The Red-Headed League - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story

There are always some lunatics about. It would be a dull world without them.

My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to do so.

It is quite a three pipe problem, and I beg that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes.

Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else.

You will remember that I remarked the other day, just before we went into the very simple problem presented by Miss Mary Sutherland, that for strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.” “A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting.” “You did, Doctor, but none the less you must come round to my view, for otherwise I shall keep on piling fact upon fact on you until your reason breaks down under them and acknowledges me to be right.

It is introspective, and I want to introspect.

The swing of his nature took him from extreme languor to devouring energy; and as I knew well, he was never so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been lounging in his armchair amid his improvisations and his black-letter editions. Then it was that the lust of the chase would suddenly come upon him, and that his brilliant reasoning power would rise to the level of intuition, until those who were unacquainted with his methods would look askance at him as on a man whose knowledge was not that of other mortals. When I saw him that afternoon so enwrapped in the music of St. James's Hall I felt that an evil time might be coming upon those whom he had set himself to hunt down.

I observe that there is a good deal of German music on the programme, which is rather more to my taste than Italian or French. It is introspective, and I want to introspect.

I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of everyday life. You have shown your relish for it by the enthusiasm which has prompted you to chronicle, and, if you will excuse my saying so, somewhat to embellish so many of my own little adventures.

Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and the rueful face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely overtopped every other consideration that we both burst out into a roar of laughter.

Se trata del proceso de separación de los Dundas [...]. El marido era abstemio, no existía otra mujer, y el comportamiento del que se quejaba la esposa consistía en que el marido había adquirido la costumbre de rematar todas sus comidas quitándose la dentadura postiza y arrojándosela a su esposa, lo cual, estará usted de acuerdo, no es la clase de acto que se le suele ocurrir a un novelista corriente.

What are you going to do, then?" I asked. "To smoke," he answered. "It is quite a three pipe problem, and I beg that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes.