Just at the time when the _Concordat_ was in its most flourishing condition, a young man belonging to a wealthy and highly respected middle-class family went to the office of the h...
I I remember my childhood very distinctly. I do not think that the fact argues a good memory, for I have never been clever at learning words by heart, in prose or rhyme; so that I...
We were seated at breakfast one morning, my wife and I, when the maid brought in a telegram. It was from Sherlock Holmes and ran in this way: "Have you a couple of days to spare? H...
Everybody knows Black Sam, the old negro fisherman, or, as he is commonly called, "Mud Sam," who has fished about the Sound for the last half century. It is now many years since Sa...
At one time the bogus-lottery men drove a thrifty business, but the efforts, virtually co-operative, of the post-office department and of the legislatures of the older states, have...
It was some time before the health of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes recovered from the strain caused by his immense exertions in the spring of '87. The whole question of the Nether...
It was Monday, and in the afternoon, as I was walking along the High Street of Marchbury, I was met by a distinguished-looking person whom I had observed at the services in the cat...
"I am afraid, Watson, that I shall have to go," said Holmes, as we sat down together to our breakfast one morning. "Go! Where to?" "To Dartmoor; to King's Pyland." I was not surpri...
"From the point of view of the criminal expert," said Mr. Sherlock Holmes, "London has become a singularly uninteresting city since the death of the late lamented Professor Moriart...
Balzac likens the hero of one of his short stories to "Moliere's Don Juan, Goethe's Faust, Byron's Manfred, Maturin's Melmoth--great allegorical figures drawn by the greatest men o...
"Why callest thou me murderer, and not rather the wrath of God burning after the steps of the oppressor, and cleansing the earth when it is wet with blood?" That series of terrific...
"RANDOLPH CRESCENT, N.W. "MY DEAR PUGH--I hope you will like the pipe which I send with this. It is rather a curious example of a certain school of Indian carving. And is a present...
"Have you studied the case?" "Not I." "Not studied the case which for the last few days has provided the papers with such conspicuous headlines?" "I do not read the papers. I have...
Zadig's calamities sprung even from his happiness and especially from his merit. He every day conversed with the king and Astarte, his august comfort. The charms of his conversatio...
From a very early period of my life the entire bent of my inclinations had been towards microscopic investigations. When I was not more than ten years old, a distant relative of ou...
Hewitt was very apt, in conversation, to dwell upon the many curious chances and coincidences that he had observed, not only in connection with his own cases, but also in matters d...
Cry "Murder!" in the market-place, and each Will turn upon his neighbor anxious eyes That ask:--"Art thou the man?" We hunted Cain Some centuries ago, across the world, That bred t...
The great satire of Lucius Apuleius, the work through which his name lives after the lapse of nearly eighteen centuries, is "The Golden Ass," a romance from which the following pas...
Always wise and prudent, Zobeide cautiously put aside the myrtle branches and peeped through to see who were the persons talking by the fountain in the cool shadow of the pink sand...
It was after dinner, in the great house of Sir Henry Marquis in St. James's Square. The talk had run on the value of women in criminal investigation; their skill as detective agent...
Holmes had been seated for some hours in silence with his long, thin back curved over a chemical vessel in which he was brewing a particularly malodorous product. His head was sunk...
"Please, sir, there is a man outside who asks to see you." "What does he want?" asked Commissioner Horn, looking up. "He says he has something to report, sir." "Send him in, then."...
In the book entitled Psychics: Facts and Theories, by Rev. Minot J. Savage, at page 15, the following account will be found: "Soon I began to hear raps, apparently on the floor, an...
It was eight o'clock at night and raining, scarcely a time when a business so limited in its clientele as that of a coin dealer could hope to attract any customer, but a light was...
I A PREDESTINED MARRIAGE Elsie and I were to be married in less than a week. It was rather a strange match, and I knew that some of our neighbors shook their heads over it and said...
In the summer and fall of 1875 circulars were scattered broadcast over the country, and advertisements appeared in the weekly editions of several leading papers of New York City an...
"It has been too much for you?" "I am afraid so." It was Roger Upjohn who had asked the question; it was Violet who answered. They had withdrawn from a crowd of dancers to a balcon...
[A thousand more trials of patience and perseverance finally brought to the conjurer a Parisian theater and an appreciative clientele. But he never ceased to labor and improve the...
On a November evening in the year 1793 the principal citizens of Carentan were assembled in Mme. de Dey's drawing-room. Mme. de Dey held this _reception_ every night of the week, b...
It was nine o'clock at night upon the second of August--the most terrible August in the history of the world. One might have thought already that God's curse hung heavy over a dege...