All That I Have to Say Has Already Crossed Your Mind

“'All that I have to say has already crossed your mind,' said he.

“'Then possibly my answer has crossed yours,' I replied. 

And This Was How I First Met :

Tyler Durden.

“'You stand fast?' 

“'Absolutely.' 

“He clapped his hand into his pocket, and I raised the pistol from the table. But he merely drew out a memorandum-book in which he had scribbled some dates. 

“'You crossed my path on the 4th of January,' said he. 'On the 23d you incommoded me; by the middle of February I was seriously inconvenienced by you; at the end of March I was absolutely hampered in my plans; and now, at the close of April, I find myself placed in such a position through your continual persecution that I am in positive danger of losing my liberty. The situation is becoming an impossible one.' 

“'Have you any suggestion to make?' I asked. 

“'You must drop it, Mr. Holmes,' said he, swaying his face about. 'You really must, you know.'

“'After Monday,' said I. 

“'Tut, tut,' said he. 'I am quite sure that a man of your intelligence will see that there can be but one outcome to this affair. It is necessary that you should withdraw. You have worked things in such a fashion that we have only one resource left. It has been an intellectual treat to me to see the way in which you have grappled with this affair, and I say, unaffectedly, that it would be a grief to me to be forced to take any extreme measure. You smile, sir, but I assure you that it really would.' 

“'Danger is part of my trade,' I remarked. 

“'That is not danger,' said he. 'It is inevitable destruction. 

You stand in the way not merely of an individual, but of a mighty organization, the full extent of which you, with all your cleverness, have been unable to realize. 

You must stand clear, Mr. Holmes, or be trodden under foot.' 

“'I am afraid,' said I, rising, 'that in the pleasure of this conversation I am neglecting business of importance which awaits me elsewhere.' 

“He rose also and looked at me in silence, shaking his head sadly. 

“'Well, well,' said he, at last. 'It seems a pity, but I have done what I could. I know every move of your game. You can do nothing before Monday. It has been a duel between you and me, Mr. Holmes. 

You hope to place me in the dock. I tell you that I will never stand in the dock. 

You hope to beat me. I tell you that you will never beat me. 

If you are clever enough to bring destruction upon me, rest assured that I shall do as much to you.' 

“'You have paid me several compliments, Mr. Moriarty,' said I. 'Let me pay you one in return when I say that if I were assured of the former eventuality I would, in the interests of the public, cheerfully accept the latter.' 

“'I can promise you the one, but not the other,' he snarled, and so turned his rounded back upon me, and went peering and blinking out of the room. 

“That was my singular interview with Professor Moriarty. 

I confess that it left an unpleasant effect upon my mind. His soft, precise fashion of speech leaves a conviction of sincerity which a mere bully could not produce. Of course, you will say: 'Why not take police precautions against him?' the reason is that I am well convinced that it is from his agents the blow will fall. 

I have the best proofs that it would be so.” 

“You have already been assaulted?” 

“My dear Watson, Professor Moriarty is not a man who lets the grass grow under his feet. I went out about mid-day to transact some business in Oxford Street. 

As I passed the corner which leads from Bentinck Street on to the Welbeck Street crossing a two-horse van furiously driven whizzed round and was on me like a flash. I sprang for the foot-path and saved myself by the fraction of a second. 

The van dashed round by Marylebone Lane and was gone in an instant. I kept to the pavement after that, Watson, but as I walked down Vere Street a brick came down from the roof of one of the houses, and was shattered to fragments at my feet. I called the police and had the place examined. 

There were slates and bricks piled up on the roof preparatory to some repairs, and they would have me believe that the wind had toppled over one of these. 

Of course I knew better, but I could prove nothing. 

I took a cab after that and reached my brother's rooms in Pall Mall, where I spent the day. Now I have come round to you, and on my way I was attacked by a rough with a bludgeon. 

I knocked him down, and The Police have him in custody; but I can tell you with the most absolute confidence that no possible connection will ever be traced between the gentleman upon whose front teeth I have barked my knuckles and the retiring mathematical coach, who is, I dare say, working out problems upon a black-board ten miles away. 

You will not wonder, Watson, that my first act on entering your rooms was to close your shutters, and that I have been compelled to ask your permission to leave the house by some less conspicuous exit than the front door.” 

Mycroft :

Do you? 

Sherlock :

Do I what? 

H-how did you get that? 

I left it at the crime scene. 

Mycroft :

"Crime scene"? 

Where do you pick up these extraordinary expressions? 

Do you miss him? 

Sherlock :

Moriarty is dead.

