Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume II (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Read online

  Table of Contents

  FROM THE PAGES OF THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES, VOLUME II

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  THE WORLD OF SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE AND SHERLOCK HOLMES

  Introduction

  INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME II

  A NOTE ON CONVEYANCES

  THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE EMPTY HOUSE

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE NORWOOD BUILDER

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE DANCING MEN

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE SOLITARY CYCLIST

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE PRIORY SCHOOL

  THE ADVENTURE OF BLACK PETER

  THE ADVENTURE OF CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTON

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE SIX NAPOLEONS

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE THREE STUDENTS

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE GOLDEN PINCE-NEZ

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING THREE-QUARTER

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE ABBEY GRANGE

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE SECOND STAIN

  THE VALLEY OF FEAR

  CHAPTER 1 - The Warning

  CHAPTER 2 - Sherlock Holmes Discourses

  CHAPTER 3 - The Tragedy of Birlstone

  CHAPTER 4 - Darkness

  CHAPTER 5 - The People of the Drama

  CHAPTER 6 - A Dawning Light

  CHAPTER 7 - The Solution

  Part 2 - THE SCOWRERS

  CHAPTER 1 - The Man

  CHAPTER 2 - The Bodymaster

  CHAPTER 3 - Lodge 341, Vermissa

  CHAPTER 4 - The Valley of Fear

  CHAPTER 5 - The Darkest Hour

  CHAPTER 6 - Danger

  CHAPTER 7 - The Trapping of Birdy Edwards

  EPILOGUE

  HIS LAST BOW

  THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE

  1. The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles

  2. The Tiger of San Pedro

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE

  1

  2

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE DYING DETECTIVE

  THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVIL’S FOOT

  HIS LAST BOW - An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes

  THE CASE BOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

  PREFACE - The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS CLIENT

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLANCHED SOLDIER

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE MAZARIN STONE

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE THREE GABLES

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE SUSSEX VAMPIRE

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE THREE GARRIDEBS

  THE PROBLEM OF THOR BRIDGE

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE CREEPING MAN

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE LION’S MANE

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE VEILED LODGER

  THE ADVENTURE OF SHOSCOMBE OLD PLACE

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE RETIRED COLOURMAN

  TWO PARODIES BY SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  AN INTRODUCTION TO DOYLE’S PARODIES

  TWO PARODIES BY SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  THE FIELD BAZAAR

  HOW WATSON LEARNED THE TRICK

  TWO ESSAYS BY SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  THE TRUTH ABOUT SHERLOCK HOLMES

  The Twopenny Box

  Enter Holmes and Watson

  The Adventure of the Two Collaborators

  Dangerous Ground

  The Critic and the Snake

  SOME PERSONALIA ABOUT SHERLOCK HOLMES

  COMMENTS & QUESTIONS

  FOR FURTHER READING

  FROM THE PAGES OF THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES, VOLUME II

  “Is it really you? Can it indeed be that you are alive?”

  (from “The Adventure of the Empty House,” page 8)

  It was indeed like old times when, at that hour, I found myself seated beside him in a hansom, my revolver in my pocket, and the thrill of adventure in my heart. Holmes was cold and stern and silent. As the gleam of the street-lamps flashed upon his austere features, I saw that his brows were drawn down in thought and his thin lips compressed. I knew not what wild beast we were about to hunt down in the dark jungle of criminal London, but I was well assured, from the bearing of this master huntsman, that the adventure was a most grave one.

  (from “The Adventure of the Empty House,” pages 11-12)

  “What one man can invent another can discover.”

  (from “The Adventure of the Dancing Men,” page 56)

  “When a man embarks upon a crime, he is morally guilty of any other crime which may spring from it.”

  (from “The Adventure of the Priory School,” page 92)

  “I’ve seen you handle a good many cases, Mr. Holmes, but I don’t know that I ever knew a more workmanlike one than that. We’re not jealous of you at Scotland Yard. No, sir, we are very proud of you, and if you come down to-morrow, there’s not a man, from the oldest inspector to the youngest constable, who wouldn’t be glad to shake you by the hand.”

  (from “The Adventure of the Six Napoleons,” page 141)

  “Come, Watson, come!” he cried. “The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!”

  (from “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange,” page 191)

  “The motives of women are so inscrutable.”

  (from “The Adventure of the Second Stain,” page 216)

  Sherlock Holmes had pushed away his untasted breakfast and lit the unsavoury pipe which was the companion of his deepest meditations.

  (from The Valley of Fear, page 236)

  Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius. (from The Valley of Fear, page 238)

  “The blunt accusation, the brutal tap upon the shoulder—what can one make of such a dénouement? But the quick inference, the subtle trap, the clever forecast of coming events, the triumphant vindication of bold theories—are these not the pride and the justification of our life’s work?”

