The sherlock holmes book

D
S

150 A LEGEND RETURNS

Conan Doyle Conan Doyle Conan Doyle’s Conan Doyle
travels to Egypt publishes Uncle Round the Fire unsuccessfully runs
Bernac—another as a parliamentary
and publishes historical novel set Stories begin
The Stark in the Napoleonic appearing in candidate for
wars. Bram Stoker The Strand Edinburgh.
Munro Letters, publishes Dracula.
a fictionalized Magazine.
autobiography.

1895 MAY 1897 JUN 1898 1900

FEB 1896 JUN 1897 NOV 1899 MAR 1900

Event in Conan Doyle Queen The play Sherlock Conan Doyle
the lives publishes The Victoria Holmes, starring publishes The
of Holmes celebrates her William Gillette, Green Flag and
and Watson Exploits of Diamond opens in New York. Other Stories of
Brigadier Jubilee War and Sport
Gerard. at age 78. as a collection.

IN THIS CHAPTER B ram Stoker, author of 1901, lines of people extended from
Dracula and a distant newsstands across the country. The
NOVEL cousin of Conan Doyle, was story sees Holmes back at the height
The Hound of the the business manager of London’s of his powers, solving the mystery of
Baskervilles, 1902 Lyceum Theatre when Sherlock a “giant hound” in western England.
Holmes, or The Strange Case of It is a curious fact that while the
COLLECTION Miss Faulkner moved there from Holmes in this tale remains
The Return of New York in 1901. The play, which resolutely worldly, rejecting out of
Sherlock Holmes, 1905 had been approved by Conan Doyle, hand the idea that the grisly dog is
The Empty House was based largely on the existing supernatural, in these same years
The Norwood Builder novels and short stories, but gave Conan Doyle was evidently
The Dancing Men Holmes an unlikely love interest in reflecting on matters of faith—his
The Solitary Cyclist the eponymous “Miss Faulkner.” semiautobiographical novel, The
The Priory School Stark Munro Letters, documents
Black Peter From stage to page his rejection of Roman Catholicism
Charles Augustus Milverton The play was a sellout, and its and foreshadows his later interest in
The Six Napoleons success was enough to convince spiritualism. At this time, he was
The Three Students Conan Doyle that there was still a also writing his patriotic histories
The Golden Pince-Nez public appetite for the detective. So, of the Boer War, based partly on
The Missing Three-Quarter while the play was still on, he wrote the period he had spent in an army
The Abbey Grange The Hound of the Baskervilles. When hospital unit in South Africa (where
The Second Stain the novel began its serialization in Sir Henry Baskerville made his
The Strand Magazine in August money). He was knighted for this

INTRODUCTION 151

Queen Victoria Conan Doyle publishes Holmes retires to The stories later
dies at age 81; The War in South the South Downs (see “The collected as The
Edward VII Africa: Its Cause Lion’s Mane,” pp.278–83). Return of Sherlock
becomes king. and Conduct. Holmes begin to

appear in The
Strand Magazine.

JAN 1901 JAN 1902 1903 SEP 1905
MAR 1905
AUG 1901 AUG 1902

Conan Doyle’s The Hound Conan Doyle Conan Doyle publishes
of the Baskervilles is given a The Return of
knighthood for
is serialized in The Strand his writings on Sherlock Holmes.
Magazine. It is published as the Boer War.
a novel the following year.

work by Edward VII in 1902—the Perhaps the use of a waxwork his having been admitted into the
king himself numbered among decoy model of Holmes in “The French “Legion of Honour” after he
Holmes’s fans and was as eager as Empty House” was Conan Doyle’s had apprehended “the Boulevard
anybody to hear more of his exploits. wry comment on the fame that Assassin.” Likewise, two of Conan
his detective had garnered by this Doyle’s own favorite tales, “The
An emotional reunion point. Yet he did not shy away from Priory School” and “The Second
The events in The Hound of the satisfying his readers, making sure Stain,” see Holmes dealing with
Baskervilles predate Holmes’s that The Return of Sherlock Holmes some highly illustrious personae.
apparent death in “The Final ran the gamut of his hero’s talents. Yet Conan Doyle’s aristocrats
Problem,” and so did not resurrect “The Dancing Men” features the are not necessarily painted with
the detective as fans had hoped. most fiendish coded message affection. Lord Holdernesse is
Holmes’s return from the dead in in the canon, while the use of deeply implicated in the drama
October 1903, in the short story fingerprinting in “The Norwood of “The Priory School,” and Sir
“The Empty House,” provoked Builder” was radical for its time. Eustace Bracknell in “The Abbey
an emotional response from fans. And Holmes’s skill for disguise Grange” is notable for his violence
Watson, too, was overjoyed at the underpins both “Charles Augustus and alcoholism. The well-to-do
news, swiftly selling his practice Milverton” and “The Empty House.” “Norwood Builder” Jonas Oldacre,
to move back into 221B Baker Street. meanwhile, is an out-and-out
Watson later discovers that the Exclusive company fiend. As in The Hound of the
practice was bought by a relative of These stories also often see Holmes Baskervilles, the tales in this
Holmes, revealing—with wonderful hobnobbing with a high-society collection often play out in
understatement on Conan Doyle’s crowd. In “The Golden Pince-Nez,” controlled, out-of-town environments,
part—that the feeling was mutual. there is a tantalizing reference to away from the chaos of London. ■

THERE IS NOTHING MORE

STIMULATING

THAN A CASE WHERE

EVERYTHING

GOES AGAINST YOU

THE HOUND OF THE
BASKERVILLES (1902)



154 A LEGEND RETURNS

IN CONTEXT Chapters 1 & 2 Chapter 4 Chapter 6
Dr. Mortimer comes Sir Henry receives At Baskerville Hall,
TYPE to 221B Baker Street a warning note and Watson meets the
Novel and relates the legend has a boot stolen suspicious servants,
of Sir Hugo Baskerville the Barrymores, and
FIRST PUBLICATION from his hotel. learns that an escaped
UK: The Strand Magazine, and the hound. convict is on the loose.
August 1901
Chapter 3 Chapter 5
NOVEL PUBLICATION Sir Henry Baskerville Holmes sends
George Newnes, arrives in London; a Watson to Dartmoor
March 1902 huge, glowing hound with Sir Henry, who
is seen on the moor. has inherited
CHARACTERS Baskerville Hall.
Sir Charles Baskerville
Squire of Baskerville Hall, O n a fall day in 1889, a Dr. Sir Charles, has died of heart failure
recently deceased. Mortimer of Dartmoor calls after fleeing from what paw prints
at 221B Baker Street. He suggest was a “gigantic hound,” and
Sir Henry Baskerville produces a manuscript, dated 1742, his next of kin, Sir Henry, is arriving
Inheritor of the Baskerville from which he recounts the story to from Canada inherit the estate.
estate, arrived from Canada. of how a curse was placed on the
Baskerville family of Devonshire. At his London hotel, Sir Henry
Sir Hugo Baskerville The dastardly Sir Hugo Baskerville receives a note that reads: “as you
Ancestor of Sir Henry. made a pact with “the Powers of value your life or your reason keep
Evil” and was subsequently chased away from the moor.” Holmes sends
Dr. James Mortimer Family down and torn to shreds by a “hell- Watson to Dartmoor with Sir Henry
friend of the Baskervilles and hound” on the moor. The document and Dr. Mortimer, claiming that he
executor of Sir Charles’s will. warns his descendants to avoid the is too busy to go himself. Watson
moor at night on pain of a similar finds Baskerville Hall “a place
Jack Stapleton Neighbor of fate. Now, Mortimer’s friend and of shadow and gloom.” On the
the Baskervilles; a naturalist. the latest squire of Baskerville Hall, “forbidding” moor, he meets a
local naturalist, Jack Stapleton,
Beryl Stapleton
Costa Rican beauty.

John Barrymore
Butler at Baskerville Hall.

Eliza Barrymore
John’s wife, and housekeeper
at Baskerville Hall.

Selden Eliza’s brother,
an escaped convict.

Inspector Lestrade
Scotland Yard detective.

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES 155

Chapter 9 Chapter 12 Chapter 14
Watson discovers that Holmes and Watson Stapleton releases the hound on
the escaped convict is Sir Henry; it is shot by Holmes and
Mrs. Barrymore’s brother, discover that the Watson. Stapleton flees into the
convict has died after mire and is sucked to his death.
hiding on the moor.
fleeing the hound.

Chapters 7 & 8 Chapters 10 & 11 Chapter 13 Chapter 15
Watson meets Stapleton, Watson further Holmes points Back in 221B Baker
hears the howl of a hound, out the likeness
investigates the local Street, Holmes
and sees Barrymore people, then discovers of Stapleton sums up the case
signaling with a candle Holmes in a hideout to Sir Hugo.
to somebody on the moor. for Watson.
on the moor.

and the two see a pony sucked into suspects has a shady past. As behind the hound’s murderous
the bog. As Jack departs, his sister night falls, baying and screams attempts on the life of both Sir
arrives, and warns Watson to leave. signal the convict’s death. Seeing Charles and Sir Henry, is sucked to
a portrait of Sir Hugo on the wall of his death trying to escape across
Sir Henry and Watson catch the hall, Holmes notices a striking the mire. Lestrade finds Stapleton’s
Barrymore, the butler, signaling at similarity to Stapleton. sister Beryl gagged and bound, and
night to someone on the moor, and it becomes clear that she is actually
discover that he and his wife are When Sir Henry begins walking his wife. She was the author of the
taking food, and Sir Henry’s old home from the Stapleton residence warning note sent to Sir Henry in
clothes, to Mrs. Barrymore’s brother across the moor, a fog descends and London, and has been tied up in the
Selden, an escaped convict. While the hound appears—a fearsome house as she refused to take part in
looking for the criminal, Watson beast with fire bursting from its Sir Henry’s murder. It is revealed that
and Sir Henry spot someone hiding mouth and eyes. Just as it is about Jack Stapleton was an unknown
out on the moor—who turns out to tear Sir Henry’s throat out, Holmes nephew of Sir Charles who planned
to be none other than Sherlock and Watson shoot it dead. The dog to inherit the Baskerville fortune by
Holmes. The detective has been has been coated with phosphorus to murdering his relatives. ■
spying on Stapleton, who he look fiery. Stapleton, the man who is

156 A LEGEND RETURNS

The eponymous 1939 movie is the
best-known and perhaps most successful
cinematic adaptation of the novel. Basil
Rathbone and Nigel Bruce played
Holmes and Watson in 13 more films.

W hen Conan Doyle killed was already working on: The he discovered that no image of
off Holmes in “The Final Hound of the Baskervilles. It is the hound could do justice to the
Problem” (pp.142-47) something of a cliché that every hellish creature conjured by Conan
in 1893, he was taken aback by major crime writer since has had Doyle in the mind of the reader:
the strength of feeling it incurred: to think twice about killing off a “…there stood a foul thing, a great,
fans reacted as if he had killed a hero they’ve grown tired of. As black beast, shaped like a hound,
real person. The author was also comebacks go, The Hound of the yet larger than any hound that ever
aware of how lucrative the Holmes Baskervilles (actually a prequel), mortal eye has rested upon.”
franchise had been—and could be is a mightily impressive and
again. And so he eventually relented memorable one. Not only did it Unsurprisingly, Holmes’s
and incorporated Holmes into a see the dramatic reintroduction reappearance was a phenomenal
supernatural horror story that he of Conan Doyle’s most famous success in both Britain and the US.
literary creation, but it was also Newnes initially produced 25,000
to become the most famous of copies of the collected installments
all Holmes’s adventures. as a novel, but the print run was
soon extended for readers in the
It’s an ugly business, Imagining the hound colonies, and the US edition was
Watson, an ugly, dangerous The first appearance of The Hound published with a print run of
of the Baskervilles was in August 70,000. Noting the remarkable
business and the more I 1901, when it was published in interest in the book, the US
see of it the less I like it. nine monthly installments in the magazine Collier’s Weekly made
great detective’s spiritual home, a favorable offer to Conan Doyle
Sherlock Holmes The Strand Magazine. Once again for further stories featuring the
the installments were graced with great detective. As a result, it
illustrations by Sidney Paget, who was in Collier’s, not the Strand,
used a more detailed wash style that subsequent Holmes stories
than he had previously. However, were first published. Meanwhile,
like many subsequent film-makers, The Hound of the Baskervilles
has become one of the truly great
supernatural myths in literature.
The book has been translated into
almost every major language;
adapted—with varying degrees
of success—more than 20 times
for cinema and television; and the
story still remains fully embedded
in the public imagination.

Holmes the masterful
The novel begins in a pleasingly
familiar fashion. At 221B Baker
Street, Holmes demonstrates to
Watson his genius for scientific
observation and deduction by
analyzing Mortimer’s walking
stick in his typically masterful

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES 157

style. But it is not long before the Keep your revolver An inspirational
fantastical legend of the Baskerville near you night and acquaintance
hound intrudes into their ordered, day, and never relax
rational, modern world. It sets your precautions. In 1901, Conan Doyle played
Holmes and Watson off on a quest Sherlock Holmes golf in Cromer, Norfolk, with a
to track down a fabulous beast— journalist acquaintance named
reminiscent of those in medieval about the hound. The paw prints Bertram Fletcher Robinson
literature—a genre in which Conan found at the scene of Sir Charles’s (1870–1907)— “Bobbles” to his
Doyle was well versed. death were real: therefore the friends— and subsequently
hound must be a flesh-and-blood stayed at Robinson’s home
Supernatural or natural animal, and not a specter. This is in South Devon, where the
In later life, Conan Doyle displayed a confirmed to Holmes when one of journalist had a coachman
personal—and, to many, a gullible— Sir Henry’s new boots is stolen from called Baskerville. Bundled
belief in the supernatural. Just his London hotel room, only to be up against the cold, the pair
after World War I, as he was returned and another, older, boot would stroll across the lonely
mourning the deaths of both his taken. Crucially, Holmes does not moors, Robinson regaling
son Kingsley and his brother Innes, reveal the meaning until the end of Conan Doyle all the while with
Conan Doyle was famously duped the story: the boot was stolen so myriad local legends. Together
by doctored photographs created that the hound would have a scent they came up with the basic
by two Yorkshire schoolgirls, to follow, but the new boot, being idea for The Hound of the
purporting to show fairies in their as yet unworn, did not carry Sir Baskervilles, and in a footnote
backyard (p.20). In 1901, however, Henry’s scent, so the thief put it at the beginning of the first
through the cool, calm reasoning of back and stole an old one instead. installment of the book in The
Holmes, he gives the supernatural Strand Magazine, Conan Doyle
pretty short shrift. From the start, Another key clue that Holmes wrote: “This story owes its
Holmes grasps the essential fact discovers early on in the story, but inception to my friend, Mr.
keeps to himself until its very end, Fletcher Robinson, who has
is the faint scent of white jasmine helped me both in the general
on the warning note sent to Sir plot and in the local details.”
Henry. Holmes knows that only one Robinson himself, while he did
of the handful of neighbors living accrue a share of the royalties,
within a few miles of Baskerville Hall was always modest about
could have sent the message. When the extent of his contribution.
he detects the scent, he realizes the Whatever that was, it is clear
source must be a woman and his that the finished Hound of the
suspicions fall on Stapleton, whose Baskervilles is overwhelmingly
“sister” might have written the note. the handiwork of Sherlock
Holmes’s creator.
The cover of the first edition of the Down in Dartmoor
novel was adorned with a woodcut by The details of the case established,
British artist and illustrator Alfred the reader accompanies Watson,
Garth Jones (1872–1955). Mortimer, and Sir Henry to ❯❯

158 A LEGEND RETURNS

Foulmire Hiding place Summer Body of
House of Sherlock house Sir Charles
found here
Holmes Yew Alley
Baskerville
High Tor Black Cleft Bronze Age Mernpit Hall
House Tor Tor hut circles House
The
Body of Bellever Vixen Grimpen Lodge Avenue
Selden Tor Tor Mire
found here Old tin Ruined
mine lodge
Coombe
Tracey Lafter Hall Grimpen road

Grimpen The setting for the story was carefully
Hamlet constructed by Conan Doyle, based on
a combination of reality and invention.
The elements are real—tors, hut circles,
and dangerous peat bogs are all features
of Dartmoor—but the arrangement and
the names (except for Vixen Tor and
Bellever Tor) are the author’s creation.

