A Study in Scarlet (Serial Edition Cover) — page 93: what you’re looking at

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

A STUDY IN SCARLET. 8s to have been moistened in it before it gave a convulsive shiver in every limb, and lay as rigid and lifeless as if it had been struck by lightning. Sherlock Holmes drew a long breath, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead. “T should have more faith,” he said; “I ought te know by this time that when a fact appears to be op- posed to a long train of deductions it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation. Of the two pills in that box one was the most deadly poison and the other was entirely harmless. I ought to have known that before ever I saw the box at all.” This last statement appeared to me to be so startling, that I could hardly believe that he was in his sober senses. ‘There was the dead dog, however, to prove that his conjecture had been correct. It seemed to me that the mists in my own mind were gradually clearing away, and I began to have a dim, vague perception of the truth. “All this seems strange to you,” continued Holmes, “because you failed at the beginning of the inquiry to grasp the importance of the single real clew which was presented to you. I had the good fortune to seize upon that, and everything which has occurred since then has served to confirm my original supposition, and, indeed, was the logical sequence of it. Hence, things which have perplexed you and made the case more obscure have served to enlighten me and to strengthen my con- clusions. It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery. The most commonplace crime is often the most mysterious because it presents no new or special SCO