Mycroft :

And yet...? 

Sherlock :

His body was never recovered. 

Mycroft :

To be expected when one pushes a maths professor over a waterfall. 

Pure reason toppled by sheer melodrama. 

Your life in a nutshell. 

Sherlock :

Where do you pick up these extraordinary expressions? 

(HE SNIFFS) 

Sherlock :

Have you put on weight? 

Mycroft :

You saw me only yesterday. 

Does that seem possible? 

Sherlock :

No. 

Mycroft :

Yet, here I am, increased. 

What does that tell the foremost criminal investigator in England? 

Sherlock :

In England? 

Mycroft :

You're in deep, Sherlock, deeper than you ever intended to be. 

Have you made a list? 

Sherlock :

Of what? 

Mycroft :

Everything. We will need a list. 

Good boy. 

Sherlock :

No, I haven't finished yet. 

Mycroft :

Moriarty may beg to differ. 

(HE SIGHS) 

Sherlock :

He's trying to distract me. 

To derail me. 

Mycroft :

Yes. He's the crack in the lens, the fly in the ointment

The virus in the data. 

Sherlock :

I have to finish this. 

Mycroft :

If Moriarty has risen from the Reichenbach cauldron, he will seek you out. 

Sherlock :

I'll be waiting.

Mycroft :

Yes. I'm very much afraid you will..... 

Mrs. Hudson : 

Two days he's been like that. 

Lestrade :

Has he eaten? 

Mrs. Hudson : 

No, not a morsel. 

Lestrade :

Press are having a ruddy field day. 

There's still reporters outside. 

Mrs. Hudson : 

Oh, they've been there all the time, I can't get rid of them. 

I've been rushed off my feet making tea. 

Lestrade :

Why do you make him tea? 

Mrs. Hudson : 

I dunno, I just sort of — do. 

Lestrade :

He said, "There's only one suspect," and then he just walks away and now he won't explain. 

Which is strange, because he likes that bit. 

Said it was so simple I could solve it. 

Mrs. Hudson : 

I'm sure he was exaggerating. 

Lestrade :

What's he doing, do you think? 

Mrs. Hudson : 

He says he's waiting. 

Lestrade :

For what? 

Mrs. Hudson : 

The Devil. 

I wouldn't be surprised. 

We get all sorts here. 

Well, wire me if there's any change. 

Mrs. Hudson : 

Yeah. 

(CREAKING) 

(FOOTSTEPS) 

Lucifer :

Everything I have to say has already crossed your mind. 

Sherlock :

Then possibly my answer has crossed yours. 

Lucifer :

Like a bullet. 
. It's a dangerous habit, to finger loaded firearms in the pocket of one's dressing gown. 
Or are you just pleased to see me? 
(NECK CREAKS) 


Sherlock :
You'll forgive me for taking precautions. 

Lucifer : 
I'd be offended if you didn't. 
Obviously, I've returned the courtesy. 
(BARREL CLICKS) 
I like your rooms. 
They smell so... ..manly. 

Sherlock :
I'm sure you acquainted yourself with them before now. 

Lucifer :

Well, you are always away, 
on your little adventures for The Strand. 
Tell me, does the illustrator travel with you?
 Do you have to pose... during your deductions? 

Sherlock :
I'm aware of all six occasions you have visited these apartments during my absence. 

 Lucifer :
I know you are. 
By the way, you have a surprisingly comfortable bed. 

Sherlock :
Did you know that dust is largely composed of human skin? 

Lucifer :
Yes. Doesn't taste the same, though, you want your skin fresh. 
Just a little crispy. 

Sherlock :
Won't you sit down? 


Lucifer :
That's all people really are, you know, dust waiting to be distributed. 
And it gets everywhere. Ugh. 
In every breath you take, dancing in every sunbeam, all the used-up people. 

Sherlock :
Fascinating, I'm sure. 
Won't you sit... 

Lucifer :
People, people, people! 
Can't keep anything shiny. 

Do you mind if I fire this? 
Just to clean it out. 

Exactly, let's stop playing. 
We don't need toys to kill each other. 
Where's the intimacy in that? 

Sherlock :
Sit down. 

Lucifer :
Why? What do you want? 

Sherlock :
You chose to come here. 

Lucifer :
Not true, you know that's not true.
What do you want, Sherlock? 

Sherlock :
The Truth. 

Lucifer :
That. Truth's boring! 

You didn't expect me to turn up at the scene of the crime, did you? 
Poor old Sir Eustace. 
He got what was coming to him. 

Sherlock :
But you couldn't have killed him. 