  (from The Valley of Fear, page 283)

  “My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built. Life is commonplace; the papers are sterile; audacity and romance seem to have passed forever from the criminal world.”

  (from “The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge,” pages 359-360)

  “It may be very much deeper than appears on the surface. The first thing that strikes one is the obvious possibility that the person now in the rooms may be entirely different from the one who engaged them.”

  (from “The Adventure of the Red Circle,” page 400)

  “It shows, my dear Watson, that we are dealing with an exceptionally astute and dangerous man.”

  (from “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax,” page 452)

  “When you follow two separate chains of thought, Watson, you will find some point of intersection which should approximate to the truth.”

  (from “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax,” page 455)

  “To revenge crime is important, but to prevent it is more so.”

  (from “The Adventure of the Illustrious Client,” page 498)

  “The faculty of deduction is certainly contagious, Watson.”

  (from “The Problem of Thor Bridge,” page 582)

  “By Jove, Mr. Holmes, I think you have hit it.”

  (from “The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane,” page 625)

  “My dear fellow, I fear your deductions have not been so happy as I should have wished.�
�� (from “How Watson Learned the Trick,” page 675)

  Published by Bames & Noble Books

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  New York, NY 10011

  www.barnesandnoble.com/classics

  The Valley of Fear was first published in 1914. The stories in The Return of Sherlock

  Holmes were first collected and published in 1903, those in His Last Bow in 1917,

  and those in The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes in 1927.

  “The Creeping Man,” “The Sussex Vampire,” “The Veiled Lodger,” “The

  Retired Colourman,” “Shoscombe Old Place,” “How Watson Learned the

  Trick,” “The Truth about Sherlock Holmes,” and “Some Personalia about Mr.

  Sherlock Holmes” are protected by copyright in the United States of America

  and are reprinted here courtesy of the Estate of Dame Jean Conan Doyle.

  Published in 2003 by Barnes & Noble Classics with new Introduction,

  Notes, Biography, Chronology, A Note on Conveyances,

  Comments & Questions, and For Further Reading.

  General Introduction, Introduction to Volume II, A Note on Conveyances,

  Notes, and For Further Reading Copyright © 2003 by Kyle Freeman.

  Note on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The World of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and

  Sherlock Holmes, Inspired by Sherlock Holmes, and Comments & Questions

  Copyright © 2003 by Bames & Noble, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

  transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and

  retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Barnes & Noble Classics and the Barnes & Noble Classics colophon are

  trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc.

  The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume II

  ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-040-2 ISBN-10: 1-59308-040-9

  eISBN : 978-1-411-43198-0

  LC Control Number 2003102759

  Produced and published in conjunction with:

  Fine Creative Media, Inc.

  322 Eighth Avenue

  New York, NY 10001

  Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher

  Printed in the United States of America

  QM

  7 9 10 8

  SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  Arthur Conan Doyle had many careers—physician, writer of popular fiction and nonfiction, war correspondent, historian, and spiritualist—but it was the creation of the cultural icon Sherlock Holmes that was to be his enduring legacy. The author was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on May 22, 1859. His mother raised ten children on her husband’s small income; his father’s poor health and heavy drinking made that a daunting task. Despite this adversity, his mother’s willfulness and her exhaustive genealogical research instilled in Arthur a decided sense of purpose.

  After early education in Jesuit schools, Conan Doyle enrolled in Edinburgh University, where he earned a medical degree while working part-time to support his family. At the university one of his instructors was Dr. Joseph Bell, who had an uncanny ability to deduce the histories of his patients and who later became a template for Sherlock Holmes. Another teacher, an eccentric Professor Rutherford, inspired the character of Professor George Edward Challenger in The Lost World and two other novels.

  Having had a taste of adventure on a trip to Greenland while still a student, Conan Doyle longed to travel after graduation and so took a position as doctor on a ship en route to West Africa. Returning to England, he set up as a physician in 1882. His practice was small at first, so he had time to do some writing. In 1887 the first Sherlock Holmes story appeared, titled A Study in Scarlet. Over the next few years, Conan Doyle would write a historical novel, open a new ocular practice, explore spiritualism, and send Holmes on further thrilling exploits. A second novel, The Sign of Four, came out in 1890, and starting in 1891 the Holmes stories regularly appeared in the Strand Magazine. Two collections, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in 1892 and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes in 1893, collected a total of twenty-four of the mysteries. However, Conan Doyle felt that work on the Holmes stories was keeping him from writing on more serious historical topics. To the shock of his readers, in the 1893 story called “The Final Problem” he described the death of his famous sleuth.

