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My name is Doctor John Hamish Watson,
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formerly of Her Majesty's Army, late of
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the Fifth North umberland fuseliers, and
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companion to the most singular mind I
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have ever known, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. I
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have been many things in my life. A
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soldier, a surgeon, a chronicler, and
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above all, a witness. a witness to
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genius, to horror, to redemption, and to
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the puzzling merc of human motives.
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My years beside homes were marked by
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extraordinary cases, many of which I
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have endeavored to recount with clarity
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and fidelity. But time has a way of
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softening truth or hardening it. And I
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find myself returning to the very first
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tale I ever put to paper, not with
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pride, but with lingering doubt. It is a
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strange thing to revisit one's past, not
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with nostalgia, but with unease. I find
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myself once again turning the yellowed
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pages of the case I once titled A Study
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in Scarlet, the very first I chronicled
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of my singular companion, Mr. Sherlock
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Holmes. What was then a whirlwind of
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logic and deduction now rests uneasily
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in the vaults of my memory, for I have
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begun to question not the facts as they
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stood, but the conclusions we drew.
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Holmes is gone. There is no longer the
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steady stream of telegrams, the sudden
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knocking at Baker Street's door, or the
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violin echoing in the deep hours of the
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night. In the quiet, my thoughts have
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grown more insistent. And so I write not
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to revise history, but to revisit it, to
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hold it once more to the light and see
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what shadows emerge. It began with a
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corpse in an abandoned house on Brixton
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Road. A message in blood. R A C H E
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scrolled on the wall. The press leapt to
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the word revenge. Yet Holmes dismissed
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the notion with characteristic
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certainty. I remember how dazzled I was
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by his mind, how swiftly he cut through
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confusion, a man of exactitude amidst
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the fog. I was a soldier newly home,
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hollowed by war. and Holmes.
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Holmes was life distilled into
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brilliance. Perhaps that is why I never
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questioned what he omitted. Jefferson
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Hope, the murderer, the avenger, the
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dying cabman with a heart weakened by
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disease and worn thin by vengeance.
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Holmes had painted him as a man wronged,
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an American frontiersman turned justice
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seeker in a land foreign to his pain.
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The story, as we laid it down, was
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simple. Two Mormon elders had stolen his
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beloved Lucy, and her death drove hope
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to exact a long delayed revenge. But
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what did we really know of Lucy? Of
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Dreber and Stangerson? Of the society
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that bound them? Holmes never sought to
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understand them as people, only as data
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points. The American narrative of Mormon
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tyranny fit neatly into the story. But I
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now wonder, did it fit too neatly?
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Holmes once told me, "Detection is or
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ought to be an exact science and should
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be treated in the same cold and
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unemotional manner. But crime is rarely
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cold. It is a fever, and those who
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commit it are often more desperate than
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calculated." Was Jefferson Hope truly
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the man Holmes portrayed? Or had Holmes,
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with his disdain for sentiment,
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simplified a complex agony into a tidy
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I recall Hope's final hours in custody.
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He was calm, resigned, but not once did
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he speak of regret. Was it peace or
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I, the doctor, could not say. Holmes did
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not care to ask. And what of Lstrad and
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Gregson, our dogged inspectors, who had
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been so quick to declare their theories?
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Theirs was a rivalry, more than a search
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for truth. Holmes bested them. But did
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he seek justice or merely triumph? The
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thrill of being right may have been to
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him more intoxicating than the outcome.
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There is a moment I cannot forget.
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After Hope had died, Holmes stood at the
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window of our sitting room at 221B,
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staring out into the London dusk. He did
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not speak for some time. When I finally
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asked what he was thinking, he merely
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replied, "It is done." Done. A life
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taken, a motive accepted, a case closed.
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But was it justice or simply the neat
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end of a tale told by a man who
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preferred the architecture of logic to
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the chaos of the human heart? The years
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since have not dulled my admiration for
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Holmes, but they have tempered it with
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He was a man apart, brilliant but
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detached. I, on the other hand, have
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lived through the echo of his
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conclusions. I have seen the fallout not
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in inked case notes but in the eyes of
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the bererieved, the wronged, the
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forgotten. I have wondered if in our
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zeal to define morality through
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deduction, we overlooked the very
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humanity we claimed to protect. Was
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Jefferson Hope a murderer?
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Undoubtedly. But was he also a casualty
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of a greater injustice? And did we, in
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simplifying his story, contribute to
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I remember visiting Lucy's grave years
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later. It was a quiet plot in an
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overgrown corner of London. The
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headstone was modest. No mention of
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Dreber or Stangerson. Just beloved
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daughter and fiance. A woman stolen from
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her life. A man who waited too long to
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save her. Another who killed for her.
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And us, the narrators who turned their
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tragedy into a tale of mental prowess.
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Would Holmes have changed his mind given
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time? I doubt it. He was not one to
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ruminate on the past. But I do, I must.
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For it was not just a case. It was the
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beginning. The beginning of Holmes and
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Watson, of method and mystery, of fame
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and fog, but also perhaps the beginning
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of a pattern of turning pain into
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puzzles and people into pieces on a
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board. And so I revisit a study in
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Scarlet, not to change what was written,
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but to remember what was not. Not every
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truth is deduced. Some must be felt. And
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some stories, even the first, deserve to
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be told again, not with sharper
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reasoning, but with softer eyes.