Dartmoor to face what is still an has in fact been secretly on the whose “instinct is always to do
unknown enemy. Once there, the scene all the time, the ploy is something energetic.” Certainly,
wonderfully sinister atmosphere of retrospectively all the more pleasing. in Dartmoor Watson is energetic,
the moor and mire evoked by Conan confronting Barrymore head on,
Doyle, and the dramatic events that The doctor may not have the bluntly interviewing local people,
unfold, combine to deepen the sense genius of the detective but he is, ambushing the stranger hiding out
of dread in the reader’s mind (never as Holmes puts it, “a man of action,” on the moor—who turns out to be
mind Mortimer’s) that the hound Holmes—and charging recklessly
might really be supernatural—until They all agreed after Selden, a convicted murderer.
Holmes’s reappearance sees reason that it was a huge
triumph over superstition. creature, luminous, Telling the story
ghastly, and spectral. Watson’s account of his adventures
The detective is actually Dr. Mortimer on Dartmoor comprises a mixture
conspicuously absent for a large of recollection, written reports sent
part of the narrative, but this is not back to 221B (from where, unknown
a misstep on Conan Doyle’s part, to the good doctor, they are then
for Holmes’s absence only builds a sent all the way back to Holmes
sense of anticipation in the reader, in his Dartmoor hideout), and
particularly since much time is now detailed diary entries. This gives
spent describing events, without The Hound of the Baskervilles an
the usual excitement of seeing the episodic feel that is unusual in
detective’s skills in action. When the Holmes canon. Rather than
the reader discovers that Holmes

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES 159

A group of prisoners and their
guards pass through the main gate of
Dartmoor Prison, Princetown, in 1906.
Built for prisoners of the Napoleonic
Wars (1803–1815), the jail later
housed murderers like Selden.

being punctuated with climactic observes, it is a worthy setting for sink into one’s soul…”. Like the
moments of suspense and horror, such a dark tale. Says Watson of his local “peasants,” Sir Charles
as in most other Holmes stories, the first glimpse of the moor from the believed the legend of the hound,
narrative builds, with an insistent train, “Over the green squares of and nothing could induce him to go
and increasing tempo, in a series of the fields and the low curve of a out on the moor at night. Watson
disparate and provocative scenes. wood there rose in the distance and Sir Henry are made of sterner
This endows the narrative with a a gray, melancholy hill, with a stuff, but even they are shaken to
persuasive authenticity, making strange jagged summit, dim and the core when they are out on the
it easier for the reader to suspend vague in the distance, like some moor at night looking for Selden
disbelief in the face of the rather fantastic landscape in a dream.” and suddenly hear the hound
unlikely happenings that occur. But Later, he describes Dartmoor as “… baying. “It came with the wind
above all, the tale gives the reader this most God-forsaken corner of through the silence of the night,”
Dartmoor, the unseen but eerily the world. The longer one stays here Watson reports, “a long, deep
baying hound, and a deliciously the more does the spirit of the moor mutter, then a rising howl, and ❯❯
sinister villain.

A worthy setting
Conan Doyle draws so vivid a
picture of Dartmoor, with its bleak
moorland, Neolithic ruins, craggy
tors, twisting paths and streams,
lonely dwellings, and fog-shrouded,
menacing mire, that it almost
becomes a character in its own
right. Looming over it all is the very
real Princetown Prison. As Holmes

The hound of Hell When he died in 1677, villagers
buried him under a heavy stone
Myths from many countries inside a solid tomb. Some say
refer to black hounds that are the Wisht Hounds chased him
the servants of the devil, and a to his death, and gather every
group of these sinister creatures night to howl around his tomb.
is said to inhabit Dartmoor. The Others say his headless ghost
Wisht Hounds (“wisht” is an old leads the Wisht Hounds on their
word for “eerie”) are creatures of rides over the moors.
Satan and able to fly after their
quarry. They are led by a devil In the story, Stapleton creates
figure, Dewer, often identified the Baskerville Hound by buying
with an evil 17th-century squire, a bloodhound/mastiff cross from
Richard Cabell of Buckfastleigh. a London dealer—Ross and
Cabell is variously said to have Mangles on Fulham Road—and
kidnapped maidens, been a keeps the huge animal half-
vampire, and murdered his wife. starved and chained in the ruins
of a miner’s cottage.

160 A LEGEND RETURNS

then the sad moan in which it died and had his wicked, drunken way married and had a son, Jack. The
away.” Watson never once believes with kidnapped maidens. Sir Charles younger Stapleton stole some
the hound is supernatural, but Sir originally made his fortune in South money and left for England with
Henry’s faith is not so unshakeable. Africa, and he donated generously Beryl, a Costa Rican beauty, under
As he tells the doctor, “…it was one to both local and county charities, the name Vandeleur. They settled
thing to laugh about it in London, according to a report in the fictional in Yorkshire, where they founded
and it is another to stand out here Devon County Chronicle. Sir Henry’s a private school, but it soon sank
in the darkness of the moor and to years in Canada have evidently “from disrepute into infamy,” says
hear such a cry as that.” given him a similarly democratic Holmes, until they found it prudent
outlook, for he is determined to to change their names once again
The Baskerville line build on the work his uncle did and, disguising themselves this
Like his uncle Sir Charles, Sir in the community. time as a naturalist and his dutiful
Henry is of necessity a sympathetic sister, moved to Dartmoor. Here
character, for Conan Doyle wants Very different is the other Stapleton learned of the legend
the reader to be concerned for his Baskerville nephew, Jack Stapleton, of the hound and hatched his
safety. The two are a far cry from the secret only child of Sir Charles’s dastardly plot, forcing Beryl to
their ancestor Sir Hugo, who rode youngest brother, Rodger. “The be his reluctant accomplice.
roughshod over the local peasants black sheep of the family” and
the “very image” of Sir Hugo, Masterly creations
Grimspound was one of the Dartmoor according to Mortimer, Rodger’s The human agency behind the real
sites visited in 1901 by Conan Doyle deviant activity had made England hound, Stapleton is one of the best
and Bertram Fletcher Robinson, while “too hot to hold him” and he fled to villains in the canon. From the
researching the novel’s grim setting. South America. There, unknown start, Holmes realizes he is dealing
to his English relatives, he had

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES 161

with a criminal almost as brilliant A stone hound guards the entrance detective bursts out laughing once
as himself. Paraphrasing Sir Walter to Hayford Hall in South Devon, more—an event that, as Watson
Scott, he tells Watson: “this time we believed by many Sherlockians to notes, always bodes ill for someone.
have got a foeman who is worthy be the model for Baskerville Hall.
of our steel.” In London, when a And indeed, in classic
disguised Stapleton hires a cab to in manic, “zigzag” pursuit of, detective-story tradition, Holmes
follow Sir Henry and Mortimer, he appropriately enough, a Cyclopides, ultimately triumphs over
at once spots Holmes and Watson or skipper, butterfly, so named for Stapleton, one of his greatest-ever
trailing the pair on foot, and gets its rapid, darting flight (Conan opponents. After a lengthy period
away. Knowing that Holmes will Doyle knew his butterflies). Later, of chaos, his success definitively
trace and interview the cabbie, Watson sees Stapleton confront Sir restores order to Dartmoor.
he cheekily tells the man, “It might Henry over his courting of Beryl, Sir
interest you to know that you have Henry being unaware she is the A sense of place
been driving Mr. Sherlock Holmes.” naturalist’s wife. “He was running Holmes, his Baker Street rooms,
When the cabbie then duly informs wildly towards them, his absurd and the bustle of London are all
Holmes of this, the detective bursts net dangling behind him,” reports inseparably linked in the reader’s
out laughing. “I feel a foil as quick Watson. “He gesticulated and mind, but with The Hound of the
and supple as my own,” he says, almost danced with excitement Baskervilles, the great detective is
quoting Laertes in Hamlet. in front of the lovers.” Afterwards, indelibly connected to Dartmoor
a confused Sir Henry asks Watson, too. As Watson unknowingly says
Holmes knows his only chance “Did he ever strike you as being of him, in an iconic image, when
is to fool the “wary and cunning” crazy[?]… you can take it from describing the stranger hiding out
naturalist into dropping his guard. me that either he or I ought to be on the moor, “He stood with his
He sends Watson on alone to in a strait-jacket.” legs a little separated, his arms
Baskerville Hall, announcing, “I’ve folded, his head bowed, as if he
been checkmated in London, I When Holmes first spots the were brooding over that enormous
can only wish you better luck in uncanny resemblance between wilderness of peat and granite
Devonshire.” In order to allay his the butterfly collector and the which lay before him. He might
adversary’s suspicions, Holmes portrait of Sir Hugo, he exclaims, have been the very spirit of that
knows it is essential that everyone “We have him, Watson, we have terrible place.” As the man who
thinks he is staying in the capital. him… A pin, a cork, and a card, hunts Stapleton down, Sherlock
and we add him to the Baker Street Holmes—so often likened by
That Stapleton may be slightly collection!”, at which the great Watson to a bloodhound in their
unhinged as well as brilliant is adventures together—is arguably
evident when, during Watson’s first the real hound of the Baskervilles. ■
encounter with him on the moor,
he suddenly sets off into the mire I am not sure that of all
the five hundred cases of
It is something to have capital importance which
touched bottom anywhere I have handled there is
one which cuts so deep.
in this bog in which we
are floundering. Sherlock Holmes
Dr. Watson

162 IN CONTEXT

THIS EMPTY TYPE
HOUSE IS MY Short story
TREE AND YOU
ARE MY TIGER FIRST PUBLICATION
US: September 1903
THE ADVENTURE OF THE EMPTY HOUSE (1903) UK: October 1903

COLLECTION
The Return of
Sherlock Holmes, 1905

CHARACTERS
Honourable Ronald
Adair Second son of
the Earl of Maynooth.

Lady Maynooth
Ronald’s mother.

Hilda Maynooth
Ronald’s sister.

Edith Woodley Ronald’s
former fiancée.

Colonel Sebastian Moran
Ronald’s card partner.

Inspector Lestrade
Scotland Yard detective.

T his story sees the dramatic
resurrection of Sherlock
Holmes, after his apparent
death at the Reichenbach Falls in
Switzerland, killed along with his
nemesis, Moriarty, in “The Final
Problem” (pp.142–47).

It is sometimes said that Conan
Doyle was forced to bring Holmes
back to life by public pressure. If
that was the case, it took him a
whole decade to yield. Given that
that pressure is likely to have
diminished rather than increased
over the 10-year period, it seems
more likely that Conan Doyle was
swayed by the substantial financial
deal being offered by the successful
American periodical Collier’s

THE ADVENTURE OF THE EMPTY HOUSE 163

The royal The card game in “The Adventure for the guests’ silence. But
baccarat scandal of the Empty House” was very when rumors began to circulate,
likely based on the royal baccarat Gordon-Cumming decided to
scandal (“the Tranby Croft sue his accusers for slander.
affair”) of 1890. A group of Prince Edward was obliged to
aristocrats and ex-army officers appear in court as a witness—
attended a house party at Tranby the first time a royal prince had
Croft in Yorkshire in order to play appeared in court for hundreds
baccarat, an illegal gambling of years—and the story made
game. One of the party was the headline news in Britain. Conan
future King Edward VII. While Doyle had met Prince Edward
playing, one of the guests, Sir just a year before writing “The
William Gordon-Cumming, Empty House.” One of Adair’s
was accused of cheating. Like card-playing associates is called
Moran, Gordon-Cumming was a Lord Balmoral (the name of the
decorated army officer. He agreed Queen’s Scottish estate), linking
to never play cards again in return him unmistakably to the prince.

Weekly. Therefore, the news of of Maynooth, the governor of an When his mother, Lady Maynooth,
Holmes’s amazing return reached Australian colony, and lived with came home later with his sister
the US one month before it arrived his mother and sister on London’s Hilda, she found his door locked
in the UK, when the story was exclusive Park Lane. A pleasant from the inside. Failing to rouse
published in The Strand Magazine. young man, he had no obvious him, she had the door forced
enemies, and his only vice was that open and discovered him dead—
By the time Conan Doyle wrote of playing cards. He was a member part of his head blown off by an
“The Adventure of the Empty of several card clubs, and typically expanding bullet.
House,” it was the start of the 20th played whist, but apparently never
century and Queen Victoria had gambled beyond his means. Just a The locked room mystery
been dead for two years, yet he few weeks ago, he had won £420 There was no sign of a murder
chose to set Holmes’s return playing with his regular partner, weapon in the room, nor any
in 1894, firmly in the Victorian Colonel Sebastian Moran. indication that anyone other than
era, and only three years after Adair had entered. Outside the
Holmes’s disappearance. On the evening of his murder, window was a drop of at least
Adair returned home at 10pm and 20 feet, and the flowerbed below
Murder on Park Lane retired to his upstairs sitting room. showed no sign of disturbance.
The story opens with Watson A brilliant marksman might have
relating the strange murder of All day I turned these fired through the open window
the Honorable Ronald Adair. He facts over in my mind, from the street, but no one outside
explains that the whole of London endeavouring to hit upon on the busy Park Lane had heard
society was aghast at the killing some theory which could the sound of a shot.
of the young aristocrat, but Watson
has taken a special interest in the reconcile them all. On the table at which the dead
case because he feels that the Dr. Watson man was sitting were neat piles of
peculiar circumstances of Adair’s money, and a sheet of paper with
death were of the kind that would names and figures, suggesting
have appealed to his late friend Adair had been adding up his
Holmes. The doctor misses his winnings and losses at cards. The
friend’s company, and is keenly sums were all modest, however,
aware of the loss of Holmes’s and so there seems to have been
unique crime-solving abilities neither motive nor means for the
to the wider community. Adair young man’s murder. Watson is
was the second son of the Earl mystified. At this stage, it seems ❯❯

164 A LEGEND RETURNS

At Reichenbach
Falls in Switzerland, Holmes
apparently falls to his death,
locked in a fatal struggle with

his archenemy Moriarty.

