The Return Of Sherlock Holmes Quotes
"The public has already learned those particulars of the crime which came out in the police investigation, but a good deal was suppressed upon that occasion, since the case for the prosecution was so overwhelmingly strong that it was not necessary to bring forward all the facts."
"The crime was of interest in itself, but that interest was as nothing to me compared to the inconceivable sequel, which afforded me the greatest shock and surprise of any event in my adventurous life."
"It can be imagined that my close intimacy with Sherlock Holmes had interested me deeply in crime."
"There were points about this strange business which would, I was sure, have specially appealed to him."
"The efforts of the police would have been supplemented, or more probably anticipated, by the trained observation and the alert mind of the first criminal agent in Europe."
"Yet it was upon this easygoing young aristocrat that death came, in most strange and unexpected form."
"Ronald Adair was fond of cards—playing continually, but never for such stakes as would hurt him."
"The evidence of those who had played with him—Mr. Murray, Sir John Hardy, and Colonel Moran—showed that the game was whist, and that there was a fairly equal fall of the cards."
"My dear Watson," said the well-remembered voice, "I owe you a thousand apologies. I had no idea that you would be so affected."
"With my face over the brink, I saw him fall for a long way. Then he struck a rock, bounded off, and splashed into the water."
"The famous airgun of Von Herder will embellish the Scotland Yard Museum, and once again Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those interesting little problems which the complex life of London so plentifully presents."
"Work is the best antidote to sorrow, my dear Watson," said he; "and I have a piece of work for us both tonight which, if we can bring it to a successful conclusion, will in itself justify a man’s life on this planet."
"The community is certainly the gainer, and no one the loser, save the poor out-of-work specialist, whose occupation has gone."
"Petty thefts, wanton assaults, purposeless outrage—to the man who held the clue all could be worked into one connected whole."
"But now—" He shrugged his shoulders in humorous deprecation of the state of things which he had himself done so much to produce.
"Every problem becomes very childish when once it is explained to you."
"It was not a thing that I could take to the police, for they would have laughed at me."
"A man of a good old family should marry a wife in this fashion, knowing nothing of her past or of her people."
"I was angry with my wife that night for having held me back when I might have caught the skulking rascal."
"She would never bring any stain upon it—of that I am sure."
"There is always a look of fear upon her face—a look as if she were waiting and expecting."
"She’s wearing away under it—just wearing away before my eyes."
"She has never known an easy hour from that moment."
"It is a thousand pities that we have not a reproduction of those which were done in chalk upon the windowsill."
"I pay a good deal of attention to matters of detail, as you may have observed."
"It is a singular and a dangerous web in which our simple Norfolk squire is entangled."
"These are the chronicles of fact, and I must follow to their dark crisis the strange chain of events."
"One of the oldest families in the county of Norfolk, and one of the most honoured."
"Seldom have I seen him so utterly despondent."
"I anticipated it. I came in the hope of preventing it."
"I commend that fact very carefully to your attention."
"What one man can invent another can discover."
"It is part of the settled order of Nature that such a girl should have followers."
"But for choice not on bicycles in lonely country roads."
"I have no desire to make mysteries, but it is impossible at the moment of action to enter into long and complex explanations."
"I am sure that you will respect my confidence."
"This way! This way! They are in the bowling-alley," cried the stranger, darting through the bushes. "Ah, the cowardly dogs! Follow me, gentlemen! Too late! too late! by the living Jingo!"
"Yes," said our ally, "I am Bob Carruthers, and I'll see this woman righted, if I have to swing for it. I told you what I'd do if you molested her, and, by the Lord! I'll be as good as my word."
"I begin to think so, Mr. Holmes, but when I thought of all the precaution I had taken to shield this girl—for I loved her, Mr. Holmes, and it is the only time that ever I knew what love was—it fairly drove me mad to think that she was in the power of the greatest brute and bully in South Africa—a man whose name is a holy terror from Kimberley to Johannesburg."
"Well," said I, "you call that love, Mr. Carruthers, but I should call it selfishness."
"By heaven!" said he, "if you squeal on us, Bob Carruthers, I'll serve you as you served Jack Woodley."
"His Grace is not in the habit of posting letters himself," said he. "This letter was laid with others upon the study table, and I myself put them in the postbag."
"Thank you," said Holmes. "We'll have some food first. Then you can bring round the bicycle."
"Old shoes, but newly shod—old shoes, but new nails. This case deserves to be a classic."
"It seems to be a curious class of custom that is done by the Fighting Cock," said Holmes.
"The matter is very important. I would offer you a sovereign for the use of a bicycle."
"By George! Watson, it was no brain of a country publican that thought out such a blind as that."
"I must have a peep through that, Watson. If you bend your back and support yourself upon the wall, I think that I can manage."
"This northern air is invigorating and pleasant, so I propose to spend a few days upon your moors, and to occupy my mind as best I may."
