The sherlock holmes book

THE SIGN OF FOUR 49

Chapter Seven Chapter Nine Chapter Eleven
The murderer had Disguised as a sailor, Watson takes the recovered
stepped in creosote, so Holmes finds the boat chest to Mary, but it is empty;
Holmes and Watson and persuades Scotland Small had thrown the treasure in
use Toby, a tracker dog, Yard’s Athelney Jones to the Thames. Mary and Watson
to follow the scent trail. provide a police boat. declare their love for each other.

Chapter Six Chapter Eight Chapter Ten Chapter Twelve
Clues tell Holmes Toby leads Holmes and At nightfall the Aurora Small tells the full story
the murderer was tiny, Watson to a boatyard, breaks cover, and Holmes,
and his accomplice a where Small has rented Watson, and Jones give of the Agra treasure,
one-legged man who he chase in the police boat, and how Thaddeus’s
surmises was Jonathan a launch called the eventually shooting dead father stole it from “the
Small—one of “the four.” Aurora, then hidden it. Small’s accomplice and four.” Watson and Mary
Holmes asks the Baker
Street Irregulars gang arresting Small. become engaged.

to try to find it.

them possessed a chest full of the the murderer. Athelney Jones of Mutiny of 1857, he and Singh, Khan,
“Agra treasure”—but the major died Scotland Yard arrests Thaddeus. and Akbar killed a man for the
before revealing to Thaddeus and Holmes discovers that Small has treasure, and hid it in Agra Fort,
Bartholomew, his brother, where it rented a launch, the Aurora, but is only to be arrested and sent to the
was. They had only the pearls, and lying low. When Thaddeus provides Andaman Islands penal colony.
argued over Mary’s claim to them; an alibi, a chastened Jones agrees Years later, they offered a share of
this was when Thaddeus began to to Holmes’s request for a police boat. the treasure to two guards, Major
send the anonymous gifts. Sholto and Captain Morstan, in
That night, the Aurora roars off exchange for freedom. But Sholto
Thaddeus tells the group that downriver, with Holmes, Watson, took the treasure and betrayed
Bartholomew has found the chest and Jones in pursuit. The “savage” them. Vowing vengeance, Small
at the family home. On arrival at fires at them with his blowpipe, but escaped with an islander (the
the house, they find Bartholomew they shoot him dead and he is lost “savage”), and tracked Sholto down.
killed by a poisoned dart and the overboard. Finally, they catch up
treasure gone. Holmes deduces with Small, but he has thrown the The story ends on a happy note
that a wooden-legged man, who treasure into the Thames. Small with Watson announcing his
he surmises is Small, accompanied reveals that during the Indian engagement to Mary to Holmes. ■

50 THE EARLY ADVENTURES

S herlock Holmes might During the course of the dinner, Oscar Wilde had a sharp mind,
have remained a one-book Wilde and Conan Doyle were each outlandish dress and habits, and an
phenomenon had it not been asked to produce a novella-length apparent disdain for conventionalities,
for an invitation to dinner at the mystery for the magazine. Wilde which left a lasting impression on the
Langham Hotel in London’s Regent came up with The Picture of Dorian young Conan Doyle.
Street that Conan Doyle received in Gray. Shortly after, Conan Doyle
August 1889. The invitation came wrote to Stoddart: “As far as I can in The Sign of Four, he set about
from John Marshall Stoddart, the see my story will either be called not only reestablishing Holmes in
managing director of the successful The Sign of the Six or The Problem the consciousness of the reading
American Lippincott’s Monthly of the Sholtos. You said you wanted public, but also adding more color,
Magazine, who was in London to a spicy title. I shall give Sherlock depth, and idiosyncrasies to the
launch the UK edition. Stoddart had Holmes of A Study in Scarlet detective’s character.
read A Study in Scarlet (pp.36–45) something else to unravel.”
and enjoyed it. More importantly, Conan Doyle’s brush with Wilde
he was canny enough to realize Conan Doyle completed the prompted him to infuse Holmes
the detective story genre was book in less than a month. By then with more bohemian extravagance
about to bloom. This awareness its title had become The Sign of the than in the previous novel. In the
was prompted, perhaps, by the Four for the magazine, but when it opening paragraph of The Sign of
high sales of Fergus Hume’s 1886 was published later as a novel, the Four, the reader discovers that the
The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, title became The Sign of Four. sleuth is a drug addict: “Holmes
set in Melbourne, Australia. took his bottle from the corner
of the mantelpiece, and his
What Conan Doyle did not know hypodermic syringe from its neat
was that another writer would be morocco case…” reports Watson.
at the dinner: Oscar Wilde. The pair “Finally, he thrust the sharp point
would have made very contrasting home, pressed down the tiny
dinner guests—the conventional piston, and sank back into the
and serious Scottish doctor set velvet-lined armchair with a
against the flamboyant aesthete. long sigh of satisfaction.”
In his autobiography, Conan Doyle
called it “a golden evening.” Holmes takes both morphine
and cocaine, although he seems to
favor the latter. He assures Watson
that he indulges in this dangerous
pursuit merely to offset boredom.
Only when he has a problem to
solve can he really come alive and
dispense with artificial stimulants.

