A Study of the Walking StickThe narrative opens at the breakfast table where Mr Sherlock Holmes sits while his companion, Dr Watson, examines a thick, bulbous-headed wooden walking stick left behind by an unknown visitor the night before.
The cane features a broad silver band engraved with a presentation message to James Mortimer, M R C S, from his friends of the C C H, dated 1884. Holmes, observing Watson's actions through the reflection of a polished silver-plated coffee pot, challenges him to reconstruct the owner's identity based on the object. Watson deduces that the visitor is an elderly, well-esteemed country practitioner who does a great deal of walking, guessing that the initials stand for a local hunt. Holmes initially praises Watson's reasoning, inflating his friend's pride, before proceeding to systematically dismantle the conclusions by demonstrating that the initials more likely represent Charing Cross Hospital. Applying his distinct scientific methods, Holmes reinterprets the clues to infer that the owner is actually a young man under thirty years old.
He reasons that the presentation occurred when the doctor left the London hospital to establish a country practice, and because the visitor was not on the permanent staff, he must have been a house-surgeon or house-physician. Holmes adds that the man is amiable, unambitious, absent-minded, and owns a dog larger than a terrier but smaller than a mastiff, pointing out visible teeth marks on the middle of the cane. Watson verifies the biographical details by reading aloud from the Medical Directory, confirming James Mortimer's employment at Charing Cross Hospital from 1882 to 1884 and his current role as a parish medical officer in Dartmoor, Devon. Holmes justifies his psychological deductions by noting that only an absent-minded man leaves his stick instead of a visiting card, and he correctly identifies the specific breed as a curly-haired spaniel just as the dog and its owner arrive at their doorstep.
Dr James Mortimer enters the room, surprising Watson with his tall, thin frame, beak-like nose, keen grey eyes, and a somewhat slovenly professional dress characterized by a dingy frock-coat and frayed trousers. He joyfully reclaims his beloved stick, revealing that it was given to him by friends on the occasion of his marriage, a detail that slightly corrects Holmes's deductions regarding his departure from London. The eccentric visitor, who describes himself as a humble picker up of shells on the shores of science, immediately expresses an intense anthropological interest in Holmes's skull, expressing a desire to examine his parietal fissure and eventually obtain a museum cast of it. Holmes guides the enthusiast to a chair, notices his dexterity in rolling his own cigarettes, and steers the conversation toward the purpose of the visit.
When Mortimer refers to Holmes as the second highest expert in Europe behind Monsieur Bertillon, a brief flash of asperity prompts Holmes to urge the doctor to state the exact nature of his serious and extraordinary problem without further delay.