The Hound of the Baskervilles | Page 4

successful, elderly medical man, well-esteemed since those who know him
give him this mark of their appreciation."
"Good!" said Holmes. "Excellent!"
"I think also that the probability is in favour of his being a country practitioner who does
a great deal of his visiting on foot."
"Why so?"
"Because this stick, though originally a very handsome one has been so knocked about
that I can hardly imagine a town practitioner carrying it. The thick-iron ferrule is worn
down, so it is evident that he has done a great amount of walking with it."
"Perfectly sound!" said Holmes.
"And then again, there is the 'friends of the C.C.H.' I should guess that to be the
Something Hunt, the local hunt to whose members he has possibly given some surgical
assistance, and which has made him a small presentation in return."
"Really, Watson, you excel yourself," said Holmes, pushing back his chair and lighting a
cigarette. "I am bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been so good as to
give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. It
may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people
without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it. I confess, my dear
fellow, that I am very much in your debt."
He had never said as much before, and I must admit that his words gave me keen pleasure,
for I had often been piqued by his indifference to my admiration and to the attempts
which I had made to give publicity to his methods. I was proud, too, to think that I had so
far mastered his system as to apply it in a way which earned his approval. He now took
the stick from my hands and examined it for a few minutes with his naked eyes. Then
with an expression of interest he laid down his cigarette, and carrying the cane to the
window, he looked over it again with a convex lens.
"Interesting, though elementary," said he as he returned to his favourite corner of the
settee. "There are certainly one or two indications upon the stick. It gives us the basis for
several deductions."
"Has anything escaped me?" I asked with some self-importance. "I trust that there is
nothing of consequence which I have overlooked?"
"I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your conclusions were erroneous. When I said
that you stimulated me I meant, to be frank, that in noting your fallacies I was
occasionally guided towards the truth. Not that you are entirely wrong in this instance.
The man is certainly a country practitioner. And he walks a good deal."

"Then I was right."
"To that extent."
"But that was all."
"No, no, my dear Watson, not all--by no means all. I would suggest, for example, that a
presentation to a doctor is more likely to come from a hospital than from a hunt, and that
when the initials 'C.C.' are placed before that hospital the words 'Charing Cross' very
naturally suggest themselves."
"You may be right."
"The probability lies in that direction. And if we take this as a working hypothesis we
have a fresh basis from which to start our construction of this unknown visitor."
"Well, then, supposing that 'C.C.H.' does stand for 'Charing Cross Hospital,' what further
inferences may we draw?"
"Do none suggest themselves? You know my methods. Apply them!"
"I can only think of the obvious conclusion that the man has practised in town before
going to the country."
"I think that we might venture a little farther than this. Look at it in this light. On what
occasion would it be most probable that such a presentation would be made? When
would his friends unite to give him a pledge of their good will? Obviously at the moment
when Dr. Mortimer withdrew from the service of the hospital in order to start in practice
for himself. We know there has been a presentation. We believe there has been a change
from a town hospital to a country practice. Is it, then, stretching our inference too far to
say that the presentation was on the occasion of the change?"
"It certainly seems probable."
"Now, you will observe that he could not have been on the staff of the hospital, since
only a man well-established in a London practice could hold such a position, and such a
one would not drift into the country. What was he, then? If he was in the hospital and yet
not on the staff he could only have been a house-surgeon or a house-physician--little
more than a senior student. And he left five years ago--the date is on the stick. So your
grave, middle-aged family practitioner vanishes