A richly drawn Holmes I abhor the dull routine
Conan Doyle was by now a more of existence. I crave
accomplished writer than when for mental exaltation.
he wrote A Study in Scarlet, and Sherlock Holmes

Lippincott’s magazine gave The
Sign of the Four top billing. It was
renamed The Sign of Four when it
was published in P. F. Collier’s Once a
Week Library in the US in March 1890.

Glass and silver syringes like this recommends that Watson read THE SIGN OF FOUR 51
were used in the 19th century. Holmes Winwood Reade’s The Martyrdom
kept his in a similar case, and preferred of Man (1872)—an indictment of The Indian Mutiny
“a seven per cent” solution of cocaine. Christianity that was a favorite
of Conan Doyle’s. Holmes quotes Conan Doyle would have
Making Holmes a drug user was the German writer Goethe (1749– learned about the Indian
a clever way to embellish him as a 1832) when he disparagingly says Mutiny at school in the 1860s
character, making him immediately of Jones, “Wir sind gewohnt dass and 1870s, when the affair was
more edgy and interesting. For the die Menschen verhöhnen was sie fresh in British minds. It began
first time, the reader also sees his nicht verstehen” (“We are used to in 1857, when sepoys—Indian
theatrical side in his wonderfully people making fun of things that soldiers—in the Bengal army
convincing disguise as an old sea they do not understand.”) shot British officers, escalating
dog when trying to trace the Aurora, into full-scale rebellions across
which leads Jones to observe, “You This sophisticated literary northern and central India.
would have made an actor, and a knowledge, which may reflect For months, garrisons such as
rare one.” In A Study in Scarlet, the Wilde’s influence on Conan Doyle, Agra were beleaguered, until
villain’s anonymous accomplice serves no plot purpose. It is simply British authority was restored
disguised himself as an old lady, window-dressing intended to allow in 1858. Conan Doyle may well
but it is much more effective when Holmes to impress the reader with have gleaned details about
the detective himself is in disguise. his accomplishments. Another Agra from Major-General
In his very next appearance, in “A echo of that “golden evening” can Alfred Wilks Drayson, his
Scandal in Bohemia” (pp.56–61), be seen in Watson’s portrait of sponsor at the Portsmouth
Holmes disguises himself as both Thaddeus Sholto, which is a veiled Literary and Scientific Society.
a drunken horse-groom and a portrait of Wilde. “Nature had given Drayson commanded the 21st
simple-minded clergyman. him a pendulous lip,” observes Brigade Artillery in India from
Watson, “and a too visible line of 1876–78, and helped rearm
yellow and irregular teeth, which several forts, including Agra.
he strove feebly to conceal by Conan Doyle’s interpretation
constantly passing his hand over of the colonial mindset of
the lower part of his face.” Wilde the time, and how the rebellion
was well known for doing this. revealed the true natures
of those caught up in it, is
Holmes is a genius fascinating. Small, Morstan,
Conan Doyle’s readers already knew and Sholto alike are warped
that Holmes is clever, so it wasn’t by their greed for the Agra
necessary to make him a master of treasure. Looting by British
so many academic disciplines. ❯❯ soldiers was common during
the Mutiny, a subject Conan
A literary detective I cannot live without Doyle would revisit in “The
In the early days of their friendship brain-work. What else Crooked Man” (pp.132–33).
in A Study in Scarlet, Watson made
a note that Holmes’s knowledge is there to live for?
of literature was “nil.” In this tale, Sherlock Holmes
however, Conan Doyle has Holmes
demonstrate a broad appreciation
not only for British literature, but
for foreign writers too. Holmes

