The sherlock holmes book

THE ADVENTURE OF THE COPPER BEECHES 99

Violet Hunter, played by Natasha
Richardson in the 1985 ITV adaptation,
reads Holmes (Jeremy Brett) and Watson
(David Burke) the letter from Mr. Rucastle
imploring her to accept his job offer.

letter, instead of outraged? He has
crumpled up the letter, but it is still
in his hand to give to Watson. Does
he suspect, as Watson reminds him
of “The Adventure of the Blue
Carbuncle” (pp.82–3), that what
may appear at first to be “a mere
whim” may turn out to be about
something much more interesting?

A peculiar request anything untoward take place once dog, a morose housekeeper, and—
Just as Holmes has concluded his she starts her new job. Fascinated most dramatic of all—a locked room
rant about the triviality of Miss by this enigmatic scenario, Holmes containing a terrible secret.
Hunter’s letter, Violet herself agrees to her request.
arrives at 221B Baker Street. The late Victorian era was a
Watson observes that his friend Two weeks after Violet has taken golden age for Gothic fiction and
is immediately attentive and that up the position, she telegraphs tales of the supernatural, with
he is “favourably impressed by the Holmes, imploring him to meet her novels such as Bram Stoker’s
manner and speech of his new in Winchester. The next morning, Dracula (1897) capturing the
client.” This observation may be Holmes and Watson catch the train public imagination, and stories of
intended to tantalize the reader to see her, and she informs them of encounters with ghosts and spirits
into believing that Holmes might the strange progress of events. receiving attention as never before.
become romantically involved However, in stories such as “The
with the young woman. Violet Gothic setting Adventure of Wisteria Lodge”
confirms that she wants his advice Copper Beeches, it seems, is a (pp.222–25) and “The Adventure of
on whether to take up a post as strange, rather eerie place. It is the Sussex Vampire” (pp.260–61),
governess for a man named Jephro clearly Conan Doyle’s intention to Conan Doyle takes the tropes of
Rucastle at a house near Winchester ramp up the atmosphere and sense Gothic literature and allows Holmes
called Copper Beeches. But, as of expectation by bringing all the to show that there is a perfectly
Holmes sees at once, there is familiar elements of the classic rational explanation for each crime.
something more to this case than Gothic horror story into play—a That is why Holmes leads so neatly
mere employment advice. remote location, a gloomy, decaying from the superstitions of the
house, shadowy trees, a savage Victorian age to the rationality ❯❯
The pay is very good, but Mr.
Rucastle has made some strange
requests, including that she should
cut off her long hair and wear any
dress that he or his wife might ask
her to put on. She initially rejects
the offer, but needs the money
and is curious about the situation,
so she decides to accept it after all.
Although Violet’s mind is made up,
she wants Holmes’s opinion on the
matter, and is checking whether
she can contact him later should

100 THE EARLY ADVENTURES

“My dear Watson, you kept locked and seemingly empty.
as a medical man are Desperate to know what is going
continually gaining light as on, Violet sneaked into the locked
to the tendencies of a child wing and was terrified to see the
by the study of the parents. shadow of someone moving in a
Don’t you see that the barricaded room. Rucastle caught
converse is equally valid. her and threatened to throw her to
I have frequently gained my the dog if she did not curb her
first real insight into the curiosity. Genuinely frightened
character of parents by by this, she had sent for Holmes.
studying their children.”
The secret revealed
By looking to the Holmes then surmises that Violet
character of Rucastle’s son has been hired to impersonate
to gain insight into that of his Rucastle’s daughter, Alice, who
father, not the other way around, is not in Philadelphia at all but is
Holmes turns a common way of instead imprisoned in the empty
thinking on its head. wing. He devises a plan to free Alice
when the Rucastles are out that
of the 20th century. Unlike many warning signs of the true nature of evening. Violet returns to the house,
other fictional characters, he is not his father, Jephro Rucastle, and he is and, following the plan, lures the
looking for evil spirits but for clues alerted to the peril Violet may be in. servant Mrs. Toller into the cellar
to real behavior. and traps her there while Mr. Toller
The governess’s story is drunk. Holmes and Watson arrive
The disturbed child Violet tells Holmes that she has and break into the locked room, only
The emergence of psychology as learned that Rucastle also has to find it is empty.
a scientific discipline in the late a daughter, Alice, from his first
Victorian era meant that many marriage, who has gone away to Astonishingly, it seems that
people were beginning to believe Philadelphia. In her position as Alice has been taken out through
that to understand the present, you governess, Violet has been asked the skylight. In one of his rare
also had to understand the past. to wear a particularly striking mistakes, Holmes believes that
There was a shift toward a more electric-blue dress, and told to sit Rucastle has taken her away. At
scientific study of criminals, with with her back to the window, either that moment, Rucastle surprises
new theories proposing that human reading out loud or listening to them in the locked wing and dashes
behavior could be explained by Rucastle’s stories while his wife
inheritance and biology gaining sits in deadly silence. Sneaking The lowest and vilest
wider currency. a peek in a mirror one day, Violet alleys in London do not
glimpsed a mysterious young man present a more dreadful
So when Violet tells Holmes that watching her from the road.
the little boy in her charge is morose record of sin than
and cruel, and crushes cockroaches She recounts other bizarre and does the smiling and
for fun, in a typical Gothic tale this unnerving matters—a huge mastiff, beautiful countryside.
might be a sign that the child is which is kept hungry, prowls the Sherlock Holmes
demonically possessed. But Holmes grounds at night; she finds a tress of
seeks a rational explanation. As hair very much like her own locked
he explains to Watson, in the bad away in a drawer; and, strangest
behavior of the child he sees of all, there is a wing of the house

THE ADVENTURE OF THE COPPER BEECHES 101

This illustration from The Strand
Magazine depicts the moment Rucastle
is savagely attacked by the huge mastiff.

out to set the mastiff on them, but exceptional woman,” to Watson’s desperate isolation in which
the starving hound savages him disappointment Holmes’s brief unspeakable crimes may be
instead. Watson manages to shoot interest in her is over as soon as concealed. Watson is appalled
the dog, but Rucastle is badly hurt. the case is solved. Conan Doyle by his negativity, but the moment
has teased the reader, momentarily hints at the psychological
As Watson tends to Rucastle’s hinting that emotion might lurk complexity of Holmes that has
wounds, Mrs. Toller appears and behind the detective’s coolly enthralled readers for so long.
reveals the truth. Alice was the sole mechanical facade.
beneficiary of her late mother’s will, Interestingly, although Holmes
but she allowed her father to take The tale also reveals Holmes’s says at the start of the story that
care of the affairs. Upon meeting somewhat bleak outlook on life. Watson should tell tales that reveal
her fiancé Mr. Fowler, Rucastle While traveling on the train to his deductive powers, here they
tried to force Alice to sign the Winchester, Watson remarks on actually play very little part. Instead,
inheritance over to him before she the beautiful countryside, dotted the action is precipitated almost
married and he lost control of the with charming farmhouses. Holmes entirely by Violet, with Holmes
finances. Distraught, she had an admits that he can see only their taking a supporting role. ■
attack of “brain fever,” suffering
from the illness for six weeks. Alice
recovered, but Rucastle locked her
in the chamber. Violet was hired
to act as Alice so that Fowler would
believe she was well again, but no
longer interested in him. Fowler
was not put off, however, and it
was he who rescued her.

Holmes the man
Although Holmes is attentive to
Violet and seems to admire her,
describing her as a “quite

Prisoners in the home Brontë may have been inspired that never saw the light of day,
by a government report in 1844, and many others like Alice
The immense control Victorian which revealed shocking cases Rucastle whose terrible
men had over their wives and of the rural poor attempting to suffering remained hidden.
daughters has been the stuff look after their unstable family
of Gothic horror stories ever members at home. The reason In 1879, the British Medical
since Charlotte Brontë wrote for the secrecy was partially the Journal observed that there
about mad Bertha Rochester deep shame felt about mental was still “no law to prevent a
being locked in the attic by her illness; however, in some cases Mr. Rochester from locking up
husband in Jane Eyre (1847). families were also trying to save his mad wife in the attic of a
Legally, families were allowed their loved ones from the horrors mansion, with a keeper.” A rise
to keep a family member of lunatic asylums. Nevertheless, in awareness followed, and
confined if they were declared many unfortunate people were 1890, the year in which “The
insane (to avoid a charge of false locked away because of personal Copper Beeches” is believed
imprisonment)—but it was up to grievances or for financial gain. to be set, was the last year in
the family or a hired “doctor” There were certainly many which Rucastle could legally
to diagnose their insanity. cases of unspeakable cruelty have gotten away with locking
up his daughter.

THE GRE
DETECTI

AT
VE

104 THE GREAT DETECTIVE

The “Great Hiatus” The stories later Conan Doyle “The Final Problem”
continues; Holmes travels collected in The publishes the (pp.142–47) appears
historical novel The
throughout Asia and Memoirs of Refugees (p.344). in The Strand
Europe (see “The Empty Sherlock Holmes Magazine. Holmes’s
begin to appear in death is met with a
House” pp.162–67). The Strand Magazine. stunned response.

1892 DEC 1892 MAY 1893 DEC 1893

OCT 1892 1893 OCT 1893

Event in Conan Doyle Conan Doyle’s first Conan Doyle’s
the lives publishes The wife, Louise, father, Charles
of Holmes Great Shadow, Altamont Doyle,
and Watson a novel about the is diagnosed with dies at age 61.
Napoleonic wars. tuberculosis.

IN THIS CHAPTER L ess than two months after new, more wistful side to his
The Adventures of Sherlock personality. And in “The Reigate
COLLECTION Holmes was published, The Squire,” he seems more human,
The Memoirs of Strand Magazine began serializing too, as he succumbs to burnout
Sherlock Holmes, 1894 the short stories of what would due to overwork. Meanwhile,
Silver Blaze be that book’s successor, The Holmes’s wide misreading of the
The Cardboard Box Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. This facts in “The Yellow Face” reveals
The Yellow Face collection would culminate in an for the first time his fallibility as a
The Stock-broker’s Clerk event that horrified readers— detective, and elicits an unusually
The Gloria Scott Holmes’s untimely death, in the contrite reaction.
The Musgrave Ritual thrilling “The Final Problem.”
The Reigate Squire A strong theme of betrayal runs
The Crooked Man Faithfulness and fallibility through the Memoirs. “The Gloria
The Resident Patient In both “The Yellow Face” and “The Scott,” “The Crooked Man,” and
The Greek Interpreter Cardboard Box,” Holmes displays “The Resident Patient” all attest
The Naval Treaty a new awareness to criminals’ to this. Suggestions of adultery
The Final Problem own sense of victimization. In fact, fuel “The Cardboard Box,” and in
in this collection of stories, the “The Yellow Face” Grant Munro’s
detective seems more in tune with behavior is driven by the fear that
human psychology in general. One his beloved wife is being unfaithful.
sequence in “The Naval Treaty,” in Continuing this theme in “The
which Holmes hints at his thoughts Musgrave Ritual,” the butler’s jilting
on religious faith, illuminates a of one woman for another is key to
his mysterious disappearance.

Following the death of his wife, Conan Doyle publishes INTRODUCTION 105
Watson sells his practice and moves Round the Red
back into 221B Baker Street (see Conan Doyle
“The Norwood Builder,” pp.168–69) Lamp—a collection publishes The
of short stories on Medal of Brigadier
Gerard in The
medical themes. Strand Magazine—
the first of a series.

1894 OCT 1894 DEC 1894
FEB 1894 1894
DEC 1893

Conan Doyle Holmes returns to London, marking Conan Doyle embarks
publishes The the end of the “Great Hiatus” on a successful lecture
Memoirs of
Sherlock Holmes. (see “The Empty House,” pp.162–67). tour of the US with
his brother Innes.

The first ending era. His historical novel The Great resurrection. And 10 years later, that
Two key characters are introduced Shadow had been published just 13 is exactly what happened. Holmes’s
in the Memoirs: Holmes’s brother months before “The Final Problem,” fictional interlude—between his
Mycroft—unmentioned before and in 1894 he began his stories “death” in April 1891 and his return
“The Greek Interpreter”—and the set during the Napoleonic wars: in February 1894—became known
detective’s nemesis, Moriarty, who the “Brigadier Gerard” series. as the “Great Hiatus.”
unexpectedly materializes for the
first time in “The Final Problem,” Gone for good? The deeper question of whether
which narrates the destruction Conan Doyle is known to have Conan Doyle created this mystery
of Holmes and Moriarty at the grown tired of Holmes, but aside deliberately for economic reasons,
Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland. from the fulfillment of his higher or whether he had greater affection
Sidney Paget’s full-page rendition literary ambitions, there may have for Holmes than he let on and could
of the horrifying scene prefaced been other reasons for killing off not bring himself to narrate a clear-
the story in the Strand. his most famous creation at this cut death, will probably never be
difficult time in his personal life— answered. What is certain is that
The public response was instant his wife had been diagnosed with Conan Doyle was paid £1,000 for
and powerful: “I heard of many who tuberculosis, and in October 1893, the stories in The Memoirs of
wept,” said Conan Doyle. In the his alcoholic father died in an Sherlock Holmes—earnings a world
story, the author describes Moriarty asylum. However, did Conan Doyle away from the early days of his
as “the Napoleon of Crime”—and really plan to permanently shelve writing career, when he got by on
it is interesting to note that the Holmes? The mystery surrounding a shilling a day and, as he recalled,
“better things” to which Conan the Reichenbach Falls incident left subsisted on “bread, bacon and tea,
Doyle wished to dedicate his time open the possibility of a plausible with an occasional saveloy—what
also centered on the Napoleonic could man ask for more?” ■

106

THE REAL MURDERER
IS STANDING
IMMEDIATELY
BEHIND YOU

SILVER BLAZE (1892)

IN CONTEXT O ne of the most commonly as prime suspect, having attempted
reproduced images of to bribe his way into the stable
TYPE Sherlock Holmes is a on the evening in question.
Short story Sidney Paget illustration from “Silver Furthermore, that same night he
Blaze,” showing a deerstalker-clad had dined at Straker’s house, where
FIRST PUBLICATION Holmes sitting in a train car. He a portion of their curried mutton
UK: December 1892 is gesticulating with his long fingers had been laced with opium and
US: January/February 1893 as he expounds the mystery of a used to drug the stable boy who
missing racehorse and its apparently should have been guarding Silver
COLLECTION murdered trainer to a cigar-toting Blaze. Simpson’s presence at
The Memoirs of Sherlock Watson. Prior to this explanation, dinner could have given him the
Holmes, 1894 he (rather improbably) declares opportunity to drug the food in
the train’s speed to be exactly order to later steal the horse.
CHARACTERS 531⁄2 miles an hour, based on the Simpson claims that in attempting
John Straker Racehorse telegraph posts alongside the track to enter the stables he had merely
trainer and retired jockey. being 60 yards apart. “Silver Blaze” been looking for some inside tips on
is bookended by train journeys, the race, but his heavy palm-wood
Fitzroy Simpson Wealthy during which both the exposition walking stick, a “Penang lawyer,”
London bookmaker and and the final explanation of the
profligate gambler. case take place.

