A
Study in Scarlet is an 1887 detective novel by British author Arthur Conan
Doyle. Written in 1886, the story marks the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes
and Dr. Watson, who would become two of the most famous characters in popular
fiction. The book's title derives from a speech given by Holmes, an amateur
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.
Author
|
Arthur Conan Doyle
|
Country
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United Kingdom
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Series
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Sherlock Holmes
|
Genre
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Detective Novel
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Publisher
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Ward Lock & Co
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First Publication Date
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1887
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Page
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208
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Part I: The
Reminiscences of Watson
Part I leads with a
heading which establishes the role of Dr. Watson as narrator and sets up the
narrative stand-point that the work to follow is not fiction, but fact:
"Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, MD, Late of the
Army Medical Department."
The story begins in
1881, when Dr. Watson, having returned to London from Afghanistan, runs into
an old friend Stamford at the Criterion Restaurant, who had been a dresser
under him at St. Bartholomew's Hospital . Watson confides in Stamford that,
due to a shoulder injury that he sustained in the Anglo-Afghan War at the
Battle of Maiwand, he has been forced to leave the armed services and is now
looking for a place to live. Stamford mentions that an acquaintance of his,
Sherlock Holmes, is looking for someone to split the rent at a flat at 221B
Baker Street, but he cautions Watson about Holmes's eccentricities.
Stamford takes Watson
back to St. Bartholomew's where, in a laboratory, they find Holmes
experimenting with a reagent, seeking a test to detect human haemoglobin.
Holmes explains the significance of bloodstains as evidence in criminal trials.
After Stamford introduces Watson to Holmes, Holmes shakes Watson's hand and
comments, "You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive?" Though Holmes
chooses not to explain why he made the comment, Watson raises the subject of
their parallel quests for a place to live in London, and Holmes explains that
he has found the perfect place in Baker Street. At Holmes's prompting, the two
review their various shortcomings to make sure that they can live together.
After seeing the
rooms at 221B, they move in and grow accustomed to their new situation.
Watson is amazed by
Holmes, who has profound knowledge of chemistry and sensational literature,
very precise but narrow knowledge of geology and botany; yet knows little about
literature, astronomy, philosophy, and politics. Holmes also has multiple
guests visiting him at different intervals during the day.
After much
speculation by Watson, Holmes reveals that he is a "consulting
detective" and that the guests are clients. Facing Watson's doubts about
some of his claims, Holmes casually deduces to Watson that one visitor, a
messenger from Scotland Yard is also a retired Marine sergeant. When the man
confirms this, Watson is astounded by Holmes' ability to notice details and
assemble them.
Holmes reads the
telegram requesting consultation in a fresh murder case. He is reluctant to
help because credit would go entirely to the officials. Watson urges him to
reconsider so Holmes invites him to accompany him as he investigates the crime
scene, an abandoned house off the Brixton Road.
Holmes observes the
pavement and garden leading up to the house before he and Watson meet
Inspectors Gregson and Lestrade. The four observe the crime scene, Holmes using
a magnifying lens and tape measure. The male corpse, he's told, has been
identified as Enoch Drebber. Blood has been found in the room but there is no
wound on the body. They also learn from documents found on his person that he was
in London with his secretary, Joseph Stangerson. On one wall, written in blood,
is "RACHE". Correcting an erroneous theory of Lestrade's, Holmes
remarks that it is the German word for "revenge." He goes on to
deduce that the victim died from poison and supplies a description of the
murderer: six feet tall, disproportionately small feet, florid complexion,
square toed boots, and smoking a Trichinopoly cigar. His right-hand fingernails
are long and he came in a cab whose horse had three old shoes and a new one.
Holmes says "RACHE" was a ploy to fool the police. Upon moving
Drebber's body, the pair discover a woman's gold wedding ring.