52 THE EARLY ADVENTURES

But the author was pleased with The Sign of Four was made into a a double-barreled tiger cub at it.”
his embellished portrait of the silent film in 1923, starring British actor When Thaddeus thoughtlessly
detective. He wrote to Stoddart, Eille Norwood (1861–1948) as Holmes tells Mary that her father is dead,
“Holmes, I am glad to say, is in and Arthur M. Cullin as Watson. Watson says that he “could have
capital form all through. I think it is Norwood played Holmes in 47 movies. struck the man across his face.” Yet
pretty fair, though I am not usually when Thaddeus also reveals that
satisfied with my own things.” would test Watson’s own deductive Mary’s share of the treasure will be
skills using Dr. Mortimer’s stick worth a quarter of a million pounds,
One aspect of Conan Doyle’s in The Hound of the Baskervilles Watson is overcome by the thought
characterization that remains (pp.152–61); Watson fails to make that this will put her beyond his
unchanged from A Study in Scarlet correct observations, but Holmes reach. So much so that, when the
is the opportunity that he gives is able to determine that the doctor hypochondriac Thaddeus asks for
Holmes to show off his skills of is young and owns a medium-sized his professional opinion on his
observation and deduction before dog. The repetition of the trick health, “Holmes declares,” says
the case even gets going. Conan reminds readers already familiar the doctor, “that he overheard me
Doyle would continue to use this with Holmes of his genius, while caution him [Thaddeus] against the
technique in many subsequent at the same time establishing great danger of taking more than
Holmes stories. For example, Holmes it for new readers. two drops of castor-oil, while I
recommended strychnine in large
Here Holmes shows off his skills doses as a sedative.”
when he deduces from the color of
the mud on Watson’s shoes and the Much more convincing is Conan
untouched stamps and postcards Doyle’s portrayal of the relationship
on his desk that the doctor has between Watson and Holmes, a
been to the Wigmore Street Post partnership that has moved on
Office to send a telegram. He goes considerably since A Study in
on to examine a watch Watson Scarlet. It is given real substance
has recently acquired and declares, by the details of their domestic life
with typical insensitivity, that it together. The start of the story sees
had belonged to Watson’s oldest them bickering like old friends who
brother, who, “taking to drink,” are comfortable with each other
must have recently died. and feel at ease in speaking their
minds. Watson has no reservations
Rival relationships at all about railing at Holmes’s drug
Conan Doyle adds a new dimension habit, because he cares about him.
to the dynamic between Holmes
and Watson with the arrival of the A client to me is a mere
female client Mary Morstan, with unit, a factor in a problem.
whom Watson promptly falls head
over heels in love. Throughout the The emotional qualities
story, the doctor behaves like a are antagonistic to
lovesick teenager, giving the lie to clear reasoning.
his claim that he has “experience Sherlock Holmes
of women which extends over
many nations and three separate
continents.” Any reader will wonder
which nations and continents, and
what kind of experiences. At one
point he is so lovestruck that he
babbles feebly to her about “how
a musket looked into my tent at
the dead of night, and how I fired