Lucifer :
Oh, so what? Does it matter? 

Sherlock :
Stop it. Stop this. 

Lucifer :
You don't care about Sir Eustace, or the Bride, or any of it. 

There's only one thing in this whole business that you find interesting. 

Sherlock :
I know what you're doing. 
(RATTLING) 

Lucifer : 

The Bride put a gun in her mouth and shot the back of her head off and then she came back. 

Impossible. But she did it. 

And you need to know how. 
How? Don't you? 
It's tearing your world apart, not knowing. 

Sherlock :
You're trying to stop me... 
To distract me, derail me. 

Lucifer : 
Because doesn't this remind you of another case? 
Hasn't this all happened before? 
There's nothing new under the sun. What was it? 

What was it? What was that case? 
Huh? Do you remember? 
It's on the tip of my tongue. 
It's on the tip of my tongue. 
It's on the tip of my tongue. It's on the tip... ..of my tongue. 

Sherlock :
For the sake of Mrs. Hudson's wallpaper, I must remind you that one false move with your finger and you will be dead. 
(HE MUMBLES) 
I'm sorry? 

Lucifer : 
Dead... is the new sexy. 
(RUMBLING) 
(GUNSHOT) 

Well, I'll tell you what, that rather blows the cobwebs away. 

Sherlock :
How can you be alive? 

How do I look? Huh? 
You can be honest, is it noticeable? 

Sherlock :
You blew your own brains out, 

how could you survive? 

Lucifer : 
Or maybe I could backcomb. 


Sherlock :
I Saw You Die. 
Why aren't You dead? 

Because it's not The Fall that kills you, Sherlock. 
Of all people, you should know that, 

it's not The Fall, it's never The Fall. 
It's The Landing! 

Sherlock Holmes - The Great Detective (Documentary)

"Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula" - BBC Radio Drama [1981 HQ]

Surely The Game is hardly worth The Candle.

When Shall We3 Meet Again?

By Thunder, Lightening, or in Rain?

"The Seven Percent Solution is NOT a Sherlock Holmes Story — 

It's a Story About Sherlock Holmes."

— Nicholas Meyer

Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel-piece and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-lined arm-chair with a long sigh of satisfaction.

Three times a day for many months I had witnessed this performance, but custom had not reconciled my mind to it. On the contrary, from day to day I had become more irritable at the sight, and my conscience swelled nightly within me at the thought that I had lacked the courage to protest. Again and again I had registered a vow that I should deliver my soul upon the subject, but there was that in the cool, nonchalant air of my companion which made him the last man with whom one would care to take anything approaching to a liberty. His great powers, his masterly manner, and the experience which I had had of his many extraordinary qualities, all made me diffident and backward in crossing him.

Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the Beaune which I had taken with my lunch, or the additional exasperation produced by the extreme deliberation of his manner, I suddenly felt that I could hold out no longer.

"Which is it to-day?" I asked,—"morphine or cocaine?"

He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he had opened. "It is cocaine," he said,—"a seven-per-cent. solution. Would you care to try it?"

"No, indeed," I answered, brusquely. "My constitution has not got over the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon it."

He smiled at my vehemence. "Perhaps you are right, Watson," he said. "I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment."

"But consider!" I said, earnestly. "Count the cost! Your brain may, as you say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and morbid process, which involves increased tissue-change and may at last leave a permanent weakness. You know, too, what a black reaction comes upon you. Surely the game is hardly worth the candle. Why should you, for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great powers with which you have been endowed? Remember that I speak not only as one comrade to another, but as a medical man to one for whose constitution he is to some extent answerable."

He did not seem offended. On the contrary, he put his finger-tips together and leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair, like one who has a relish for conversation.

"My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession,—or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world."

"The only unofficial detective?" I said, raising my eyebrows.

"The only unofficial consulting detective," he answered. "I am the last and highest court of appeal in detection. When Gregson or Lestrade or Athelney Jones are out of their depths—which, by the way, is their normal state—the matter is laid before me. I examine the data, as an expert, and pronounce a specialist's opinion. I claim no credit in such cases. My name figures in no newspaper. The work itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar powers, is my highest reward. But you have yourself had some experience of my methods of work in the Jefferson Hope case."

"Yes, indeed," said I, cordially. "I was never so struck by anything in my life. I even embodied it in a small brochure with the somewhat fantastic title of 'A Study in Scarlet.'"

He shook his head sadly. "I glanced over it," said he. "Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid."

"But the romance was there," I remonstrated. "I could not tamper with the facts."