Soon, Holmes and
Watson visit the home of the constable who had first discovered the corpse,
paying him a bit for disturbing his nocturnal sleep cycle. They get little
information Holmes didn't already know, other than that a seemingly drunk
loiterer had attempted to approach the crime scene. Holmes chastises the
officer for not realising that this was the murderer himself in disguise. They
leave and Holmes explains that the murderer returned on realising that he'd
forgotten the wedding ring.
Holmes dispatches
some telegrams including an order for a newspaper notice about the ring. He
also buys a facsimile of it. He guesses that the murderer, having already
returned to the scene of the crime for it, would come to retrieve it. The
advertisement is answered by an old woman who claims that the ring belongs to
her daughter. Holmes gives her the duplicate, follows her, and returns to Watson
with the story: she took a cab, he hopped onto the back of it, he found that
she had vanished when it stopped. This leads Holmes to believe that it was the
murderer's accomplice in disguise.
A day later, Gregson
visits Holmes and Watson, telling them that he has arrested a suspect. He had
gone to Madame Charpentier's Boarding House where Drebber and Stangerson had
stayed before the murder. He learned from her that Drebber, a drunk, had
attempted to kiss Mrs Charpentier's daughter, Alice, which caused their
immediate eviction. Drebber, however, came back later that night and attempted
to grab Alice, prompting her older brother to attack him. He attempted to chase
Drebber with a cudgel but claimed to have lost sight of him. Gregson has him in
custody on this circumstantial evidence.
Lestrade then arrives
revealing that Stangerson has more recently been murdered. He had gone to
interview Stangerson after learning where he had been rooming. His body was
found dead near the hotel window, stabbed through the heart. Above his body was
again written “RACHE”. The only things Stangerson had with him were a novel, a
pipe, and a small box containing two pills. The pillbox Lestrade still has with
him. Holmes tests the pills on an old and sickly Scottish terrier in residence
at Baker Street. The first pill produces no evident effect, the second kills
the terrier. Holmes deduces that one was harmless and the other poison.
Just at that moment,
a very young street urchin named Wiggins arrives. He's the leader of the “Baker
Street Irregulars”, a group of similar homeless children Holmes employs to help
him occasionally. Wiggins states that he's summoned the cab Holmes wanted.
Holmes sends him down to fetch the cabby, claiming to need help with his
luggage. When the cabbie comes upstairs and bends for the trunk, Holmes
handcuffs and restrains him. He then announces the captive cabby as Jefferson
Hope, the murderer of Drebber and Stangerson.
Part II: "The
Country of the Saints"
The Mormon Nauvoo Legion,
considerably overlapping with the Danites.
The story flashes
back to the Salt Lake Valley (in modern Utah) in 1847, where John Ferrier and a
little girl named Lucy, the only survivors of a small party of pioneers, lie
down near a boulder to die from dehydration and hunger. They are discovered by
a large party of Latter-day Saints led by Brigham Young. The Mormons rescue
Ferrier and Lucy on the condition that they adopt and live under their faith.
Ferrier, who has proven himself an able hunter, adopts Lucy and is given a
generous land grant with which to build his farm after the party constructs
Salt Lake City. Years later, a now-grown Lucy befriends and falls in love with
a man named Jefferson Hope.
Lucy and Hope become
engaged to be married, scheduled after Hope's return from a three-month-long
journey for his job. However, Ferrier is visited by Young, who reveals that it
is against the religion for Lucy to marry Hope, a non-Mormon. He states that
Lucy should marry Joseph Stangerson or Enoch Drebber—both sons of members of
the church's Council of Four—though Lucy may choose which one. Ferrier and Lucy
are given a month to decide.