THE SIGN OF FOUR 53

Mary Morstan woman cries. “It does me good before he had no living relatives.
to see you.” It is also obvious Of more concern is Conan Doyle’s
“What a very attractive that her employer adores her. questionable depiction of the
woman!” Watson exclaims to “She was clearly no mere paid indigenous Andaman islander,
Holmes after they first meet dependent,” observes Watson, Tonga, who he portrays as a bestial
Mary. “Is she?” replies Holmes. “but an honored friend.” The “savage.” In an article in The
“I did not observe.” Watson clincher is her relief on hearing Quarterly Review, 1904, Andrew
extols Mary’s radiant qualities, that the treasure is lost. Lang observed: “The [indigenous]
but to the reader she appears Andamese are cruelly libelled [in
a rather unassuming figure. When Watson tells Holmes The Sign of Four], and have neither
However, she shows strength of their engagement, he replies, malignant qualities, nor heads like
of character when she learns “I really cannot congratulate mops, nor weapons.” It may be that
that her father is dead, and has you.” But he concedes that Conan Doyle deliberately ignored
an instantly calming effect on Watson has chosen well, adding the facts and made Tonga repulsive
Bartholomew Sholto’s hysterical that she “might have been useful so that the reader is not distressed
housekeeper. “God bless your in such work as we have been when “the savage” meets his
sweet, calm face!” the old doing.” Clearly, her sole future demise. Yet inaccurate portrayals
role is to be a supportive wife. of “savages” were commonplace in
The two men lounge in bachelor the Victorian era, so in his portrayal
comfort, their rooms taking on the In fine form of Tonga, Conan Doyle was very
relaxed air of a gentlemen’s club. As in Conan Doyle’s previous novel, much a man of his times.
The only female is Mrs. Hudson, The Sign of Four is dotted with
their housekeeper (named for the inconsistencies and minor errors. Overall, however, both Conan
first time)—a motherly figure who Contributing factors to this were Doyle and his finest creation are on
stays in the background. Their the haste with which Conan Doyle sparkling form in The Sign of Four.
residence, 221B Baker Street, is a wrote it, and his loathing of looking Holmes rattles off the names of
well-established haven amid the back at previous writings to cross- streets as the four-wheeler taking
hurly-burly of the metropolis. check facts and details. For example, him, Watson, and Mary to meet
Watson’s war wound migrates from Thaddeus itself rattles through the
It is sad for the reader that this his shoulder to his leg, and Watson night, demonstrating his intimate
cozy state of affairs seems set to now has an elder brother where knowledge of London: “Rochester ❯❯
end when Watson announces his
engagement. Watson is about to
depart for domestic bliss, leaving a
solitary Holmes with his hypodermic
needle—or so the reader thinks. In
later Strand adventures, however,
Watson is either a frequent visitor
to 221B, or the story is set back
in the days of his bachelorhood.
Eventually, in “The Adventure of
the Empty House” (pp.162–67), we
learn that Mary has died. And in
“The Norwood Builder” (168–69),
Watson has sold his medical
practice and moved back in to 221B.

A penal colony was first established
on Great Andaman Island in 1789. The
British built a new prison after the
Indian Mutiny to house their captives;
here, prisoners take meals on the beach.

54 THE EARLY ADVENTURES

Row. Now Vincent Square. Now we I never guess. It is a clear. At worst he faces the gallows,
come out on the Vauxhall Bridge shocking habit—destructive the Victorians’ preferred method of
Road. We are making for the Surrey execution, and at best “digging
side…” When they all arrive at to the logical faculty. drains at Dartmoor,” as he puts it,
Pondicherry Lodge, the ancestral Sherlock Holmes presaging the looming presence of
family home of the Sholtos, Holmes Princetown Prison in the later story
once again behaves like a “trained Treasure Island (1883). In Conan The Hound of the Baskervilles.
bloodhound,” launching himself Doyle’s essay “Through the Magic
into a frenzied forensic investigation Door” (1907), he wrote of Stevenson: A classic tale
of the murder scene with the same “…he is the inventor of what may Two images in particular remain
gusto that he showed in A Study in be called the mutilated villain,” long in memory after reading this
Scarlet. Watson notes: “He whipped and he “has used the effect so tale. First, the description of the
out his lens and a tape measure, often, and with such telling results, victim at the murder scene—
and hurried about the room on that he may be said to have made it Bartholomew’s “ghastly, inscrutable
his knees, measuring, comparing, his own. To say nothing of Hyde… smile,” and the way that “not only
examining…” Through his deductive there is the horrid blind Pew, Black his features, but all his limbs were
brilliance Holmes makes a complete Dog with two fingers missing, Long twisted and turned in the most
fool of Scotland Yard’s Athelney John Silver with his one leg.” fantastic fashion.” Second is Conan
Jones, just as he did Gregson Doyle’s extraordinarily atmospheric,
and Lestrade in the earlier tale, Small wrestles with his almost Dickensian, evocation of
and manages to leave his partner conscience throughout The Sign Victorian London. “Down the
Watson typically dumbfounded. of Four, which makes him a Strand the lamps were but misty
sympathetic character. What splotches of diffused light, which
The villain’s character happens to him in the end is not threw a feeble circular glimmer
The Sign of Four also has a more upon the slimy pavement,” notes
memorable, complex villain than Watson in a particularly memorable
the bland, one-dimensional Hope passage. At the time, London was
of A Study in Scarlet. With his wild a thriving port, the hub of a great
eyes and wooden leg—the result worldwide empire, and Conan
of a crocodile attack—Small was Doyle’s busy riverside scenes are
largely inspired by Long John full of atmosphere. “Somewhere
Silver in Robert Louis Stevenson’s in the dark ooze at the bottom

