The Sign of Four

[first lines]

Dr. John Watson:
Very pretty young woman crossing the street. And I think she may be coming here.

Sherlock Holmes:
Incidentally, I have glanced over your latest account of my work.

Dr. John Watson:
Oh, yes?

Sherlock Holmes:
Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science. Observation, deduction, a cold unemotional subject. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism which has much the same effect as if you'd worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.

Dr. John Watson:
What a very attractive woman!

Sherlock Holmes:
It is of the first importance not to allow your judgement to be biased by personal qualities. A client to me is a mere unit, a factor of the problem.

Dr. John Watson:
Holmes, you are an automaton, a calculating machine; there is something positively inhuman in you at times.

Sherlock Holmes:
I assure you the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor.

Dr. John Watson:
However, in this case...

Sherlock Holmes:
Ah. I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule.

Sherlock Holmes:
You will not follow my precept. How often have I said to you when once you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, *however improbable*, must be the truth?

[last lines]

Dr. John Watson:
What a very attractive woman.

Sherlock Holmes:
Was she? I hadn't noticed.