Sherlock Holmes and the Discarded Cigarette by Fred Thursfield Page B

Holmes up to his rooms. His front door was open when I walked in behind him, as I entered his familiar parlor I now knew what Mrs. Hudson had meant by her cryptic comment; for the entire room was filled with the blue gray smoke of cigarettes and cigars seemingly burning everywhere.

Chapter 3
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    As I entered Holmes parlor I exclaimed “Holmes it’s a wonder that you can see or even breathe at all considering the amount cigarette and cigar smoke that is in this room right now.” “It’s worse in here than any gentleman’s smoking room in London.” Holmes turned and countered “Ah Watson, not a smoking room but an ongoing scientific experiment whereby I will be able to identify not only any brand of cigarette or cigar being smoked, but also its country of origin and where it was purchased.”
    The over whelming smell I encountered was as if a large tobacco shop had caught fire and all of its merchandise was being consumed by the flames. Surveying the situation I saw ash trays of all sizes, colors and descriptions placed on almost every horizontal surfaces with in the room each holding burning tobacco products. I alarmingly asked Holmes “How can you breathe the air in here, how can you even see in here?” “It’s all in the name of science Watson” he replied
    I started to ask the obvious question as to why when Holmes put his hand up to stop me. “Think Watson at almost every crime scene what is the one most common thing that is seen but always overlooked by some minor detective of the Metropolitan Police because it seems almost too trivial or not worthy of any real attention?”
    How often have we been looking for the obvious clues and witnessed only by chance a half smoked cigarette that might have been extinguished then carelessly tossed aside, possibly even by the perpetrator of the crime?”
    â€œRealistically all this would tell us that the person was a smoker.” I replied “More than that,” Holmes continued as he picked up and examined a still smoldering cigarette “by analyzing both the paper and the tobacco of the discarded item we might discover its origins, where it had been purchased and possibly by whom, leading us another step closer to our suspect.”
    â€œDoes this have anything to do with the dense fog of cigarette and cigar smoke I encountered when I entered your parlor just now?” “Yes, what I have been doing over the last several weeks is that I have been purchasing different brands of cigarettes and cigars available from various tobacconists here in London.” Thinking to myself of what Mrs. Hudson had to endure during these scientific trials I listened as Holmes continued
    With each one I would let it burn most of the way down, I would then extinguish it and commit to memory the brand, the tobacco it contained, the paper or leaf it was wrapped in, what it looked like and smelled like when I put it to my nose. To that I would add the already known information as to where it had been made, sold and who may have purchased it.” As if to illustrate the point Holmes sniffed the still lit cigarette then returned it to its ashtray and extinguished it.
    Still skeptical I asked “Do you mean that if you were to find an discarded cigarette in the cold and wet high street this afternoon you could tell where it had been had been made and sold and no less the identity of the smoker?”
    Looking confident as always Holmes smiled slightly then gave me a qualified answer “If it was dry and among the ones I have already committed to memory so far, yes.”
    To my considerable relief it turned out that Holmes had taken a slightly less dangerous way to deal with his boredom. Finding the smoky air in his parlor harder to breathe by the minute I commented “If I don’t get to breathe some fresh air in the next few minutes I shall pass out from all this thick tobacco haze.”

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