Ferrier, who has
sworn to never marry his daughter to a Mormon, immediately sends out word to
Hope for help. When he is visited by Stangerson and Drebber, Ferrier is angered
by their arguments over Lucy and throws them out. Every day, however, the
number of days Ferrier has left to marry off Lucy is painted somewhere on his
farm in the middle of the night. Hope finally arrives on the eve of the last
day, and sneaks his love and her adoptive father out of their farm and away
from Salt Lake City. However, while he is hunting for food, Hope returns to a
horrific sight: a makeshift grave for the elder Ferrier. Lucy is nowhere to be
seen. Determined to devote his life to revenge, Hope sneaks back into Salt Lake
City, learning that Stangerson murdered Ferrier, and that Lucy was forcibly
married to Drebber. Lucy dies a month later from a broken heart; Drebber, who
inherited Ferrier's farm, is indifferent to her death. Hope then breaks into
Drebber's house the night before Lucy's funeral to kiss her body and remove her
wedding ring. Swearing vengeance, Hope stalks the town, coming close to killing
Drebber and Stangerson on numerous occasions.
Hope begins to suffer
from an aortic aneurysm, causing him to leave the mountains to earn money and
recuperate. When he returns several years later, he learns that Drebber and
Stangerson have fled Salt Lake City after a schism between the Mormons. Hope
searches the United States, eventually tracking them to Cleveland; the pair
then flees to Europe, eventually landing in London.
Holmes manages to
lure Hope, in his role as cabdriver, to his Baker Street room, where he claps
handcuffs on him, and with the help of Lestrade, Gregson, and Watson, manages
to subdue and restrain him. Hope then willingly tells his story to his captors.
In London, Hope became a cabby and eventually found Drebber and Stangerson at
the train station in Euston about to depart to Liverpool. Having missed the
first train, Drebber instructs Stangerson to wait for him at the hotel and then
returns to Madame Charpentier's house. He is attacked by her son, and after
escaping, he gets drunk at a liquor store. He is picked up by Hope and is led
to the house on Brixton Road, which Drebber drunkenly enters with Hope. He then
forces Drebber to remember who he is and to take a pill out of a small box,
allowing God to choose which one dies, for one was harmless and the other
poison. Drebber takes the poisoned pill, and as he dies, Hope shows him Lucy's
wedding ring. The excitement coupled with his aneurysm had caused his nose to
bleed; he used the blood to write “RACHE” on the wall above Drebber.
Hope realised, upon
returning to his cab, that he had forgotten Lucy’s ring, but upon returning to
the house, he found Constable Rance and other police officers, who he evaded by
acting drunk. He then had a friend pose as an old lady to pick up the supposed
ring from Holmes's advertisement.
Hope then began
stalking Stangerson's room at the hotel; but Stangerson, on learning of
Drebber's murder, refused to come out. Hope climbed into the room through the
window and gave Stangerson the same choice of pills, but he was attacked by
Stangerson and forced to stab him in the heart.
After being told of
this, Holmes and Watson return to Baker Street; Hope dies from his aneurysm the
night before he was to appear in court, a smile on his face. One morning,
Holmes reveals to Watson how he had deduced the identity of the murderer and
how he had used the Irregulars, whom he calls "street Arabs," to
search for a cabby by that name. He then shows Watson the newspaper; Lestrade
and Gregson are given full credit. Outraged, Watson states that Holmes should
record the adventure and publish it. Upon Holmes's refusal, Watson decides to
do it himself.
Question :
1. Who is the main character in "sherlock holmes : a study in scarlet?"
a. Sherlock Holmes
b. Dr. Watson
c. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson
d. Stamford and Sherlock Holmes
e. Stamford and Sherlock Holmes
2. How Sherlock Holmes and dr. Watson met?
a. Stamford was introducing Sherlock to dr. Watson
b. They met in a cafe accidentally
c. They have the same hobby
d. They are brother
e. They are doctors in england
3. Why is dr. Watson amazed by Sherlock Holmes?
a. Holmes is a kind person
b. Holmes has amazing knowledge
c. Holmes is an opened-person
d. Holmes never lying
e. Holmes has the same hobby with him
4. Why is this novel categorize as detective novel?
a. Because this novel is thrilling
b. Because this novel is full of mistery
c. Because the story tells the reader about a detective who solve a criminal case
d. Because this novel is famous
e. Because this novel has a sadist story
5. How is the atmosphere of this novel?
a. Touching
b. Romantic
c. Curious
d. Funny
e. Horror
