"Really, Watson, you excel yourself," said Holmes, pushing back his chair and lighting a cigarette. “ I would say that everything you have said proves that you underestimate yourself, you really stimulate genius. I have to thank you, you have helped a great deal.”
He took the stick from my hands and examined it for a few minutes.
"Interesting, though elementary," said he. "There are one or two clues that help us."
”I hope I haven’t missed anything?” I said with a little pride.
"I am afraid, my dear Watson, that mostly you were wrong. When I said that you stimulated me I meant, through your stumbling you show me the right way. However, the man is certainly a country practitioner. And he walks a good deal."
"Then I was right."
"To that extent."
"But that was all."
"No, no, Watson, I would say, that a presentation to a doctor is more likely to come from a hospital than from a hunt, and the initials C.C. suggest ‘Charing Cross.
"You may be right."
"Almost certainly."
"Well, then, supposing you’re right, what else do we know?"
"Why Watson Can’t you tell?, think!"
"I can only think that the man has practised in town before going to the country."
"The most obvious at the moment for a gift would be when Dr. Mortimer left the hospital in order to start a practice for himself. “
"That could be the case."
" For someone to have a position in the hospital would a man that already had a practise in London someone who wouldn’t leave for the country, so our man must have been a senior student. And he left five years ago--the date is on the stick. So your middle-aged family emerges as a young fellow under thirty, amiable, unambitious, absent-minded, and the possessor of a favourite dog, which I should describe roughly as being larger than a terrier and smaller than a mastiff."
I laughed as Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his settee and blew little wavering rings of smoke up to the ceiling.
From my small medical shelf I took down the Medical Directory and looked. There were several Mortimers, but only one who could be our visitor. I read his record aloud, when I’d finished Holmes looked at me.
"No mention of that local hunt, Watson," said Holmes with a mischievous smile, "but a country doctor, as you very astutely observed. As to my description. It is my experience that only an amiable man receives testimonials, an unambitious one abandons a London career for the country, and absent-minded because the stick he left and not a calling card.”
"And the dog?"
"Has carried the stick for its master, the marks of his teeth are very plainly visible. The dog's jaw, as shown in the space between these marks, is too broad in my opinion for a terrier and not broad enough for a mastiff. It may have been--yes, by Jove, it is a curly-haired spaniel."
He had paced the room as he spoke. Now stopped by the window. It shocked me that he sounded so sure.
"My dear fellow, how can you possibly be so sure of that?"
"For the reason that I see the dog f on our door-step, and there is the ring of its owner. Don't leave, Watson, he’s a doctor as you, I might need your help.
What does Dr. James Mortimer, the man of science, ask of Sherlock Holmes, the specialist in crime? Come in!"
The appearance of our visitor was a surprise to me. He was a very tall, thin man, with a long nose like a beak, which jutted out between two keen, grey eyes, set closely together and sparkling brightly from behind his gold-rimmed glasses. He was dressed quite shabbily his coat was dingy and his trousers frayed.
As he entered his eyes fell upon the stick in Holmes's hand, and he ran towards it with an exclamation of joy. "At last my stick I would not lose that stick for the world."
"A presentation, I see," said Holmes.
"Yes, sir."
"From Charing Cross Hospital?"
"From one or two friends there on the occasion of my marriage."
"Dear, dear, that's bad!" said Holmes, shaking his head.
Dr. Mortimer blinked through his glasses in mild astonishment. "Why was it bad?"
"Only that you have disarranged our little deductions. Your marriage, you say?"
"Yes, sir. I married, and so left the hospital, and with it all hopes of a consulting practice. It was necessary to make a home of my own."
"Come, come, we are not so far wrong, after all," said Holmes. "And now, Dr. James Mortimer--"
"Glad to meet you, sir. I have heard your name mentioned in connection with that of your friend. You interest me very much, Mr. Holmes. I had hardly expected so dolichocephalic a skull or such well-marked supra-orbital development. I would really like to examine it, maybe take a cast? it would be a prize for any museam , let alone myself."
”I see that were are both enthusiasts in our fields, please sit.”
Holmes was silent, but his little darting glances showed me the interest which he took in our curious companion. "I presume, sir," said he at last, "you didn’t just call to examine my skull?”
"No that was just a pleasureI came to you, Mr. Holmes, because I need your help for an extraordinary problem”
"Well, Dr. Mortimer, what is the exact nature of the problem is in which you demand my assistance."