1891 Poses as Norwegian
explorer Sigerson, and
Arrives in Florence, publishes accounts of
Italy, one week later, the his adventures.
first destination in his
three-year journey. Travels in Tibet for two
years, and spends time
During the “Great Hiatus,” as his in the capital city Lhasa,
three-year disappearance is called, Holmes where he meets the “head
certainly does not rest on his laurels. Among lama” (the Dalai Lama).
other adventures, he travels to Tibet, enters
the holy city of Islam, and becomes a secret
agent for the British government.

that Watson has set up the reader Holmes!… When the doctor comes to, he sees
for a classic “locked room mystery” Is it really you? a concerned Holmes bending over
and is inviting the reader to solve Can it indeed be him, deeply concerned. “I owe you
the puzzle. However, the narrative that you are alive? a thousand apologies,” he says. “I
then takes a different, and far more Dr. Watson had no idea that you would be so
dramatic, twist, and soon the Park affected.” Watson is overjoyed to
Lane mystery is all but forgotten. The wizened old man apologizes see the dear friend he thought dead,
for his earlier brusqueness and and quickly recovers. It is a measure,
The old bibliophile suggests that Watson might need perhaps, of the depth and trust in
Watson is standing outside Adair’s some books to fill a space on his their friendship that Watson shows
house on Park Lane, attempting to shelves. Watson turns around briefly no resentment for the detective’s
think like Holmes, and “to find that to look at the shelf, and when he deception; he simply wants to know
line of least resistance which my turns back he sees Sherlock Holmes how on earth Holmes escaped from
poor friend had declared to be the in front of him, smiling. Out of the Reichenbach Falls.
starting-point of every investigation.” sheer shock, Watson faints to the
Turning, he accidentally knocks ground for the first time in his life. Holmes cheats death
a selection of books from the grasp It transpires that Holmes knew
of a hunched old man—clearly a already that Moriarty was after
collector of rare or unusual works— him when Watson was lured back
who happens to be standing nearby. to the hotel by the fake message in
Watson picks them up and tries to “The Final Problem.” There, on the
apologize, but the old man runs off narrow path above the waterfalls,
angrily. Watson reaches home soon Holmes and Moriarty encountered
after, only for his maid to show in each other. Moriarty gave Holmes
the very same old book collector a brief respite to write the farewell
to visit him. note Watson found later, before

THE ADVENTURE OF THE EMPTY HOUSE 165

Looks in at Mecca. Settles in Montpellier,
Holmes must have been France, for some months
in disguise, because while researching coal-tar
non-Muslims are not derivatives in a laboratory.
allowed to enter Islam’s
most holy city.

Passes through 1894
Persia (modern-
day Iran). Holmes returns
to London to
Visits Khartoum, Sudan, to
speak with the Khalifa (leader). investigate the Park
It is likely that Holmes was Lane Mystery.
advising the Foreign Office
as a British secret agent.

launching himself at Holmes. death. With difficulty, he climbed The Great Hiatus
However, Holmes evaded him with the steep, rocky wall and hid on a However, just when Holmes
a move from the Japanese martial ledge, while Watson and the local thought he was out of danger, a
art baritsu, and Moriarty slipped police examined the two footprints huge rock tumbled past him. He
over the precipice to his doom. that led to the edge of the precipice, looked up the cliff to see one of
While the term “baritsu” does not and reached the conclusion that Moriarty’s associates above,
exist, Conan Doyle was probably Holmes had fallen into the deep trying to kill him.
thinking of “bartitsu,” a martial art chasm along with Moriarty.
devised by British mining engineer Holmes escaped, of course,
Edward Barton-Wright (1860–1951). knowing that everyone, bar the
Barton-Wright had learned jujitsu in rock-hurler, thought him dead.
Japan, and combined it with other For the next three years, a period
disciplines, including boxing, to Holmesians call the “Great Hiatus,”
create a new self-defense method Holmes traveled the world. He
that he named after himself. relied on his brother Mycroft, his
only confidant, to supply him with
Holmes explains that, as he money and look after the 221B
watched Moriarty fall, he realized Baker Street lodgings. Conan Doyle
how useful it would be for everyone gives the reader such a wealth of
to think that he too had perished. intriguing hints about what Holmes
There were at least three other was up to in those three years ❯❯
dangerous men who wanted to kill
him, and if they believed he was Jeremy Brett plays the great
dead, they might become careless, detective in a 1986 television
which would enable him to track adaptation of “The Empty House.”
down and destroy them. Holmes Here he encounters Watson while
therefore decided to fake his own disguised as an elderly bookseller.

166 A LEGEND RETURNS

would have done so undercover,
making the most of his mastery
of disguise.

Hunting tigers was a popular pastime the UK and Russia for dominance The house with a view
for the British Raj in India, and was in Central Asia. Before he met His undercover work complete,
seen as a badge of British manhood, Holmes, Watson had served as a Holmes settled down to conduct
superiority, and mastery. medical officer in the British army chemical experiments in Montpellier,
in one of the main conflicts in the France (see p.165). It was here that
that there is enough to fill a whole rivalry, the Second Afghan War he heard of the Adair murder, news
series of adventure books. Holmes (1878–1880). The references Holmes that finally brought him back to
tells Watson that after first going to makes to his time in Lhasa surely London. Holmes guesses that
Florence, Italy, he then spent three relate to the spying, exploration, the murderer is Moran—the
years traveling the world. He even and intrigue in the build-up to the man who hurled rocks at him
posed as a Norwegian explorer called British army’s march into Tibet in at Reichenbach—and this is his
Sigerson—a character probably December 1903, led by Lieutenant chance to finally flush him out.
inspired by the Swedish explorer Colonel Francis Younghusband
Sven Hedin, who traveled widely in (1863–1942). It is a dangerous game, however.
Central Asia in the 1890s. Holmes To catch Moran, Holmes must first
mentions several places in Asia— Holmes claims to have visited become a target. He has been back
all British imperial hot spots—and Khartoum, Sudan too—another in Watson’s life for only a short
implies that he was working as a imperial trouble spot. It was the while before he is again taking his
secret agent for the British scene of the defeat of British forces friend on a perilous mission. After
government. Despite the story’s (led by General Charles Gordon) tracing a circuitous route through
historic Victorian setting, Conan in 1885 by the Mahdiyah—the obscure back streets in London,
Doyle also wove up-to-the-minute Sudanese Islamist rebellion. Holmes leads Watson to the back
global issues into Holmes’s travels. Gordon’s portrait hangs on the door of an empty house and inside.
wall at 221B, and Conan Doyle
Both Lhasa and Persia were himself traveled with the British Watson is amazed to see that
focuses of the “Great Game”—the army to Sudan in 1897, as a the house fronts on to Baker Street
name introduced to the British journalist, before the decisive and gives a clear view of their old
public in Rudyard Kipling’s 1901 Battle of Omdurman. There is no lodgings. To his even greater
novel Kim to describe the long doubt that if Holmes was working astonishment, he can see Holmes
Cold War–like rivalry between in such a dangerous region, he himself silhouetted in the lighted
upstairs window. Holmes explains

This commemorative coin was
issued in 1994 to celebrate the 100th
anniversary of Holmes’s return.
The engraving shows Holmes and
Watson overpowering Moran.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE EMPTY HOUSE 167

I think you want a little shikari (Urdu for hunter) could fall been unable to move against Moran
unofficial help. Three for the old decoy trick. Incensed, earlier without exposing and
undetected murders in one Moran challenges Lestrade to name endangering himself. However,
year won’t do, Lestrade. the charges against him. Lestrade Adair’s card-playing link to Moran,
Sherlock Holmes answers with “the attempted murder and the unique nature of his death,
of Mr Sherlock Holmes,” but Holmes made it plain that the murderer was
that it is a wax decoy, and that Mrs. has other ideas. He knows that Moran—and that this was Holmes’s
Hudson, now recovered from the Moran’s cane is the remarkable opportunity to move against him.
shock of his return, is moving it airgun made for Moriarty by a blind
around so it appears more lifelike. German mechanic called von When Watson asks why Moran
Herder. (The choice of a German killed Adair, Holmes says that he
After several hours waiting in maker for this fiendishly ingenious does not know for certain, but that
darkness, they hear someone enter weapon reflects a growing concern he supposes Adair had realized
the house in which they are hiding. at the time of writing over the threat that he and Moran had been
They shrink into the shadows and posed by German expansionism winning only because Moran had
watch as an elderly gentleman in and military technology.) Holmes been cheating. Adair must have
evening dress stealthily converts a goes on to explain that what makes threatened to expose him if he did
cane into a rifle (the cane gun was von Herder’s airgun so remarkable not promise to stop playing cards,
a stylish but deadly accessory for is that it fires more or less silently, but Moran’s livelihood depended
Victorian gentlemen), carefully and has been adapted to shoot on gambling, and so he killed Adair
aims it out of the front window, expanding revolver bullets. Thus to keep him quiet. At the time of
and fires it, hitting the waxwork Lestrade realizes that he has the murder, Adair was probably
model of Holmes in 221B. Holmes unwittingly caught the man all of trying to work out how much to
and Watson grapple the man to London is looking for: the murderer repay the players they had cheated.
the ground and Holmes then blows of Adair. Moran shot Adair with his
a whistle, summoning Inspector unique airgun through the open After Holmes has put his theory
Lestrade and two other policemen, window of Adair’s second-floor to Watson, he asks his friend, with
who quickly take hold of the sitting room. unusual deference, “Will it pass?”
prisoner. It seems Scotland Yard And Watson replies, “I have no
were also in on Holmes’s plans. The cheat accused doubt you have hit upon the truth.”
With Moran in safe hands, Watson Behind this simple exchange lies a
The murderer revealed and Holmes withdraw to 221B, touching relief that the two friends
With the blinds drawn and the where Holmes explains that he had are reunited at last, reinforcing the
lamps lit, Holmes introduces feeling that Holmes’s long absence
their captive as Colonel Moran, is truly forgiven. ■
ex-British army marksman and
tiger-hunter in India: “the best Colonel Sebastian Moran
heavy-game shot that our Eastern
Empire has ever produced.” Like Moriarty, Colonel Sebastian Holmes’s explanation is that
Moran is a man who seemed to Moran is the inevitable product
“You cunning, cunning fiend!” have everything going for him of an evil strand in his ancestors,
Moran snarls, but Holmes responds before he became a criminal. and Watson describes his
that he is surprised a seasoned He was educated at Eton and appearance as conforming
Oxford, then embarked on a to the “criminal type.” Conan
military career, during which he Doyle seemed to embrace this
fought with distinction in the popular explanation of aberrant
Second Afghan War (1870–1880), behavior in earlier stories,
and became a marksman and but here Watson responds to
tiger-hunter in India. But Moran Holmes’s theory by noting,
suddenly changed, turning “It is surely rather fanciful”—
into the man Holmes describes an acknowledgement, perhaps,
as “the second most dangerous that by 1903, the theory was
man in London” (after Moriarty). no longer so widely supported.

168 ALL MY INSTINCTS
ARE ONE WAY AND
IN CONTEXT ALL THE FACTS
ARE THE OTHER
TYPE
Short story THE ADVENTURE OF THE NORWOOD BUILDER (1903)
FIRST PUBLICATION
US: October 1903 H olmes is lamenting how dull lived in the area between 1891 and
UK: November 1903 London has become since 1894. Inspector Lestrade then arrives
COLLECTION the demise of “the foul to make the arrest, but first agrees
The Return of Sherlock spider” Moriarty when action arrives to let McFarlane tell his story.
Holmes, 1905 at 221B Baker Street in the form of
CHARACTERS a “wild-eyed and frantic” young An unexpected inheritance
John Hector McFarlane solicitor, John Hector McFarlane. McFarlane explains that the day
Young solicitor who seeks He is being hunted by the police, before, Oldacre had come to his
Holmes’s help. suspected of having murdered a office with a draft will. McFarlane
Jonas Oldacre Wealthy prosperous builder, Jonas Oldacre, was stunned to read that he had
master builder, believed in his villa in suburban Norwood—a been made the sole beneficiary in
to have been murdered. setting familiar to Conan Doyle, who spite of never having met the man.
Mrs. McFarlane John
McFarlane’s mother. Holmes displays his deductive skills to McFarlane
Inspector Lestrade
Scotland Yard detective. McFarlane’s He is carrying
untidy attire a sheaf of
suggests he
dresses himself. legal papers.

“you are a bachelor,
a solicitor, a

Freemason, and
an asthmatic.”

His watch has He breathes
a recognizable heavily as
he enters
charm. Baker Street.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE NORWOOD BUILDER 169

Unlike the original tale, in the
1985 Granada television adaptation,
featuring Jeremy Brett as Holmes,
the apparent victim, Jonas Oldacre,
is himself revealed to be a murderer.

