“To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the C.C.H.,”
was engraved upon it, with the date “1884.” It was just such a stickas the old-fashioned family practitioner used to carry—dignified,solid, and reassuring.
“Well, Watson, what do you make of it?”
Holmes was sitting with his back to me, and I had given him nosign of my occupation.
“How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyesin the back of your head.”
“I have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot infront of me,” said he. “But, tell me, Watson, what do you make ofour visitor’s stick? Since we have been so unfortunate as to misshim and have no notion of his errand, this accidental souvenirbecomes of importance. Let me hear you reconstruct the man byan examination of it.”
“I think,” said I, following as far as I could the methods of mycompanion, “that Dr. Mortimer is a successful, elderly medicalman, well-esteemed since those who know him give him this markof their appreciation.”
“Good!” said Holmes. “Excellent!”
“I think also that the probability is in favour of his being acountry practitioner who does a great deal of his visiting on foot.”
“Why so?”
“Because this stick, though originally a very handsome onehas been so knocked about that I can hardly imagine a townpractitioner carrying it. The thick iron ferrule is worn down, so itis 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 shouldguess that to be the Something Hunt, the local hunt to whosemembers he has possibly given some surgical assistance, and whichhas made him a small presentation in return.”
“Really, Watson, you excel yourself,” said Holmes, pushing backhis chair and lighting a cigarette. “I am bound to say that in all theaccounts which you have been so good as to give of my own smallachievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities.
It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are aconductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have aremarkable power of stimulating it. I confess, my dear fellow, thatI am very much in your debt.”
He had never said as much before, and I must admit that hiswords gave me keen pleasure, for I had often been piqued by hisindifference to my admiration and to the attempts which I hadmade to give publicity to his methods. I was proud, too, to thinkthat I had so far mastered his system as to apply it in a way whichearned his approval. He now took the stick from my hands andexamined it for a few minutes with his naked eyes. Then with anexpression of interest he laid down his cigarette, and carrying thecane to the window, he looked over it again with a convex lens.
“Interesting, though elementary,” said he as he returned tohis favourite corner of the settee. “There are certainly one ortwo indications upon the stick. It gives us the basis for severaldeductions.”
“Has anything escaped me?” I asked with some self-importance.
“I trust that there is nothing of consequence which I haveoverlooked?”
“I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your conclusionswere erroneous. When I said that you stimulated me I meant, tobe frank, that in noting your fallacies I was occasionally guidedtowards the truth. Not that you are entirely wrong in this instance.
The man is certainly a country practitioner. And he walks a gooddeal.”
“Then I was right.”
“To that extent.”
“But that was all.”
“No, no, my dear Watson, not all—by no means all. I wouldsuggest, for example, that a presentation to a doctor is more likelyto come from a hospital than from a hunt, and that when theinitials ‘C.C.’ are placed before that hospital the words ‘CharingCross’ very naturally suggest themselves.”
“You may be right.”
“The probability lies in that direction. And if we take this as aworking hypothesis we have a fresh basis from which to start ourconstruction of this unknown visitor.”
“Well, then, supposing that ‘C.C.H.’ does stand for ‘CharingCross Hospital,’ what further inferences may we draw?”
“Do none suggest themselves? You know my methods. Applythem!”
“I can only think of the obvious conclusion that the man haspractised in town before going to the country.”
“I think that we might venture a little farther than this. Lookat it in this light. On what occasion would it be most probablethat such a presentation would be made? When would hisfriends unite to give him a pledge of their good will? Obviously atthe moment when Dr. Mortimer withdrew from the service of thehospital in order to start in practice for himself. We know there hasbeen a presentation. We believe there has been a change from a townhospital to a country practice. Is it, then, stretching our inference toofar 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 staffof the hospital, since only a man well-established in a Londonpractice could hold such a position, and such a one would not driftinto the country. What was he, then? If he was in the hospital andyet not on the staff he could only have been a house-surgeon ora house-physician—little more than a senior student. And he leftfive years ago—the date is on the stick. So your grave, middle-agedfamily practitioner vanishes into thin air, my dear Watson, andthere emerges a young fellow under thirty, amiable, unambitious,absent-minded, and the possessor of a favourite dog, which Ishould describe roughly as being larger than a terrier and smallerthan a mastiff.”
I laughed incredulously as Sherlock Holmes leaned back in hissettee and blew little wavering rings of smoke up to the ceiling.
“As to the latter part, I have no means of checking you,” said I,“but at least it is not difficult to find out a few particulars aboutthe man’s age and professional career.” From my small medicalshelf I took down the Medical Directory and turned up the name.
