed." I replied brusquely. "My constitution has not got over the trip from America yet. I have an awful jetlag, and I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon it."

He smiled at my vehemence. "Perhaps you are right, Amarantha." He said. "I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, so trascendently stimulating and clarifying toi the mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment."

"But consider," I differed earnestly. "Count the cost! Your brain may, as you say, be aroused and excited, but it is a pathological and morbid process which involves increased tissue-change and may at the very least leave a permanent weakness. You know, too, what a black reaction comes upon you. Surely the game is hardly worth the candle. Why should you, for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great powers with which you have been endowed?"

He did not seem offended. On the contrary, he placed his finger-tips together, and leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair, lie one who has relish for conversation.

"My mind," he said. "Rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abtruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense when with artifical stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world."

"The only unnoficial detective?" I asked raising an eyebrow as I did.

"The only unofficial consulting detective." he answered. "I am the last and highest court of appeal in detection. When Gregson, or Lestrade, or Athelney Jones are out of their depths –which , by the way, is their normal state –the matter is laid before me. I examine the data, as an expert, and pronounce a specialist's opinion. I claim no credit in such cases My name figures in no newspaper. The work itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my particular powers, is my highest rewards. But you have yourself had some experience of my methods of work in my book."

"Yes, indeed." I said cordially. "I was neer so struck by something in my life. I even edited most of it in a small brochure with the somewhat fantastic title of 'A Study in Scarlet'."

He shook his head sadly.

"I glanced over it." He said with a smirk. "Honestly I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exacy science and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fith proposition of Euclid."

"But the romance was there;" I sneered, and quite nastily I may add. "I could not just tamper with the facts, Sherlock."

"Some facts should be surppresed, or at least, a just sense of proportion should be obersved in treating them. The only point in the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from effects to causes, by which I succeeded in unravelling."

I was more than annoyed at his criticism of a work which had been specially designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was irritated by the egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should be devoted to his own personal doings.

More than once during the weeks that I have lived with him in Baker Street I had observed that a small vanity underlay my companion's quiet and didactic manner. I made no remark, however, but sat revamping his pamphlet.

"My practice has extended recently to the Continent." Holmes said after a while, filling up his old brier-root pipe "I was consulted last week by Francois le Villard, who, as you probably know, had come rather yo the front lately in the French detective service. He has all the Celtic power of quick intuition, but he is deficient in a wide range of exact knowledge which is essential to the higher developments of his art. The case was concerned with a will and possessed some features of interest. I was able to refer him to two parallel cases, the one in Riga in 1857 and the other one at St. Louis in 1871, which have suggested to him the true solution. Here is the letter which I had this morning acknowledging my assistance."

He tossed over, as he spoke, a crumpled sheet of foreign notepaper. I glanced my eyes down it, catching a profusion of notes of admiration, with stray magnifiques, coups-de-maîtres and tours-de-force, all testifying to the admiration of the french guy.

"He speaks as a pupil to his master." I chuckled.

"Oh, he rates my assistance too highly." Sherlock said lightly. "He has considerable gifts himself. He posses two of the three qualities necessary for the ideal detective. He has the power of observation and that of deduction. He is only wanting in knowledge and that may come in time. he is now translating my small works into French."

"Your works?"

"Oh, didn't you know?" He cried laughing. "Yes, I have been guilty of several monographs apart from that pahmplet you revised. They are all upon technical subjects. For example, is one "Upon the Dinstiction between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccos.' In it I enumerate a hundred and forty forms of cigar, cigareyye, and pipe tobacco, with coloured plates illustrating the difference in the ash. It is a point which is continually turning up in criminal trials, and which sometimes of supreme importance as a clue. If you can say definitely, for example, that some murder has been done by a man who was smoking and Indian lunkah, it obviously narrows your field of search. To the trained eye there is as much differeny between the black ash of a Trichinopoly and the white fluff of bird's-eye as there is between a cabbage and a potato."

"You have an extraordinary genius for minutiae." I remarked.

"I appreciate their importance. Here is my monograph upon the tracing of footsteps, with some remarks upon the uses of plaster of Paris is a preserver of impresser. Here, too, is a curious little work upon the influence of a trade upon the form of the hand, with lithotypes of hands of slaters, sailors, corkcutters, compositors, wavers, and diamond polishers. That is a matter of great practical interest to the scientific detective –especially in cases of unclaimed bodies, or in discovering the atecedents of criminals. But I weary you with my hobby."

"Not at all," I answered with a smile. "It is of the greatest interest to me, especially since I have had the oppurtunitu of observing your practical application of it. But you spoke just now of observation and deduction. Surely the one to some extent implies the other."

"Why, hardly." He answered, leaning back luxuriously in his armchair and sending up thick blue wreaths from his pipes. "For example, observation shows me that you have been to the Wigmore Street Post-Office this morning, but deduction lets e now that when you were there you dispatched a telegram."

"Right!" I exclaimed. "Right on both points! But I confess that I don't see how you arrived at it. It was a sudden impulse upon my part, and I have mentioned it to no-one."

"It is simplicity itself," he remared, chuckling at my surprsie –"So absurdly simply that an explanation is superflous; and yet it may serve to define the limits of observation and of deduction. Observation tells me that you have a little redish moud adhering to your shoe's instep. Just opposite the Wigmore Street Office they have taken up the pavement and thrown up some earth, which lies in such a way that is difficult to avoid threading in it in entering. The earth is of this peculiar redish tint which is found, as far as I know, nowhere else in the nighbourhood. So much is observation. The rest is deduction."

"How then, did you deduce the telegram?"