At Oldacre’s request, he later visited bloody thumbprint on Oldacre’s builder had installed a secret room
him at his home to finalize the will, wall, Lestrade is triumphant. But within the walls. Oldacre turns out
before being shown out by Oldacre. Holmes can barely contain his to be an embittered former suitor of
Yet the next day police were alerted glee—from previous observations, McFarlane’s mother, and the intent
to evidence suggesting that Oldacre he knows the print was not there of his entire plot was to destroy the
had been murdered, and his body the day before. A brief scout around life of his lost love’s son. “It was a
dragged outside, and then burned. is all he needs before indulging masterpiece of villainy,” remarks
Lestrade, typically bull-headed, is his flair for a theatrical “reveal.” Holmes, “…But he had not that
sure that McFarlane is guilty of the supreme gift of the artist, the
crime. But to the reader, Holmes’s When Holmes orchestrates a knowledge of when to stop.” Oldacre
analysis is more compelling. Holmes false fire alarm, Oldacre suddenly had crept out at night and made
deduces that Oldacre only drafted bursts out from behind a hidden the print using a wax impression
the will on his way to the solicitor’s, door. As Holmes deduced, the of McFarlane’s thumb, taken from
on the train from Norwood Junction a seal—a play on a new technique
to London Bridge. The one passage Fingerprinting in criminal detection.
of tidy writing, Holmes suggests,
was made at a single station stop, Although fingerprinting had All this drama increases the
the untidy passages as the train been used in colonial India since impact of Holmes’s mischievous
was moving, and the almost illegible 1897, it was not until 1901 that nobility in the final moments: while
passages as it passed over points. it became a staple of British the humbled Lestrade bubbles over
Holmes also queries why McFarlane criminal investigations, when with praise, Holmes still insists on
would murder his new benefactor. the practice was imported to handing him all the credit. Even if
And if he had, why then seek out Britain by an officer who had the case’s high stakes—McFarlane
Holmes, the one man who can be trained in Bengal. Both these would have faced the death penalty
counted on to find the murderer? dates come after the 1894 if found guilty—make Oldacre’s
setting of “The Adventure of the malice verge on implausible, they
Smoking out the truth Norwood Builder,” so Oldacre ensure that Lestrade is suitably
Yet the crime scene also points to and Lestrade would both have abject before the superior analyst. ■
McFarlane’s guilt, and the next day been ahead of their time. Conan
when police find McFarlane’s Doyle himself had probably been a while: the anthropologist
familiar with the idea for quite Francis Galton’s book Finger
Prints, which was first published
in 1892, had proved that each
person’s fingerprints were
unique. This work had built on
that of a surgeon named Henry
Faulds, whose 1880 article in
the scientific journal Nature
described identifying a thief by
means of greasy thumbprints
left on a glass. To Faulds,
fingerprinting was as reliable as
photography, and it seems likely
that Conan Doyle, as a medical
man, would have read his work
and seen its potential early on.

170 IN CONTEXT

I HAVE THE TYPE
THREADS OF Short story
THIS AFFAIR
ALL IN MY HAND FIRST PUBLICATION
UK: December 1903
THE ADVENTURE OF THE DANCING MEN (1903) US: December 1903

COLLECTION
The Return of
Sherlock Holmes, 1905

CHARACTERS
Hilton Cubitt Squire of
Riding Thorpe Manor, Norfolk.

Elsie Cubitt Hilton’s wife,
née Elsie Patrick.

Inspector Martin Policeman
from the Norfolk Constabulary.

Abe Slaney
Chicago gangster.

Wilson Hargreave Member
of the New York Police Bureau.

C onan Doyle had the idea
for, and partly wrote, “The
Adventure of the Dancing
Men” while staying at the Hill
House Hotel in Happisburgh, near
the town of North Walsham, on the
Norfolk coast. He wrote to Herbert
Greenhough Smith, editor of The
Strand Magazine, on May 14, 1903,
saying it was “a strong bloody story.”
Indeed he placed it third in his
12 favorite Holmes stories because
of “the originality of the plot.”

“The Dancing Men” explores
two of Conan Doyle’s favorite
themes: a respectable person’s
secret and disreputable past
finally catching up with them;
and American organized crime.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE DANCING MEN 171

Every problem becomes do not propose to invest in South Holmes deduces Watson’s
very childish when once African securities?” Watson is investment decision
it is explained to you. Here astonished at his deductions, but
is an unexplained one. Holmes puts his test tube to one Watson returned
side and lists what he calls the from the club with
Sherlock Holmes missing links of a “very simple chalk on his left
chain.” Constructing this “series finger and thumb.
of inferences” has been but a
warm-up for the detective, and
he now turns his attentions to
another, much more complex case.

Both feature in the first-ever Mystery in Norfolk He always puts chalk
Holmes adventure, A Study in The real puzzle begins as Holmes on his fingers to steady
Scarlet (pp.36–45), as well as hands Watson a page torn from
“The Five Orange Pips” (pp.74–9) a notebook that features a series his billiard cue.
and “The Red Circle” (pp.226–39). of 15 hieroglyphic-like doodles of
matchstick men in various poses— Watson only ever
Powers of reasoning the “dancing men” of the story’s plays billiards
Holmes’s astounding ability at title. Watson reacts immediately: with Thurston.
logical reasoning comes to the “Why, Holmes, it is a child’s
fore in “The Dancing Men.” He drawing,” he says. But Holmes is Thurston gave him a
demonstrates it even before the already sure that there is more to month to decide whether
story is underway. One evening at this message than first appears. to invest in some South
221B Baker Street, in the summer
of 1898, Holmes is brewing up a The sender of the doodles is African property.
“particularly malodorous product” Mr. Hilton Cubitt, a simple country
in an experiment when he suddenly squire of Riding Thorpe Manor
announces, “So, Watson… you near North Walsham in east
Norfolk. He arrives at 221B to tell
his story to Holmes. “He was a
fine creature, this man of the old
English soil,” says Watson, “simple,
straight, and gentle, with his ❯❯

19th-century ciphers the sender and the recipient. Watson’s checkbook
The invention of the telegraph is locked in Holmes’s
Holmes’s method of deciphering and Morse code opened the way drawer and the doctor has
the cryptogram was inspired by to reducing coded messages to not asked for the key.
Edgar Allen Poe’s short story numerals or a series of binary
“The Gold Bug” (1843). Graphic- symbols (commonly 0 and 1), Watson does not plan
based secret languages were creating a more complex code. to invest in South
popular among gypsies, secret The “Playfair Cipher,” invented African gold fields.
societies, and gangs in the late in 1854, encrypted pairs of
19th century, especially in the letters or numbers rather than
US. By the mid-19th century, single characters, making the
more impregnable ciphers code much more difficult to crack
had been developed, including using frequency analysis, and
“flattening” frequency analysis unbreakable unless the recipient
(by shifting letters or numbers to knew the “key.” This cipher was
complicate the code), or secret used extensively by the military
“keys” that were needed by both well into the 20th century.

172 A LEGEND RETURNS

North Walsham (pictured) is an old extremely proud of his old family’s she has gone about in obvious
market town north of Norwich. The reputation in Norfolk and its dread of someone or something.
fictional Riding Thorpe is thought to “unsullied honour,” and Elsie, She has not said what that person
be a combination of Ridlington and deeply respecting that reputation, or thing might be, and Cubitt,
Edingthorpe villages in Norfolk. gave him the chance to break off keeping his word, has not asked.
the engagement. But Cubitt was “She would do better to trust me,”
great, earnest blue eyes and not put off, telling Holmes, “If you he tells Holmes. “She would find
broad, comely face. His love for saw her and knew her it would that I was her best friend.” Like
his wife and his trust in her shone help you to understand.” Cubitt many of Holmes’s provincial clients
in his features.” promised never to ask her about who have not traveled beyond their
her past, and within a month they comfortable borders, Cubitt is stolid
Cubitt explains that a year were married; for the following year and naïve, and is incapable of even
earlier, while visiting London for they lived in wedded bliss at his imagining the sort of peril she
Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Norfolk home. might be in.
celebrations (which took place in
1897), he met and fell in love with Everything changed Then one night a number of
a lonely young American lady, One day Elsie received a letter “dancing” figures were scrawled
Elsie Patrick, who was staying in from America, at the mere sight in chalk on a downstairs window-
the same boarding house as him. of which she turned “deadly white.” sill of their house. Cubitt had the
Elsie had candidly told him that After reading it, she threw it on drawings washed off, but, when
she “had some very disagreeable the fire, so Cubitt has no idea what he mentioned them to Elsie, he
associations” in her life, but would was in it, but from that moment was surprised at how seriously
not go into any detail. Cubitt is she took the matter. She begged
him to show her any more similar
drawings, should they appear.
Sure enough, a week later on the
sundial in the garden he found the
piece of paper he had since sent
to Holmes—and when he showed
it to Elsie, “she dropped in a dead
faint.” Since then, Cubitt says,
“she has looked like a woman
in a dream, half dazed, and with
terror always lurking in her eyes.”
Neither Cubitt nor Watson can

Our presence is most
urgently needed… for it is
a singular and a dangerous
web in which our simple
Norfolk squire is entangled.

Sherlock Holmes

THE ADVENTURE OF THE DANCING MEN 173

This is the final message that The most common The flags occur
Elsie receives from the mysterious letter in the alphabet is intermittently on different
cryptographer. Each “dancing man” “e,” so the most common figures; they must mark
represents a different letter, and Holmes
begins by using frequency analysis, but figure must stand for the ends of words.
he needs all of the messages before he that letter.
can decipher the entire code.

E L S I E/ P R E P A R E/

T O/M E E T / T H Y / G O D

Cubitt’s wife is named Using the previous
Elsie, and as the codes are codes, Holmes gradually
being sent to her it is likely identifies each letter until this
final, fateful message
her name will appear.
is revealed.

see it, but to Holmes the carefully in the garden, but just as he was cracked the code. He sends a
defined matchstick men, some in about to rush out with his revolver, telegram to an unknown person,
the same poses, others bearing Elsie had held him back, clinging and tells Watson they must wait for
flags, are clearly a code—though he to him desperately. For whatever a reply before doing anything else.
needs more samples if he is to crack reason, she did not want him to Meanwhile, Holmes receives a new
it. He tells Cubitt to go home to go outside. Evidently she knew coded message from Cubitt. On
Norfolk, and to keep him informed who was out there, and that it was reading it, and then receiving the
of any fresh developments. someone or something she did not reply to his telegram, Holmes
want her husband to be involved in. “suddenly sprang to his feet with
Holmes the masterful an exclamation of surprise and
Two weeks later, a tired and Holmes remains professional dismay.” He wants to rush at once
worried Cubitt returns to Baker and calm until Cubitt leaves his to Norfolk, but the last train has left,
Street with three more coded lodgings, when he cannot contain and they must wait until morning.
messages that have been left his excitement any longer and
outside his property, messages throws himself into deciphering Death in the study
that he says are killing his wife the messages. For two hours the When Holmes and Watson finally
“by inches.” On the night the third great detective scribbles away, arrive at North Walsham the next
message was left, he had stayed up oblivious to Watson’s presence. morning, they are met off the train
and seen a “dark, creeping figure” Finally, he springs from his chair by the stationmaster with the ❯❯
with a cry of triumph—he has

174 A LEGEND RETURNS

This sudden realization Cubitt’s pistol is still in the room, window before shooting herself.
of his worst fears left him “two barrels of which had been Outside the window, the flowers
emptied”—and Holmes points are trampled and the soft soil is full
in a blank melancholy. dramatically to a third bullet hole of footprints. Holmes hunts around
Dr. Watson in the window sash. “By George!” “like a retriever after a wounded
cries the inspector. “How ever did bird.” Then, with a similar cry of
grim news that Mrs. Cubitt has you see that?” Holmes replies: triumph to the one he made when
apparently shot her husband “Because I looked for it.” He has he cracked the code, he finds a
dead, then turned the gun on deduced from the smoke in the third cartridge ejected by another
herself, leaving her seriously passage “that the window had been revolver. All the inspector can do
wounded. Holmes’s worst fears open at the time of the tragedy,” is look on in “intense amazement
have been realized. and that a third person must have at the rapid and masterful progress
been involved—Cubitt had shot at of Holmes’s investigation.”
At Riding Thorpe Manor, whoever was outside the window,
with Inspector Martin of the local hitting the sash. This unknown The deciphered code has
constabulary for an audience, the person had fired the shot that killed already given Holmes the third
great detective conducts a thorough Cubitt almost simultaneously, so party’s name and address.
examination of the scene of the that the two shots sounded like Pretending to be Elsie, he uses
crime, and characteristically applies one “explosion” to the cook and the dancing men code to construct
his forensic and reasoning skills the maid. Elsie had then shut the a note intended for one Abe Slaney.
to try to make sense of the tragic Holmes asks Cubitt’s stable boy to
shootings. Initially the local police deliver the note to nearby Elrige’s
inspector is eager “to assert his Farm. Only then does he confide
own position,” says Watson, but he in Watson and the inspector.
is soon, “overcome with admiration
and ready to follow without Breaking the code
question wherever Holmes led.” Holmes explains how he deciphered
the messages, once he realized it
Cubitt and his wife were found was a simple substitution cipher:
in the study. The maid and the each “dance” pose represented a
cook, sleeping upstairs, heard “an letter of the alphabet (see p.173).
explosion,” then a second bang a The first message—“am here Abe
minute later. Rushing downstairs, Slaney”—revealed that a man by
they found the passage and the that name was in the area; the
study full of smoke, the window of second—“at Elrige’s”—gave
the room shut from the inside, and his location at this nearby farm;
a candle still burning on the table. and the third—“come Elsie”—
They summoned the local doctor. summoned her to him. However,
after Elsie responded “never,”
The Secret Weapon (1943) is credited using the same code, the fourth
as being an adaptation of “The Dancing and final message told her to
Men.” In fact, it is based on a number “prepare to meet thy God.”
of Holmes stories, and the only element
taken from this tale is the cryptic code. After deciphering the third
message, Holmes had sent a
telegram to his friend, Wilson
Hargreave, in the New York Police,
asking if an Abe Slaney was known
to them; the reply that he received,
that Abe Slaney was “the most
dangerous crook in Chicago,” left
Holmes anxious and ready to catch
a train to Norfolk.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE DANCING MEN 175

Abe Slaney tells him Elsie is suspected of
Cubitt’s murder, he readily owns
One of several American criminals up to killing him himself.
to feature in Conan Doyle’s work,
Abe Slaney is a driven man who What may have started as
is obsessed with Elsie. “I tell you, passionate love has become a
there was never a man in this sense of entitlement, as Elsie
world loved a woman more than was pledged to him long ago.
I loved her,” he tells Holmes. The How much say Elsie had in that
depth of his love is never in doubt, is never revealed. They were
and when he is told that Elsie has engaged before she left the US,
been injured he declares, “I may and Slaney is convinced she
have threatened her – God forgive would have married him had he
me! – but I would not have gone straight. Unable to accept
touched a hair of her pretty head... her decision to leave him and
If Elsie dies, I care nothing what start a new life without him, his
becomes of me.” When Holmes passion becomes a dangerous
and tragic obsession.