Colonel Ross Owner of A vanished favorite …nothing clears
the racehorse Silver Blaze. The racehorse Silver Blaze, so up a case so much
named for his distinctive white
Inspector Gregory forehead, has gone missing from as stating it to
Official investigating officer. his stable at King’s Pyland on another person.
Dartmoor, a week before he is Sherlock Holmes
Silas Brown Trainer at due to run as odds-on favorite in
Mapleton stables. the Wessex Cup. His trainer, John
Straker, has been found dead out
Ned Hunter Stable lad on the moor, his skull staved in
at King’s Pyland stables. and his hand gripped around a
peculiar knife. Fitzroy Simpson,
a bookmaker, is already in custody

SILVER BLAZE 107

Holmes is depicted here in his iconic
deerstalker, in The Strand Magazine’s
illustration from “Silver Blaze.” The
watercolor version of this scene sold
at Christie’s for $90,000 in 2014.

is a good fit for the murder weapon,
and he seems entirely guilty of both
the abduction and the killing—to
everyone except Holmes, that is.

Dartmoor location Holmes is very impressed at the way promising young inspector, Stanley
This case sees Holmes and Gregory has preserved the clues at Hopkins, who would not turn up at
Watson’s first encounter with the site of Straker’s apparent murder 221B Baker Street until more than
Dartmoor, an evocative location by instructing his men to stand on a decade later, in “The Adventure
to which they would return a piece of matting at the edge. This of Black Peter” (pp.184–85), Gregory
nine years later in The Hound admiration for Gregory’s methods is makes great efforts to adopt
of the Baskervilles (pp.152–61). in striking contrast to the ire Holmes Holmes’s own methods. And yet
But whereas the Dartmoor expresses toward Lestrade when despite being a man who “was
of the later story is described inspecting a crime scene in “The rapidly making his name in the
as “forbidding,” “desolate,” and Boscombe Valley Mystery” (pp.70–3): English detective service,” the
“melancholy”—a fitting setting for “Oh, how simple it would all have tall, leonine Gregory never appears
the chilling menace of the hound— been had I been here before they again after “Silver Blaze.”
here it is an invigorating place of came like a herd of buffalo
unkempt beauty. As the two friends and wallowed all over it.” Facts that suit theories
stroll across to the neighboring Holmes’s one criticism of Gregory
stables at Mapleton, Watson briefly Gregory is consistently able is his lack of imagination, and the
describes how “the long sloping to aid Holmes’s investigations— value of this particular asset to an
plain in front of us was tinged with whether through appropriate investigator is a point he returns
gold, deepening into rich, ruddy snippets of information, a handy to later on in the story. Yet this is a
brown where the fading ferns and bag of boots, or a photograph curious criticism for Holmes to make
brambles caught the evening light.” produced from his pocket in timely given that in “A Scandal in Bohemia”
He bemoans only the fact that “the fashion—which prompts the (pp.60–1), he remarks that “It is a
glories of the landscape were all delighted detective to observe, capital mistake to theorise before
wasted upon my companion,” “My dear Gregory, you anticipate one has data.” In “Silver Blaze,” ❯❯
although in fact even Holmes all my wants.” Like another
is not immune to its appeal, later
thanking his hosts for “a charming
little breath of your beautiful
Dartmoor air.” In spite of this, the
locals do seem to have an alarming
propensity to set their dogs on
strangers, and perhaps this is a
subliminal hint of things to come.

An uncommon policeman
The investigating detective is
Inspector Gregory, a policeman to
whom Holmes is uncharacteristically
complimentary, describing him as
“an extremely competent officer.”

108 THE GREAT DETECTIVE

The Epsom Derby was one of many
popular races in Victorian England. The
Wessex Cup in this story is fictional,
yet the story has inspired several Silver
Blaze Wessex Cup races globally.

Holmes in fact advocates the exact
opposite: he contrives a theory as
to the missing horse’s whereabouts,
then goes in search of proof. When
he finally finds it, he crows, “See the
value of imagination… We imagined
what might have happened, acted
upon the supposition, and find
ourselves justified.”

Holmesian methods Once Holmes has arrived at the there is Holmes’s last, tantalizing
Holmes employs a number of his scene, there is the inevitable exchange with Inspector Gregory
stock deductive methods as he observation of small clues, in concerning the stable dog (see
proceeds to unravel the crime at everything from the dead man’s right), before he leaves Dartmoor.
King’s Pyland. First, there is the effects to the environs of the
sifting of information: he plows stables and the murder scene. A flair for the dramatic
through all the accounts in the Various odds and ends of Holmes’s The matter of the stable dog’s
popular press in an effort “to vast residual knowledge are here silence as Silver Blaze was led out
detach the framework of fact— brought into play too, notably of his stall is one of several clues
of absolute, undeniable fact—from the fact of his being, as alleged upon which the solution hangs, and
the embellishments of theorists in A Study in Scarlet (pp.36–45), soon Holmes has a firm handle on
and reporters.” In doing this, “well up in belladonna, opium, and them all. The silent dog indicates
he trims off the suppositions of poisons generally.” Most famously, its familiarity with the intruder;
others, leaving the reader with the curry used to mask the taste
the impression that perhaps of opium and drug the stable boy
imagination is a grand thing— in fact exonerates Simpson, as
so long as it is Holmes’s own. (being a guest) he could have had
no hand in its preparation nor in
Victorian horse racing its devising as a meal; and the
“singular knife”—suited to surgical
Horse racing was a hugely him by a bet.” The “Pink ’un” procedures—that was found on
popular pastime in the Victorian was another name for The the dead man hints at a dark and
era, one of the few events at Sporting Times, one of several specific purpose. It is well within
which aristocrats and ordinary racing papers of the era. By the Holmes’s power to resolve the
people met and mingled. Holmes 20th century, however, the sport’s matter before he leaves Dartmoor,
has a shrewd understanding popularity had declined, and but he chooses not to. Instead he
of the psychology of the betting many of the smaller racecourses assures Colonel Ross, the horse’s
man. In “The Adventure of the had disappeared, among them owner, that Silver Blaze will run
Blue Carbuncle” (pp.82–83), he Winchester Racecourse at in the Wessex Cup, and arranges
tricks a wary poultry merchant Worthy Down. In use since the to meet him at the Winchester
into giving up information for 1600s, and patronized at one Racecourse in four days.
a wager, observing that “when time by Charles II, its last race
you see a man with …the was run on July 13, 1887. By the
‘Pink ’un’ protruding out of his end of World War I, it had been
pocket, you can always draw turned into an airfield.

SILVER BLAZE 109

I was marvelling in of a dramatic denouement and, A vice revealed
my own mind how I could as he remarks to a fellow detective At the races, Holmes cannot help
possibly have overlooked in The Valley of Fear (pp.212–20), indulging yet another vice: “But
“surely our profession… would be there goes the bell, and as I stand
so obvious a clue. a drab and sordid one if we did not to win a little on this next race,
Sherlock Holmes sometimes set the scene so as to I shall defer a lengthy explanation
glorify our results.” until a more fitting time.” His
Holmes justifies this delay as a enthusiasm for the races is
playful form of retribution toward Whatever Holmes’s motivation, evidently shared by Watson who,
Ross, who has been dismissive of the reappearance of the racehorse in “The Adventure of Shoscombe
his abilities and somewhat prickly and the unmasking of the villain Old Place’”(pp.288–91), confesses
toward him: “The colonel’s are beautifully staged. Silver Blaze that he spends half his pension on
manner has been just a trifle turns out to have been both victim betting. It is, however, unlikely that
cavalier to me. I am inclined now and killer, having fatally kicked his Conan Doyle was an enthusiast
to have a little amusement at his trainer in the head while the debt- himself. In his biography, Memories
expense.” Whether we believe ridden Straker attempted to rig the and Adventures, he acknowledges
him entirely, of course, is a rather race by laming him with a “slight how his ignorance of horse racing
different matter, but Holmes is fond nick upon the tendons.” Since “cries aloud to heaven” in “Silver
then, Silver Blaze has been hidden Blaze,” which was at the time
away at Mapleton, after being criticized by experts because had
found wandering the moor by Silas his characters really acted as he
Brown, Straker’s rival trainer, and described, they would have either
subsequently disguised with dye ended up in prison or been banned
to conceal his true coloring. Holmes from the sport. “However,” Conan
neglects to reveal this fact to Ross, Doyle retorted, “I have never been
but as a bay-colored Silver Blaze nervous about details, and one
dashes to victory at Winchester, must be masterful sometimes.” ■
the colonel is happy enough.

A key clue for Holmes Inspector Gregory:
was the lack of noise “Is there any point to which you
made by the stable dog, would wish to draw my attention?”
which allowed the thief
to lead Silver Blaze from Holmes:
the stable unheard. His “To the curious incident
deductions in this case of the dog in the night-time.”
gave rise to the phrase
“the curious incident Inspector Gregory:
of the dog in the night- “The dog did nothing in the night-time.”
time,” later immortalized
by Mark Haddon in his Holmes:
novel of the same name. “That was the curious incident.”

110

THERE IS NO PART
OF THE BODY WHICH
VARIES SO MUCH
AS THE HUMAN EAR

THE CARDBOARD BOX (1893)

IN CONTEXT T he story opens on a “blazing quiver on his lips, had deduced
hot day in August” and that Watson had been musing on
TYPE Watson is dying to get out “the preposterous way” of settling
Short story of the sweltering city. Restless and arguments through violence. This
bored, his gaze wanders to two observation neatly foreshadows the
FIRST PUBLICATION portraits on the wall. Moments action to follow. Holmes announces
US: January 1893 later, Holmes makes a comment
UK: January 1893 that is so in tune with his thoughts, The 1994 television adaptation of
it is as if he has read the doctor’s “The Cardboard Box” was set during
COLLECTION mind. The detective explains the a snowy Christmas. It starred Jeremy
The Memoirs of Sherlock trick: he had followed his friend’s Brett at the end of his Holmes career,
Holmes, 1894 facial expressions and, from a mere due to his declining health.

CHARACTERS
Susan Cushing Quiet and
respectable retired spinster.

Sarah Cushing Sister of
Susan; a proud, fierce woman.

Mary Browner
Third Cushing sister;
married to James Browner.

James Browner
Tempestuous, heavy-
drinking ship’s steward.

Alec Fairbairn Dashing,
swaggering competitor
for Mary’s affections.

Inspector Lestrade
Scotland Yard detective.

THE CARDBOARD BOX 111

Conan Doyle’s self- Holmesians ever since. As publication, the opening mind-
censorship Christopher Roden points out, reading passage of this story
the author offered various was moved to the start of “The
When the stories published in excuses: “that it was out of
The Strand Magazine between place in a collection intended Adventure of the Resident
December 1892 and November for boys; that it was more Patient” (pp.134–
1893 were compiled as The sensational than he cared 35). While “The
Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, for; and that it was a weak Cardboard Box”
“The Cardboard Box” was left story.” However, salacious was eventually
out at Conan Doyle’s insistence. content appears elsewhere included in
The story was included in the in the canon, and the tale 1917’s His Last
first American edition of the is a compelling one. Bow, most modern
Memoirs, but removed in a Whatever the reason, editors return it to
revised second printing, and there was one part of the Memoirs and,
the original edition destroyed. the story that Conan to avoid duplicating
Debate about Conan Doyle’s Doyle thought too good
reasons has raged among to lose. For the Memoirs the opening passage,
restore both stories to
their original versions.

his involvement in a sensational Liverpool with her sailor husband the parcel, and can be apprehended
new case, which “may prove to be James Browner; her other sister when his ship next docks in London.
more difficult of solution than my Sarah had once lived with the By now, Holmes is convinced that
small essay in thought reading.” An couple, but after a “quarrel” she one of the ears belongs to Mary
innocuous spinster, Susan Cushing, returned to London to lodge with Browner, and the other to her lover.
has received a very grisly package Susan (although she has recently
of two severed human ears. Lestrade moved out). As they talk, Holmes A husband’s betrayal
suspects it is no more than a prank notes a strong resemblance between Once under arrest, Browner readily
by her former lodgers (three medical Susan’s ear and one in the box. admits to his crime in a confession
students) but, as usual, he turns out that portrays him more as the victim
to be wide of the mark. En route to sister Sarah’s house, of the case, rather than the villain,
Holmes wires a police contact in confusing the story’s morals. Sarah
Unpacking the box Liverpool. Sarah is ill and cannot was in love with him, but when he
At Susan’s home, Holmes’s major meet them, but Holmes says that he gently spurned her advances, she
deductions revolve around the had only wanted to “look at her,” and became vengeful, poisoning his
package, the cardboard box of the that he already has the information marriage and encouraging Mary
title. To the sharp-eyed detective, he needs. Back at Scotland Yard, he to have an affair with a dashing
this box yields a host of clues— receives a response to his telegram, seaman, Alec Fairbairn.
including tarred twine and an and tells Lestrade that Browner sent
especially well-executed knot— One day, Browner saw the lovers,
to the sender’s identity. The ears What object is served and, in a jealous rage, he armed
themselves are preserved in rough by this circle of misery himself with a heavy stick and
salt, which is not a substance that and violence and fear? followed. When they rented a boat
a medical practitioner would use, and rowed out to sea, he did the
and they are not a matching pair: Sherlock Holmes same and, after a confrontation, he
one is a woman’s, the other a man’s. killed them both. He hacked off their
Holmes deduces that this is no ears, later sending one of each to
student joke—it is a double murder. Sarah, in a crazed bid to show her
where her “meddling” had led. All
Susan then unwittingly provides of this precipitates a melancholic
almost all the extra information closing remark from Holmes, echoing
Holmes needs to solve the case, Watson’s thoughts on “the sadness
telling him that she has two sisters, and horror and useless waste of
Mary and Sarah. Mary lives in life” involved in violence. ■

112

ANY TRUTH IS
BETTER THAN
INDEFINITE DOUBT

THE YELLOW FACE (1893)

IN CONTEXT T his tale opens with a lull Evasion and lies
in business for Sherlock Holmes and Watson return from a
TYPE Holmes, and a remark from stroll to find they have just missed
Short story Dr Watson on the detective’s habit a caller—Grant Munro. When
of turning to cocaine during slow he returns, Munro explains his
FIRST PUBLICATION periods. He refers to Holmes’s situation: his wife, Effie, has been
UK: February 1893 casual drug use as “a protest deceiving him, causing a rift in
US: February 1893 against the monotony of existence their otherwise perfect marriage,
when cases were scanty.” Yet it has and he wants Holmes’s advice.
COLLECTION now become more of an affectation
The Memoirs of Sherlock than a true habit, and Conan Doyle’s Six weeks earlier, Effie had
Holmes, 1894 previous depictions of Holmes as a asked Munro to give her £100,
misanthropic decadent, influenced insisting he not ask about its
CHARACTERS by Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture purpose. Then, last week, he was
Grant Munro (“Jack”) Hop of Dorian Gray (1891), are giving way returning to their home in Norbury
merchant living in Norbury. to a more well-adjusted persona. when he saw that a nearby cottage
had new occupants; he caught a
Effie Munro Grant Munro’s
wife, who previously lived and Interracial marriage
was married in Atlanta, Georgia.
In the United States in the 19th it was not illegal. Interestingly,
John Hebron Effie’s late century, interracial marriage in the British edition of the story
husband, an American lawyer. and miscegenation (breeding there are two minutes of silence
between races) were highly before Munro’s heart-warming
Lucy Hebron Effie’s daughter. taboo. The Hebron family would declaration of acceptance; in
certainly have had to leave their the American version it was
home in Atlanta, Georgia, where adjusted to 10 minutes.
laws against miscegenation still
applied until 1967. In 1882, Conan Doyle met
the American minister and
Munro’s acceptance of black anti-slavery leader Henry
his mixed-race stepdaughter Highland Garnet. Conan Doyle’s
reflects the softer attitudes in sympathies as set out in “The
Britain at the time: interracial Yellow Face” may have resulted
marriage might have been from what he came to learn as
frowned upon by society, but a result of their friendship.

