A Study In Scarlet | Page 3

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This etext is prepared directly from an 1887 edition, and care has been
taken to duplicate the original exactly, including typographical and
punctuation vagaries. Additions to the text include adding the
underscore character (i) to indicate italics, and textual end-notes in
curly braces ({}). Thanks to Randolph Cox for providing the book for
etexting. Etext prepared by Roger Squires [email protected]
A STUDY IN SCARLET. By A. CONAN DOYLE
{1}
A STUDY IN SCARLET.
PART I.
(Being a reprint from the reminiscences of JOHN H. WATSON, M.D.,
late of the Army Medical Department.) {2}
CHAPTER I.
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 Bombay, 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
brigade 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 government 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
permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to
London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the
Empire 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
turning 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
London 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 enthusiasm, and he, in his turn, appeared to