"Some facts should be suppressed, or at least a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from effects to causes by which I succeeded in unraveling it."

I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was irritated by the egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should be devoted to his own special doings. More than once during the years that I had lived with him in Baker Street I had observed that a small vanity underlay my companion's quiet and didactic manner. I made no remark, however, but sat nursing my wounded leg. I had a Jezail bullet through it some time before, and, though it did not prevent me from walking, it ached wearily at every change of the weather.

"My practice has extended recently to the Continent," said Holmes, after a while, filling up his old brier-root pipe. "I was consulted last week by Francois Le Villard, who, as you probably know, has come rather to the front lately in the French detective service. He has all the Celtic power of quick intuition, but he is deficient in the wide range of exact knowledge which is essential to the higher developments of his art. The case was concerned with a will, and possessed some features of interest. I was able to refer him to two parallel cases, the one at Riga in 1857, and the other at St. Louis in 1871, which have suggested to him the true solution. Here is the letter which I had this morning acknowledging my assistance." He tossed over, as he spoke, a crumpled sheet of foreign notepaper. I glanced my eyes down it, catching a profusion of notes of admiration, with stray "magnifiques," "coup-de-maitres," and "tours-de-force," all testifying to the ardent admiration of the Frenchman.

"He speaks as a pupil to his master," said I.

"Oh, he rates my assistance too highly," said Sherlock Holmes, lightly. "He has considerable gifts himself. He possesses two out of the three qualities necessary for the ideal detective. He has the power of observation and that of deduction. He is only wanting in knowledge; and that may come in time. He is now translating my small works into French."

"Your works?"

"Oh, didn't you know?" he cried, laughing. "Yes, I have been guilty of several monographs. They are all upon technical subjects. Here, for example, is one 'Upon the Distinction between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccoes.' In it I enumerate a hundred and forty forms of cigar-, cigarette-, and pipe-tobacco, with colored plates illustrating the difference in the ash. It is a point which is continually turning up in criminal trials, and which is sometimes of supreme importance as a clue. If you can say definitely, for example, that some murder has been done by a man who was smoking an Indian lunkah, it obviously narrows your field of search. To the trained eye there is as much difference between the black ash of a Trichinopoly and the white fluff of bird's-eye as there is between a cabbage and a potato."

"You have an extraordinary genius for minutiae," I remarked.

"I appreciate their importance. Here is my monograph upon the tracing of footsteps, with some remarks upon the uses of plaster of Paris as a preserver of impresses. Here, too, is a curious little work upon the influence of a trade upon the form of the hand, with lithotypes of the hands of slaters, sailors, corkcutters, compositors, weavers, and diamond-polishers. That is a matter of great practical interest to the scientific detective,—especially in cases of unclaimed bodies, or in discovering the antecedents of criminals. But I weary you with my hobby."

"Not at all," I answered, earnestly. "It is of the greatest interest to me, especially since I have had the opportunity of observing your practical application of it. But you spoke just now of observation and deduction. Surely the one to some extent implies the other."

"Why, hardly," he answered, leaning back luxuriously in his arm-chair, and sending up thick blue wreaths from his pipe. "For example, observation shows me that you have been to the Wigmore Street Post-Office this morning, but deduction lets me know that when there you dispatched a telegram."

"Right!" said I. "Right on both points! But I confess that I don't see how you arrived at it. It was a sudden impulse upon my part, and I have mentioned it to no one."

"It is simplicity itself," he remarked, chuckling at my surprise,—"so absurdly simple that an explanation is superfluous; and yet it may serve to define the limits of observation and of deduction. Observation tells me that you have a little reddish mould adhering to your instep. Just opposite the Seymour Street Office they have taken up the pavement and thrown up some earth which lies in such a way that it is difficult to avoid treading in it in entering. The earth is of this peculiar reddish tint which is found, as far as I know, nowhere else in the neighborhood. So much is observation. The rest is deduction."

"How, then, did you deduce the telegram?"

"Why, of course I knew that you had not written a letter, since I sat opposite to you all morning. I see also in your open desk there that you have a sheet of stamps and a thick bundle of post-cards. What could you go into the post-office for, then, but to send a wire? Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth."

"In this case it certainly is so," I replied, after a little thought. "The thing, however, is, as you say, of the simplest. Would you think me impertinent if I were to put your theories to a more severe test?"

"On the contrary," he answered, "it would prevent me from taking a second dose of cocaine. I should be delighted to look into any problem which you might submit to me."