THE YELLOW FACE 113

Many serious outbreaks of yellow
fever occurred in southern states of the
US in the 19th century. In severe cases,
patients developed jaundice, which
turned their skin yellow, and often died.

glimpse of an eerily inhuman her first husband and her child from until her mother arranged their
“yellow livid face” peering out of yellow fever. When she married passage to England, using the
an upstairs window. That night, he Munro, she signed her ex-husband’s money Munro had given her.
awoke to discover his wife slipping income over to him. Munro says he Fearing Munro would no longer love
out of the house at 3 am, and when has seen the first husband’s death her, Effie tried to keep her daughter’s
she returned, she was vague about certificate, but Holmes suspects existence a secret from him and
where she had been. foul play. He is sure this is a case made Lucy stay inside the cottage,
of blackmail, and that Effie’s first wearing a mask to disguise the
The following day, Munro saw husband must be alive and has color of her face.
Effie coming out of the cottage and tracked her down to extort money:
asked her what business she had the face at the window is his. Then After hearing this pitiable tale,
with its occupants. Again she Munro summons Holmes and Munro declares, “I am not a very
would not tell him, but implored Watson to Norbury because the good man... but I think that I am a
him never to enter the house, cottage’s residents have returned. better one than you have given me
saying that their marriage would credit for being.” He lifts up little
be over were he to do so. She swore Love conquers prejudice Lucy and kisses her, a noble gesture
she would not go there again, but Holmes and Watson help Munro given social conventions of the time,
three days later she did, so Munro enter the cottage, where they then goes to his wife.
rushed over there. The cottage was discover that the “yellow face” is
empty, but in the upstairs room he a mask being worn by a young black This case is unusual both in
found a photograph of his wife. girl named Lucy—Effie’s daughter. that no crime has been committed,
The first husband, an African and also in that it is one of only a
For Holmes, the case hinges American lawyer, did die, but the handful where Holmes’s deductions
on Effie’s past. Munro reveals she child survived and lived with a nurse are proved wrong. But most striking
had emigrated to the United States, is Conan Doyle’s progressive anti-
but returned after the death of both racism message, which would have
been at odds with attitudes of
many 19th-century readers. ■

Watson... if it should
ever strike you that
I am getting a little over-
confident in my powers...
kindly whisper ‘Norbury’
in my ear, and I shall be
infinitely obliged to you.
Sherlock Holmes

114

HUMAN NATURE IS
A STRANGE MIXTURE
WATSON

THE STOCKBROKER’S CLERK (1893)

IN CONTEXT W hen Conan Doyle wrote pitfalls inherent in the way London
“The Stockbroker’s firms like the fictional Mawson
TYPE Clerk,” his earnings from & Williams hired their staff.
Short story the Sherlock Holmes stories were
reaching a level at which he had A dream job turns sour
FIRST PUBLICATION money of his own to invest. He The stockbroker’s clerk in the title
UK: March 1893 began to deal with the brokerage is young Hall Pycroft, and he is
US: March 1893 of Pim, Vaughan and bought shares traveling to Birmingham by train
in ventures such as the Portsmouth with Holmes, whose services he
COLLECTION Tram Company and Australian has engaged, and Watson. During
The Memoirs of mines. Doubtless, therefore, he was the journey, he tells them about the
Sherlock Holmes, 1894 well aware that fraud was rife in case. He was let go from his clerk’s
the financial world at the time. In job a while ago, and after a long
CHARACTERS this story, he displays a knowledge and desperate search for a new job
Hall Pycroft Young of how businesses worked, using he finally landed a post at major
stockbroker’s clerk. a plot that turns, plausibly, on the London stockbrokers Mawson &

Arthur Pinner Financial Financial felons to friends and family with no
agent based in London. collateral, and cooked the books
The financial world of the late to cover it up. However, the
Harry Pinner Owner of a 19th century was highly corrupt. police almost never investigated
newly established hardware At least one in six company what is known today as white-
distribution company, based launches on the stock market collar crime, concentrating
in Birmingham. was fraudulent, with swindlers instead on the working-class
taking investors’ money and felon. Such was the level of theft
Beddington Criminal who then vanishing. Banking was and corruption in the business
has just been released from just as corrupt as the stock world that Beddington, posing
a five-year prison sentence. market, with 242 out of the 291 as a clerk, would hardly have
private banks formed between needed to murder the security
1844 and 1868 failing, often guard and carry the bonds off
because of fraud. When the in a bag. Huge sums of money
giant City of Glasgow Bank were hemorrhaging each day
failed in 1878, it transpired that through the slippery hands of
the directors had lent millions “legitimate” employees.

THE STOCKBROKER’S CLERK 115

Williams. However, shortly before In a dramatic scene, illustrated a legal case—once he has explained
Pycroft was due to take up the here in The Strand Magazine, Holmes, it, the reader is satisfied that justice
position, he was offered a better- Watson, and Pycroft force their way has run its course. However, Holmes
paying job by a man named Arthur into Pinner’s office and find him knows that in this case they must
Pinner, who instructed him to attempting to commit suicide. hand Pinner over to the police. The
travel to Birmingham to meet his tale is also unusual in that, when
brother Harry, the “promoter” of they burst back into the room and he arrives at the solution, Holmes is
the Franco-Midland Hardware find him hanging from a hook on far from the crime scene, and is only
Company, at their offices. Flattered the door. After cutting him down able to apprehend the accomplice.
by the offer, Pycroft accepted the and reviving him, Holmes deduces The felony itself took place within
job, signing a declaration stating that Pinner has devised a fictitious London, and it was only the sharp
his willingness to join the company, post for Pycroft in Birmingham, to eyes of a policeman that led to
and agreeing to not officially resign get him out of the way so a crime the arrest of the perpetrator. ■
his post at Mawson & Williams. could be committed at Mawson &
Williams in London. Holmes’s deduction
In Birmingham, Harry took of Watson’s health
Pycroft to the company’s office, A murderous thief
which turned out to be a couple of The newspaper Pinner was reading Watson has new
small, dusty, and sparsely furnished reveals both the details of the crime slippers with slightly
rooms. Pycroft began to work, but and the reason for Pinner’s despair.
soon felt a vague sense of unease. His real brother, a notorious forger scorched soles.
He then observed that Harry had and safe-breaker called Beddington,
a gold filling on the same tooth as had taken up Pycroft’s position at The slippers haven’t been
his brother, and suspected that Mawson & Williams; it was easy wet—the shop’s paper
they must be the same man. to impersonate the young clerk, label is still attached.
His suspicions aroused, Pycroft since no one in the company had
consulted Holmes, who agreed to actually met him. Then, the previous They weren’t scorched
probe his mysterious new employer. Saturday, Beddington had dallied in while drying, so he has been
the office, murdered the guard, and
When the trio arrive at Pycroft’s tried to make off with a bag stuffed sitting by the fire with his
Birmingham office, with Holmes and with almost £100,000 in bonds. But feet outstretched.
Watson posing as job-seekers, they an astute policeman, surprised to
find Pinner reading a newspaper see a man leaving the office so late He would not do this in
and looking highly distraught; he with a bag, arrested him, and the summer if he was
asks them to leave him alone for a crime was discovered. All that in good health.
moment. Hearing strange sounds, remains, the paper reports, is to
catch Beddington’s brother, who “I perceive you
usually works with him. “We may have been unwell
save the police some little trouble
in that direction,” remarks Holmes. lately. Summer
colds are always
Holmes seems surprisingly a little trying.”
sympathetic toward Pinner, who,
having been driven to suicide on
hearing of his brother’s arrest, is
now facing prison for his role in the
crime. In fact, Holmes often stands
outside the law, and is happy to see
natural justice done instead. It is, of
course, what puts him in Scotland
Yard’s bad books, but it also saves
him the trouble of having to build

116

AND THEN IN AN
INSTANT THE KEY
OF THE RIDDLE
WAS IN MY HANDS

THE GLORIA SCOTT (1893)

IN CONTEXT U nlike most Holmes stories, seafaring, and the haunting of
“The Gloria Scott” is told by a good, respectable citizen by a
TYPE Holmes himself, not Watson, disreputable past in distant climes.
Short story as the two friends sit by the fire one
winter’s night in 221B Baker Street. A hidden past
FIRST PUBLICATION Holmes had many cases before he Holmes recalls how in his student
UK: February 1893 met Watson in 1881, but of those days, during the long summer
US: April 1893 investigations this was one of only vacation, he went to stay on the
two that Watson recorded in his Norfolk Broads at the grand house
COLLECTION annals – the other being “The of Victor Trevor, his only friend at
The Memoirs of Sherlock Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual” university (probably Oxford or
Holmes, 1894 (pp.120–25). Indeed, Holmes declares Cambridge, but this is a point of
it to be the very first case he was debate). Over a glass of port one
CHARACTERS ever engaged in. It features two evening, young Victor’s father,
Victor Trevor senior of Conan Doyle’s favorite themes: Victor Trevor senior, asked Holmes
Justice of the Peace in to demonstrate his deductive
the Norfolk Broads. He was the powers, which his son had been
only friend I made extolling. “Come, now, Mr. Holmes,”
Victor Trevor junior Son he said, “I’m an excellent subject, if
of Trevor senior, and an old during the two you can deduce anything from me.”
college friend of Holmes. years I was at
college. I was never Trevor senior, a justice of the
Beddoes Fellow prisoner, a very sociable peace with a reputation for leniency,
mutineer, and friend of fellow, Watson. was taken aback by Holmes’s
Victor Trevor senior. Sherlock Holmes perception that in recent months
he had been going about in fear of
Hudson Sailor on the attack. Holmes’s remarkable insight
Gloria Scott. was based on a shrewd observation
of Trevor’s walking stick: he could
Jack Prendergast Leader tell from the inscription that the
of the mutiny on board the stick was less than a year old,
Gloria Scott. and further noted that it had been
hollowed out at the top and filled
with lead—presumably in order
to be used as a weapon.

Holmes also observed from his It seems to me THE GLORIA SCOTT 117
host’s flattened and thickened ears that all the detectives
that he was once a boxer (a shared Once recovered, Trevor senior
enthusiasm), while his callused of fact and of fancy claimed, rather unconvincingly,
hands suggested digging. Trevor would be children that “J.A.” was an old flame. Yet
senior explained that he had made afterward he was so uneasy that
his fortune prospecting for gold. in your hands. Holmes resolved to leave. However,
Victor Trevor senior the day before his departure, an
Holmes, who had earlier uninvited guest arrived—an “acid-
observed a semi-erased tattoo on astute, albeit unofficial, detective faced” old sailor named Hudson.
the man’s arm, then added, “And work, “That’s your line of life, sir, Trevor senior clearly knew the
you have been most intimately and you may take the word of a sinister-looking man, and poured
associated with someone whose man who has seen something of himself a large brandy. “Why, it’s
initials were J.A., and whom you the world.” And that, describes thirty year and more since I saw
afterwards were eager to entirely Holmes to the listening Watson, you last,” said Hudson. “Here you
forget.” At this, to both Holmes’s was the moment he realized that are in your house, and me still
and Trevor junior’s astonishment, he might make a profession out picking my salt meat out of the
Trevor senior slowly stood, stared of detective work. harness cask.” When he mentioned
wildly at Holmes, then fainted. a mutual acquaintance called
When he came to, Trevor senior Beddoes, Trevor senior, clearly in
declared in admiration of Holmes’s shock, drank himself into a stupor.

Tea clippers like the Gloria Scott were A fatal message
built for speed, and designed to carry Seven weeks later, back in London,
light loads. The only surviving intact Holmes received a telegram from
example is the Cutty Sark (below), now Trevor junior imploring him to
moored in Greenwich, London. return to Norfolk, where his father
had suffered a massive stroke. ❯❯

118 THE GREAT DETECTIVE

Beddoes warns The supply of game for London is letter revealed that his real name
Trevor senior going steadily up. Head-keeper Hudson, was James Armitage—“J.A.”—and
by way of a cryptic we believe, has been now told to receive all explained how, as a young man
code. The full coded orders for fly-paper and for preservation working in a London bank, he had
message is shown stolen money in order to pay a debt,
here, but Holmes of your hen pheasant ’s life. intending to return it before anyone
deduces that taking noticed. However, he had been
every third word caught, tried, and sentenced to
(in bold) reveals transportation aboard the Gloria
its true meaning. Scott, bound for Australia.
The use of coded
messages for secret Here the plot thickened. It was
communications October 1855, and transportation
was common in ships had been enlisted for military
Victorian Britain. uses because of the Crimean War
(1853–1856). The ship carrying
But by the time Holmes reached validate the message’s authenticity, Armitage was, in fact, a repurposed
Trevor’s hamlet, the old man confirming that Beddoes, an avid tea clipper, a lightweight vessel
was dead. It transpired that, since hunter, wrote it. But Hudson’s overloaded with almost a hundred
Holmes’s last visit, Hudson had role remained unexplained. crew, prisoners, and soldiers.
exerted a strange hold over Trevor
senior and for weeks had terrorized A deathbed confession At sea, an inmate named Jack
the household. Things came to a As Trevor senior gasped his last Prendergast let Armitage in on
head when an argument broke out breath, he told his doctor where to an elaborate escape plot. It was
between Hudson and Trevor junior. find a letter he had written for his already well prepared and financed,
Young Victor had then refused to son in the event of his death. The and Prendergast’s partner was busy
apologize, at which Hudson left for masquerading as the ship’s own
Beddoes’ Hampshire estate. And it chaplain, and secretly bribing the
was a brief, cryptic message (see
above) from there, received the day
before Holmes’s return to the house,
that had brought on the stroke.