Tower of London 4 Blackwall Tunnel
2 Tower Bridge

1 Westminster Wharf West India
Docks

Jacobson’s Yard

Isle of
Dogs

3 Greenwich

THE SIGN OF FOUR 55

of the Thames lie the bones of pompously, “Mr. Conan Doyle has The Thames was a hive of activity in
that strange visitor to our shores,” done better work… still, as a the 19th century, its banks lined with
says Watson, as he recalls Tonga’s specimen of purely detective ships, as can be seen in this painting of
dramatic demise. fiction, the tale has its merits.” The Tower Bridge from Cherry Garden Pier
Daily Republican in Pennsylvania by Charles Edward Dixon (1872–1934).
Unlike A Study in Scarlet, this expressed a more general view
tale was widely reviewed on both when it stated, “…[Holmes’s] seemingly insoluble mystery is
sides of the Atlantic. London’s marvellous ingenuity in solving a portrayed with so graphic a pen
Morning Post commented rather that Conan Doyle must take rank as
A police launch with “two burly police- a leader in the line of such writers
Barking 5 inspectors” took Holmes, Watson, and as Poe and Gaboriau. The Sign of
Level Jones downriver in pursuit of the Aurora. Four is bound to become a classic.”
However, by the time these reviews
6 1 Westminster Wharf: Holmes appeared, Conan Doyle had once
7 and Watson pick up the police boat. again let Holmes slip from his
mind, and was hard at work on
Plumstead 2 Tower Bridge: The police boat waits one of his now long-forgotten
marshes for Aurora to emerge from Jacobson’s Yard. historical romances.

Thames River 3 Greenwich: Holmes is 300 paces behind Today The Sign of Four is
the Aurora as they pass through here. indeed considered a classic. A
70-year-old Graham Greene wrote
4 Blackwall Tunnel: Holmes is closing in; in the introduction to a 1974 edition
they are only 250 paces behind the Aurora. of the book, “The Sign of Four… I
read first at the age of ten and have
5 Barking Level: The gap closes to a never forgotten… the dark night in
boat-length; Holmes sees Tonga on deck. Pondicherry Lodge, Norwood, has
never faded from my memory.” ■
6 River bank: Chase ends; Tonga is shot.

7 Plumstead Marshes: Small is captured.

56 IN CONTEXT

YOU SEE TYPE
BUT YOU DO Short story
NOT OBSERVE
FIRST PUBLICATION
A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA (1891) UK: July 1891
US: August 1891 (also as
“Woman’s Wit” and “The
King’s Sweetheart”)

COLLECTION
The Adventures of
Sherlock Holmes, 1892

CHARACTERS
Wilhelm Gottsreich
Sigismond von Ormstein
King of Bohemia.

Irene Adler American opera
singer, and King Wilhelm’s
former mistress.

Godfrey Norton British
lawyer who marries Irene.

T he first of the 56 Sherlock
Holmes short stories to be
published in The Strand
Magazine, “A Scandal in Bohemia”
is the tale that introduces the
beautiful Irene Adler—the most
talked-about minor character in
the Holmes canon after Moriarty.

