"It is not easy to express the inexpressible," he answered with a laugh."Holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes--it approaches tocold-bloodedness. I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch ofthe latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you understand,but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an accurate ideaof the effects. To do him justice, I think that he would take it himselfwith the same readiness. He appears to have a passion for definite andexact knowledge."
"Very right too."
"Yes, but it may be pushed to excess. When it comes to beating thesubjects in the dissecting-rooms with a stick, it is certainly takingrather a bizarre shape."
"Beating the subjects!"
"Yes, to verify how far bruises may be produced after death. I saw himat it with my own eyes."
"And yet you say he is not a medical student?"
"No. Heaven knows what the objects of his studies are. But here weare, and you must form your own impressions about him." As he spoke, weturned down a
narrow lane and passed through a small side-door, whichopened into a wing of the great hospital. It was familiar ground to me,and I needed no guiding as we ascended the bleak stone staircase andmade our way down the long corridor with its vista of whitewashedwall and dun-coloured doors. Near the further end a low arched passagebranched away from it and led to the chemical laboratory.
This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless bottles.Broad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled with retorts,test-tubes, and little Bunsen lamps, with their blue flickering flames.There was only one student in the room, who was bending over a distanttable absorbed in his work. At the sound of our steps he glanced roundand sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure. "I've found it! I'vefound it," he shouted to my companion, running towards us with atest-tube in his hand. "I have found a re-agent which is precipitatedby hoemoglobin, [4] and by nothing else." Had he discovered a gold mine,greater delight could not have shone upon his features.
"Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said Stamford, introducing us.
"How are you?" he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strengthfor which I should hardly have given him credit. "You have been inAfghanistan, I perceive."
"How on earth did you know that?" I asked in astonishment.
"Never mind," said he, chuckling to himself. "The question now is abouthoemoglobin. No doubt you see the significance of this discovery ofmine?"
"It is interesting, chemically, no doubt," I answered, "butpractically----"
"Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years.Don't you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains. Comeover here now!" He seized me by the coat-sleeve in his eagerness, anddrew me over to the table at which he had been working. "Let us havesome fresh blood," he said, digging a long bodkin into his finger, anddrawing off the resulting drop of blood in a chemical pipette. "Now, Iadd this small quantity of blood to a litre of water. You perceive thatthe resulting mixture has the appearance of pure water. The proportionof blood cannot be more than one in a million. I have no doubt, however,that we shall be able to obtain the characteristic reaction." As hespoke, he threw into the vessel a few white crystals, and then addedsome drops of a transparent fluid. In an instant the contents assumed adull mahogany colour, and a brownish dust was precipitated to the bottomof the glass jar.
"Ha! ha!" he cried, clapping his hands, and looking as delighted as achild with a new toy. "What do you think of that?"
"It seems to be a very delicate test," I remarked.
"Beautiful! beautiful! The old Guiacum test was very clumsy anduncertain. So is the microscopic examination for blood corpuscles. Thelatter is valueless if the stains are a few hours old. Now, this appearsto act as well whether the blood is old or new. Had this test beeninvented, there are hundreds of men now walking the earth who would longago have paid the penalty of their crimes."
"Indeed!" I murmured.
"Criminal cases are continually hinging upon that one point. A man issuspected of a crime months perhaps after it has been committed. Hislinen or clothes are examined, and brownish stains discovered upon them.Are they blood stains, or mud stains, or rust stains, or fruit stains,or what are they? That is a question which has puzzled many an expert,and why? Because there was no reliable test. Now we have the SherlockHolmes' test, and there will no longer be any difficulty."
His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand over hisheart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by hisimagination.
"You are to be congratulated," I remarked, considerably surprised at hisenthusiasm.
"There was the case of Von Bischoff at Frankfort last year. He wouldcertainly have been hung had this test been in existence. Then there wasMason of Bradford, and the notorious Muller, and Lefevre of Montpellier,and Samson of New Orleans. I could name a score of cases in which itwould have been decisive."
"You seem to be a walking calendar of crime," said Stamford with alaugh. "You might start a paper on those lines. Call it the 'Police Newsof the Past.'"
"Very interesting reading it might be made, too," remarked SherlockHolmes, sticking a small piece of plaster over the prick on his finger."I have to be careful," he continued, turning to me with a smile, "for Idabble with poisons a good deal." He held out his hand as he spoke, andI noticed that it was all mottled over with similar pieces of plaster,and discoloured with strong acids.
"We came here on business," said Stamford, sitting down on a highthree-legged stool, and pushing another one in my direction withhis foot. "My friend here wants to take diggings, and as you werecomplaining that you could get no one to go halves with you, I thoughtthat I had better bring you together."
Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his rooms withme. "I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street," he said, "which wouldsuit us down to the ground. You don't mind the smell of strong tobacco,I hope?"
"I always smoke 'ship's' myself," I answered.
"That's good enough. I generally have chemicals about, and occasionallydo experiments. Would that annoy you?"
"By no means."