The budding detective took
some time to decipher the strange
message. He read it backward,
then tried alternate words, before
realizing the key lay in every third
word, starting with the first: “The
game is up. Hudson has told all.
Fly for your life.” No wonder Trevor
senior was so affected. But why
the bizarre “Head-keeper” and
“hen pheasants,” and what secret
was Hudson harboring? The odd
choice of filler words seemed to

The murder of the ship’s captain,
illustrated here by Paget in The Strand
Magazine, is part of the violent and
bloodthirsty mutiny that led Armitage
and Evans to flee the ship.

Those are the facts They escaped in a lifeboat, but THE GLORIA SCOTT 119
of the case, Doctor, as they rowed away the Gloria Scott
and if they are of any exploded and they turned back to Transportation
use to your collection, search for survivors. There was only
I am sure that they one amid the wreckage: Hudson. It The transportation of British
transpired that a bullet had ignited criminals to the far reaches
are very heartily the ship’s gunpowder. of the Empire was a staple of
at your service. 19th-century justice, and had
Sherlock Holmes The men were picked up off been since Elizabethan times.
Cape Verde by a brig heading for Convicts were usually forced
crew and bringing weaponry into Australia, and managed to convince to do hard labor—a practice
the 38 inmates’ cells. They seemed their rescuers they were from a that was seen to kill two birds
so certain to overwhelm the 18 foundered passenger ship. Once with one stone, since it not
soldiers and a mere few others in Australia, Armitage and Evans only removed the convict
that Armitage decided to join in. created new identities, renaming from British society but also
themselves Trevor and Beddoes, provided the colonies with a
A violent mutiny respectively, and both made their supply of workers. In the early
The violence of the mutiny that fortunes. Returning later to England, days, felons were sent to work
took place is described in full, gory with their pasts safely buried, it for the Virginia Company in
detail. Conan Doyle, who twice was clear why the return of Hudson, America, but after American
served as a ship’s surgeon—in the with his knowledge of their part in independence, Australia
Arctic on the whaler Hope in 1880, the mutiny, was so disconcerting. became the focus, the first 700
and off the West African coast on convicts landing in Botany Bay,
the steamer Mayumba in 1881— In concluding his reminiscence, near Sydney, in 1788. Although
has Prendergast ruthlessly cut the Holmes tells how Victor junior— the practice ended in New
throat of the bound and gagged heartbroken about his father’s South Wales by 1851 and in
convict ship’s surgeon. Interestingly, disreputable past—became a tea Tasmania by 1853, it continued
however, there is a curious planter in India. And it turned out in Western Australia until
difference between the original that Beddoes’ warning that Hudson 1868, by which time over
British and American descriptions had “told all” had been wrong. Both 160,000 convicts had been
of the murdered ship’s captain. In Beddoes and Hudson vanished, but delivered to the country. Had
the British edition, he “lay with his although the police thought Hudson Trevor senior’s crime been
head on the chart of the Atlantic,” had killed Beddoes, Holmes himself committed 33 years earlier, his
whereas the American edition suspected the opposite, and that story would have been very
described “his brains smeared over Beddoes had fled the country. different. As his confessional
the chart of the Atlantic.” The jury letter from the 1880s states,
is still out as to which of these A likely inspiration “The case might have been
was Conan Doyle’s original. Apart from this surmise, Holmes dealt with leniently, but the
does little more in this case than laws were more harshly
Uneasy with all the wanton decode the cryptic message and administered thirty years ago.”
bloodletting, several men, including read a confessional letter: indeed,
Armitage and another friend named the whole case is largely a frame
Evans, wanted no more part in it. for a pirate story (Conan Doyle was
enthusiastic about the genre, and
in 1922 wrote a collection called
Tales of Pirates and Blue Water).

“The Gloria Scott” may have been
inspired by a real-life case of mutiny,
aboard the convict ship Cyprus in
1829, in which some convicts refused
to take part. Two rowed away—and
the captain who picked them up
was named Hudson. ■

120 IN CONTEXT

IN MY INMOST TYPE
HEART I BELIEVED Short story
THAT I COULD
SUCCEED WHERE FIRST PUBLICATION
OTHERS FAILED UK: May 1893
US: May 1893
THE MUSGRAVE RITUAL (1893)
COLLECTION
The Memoirs of
Sherlock Holmes, 1894

CHARACTERS
Reginald Musgrave Old
acquaintance of Holmes and
owner of Hurlstone estate.

Richard Brunton Former
butler at Hurlstone; a widower
and womanizer.

Rachel Howells Second
maid at Hurlstone and
Brunton’s former fiancée.

I t is no surprise that “The
Musgrave Ritual” was one of
Conan Doyle’s favorite stories.
Brimming with intrigue, it features
buried treasure, a baffling coded
message, and even a link to the
English Civil War that adds a
piquant element of historical drama.

Although the story begins
with Watson addressing the reader
in the usual way, it is actually
Holmes who narrates most of the
action, since it occurred long before
the doctor moved into 221B Baker
Street. In fact, it is the second-
earliest case in the Holmes canon,
following on from “The Gloria
Scott” (pp.116–19).

An untidy flatmate
On a winter’s evening in 1888,
at 221B, soon after the publication
of A Study in Scarlet (pp.36–45)

THE MUSGRAVE RITUAL 121

The 1943 movie Sherlock Holmes
Faces Death takes the name and ritual
from “The Musgrave Ritual,” but bears
little resemblance to the original story.

and around the time of the events British Museum (and close to where A butler and a battle-ax
in The Valley of Fear (pp.212–21), Conan Doyle once lived). Musgrave Musgrave explains that the mystery
Watson is berating Holmes for his tells Holmes that his father died two concerns the disappearance of his
untidiness and famous domestic years ago, and that he is now in butler, Richard Brunton, an educated
peccadilloes: his habit of keeping possession of Hurlstone, the family man who has served the family for
cigars in the coal scuttle, stashing home. In response to an enquiry over 20 years. He is a notorious
tobacco in a Persian slipper, and about his career, Holmes remarks, womanizer and recently broke off
pinning letters to the mantelpiece “I have taken to living by my wits,” his engagement to a maid, Rachel
with a jackknife. It is hard to making him a paradigm of the self- Howells, in favor of another servant,
disagree with Watson’s complaint made man. Musgrave is pleased to causing great uproar.
that pistol practice is best saved for hear it, since there is a mystery to
outdoors. Yet Holmes’s decoration of be solved and the police are unable In the small hours of the previous
the wall with bullet holes that spell to shed any light on the matter. Thursday night, Musgrave had been
out “VR” (Victoria Regina) is not unable to sleep, and had gone to ❯❯
only evidence of his patriotism, it is
also a deft piece of contextual data
from Conan Doyle, as June 1887
had marked Queen Victoria’s
Golden Jubilee.

It is Holmes’s lackadaisical
housekeeping that prompts him to
tell Watson about the “Musgrave
Ritual.” Ruefully accepting Watson’s
suggestion to tidy up, Holmes starts
with a box containing a record of his
earlier cases and chances on one
that “really is something a little
recherché,” withdrawing a set of
perplexing items: an old, crumpled
piece of paper, a weathered key,
a wooden peg attached to some
string, and some rusty metal discs—
the residual traces of the case.

A familiar new client
After his success as a student in
the case of “The Gloria Scott,”
Holmes earned a reputation as an
investigator at university, spurring
several fellow students to offer him
investigative work. Reginald
Musgrave—a shy and aristocratic
man—was one of them. Having
been out of touch for four years,
Musgrave visits Holmes at his
Montague Street lodgings, near the

122 THE GREAT DETECTIVE

retrieve a book from the billiards If we could find that spot we a hysterical attack and had to be
room. He was alarmed to see a light should be in a fair way towards confined to bed. Three days later,
coming from under the door of the finding what the secret was... she too disappeared. Footprints ran
library and, suspecting burglars, he from her window, across the lawn,
picked up an old battle-ax from a Sherlock Holmes and stopped at the edge of a lake.
wall display and peeped in through Musgrave and the staff suspected
a crack in the door. He was amazed The disappearances the worst of the “poor demented
to see his butler examining “a slip It was three days later that Brunton girl,” but dredging the lake had
of paper which looked like a map.” mysteriously vanished. His bed had revealed only an old linen bag filled
Musgrave then watched as Brunton not been slept in, and no one knows with “a mass of old rusted and
headed to the bureau, removed a how he could have left the house— discoloured metal and several dull-
second document, and began to the doors and windows were locked. coloured pieces of pebble or glass.”
study it carefully and meticulously. Also, his effects (except for a black
Furious, Musgrave confronted suit and slippers) were all left behind. Holmes’s curiosity is aroused,
Brunton, who turned “livid with A thorough search of labyrinthine and he says he must see the Ritual.
fear” and thrust the maplike paper Hurlstone, parts of which date back Although Musgrave cannot see
into his pocket. Musgrave fired him to 1607, proved fruitless—no trace of its relevance, he duly brings the
on the spot, but Brunton managed the butler could be found. document with him to Montague
to barter for a week’s notice. Street to show Holmes, pointing out
In the meantime, another that there is no date inscribed on it,
Musgrave explains to Holmes curious incident had occurred. but that the spelling is of the mid-
that the document taken from the When Rachel Howells, the second 17th century—almost the same age
bureau was a strange old family maid and Brunton’s snubbed as the house itself. Holmes instantly
“observance” called the Musgrave fiancée, told Musgrave that the grasps the document as being
Ritual. This document is no secret, butler was missing, she suffered “immensely practical,” declaring
and consists of a series of arcane- the butler an extremely clever man
sounding questions and answers with “a clearer insight than ten
that, for generations, each Musgrave generations of his masters.”
has read out upon reaching maturity.
Musgrave is certain the Ritual is Over the oak, under the elm
of no relevance to the case, saying That afternoon, Holmes travels
it is of “no practical use whatever.” down to Hurlstone with Musgrave.
Holmes clearly has other ideas, As he describes his journey, he
but allows his client to continue. intones to Watson that it had already

Richard Brunton Brunton, with his “insatiable
curiosity,” recalls Holmes
Originally a schoolmaster, Richard himself. However, unlike the
Brunton was first employed by detective, he is scuppered by
Musgrave’s father. The description his inability to control himself:
we are given is initially rather a fatal flaw reminiscent of pride
humorous—one can picture this or hubris in classical drama.
flamboyant intellectual in “a quiet
country district,” dazzling the local Although Conan Doyle
ladies with his “splendid forehead” has been criticized for thin
and flair for music and languages. characterization, Brunton comes
Musgrave compares him to Don across vividly, even if Holmes
Juan, the mythic European encounters him only as a barely
libertine. This legendary lothario recognizable corpse. So vividly,
was a stock figure in celebrated in fact, that the reader might
works by Byron, Mozart, Pushkin, forget he is described in three
and others. It is interesting that layers of narration: Musgrave’s,
Holmes’s, and Watson’s.

THE MUSGRAVE RITUAL 123

After examining the Musgrave Whose was it? The first questions
Ritual, Holmes deduces what His who is gone. refer to the treasure’s
Brunton had already discovered, Who shall have it? owner (Charles I) and
that the Ritual contained directions He who will come. the person for whom it
to a hidden treasure, entrusted to What was the month? is intended (his son).
the Musgraves centuries ago. At a The sixth from the first.
certain time of year, the directions Where was the sun? The two trees
can be followed using the shadows Over the oak. enable Holmes to
cast by the trees in the grounds of Where was the shadow? calculate the starting
Hurlstone, Musgrave’s estate. Under the elm. point from which to
How was it stepped? find the treasure’s
Indicates the month North by ten and by ten, east
of June, when the by five and by five, south by location.
sun is in the correct two and by two, west by one
position to guide and by one, and so under. Refers to the pact
What shall we give for it? made between the
the seeker. All that is ours. Musgraves and the
Why should we give it? Royal Family to
Shows the For the sake of the trust. protect the crown.
number of steps to
take, the direction, and,
crucially, the need to
seek “under” the

final location.

become clear to him “that there asks Musgrave if there is an elm, shadow would have reached at the
were not three separate mysteries and learns that one was cut down exact moment when the sun is just
here, but one only”: the Ritual, as after being struck by lightning 10 higher than the oak. He puts a rod
well as the disappearance of Brunton years before, but a mark on the into the ground where the elm had
and Howells, all share a common lawn shows where the tree once been, and follows its shadow to a
denominator. To Holmes, it is clear stood (midway between the oak point calculated on the basis of
that the Ritual (see above) is in fact and the house). When questioned the elm’s 64-foot height. This takes
a cipher, giving measurements that on the height of the tree, Musgrave him to a spot by the house that is
plot a course to a particular spot. conveniently recalls from his marked by a “conical depression”—
If Holmes can find that, then he will trigonometry lessons that it was more evidence of Brunton having
almost certainly discover the secret exactly 64 feet tall. Holmes enquires also followed the same path. From
that will enable him to solve the if the butler ever asked him the this starting point, Holmes begins
entire mystery. same question and Musgrave, to step north, east, south, and west,
astonished, recalls that he had following the words of the Ritual.
The detective works through the indeed, only a few months ago. They lead him through a heavy old
document, applying his usual logic. door in the house’s oldest part and
The oak tree is easy to identify—it Stepping it out into a stone passageway behind it
is situated directly in front of the Holmes intuits from the wording where the “sun shone full upon the
house and extremely ancient, so of the Ritual that the starting spot passage floor.” Holmes is convinced
it would have certainly been there must be the point that the elm’s he has found the correct location. ❯❯
when the Ritual was drawn up. He

124 THE GREAT DETECTIVE

This illustration by Sidney Paget first
appeared in The Strand Magazine. It
shows Holmes, right, examining the
ancient oak tree that was the first step
mentioned in the Musgrave Ritual.

