Chapter 9

Oh yeah and I still don't know what or who the sign of the four is.

In this chapter, we see that Holmes gets very impatient when a case develops no further. He was waiting all day for a response from his Baker Street Division of the Detective Police Force. This is what Watson noticed, he noticed that Holmes would zone out and wander around the house looking for answers:
"He would hardly reply to my questions and busied himself all the evening in an abtruse chemical analysis which involved much heating of retorts and distilling of vapours, ending at lastt in a smell which fairly drove me out of the apartment. Up to the small hours of the morning I could hear the clinking of his test-tubes which told me that he was still engaged in his malodorous experiment," (130).
Holmes finally decides that he'll go out and look for answers on his own. He had placed an ad that gave a reward to anyone who knew information about Mordecai Smith who owned a boat called tthe Aurora and helped transport the man with the wooden leg somewhere.

In addition, Holmes is a sexist. He doesn't trust women. Watson was going to visit Miss Morstan and tell her of their new discoveries, but Holmes replies, "I would not tell them too much. Women are never to be entirely trusted-not the best of them." So maybe this is why he's never had a steady relationship with a woman?

In this chapter we also see that Watson begins to re-evaluate his colleague. He believes Holmes might be wrong this time. He says:
"Could there be, I wondered, some radical flaw in my companion's reasoning? Might he not be suffering from some huge self-deception? Was it not possible that his nimble and speculative mind had built up this wild theory upon faulty premises? I had never known him to be wrong, and yet the keenest reasoner may occasionally deceived. He was likely, I thought, to fall into error through the over-refinement of his logic-his preference for a subtle and bizarre explanation when a plainer and more commonplace one lay ready to his hand. Yet, on the other hand, I had myself seen the evidence, and I had heard the reasons for his deductions. When I looked back on the long chain of curious cirumstances, many of them trivial in themselves but all tending in the same direction, I could not disguise from myself that even if Holmes's explanation were incorrect the true theory must be equally outré and startling," (132).
I guess Watson is starting to maybe doubt Holmes's accuracy now since the last case was solved almost instantly once Holmes had the right evidence.

Furthermore, more of Holmes's character is revealed. He does like to joke around because he was disguised as a grumpy and old sailor and he visited Watson while Holmes was out. Athelney Jones of Scotland Yard visited Watson and they kept the sailor in the house because the sailor had demanded that he see Holmes at once. Watson and Jones chat while the sailor sat a few feet away from them and then he took off the disguise and Watson and Jones were stunned and surprised. Holmes invites Jones to dinner and it shows that instead of always directing orders and being impatient, he can be humble and hospitable. Holmes says that Watson has "never yet recognized my merits as a housekeeper," (134).