"But look here, mister, I don't care for folk poking about my place without my leave, so the sooner you pay your score and get out of this the better I shall be pleased."
"The fact is, your Grace," said he, "that my colleague, Dr. Watson, and myself had an assurance from Dr. Huxtable that a reward had been offered in this case. I should like to have this confirmed from your own lips."
"It is years since the incidents of which I speak took place, and yet it is with diffidence that I allude to them."
"As Holmes turned up the lamp the light fell upon a card on the table. He glanced at it, and then, with an ejaculation of disgust, threw it on the floor."
"We had been out for one of our evening rambles, Holmes and I, and had returned about six o'clock on a cold, frosty winter's evening."
"Well, that’s how Milverton impresses me. I’ve had to do with fifty murderers in my career, but the worst of them never gave me the repulsion which I have for this fellow."
"With a smiling face and a heart of marble, he will squeeze and squeeze until he has drained them dry."
"No one knows where his grip may fall, for he is far too rich and far too cunning to work from hand to mouth."
"I have said that he is the worst man in London, and I would ask you how could one compare the ruffian, who in hot blood bludgeons his mate, with this man, who methodically and at his leisure tortures the soul and wrings the nerves in order to add to his already swollen moneybags?"
"Technically, no doubt, but practically not. What would it profit a woman, for example, to get him a few months’ imprisonment if her own ruin must immediately follow?"
"His voice was as smooth and suave as his countenance, as he advanced with a plump little hand extended, murmuring his regret for having missed us at his first visit."
"You evidently do not know the Earl," said he.
"You’ll be interested to hear that I’m engaged."
"I am a plumber with a rising business, Escott, by name."
"You must play your cards as best you can when such a stake is on the table."
"It suits my purpose. Watson, I mean to burgle Milverton’s house tonight."
"I have always had an idea that I would have made a highly efficient criminal."
"This is a first-class, up-to-date burgling kit, with nickel-plated jemmy, diamond-tipped glass-cutter, adaptable keys, and every modern improvement which the march of civilization demands."
"I’ve done enough for one sitting. It is trying work for the eyes."
"It was strange there, in the very depths of the town, with ten miles of man’s handiwork on every side of us, to feel the iron grip of Nature."
"It must be something important which has brought you out in such a gale."
"I hope you have no designs upon us such a night as this."
"Here’s a cigar, and the doctor has a prescription containing hot water and a lemon, which is good medicine on a night like this."
"It’s down in Kent, seven miles from Chatham and three from the railway line."
"It means that I can make neither head nor tail of it."
"The wind howled and screamed at the windows."
"It was a splendid chance of putting your theories into practice, Mr. Sherlock Holmes."
"Except Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said my companion, with a somewhat bitter smile.
"We are done unless you can help me to find Godfrey Staunton."
"He has been laid up with a hack, and once he slipped his kneecap, but that was nothing."
"Nothing of the sort, sir!" screamed the little man. "Don't look to me for a penny—not a penny! You understand that, Mr. Detective! I am all the family that this young man has got, and I tell you that I am not responsible."
"I quite understand your position," said Holmes, with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
"Heavens, sir, what an idea! I never thought of such villainy! What inhuman rogues there are in the world!"
"In the meantime spare no pains, Mr. Detective! I beg you to leave no stone unturned to bring him safely back."
"Dear me, how very stupid of me, to be sure! Good morning, miss, and many thanks for having relieved my mind."
"In that, Doctor, you will find yourself in agreement with every criminal in the country," said my friend, quietly.
"Then perhaps you will explain this receipted bill for thirteen guineas, paid by Mr. Godfrey Staunton last month to Dr. Leslie Armstrong, of Cambridge."
"Come, Watson," said he, and we passed from that house of grief into the pale sunlight of the winter day.
"The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!"
"Your fatal habit of looking at everything from the point of view of a story instead of as a scientific exercise has ruined what might have been an instructive and even classical series of demonstrations."
"But if I had not taken things for granted, if I had examined everything with the care which I should have shown had we approached the case de novo and had no cut-and-dried story to warp my mind, should I not then have found something more definite to go upon?"
"But, dear me, how slow-witted I have been, and how nearly I have committed the blunder of my lifetime!"
"No, no, she was placed in the chair after the death of her husband."
"But a devil he was, if ever one walked the earth."
"My whole desire is to make things easy for you, for I am convinced that you are a much-tried woman."
"I will stake it all on the fact that your story is an absolute fabrication."
"I have learned caution now, and I had rather play tricks with the law of England than with my own conscience."
"Once that warrant was made out, nothing on earth would save him."
"It was certainly rather eccentric behaviour."
"I dare say you thought I acted rather badly to Stanley Hopkins just now."
"What I know is unofficial, what he knows is official. I have the right to private judgment, but he has none."