Beneath the flagstones leaves no time to wonder about such story since its publication. For
However, when he looks down, intricacies. Anticipating what they instance, in the original version of
hoping to see evidence of a hiding might find, Holmes asks Musgrave the story, the reference to the time
place beneath the paving—as the to summon the county police. Then, of year (June) was absent from the
Ritual implies—to his dismay he with a police constable, Holmes lifts Ritual; Conan Doyle added it later,
sees that the paving stones were up the flagstone and peers into presumably after realizing that it
cemented together many years ago the hole beneath. There he sees a would have a vital effect on the
and Brunton cannot possibly have square chamber, a little deeper than shadows’ trajectories. Yet even
moved them. But Musgrave tells the height of a man: on one side is with this addition, the Ritual still
him that there is a cellar hidden a “brass-bound wooden box,” with doesn’t specify the time of day,
beneath, and leads him down. Now an old key in its lock. On the other, which would put the elm’s shadow
it is clear they have found the correct a gruesome, black-clad corpse: the in an opposite direction depending
spot—and they are not the only over-inquisitive butler. on whether it was morning or
ones to have visited recently. evening. The story also does not
The reality of the Ritual account for new trees growing
Here, in the dark cellar, they Although the Ritual wording is during the three centuries since
find Brunton’s “shepherd’s-check beguiling, Holmesian experts agree the Ritual was penned; and the final
muffler” tied around an iron ring that, in reality, there is no way the two steps that lead into the corridor
that is attached to a large, heavy L-shaped house, the oak tree, and are made moving west, even though
flagstone in the floor. Although it the elm could have been arranged “the setting sun shone full upon the
might strike the reader as odd that in such a way that the Ritual makes passage floor.” However, such
this room was never investigated sense; in addition, there are various discrepancies play no part in the
in the supposedly “cellar to garret” other issues that have plagued the thrilling climax of this story.
search, the intensifying excitement
The mystery accomplice
The discovery of Brunton’s body is
tantalizingly inconclusive: Holmes
has only solved part of the mystery.
He reaches the full solution by using
his trademark technique of putting

No man could have
recognized that distorted
liver-coloured countenance.

Sherlock Holmes

THE MUSGRAVE RITUAL 125

Here was the secret of her that scientific measurements could that his ancestor Ralph Musgrave
blanched face, her shaken be affected by subtle personal bias. had been a prominent Cavalier and
nerves, her peals of hysterical Holmes’s use of the word preempts “right-hand man to Charles II in his
laughter on the next morning. its employment in the 20th century wanderings.” With a quick polish,
by psychologists like Wilhelm Wundt Holmes achieves a dazzling shine
Sherlock Holmes and Carl Jung, who highlighted the on one of the old gems, and realizes
effect of individual subjectivity in the “double ring” of rusted metal is
“myself in the man’s place.” It is psychological judgments. in fact the lost crown of the Stuarts,
an apposite remark, since he has and the dull stones are its gems. All
literally been tracing Brunton’s Holmes establishes that Brunton had been safely stored at Hurlstone
steps to the letter, following the would have needed an accomplice in anticipation of the restoration of
felon’s every move in a manner to lift the flagstone, and correctly the monarchy after the Civil War.
more pronounced than anywhere surmises that he had sought the help
else in the canon. of his old flame, Rachel Howells. In reality, the Stuart crown was
But Brunton had not counted on his melted down, but Conan Doyle
There is a moment of cheeky former lover vindictively kicking exploits an alluring—and even
braggadocio from Holmes when away the wooden wedge keeping historically plausible—possibility.
he tells Watson that “the matter the stone raised, leaving him to Nevertheless, the “unfortunate
was simplified by Brunton’s suffocate in the airless chamber. oversight” of whichever Musgrave
intelligence being quite first-rate,” descendant failed to communicate
meaning (given Holmes’s own A regal discovery the significance of the Ritual as
intellect) he didn’t need to take “the It is clear that the “treasure” Brunton successfully as the Ritual itself,
personal equation” into account. was after was the bag of objects meaning Charles II never reclaimed
This was originally an astronomers’ found in the lake, where Rachel his crown, is a little perfunctory.
term, coined when they realized must have thrown them before she
fled. Having earlier painted her as Holmes’s comment that “nothing
hysterical, Conan Doyle now relies was ever heard” of Rachel is a
on another stereotype: her impulsive loose end as uncharacteristic of
vengeance is written off as a sign of the detective as of Conan Doyle—
her “excitable Welsh temperament.” chiefly given that she is surely
guilty of the worst transgression.
The dirty coins beside Brunton’s However, it is also worth noting
corpse are from the time of Charles there is one more crime that goes
I, so Musgrave’s general dating of unpunished: Holmes never did get
the Ritual was correct. He then says around to tidying up his room. ■

A nation in conflict

The English Civil War (1642–1651) “wanderings” of Charles II that
began as a result of irreconcilable Musgrave refers to is the period
differences between King Charles I when he had fled from England.
and his parliament. In one of the
most dramatic episodes in English Within a decade, Cromwell’s
history, the Civil War divided the government was falling apart,
country between those supporting and his death in 1658 threw
the King (the Cavaliers) and those the country into disarray. The
supporting the Parliamentarians Royalist general George Monck,
(the Roundheads) under Oliver who had in fact been a good
Cromwell. It culminated in the friend of Cromwell, arranged
execution of King Charles I in for Charles II’s return from exile.
1649, the exile of his son (later On May 1, 1660, Charles II
Charles II), and the monarchy’s was restored to the throne
replacement with a republic. The and England’s brief years
as a republic came to an end.

126 IN CONTEXT

THE RESULTS TYPE
SHOW THAT Short story
THE TRAP WAS
SKILLFULLY FIRST PUBLICATION
BAITED UK: June 1893
US: June 1893 (as “The
THE REIGATE SQUIRE (1893) Reigate Puzzle”)

COLLECTION
The Memoirs of
Sherlock Holmes, 1894

CHARACTERS
Colonel Hayter Old Military
friend of Watson’s.

Inspector Forrester
Local police detective.

Old Mr. Cunningham
Elderly local squire and
justice of the peace.

Alec Cunningham
Mr. Cunningham’s son.

Mr. Acton Neighbor
in a land dispute with
the Cunninghams.

William Kirwan Victim.

W hen it was originally
published in The Strand
Magazine in June 1893,
Conan Doyle’s story about a
landowning father and son was
called “The Reigate Squire,” referring
to the father, Old Mr. Cunningham,
only. When it was included in
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes,
however, it was retitled “The
Reigate Squires,” to include the
son as well. To complicate matters
further, when published in the US in
Harper’s Weekly (at the same time
as the UK Strand publication) it was
called simply “The Reigate Puzzle.”
Interestingly, this was also the title
used by Strand illustrator Sidney
Paget in his account book in March

THE REIGATE SQUIRE 127

To prove that the earth is spheroid,
Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis,
the model for Conan Doyle’s villain, did
experiments in Lapland in 1736.

of his 12 favorite Holmes stories
(see box, p.18). “I might as well
draw the name out of a bag…”
he wrote, “…they are all as good
as I could make them.” But in the
end he chose “The Reigate Squire,”
on the basis that it was the story
in which Holmes had shown the
most ingenuity.

1893, so it may be that “The Reigate slip of a document, and see how far The exhausted hero
Puzzle” was in fact Conan Doyle’s he could reconstruct both it and the The setup for the story is
original, working title. writers of it. I think, thanks to you, unusually dramatic, and lays the
I could make it effective.” ground for the parochial crime that
Whatever title Conan Doyle follows. Holmes has just broken
preferred, the idea for the story came In 1927, Conan Doyle had to a major international conspiracy.
from “Health and Handwriting,” an choose between this story, “The The villain of the piece was “the
article published in the Edinburgh Adventure of the Bruce-Partington most accomplished swindler in
Medical Journal in January 1890 Plans,” “The Crooked Man,” “The Europe,” one Baron Maupertuis—
and sent to him by its author, Man with the Twisted Lip,” named, with delicious irony on
Alexander Cargill. He wrote to “The Gloria Scott,” “The Greek Conan Doyle’s part, after one of
Cargill in 1893, saying, “I would Interpreter,” and “The Resident the greatest French scientists and
like now to give Holmes a torn Patient” for the final spot in his list adventurers. Pierre-Louis Moreau
de Maupertuis (1698–1759) was
the leading champion of Newtonian
science in 18th-century France, and
led an extraordinary expedition to
the Arctic to prove Newton’s ideas ❯❯

Graphology There was huge interest in the In the same year that Conan
“scientific” study of personality in Doyle wrote “The Reigate
late Victorian times. Many people Squire,” French psychologist
believed personality was revealed Alfred Binet (1857–1911,
by physical traits, such as the pictured) published a key text on
pattern of bumps on the head— the subject, which he considered
a now discredited idea called to be “the science of the future.”
phrenology (see p.188). Others Just a year later, graphology
believed in handwriting analysis, received a major blow when
with some experts claiming that handwriting “experts” in France
subtle differences in handwriting were exposed for their role in the
could reveal life stories. The theory conviction of Jewish artillery
originated with French priest officer Alfred Dreyfus, wrongly
Jean-Hippolyte Michon (1806– accused of treason. Graphology
1881) and his followers, who, from never proved itself, and today it
1830, established the “science” is considered a pseudoscience,
that came to be called graphology. like phrenology.

128 THE GREAT DETECTIVE

The deceptive letter that lured The corner
Kirwan to his death offers many of the letter
clues to Holmes. Whoever wrote it was “found
was involved in the crime, and the between the
time it occurred is clear. As Holmes finger and
observes, “Why was someone so thumb of the
anxious to get possession of it? dead man.”
Because it incriminated him.”
Holmes finds
If you will only come round at quarter to twelve the other
to the east gate you will learn what part of the
maybe letter in the

will very much surprise you and Cunninghams’
house.
The varied be of the greatest service to you
handwriting
and also to Annie Morrison. But say
shows that
it was written nothing to anyone upon the matter.

by “two
persons doing

alternative
words.”

about the shape of the world, during And so, by the time they arrive at And so it begins
which he survived the winter Colonel Hayter’s house, we have Their sojourn in Reigate has barely
conditions by sheltering in a tent. a complete picture of Holmes, the begun before news of a crime
exhausted hero of international reaches Holmes’s ears. There
Watson does not explain what crime fighting, and of the has been a break-in at the nearby
Maupertuis’s evil namesake, the dependable Watson. The shift from home of old Mr. Acton, during which
baron, has actually done, stating Lyons to Reigate also allows Holmes some very odd things were stolen,
that his schemes are not “fitting to solve a local murder rather than including a ball of string. The very
subjects for this series of sketches.” a grand crime, without being any next morning they hear news of a
However, it seems Holmes’s success less the great detective. murder at the “fine old Queen Anne
in bringing him down was such a house” of some other neighbors, old
feat that all of Europe is “ringing” I have usually found Mr. Cunningham and his son Alec:
with the detective’s name, and his that there was method the Reigate squires. Moments later,
hotel room in Lyons is “ankle-deep Inspector Forrester—“a smart, keen-
with congratulatory telegrams.” in his madness. faced young fellow”—arrives. He
Dr. Watson has heard that Holmes is staying
Holmes, though, was so utterly locally and is eager for him to help
worn out by the struggle that with the investigation. Watson tries
Watson had to rush to his side and in vain to persuade Holmes to stay
escort him back to 221B baher out of it for the sake of his health.
Street. Caring as ever, Watson But, as Holmes teases him, “The
has decided that they should take Fates are against you, Watson.”
up the offer of a quiet stay in the
Surrey countryside around Reigate, It is an intriguing case. The
at the home of Colonel Hayter, “a Cunninghams have both apparently
fine old soldier” and Watson’s friend witnessed a man wrestle with
from his army days in Afghanistan.

THE REIGATE SQUIRE 129

their coachman, William Kirwan, “quarter to twelve,” so that he can with his father trying to wrestle a
outside their house, shoot him dead compare his handwriting with that piece of paper from Holmes’s grasp.
in the struggle, then leap over the on the piece of evidence. Alec then tries to pull out a revolver,
hedge and run away. The only clue but within seconds both he and his
is a scrap of paper found gripped in Holmes then asks if he might be father are under arrest. All that
the dead coachman’s fingers, on shown around the Cunninghams’ remains is for Holmes to explain
which is written “at quarter to home. When they are in old Mr. how he solved the case.
twelve learn what maybe.” This Cunningham’s bedroom, he hangs
immediately sets Holmes’s mind back with Watson, and, when no Holmes tells all
racing, but he keeps his ideas to one else is looking, he deliberately Back at Colonel Hayter’s house,
himself for now. knocks over a small table with a Holmes explains his methods.
carafe of water and a dish of The key to solving the case was to
Meeting the squires oranges on it, before loudly blaming concentrate on the scrap of paper,
Holmes and the inspector head Watson. As a confused Watson and rather than allowing himself to be
off to investigate the murder scene, the inspector stoop to clear up the distracted by the Cunninghams’
where Holmes observes another mess, they hear a sudden cry of witness statements. “It is of the
clue that he keeps to himself. “Help! Help! Murder!” coming from highest importance in the art
Holmes, Watson, the inspector, Alec’s dressing room. Rushing in, of detection,” he insists, “to be ❯❯
and Colonel Hayter then return to they find Alec strangling Holmes,
the Cunninghams’ house, where
they are received by the father and
son, the former elderly and with
a “heavy-eyed face,” the latter a
cheery, flashily dressed young man.

The two men inquire about
the investigation, and Inspector
Forrester is about to tell them
about the scrap of paper when
Holmes falls to the ground as if in
a fit. Inside the house, however, he
quickly recovers, and explains that
he has recently been under a great
deal of stress. He then composes
an offer of a reward for information,
but makes an uncharacteristic error
when writing “at a quarter to one”
instead of “at a quarter to twelve.”
Old Mr. Cunningham happily
corrects the text for him. Watson
puts the apparent mistake down
to Holmes’s illness, but Holmes
has in fact, with his customary
ingenuity, erred deliberately in
order to get the old man to write
down the very same phrase,

In a rare physical attack, as drawn by
Sidney Paget for The Strand Magazine,
Holmes is overpowered and throttled by
Alec Cunningham until Watson
and Forrester rush to his aid.

