“He is one of my natural enemies, or, shall I say, my natural prey.”
—The Man with the Twisted Lip
“Political assassins are only too glad to do their work and to fly.”
—A Study in Scarlet
“There’s blackmail in it, or I am much mistaken.”
—The Yellow Face
“Human nature is a strange mixture, Watson. You see that even a villain and murderer can inspire such affection that his brother turns to suicide when he learns that his neck is forfeited.”
—The Stock-Broker’s Clerk
“As a matter of fact, burglars who have done a good stroke of business are, as a rule, only too glad to enjoy the proceeds in peace and quiet without embarking on another perilous undertaking.”
—The Adventure of the Abbey Grange
“It is unusual for burglars to operate at so early an hour, it is unusual for burglars to strike a lady to prevent her screaming, since one would imagine that was the sure way to make her scream, it is unusual for them to commit murder when their numbers are sufficient to overpower one man, it is unusual for them to be content with a limited plunder when there was much more within their reach, and finally, I should say, that it was very unusual for such men to leave a bottle half empty.”
—The Adventure of the Abbey Grange
“That fellow will rise from crime to crime until he does something very bad, and ends on a gallows.”
—A Case of Identity
“It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery. The most commonplace crime is often the most mysterious, because it presents no new or special features from which deductions may be drawn.”
—A Study in Scarlet
“If criminals would always schedule their movements like railway trains, it would certainly be more convenient for all of us.”
—The Valley of Fear
“If you cast your mind back to some of those narratives with which you have afflicted a long-suffering public, you will recognize how often the grotesque has deepened into the criminal. Think of that little affair of the red-headed men. That was grotesque enough in the outset and yet it ended in a desperate attempt at robbery. Or, again, there was that most grotesque affair of the five orange pips, which led to a murderous conspiracy. The word puts me on the alert.”
—The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge
“They will not lose a minute, for the sooner they do their work the longer time they will have for their escape.”
—The Red-Headed League
“In the first place, I may tell you that Moriarty rules with a rod of iron over his people. His discipline is tremendous. There is only one punishment in his code. It is death.”
—The Valley of Fear
“Subtle enough and horrible enough. When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge.”
—The Adventure of the Speckled Band
“The most difficult crime to track is the one which is purposeless.”
—The Naval Treaty
“There is no one who knows the higher criminal world of London so well as I do. For years past I have continually been conscious of some power behind the malefactor, some deep organizing power which forever stands in the way of the law, and throws its shield over the wrong-doer. Again and again in cases of the most varying sorts— forgery cases, robberies, murders—I have felt the presence of this force, and I have deduced its action in many of those undiscovered crimes in which I have not been personally consulted. For years I have endeavored to break through the veil which shrouded it, and at last the time came when I seized my thread and followed it, until it led me, after a thousand cunning windings, to ex-Professor Moriarty, of mathematical celebrity.”
—The Final Problem
“Plumb in the middle of the back of the head and smack through the brain. He was the best shot in India, and I expect that there are few better in London. Have you heard the name?”
—The Adventure of the Empty House
“There has been murder done, and the murderer was a man. He was more than six feet high, was in the prime of life, had small feet for his height, wore coarse, square-toed boots and smoked a Trichinopoly cigar. He came here with his victim in a four-wheeled cab, which was drawn by a horse with three old shoes and one new one on his off fore-leg. In all probability the murderer had a florid face, and the finger-nails of his right hand were remarkably long. These are only a few indications, but they may assist you.”
—A Study in Scarlet
“There is a master hand here. It is no case of sawed-off shotguns and clumsy six-shooters. You can tell an old master by the sweep of his brush. I can tell a Moriarty when I see one. This crime is from London, not from America.”
—The Valley of Fear
“He is the king of all the blackmailers. Heaven help the man, and still more the woman, whose secret and reputation come into the power of Milverton! With a smiling face and a heart of marble, he will squeeze and squeeze until he has drained them dry. The fellow is a genius in his way, and would have made his mark in some more savoury trade. His method is as follows: He allows it to be known that he is prepared to pay very high sums for letters which compromise people of wealth and position. He receives these wares not only from treacherous valets or maids, but frequently from genteel ruffians, who have gained the confidence and affection of trusting women. He deals with no niggard hand. I happen to know that he paid seven hundred pounds to a footman for a note two lines in length, and that the ruin of a noble family was the result. Everything which is in the market goes to Milverton, and there are hundreds in this great city who turn white at his name. No one knows where his grip may fall, for he is far too rich and far too cunning to work from hand to mouth. He will hold a card back for years in order to play it at the moment when the stake is best worth winning. I have said that he is the worst man in London, and I would ask you how could one compare the ruffian, who in hot blood bludgeons his mate, with this man, who methodically and at his leisure tortures the soul and wrings the nerves in order to add to his already swollen money-bags?”
—The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton
“The cunning dog has covered his tracks. He has left nothing to incriminate him.”
—The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
“Do you feel a creeping, shrinking sensation, Watson, when you stand before the serpents in the Zoo, and see the slithery, gliding, venomous creatures, with their deadly eyes and wicked, flattened faces? Well, that’s how Milverton impresses me. I’ve had to do with fifty murderers in my career, but the worst of them never gave me the repulsion which I have for this fellow. And yet I can’t get out of doing business with him—indeed, he is here at my invitation.”
—The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton
“The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive.”
—A Case of Identity
“The London criminal is certainly a dull fellow.”
—The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
“Like most clever criminals, he may be too confident in his own cleverness and imagine that he has completely deceived us.”
—The Hound of the Baskervilles
“My sympathies are with the criminals rather than with the victim.”
—The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton
“He sits motionless, like a spider in the center of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them.”
—The Final Problem
