"He speaks as a pupil to his master," said I.
"Oh, he rates my assistance too highly," said Sherlock Holmes,
lightly. "He has considerable gifts himself. He possesses two
out of the three qualities necessary for the ideal detective. He
has the power of observation and that of deduction. He is only
wanting in knowledge; and that may come in time. He is now
translating my small works into French."
"Your works?"
"Oh, didn't you know?" he cried, laughing. "Yes, I have been
guilty of several monographs. They are all upon technical
subjects. Here, for example, is one 'Upon the Distinction
between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccoes.' In it I enumerate a
hundred and forty forms of cigar-, cigarette-, and pipe-tobacco,
with colored plates illustrating the difference in the ash. It
is a point which is continually turning up in criminal trials,
and which is sometimes of supreme importance as a clue. If you
can say definitely, for example, that some murder has been done
by a man who was smoking an Indian lunkah, it obviously narrows
your field of search. To the trained eye there is as much
difference between the black ash of a Trichinopoly and the white
fluff of bird's-eye as there is between a cabbage and a potato.
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