All is explained Englishman that he should come A tale of passion
Soon enough, Abe Slaney, “a tall, between us? I tell you that I had Conan Doyle draws a striking
handsome, swarthy fellow, clad in a the first right to her, and that I was contrast between the characters
suit of grey flannel, with a Panama only claiming my own,” he cries. of Cubitt and Slaney. Cubitt is an
hat, a bristling black beard, and a The story ends with Slaney being old-fashioned figure representing
great, aggressive hooked nose” is condemned to death at the Norwich the traditional British values of
striding up the path to Riding assizes, but his sentence is changed honor, loyalty, and decency,
Thorpe Manor, flourishing a cane. to penal servitude “in consideration while the American Slaney is
The moment he enters the house, of mitigating circumstances, and a brash gangster from the other
Holmes has a pistol to his head the certainty that Hilton Cubitt had side of the Atlantic, with his own
and Martin puts him in handcuffs. fired the first shot.” Elsie recovers, firm, if somewhat warped, ideas
Slaney readily admits to killing and devotes her life “to the care of about love and honor.
Cubitt, but says it was in self- the poor and to the administration
defense, because Cubitt fired first. of her husband’s estate.” This is a tale of heated and
He is genuinely grief-stricken to hidden passions, where Holmes’s
hear that Elsie is seriously injured, I am fairly familiar with rational logic leads the story, but he
and explains that he had only all forms of secret writings, fails his client. In “The Adventure
threatened her out of anger, for and am myself the author of of the Dancing Men,” Conan Doyle
he loved her and always had. They a trifling monograph upon seems poised between the
had grown up together in Chicago, naturalism and social realism of
and were members of a gang, of the subject, in which I 19th-century writers like Gustave
which Elsie’s father was the leader. analyze one hundred and Flaubert, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Émile
They had invented the code, Zola, and Thomas Hardy on the one
deliberately making it look “like a sixty separate ciphers. hand, and the sensationalism of his
child’s scrawl” so that no one Sherlock Holmes 20th-century successors such as
outside the gang would even realize Agatha Christie and Edgar Wallace
it was a code, never mind be able on the other. Holmes, perhaps
to decipher it. Elsie “couldn’t stand like Conan Doyle himself, is less
the business,” and ran away to start interested in Slaney’s thwarted
a new life. Slaney wrote to Elsie passion, the intriguing nature of
after her marriage to Cubitt, but the triangular relationship, and the
when she did not reply, he came to eventual, fateful, criminal outcome,
England to find her: “Who was this than the logical problem of the
cryptic code, and how to solve it. ■

176

SHE THINKS SHE DOES
NOT KNOW THE MAN
I AM CONVINCED
SHE DOES

THE ADVENTURE OF THE SOLITARY CYCLIST (1904)

IN CONTEXT T his tale opens with Watson caused by the friction of the pedal)
telling the reader about and a musician (from her “spatulate
TYPE Holmes’s professional finger-end”).
Short story success, and ponders the difficulty
in deciding which of his hundreds She had recently responded to a
FIRST PUBLICATION of cases should be presented to the newspaper advertisement from two
US: December 1903 public. Watson concludes that he men—Woodley and Carruthers—
UK: January 1904 will give “preference to those cases who claim to have known her uncle
which derive their interest not so Ralph in South Africa. They told her
COLLECTION much from the brutality of the of Ralph’s death, and said that he
The Return of Sherlock crime as from the ingenuity and had asked them both to tend to the
Holmes, 1905 dramatic quality of their solution.” needs of his relations. Woodley, she
“The Adventure of the Solitary said, kept “making eyes” at her, but
CHARACTERS Cyclist” is certainly dramatic— she found him “odious” and repellent.
Violet Smith Cyclist and with guns brandished and shots Carruthers, a widower, offered her
music teacher. fired—and Holmes is at his most a live-in job as a music tutor to his
chivalrous and physical as he daughter at a remote house near
Bob Carruthers Former rescues the damsel in distress. Farnham. Since the position was
prospector in South Africa,
and widower with a daughter. The mysterious stalker
It is April 1895 and Violet Smith
Jack Woodley arrives at 221B Baker Street. She is
Ruffian, recently returned a beautiful, upright young woman,
from South Africa. who is devoted to both her widowed
mother and her fiancé, Cyril Morton.
Mr. Williamson Disgraced Holmes immediately identifies Violet
former clergyman. as being an avid cyclist (from the
roughening of the side of her sole
Cyril Morton Violet’s fiancé
and electrical engineer.

One of Holmes’s many skills is
boxing, which he puts to use when
defending himself against a drunken
Woodley. “It was a straight left against
a slogging ruffian,” he tells Watson.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE SOLITARY CYCLIST 177

In Edwardian times, women cyclists
were considered independent, modern,
and daring. Cycling really emancipated
women, because for the first time they
could travel without male supervision.

well paid, and he seemed kind, she entreats Holmes to help him “save” entrap her, enlisting Williamson’s
accepted. Each weekend, Violet her. Alerted by Violet’s screams, help. The plan was for Woodley to
cycles to Farnham station to take they find her, gagged and faint, and marry her and for Carruthers to
a train to see her mother but has learn she has been forcibly married have a share in the “plunder.” The
noticed that she is always followed, to Woodley by Mr. Williamson— plan misfired when Carruthers fell
at a distance, by another lone cyclist. a notorious defrocked priest. in love with Violet and became her
Unnerved by her silent stalker, she protector, cycling behind her each
is seeking advice from Holmes. At the heart of this crime is, week to Farnham station in case
of course, money. Carruthers and of an attack by Woodley.
Uncovering the plot Woodley, who knew each other from
Watson is sent to investigate but, South Africa, were aware that Violet Carruthers is horrified Woodley
predictably, Holmes is disappointed was about to inherit a fortune from has succeeded in marrying Violet,
by his meager observations, which her uncle, and devised a plot to and shoots him in rage—Woodley
do little more than confirm the girl’s is injured but survives. Holmes
story. So Holmes goes to Farnham asserts that Mr. Williamson’s right
himself, where he makes “discreet to conduct a marriage ceremony
inquiries” at the local pub. There, he is questionable and that no forced
becomes embroiled in a brawl with marriage would be legally valid.
Woodley, who wants to know why
Holmes is snooping into his affairs. The dramatic conclusion, with
a swooning girl, two brutal rogues,
A dramatic denouement ensues and an unscrupulous clergyman,
when Watson and Holmes conceal forms a classic tableau of Gothic
themselves on the country lane. For storytelling. And in spite of the fact
safety, Violet has begun traveling that the heroine is an independent
by dog-cart, but as it draws near individual, she still needs saving
they see it is empty. Violet has been from “the worst fate that can befall
abducted, and her stalker is cycling a woman” by the knight in shining
fast behind. The stalker turns out armor—Sherlock Holmes. ■
to be Carruthers in disguise, but he
is desperately looking for Violet and Fortune-seeking in South Africa

The wealth that fuels the crime all over the world made their
in this story was generated in way to the Transvaal. The huge
South Africa, which became influx of prospectors, laborers,
a magnet for fortune-seekers in and entrepreneurs had a huge
the late 19th century. In 1866, impact on the region, leading
a child of a Dutch farmer found to the foundation of cities—
a diamond measuring 22 carats Johannesburg grew out of a
near the Vaal River. The next mining camp named Langlaagte—
year, huge diamond deposits and the development of a
were discovered in Kimberley, transportation infrastructure,
and in 1884 the world’s largest such as improved roads and
gold deposits were discovered rails. Prospectors who became
in Witwatersrand. As news of super-wealthy (as was the case
the vast mineral wealth spread, with Violet Smith’s uncle) were
thousands of immigrants from known as “randlords.”

178 IN CONTEXT

A CRIMINAL WHO WAS TYPE
CAPABLE OF SUCH A Short story
THOUGHT IS A MAN
WHOM I SHOULD FIRST PUBLICATION
BE PROUD TO DO US: January 1904
BUSINESS WITH UK: February 1904

THE ADVENTURE OF THE PRIORY SCHOOL (1904) COLLECTION
The Return of
Sherlock Holmes, 1905

CHARACTERS
Dr. Thorneycroft Huxtable
Head of the Priory School.

Lord Arthur Saltire
Missing student.

Duke of Holdernesse
Arthur’s father.

James Wilder Duke of
Holdernesse’s secretary.

Heidegger German master
at the Priory School.

Reuben Hayes Landlord of
the nearby Fighting Cock Inn.

C ollapsing onto a rug at 221B
Baker Street, schoolmaster
Dr. Thorneycroft Huxtable
cuts an absurd figure. His calling
card bears a welter of academic
qualifications, and his “majestic
figure” is as cumbersome as his
unwieldy name. It is with this
undignified entrance that this
scholarly adventure begins.

Watson examines the supine
figure and diagnoses exhaustion.
Meanwhile, Holmes reaches into
the man’s pocket and pulls out
a round-trip train ticket from
Mackleton in northern England—
it seems Huxtable has indeed
traveled far. (In the original
manuscript, the story was set in

THE ADVENTURE OF THE PRIORY SCHOOL 179

An exhausted Huxtable collapses
at 221B Baker Street, where Watson
describes him as “a sorely stricken
man who lay before us.” Illustrated for
The Strand Magazine by Sidney Paget.

the real-life village of Castleton, genealogist John Burke, which details suggest a planned escape.
Derbyshire, which Conan Doyle is still used as an active register The school roll call has revealed that
changed to the fictional Mackleton, today. Throughout the story, the the German master, Heidegger, is
Hallamshire, in the printed edition.) action rings with the importance also missing. Although there is no
of the British aristocracy; its power, apparent connection between the
Huxtable eventually recovers but also its vulnerability. The Duke student and master, there are
enough to request a glass of milk may be rich, but this wealth has put obvious signs of the latter’s rapid
and a cookie and, after this quaint his son at risk of abduction, and descent from his second floor
refreshment, proceeds to explain like many aristocratic families, he window, which faces the same way
his purpose. Although he is a rather lives in fear of social scandal should as Saltire’s, using the ivy outside.
comic figure, Huxtable’s mission the family name ever be tarnished. Heidegger’s bicycle is also missing.
is serious. He is the principal of a
highly exclusive preparatory school Locked room mystery Saltire had not had any visitors
called the Priory, which educates The immediate facts of the case before he vanished, although he had
the sons of the British aristocracy, provide a compelling variation on received a letter, which he took with
and his newest and most well- the “locked room mystery.” Saltire him. Huxtable adds that the boy
connected pupil, young Lord Arthur disappeared during the night from was apparently happy at school, but
Saltire, has gone missing. Holmes his second-floor room at the Priory, that his home life is unbalanced.
leaps to his feet to look up Saltire’s which is situated behind another, His parents, the Duke and his wife,
father, the Duke of Holdernesse, in occupied by two notoriously light- have recently separated, and she
his “encyclopaedia of reference,” sleeping students. There are no has moved to France. The Duke’s
and exclaims that he is “one of the footprints below his open window, secretary, James Wilder, has let
greatest subjects of the Crown!” and no sign of intruders. He was Huxtable know that the boy prefers
dressed in his school suit of gray the company of his mother to that
Although Conan Doyle doesn’t trousers and black Eton jacket— of his stiff and formal father. Could
specify, the encyclopaedia Holmes an allusion to Britain’s elite public it be possible that he has fled to
is reading from is probably Burke’s school, Eton College. All of these France to be with her? ❯❯
Landed Gentry, an index of Britain’s
noble families, produced in 1826 by We have had some dramatic
entrances and exits upon our
small stage at Baker Street,
but I cannot recollect anything

more sudden and startling
than the first appearance
of Thorneycroft Huxtable.

Dr. Watson

180 A LEGEND RETURNS

The allure of cash After following his cycle tracks, he is planning to explore the
This mysterious web is sufficiently Holmes and Watson discover the body moors not for the air but to find
seductive for Holmes to abandon of Heidegger, illustrated here by Sidney the missing boy, Lord Saltire.
the other two cases he claims to Paget in The Strand Magazine.
be busy with. Either that, or he’s Later that evening, Holmes and
been uncharacteristically seduced to dramatic effect, weaving Watson pore over a map of the area.
by the handsome reward offered by the case’s characters into an A main road runs across the front
the Duke—£5,000 for the return of atmosphere of intrigue. It also gives of the Priory, and on the fateful
his son, and a further £1,000 for the Holmes an occasion to indulge night, a police constable who had
names of his abductors. “I think we in his love of play-acting. When coincidentally been posted at its
shall accompany Dr. Huxtable back Wilder pointedly suggests that eastern end had seen nothing.
to the North of England,” Holmes Holmes should depart, he counters A similar incident at the nearby
decides, after being told about this by making his visit sound like Red Bull Inn conveniently rules out
generous offer—and even before a simple vacation. “This Northern late-night fugitives at that end. To
hearing all the facts. air is invigorating and pleasant. the south, the land is impassable
I propose to spend a few days by bicycle, while to the north a
That same evening, Holmes and upon your moors, and to occupy copse gives way to the rolling
Watson arrive at the Priory, and find my mind as best I may.” In truth, Low Gill Moor, eventually leading
the Duke and Wilder already there. to the Duke’s home, Holdernesse
Wilder upbraids Huxtable severely Hall. As Holmes concludes that
for summoning Holmes, although his this moor should be their focus,
apparent concern that the case will Huxtable joins them, brandishing
cause a scandal begins to sound Saltire’s blue cricket cap in his
more like fear over what Holmes will hand. It has been found in a
learn. As for the austere Duke, it is caravan of gypsies who left the
unclear whether his reticence is due moor on Tuesday, showing that
to aristocratic reserve or something this is indeed the place to search.
more suspicious—with his booming
“dinner gong” voice, he submits to On the right track
Holmes’s involvement in the case A major aspect of the case hinges on
but offers little assistance. Holmes’s ability to read tracks.
Venturing onto the moor, they find
In this first encounter with the bicycle tire marks. In keeping with
men, Conan Doyle turns Wilder’s his usual precision, Holmes claims
caginess and the Duke’s unease to have an expert knowledge of
bicycle tracks, and states that these
The Duke of Holdernesse tires have been patched and do not
match the tread on Heidegger’s bike.
The Duke of Holdernesse’s name The Holdernesse whom Watson
may have alluded to the original describes in the story is a cold, This is a fairly convincing
location of the Priory, written in aloof figure, with a flaming red deduction, but Holmes’s logic that
the manuscript as Castleton beard, “a drawn, thin face, and the bicycle’s direction of travel
in Derbyshire. Holderness is the a nose which was grotesquely (away from the school) can be seen
name of a large area in the east curved and long.” This is quite by the heavier rear tire’s tracks
of Yorkshire, not far from this appropriate, perhaps, for one periodically overlaying those of the
county. Scholarly attempts to of the most decorated noblemen front tire is misleading—in fact, this
match the Duke with a real in Britain—a Knight of the would offer no clue to the direction
person have proved more Garter, a Privy Councillor, a Lord of travel. Conan Doyle often argued
fruitless than most, and this Lieutenant, and more—but not that accuracy was unimportant
has led some Holmesians to exactly consistent with the next to dramatic effect, but later
attribute this lack of information secretly weak-hearted romantic admitted in his memoirs that some
to Watson’s masterful smudging that the case’s true history illogical plot details had generated
of delicate facts. reveals him to be. questions from fans all over the

THE ADVENTURE OF THE PRIORY SCHOOL 181

A bicycle, certainly, but not followed by the gruesome discovery Reuben Hayes has the manners
THE bicycle… I am familiar of the German master’s lifeless of a criminal, but no bicycle, only
body, his head brutally smashed. horses. It is not until Holmes spots
with forty-two different Heidegger is wearing a nightshirt the stable and the smithy that he
impressions left by tyres. and is without socks, indicating a makes a sudden deduction. He
hasty exit from the school, in pursuit notes that while there were cow
Sherlock Holmes of Saltire. The violent death suggests hoofprints all around the bicycle
it was committed by a strong adult, tracks and the body on the moor,
world. These troublesome tire who was presumably with Saltire. neither he nor Watson have seen a
tracks were a case in point, and Heidegger, an expert cyclist, had single cow. Furthermore, the tracks
Conan Doyle even went as far as cycled five miles to reach that point, indicated distinctly un-cowlike
to conduct his own experiments to so Saltire and his companion must movements—“it is a remarkable
prove his idea: “I had so many have had some means of travel. cow which walks, canters, and
remonstrances upon this point, However, there are no other bicycle gallops”—remarks Holmes. He then
varying from pity to anger, that I tracks, or even footprints, around investigates the horses in Hayes’s
took out my bicycle and tried. I had the body—just cattle hoofprints. stable and surmises that they have
imagined that the observations been freshly shod—in old shoes.
of the way in which the track of It is at the Fighting Cock, a
the hind wheel overlaid the track nearby inn, that Holmes puts in Hereditary scandals
of the front one when the machine a second dramatic turn, feigning a As the pair leave the Fighting
was not running dead straight sprained ankle as an excuse to Cock, the Duke’s secretary speeds
would show the direction. I found borrow a bicycle from the sour, past on a bicycle, heading for ❯❯
that my correspondents were right bad-tempered innkeeper. Alas,
and I was wrong, for this would be
the same whichever way the cycle
was moving. On the other hand the
real solution was much simpler, for
on an undulating moor the wheels
make a much deeper impression
uphill and a more shallow one
downhill, so Holmes was justified
of his wisdom after all.”

