Singularity is almost invariably a clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult it is to bring it home.
Problems may be solved in the study which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by the aid of their senses.
My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don’t know.
Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.
It’s a wicked world, and when a clever man turns his brains to crime it is the worst of all.
It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles.
It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.
I confess that I have been as blind as a mole, but it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all.
Depend upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.
Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing. It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different.
As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.
