A Study in Scarlet: Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

The next day, Holmes and Watson inspect the apartment at No. 221B, Baker Street, and are so pleased with the rooms that they decide to move in immediately. Watson finds Holmes easy to live with, as he is “quiet” and follows routine habits. Holmes is usually out of the house before Watson gets up in the mornings and spends his days working in the laboratory or in dissecting rooms, or taking long walks throughout London. Watson observes that Holmes can be extremely energetic during his work but at times falls into periods of addiction-like lethargy for days. Watson, however, dismisses the possibility that Holmes could be an addict because of how orderly his life is.

Watson’s curiosity about Holmes deepens the longer they live together. He describes Holmes’ appearance as striking, as he is over six feet tall, very thin, with sharp eyes, a “hawk-like” nose, and ink-stained fingers with an “extraordinary delicacy of touch.” Watson then breaks from the narrative in order to justify his intense interest in Holmes — he reminds the reader that his life was “objectless,” that his health prevented him going out, and that he had no friends who would visit him. The mystery of who Holmes is constitutes Watson’s only form of entertainment.

Watson begins to spend his time trying to determine what Holmes does. He determines that his roommate is not studying medicine or any particular area for a degree, and that while he has extraordinary mastery over certain areas of knowledge, he is also ignorant of many other areas, such as astronomy and literature. Reacting to Watson’s surprise about his ignorance, Holmes explains his theory that the human mind is like an attic — that it must store only useful information in an organized manner, so that useless facts don’t crowd out facts that may be of use in his work.

Believing Holmes would be unwilling to discuss his profession yet still curious about the nature of his work, Watson draws up a list of Holmes’ areas of knowledge, mastery, and ignorance. He determines that Holmes is knowledgeable about chemistry, British law, human anatomy, sensational literature, and some areas of geology and botany, and is an excellent athlete and violinist, but that he has little knowledge of literature, politics, philosophy, and astronomy. Unable to determine what Holmes needs these particular skills for, Watson soon gives up his quest to discover what Holmes does.

In their first few weeks on Baker Street, Holmes and Watson have no visitors, leading Watson to conclude that Holmes was “as friendless a man as I was myself.” Soon, however, Holmes begins to receive many visitors of varying social classes and ages, including a Mr. Lestrade, a “little sallow, rat-faced, dark-eyed fellow” who comes several times a week. Watson learns that these visitors are Holmes’ clients, but he still does not feel able to ask his roommate about his work. Soon, however, Holmes reveals the nature of his work on his own.

One day, Watson gets up earlier than usual and sits down at the breakfast table with Holmes. On the table is a magazine article, “The Book of Life,” which proposes that through careful observation and the “science of Deduction and Analysis” one can learn a stranger’s history and profession. Watson finds the article to be “a remarkable mixture of shrewdness and absurdity,” with sharp reasoning but “far fetched and exaggerated” deductions. Skeptical about the author’s claims, Watson dismisses the article as “rubbish” only to discover that Holmes himself wrote it.

Holmes explains that he uses his theories in the article on a regular basis for his work as a consulting detective. He takes on private and government detectives like Lestrade as clients, setting them on the right path toward solving their cases while helping to “enlighten” others in trouble. For the most part, Holmes is able to solve cases merely by listening to the evidence presented by his clients, but occasionally goes out to observe evidence first-hand for more complex cases. To prove to Watson the utility and veracity of the science of deduction, Holmes explains how he knew that Watson had come from Afghanistan without being told. Based on his observations of Watson’s partially tanned skin, military manner, and shoulder injury, Holmes concluded that Watson was an army doctor wounded in the tropics and that the most likely place this could have occurred was Afghanistan.

Now that Holmes has explained his reasoning, Watson finds his claims “simple enough” and compares him to Edgar Allan Poe’s and Gaboriau’s literary detectives Dupin and Lecoq, both of whom Watson admires. Holmes, however, dismisses Dupin and Lecoq as inferior detectives to himself. While Watson is thinking to himself that Holmes, however intelligent he may be, is “certainly very conceited,” Holmes complains that his talents are wasted on the lack of true criminals and more difficult cases. Watson then sees a man outside the apartment and tries to change the subject by asking what he might be looking for, but is further annoyed when Holmes deduces that the man is a retired marine sergeant. When the man, a commissionaire (or messenger), knocks on their door to leave Holmes a letter, Watson seizes the opportunity to prove Holmes wrong by asking the man his profession, to which the man replies that he was once a sergeant with the Royal Marine Light Infantry.