130 THE GREAT DETECTIVE

Alec Cunningham Alec is not only involved in writers are related. It must have
the murder but is also the been that Alec coerced his father
Young, energetic, and full of leader who bullies his elderly into writing the note with him, so
life and cheeriness—Alec father into going along with that they were equally responsible.
Cunningham seems to be the him. Alec’s bonhomie and
very opposite of how a murderer fashionable clothes are a perfect Holmes’s inferences are entirely
would be expected to look and mask for his brutal personality. plausible, but this is one instance
behave. When Watson first He is perhaps the epitome of the in which Conan Doyle was wrong.
encounters him, he describes rapacious English landowner Graphology has not turned out to
Alec as “a dashing young with a sense of entitlement. His be the exact forensic science that
fellow”; there seems nothing performance is so convincing Holmes claims it to be, and it very
furtive or dangerous in him. But, that Inspector Forrester still rarely proves much help in criminal
as Holmes is quick to realize, thinks he is innocent even after investigations. Experts can identify
looks can be deceptive; indeed, seeing him try to strangle someone from their handwriting,
Alec is a perfect illustration of Holmes. Only when Alec pulls even when that person tries to
Holmes’s policy of the need to out his revolver does Forrester disguise it, but it is not possible
be wary of any kind of prejudice. finally see the truth. to tell a person’s age, character,
or gender from their handwriting.

able to recognize, out of a number explains how differences in the On closer inspection
of facts, which are incidental and shape of the letters reveal that the An examination of the crime scene
which vital.” writing was the work of two people. confirmed to Holmes that Alec’s
One has a stronger hand, and wrote witness statement was false on at
Someone, Holmes says, must parts of the message first, leaving least two counts. Firstly, the nature
have torn a piece of paper from the the weaker hand to fill in the gaps. of the murdered man’s wound and
murdered coachman’s grip, leaving Holmes asserts that the stronger the lack of powder-blackening
just the fragment found in his hand. hand is that of the ringleader; that it around it showed Holmes, a pioneer
If the murderer fled instantly, as is firmer and steadier also suggests in the science of ballistics, that the
the Cunninghams had said, it that it was written by the younger of gun must have been fired from at
could not have been him. Could the pair. Similarities in the shaping least four yards away, and not at
it therefore have been Alec, who of the letters also indicates that the point-blank range. Secondly, there
was first on the scene? was no trace of any boot marks
Henry George (1839–1897) was an beyond the hedge that Alec claimed
Holmes explains how Forrester influential writer and politician who the murderer had leapt over. Alec,
ignored this possibility because argued that the benefits derived from therefore, was lying, and must
he assumed such respectable resources and opportunities belonged himself have been the murderer—in
landowners could not be involved. to all—not just wealthy landowners. which case, he must also have torn
“I make a point,” Holmes says, “of the piece of paper from the dead
never having any prejudices, and man’s hand, and most likely thrust
of following docilely wherever fact it into his dressing-gown pocket.
may lead me.” This is a central
plank in Holmes’s methods. He With the Cunninghams firmly
knows how easy it is to be blinded in his sight, Holmes then sought a
by preconceptions and so miss vital motive—and in the initial burglary
clues, which is why the police so he found one: the men were looking
often get it wrong. Even he must be to destroy a document that proved
vigilant to ensure he does not fall Mr. Acton’s claim on half their land.
into the same trap. When they could not find it, they
took the strange items to make
The handwriting on the scrap of it seem like a burglary.
paper yielded key clues to Holmes’s
sharp eyes. Holmes, it seems, is an Land ownership was a hot issue
expert in graphology: determining at the time Conan Doyle was writing.
someone’s character from their In 1873, the UK government had
handwriting (see box, p.127). He

THE REIGATE SQUIRE 131

commissioned “a second Domesday I tumbled down in a Evidently, Kirwan had seen the
book” to record who owned each sort of fit and so changed Cunninghams in Mr. Acton’s house
piece of land in the country. It as they searched for the document,
was not only a huge work, but also the conversation. and had attempted to blackmail
political dynamite, since it revealed Sherlock Holmes them as a result. The torn paper
that just 4.5 percent of people was a letter primarily designed to
owned all of the land in the UK, Kirwan’s hand. Once inside the lure Kirwan to his death, but also
while 95.5 percent owned nothing. Cunninghams’ house, Holmes had cleverly worded in order to imply
At the same time, 100,000 copies to create a diversion that would that he was guilty of the theft, thus
of American land reformer Henry enable him to slip into Alec’s room staining his character too. The
George’s radical book Progress and and find the piece of paper—hence idea had been Alec’s—“a stroke
Poverty were sold in the 1880s. he knocked over the table and of positive genius on his part,”
In 1889, the Land Nationalization pinned the blame on Watson. says Holmes admiringly.
Society was formed to campaign However, the Cunninghams
for land to become the common followed him, and, seeing that Having solved the crime, Holmes
property of all, and then in 1892 he had found the note, they had feels entirely rejuvenated. “Watson,”
Alfred R Wallace wrote the best- become desperate. he says cheerfully, “I think our quiet
selling Land Nationalization. Thus rest in the country has been
greedy, conniving landowners a distinct success, and I shall
were very much in the spotlight. certainly return much invigorated
to Baker Street tomorrow.” ■
Diversionary tactics
With a motive established and Disputes of land ownership, such
strong evidence pointing to the as that between the Cunninghams
two men, Holmes needed the piece and Acton, were common in the
of paper that had been torn from 19th century, as ownership of land
was based on voluntary registration.

132

ONE OF THE STRANGEST
CASES WHICH EVER
PERPLEXED A MAN’S BRAIN

THE CROOKED MAN (1893)

IN CONTEXT W hile it did not feature on The Indian Rebellion of 1857 saw
the official list of Conan several states rise up against the ruling
TYPE Doyle’s favorite Holmes East India Company. It lasted a year, and
Short story stories (see p.18), “The Crooked once it was quashed, Britain imposed
Man” is one he held in particularly direct rule as the new British Raj.
FIRST PUBLICATION high regard. Although narrated by
UK: July 1893 Watson, much of the story is in fact the astonished Watson asks how he
US: July 1893 recounted by Holmes himself, when knew, Holmes replies, “Elementary,”
he calls on his friend one evening. before citing a few simple clues he
COLLECTION In a clever move by Conan Doyle, has observed. It is the closest he
The Memoirs of Sherlock strategic gaps in Holmes’s story ever comes to uttering the immortal
Holmes, 1894 allow Watson to save key details catchphrase, “Elementary, my dear
and keep the reader guessing. Watson.” Although Holmes often
CHARACTERS refers to the doctor as “my dear
Colonel James Barclay Yet, before embarking on his Watson,” never in any story does
Commander of the tale, Holmes remarks that Watson he use the full, now iconic, phrase.
Royal Mallows. must have had a busy day. When

Nancy Barclay
(neé Nancy Devoy) Colonel
Barclay’s beautiful wife.

Miss Morrison Young
friend of Nancy Barclay.

Corporal Henry “Harry”
Wood Formerly of the
Mallows, and an old
comrade of Colonel Barclay.

THE CROOKED MAN 133

Holmes’s story given to his landlady that Wood is
The story Holmes has to tell Watson connected to the Barclays’ past in
concerns his investigation of the India, where they met and married.
mysterious death of Colonel Barclay
in Aldershot. After the colonel’s Betrayal in Bhurtee …the problem was already
wife, Nancy, returned home, much The following morning, Holmes one of interest, but my
distressed, from a church errand and Watson set off to Aldershot to
with her friend Miss Morrison, the call on Wood. Hearing that Nancy observations soon made me
couple had been heard arguing in Barclay could be tried for murder, realise that it was in truth
the morning room. Nancy was heard Wood tells his story. Thirty years much more extraordinary than
to shout “David!” twice—odd since ago, he and the colonel were young would at first sight appear.
the colonel’s name is James. A officers in the same corps in the
crash and a piercing scream led British Army in India, and both fell Sherlock Holmes
her servants to try to break down in love with Nancy. It was Henry
the door, but it appeared to have that Nancy loved, but her father hurried to unlock the door and call
been locked from the inside, so the was set on her marrying Barclay, for help, then realized how things
coachman entered through the open who was destined to be an officer. looked, and fled, taking the key.
French windows. Mrs. Barclay lay During the Indian Mutiny of 1857,
insensible on the couch and Colonel Barclay saw a chance to dipose An autopsy exonerates Mrs.
Barclay was dead, with blood of his rival, and betrayed Wood Barclay, and Holmes allows the
streaming from his head and a to the rebels. Wood escaped, but matter rest—natural justice has
ghastly expression on his face. was disfigured as a result of being been done, so why involve the
tortured. He roamed India as a police? When Watson asks why Mrs.
It seems like murder, and Mrs. street entertainer before returning Barclay called her husband David,
Barclay is the prime suspect, but to England. Then, by chance, he Holmes refers him to “the small
the facts don’t add up. Holmes had seen Mrs. Barclay and followed affair” of David and Bathsheba in
persuades Miss Morrison to reveal her home. When Wood burst in the Old Testament. So “the crooked
what upset Nancy. She tells of an through the French window, Barclay man” in the story’s title may not be
earlier encounter with a deformed had dropped down dead, hitting his the deformed Wood after all, but in
man (“a dreadful-looking creature”) head as he fell. The “bare sight of fact the morally corrupted Barclay. ■
who was known to Nancy. Holmes me was like a bullet through his
tracks down the man’s lodgings, guilty heart,” claims Wood. Mrs.
finds that his name is Henry Wood, Barclay had fainted, so Wood
and deduces from an Indian rupee

David and Bathsheba line in battle, where he was
certain to be killed. With Uriah
Holmes believes that when the dead, David married Bathsheba.
churchgoing Mrs. Barclay calls her But he was racked with guilt,
husband “David,” she is invoking inspiring Psalm 51, (Miserere
the Old Testament story of King Mei, Deus: “Have Mercy on Me,
David (Samuel 2, Chapter 11). Oh God”). Apparently Barclay
The king spied Bathsheba, wife had suffered the same guilt, for
of Uriah, who was one of the king’s Holmes learns that he was often
soldiers, bathing one day, and he “sunk in the deepest gloom” for
made love to her. When Bathsheba days at a time. The parallels with
became pregnant, David tried to the situation between Barclay,
persuade Uriah to sleep with her Wood, and Nancy in India are
so he might think the baby was striking, and suggest Conan
his. But Uriah, as a soldier on Doyle may have used the Old
duty, refused. In desperation, Testament story as a basis for
David had Uriah sent to the front the plot of “The Crooked Man.”

134

I CAN READ IN A MAN’S
EYE WHEN IT IS HIS
OWN SKIN THAT HE
IS FRIGHTENED FOR

THE RESIDENT PATIENT (1893)

IN CONTEXT W ith its violent backstory, A case of the jitters
this murky case is one of Holmes has been approached by
TYPE several in The Memoirs a doctor, Percy Trevelyan. Only
Short story of Sherlock Holmes—including “The recently licensed and low on funds,
Gloria Scott” (pp.116–19) and “The he had accepted a business offer
FIRST PUBLICATION Crooked Man” (pp.132–33)—that from a Mr. Blessington, a man with
UK: August 1893 turns on revelations of a character’s “thousands” to invest, who set
US: August 1893 criminal past. It is also notable for Trevelyan up in a practice, in return
its inclusion (in certain editions) of a for lodgings, a profit share, and the
COLLECTION passage on mind-reading, which first supervision of his heart condition.
The Memoirs of Sherlock appeared in “The Cardboard Box”
Holmes, 1894 (pp.110–11). When Conan Doyle Trevelyan consults Holmes
excluded “The Cardboard Box” from because his “resident patient” has
CHARACTERS the first published collection (see recently become inexplicably jittery.
Dr. Percy Trevelyan box, p.111) he was loath to lose this After a burglary nearby, Blessington
Recently qualified doctor. passage and included it here. insisted they increase the house’s
security, and then, a few days ago,
Mr. Blessington Percy’s
“resident patient” who sets Catalepsy of intense anxiety, even insanity.
him up in a medical practice. Its morbidly compelling effects
Holmes remarks to Watson that are employed in Edgar Allan
Russian count and his son catalepsy—the Russian count’s Poe’s “The Fall of the House of
Percy’s new, cataleptic patient, fraudulent ailment—is “a very Usher” (1839) and in Dickens’s
whose son accompanies him easy complaint to imitate.” 1853 novel Bleak House.
to the practice. Catalepsy causes debilitating
muscle spasms that turn the Trevelyan himself takes
body stiff and unresponsive notes when his patient appears
to stimuli. It is often associated to fall into catalepsy’s grip, but
with psychological conditions, his treatment—the inhalation of
such as schizophrenia. Although amyl nitrite—was not a common
medical knowledge of nervous one. This substance was in fact
complaints was growing in the normally used as a remedy for
19th century, catalepsy was heart complaints, as it increases
often employed by writers to the heart rate. Today, amyl
help suggest an atmosphere nitrite is more often used as a
recreational drug (“poppers”).

THE RESIDENT PATIENT 135

an odd incident had left him in deductions show that this is murder. Cavendish Square, close to Harley
tears. Trevelyan had received a new Four cigar ends in the fireplace, as Street, was—and still is—a well-known
patient—an elderly Russian count well as footmarks on the stairs, show site for medical practices. Blessington’s
with catalepsy. His son had brought that three people had surreptitiously patronage enables Percy Trevelyan to
him, and remained in the waiting made their way upstairs during practice in the vicinity.
room. During the examination, the the night. A screwdriver and screws
patient had a fit, so Trevelyan left to left in the room suggest that the reports at the end of the tale that
get medicine—only to discover both three felons had planned to build they were later aboard an “ill-fated
men had vanished when he returned. a set of gallows, before deciding steamer” that vanished at sea.
to make use of a light fixture to
The next day the men came “execute” Blessington. The proceeds of crime
back to resume the consultation, Trevelyan shares some similarities
apologizing for their abrupt exit. Investigations reveal that the trio with his creator. Conan Doyle had
Later, when Blessington returned were in the notorious “Worthingdon also struggled with a “want of
from a walk, he claimed an intruder bank gang”—a group of murderous capital” when trying to establish
had been in his room. A footprint robbers. Blessington (whose real a medical practice. Trevelyan has
on the carpet confirmed this, and name is Sutton) was a key member, the look of “an artist rather than
Trevelyan realized that the count’s but when the gang was caught, he of a surgeon,” and has written a
son must have slipped upstairs from had turned informer and escaped monograph on obscure nervous
the waiting room. The incident had prison. His sordid death was a lesions—the subject of Conan Doyle’s
left Blessington crying and almost vengeance 15 years in the making: own university thesis. And both
incoherent with fear. on their release, the men had the author and his character are
hunted him down, two of them supported by the proceeds of crime,
Holmes accompanies Trevelyan posing as the Russian count and whether Blessington’s stolen loot or
to the practice. He is sure that the his son. The three assailants are Holmes’s commercial success. ■
men were after Blessington himself, not caught at the time, but Watson
rather than anything in the room, but
Blessington insists he has no idea
who the intruders are. Holmes leaves,
disgusted, saying that he cannot
help if he refuses to tell the truth.

