A Study in Scarlet (Serial Edition Cover) — page 21: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A STUDY IN SCARLET. 13 “Criminal cases are continually hinging upon that one point. A man is suspected of a crime months per- haps after it has been committed. His linen or clothes are examined, and brownish stains discovered upon them. Are they blood-stains, or mud-stains, or rust- stains, or fruit-stains, or what are they? That is a question which has puzzled many an expert ; and why P Because there was no reliable test. Now we have the Sherlock Holmes test, and there will no longer be any difficulty.” His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand over his heart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his imagination. “You are to be congratulated,” I remarked, consider- ably surprised at his enthusiasm. “There was the case of Von Bischoff at Frankfort last year. He would certainly have been hung had this test been in existence. Then there was Mason, of Bradford, and the notorious Muller, and Lefevre, of Montpellier, and Samson, of New Orleans. I could name a score of cases in which it would have been de- Cisive.” “You seem to be a walking calendar of crime,” saic Stamford, with a laugh. “You might start a paper on those lines. Call it the ‘ Police News of the Past.’” “Very interesting reading it might be made, too,” re- marked Sherlock Holmes, sticking a small piece of plas- ter over the prick of his finger. “I have to be careful,” he continued, turning to me with a smile, “for I dabble with poisons a good deal.” He held out his hand as he spoke, and I noticed that CORMICLAO@ S (C©@)