Chapter 1 of The Sign of the Four. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox .org. This book is read by Matthew Sones. The Sign of the Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Chapter 1. The Science of Deduction. Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece and his hypodermic syringe from its neat Morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle and rolled back his left shirt cuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist, all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncher marks. Finally he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet lined armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction. Three times a day for many months I had witnessed this performance, but custom had not reconciled my mind to it. On the contrary, from day to day I had become more irritable at the sight, and my conscience swelled nightly within me at the thought that I had lacked the courage to protest. Again and again I had registered a vow that I should deliver my soul upon the subject, but there was that in the cool, nonchalant air of my companion which made him the last man with whom one would care to take anything approaching to a liberty. His great powers, his masterly manner, and the experience which I had had of his many extraordinary qualities, all made me diffident and backward in crossing him. Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the bone which I had taken with my lunch, or the additional exasperation produced by the extreme deliberation of his manner, I suddenly felt that I could hold out no longer. Which is it today? I asked. Morphine or cocaine? He raised his eyes languidly from the old black leather volume which he had opened. It is cocaine, he said. A seven percent solution. Would you care to try it? No, indeed, I answered briskly. My constitution has not yet got over the Yankhgan campaign. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon it. He smiled at my vehemence. Perhaps you are right, Watson, he said. I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, so transcendentally stimulating and clarifying to the mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment. But consider, I said earnestly, count the cost. Your brain may, as you say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and morbid process which involves increased tissue change and may last leave a permanent weakness. You know, too, what a black reaction comes upon you. Surely the game is hardly worth a candle. Why should you, for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great powers with which you have been endowed? Remember that I speak not only as one comrade