The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when [Holmes] became a specialist in crime.

So swift, silent and furtive were his movements like those of a trained bloodhound picking out a scent, that I could not but think what a terrible criminal he would have made had he turned his energy and sagacity against the law instead of exerting them in its defense. -Dr. Watson, The Sign of the Four

I carry my own church about under my own hat," said I. "Bricks and mortar won't make a staircase to heaven. I believe with your Master that the human heart is the best temple.

A client is to me a mere unit, a factor in a problem.

I cannot live without brainwork. 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 duncoloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material?

London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.

Just see how it glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil