The Sign of Four1987

[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.