This leads Holmes to believe that she was an accomplice, or perhaps the actual murderer in disguise.Ī day later, Gregson visits Holmes and Watson, telling them that he has arrested a suspect. Holmes gives her the duplicate and follows her, but she evades him. An old woman answers the advertisement, claiming that the ring belongs to her daughter.
Holmes places notices in several newspapers about the ring and buys a facsimile of it, hoping to draw the murderer – who has apparently already tried to retrieve the ring – out of hiding. Upon moving Drebber's body, they discover a woman's gold wedding ring. He deduces that the victim died from poison and supplies a description of the murderer. On one wall, written in red, is "RACHE" (German for "revenge"), which Holmes dismisses as a ploy to fool the police. The victim is identified as Enoch Drebber, and documents found on his person reveal that he has a secretary, Joseph Stangerson. Inspectors Gregson and Lestrade are already on the scene. Watson accompanies Holmes to the crime scene, an abandoned house on Brixton Road. Left to right: Watson, Holmes, Lestrade, GregsonĪ telegram requests a consultation in a murder case. Original illustration of Holmes with magnifying glass, by David Henry Friston. A Study in Scarlet was the first work of detective fiction to incorporate the magnifying glass as an investigative tool. The novel was followed by The Sign of the Four, published in 1890. Although Conan Doyle wrote 56 short stories featuring Holmes, A Study in Scarlet is one of only four full-length novels in the original canon. Only 11 complete copies of the magazine in which the story first appeared, Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887, are known to exist now and they have considerable value. The story, and its main characters, attracted little public interest when it first appeared. The book's title derives from a speech given by Holmes, a consulting detective, to his friend and chronicler Watson on the nature of his work, in which he describes the story's murder investigation as his " study in scarlet": "There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it." Watson, who would become the most famous detective duo in literature. The story marks the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. The traditional mystery enshrined within the book is not much of a puzzle, nor is the cause of young Roger's death as deduced by Holmes.A Study in Scarlet is a 1887 detective novel by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle. Watson was also an important narrative device, allowing Conan Doyle to move to a different viewpoint from that of Holmes, a shift which Cullin can only make with some clumsiness. Watson enabled Conan Doyle to obscure the image of the detective so that he appears as an almost superhuman presence seen through a mist of awe and astonishment.Ĭullin's creation of a fuller human personality has too many sops to modern sensibilities: one cannot believe in a Holmes who cradles a dead baby, nor in one who calls women "dear". It is a mistake, however, to leave Watson's narration and hand the story over to Holmes himself. The book plays with levels of reality: this Holmes disavows Sydney Paget's version, the picture of "Sherlock-San" instantly recognised by Japanese admirers, and the persona in this novel is observedly less "extravagant and colourful" than Watson's account.
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