"I have heard you say that it is difficult for a man to have any object in daily use without leaving the impress of his individuality upon it in such a way that a trained observer might read it. Now, I have here a watch which has recently come into my possession. Would you have the kindness to let me have an opinion upon the character or habits of the late owner?"

I handed him over the watch with some slight feeling of amusement in my heart, for the test was, as I thought, an impossible one, and I intended it as a lesson against the somewhat dogmatic tone which he occasionally assumed. He balanced the watch in his hand, gazed hard at the dial, opened the back, and examined the works, first with his naked eyes and then with a powerful convex lens. I could hardly keep from smiling at his crestfallen face when he finally snapped the case to and handed it back.

"There are hardly any data," he remarked. "The watch has been recently cleaned, which robs me of my most suggestive facts."

"You are right," I answered. "It was cleaned before being sent to me." In my heart I accused my companion of putting forward a most lame and impotent excuse to cover his failure. What data could he expect from an uncleaned watch?

"Though unsatisfactory, my research has not been entirely barren," he observed, staring up at the ceiling with dreamy, lack-lustre eyes. "Subject to your correction, I should judge that the watch belonged to your elder brother, who inherited it from your father."

"That you gather, no doubt, from the H. W. upon the back?"

"Quite so. The W. suggests your own name. The date of the watch is nearly fifty years back, and the initials are as old as the watch: so it was made for the last generation. Jewelry usually descends to the eldest son, and he is most likely to have the same name as the father. Your father has, if I remember right, been dead many years. It has, therefore, been in the hands of your eldest brother."

"Right, so far," said I. "Anything else?"

"He was a man of untidy habits,—very untidy and careless. He was left with good prospects, but he threw away his chances, lived for some time in poverty with occasional short intervals of prosperity, and finally, taking to drink, he died. That is all I can gather."

I sprang from my chair and limped impatiently about the room with considerable bitterness in my heart.

"This is unworthy of you, Holmes," I said. "I could not have believed that you would have descended to this. You have made inquires into the history of my unhappy brother, and you now pretend to deduce this knowledge in some fanciful way. You cannot expect me to believe that you have read all this from his old watch! It is unkind, and, to speak plainly, has a touch of charlatanism in it."

"My dear doctor," said he, kindly, "pray accept my apologies. Viewing the matter as an abstract problem, I had forgotten how personal and painful a thing it might be to you. I assure you, however, that I never even knew that you had a brother until you handed me the watch."

"Then how in the name of all that is wonderful did you get these facts? They are absolutely correct in every particular."

"Ah, that is good luck. I could only say what was the balance of probability. I did not at all expect to be so accurate."

"But it was not mere guess-work?"

"No, no: I never guess. It is a shocking habit,—destructive to the logical faculty. What seems strange to you is only so because you do not follow my train of thought or observe the small facts upon which large inferences may depend. For example, I began by stating that your brother was careless. When you observe the lower part of that watch-case you notice that it is not only dinted in two places, but it is cut and marked all over from the habit of keeping other hard objects, such as coins or keys, in the same pocket. Surely it is no great feat to assume that a man who treats a fifty-guinea watch so cavalierly must be a careless man. Neither is it a very far-fetched inference that a man who inherits one article of such value is pretty well provided for in other respects."

I nodded, to show that I followed his reasoning.

"It is very customary for pawnbrokers in England, when they take a watch, to scratch the number of the ticket with a pin-point upon the inside of the case. It is more handy than a label, as there is no risk of the number being lost or transposed. There are no less than four such numbers visible to my lens on the inside of this case. Inference,—that your brother was often at low water. Secondary inference,—that he had occasional bursts of prosperity, or he could not have redeemed the pledge. Finally, I ask you to look at the inner plate, which contains the key-hole. Look at the thousands of scratches all round the hole,—marks where the key has slipped. What sober man's key could have scored those grooves? But you will never see a drunkard's watch without them. He winds it at night, and he leaves these traces of his unsteady hand. Where is the mystery in all this?"

"It is as clear as daylight," I answered. "I regret the injustice which I did you. I should have had more faith in your marvellous faculty. May I ask whether you have any professional inquiry on foot at present?"

"None. Hence the cocaine. I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-colored houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers, doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them? Crime is commonplace, existence is commonplace, and no qualities save those which are commonplace have any function upon earth."

I had opened my mouth to reply to this tirade, when with a crisp knock our landlady entered, bearing a card upon the brass salver.

"A young lady for you, sir," she said, addressing my companion.

"Miss Mary Morstan," he read. "Hum! I have no recollection of the name. Ask the young lady to step up, Mrs. Hudson. Don't go, doctor. I should prefer that you remain."