Even in the story, Irene appears
directly only briefly, yet a world of
scholarship and speculation has
built up around her. Many screen
adaptations have developed her in
their own ways: in the US series
Elementary (p.339), Moriarty is
Irene Adler in disguise, and in
the BBC’s series Sherlock (p.339),
she is a high-class dominatrix
who greets Holmes while naked.

A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA 57

Deep under cover in one of the
convincing disguises he adopts when
gathering evidence, Holmes (Jeremy
Brett) finds himself accidentally caught
up in Irene Adler’s wedding ceremony.

Holmes and women courtly knights of the Middle Ages, “bohemian” was in vogue at the
In the very first sentence of “A who desisted from sensuality in time (see box, p.61), and referred to
Scandal in Bohemia,” Watson tells order to uphold their chivalric free-spirited individuals who led
the reader that “to Sherlock Holmes ideals. However, Holmes is a far an unconventional lifestyle and
she [Irene Adler] is always the more psychologically complex rejected social norms. However,
woman,” with “the” italicized to figure than any medieval hero. love and passion were also at the
ensure the significance is clear. heart of the bohemian ideal—
However, he then quickly stresses Holmes the bohemian emotions that are anathema to
that “it was not that he [Holmes] felt Since his marriage and move away Holmes. In calling this story “A
any emotion akin to love for Irene from 221B Baker Street, Watson has Scandal in Bohemia,” Watson
Adler.” In fact, the whole idea of love seen little of his former companion. is perhaps hinting that the real
is “abhorrent to his cold, precise However, he is aware that Holmes scandal may lie not within King
but admirably balanced mind.” spends a lot of time in his lodgings, Wilhelm’s Bohemia but within
interspersing bouts of work with Holmes, in a rare moment when
And yet Conan Doyle has planted regular drug binges—alternating a woman is able to capture both
the irresistible hint that Holmes, weekly “between cocaine and his respect and his admiration.
emotionally cold and misogynistic, ambition, the drowsiness of the
might have found his true love. It drug, and the fierce energy of his Holmes at work
is a testament to Conan Doyle’s own keen nature.” It seems that the After his lengthy, slightly wistful
brilliant realization of his creation detective needs a suitable outlet introduction, Watson sets the story
that readers wish so much for the for his overactive brain when he is in motion. He is standing in the
apparently emotionless detective without a case to occupy his mind. street below the Baker Street
to find his mate. Watson implies rooms. He looks up to the window
that Holmes has rejected the love Although this story’s title and spots Holmes: “his tall, spare
of women in order to keep his mind ostensibly refers to a potential figure pass[ing] twice in a dark
focused on the rational work of scandal for the King of Bohemia, silhouette against the blind.”
detection, turning himself into a the first mention of Bohemia is in Holmes is remote and above the
noble and almost tragic figure. It relation to Holmes, when Watson normal world, as he must inevitably
is no wonder that some literary tells the reader that the detective be, but Watson can tell from his
commentators have likened the “loathed every form of society with energetic pacing and alert posture ❯❯
detective’s behavior to that of the his whole Bohemian soul.” The term

