Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

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Doyle Arthur Conan. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Adventure I. A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA

I

II

III

Adventure II. THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE

Adventure III. A CASE OF IDENTITY

Adventure IV. THE BOSCOMBE VALLEY MYSTERY

Adventure V. THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS

Adventure VI. THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP

Adventure VII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLUE CARBUNCLE

Adventure VIII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE SPECKLED BAND

Adventure IX. THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENGINEER’S THUMB

Adventure X. THE ADVENTURE OF THE NOBLE BACHELOR

Adventure XI. THE ADVENTURE OF THE BERYL CORONET

Adventure XII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE COPPER BEECHES

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I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away from each other. My own complete happiness, and the home-centred interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention; while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature. He was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study of crime, and occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of observation in following out those clues, and clearing up those mysteries, which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police. From time to time I heard some vague account of his doings: of his summons to Odessa in the case of the Trepoff murder, of his clearing up of the singular tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee, and finally of the mission which he had accomplished so delicately and successfully for the reigning family of Holland. Beyond these signs of his activity, however, which I merely shared with all the readers of the daily press, I knew little of my former friend and companion.

One night – it was on the 20th of March, 1888 – I was returning from a journey to a patient (for I had now returned to civil practice), when my way led me through Baker Street. As I passed the well-remembered door, which must always be associated in my mind with my wooing, and with the dark incidents of the Study in Scarlet, I was seized with a keen desire to see Holmes again, and to know how he was employing his extraordinary powers. His rooms were brilliantly lit, and, even as I looked up, I saw his tall, spare figure pass twice in a dark silhouette against the blind. He was pacing the room swiftly, eagerly, with his head sunk upon his chest and his hands clasped behind him. To me, who knew his every mood and habit, his attitude and manner told their own story. He was at work again. He had arisen out of his drug-created dreams, and was hot upon the scent of some new problem. I rang the bell, and was shown up to the chamber which had formerly been in part my own.

.....

The king took a heavy chamois leather bag from under his cloak and laid it on the table.

“There are three hundred pounds in gold and seven hundred in notes,” he said.

.....