Этюд в багровых тонах / A Study in Scarlet

“It depends on the player,” I answered.

“Oh, that’s all right,” he cried, with a merry laugh. “I think we may begin to live together, if the rooms are agreeable to you.”

“When shall we see them?”

“Come to me at noon tomorrow, and we’ll go there together,” he answered.

“All right – noon exactly,” said I.

We left him working among his chemicals, and we walked together towards my hotel.

“By the way,” I asked suddenly, “how did he know that I had come from Afghanistan?”

My companion smiled.

“That’s his little peculiarity,” he said.

“Oh! a mystery?” I cried. “This is very piquant.”

Stamford bade me good-bye.

“I think he knows more about you than you about him. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” I answered, and strolled on to my hotel.

Chapter II

The Science of Deduction

We met next day and inspected the rooms at No. 221B, Baker Street. They consisted of a couple of comfortable bed-rooms and a single large sitting-room, with two broad windows.

The apartments were desirable in every way. That evening I moved my things from the hotel, and on the following morning Sherlock Holmes followed me with several boxes and portmanteaus.

Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with. He was quiet, and his habits were regular. He breakfasted and went out early in the morning. Sometimes he spent his day at the chemical laboratory, sometimes in the dissecting-rooms[7 - dissecting-rooms – анатомический театр], and occasionally in long walks.

Sometimes he was lying upon the sofa in the sitting-room, and he was not uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night.

As the weeks went by, my interest in him gradually deepened and increased. In height he was rather over six feet, and excessively lean. His eyes were sharp and piercing; and his hawk-like nose was very thin. His chin marked the man of determination.

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge.

Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he knew nothing. And my surprise reached a climax, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System.

“You will be astonished,” he said, smiling. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.”

“To forget it!”

“You see,” he explained, “a man’s brain is like a little empty attic.