In his eyes she eclipses
and predominates
the whole of her sex.
Dr. Watson

58 THE EARLY ADVENTURES

that he is at work again: “He A Frenchman or Russian of Bohemia. Furthermore, when his
had risen out of his drug-created could not have written that. client arrives a few moments later,
dreams and was hot upon the scent It is the German who is so giving a false name and with his
of some new problem.” Watson face hidden behind a mask, Holmes
has already mentioned Holmes’s incourteous to his verbs. realizes immediately that this large,
indulgence in narcotics, and he Sherlock Holmes flamboyantly dressed man is in fact
stresses it a second time in order Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von
to portray the great detective as Such sharp observations are central Ormstein—the King of Bohemia.
a dramatic, romantic figure who to Holmes’s method, and today this
switches between light and dark— is still considered the principal skill The King and the diva
his career illuminated as if by of a detective. However, as Holmes Holmes quickly makes his attitude
flashes of lightning in the night. points out, a detective also needs toward royalty plain by adopting a
to understand exactly what he is curt, businesslike manner, aware
Eager to reconnect with his seeing, as he demonstrates when that to anyone but the self-centered
friend, Watson makes his way up he goes on to show the doctor an King, his disdain would be apparent.
to the rooms. Holmes is as cool and anonymous note that he has just The King reveals that when he was
incisive as ever, noting several received. Watson can deduce only Crown Prince he had a romantic
things with unnerving accuracy: that the writer is wealthy, whereas liaison with a young American
the amount of weight Watson has Holmes can also reveal that he is a opera singer named Irene Adler,
gained since they last met; that he native German speaker (as only the and was careless enough to have
has gone back into practice as a German language would construct his photograph taken with her, thus
doctor; that he has been out in the sentences with the verb falling at leaving evidence of their affair.
rain a lot recently; and that he has the end) and that the notepaper Recently, he has become engaged
an incompetent serving girl. When comes from the German kingdom to a Scandinavian princess, and he
Watson, astonished, asks how he is afraid that if her principled family
does it, the detective explains his were to be made aware of his past
method by demonstrating that it indiscretion, they will oppose the
all depends on observation. Watson match. Irene has threatened to
sees things, he says, but he does make the photograph public when
not observe. Ordinary people fail to the engagement is announced in
notice life’s minutiae, which is why a few days’ time, presumably, the
Watson has no idea of the number King says, because she does not
of steps on the stairs up to 221B, want him to marry another woman,
but Holmes can tell him it is 17.

Irene Adler universities—significantly, Irene
comes from America, where
Critics are divided in their analysis women’s education was further
of Irene Adler (portrayed here by advanced than in Europe—and
Lara Pulver). Some say she reflects then to enter the workplace
the emergence of a new kind of as teachers, doctors, and office
young woman in the late 1800s: clerks. However, others claim
smart, self-confident, and assertive, Irene represents a patriarchal
a phenomenon some scholars now Victorian view that only the
call “first wave” feminism. Not most exceptional woman could
all would join the suffragettes’ match Holmes’s intellect on his
campaign for votes for women, own ground. After her brief
but these daughters of the middle triumph, she must slip back
class were beginning to believe into the shadows of marriage.
in their right and ability to control Still others view her as a male
their own lives. Increasingly, girls fantasy figure, giving men the
chose to go to the new women’s salacious illusion of submission.

A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA 59

Disguise is an
ongoing theme
in this story, and
despite Holmes’s
usual mastery in
the art of disguise,
it is only Irene Adler
who is completely
successful in
concealing her
identity.

Failure: King Wilhelm Failure: Holmes Success: Irene
tries to disguise disguises himself Adler disguises
his identity from as a clergyman, but herself as a youth,
Holmes, but fails and successfully
immediately. Irene realizes fools Holmes.
who he is.

and so he has been forced to seek the King admits Irene has not is that she receives frequent visits
Holmes’s help in locating and attempted to extort money from from a handsome young lawyer
recovering the incriminating photo. him, it is clear Holmes has already named Godfrey Norton. Spotting
come to a different conclusion about Irene and Godfrey both leaving
The King refers to Irene as a Irene. Holmes yawns at the King’s the house hurriedly in separate
“well-known adventuress,” and arrogance, and can barely wait for carriages, Holmes swiftly followed,
many readers have taken his him to leave. Uncharacteristically, only to find himself drafted in
description of her at face value— he also discusses his fee—making as witness to their legitimate and
the myth persists that she is a the point that his only interest in happy wedding in the Church of
conniving blackmailer who uses this case is financial. St. Monica in Edgware Road.
her sexual wiles to make her way
in the world. However, the King Holmes’s plan in action No wonder Holmes can barely
presents Irene in this way in order The following afternoon, Holmes contain his delight, especially as
to justify his ill-treatment of her: he meets Watson after a morning’s he has devised a “fool-proof plan”
admits he has made several high- investigation. He is amused and for recovering the photo, based on
handed, even criminal, attempts to excited about the success of his what he believes is his infallible
recover the photograph—including efforts, and by the astonishing turn knowledge of female psychology.
offering to pay for its return, hiring that events have taken. Disguised
burglars to steal it, and even twice as a groom, he has been chatting Later in the day, as per Holmes’s
ransacking her home—all of which with the men caring for the horses scheme, Watson is standing outside
have failed. in a mews behind Irene’s house, and Irene’s house and watches the
has learned a great deal about her. events that unfold: as Irene steps
When Holmes consults his out of her carriage, a staged brawl
biographical card index, it reveals The grooms, who would usually between several men breaks out,
Irene Adler to be a retired opera be first to spot anything salacious, and Holmes, this time disguised
singer who has sung at La Scala described Irene respectfully as “the as a clergyman, comes to Irene’s
in Milan and was prima donna at daintiest thing under a bonnet on rescue. However, he soon collapses
the Warsaw Opera. To have this planet.” Indeed, she seems to to the ground with blood dripping
reached those heights, she must live a normal, ordered life, and down his face. Concerned for his
have been a serious artist, rather their only noteworthy observation welfare, Irene has him carried
than an amoral gold-digger. When inside the house, to recover ❯❯