A gruesome discovery
As the pair scour the moor, they
find the distinctively narrow tread
of Heidegger’s Palmer tires, soon

Granada Television’s adaptation in
1987, starring Jeremy Brett, was filmed
at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire,
just a few miles away from Castleton,
where the story was originally set.

182 A LEGEND RETURNS

Holmes studies a map Holdernesse Fighting
of the area around the Hall Cock Inn
Priory school and
Holdernesse Hall, to aMcraorssshymtoraocr k General The Palmer tracks
deduce where Saltire direction of are from Heidegger’s
and Heidegger may have cattle tracks bicycle. His body is found
gone. The bicycle tracks
on the moor provide him Heidegger’s surrounded only by
with useful clues. body cattle tracks.

The Dunlop Lower Gill Moor
bicycle tracks head
away from the Priory
school, to an unknown

destination.

Dunlop tire Palmer tire
tracks tracks

People at the Ragged Shaw A police constable
inn declared that no Lawn stood on duty all night
one passed along the
High Road all night. but saw no one.

Red Priory Constable
Bull Inn School

High Road

the inn. Upon closer inspection, his first-born son—the illegitimate had been the culmination of a
Wilder’s patched bicycle tire result of an earlier love affair—who lifetime’s hatred toward his half-
matches that which Holmes first has no hope of ever inheriting his brother and an intense bitterness at
identified from the set of tracks father’s wealth or title. The Duke the injustice of his lost inheritance.
on the moor, and his unexpected now assumes a sympathetic
appearance at the inn is the first character: for all his concern The letter that Saltire received
sign that a plan is falling apart. with propriety, he has brought had been from his father; however,
After peering into a window at Wilder up himself after the death Wilder had added a note purporting
the inn, Holmes declares the case of his beloved. to be from Saltire’s mother, asking
closed—he now has his answers. him to meet a man with a horse
The real villain turns out to that evening, who would take him
At Holdernesse Hall the next be the nervous and shifty Wilder. to meet her. This man was Hayes,
morning, Holmes reveals the name Since discovering his parentage, employed by Wilder, and he and
of his suspect, and accuses the he has been holding the Duke to Saltire set off on horseback.
Duke of knowing exactly where his ransom with the threat of scandal. Unknown to Saltire, however,
son is. Quite apart from Holmes’s His plot to abduct Holdernesse’s he had been spotted leaving the
extraordinary abruptness with the rightful heir, the young Lord Saltire, school by Heidegger, who duly
nobleman, the real revelation here is hiding him at the Fighting Cock followed him by bicycle, concerned
that the Duke admits that Wilder is Inn in order to blackmail his father, for the boy’s well-being. As the

THE ADVENTURE OF THE PRIORY SCHOOL 183

school master caught up with the Holmes has little sympathy for I must take the view,
fleeing pair, Hayes struck him with the Duke’s cold, remote way of your Grace, that when
a stick and killed him. Heidegger’s conducting family relationships, a man embarks upon a
death was unplanned, a result of saying, “To humour your guilty elder crime, he is morally guilty
Hayes’s desperation and brutality. son, you have exposed your innocent of any other crime which
younger son to imminent and
Justice is served unnecessary danger.” He insists may spring from it.
The Duke reveals that he had that the young Saltire be brought Sherlock Holmes
learned of the plot after the discovery from the inn immediately, and
of Heidegger’s body, but he had suggests that Wilder be sent away. technical details above all else.
“yielded—as I have always yielded” Holmes suggests that the Duke Shaped like cows’ hooves, the
to Wilder’s plea for him to “keep attempt a reconciliation with horseshoes turn out to be family
his secret for three days longer” his wife not that his illegitimate relics from “the marauding Barons
to allow Hayes to escape. Fearing son is gone. of Holdernesse in the Middle Ages,”
that Hayes’s capture would expose designed to throw pursuers off their
his eldest son’s involvement, the Yet if Holmes’s dressing-down trail. It is thought that similar tricks
Duke felt he had no alternative of Holdernesse runs counter to were really used during the English
but to acquiesce. the story’s sycophantic attitude Civil War. Yet the detective declares
toward the Duke and nobility, his the crafty ironwork to be only the
There is certainly an interesting willingness to accept the Duke’s “second most interesting object
moral situation here, and Holmes money and hush up both the that I have seen in the North”—
himself points out its muddiness. nobleman’s involvement and his clearly, his hefty, dubious check
The Duke’s extraordinary sympathy relationship to Wilder (who is set takes first place. ■
toward Wilder and Hayes seems to depart for Australia) only seems
hard to credit, and even a little to confirm it. It seems easy to forget
irrational. He allowed time for that an innocent teacher has been
Hayes to make his escape, and has brutally murdered, and the Duke’s
graciously tried to clear up the mess none-too-subtle trick of quietly
of his first son’s sordid machinations. doubling Holmes’s payoff, which he
In doing so, however, he has not only duly accepts, marks an ignobly neat
conspired to aid a murderer’s evasion transition from reward to bribe.
of justice, but has also left his
younger son, and precious heir, in Holmes’s final question about
the hands of a known, violent killer. the peculiar horseshoes might seem
like a return to his usual interest in

The rules of “Primogeniture” is the practice that a princess with a claim
succession by which land and titles are left to the throne will no longer be
to the eldest son within a family. usurped by a younger brother.
In Britain, this has meant that
power and land ownership have In Conan Doyle’s time, the
always been a male prerogative. principle of “entail” also meant
Regardless of whether he was that it was illegal to break up
the first-born, an illegitimate son, or sell landed estates, so they
born out of wedlock, had no right remained in the hands of a
to inherit his father’s estate. Even small, powerful minority. Along
today, many historic aristocratic with primogeniture, entail was
families still follow the rules a relic of medieval feudalism—
of primogeniture. However, by in France, entailment was one of
the turn of the 21st century, most the first things to be overturned
remaining monarchies, including after the 1789 revolution. It was
Britain’s, had established gender- abolished in Britain by the Law
blind succession, which means of Property Act of 1925, after
which many estates were sold.

184 ONE SHOULD ALWAYS
LOOK FOR A POSSIBLE
IN CONTEXT ALTERNATIVE AND
PROVIDE AGAINST IT
TYPE
Short story THE ADVENTURE OF BLACK PETER (1904)
FIRST PUBLICATION
US: February 1904 Holmes deduces the identity of the murderer
UK: March 1904
COLLECTION Whoever impaled He drank rum
The Return of Sherlock the victim had and water, a
Holmes, 1905 sailor’s favorite.
CHARACTERS amazing strength.
Captain Peter Carey
(“Black Peter”) “All these pointed to a
Retired whaling captain. seaman, and one who
John Hopley Neligan had been a whaler.”
Banker’s young son.
Patrick Cairns Whale He had great skill He carried a seal-skin
harpooner who once in the use of tobacco pouch,
served under Peter Carey. the harpoon.
Stanley Hopkins suggesting a life at sea.
Young police inspector.
S et in 1895, Conan Doyle’s at 80 degrees north latitude,” amid
“The Adventure of Black the ice floes and flailing whales.
Peter” is an atmospheric The whalers themselves were
story of the murder of a brutal a tough breed, and Conan Doyle
retired whaling captain. Its rich would have gotten to know hard
authenticity comes in part from men like Black Peter only too well.
the author’s personal experiences.
As a young medical student, he The tale opens with Holmes
spent seven months as surgeon returning to his and Watson’s
on a whaling ship, the Hope, as lodgings with a harpoon tucked
it hunted in the Arctic. As Conan under his arm. Holmes reveals that
Doyle wrote later, he “came of age he has been at the butcher shop,
trying to spear a pig carcass with

THE ADVENTURE OF BLACK PETER 185

…if I killed Black Peter, the tobacco pouch with the initials 19th-century
law should give me thanks, “P.C.” inscribed on it (which is whaling
for I saved them the price strange, since Peter Carey rarely
smoked), and a notebook carrying Throughout the first half
of a hempen rope. the initials “J.H.N.”and filled with of the 19th century, whale
Patrick Cairns details about the stock exchange. blubber was the main source
of oil for the lamps that lit
a single strike and singularly A double arrest the world’s homes. Whaling
failing. Watson, familiar with such Hopkins, Holmes, and Watson became big business, and
extraordinary behavior, concludes arrive at Black Peter’s cabin in the the British whaling ports of
that Holmes is engaged in an Sussex countryside and discover Whitby and Dundee (where
investigation. In fact, Holmes is that someone has tried to break in. Black Peter’s ship The Sea
conducting a forensic experiment They lie in wait the following night Unicorn was registered)
that is itself far ahead of its time— and catch the would-be burglar—a boomed. Across the Atlantic,
a controlled test of the effectiveness frail young man called John Hopley New Bedford, Massachusetts,
of a murder weapon. Tests such as Neligan (J.H.N.). Neligan explains was soon dubbed “the city
this are now standard practice for that he was looking for some that lit the world.”
a forensics team undertaking a securities he believes Black Peter
murder investigation, but Holmes, obtained by murdering his banker Life aboard a “whaler” was
it seems, was a (fictional) pioneer. father. Convinced he has found perilous and tough, as Herman
his killer, Hopkins arrests Neligan. Melville’s great novel Moby
Inspector baffled Dick (1851) makes clear. Many
Holmes and Watson are soon joined However, knowing from his whalers never made it home,
by the young police inspector, experiments that this “anaemic yet the financial rewards were
Stanley Hopkins, a great admirer youth” would not have had the tempting enough to make
of Holmes. It seems that Hopkins strength to harpoon Black Peter, countless men take the risk.
has been investigating the same Holmes continues his investigation. Every February, whalers
case—the gruesome murder of As “Captain Basil”, Holmes sailed north to make the most
retired whaler Peter Carey. He has advertises for a harpooner for a of the brief Arctic summer.
had little success and is seeking whaling trip. One of three applicants By 1895, though, the industry
Holmes’s help. is Patrick Cairns, a hard-as-nails was in decline as kerosene
harpooner who once crewed on from mineral oil supplanted
Carey, commonly known as Black Peter’s ship, The Sea Unicorn. whale oil for lamps. Strong-
“Black Peter,” was a cruel man, Cairns’s initials are also P.C., and armed harpooners, like Patrick
loathed and feared by all who knew Holmes—sure he has his man— Cairns, became increasingly
him. He slept away from his house handcuffs him. Cairns admits he rare, as more whalers used
in a hut, which was arranged like killed Black Peter, but insists it was the new harpoon guns to
a ship’s cabin, and it was there he in self-defense. He says that he went kill their prey with brutal
was found murdered—pinned to to Black Peter to demand money efficiency and little skill.
the wall, “like a beetle on a card,” for keeping quiet about the murder
with a harpoon that had passed all of Neligan’s father, which he had
the way through his body. The only witnessed years earlier. As Cairns
clues Hopkins has found are a is led away, Hopkins is full of
admiration for Holmes’s success
in identifying the real killer.

The tale ends on a note of
mystery, with Holmes telling
Hopkins that if he is needed for the
trial, his address and that of Watson
will be “somewhere in Norway”—
leaving the reader to speculate on
what the next adventure will be. ■

186

BYJOVE WATSON
I’VE GOT IT!

THE ADVENTURE OF CHARLES
AUGUSTUS MILVERTON (1904)

IN CONTEXT T he eponymous villain of queen at a “coming-out ceremony,”
this story is a professional before attending a full “season” of
TYPE blackmailer who Holmes various social events with a view
Short story considers more despicable than to securing a favorable marriage.
any murderer he has ever known. The besmirching of her good name
FIRST PUBLICATION Conan Doyle’s inspiration for the would mean the permanent ruin of
UK: April 1904 character was Charles Augustus her reputation, so the letters could
US: April 1904 Howell, an art dealer and alleged have potentially dire consequences.
blackmailer nicknamed “The Owl,” When Milverton demands £7,000,
COLLECTION who died in London under strange Holmes offers him £2,000—but the
The Return of Sherlock circumstances, with his throat cut blackmailer won’t budge. He wants
Holmes, 1905 and a coin shoved into his mouth— to make “a severe example” of Lady
a symbol of revenge on someone Eva, leaving Holmes determined
CHARACTERS guilty of slander. to retrieve the letters.
Charles Augustus
Milverton Professional The debutante in distress In an arguably ill-conceived
blackmailer. Charles Augustus Milverton makes plot device, Conan Doyle then
his living by blackmailing wealthy has Holmes, usually a gentleman,
Lady Eva Brackwell people with incriminating letters behave with uncharacteristic
Beautiful former debutante. acquired from disloyal servants
and lovers. His latest victim is “the
Earl of Dovercourt most beautiful debutante of last
Lady Eva’s fiancé. season,” Lady Eva Brackwell, who
hires Sherlock Holmes to negotiate
Agatha Milverton’s the return of some “imprudent,”
housemaid. “sprightly” letters, which threaten
her engagement to an earl. As a
Anonymous lady Widow debutante, Lady Eva would have
of one of Milverton’s victims. been formally presented to the

Inspector Lestrade
Scotland Yard detective.