Criminal justice
The next day, Blessington’s corpse is
found hanging from a noose hitched
up in his room. In spite of the police’s
initial verdict of suicide, Holmes’s

It was a dreadful sight which
met us as we entered the

bedroom door… he was scarce
human in his appearance.
Dr. Watson

136

TO THE LOGICIAN
ALL THINGS SHOULD
BE SEEN EXACTLY
AS THEY ARE

THE GREEK INTERPRETER (1893)

IN CONTEXT A t the outset of this story, dramatic turn—up until this point,
Watson says he has long Watson has never heard of Mycroft
TYPE suspected that Holmes Holmes. The detective goes on to
Short story might be an orphan, given his great describe his older brother as by
reluctance to talk about his past. far the superior thinker, but with
FIRST PUBLICATION However, as the duo are discussing a lethargic personality that makes
UK: September 1893 the recurrence of traits within a him unsuited to detective work.
US: September 1893 family line, Holmes suddenly Mycroft rarely ventures beyond
reveals that he is descended from his club, or Whitehall, where he
COLLECTION “country squires,” and that his puts his “extraordinary faculty for
The Memoirs of grandmother’s sister was a French figures” to use in the civil service.
Sherlock Holmes, 1894 artist (the “Vernet” he cites was
a real person, with a special talent A forced interrogation
CHARACTERS for making precise drawings from Mycroft Holmes comes up in the
Mycroft Holmes Sherlock memory). And, while musing that conversation because he has just
Holmes’s older brother and his deductive skills may have been summoned his brother to his club,
influential government official. hereditary, he casually mentions in order to pass on a case brought
that his brother possesses the same to him by his Greek neighbor, Mr.
Mr. Melas Mycroft’s neighbor, gift. It is a wonderfully understated Melas, who works as an interpreter.
a linguist and interpreter. Two days earlier, Melas was hired
Some of my most interesting by a menacing young man called
Harold Latimer cases have come to me in Harold Latimer. He was whisked
Young Englishman. this way through Mycroft. off in a blacked-out cab to a grand
Sherlock Holmes house outside of London, where
Sophy Kratides Latimer and his associate, Wilson
Harold’s Greek girlfriend. Kemp, forced him to relate a set of
demands to their “visitor,” a gagged
Paul Kratides A Greek and emaciated Greek man, and get
national and brother of Sophy. him to sign a legal document.

Wilson Kemp The man was stubbornly
Latimer’s associate. uncooperative, but Melas managed
to extract information from him
surreptitiously in Greek, without
revealing it to the men: his name

THE GREEK INTERPRETER 137

Holmes (Jeremy Brett) worked with
his larger-than-life yet shadowy sibling
Mycroft (Charles Gray) to uncover the
motives of a brutal duo, in an episode
from the 1985 British television series.

was Paul Kratides and he was about the whereabouts of two in its driveway—the outbound
being held captive and starved. Greek nationals: Paul Kratides ones are much deeper, which
The interview broke off when a and a woman called Sophy. confirms the villains’ recent
young Greek woman entered the departure, along with Sophy,
room unexpectedly; it was apparent Murder and vengeance in a luggage-laden carriage.
that she knew Paul, although she Later that day, a man responds to
seemed astonished to see him. the advertisement. He provides the They find Melas and Kratides
address of a house in Kent where tied up in an upstairs room, where
Melas was then deposited back Sophy (and Paul) are located, and they are slowly being poisoned
in London, with a strongly worded the brothers and Watson set off by carbon monoxide fumes from
warning that he should tell no one to investigate. En route, they go a charcoal brazier. It is too late to
of his visit. However, despite his to pick up Melas, but he has been save Kratides, but Melas recovers.
timidity, he was anxious to help abducted by Kemp. When they Mycroft’s correspondent then fills in
his countryman, so he went to the arrive in Kent, the house is dark the gaps: during a visit to England,
police, and also to Mycroft, who and apparently deserted. Holmes wealthy Sophy Kratides had been
placed a newspaper advertisement observes two sets of wheel tracks seduced by Latimer. When Paul,
offering a reward for information her brother, arrived to halt their
affair, Latimer and Kemp held him
prisoner, but the language barrier
thwarted their plans for him to
sign over the family’s money.

The story ends ambiguously:
months later, Holmes learns that
two Englishmen have been found
dead in Budapest; the police think
the pair stabbed one another, but
Holmes hopes Sophy has somehow
managed to avenge Paul’s death. ■

Victorian gentlemen’s clubs

Mycroft’s members-only club, its 1834 founding. Mycroft’s
the Diogenes, is fictitious, but club was possibly based on the
its location in the aristocratic real-life Athenaeum, founded in
St. James’s area of the West End, 1824 for those who enjoyed “the
and its strict rules and emphasis life of the mind,” since it too had
on privacy and exclusivity, are a “Strangers’ Room,” the only
an accurate representation of the place where conversation was
gentlemen’s clubs that flourished permitted. When Conan Doyle
during the Victorian era, some of had Holmes remark that the
which are still going strong today. Diogenes “contains the most
Watson says that the Diogenes is unsociable and unclubbable
a few doors down from the Carlton men in town,” he may have been
Club, a genuine institution that making a tongue-in-cheek joke
had been a meeting place for about the Athenaeum, of which
Conservative politicians since he was a long-standing member.

138

THE MOST DIFFICULT
CRIME TO TRACK IS
THE ONE WHICH
IS PURPOSELESS

THE NAVAL TREATY (1893)

IN CONTEXT A t the start of this story, “The Crooked Man” (pp.132–33),
Watson receives a letter and “The Musgrave Ritual”
TYPE from his former schoolmate (pp.120–25).
Short story Percy Phelps, who is bedridden
at his family home, Briarbrae, At Briarbrae. Watson and Holmes
FIRST PUBLICATION in Woking. Phelps is suffering meet Joseph Harrison, the brother
UK: October 1893 from “brain fever” caused by a of Phelps’s fiancée, Annie. In a
US: October 1893 distressing event: he believes his ground-floor room, where in fact
career is possibly ruined, and he Joseph has been staying until
COLLECTION is requesting the help of Holmes. recently, the delicate patient, Phelps,
The Memoirs of Sherlock Conan Doyle is particularly fond of outlines his predicament from the
Holmes, 1894 using the now-archaic term “brain sofa. As with “The Adventure of the
fever” to refer to nervous illness, Engineer’s Thumb” (pp.90–3), this
CHARACTERS and appears in several Holmes scene is reminiscent of Sigmund
Percy Phelps Clerk stories, including “The Adventure Freud’s “couch” consultations that
in the Foreign Office. of the Copper Beeches” (pp.98–101), would soon become a fashionable
treatment for nervous complaints.
Lord Holdhurst Foreign
Minister and Phelps’s uncle. Brain fever stress, the ailment was typically
associated with the faint-
Annie Harrison Of the five short stories in which hearted and formed a precursor
Phelps’s fiancée and nurse. “brain fever” appears, three are to the similar late 19th-century
in the Memoirs. It’s unclear why complaint of “hysteria”—also
Joseph Harrison Conan Doyle returned to the conventionally associated
Brother of Annie. condition so frequently during with women, and considered
the composition of this collection spurious by some. Victorian
Mr. and Mrs. Tangey of stories. However, in each case readers would have been
Foreign Office commissionaire apart from “The Naval Treaty” familiar with the term as part
and his wife. its victims are women; if Conan of a whole lexicon devoted to
Doyle is implying that “weaker” the gray area surrounding our
Charles Gorot Phelps’s women are more susceptible, gray matter. Today, “brain
colleague at the Foreign Office. perhaps it is Phelps’s apparent fever” is sometimes employed
feebleness that helps him to fit to refer to certain symptoms of
Mr. Forbes Scotland into that category. Either way, meningitis and encephalitis, but
Yard detective. caused by acute anxiety and it has mostly fallen out of use.

THE NAVAL TREATY 139

The British Foreign Office sat at the
heart of the Empire in Victorian Britain.
It was a place of complex diplomacy
and political maneuvering, and a prize
target for international espionage.

The series of events Suddenly, the bell rang from the of the crime (even though it was
Almost 10 weeks previously, office Phelps had been working in. a wet night) and no evidence that
Percy Phelps’s uncle—the Foreign Panicked at the thought of someone someone had been smoking there,
Minister Lord Holdhurst—entrusted being in the same room as the which disappoints Holmes since
his nephew with hand-copying a top-secret document, he dashed stray ash at a crime scene often
secret treaty between Britain and upstairs to discover that it had provides his first clue (in A Study
Italy. To contemporary readers this disappeared. Phelps realized in Scarlet, (pp.36–45) he mentions
would have been thrillingly up to the thief must have entered via the making “a special study of cigar
date: the “Triple Alliance” between side door; he had used the main ashes”). The description of Phelps’s
Germany, Austria–Hungary, and staircase and so would have seen workplace fits the real Foreign
Italy, in 1882, was a key part of the him or her entering the building. Office—a grand classical building
system of allegiances that would completed in the 1860s by the
lead to World War I, and there was A policeman on duty outside the architect George Gilbert Scott.
indeed a secret agreement between Foreign Office saw only one person, (Scott’s own grandson, Giles, was
Italy and Britain in 1887. whose description fitted that of to design London’s red telephone
Mrs. Tangey, leave via the side door. booth—almost as much as an icon
It was clear to Phelps that the Despite the commissionaire’s claim of the city as Holmes himself).
French or Russian embassies would that his wife’s integrity was beyond
pay handsomely for such classified reproach, Phelps chased her home. A conspiracy?
information, so, as instructed by He and a Scotland Yard detective To learn more about the case,
Holdhurst, he waited until his named Forbes questioned her Holmes and Watson visit detective
colleagues had all left work before about the document and she was Forbes, who is distinctly unfriendly.
carrying out the task. Feeling searched, but nothing was found. He does reveal that Mrs. Tangey
sleepy, Phelps rang the bell for some Unsure what to do, Phelps made his is of bad character, being a drinker
coffee and, to his surprise, it was way home, having missed the train with money problems, and that
the commissionaire’s wife, Mrs. he was supposed to have caught he suspects she knows something
Tangey, who took his order. When earlier with Joseph Harrison. about the crime, although he has no
the coffee failed to arrive, Phelps proof. Other less likely suspects ❯❯
went to discover the cause of An impossible situation
the delay and found Mr. Tangey, the Several stories above ground level A cold hand seemed to
commissionaire, asleep at the front and with no possible hiding places, close round my heart.
entrance with the kettle boiling Phelps’s office provides no clues. Someone, then, was in
over—and no sign of Mrs. Tangey. There were no footprints at the scene that room where my precious
treaty lay upon the table.

Percy Phelps

140 THE GREAT DETECTIVE

Mr. Tangey Mrs. Tangey Charles Gorot
Commissionaire. Commissionaire’s wife. Phelps’s colleague, of
At the Foreign Office Rushed from the scene after French origin. Slept at
when the crime was the treaty was stolen. the Foreign Office on the

committed. A surplus of night of the crime.
suspects, all with

opportunity or
motive.

Joseph Harrison Lord Holdhurst
Well-acquainted with Foreign Minister. Has
Phelps. Has money worries international connections
following losses on the and an intimate knowledge

stock market. of the treaty.

are the commissionaire himself and into Russian or French hands, since them that he has no intention of
Phelps’s colleague, Charles Gorot, there would already have been dire catching the train and is instead
whose French name has aroused consequences as a result—and going to stay in Woking to “clear
suspicion, since it suggests a motive as yet nothing has occurred. When up” a few points.
for passing the treaty to the French Holmes remarks that the document
government. The fact that Gorot is may not have been passed on At 221B Baker Street the next
a name “of Huguenot extraction” is due to the thief succumbing to a morning, Holmes returns bedraggled
relevant here, although unexplained “sudden illness,” Holdhurst seems and wounded, but at the breakfast
in the story. The Huguenots were to suspect his nephew, suggesting table he takes a theatrical relish in
persecuted French Protestants who that it might be “an attack of brain revealing, hidden under a plate
took refuge in England from the fever, for example?” cover, the original treaty. He then
late 17th century, so it is unlikely explains that after leaving Phelps
that Gorot would maintain much After a nighttime intruder then and Watson the night before, he
allegiance to France. In any case, tries to break into Phelps’s room at returned covertly to Briarbrae.
the hapless Forbes has amassed Briarbrae, Phelps begins to wonder There he had caught Joseph
no real evidence against anyone. whether there is some kind of real Harrison making his way into
conspiracy against him. Holmes Phelps’s room, lifting a floorboard
On Downing Street, Lord suggests Phelps come to London and trying to leave with the treaty,
Holdhurst tells Holmes that the with him and Watson for the night, which he had hidden there during
treaty could not yet have fallen but at the last minute Holmes tells his earlier occupancy of the room.

THE NAVAL TREATY 141

I begin to believe that I policeman. Also under scrutiny is the “brick islands” of the Board
am the unconscious the inexplicable fact that the treaty Schools, ecstatically calling them
had to be hand-copied, given that “Beacons of the future! …Capsules,
centre of some monstrous mechanical methods of duplication with hundreds of bright little seeds
conspiracy, and that my already existed. Critics have even in each, out of which will spring the
suggested that Harrison and Mrs. wiser, better England of the future.”
life is aimed at as Tangey must have been in league Established after the Education Act
well as my honour. with one another, but Conan Doyle of 1870, these were the first schools
offered as little subsequent comment to be funded by taxpayers.
Percy Phelps on this theory as Holmes himself
does within the narrative. The overtly liberal perspective
Case analysis here—perhaps a reflection of Conan
The main difficulty in this case lies Enlightenment man Doyle’s own opinions—tallies with
in a surplus of evidence. As Holmes Of interest in this story are hints an implicit criticism of a nepotistic
says, “What was vital was overlaid about Holmes’s own world view. Foreign Office. The word “nepotism”
and hidden by what was irrelevant.” While discussing the crime with is derived from the Latin for nephew,
Mrs. Tangey’s dubious character Phelps, Holmes digresses to briefly which has particular resonance
is a good example of this, and the speculate on the nature of religion, in this story. After all, Phelps owes
treaty’s great importance is also saying, “Our highest assurance of his job to his uncle’s prominent
misleading: the reader assumes the goodness of Providence seems position, and the chaos of this
that the theft of the document was to me to rest in the flowers.” This case begins after Holdhurst entrusts
planned with a clear political aim comment—which Holmes refers his nephew with such a valuable
in mind, yet the haste with which to as a “deduction”—is inspired by document. The criticism also reflects
Harrison steals the document in his observation of a beautiful moss political shifts in Britain: although
fact suggests a purely opportunistic rose, and perhaps hints at a religious William Gladstone’s Liberal
crime. It is only at the end of the faith of his own. Holmes’s idealistic government was in power when
story that Harrison’s losses on comments carry through to his “The Naval Treaty” was published
the stock market, and therefore a and Watson’s train journey back to in 1893, the story’s 1889 setting
motive for the crime, are revealed. London. From the elevated section would imply that Conan Doyle was
of railroad between Clapham leveling his criticism at the 3rd
Many Holmesian scholars are Junction and Waterloo, he points out Marquess of Salisbury’s previous
dissatisfied with some of the Conservative administration. ■
details in this story, such as the
extraordinary coincidence that
Harrison enters the room precisely
while Phelps is checking on the
coffee, the fact that he decides to
act so suddenly, and that he is not
spotted leaving the building by the

Holmes frequently makes theatrical
gestures, especially when proving his
powers of deduction. Here, in Paget’s
illustration for The Strand Magazine, he
reveals the stolen treaty over breakfast.

