After all, Count, your own exit is more likely to be perpendicular than horizontal.
Holmes mentions this to Count Negretto in The Adventure of The Mazarin Stone as they are discussing the terms of his surrendering the crown diamond. Holmes finds the Count to be a cunning and deceiving person. The Count is sharp and easily able to recognize Holmes’ attempts to follow him. He comes to Holmes to threaten him into submission. Holmes realizes his aggressive and deceitful spirit and understands that a man like the Count would never mend his ways and never turn to an honest way. So, he pronounces that the count is more likely to die untimely by the hands of someone, i.e. in a standing position and collapse in a sleeping position upon a bullet or stab wound, like the two lines in a perpendicular, than dying peacefully in bed, in a horizontal position.
And it is only a patient who has an object in deceiving his surgeon who would conceal the facts of his case.
The lines are spoken by Holmes to Neil Gibson in The Problem of The Thor Bridge. Neil Gibson had been trying to hide the true facts of his case from Holmes out of guilt or shame or probably to avoid Holmes’ judgement. But, Holmes deduces his lies and compels him to produce full facts or get some other detective. At this point, Gibson realizes that Holmes wants to understand all the aspects of the case so as to avoid any misinterpretations, like a surgeon who wants to know every detail, however bad or shameful, so that the surgery performed is as efficient as possible with little complications.
I was a whetstone for his mind.
Watson observes this in The Adventure of The Creeping Man, when Holmes calls him to his office, convenient or inconvenient, to discuss a new case. Watson has been married at this time and was a little annoyed at Holmes’ summons, since he felt that a bright mind like Holmes couldn’t really need Watson. His requirement for the presence of Watson is merely out of his compulsive behavior. He feels that Holmes needed someone to make exclamatory reactions at his observations, that he needed someone mediocre to keep his senses sharp, thus Watson worked as a whetstone for Holmes’ mind to keep it sharp.
Five years—when I should have had a medal the size of a soup plate.
Killer Evans says this after his plan to get counterfeit money out of Nathan Garrideb’s place is foiled by Holmes in The Adventure of The Three Garridebs, Evans feels that he did a favor to England after murdering Prescott as he was a forger and couldn’t be detected. He feels that he was done a disservice when the court sentenced him to five years in prison for murdering Prescott. He feels that the country should have been thankful to him and should have given him a gold medal as big as a soup plate for his deed.
He has breeding in him—a real aristocrat of crime with a superficial suggestion of afternoon tea and all the cruelty of the grave behind it.
Holmes mentions this to Watson in The Adventure of The Illustrious Client after he has met Baron Gruner and is describing his meeting to Watson. Holmes mentions that Baron Gruner is not just any criminal, he has been bred well and knows of the upper-class society and its manners. He looks and behaves like an aristocrat and that is how his persona has been popularized in the world of crime, like an aristocrat. He may look like he is inviting someone to tea and behaves all nicely, but in his mind he could be plotting against that person to kill him that very moment, thus making him a distrustful person.
The wages of sin, Watson—the wages of sin!
Holmes mentions this to Watson as they sit discussing Baron Gruner’s fate in The Adventure of The Illustrious Client after her face had been mutilated by Kitty Winter. Holmes says that Gruner had been lustful and had used women for his lust and their money and thus had sinned. Holmes feels that Gruner wronged Kitty and many other women and thus was bound to get his due from her or some other woman. He had sinner and the price he had to pay, i.e. getting his face mutilated, is like wages from sin.
You can't play with edged tools forever without cutting those dainty hands
Holmes mentions this to Isadora Klein as parting words in The Adventure of The Three Gables. Isadora had been toying with men and using them for her lust. One of her lovers, Douglas Maberley, on being spurned writes a novel mentioning her promiscuous life. She burns the novel and gets away with it, but Holmes says that she can’t always get away with the attempts of revenge her lovers may have plotted against her. He feels that immoral trysts with men are like edged tools which might cut her hands if she keeps playing with them.