Charles Augustus Howell
(1840–1890) as drawn by Frederick
Sandys in 1882, eight years before
his macabre murder.

THE ADVENTURE OF CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTON 187

I think there are certain
crimes which the law cannot
touch, and which therefore,

to some extent, justify
private revenge.

Sherlock Holmes

caddishness by becoming falsely compromising letters. But very soon The widow pours “bullet after bullet
engaged to Milverton’s maid, she reveals her true identity as the into Milverton’s shrinking body,” as
Agatha, in order to learn the layout widow of one of Milverton’s victims, Paget shows in The Strand Magazine.
of the blackmailer’s house and before committing the most violent
details of his habits. “Surely you act by a woman in the Holmes of the felons “might be a description
have gone too far?” cries Watson. canon, pumping Milverton’s body of Watson.” When he has had his fun,
Holmes replies: “You must play your full of bullets. Held back by Holmes, he declines to help Lestrade with the
cards as best you can when such a Watson realizes “that justice had case, explaining, “my sympathies
stake is on the table.” While he adds overtaken a villain.” Holmes burns are with the criminals.” In a final
that he has a rival suitor who will no all of Milverton’s blackmail papers twist, Holmes sees a photograph of
doubt step in the moment he is off before they beat a hasty retreat. Milverton’s killer in a shop window.
the scene, clearly, to Holmes, the But when Watson also recognizes
feelings and reputation of a maid The following morning, Inspector her, Holmes puts a finger to his lips.
count for less than those of a lady. Lestrade visits Holmes to tell him Once again, his moral compass
that two burglars were seen fleeing steers him away from adhering
Holmes tells Watson that they the scene. Holmes mischievously to the letter of the law. ■
must break into Milverton’s house suggests that the appearance of one
and steal the compromising letters
from his safe, which the two agree
is a “morally justifiable, though
technically criminal” act. Holmes
has a sense of natural order,
seeking to right wrongs, even if
it means breaking the law. As a
private detective he feels he can
do this when he judges that the
ends justify the means.

Defying the law
Holmes and Watson break into
Milverton’s house at night and
witness a meeting between
the blackmailer and a woman
purporting to be the maid of a
certain countess, offering to sell

188

THERE IS A CERTAIN
METHOD IN THE
GENTLEMAN’S
ECCENTRIC PROCEEDINGS

THE ADVENTURE OF THE SIX NAPOLEONS (1904)

IN CONTEXT T his adventure opens with Hudson (who, according to some
a warm scene between Holmesians, is the estranged
TYPE Sherlock Holmes and husband of landlady Mrs. Hudson),
Short story Inspector Lestrade that reflects and two others at nearby addresses
how their relationship has grown in south London. Lestrade’s idea
FIRST PUBLICATION over their years of working together. that the thief could be a “criminal
US: April 1904 Now a regular at 221B Baker Street, or lunatic,” and possibly a “local
UK: May 1904 Lestrade keeps Holmes in touch fanatic,” perhaps stems from the
with activities at Scotland Yard. area’s close proximity to Bedlam,
COLLECTION the notorious insane asylum—now
The Return of Sherlock A case of insanity London’s Imperial War Museum. In
Holmes, 1905 The case surrounds the bizarre any case, this theory serves Holmes
theft and apparently wanton well. When a fourth bust is stolen
CHARACTERS destruction of three plaster-cast from the home of Horace Harker, a
Inspector Lestrade busts of Napoleon; one at a shop journalist in Kensington, and a man
Scotland Yard inspector. in Kennington owned by Morse is found murdered on the front steps,

Morse Hudson Shop owner The science of phrenology
who buys three busts.
In the 1800s, many people progress and taxonomy: if the
Horace Harker became convinced that a brain is the “organ of the mind,”
Elderly journalist. person’s psychology could be then it would seem logical that
determined from the shape of its shape reflects a person’s
Beppo Italian craftsman. their brain—and, therefore, their mental life. By the mid-19th
skull. Known as “phrenology” century, the Italian criminologist
Manager of Gelder & Co. (meaning “study of the mind”), Cesare Lombroso introduced
Beppo’s former manager. the subject has since been this idea to the study of crime,
debunked as a pseudoscience. writing a series of books on the
Pietro Venucci Powerful But the idea that the brain could supposed cranial peculiarities
mafioso of Neapolitan descent. be “anatomized” into segments, of gamblers, fraudsters, and
each of which had some bearing all manner of dastardly types.
Josiah Brown on an individual’s personality, Conan Doyle himself studied
Owner of the fifth bust. was in keeping with the medicine at The Edinburgh
Victorian spirit of scientific Phrenological Society.
Mr. Sandeford Former owner
of the bust sold to Holmes.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE SIX NAPOLEONS 189

It is undoubtedly queer, Italian connections Holmes cannot claim all the glory,
and I know that you In typical Scotland Yard fashion, since Lestrade’s work was vital
Lestrade focuses only on the for this theatrical climax. Holmes
have a taste for all that murder and the break-ins. Unlike realized what was afoot when he
is out of the common. Holmes, he doesn’t see that the learned the name of the murder
Inspector Lestrade Napoleon busts are the key to victim, Venucci. Remembering the
the case. Holmes traces the busts theft of that pearl the year before,
Holmes’s false hint to the resident back to the workshop where they he recalled that the suspect, a hotel
journalist about “a dangerous were made in Stepney—a district maid, had the same surname. She
homicidal lunatic, with Napoleonic that was described as “vicious, had passed the stolen pearl on to
delusions” is reported in the evening semi-criminal” by social researcher her brother, who had been stabbed
papers. Chuckling over the reports and philanthropist Charles Booth, and robbed by Beppo during a
later on, Holmes remarks, “The and characterized by Conan Doyle street fight. Before his arrest for
Press, Watson, is a most valuable as a place where “tenement houses the stabbing, Beppo had hidden the
institution, if you only know how swelter and reek with the outcasts pearl inside an unfinished bust at
to use it.” of Europe.” Here Holmes discovers the workshop. Venucci had been
that the photographed man is looking for Beppo when he stabbed
Holmes is on the case Beppo, an Italian former employee, him outside Harker’s house.
It is clear that Holmes has a plan: who had been jailed the year before
while these reports are designed for knifing a man in the street, at Lestrade’s heartfelt praise—“at
to mislead the criminal and make around the same time the busts Scotland Yard… we are very proud
him think that Holmes is clueless, were made. At 221B that evening, of you”—elicits a rare glimpse into
in fact he has two major leads. Lestrade identifies the murder Holmes’s sensitive side, and Watson
One is a photograph carried by the victim as Pietro Venucci, a mafioso observes how “he was more nearly
murder victim, depicting “an alert, from London’s squalid Italian moved by the softer human emotions
sharp-featured simian man, with underworld. Now interested in than I had ever seen him.” ■
thick eyebrows and a very peculiar the busts, Lestrade’s new theory
projection of the lower part of the is that Venucci was sent to kill
face, like the muzzle of a baboon.” the bust-smasher, in some kind of
This description accords with mafioso vendetta. However, Holmes
phrenological theories about knows better, and offers him a
criminals’ physical appearance. bet that they will catch the villain
that night at the Chiswick home of
The other clue of interest to Josiah Brown, who purchased one
Holmes is that before smashing of the two remaining busts out of
the fourth bust, the thief had the six the workshop had produced.
mysteriously carried it from the
house to a better-lit place farther A smashing climax Inspired by “The Six Napoleons,”
down the street, even though Beppo is duly arrested at Brown’s The Pearl of Death was a 1944 movie
he risked being seen while doing house and Lestrade sees the case starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel
so. If this was merely an act of as closed, until Holmes offers to Bruce, in their ninth outing on screen
destruction, why did the thief explain the full facts the following as Holmes and Watson.
need to do it in the light? evening at 221B. Purchasing the
last Napoleon bust from its new
owner for a seemingly generous
£10, he promptly smashes it, thus
revealing that hidden inside is the
priceless “black pearl of the Borgias,”
the most famous pearl in the world,
which had previously been stolen
from an Italian hotel room.

190

LET US HEAR
THE SUSPICIONS.
I WILL LOOK
AFTER THE PROOFS

THE ADVENTURE OF THE THREE STUDENTS (1904)

IN CONTEXT D espite all of his journeys In “The Adventure of The Three
around the country, and Students,” Holmes and Watson
TYPE his intrepid meanderings are undertaking research in an
Short story through Tibet and the Middle unnamed university city, where
East during the “Great Hiatus” the doctor notes that “my friend’s
FIRST PUBLICATION (pp.164–65), Holmes is never temper had not improved since he
UK: June 1904 entirely comfortable away from had been deprived of the congenial
US: September 1904 221B Baker Street. Whenever surroundings of Baker Street.”
possible, he is eager to wrap up Fortunately, Holmes is always
COLLECTION a case in time to catch the last distracted by the prospect of a
The Return of train back to London, and even on case, and an acquaintance, Hilton
Sherlock Holmes, 1905 supposedly therapeutic trips out of Soames, provides just the thing.
the city, as in “The Adventure of the
CHARACTERS Devil’s Foot” (pp.240–45), he pines The trio of suspects
Hilton Soames Professor at for the excitement of the Big Smoke. Soames, a university professor,
St. Luke’s College. had been checking a passage of
Well, Watson, what ancient Greek text for unseen
Bannister Soames’s do you think of it?… translation printed in an exam
loyal servant. Quite a little parlour game— paper for a lucrative scholarship,
sort of three-card trick, when someone entered his office
Daulat Ras Reserved and is it not? There are while he was out and copied part
industrious student from India. your three men. It of it. The exam is the next day, and
must be one of them. unless the culprit can be found it
Giles Gilchrist Athletic Sherlock Holmes will have to be canceled—to the
and hard-working student. embarrassment of the college. Once
again, in his capacity as a private
Miles McLaren Brilliant operator, and with a reputation for
but wayward student. discretion, Holmes is ideally placed
to investigate the delicate matter.

The perpetrator had accessed
Soames’s office when his servant,
Bannister, accidentally left his
keys in the door. Suspicion then
immediately falls on the three

THE ADVENTURE OF THE THREE STUDENTS 191

students who live in the same with this evidence, the athlete, The culprit confesses to Holmes,
building as Soames’s office. All Gilchrist, owns up, claiming that as illustrated by Paget in The Strand
three students use the staircase he had already decided to do so Magazine. He had, however, already
next to it, and are all about to take prior to Holmes’s involvement. decided to admit his guilt to Soames.
the exam. There are reasons to
suspect each of the three students: Redemption overseas adventurous but respectable job,
McLaren has had a previous brush Bannister, the servant, has also in what would at the time have
with scandal, Ras is quiet and played a significant role. Upon been a rapidly changing part of
elusive, and Gilchrist is apparently first discovering Gilchrist’s crime, Southern Africa, and one that
honest but short of money, giving he hid a pair of gloves that he would take him far away from
him the most obvious motive. knew would implicate the young the ivory towers of academia. ■
man. It then transpires that
Examining the clues Bannister was once in the employ
On inspecting the scene, Holmes’s of Gilchrist’s father, and has been
first clue is suggested by some motivated by loyalty. It also appears
wooden shavings that allow him to that the trusty manservant has
discern the make and length of the already had a chance to set his
miscreant’s pencil. He then deduces former young master on the straight
from the way that the papers are and narrow. In the tradition of
strewn around the room that the James Ryder in “The Adventure of
culprit was almost caught in the the Blue Carbuncle” (pp.82–3) and
act. More mysterious, however, is James Wilder in “The Adventure
the “small ball of black dough or of the Priory School” (pp.178–83),
clay, with specks of something Gilchrist accepts exile rather than
which looks like sawdust in it.” publicly disgracing himself and his
college. Most top universities at
The key to the solution lies this time still had strong religious
at the athletics track. Holmes turns backgrounds, and dishonorable
up at the college early the next behavior by one student would
morning brandishing three little reflect on the whole institution.
clay pyramids. He reveals them
to be lumps of earth from the long- Gilchrist announces that he
jump pit that had fallen from the intends to accept a commission
spiked soles of track shoes. Faced with the Rhodesian police, an

Universities in the In the Victorian era, attending more recent additions, such as
Victorian age university was still largely the Durham and the University of
preserve of wealthy young men, London colleges. Women could
and usually meant receiving a sometimes attend universities,
education in subjects such as although they were not allowed
Latin and ancient Greek. While to receive degrees until 1878,
other subjects, such as medicine, when University College London
were taught, undergraduates did started to award them.
not have access to the wide range
of disciplines available today. Change came at the turn
Neither did they have access to of the twentieth century, when
the number of universities that “red-brick” universities sprang
exist now. For the Victorian up in industrial cities, including
scholar, choice was dominated by Manchester, Birmingham,
the ancient institutions of Oxford, Bristol, and Leeds. With
Cambridge, and the old Scottish subjects such as engineering,
universities, along with some there was a clear move toward
more practical education.

192

SURELY MY
DEDUCTIONS ARE
SIMPLICITY ITSELF

THE ADVENTURE OF THE GOLDEN PINCE-NEZ (1904)

IN CONTEXT T his case shows Holmes at Holmes is studying a palimpsest,
the height of his deductive a very old document often made
TYPE powers, brilliantly piecing of parchment, from which the
Short story together the truth behind a baffling original writing has been erased
murder. Just a few easily overlooked so that it can be used again.
FIRST PUBLICATION clues are enough to lead him However, a discerning eye, such
UK: July 1904 straight to the culprit. However, as Holmes’s, can sometimes
US: October 1904 while the eager young police decipher the original, hidden text,
detective Stanley Hopkins, who beneath the overlay of the new;
COLLECTION is investigating the case, tries to and his analysis of the palimpsest
The Return of Sherlock apply Holmes’s forensic methods at can be seen as a metaphor for
Holmes, 1905 the crime scene, he is left watching his criminal detection methods.
open-mouthed as the detective
CHARACTERS shows just how it should be done. Holmes and Watson’s evening
Stanley Hopkins Young is suddenly interrupted by the
police detective. A midnight visitor arrival of Police Inspector Hopkins,
Holmes and Watson are quietly at who is seeking Holmes’s help with
Professor Coram Elderly work at 221B Baker Street on a dark a murder that has taken place
professor and invalid. and stormy winter’s night in 1894. earlier that day.
Watson notes how, even in the
Willoughby Smith Young heart of London, a tempestuous What did you do, Hopkins,
researcher working for night such as this is a reminder of after you had made
Professor Coram. the elemental power and wildness certain that you had
of nature. So often in the Holmes
Anna Former Russian tales, the danger is lurking deep made certain of nothing?
revolutionary. in the untamed darkness of the Sherlock Holmes
countryside beyond London—
Mrs. Marker Professor perhaps a reminder that the
Coram’s housekeeper. constant vigilance of Holmes’s
reason is needed to keep the
Susan Tarlton dark forces of chaos at bay.
Professor Coram’s maid.
Each man is focusing on his
Mortimer Professor Coram’s own area of interest: Watson is
gardener and army pensioner. reading a medical treatise, and

Gold frame THE ADVENTURE OF THE GOLDEN PINCE-NEZ 193
suggests the wearer
was a refined lady. Strong lenses suggest
the wearer was likely to

frown and stoop
over her work.

