A Study In Scarlet Arthur Conan Doyle

CHAPTER I. Mr. Sherlock Holmes

In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University ofLondon, and proceeded to Netley to gothrough the course prescribed for surgeonsin the army. Having completed my studiesthere, I was duly attached to the Fifth NorthumberlandFusiliers as Assistant Surgeon. The regimentwas stationed in India at the time, and before Icould join it, the second Afghan war had brokenout. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corpshad advanced through the passes, and was alreadydeep in the enemy's country. I followed, however,with many other officers who were in the samesituation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candaharin safety, where I found my regiment, and atonce entered upon my new duties. 

The campaign brought honours and promotionto many, but for me it had nothing but misfortuneand disaster. I was removed from my brigade andattached to the Berkshires, with whom I served atthe fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck onthe shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered thebone and grazed the subclavian artery. I shouldhave fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazishad it not been for the devotion and courage shownby Murray, my orderly, who threw me across apack-horse, and succeeded in bringing me safely tothe British lines. 

Worn with pain, and weak from the prolongedhardships which I had undergone, I was removed,with a great train of wounded sufferers, to the basehospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied, and had alreadyimproved so far as to be able to walk aboutthe wards, and even to bask a little upon the verandah,when I was struck down by enteric fever, thatcurse of our Indian possessions. For months my lifewas despaired of, and when at last I came to myselfand became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciatedthat a medical board determined that not a dayshould be lost in sending me back to England. I wasdispatched, accordingly, in the troopship Orontes,and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, withmy health irretrievably ruined, but with permissionfrom a paternal government to spend the next ninemonths in attempting to improve it.

I had neither kith nor kin in England, and wastherefore as free as air—or as free as an incomeof eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permita man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturallygravitated to London, that great cesspool intowhich all the loungers and idlers of the Empire areirresistibly drained. There I stayed for some time ata private hotel in the Strand, leading a comfortless,meaningless existence, and spending such moneyas I had, considerably more freely than I ought. Soalarming did the state of my finances become, thatI soon realized that I must either leave the metropolisand rusticate somewhere in the country, or thatI must make a complete alteration in my style ofliving. Choosing the latter alternative, I began bymaking up my mind to leave the hotel, and to takeup my quarters in some less pretentious and lessexpensive domicile. 

On the very day that I had come to this conclusion,I was standing at the Criterion Bar, whensome one tapped me on the shoulder, and turninground I recognized young Stamford, who had beena dresser under me at Bart's. The sight of a friendlyface in the great wilderness of London is a pleasantthing indeed to a lonely man. In old days Stamfordhad never been a particular crony of mine, but nowI hailed him with enthusiasm, and he, in his turn,appeared to be delighted to see me. In the exuberanceof my joy, I asked him to lunch with me at theHolborn, and we started off together in a hansom.

"Whatever have you been doing with yourself,Watson?" he asked in undisguised wonder, as werattled through the crowded London streets.

"Youare as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut.

"I gave him a short sketch of my adventures,and had hardly concluded it by the time that wereached our destination.

"Poor devil!" he said, commiseratingly, after hehad listened to my misfortunes. 

"What are you upto now?"

"Looking for lodgings," I answered. 

"Trying tosolve the problem as to whether it is possible to getcomfortable rooms at a reasonable price."