  In 1894 Conan Doyle published Round the Red Lamp, a collection of short stories with a medical theme; in 1895 The Stark Munro Letters, an autobiographical novel; and in 1896 The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard, set in the Napoleonic Wars. In 1900 he traveled to South Africa in the capacity of war-time physician in Cape Town; his treatise on the Boer War, a defense of Britain’s tactics, earned him a knighthood in 1902. That same year Conan Doyle published The Hound of the Baskervilles, set before the story that had finished Holmes off in 1893. In 1903 new Holmes stories started to appear in the Strand.

  In the coming years, Conan Doyle produced more popular books on a variety of subjects, including three new collections of stories—The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905), His Last Bow (1917), and The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927)—plus a final Holmes novel, The Valley of Fear (1915). Among many other non-Holmes projects were the three Challenger novels, historical fiction and nonfiction, and several books on spiritualism. He also championed the rights of the wrongly accused, in two separate cases exonerating innocent men.

  With the onset of World War I, Conan Doyle served as a war correspondent on several major European battlefields. Following the war, he became a passionate advocate of spiritualism, which he embraced in part to communicate with his eldest son, Kingsley, who had died from influenza aggravated by war wounds. From 1920 until his death, the author wrote, traveled, and lectured to promote his belief in a spiritual life after the death of the body. After a long, demanding journey through Scandi navia, Arthur Conan Doyle suffered a heart attack; he died a few months later, on July 7, 1930, in Sussex.

  THE WORLD OF SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE AND SHERLOCK HOLMES

  1859 Arthur Conan Doyle is born on May 22 in Edinburgh, Scotland, the second child and eldest son of ten children that will be born to Charles and Mary Foley Doyle. Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection and Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities are published.

  1868 Arthur attends school with the Jesuits in England; later he will re- ject Catholicism.

  1871 Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass is published. The first book of George Eliot’s Middlemarch is published. Royal Albert Hall, one of Britain’s most important concert venues, opens in London.

  1876 Conan Doyle enrolls in the University of Edinburgh Medical School. As a student, he takes various jobs to help his family, including serving as a ship’s doctor on an Arctic voyage. While at Edinburgh, he meets Dr. Joseph Bell, whose analytical capabilities amaze his patients and students; Bell later becomes a model for Sherlock Holmes.

  1879 “The Mystery of Sasassa Valley,” Conan Doyle’s first story, is pub lished in Chambers’s Journal, an Edinburgh weekly.

  1881 Conan Doyle receives his Bachelor of Medicine and Master of Surgery qualifications, and takes a position as ship’s doctor on a steamer en route to West Africa.

  1882 He returns to Great Britain and establishes his medical practice.

  1885 Conan Doyle receives his M.D. degree. He marries Louise Hawkins; her poor health makes the marriage a difficult one.

  1887 A Study in Scarlet, the debut Sherlock Holmes story, is published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual.

  1889 Conan Doyle’s short novel The Mystery of Cloomber, which is con cerned with the paranormal, is published, as is Micah Clarke, a popular novel about the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685.

  1890 The second Holmes novel, The Sign of Four is published, in Feb ruary in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine and in October as a book. The story had been commissioned at the same dinner party at which Oscar Wilde was offered a contract
for The Picture of Do rian Gray, also published in Lippincott’s this year.

  1891 The White Company, a tale of fourteenth-century chivalry, is pub lished. Conan Doyle closes his medical practice to devote more time to his writing career. Stories featuring Sherlock Holmes begin to appear regularly in the Strand Magazine.

  1892 The story collection The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is pub lished.

  1893 The year proves stressful, as the author’s father dies and his wife is diagnosed with tuberculosis. Hoping to help Louise’s condition, the family travels to Switzerland, where Conan Doyle visits Re ichenbach Falls, the site he chooses for the murder of Sherlock Holmes in “The Final Problem”; he intends for this to be the last Holmes story so that he can turn to literary work he considers more important. He joins the British Society for Psychical Re search, which will provide the basis for his belief in spiritualism. The story collection The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is published.

  1894 Round the Red Lamp, a collection of medical short stories, is pub lished.

  1895 The Stark Munro Letters, a fictionalized autobiography, is pub lished.

  1896 The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard, about a hero in the Napoleonic Wars, is published.

  1897 Conan Doyle meets Jean Leckie and falls in love with her; the two maintain a platonic relationship until their marriage in 1907. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is published.

  1900 Conan Doyle travels to South Africa to serve as a hospital doctor in the Boer War; he publishes The Great Boer War, an account of that conflict. Oscar Wilde dies.