Wide clips suggest Upon inspecting the
the wearer had a broad, pince-nez, Holmes describes
the wearer as “a woman of
short nose, with good address, attired like
close-set eyes. a lady. She has a remarkably
thick nose, with eyes which
are set close upon either side
of it. She has a puckered
forehead, a peering
expression, and probably
rounded shoulders.”

The Yoxley murder kept in place only by pinching here that Holmes makes his most
Willoughby Smith, a young man the bridge of the nose), which the brilliant deductions, although he
working as a researcher for the detective has brought with him. keeps them to himself until the
elderly, bed-bound Professor Coram He says Smith had clearly grabbed dramatic denouement of the case.
in Yoxley Old Place—a secluded them from the assassin at the time
house in the Kent countryside—has of the murder, as he did not wear On arriving at the garden of
been murdered in the professor’s glasses. While pince-nez were Yoxley Old Place, Holmes carefully
study, stabbed in the neck with a widely worn in the 1890s, Holmes inspects the path. Hopkins then
paper knife taken from the desk. is confident that this pair will yield reiterates that when he examined
His dying words uttered to the maid valuable clues. Clearly relishing it the previous day, there had been
who found him—“The professor— this chance to show off his powers no visible footprints, yet now there
it was she”—indicate the murderer to his young disciple, Holmes were signs of someone having
was female (Professor Coram being examines them closely, then jots trodden on the narrow grass border
a man). Nothing has been stolen, down a full physical description of alongside it. Hopkins assumes
no member of the household has the wearer, including the key fact someone had walked on that
seen or heard anything, and that she is incredibly nearsighted instead of the footpath in order to
there appears to be no motive. and so should be easy to track avoid leaving a track. When Holmes
Hopkins’s search indicated that down—all deduced before he has asks whether Hopkins is sure that
the murderer’s only escape route even visited the crime scene. the murderer must have left the
would have been via the garden, house the same way she entered,
but he found no footprints. On the path Hopkins says she must certainly
The following morning, Holmes have done so, since there is no
At this point Hopkins reveals travels down to Yoxley Old Place other way out. Holmes seems
that the victim was found clutching with Watson and Hopkins. It is unconvinced—but the reader
a golden pince-nez (glasses that are has yet to learn why. ❯❯

194 A LEGEND RETURNS

On examining the professor’s study, It would be difficult to name he has solved the mystery, much
Holmes immediately notices a new any articles which afford to everyone’s amazement. He
scratch near the lock on a bureau, a finer field for inference immediately identifies a bookcase
and deduces that the murderer was than a pair of glasses. with a secret closet as the place
trying to break into it when Smith Sherlock Holmes where the assassin has concealed
interrupted her. Holmes then herself. Realizing the game is
considers her escape route. There The Russian in hiding up, the murderer—who is exactly
are two options—either the way Holmes returns to the professor’s as Holmes has described her—
she came, or along a corridor that room at the specified time, and emerges, and tells her story.
leads into the professor’s bedroom. after “mistakenly” dropping the She confesses that she had entered
box of cigarettes offered to him the house to recover some crucial
Holmes, Watson, and Hopkins and picking all the stray cigarettes personal documents, but was
visit the professor. While Holmes off the floor, he announces that caught in the act by Smith, and
chain-smokes the professor’s killed him accidentally while trying
Egyptian cigarettes, they discuss to escape. Fleeing down the wrong
the possible causes of Smith’s corridor in panic, she ended up in
death, which the professor says the professor’s bedroom—and he,
he believes was suicide. Holmes although surprised to see her, then
then departs, saying he will return hid her from the police.
that afternoon to report back on
the case. When asked by his It turns out that the woman
companions whether he has any is the professor’s Russian wife,
clues, Holmes’s enigmatic response Anna. Years earlier, the couple
is that “the cigarettes will show me.” were involved in a revolutionary

Stanley Hopkins’s sketch of the crime scene

Door

Desk and Professor’s
bureau bedroom

Window Wardrobe

Smith’s Professor’s Stairs
body study Corridor

The maid was Corridor The two corridors from
at the study door within the study have identical
seconds of the murder. Back door carpets, so the nearsighted
murderer could have easily
She would have seen chosen the wrong one.
the attacker if they’d

fled that way.

Smith’s dead body lies in the n path Without glasses, the
professor’s study and the murderer Garde murderer would not have
has apparently escaped. Ruling out
where the assailant couldn’t have been able to balance along
fled to, Holmes deduces the most
likely—unlikely, as it turns the narrow grass border
out—hiding place.
of the path.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE GOLDEN PINCE-NEZ 195

Egyptian cigarettes, as smoked by
Professor Coram, were the height of
fashion in Victorian society. British and
American companies copied Egyptian
motifs, hence today’s Camel brand.

movement in their homeland, but As always, the secret to Holmes’s house. Third, the fact that the
their activities were uncovered by success is in his observation of two corridors were both covered
the authorities and in order to save details that others have overlooked. in coconut matting meant it was
his own life, the professor betrayed He tells his stunned companions likely that someone with poor
Anna and their comrades, and fled how he reached his conclusions. eyesight might have taken the
to England. Many of the group were First, the style and fit of the pince- wrong corridor, ending up in
jailed, including Anna’s close friend nez found at the crime scene the professor’s room. And finally,
Alexis, who was innocent of any enabled him to create a detailed Holmes’s brilliant ploy with the
wrongdoing and had written many image of the wearer (see p.193). cigarette ash: noticing a clear
letters dissuading his comrades from Second, on examining the garden space in front of the bookcase,
the path of violence. The professor path, he realized that the murderer— he had dropped ash over the floor.
had discovered these letters, which half-blind without her glasses— When he returned in the afternoon,
may have prevented Alexis’s could not possibly have made the ash had been stepped in,
conviction, but he withheld them, her escape down a narrow strip of revealing that the “prisoner”
prompting Anna to take matters into grass without making a false step, had come out of her hiding place.
her own hands and try to steal them. so she must have still been in the
These and various other details
Having explained her noble Russian revolutionaries missed by Hopkins yielded their
quest to save her friend, Anna falls secrets to Holmes’s piercing eye.
on to the bed and dies, having Russia’s Czar Alexander II was He knows it is crucial not to let
taken poison before she revealed a reformer who freed the serfs the truth escape just because it
herself. The story’s ending is tragic, in 1861, but many thought it was is unexpected. “A simple case,”
but the case has been solved, and a ruse and that autocratic rule Holmes says, “yet, in some ways, an
Holmes has the documents that would go on as before. Young instructive one.” He clearly expects
may ensure Alexis’s freedom. intellectuals, in particular, came Hopkins to have learned from it—
to believe that the only way to and feels sufficiently satisfied to
The detective’s summary achieve true freedom was congratulate him on bringing his
What is remarkable about this through violent revolution. case to a successful conclusion. ■
case is the speed at which Holmes
succeeds in solving it: barely 14 Alexander II survived one (Okhrana) cracked down on
hours had passed since Hopkins’s assassination attempt in 1879, young revolutionary groups
arrival in Baker Street. In few other only to be killed two years like the one Anna and Professor
adventures do we see Holmes later in St. Petersburg. After his Coram were involved in, and
working so swiftly to solve a crime death, the stakes were raised pogroms were launched against
from just the slimmest of clues. even higher. The secret police Jews, who were thought to
have been involved in the
Czar’s assassination. The
revolutionaries fought back with
bomb plots and terrorism. One
group, the Nihilists, became
known throughout Europe for
their willingness to use violence
to bring about the political
change they felt was essential.

196

WHEN A MAN IS LOST
IT IS MY DUTY TO
ASCERTAIN HIS FATE

THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING
THREE-QUARTER (1904)

IN CONTEXT I n a plot device deployed in also a mean-spirited miser who
only a few Holmes stories, is spectacularly uninterested in
TYPE no actual crime is involved his nephew’s whereabouts. The
Short story in “The Adventure of the Missing second, Dr. Leslie Armstrong, is
Three-Quarter.” However, this fact a “grim, ascetic, self-contained,
FIRST PUBLICATION comes to light at the end of the tale, formidable” figure who is deeply
UK: August 1904 in which Holmes investigates the suspicious of Holmes, regarding
US: November 1904 mysterious disappearance of a him as a meddler in search of
talented Cambridge rugby player. a scandal. Bad-tempered and
COLLECTION defensive, his unprovoked hostility
The Return of First impressions toward Holmes seems likely to be
Sherlock Holmes, 1905 While investigating the case, masking criminality. Holmes even
Holmes and Watson encounter two goes so far as to say that he has
CHARACTERS extraordinary—and contrasting— not “seen a man who, if he turns
Cyril Overton Skipper of characters. The first, the missing his talents that way, was more
the Cambridge University man’s uncle and his only living calculated to fill the gap left by
rugby team. relative, Lord Mount-James, is one the illustrious Moriarty.” In fact
of the richest men in England but he could not be more wrong.
Godfrey Staunton
Missing “three-quarter,” You live in a London to Cambridge
Cambridge’s star rugby player. different world to me, In addition to exploring how
Mr. Overton—a sweeter appearances can be disturbingly
Lord Mount-James deceptive—how it is imperative to
Godfrey’s miserly uncle. and healthier one. penetrate beneath the surface
Sherlock Holmes to find true motivation—this story
Dr. Leslie Armstrong explores the dangers of idleness.
Friend of Godfrey. It opens on a gloomy morning in
February when Holmes has little
to do and is deeply bored. Watson
is alarmed because he fears that
the understimulated Holmes
could relapse into his former
drug addiction, the “fiend” that
“was not dead but sleeping.”

THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING THREE-QUARTER 197

First played in 1872, and continuing
to today, the Varsity Match is a hotly
contested annual game of rugby
union between the universities of
Cambridge and Oxford.

The client is Cyril Overton, captain The dog duly leads Holmes and Conan Doyle himself was only
of the Cambridge University rugby Watson to a remote cottage where too familiar with the horrors of
team. His star player, Godfrey they find Staunton weeping over tuberculosis. His first wife, Louise,
Staunton, a “three-quarter,” has his wife, who has just died of was diagnosed with the disease
gone missing just days before he is tuberculosis. He had married her in 1893, succumbing to it in 1906.
due to play in an important match secretly and kept her hidden in the
against Oxford University. Holmes knowledge that his uncaring uncle, No crime has been committed,
searches Staunton’s London hotel Lord Mount-James, would be but Staunton has suffered a tragic
room, where he discovers part of enraged by her humble birth. loss. Holmes insists that he will do
a telegram message imprinted on Armstrong had been treating her his utmost to keep the truth from
blotting paper, then charms a post illness, and turns out to be the the papers. He and Dr. Armstrong
office clerk into revealing the kindest of men—deeply loyal and have misjudged each other, and
telegram’s destination. protective of his friend, Staunton. their gaining of mutual respect
is the true climax of the story. ■
This leads him to the recalcitrant
Dr. Armstrong in Cambridge. A cat-
and-mouse game then ensues, with
Holmes being led a merry dance as
he tries to trail the doctor’s carriage,
while his quarry becomes more and
more incensed by the pursuit.

One morning, two days into
their quest, Watson is panicked
when he sees Holmes holding a
syringe. In fact, the detective has
just used it to squirt aniseed on
the carriage wheels so they leave a
scent trail for a sniffer dog, Pompey.

Sniffer dogs Bloodhounds have been used to In his hunt for Godfrey Staunton,
track outlaws since the Middle Holmes is, fortunately, much
Ages; in Scotland, they were more successful. Pompey is a
known as “slough hounds,” drag hound. This breed of dog
the origin of the word “sleuth.” is generally a cross between
a foxhound and a beagle, and
In 1869, following a public is trained to follow the trail of a
outcry about the failure of the scent (often made up of aniseed
Metropolitan Police to capture oils) either laid or “dragged”
Jack the Ripper (p.312), the over a course. The Cambridge
police commissioner, Sir Charles University Drag began in 1855,
Warren, had two bloodhounds and today is the only pack of
trained to perform tracking drag hounds in England still run
tests and hunt for the serial by students. Certainly Holmes
killer. The investigation proved would have had no difficulty in
unsuccessful, however, as locating a dog such as Pompey
Warren was bitten and both in Cambridge at the time.
dogs ran away.

198

THE GAME
IS AFOOT

THE ADVENTURE OF THE ABBEY GRANGE (1904)

IN CONTEXT F requently in the canon, Like this grand house in Hampshire,
Holmes’s sense of justice Abbey Grange is a mansion built “in the
TYPE is at odds with legal fashion of Palladio.” Palladian design
Short story convention—in “The Boscombe was popular in 18th-century Europe.
Valley Mystery” (pp.70–73), for
FIRST PUBLICATION example, the detective sympathizes I have done more real harm by my
UK: September 1904 with the murderer because he was discovery of the criminal than ever
US: December 1904 being blackmailed, and agrees to he had done by his crime. I have
keep his crime a secret because learned caution now, and I had
COLLECTION he is an old man who is dying, rather play tricks with the law
The Return of Sherlock and will soon have to answer “at of England than with my own
Holmes, 1905 a higher court than the Assizes.” conscience.” Watson, in turn,
readily colludes with his friend’s
CHARACTERS In “The Adventure of the Abbey morally dubious stance.
Stanley Hopkins Young Grange,” Holmes goes even further,
police inspector. allowing a healthy young killer to “The Abbey Grange” is notable,
walk free. “Once or twice in my too, for tackling the dilemma of
Sir Eustace Brackenstall career,” he tells Watson, “I feel that women trapped in abusive
Wealthy man and owner of
the Abbey Grange.

Lady Brackenstall
(née Mary Fraser) Sir
Eustace’s Australian wife.

Theresa Wright Lady
Brackenstall’s maid.

Jack Croker Sailor and
Lady Brackenstall’s admirer.