“You were told, no doubt.”

 

“Nothing of the sort. I _knew_ you came from Afghanistan. From long habit the

train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind, that I arrived at the

conclusion without being conscious of intermediate steps. There were such steps,

however. The train of reasoning ran, ‘Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but

with the air of a military man. Clearly an army doctor, then. He has just come

from the tropics, for his face is dark, and that is not the natural tint of his

skin, for his wrists are fair. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his

haggard face says clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff

and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have

seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan.’ The whole

train of thought did not occupy a second. I then remarked that you came from

Afghanistan, and you were astonished.”

 

“It is simple enough as you explain it,” I said, smiling. “You remind me of

Edgar Allen Poe’s Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did exist outside

of stories.”

 

Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. “No doubt you think that you are

complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin,” he observed. “Now, in my opinion,

Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his

friends’ thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour’s silence is

really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but

he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine.”