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To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him
mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and
predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion
akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly,
were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He
was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that
the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a
false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe
and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer—excellent for
drawing the veil from men’s motives and actions. But for the trained
reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely
adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might
throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive
instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not
be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And
yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene
Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.

I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away
from each other. My own complete happiness, and the home-centred
interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master
of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention,
while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian
soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old
books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition,
the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen
nature. He was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study of crime,
and occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of
observation in following out those clues, and clearing up those
mysteries which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police.
From time to time I heard some vague account of his doings: of his
summons to Odessa in the case of the Trepoff murder, of his clearing up
of the singular tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee, and
finally of the mission which he had accomplished so delicately and
successfully for the reigning family of Holland. Beyond these signs of
his activity, however, which I merely shared with all the readers of
the daily press, I knew little of my former friend and companion.

One night—it was on the twentieth of March, 1888—I was returning from a
journey to a patient (for I had now returned to civil practice), when
my way led me through Baker Street. As I passed the well-remembered
door, which must always be associated in my mind with my wooing, and
with the dark incidents of the Study in Scarlet, I was seized with a
keen desire to see Holmes again, and to know how he was employing his
extraordinary powers. His rooms were brilliantly lit, and, even as I
looked up, I saw his tall, spare figure pass twice in a dark silhouette
against the blind. He was pacing the room swiftly, eagerly, with his
head sunk upon his chest and his hands clasped behind him. To me, who
knew his every mood and habit, his attitude and manner told their own
story. He was at work again. He had risen out of his drug-created
dreams and was hot upon the scent of some new problem. I rang the bell
and was shown up to the chamber which had formerly been in part my own.

His manner was not effusive. It seldom was; but he was glad, I think,
to see me. With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly eye, he waved
me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a
spirit case and a gasogene in the corner. Then he stood before the fire
and looked me over in his singular introspective fashion.

“Wedlock suits you, he remarked. “I think, Watson, that you have put
on seven and a half pounds since I saw you.

“Seven! I answered.

“Indeed, I should have thought a little more. Just a trifle more, I
fancy, Watson. And in practice again, I observe. You did not tell me
that you intended to go into harness.

“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.

He chuckled to himself and rubbed his long, nervous hands together.

“It is simplicity itself, said he; “my eyes tell me that on the inside
of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it, the leather is
scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously they have been caused by
someone who has very carelessly scraped round the edges of the sole in
order to remove crusted mud from it. Hence, you see, my double
deduction that you had been out in vile weather, and that you had a
particularly malignant boot-slitting specimen of the London slavey. As
to your practice, if a gentleman walks into my rooms smelling of
iodoform, with a black mark of nitrate of silver upon his right
forefinger, and a bulge on the right side of his top-hat to show where
he has secreted his stethoscope, I must be dull, indeed, if I do not
pronounce him to be an active member of the medical profession.

I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his
process of deduction. “When I hear you give your reasons, I remarked,
“the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I
could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your

To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him

mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and

predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion

akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly,

were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He

was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that

the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a

false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe

and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer—excellent for

drawing the veil from men’s motives and actions. But for the trained

reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely

adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might

throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive

instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not

be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And

yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene

Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.

I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away

from each other. My own complete happiness, and the home-centred

interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master

of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention,

while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian

soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old

books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition,

the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen

nature. He was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study of crime,

and occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of

observation in following out those clues, and clearing up those

mysteries which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police.

From time to time I heard some vague account of his doings: of his

summons to Odessa in the case of the Trepoff murder, of his clearing up

of the singular tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee, and

finally of the mission which he had accomplished so delicately and

successfully for the reigning family of Holland. Beyond these signs of

his activity, however, which I merely shared with all the readers of

the daily press, I knew little of my former friend and companion.

One night—it was on the twentieth of March, 1888—I was returning from a

journey to a patient (for I had now returned to civil practice), when

my way led me through Baker Street. As I passed the well-remembered

door, which must always be associated in my mind with my wooing, and

with the dark incidents of the Study in Scarlet, I was seized with a

keen desire to see Holmes again, and to know how he was employing his

extraordinary powers. His rooms were brilliantly lit, and, even as I

looked up, I saw his tall, spare figure pass twice in a dark silhouette

against the blind. He was pacing the room swiftly, eagerly, with his

head sunk upon his chest and his hands clasped behind him. To me, who

knew his every mood and habit, his attitude and manner told their own

story. He was at work again. He had risen out of his drug-created

dreams and was hot upon the scent of some new problem. I rang the bell

and was shown up to the chamber which had formerly been in part my own.

His manner was not effusive. It seldom was; but he was glad, I think,

to see me. With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly eye, he waved

me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a

spirit case and a gasogene in the corner. Then he stood before the fire

and looked me over in his singular introspective fashion.

“Wedlock suits you, he remarked. “I think, Watson, that you have put

on seven and a half pounds since I saw you.

“Seven! I answered.

“Indeed, I should have thought a little more. Just a trifle more, I

fancy, Watson. And in practice again, I observe. You did not tell me

that you intended to go into harness.

“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.

He chuckled to himself and rubbed his long, nervous hands together.

“It is simplicity itself, said he; “my eyes tell me that on the inside

of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it, the leather is

scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously they have been caused by

someone who has very carelessly scraped round the edges of the sole in

order to remove crusted mud from it. Hence, you see, my double

deduction that you had been out in vile weather, and that you had a

particularly malignant boot-slitting specimen of the London slavey. As

to your practice, if a gentleman walks into my rooms smelling of

iodoform, with a black mark of nitrate of silver upon his right

forefinger, and a bulge on the right side of his top-hat to show where

he has secreted his stethoscope, I must be dull, indeed, if I do not

pronounce him to be an active member of the medical profession.

I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his

process of deduction. “When I hear you give your reasons, I remarked,

“the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I

could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your