"Why, of course I knew that you had not written a letter, since I sat opposite to you all morning. I see also in your open desk that you have some sheet of stamps and a thick bundle of postcards. What could you go in the post-office for, then but send a wire? Eliminate all the other factors, and the one which remained must be the truth."

"In this care it certainly is so," I replied after a little thought. "The thing however, is, as you say, of the simplest. Would you think me impertinent if I were to put your theories to a more severe test?"

"On the contraty," He answered with a wink. "It would prevent me from taking a second dose of cocaine. I should be delighted to look into any problem which you might submit to me."

"I have heard you say that it is difficult for a man to have any object in daily use without leaving the impress of his individuality upon it, in such a way that the trained observer might read it. Now I have here a watch which has recently come into my possesion. Would you have the kindess to let me have an opinion upon the character of habits of the late owner?"

I handed him over the watch with some slight feeling of amusement in my heart, for the test was, as I thought, an impossible one, and I intended it as a lesson against the somewhat dogmatic tone which he occasionally assumed. He balanced the watch in his hand, gazed hard at the dial, opened the back, and examined the workds first with his eyes and then with a powerful convex lens. I could hadly keep form smiling at his crestfallen face when he finally snapped the case to and ahnded it back.

"There are hardly any data," He remarked. "The watch has been recently cleaned, which robs me of my most suggestive facts."

"You are right," I answered. "It was cleaned before being sent to me."

In my heart I accused my companion of putting forward the most lame and impotent excuse to cover his failure. What date could he explect from a uncleaned watch?

"Though unsatisfactory, my research has not been intirely barren," He observed, staring up at the ceiling with dreamy, lacklustre eyes. "Subject to your correction, I should judge that the watch belonged to your elder brother, who inherited it from your father."

"That you gather, no doubt, from the H.E upon the back?"

"Quite so. The E. suggests your own lastname. The date of the watch is nearly fifty years back, and the initials are as old as the watch; so it was made for the last generation. Jewellery usually decescends to the eldest son, and he is most likely to have the same name as the father. You father has, if I remember right, been dead many years. It has, therefore, been in the hands of your eldest brother."

"Right, so far." I said cockily. "Anything else?"

"He was a man of untidy habits –very untidy and careless. He was left with good prospects, but he threw away his chances, lived for some time in poverty with occasional shot intervals of prosperity, and finally, taking to drink, he died. That is all I can gather."

I sprang from my chair and walked impatiently about the room with considerable bitterness.

"This is unworthy of you, Holmes." I hissed. "I could not have believed that you would have descended to this. You have made inquiries into the history of my unhappy brother, and you now pretend to deduce this knowledge in some fanciful way. You cannot expect me to believe that you have read all this form his old watch! It is unkind, and to speak plainly, has a touch of charlatanism in it."

"My dear Amarantha," He said kindly, as he stood and placed his hands on my shoulders trying to stop my incesant pacing. "Pray accept my apologies. Viewing the matter as an abstract problem, I had forgotten how personal and painful a thing it might be to you. I assure you, however, that I never eve knew you had a brother until you handed me the watch."

"Then how in the name of all that is wonderful did you get these facts? They are absolutely correct in every freaking way."

"Ah, that is good luck. I could only say that was the balance of probability. I did not at all expect to be so accurate."

"But it was not mere guesswork?" I said now lowering my tone.

"No, no. I never guess. That is a shocking habit –destructive to the logical faculty. What seems strange to you is only so because you do noy followe my train of thought or observe the small facts upon the large inferences may depend. For example, I began by stating that your brother was careless. When you observe the lower part of that watch-case you notice that it is not only tinted in two places but it is cut and marked all over from the habit of keeping other hard objects, such as coins or keys, in the same pocket. Surely it is no great feat to assume that a man who treats a fifty-guinea watch so cavalierly must be a careless man. Neither it is a very far-fectched that the man who inherits one article of such value is pretty well provided for in other respects."

I nodded my head slightly to show that I followed his reasoning.

"It is very custumary for pawnbrokers in England, when they take a watch, to scratch the number of the ticket with a pinpoint upon the inside of the case. It is more handy than a label as there is no risk of the number being lost or transposed. There are no less than four such number visible to my lens on the inside of this case. Inference –that your brother was often a low water. Secondary inference –that he had occasional burst of prosperity or he could not have redeemed the pledge. Finally, I as you to look at the inned plate, which contains the keyhole –marks that the key has slipped. What sober man's key could hae scored those grooves? But you will never see a drunkard's watch without them. He winds it at night, and he leaved these traces of his unsteady hand. Where is the mystery in all this?"

"It is as clear as daylight," I answered with a sigh. "I regret y injustice which I did you. I should have more faith in your marvelous faculty. May I asked wether you have any professional inquiry on foot at present?"

"None. Hence the cocaine. I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window there. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts acorss the duncoloured houses. What-"

I had carelessly wrapped my arms around him, pulling him into a tight hug, leaving him open mouthed and startled at my sudden impulse.

"Why-"

"Sometimes you just need to shut up, m'kay?" I said as I looked up at him, still hugging him tightly.

He looked around, avoiding my gaze as he grabbed my hands trying to loosen my grasp when, with a crisp knock, our landlady entered, making our current situation about more awkward that it already way.

Thankfully she ignored us as Holmes finally got out of my grasp and dusted his shirt.

"A young lady for you sir," She said, adressing my companion, bearing a card upon the brass salver.

"Miss Miriam Hale." He read. "Hum, I have no recollection of the name. Ask the lady to step up, Mrs. Hudson. Don't go, Amarantha. I should prefer that you remain." He said startling me with his sudden smile.