142 IN CONTEXT

DANGER IS TYPE
PART OF Short story
MY TRADE
FIRST PUBLICATION
THE FINAL PROBLEM (1893) UK: December 1893
US: December 1893

COLLECTION
The Memoirs of
Sherlock Holmes, 1894

CHARACTERS
Professor Moriarty
Mathematics professor turned
criminal genius; Holmes’s
archenemy and nemesis.

Mycroft Holmes Elder
brother of Sherlock Holmes.

Peter Steiler Landlord
of the Englischer Hof hotel
in Meiringen.

O f all the Holmes tales
written by Conan Doyle,
none caused as much of
a stir as “The Final Problem.” Most
significantly, of course, it tells of
Holmes’s untimely death, but it
also features the infamous villain
Professor Moriarty (pp.28–9)—
the most brilliant of all criminal
masterminds and Holmes’s nemesis.

When the story was published
in The Strand Magazine, the reaction
was consternation, shock, even
outrage. Letter after letter of protest
arrived on the desks of the Strand
and Conan Doyle, with one woman
famously beginning her note to
the author with, “You brute!” In
London, black armbands were

THE FINAL PROBLEM 143

I alone know the absolute It was while Conan Doyle and Louise Watson engages us in the tragedy
truth of the matter, and were vacationing in the Alps in of Holmes’s death right from the
I am satisfied that the August 1893 that the author made start, opening with, “It is with
time has come when no the decision to kill off Holmes. “He a heavy heart that I take up
good purpose is to be is becoming such a burden to me,” my pen to write these the last
served by its suppression. he told a friend, “that it makes words in which I shall ever record
my life unbearable.” It was there, the singular gifts by which my
Dr. Watson in the Swiss Alps, that he found friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was
the perfect location for a fittingly distinguished.” He says he has
worn and the circulation of the dramatic finale: the spectacular already stopped writing about
Strand dropped so substantially Reichenbach Falls. When he had Holmes and is only telling this
that it almost closed down finished writing the story, Conan story now because Moriarty’s
(see p.324). Doyle wrote in his notebook simply: brother, Colonel James Moriarty,
“Killed Holmes.” is spreading false rumors, and
Justifiable homicide he wants to set the record straight.
Conan Doyle was taken aback by The hunter hunted
his readers’ extreme reaction. Later In most of the other stories, Holmes The last battle
he defended himself by saying, is the hunter, sniffing out clues The ground has already been laid for
“It was not murder, but justifiable and finally cornering his quarry. Holmes’s final disappearance from
homicide in self-defence, since, However, in “The Final Problem” the world. He is no longer needed
if I had not killed him, he would it is Holmes himself who is the by society, or by Watson, in the way
certainly have killed me.” He had prey, pursued relentlessly by the that he once was. Watson is not the
long felt that Holmes was taking up evil genius Moriarty. The entire disoriented young man who first
too much of his life, and churning tale is a chase in which Holmes met Holmes in A Study in Scarlet
out story after story to deadline must use his great skill not for (pp.36–45); he is now married, with
was a demanding task that took his usual deductions, but instead an established medical practice.
precious time away from his serious to avoid capture. As Watson says, The two no longer have the intimate
literary work. Also, by 1893, both it is now as if Holmes himself relationship they once enjoyed,
Conan Doyle’s father Charles and were the criminal. and see each other rarely. As for ❯❯
his wife Louise were seriously ill.
Charles died in October, and that
same month Louise was diagnosed
with tuberculosis and given just
a few months to live—although in
the end she survived for another
13 years (see pp.14–21).

This lantern slide made in 1895
captures Victoria Station much as
it would have looked to Holmes and
Watson as they made their escape
to mainland Europe, via Canterbury.

144 THE GREAT DETECTIVE

A criminal mind later a university professor,
but his diabolical “hereditary
In his creation of Moriarty, Conan tendencies” were ultimately
Doyle was influenced by the destined to control him. Conan
theories of 19th-century Italian Doyle would use these same
criminologist Cesar Lombroso presuppositions to create Colonel
(pp.310–15). Lombroso believed Moran 10 years later, in “The
that some people inherit an Empty House.” For Moriarty, the
irredeemably criminal nature, inherited criminal tendency is
and that their nasty tendencies particularly dangerous because
are evident in their appearance. it is allied to a brilliant brain. His
Conan Doyle gave Moriarty all high-domed forehead is a feature
the benefits of nurture so as to he shares with the similarly
emphasize the overwhelming clever Holmes (and his brother
effects of nature: Moriarty was Mycroft), but Moriarty is likened
born into privilege and became to a lizard or a snake, a sign of
a mathematics prodigy and the evil behind his genius.

Holmes himself, he has successfully Colonel Moran. Holmes knows that Conan Doyle based Moriarty on a
foiled the plans of many dangerous he is in danger, and invites Watson real master criminal named Adam
criminals. “I have not lived wholly to come with him on a trip to the Worth (see p.29), whom he had heard
in vain,” he declares prophetically; Continent. Realizing that Watson about from William Pinkerton, the
“the air of London is the sweeter for needs to know more, Holmes head of the American Pinkerton
my presence.” But before he departs, begins to tell him about Moriarty. detective agency. At the time
there is one last villain to defeat— Conan Doyle was writing, Worth
Moriarty, the greatest of them all. The Napoleon of crime was languishing in a Belgian jail
With a stroke of genius, Conan for a petty crime, where his true
One April evening in 1891, Doyle explains why Moriarty identity as the head of the world’s
Watson is surprised by a visit from has not appeared in earlier tales. greatest organized crime network
a clearly alarmed Holmes. When “Ay, there’s the genius and the was unknown to local authorities.
Watson asks what he is afraid of, wonder of the thing!” Holmes cries. American-born Worth was indeed
Holmes answers, “Of air-guns.” “The man pervades London, and
As we later learn in “The Adventure no one has heard of him.” Moriarty
of the Empty House” (pp.162–67), presides over a vast criminal
this is the silent, deadly weapon network, pulling all the strings, and
used by Moriarty’s marksman, yet with the skill of a master chess
player, he completely avoids being
If I could beat that man, if linked to it. He has such safeguards
I could free society of him, I against being identified or having
should feel that my own career any crime proved against him
that the police are never able to
had reached its summit. bring him to trial, even though
Sherlock Holmes hundreds of crimes—forgeries,
robberies, and murders—have
been committed at his bidding.

Watson and Holmes, played by David
Burke (in his last appearance as
Watson) and Jeremy Brett, are pictured
here in the 1985 television adaptation
of “The Final Problem.”

THE FINAL PROBLEM 145

a criminal mastermind who ruled Holmes and Watson Holmes and Watson do all
the roost in London, posing as a board the Continental Express they can to escape Moriarty—
respectable art lover and racing man. traveling from England, through
The police could never pin anything at Victoria Station, which runs France, and into Switzerland.
on him and dubbed him “the in connection with the ferry to Moriarty finally catches up to
Napoleon of crime.” In deference Paris. Moriarty rents a “special” them at the Reichenbach Falls,
to Worth, Conan Doyle adopted where the final, deadly
this same nickname for Moriarty. train to follow them. encounter occurs.

The dark side of Holmes London Discovering that
Adam Worth provided the bones Moriarty is following
for Moriarty, but Conan Doyle’s Canterbury them, Holmes and Watson
character is a complex figure. Newhaven change trains at Canterbury,
Moriarty is Holmes’s terrible mirror and travel on to Brussels,
image—a distorted reflection of the
great detective’s remarkable power. then Strasbourg.
When Holmes describes Moriarty
as “a genius, a philosopher, an Brussels Moriarty is still
abstract thinker,” he could easily on their tail, so they
be talking about himself. Holmes begin a week’s walk
creates a chilling picture of how through the Rhone Valley
Moriarty operates. “He sits and over the Gemmi
motionless, like a spider in the Pass, before reaching
centre of its web, but that web has
a thousand radiations, and he knows Meiringen.
well every quiver of each of them.”
This sounds remarkably similar Paris
to Watson’s description of Holmes
in “The Cardboard Box” (pp.110–11): Strasbourg
the detective “loved to lie in the very
centre of five millions of people, with Realizing Meiringen
his filaments stretching out and that Holmes and
running through them, responsive Watson have taken Reichenbach
to every little rumour or suspicion another route, Moriarty Falls
of unsolved crime.” tracks them to
The site of the
The dark alter ego, sometimes Switzerland. final showdown
called doppelgänger, is a classic between Holmes
feature of Gothic fiction. It emerges Route of Holmes and Watson
in stories such as Mary Shelley’s Route of Moriarty and Moriarty.
Frankenstein (1818), Oscar Wilde’s
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891),
and Robert Louis Stevenson’s
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde (1886). Moriarty is the Mr
Hyde to Holmes’s Dr. Jekyll. And,
just as Jekyll and Hyde are one and
the same, so Holmes is much more
intertwined with Moriarty than
he would care to admit. In order to
solve crimes, Holmes has to think
like a criminal, and he becomes, ❯❯

146 THE GREAT DETECTIVE

to some extent, tainted by the …you are now playing a meet him at Victoria Station the
association. Indeed, as Holmes double- handed game with me following morning, being careful not
says to Watson of Moriarty, “My against the cleverest rogue and to be followed, and then leaves by
horror at his crimes was lost in the most powerful syndicate climbing over the back garden wall.
my admiration at his skill.”
of criminals in London. The chase begins
Mortal combat Sherlock Holmes Watson follows Holmes’s instructions
Holmes tells Watson of his struggle precisely, taking a brougham cab
to bring Moriarty to justice as However, the “Napoleon of crime” to the station that he later discovers
though they are two great warriors is thrilled by the challenge, too. was driven by a disguised Mycroft
doing battle: “Never have I risen With his customary chilling Holmes. As he settles into the first-
to such a height, and never have bravado, Moriarty has visited class carriage reserved for himself
I been so hard pressed by an Holmes at 221B Baker Street that and Holmes, he is irritated to find
opponent. He cut deep, and yet I very morning, to get a good look himself joined by an elderly Italian
just undercut him.” Holmes always at his adversary and to give him priest. The reader may be one step
enjoys the thrill of the chase, and one last chance to back down. ahead of the doctor here—the priest
this is the most exciting chase of “If you are clever enough to bring is, of course, Holmes in disguise.
his career. He remarks that he destruction upon me,” Moriarty Unmasked, Holmes informs Watson
could happily retire, feeling his warned him, “rest assured that that members of Moriarty’s gang
great work is done, if he could only I shall do as much to you.” had set fire to his rooms in 221B
bring the genius Moriarty down. the previous evening, but that little
Like a top athlete, he wants to go Holmes is not to be cowed, in damage was done. As the train
out on a high after winning the spite of several attempts being made pulls out of the station, Moriarty
greatest contest of his career. on his life throughout the day. He appears on the platform, angrily
gives Watson strict instructions to trying to stop the train. Watson
The crucial moment of the battle breathes a sigh of relief when the
is now approaching, Holmes tells train speeds away, but Holmes
Watson. On the forthcoming Monday, knows that Moriarty won’t be
the police will be able to move in stopped so easily. He guesses
and round up Moriarty’s entire that he will likely rent a “special”
criminal network, provided he can (one-car) train to pursue them. But
stay out of Moriarty’s clutches until he has a plan: they will give him
then—since he will provide the key the slip by getting off the train at
evidence that will convict Moriarty.

The Reichenbach Falls funicular railroad to take them
there from the nearby town of
Situated in the Swiss Bernese Meiringen, where there is also
Oberland region, the Reichenbach a Holmes museum. Many fans
Falls were well known long before dress as characters from the
Conan Doyle’s time. Dropping a Holmes stories and reenact the
total of 820 ft (250 m) in a series of struggle, even sending dummy
torrents, the waterfalls are among bodies plunging into the depths.
the most spectacular in Europe. On the cliff face is a plaque
They were painted by the English marking the spot of the great
Romanticist J. M. W. Turner in the struggle between Holmes and
early 1800s, but it is their role in Moriarty. The path on which
“The Final Problem” for which the pair wrestled was then
they are best known today. Tens right beside the falls, but over
of thousands of Holmes fans trek the years it has crumbled away,
to the site every year to see where and today it ends around 330 ft
Moriarty met his doom. There is a (100 m) short of the falls.

THE FINAL PROBLEM 147

Holmes’s deerstalker tumbles into
the gorge as he and Moriarty struggle
on the edge of its precipice, in this
illustration by Sidney Paget originally
published in The Strand Magazine.

Canterbury and detouring to The plowed-up soil and torn When Watson and the police search
Newhaven. The ploy works, and branches and ferns at the edge of the scene, they find unmistakable
they see Moriarty’s train roaring the path show that there has been signs that the two men tussled on
by as they hide behind a stack a fight beside the chasm. the brink, then fell, presumably to
of luggage on a platform at their deaths. Watson thinks it is
Canterbury Station. Watson sees something all over, and he has lost the man
gleaming from the top of a boulder, “I shall ever regard as the best and
After reaching Strasbourg via and finds Holmes’s silver cigarette the wisest man whom I have ever
Brussels, they learn that the police case. As he picks it up, out flutters known”—but of course he is wrong.
have arrested Moriarty’s gang, a note from Holmes, which Moriarty For Watson, Holmes does return in
but Moriarty has escaped. Holmes had allowed him to write before their “The Empty House,” which reveals
knows his enemy will now be set on battle. The note reveals that Holmes he did not perish at Reichenbach
revenge. Holmes and Watson decide is prepared to die in order to rid the after all. The public, however, had
to continue traveling, hoping to stay world of Moriarty. The detective has to wait nearly a decade before he
one step ahead of their pursuer. written that “no possible conclusion was seen again in The Hound of
After a week’s walking in the Alps, to [my career] could be more the Baskervilles (pp.152–61)—set
they arrive in the Swiss town of congenial to me than this.” The note before his apparent death—and
Meiringen. At the advice of the hotel ends by asking Watson to inform in the meantime fans had to live
landlord, Peter Steiler, they make a the police that the papers that will with the devastating belief that
trip to the spectacular Reichenbach convict Moriarty’s gang are with his the great detective was no more. ■
Falls, where “the torrent… plunges brother Mycroft for safekeeping.
into a tremendous abyss, from
which the spray rolls up like the
smoke from a burning house.” As
they leave the waterfalls, a boy
approaches Watson with a letter,
ostensibly from Steiler, asking him
to return and tend to an English
woman who is dying of tuberculosis.
Holmes realizes at once that it is
a hoax, but says nothing, clearly
feeling the time has come for his
final combat with Moriarty.

The final moment
When Watson reaches the hotel,
he finds that there is no sick woman
awaiting his attentions. Realizing
the trick, he rushes back to the
Reichenbach Falls, but he finds
only Holmes’s Alpine-stock
(walking stick), leaning against
the rock. Two sets of footprints lead
to a precipice above a deep chasm
into which the water plunges, and
there are no returning footprints.

A LEGEN
RETURN