A Study in Scarlet (Serial Edition Cover) — page 177: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

& St0iLu IN SCARLE2. 169 There are few people, however, who, if you told them a result, would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result. This power is what I mean when I talk of rea- soning backward, or analytically.” “TI understand,” said I. “Now, this was a case in which you were given the result and had to find everything else for yourself. Now, let me endeavor to show you the different steps in my reasoning. ‘To begin at the beginning. I approached the house, as you know, on foot, and with my mind entirely free from all impressions. [I naturally began by examining the road-way, and thers, as I have already ex- plained to you, I saw clearly the marks of a cab, which, I ascertained by inquiry, must have been there during the night. I satisfied myself that it was a cab, and not a private carriage, by the narrow gauge of the wheels. The ordinary London growler is considerably less wide than a gentleman’s brougham. “This was the first point gained. I then walked slowly down the garden path, which happened to be composed of a clay soil, peculiarly suitable for taking impressions. No doubt it appeared to you to be a mere trampled line cf slush, but to my trained eyes every mark upon its ."1rface had a meaning. There is no branch of detective science which is so important and so much neglected as the art of tracing footsteps. Hap- Gomicbdoo