Quotation from: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Written by: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle


"I had," said he, "come to an entirely erroneous conclusion which
shows, my dear Watson, how dangerous it always is to reason from
insufficient data. The presence of the gipsies, and the use of
the word 'band,' which was used by the poor girl, no doubt, to
explain the appearance which she had caught a hurried glimpse of
by the light of her match, were sufficient to put me upon an
entirely wrong scent. I can only claim the merit that I instantly
reconsidered my position when, however, it became clear to me
that whatever danger threatened an occupant of the room could not
come either from the window or the door. My attention was
speedily drawn, as I have already remarked to you, to this
ventilator, and to the bell-rope which hung down to the bed. The
discovery that this was a dummy, and that the bed was clamped to
the floor, instantly gave rise to the suspicion that the rope was
there as a bridge for something passing through the hole and
coming to the bed. The idea of a snake instantly occurred to me,
and when I coupled it with my knowledge that the doctor was
furnished with a supply of creatures from India, I felt that I
was probably on the right track. The idea of using a form of
poison which could not possibly be discovered by any chemical
test was just such a one as would occur to a clever and ruthless
man who had had an Eastern training. The rapidity with which such
a poison would take effect would also, from his point of view, be
an advantage. It would be a sharp-eyed coroner, indeed, who could
distinguish the two little dark punctures which would show where
the poison fangs had done their work. Then I thought of the
whistle. Of course he must recall the snake before the morning
light revealed it to the victim. He had trained it, probably by
the use of the milk which we saw, to return to him when summoned.
He would put it through this ventilator at the hour that he
thought best, with the certainty that it would crawl down the
rope and land on the bed. It might or might not bite the
occupant, perhaps she might escape every night for a week, but
sooner or later she must fall a victim.

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