60 THE EARLY ADVENTURES

Holmes’s file on Irene Adler reveals greets him cheerily in a strangely the photograph with her. In its
that she was a talented contralto who familiar voice as he and Watson hiding place, she has left a letter to
once sang at the prestigious La Scala arrive at the front door of 221B. Holmes, and a photograph of herself
in Milan (pictured). in evening dress for the King.
A surprise for Holmes
on the sitting room sofa. What The next morning, when Holmes Irene’s letter explains that she
Watson sees through the window is and Watson arrive at Irene’s home had realized the clergyman was
a lovely, kind young woman tenderly for their surprise visit, Holmes is Holmes in disguise the instant she
nursing the injured Holmes—not a amazed to find that the house- betrayed the photograph’s hiding
femme fatale with a victim in her keeper has been expecting him— place—although she congratulates
clutches. As he battles to decide and to hear that Irene left for the him on his performance. But to
what to do, Holmes gives him the Continent hours earlier, along be certain that he was indeed the
pre-arranged signal to hurl a smoke with her new husband, taking famous detective, she had dressed
bomb through the window and raise up as a youth and followed him
the alarm with a cry of “Fire!” Male costume is nothing new home, and it was she who had
to me. I often take advantage greeted him outside his door.
Just as Holmes has predicted, of the freedom which it gives.
in the panic caused by the bomb One of the fascinating things
Irene rushes to save the one thing Irene Adler about this episode is the way that
that is most important to her—the it focuses on Holmes’s mastery of
photograph—and so reveals its disguise—and yet Irene beats him
hiding place in a recess behind at his own game. She tells Holmes
a sliding panel. After confirming that, as a trained actress, it is easy
the fire was a false alarm, Holmes for her to wear “male costume,” and
slips out of the house, intending to that she has dressed up as a youth
return the following day with the on many occasions, in order to enjoy
King to claim the picture. Holmes the freedom of being incognito.
is so pleased with himself that he In fact, it may not have been so
barely notices the young man who unusual for a woman to disguise
herself in male clothes to pass in a

A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA 61

man’s world. There is the renowned …the best laid plans of shows he is in love with Irene. But
story of James Barry (born Margaret Mr. Sherlock Holmes were he never mentions her again in the
Ann Bulkley)—a woman who spent beaten by a woman’s wit. stories, except to acknowledge, as
her entire life disguised as a man so in “The Five Orange Pips” (pp.74–9),
she could pursue a career as a Dr. Watson that there was one woman who got
military doctor; likewise, there are the better of him. His regard for her
many folk songs about women who she declares in the letter that she is unmistakable, and the photograph
joined the army in disguise. has no interest in making the photo is either simply for his files or a
public, but will keep it as insurance memento of a worthy adversary.
The tradition of the undercover should it ever be needed.
detective, though, goes back to the There is no doubt that Irene
famous Eugène Vidocq (1775–1857), The King is certain that Irene Adler is a fascinating character,
a French criminal-turned-detective will keep her word, and goes on to and many feminist critics have
in Napoleon’s time (see box, p.317), rue that she was not of his rank, commented on how she presents
whose amazing stories captivated as she would have made a great a challenge to the notion that
19th-century writers, such as Victor queen. “From what I have seen of reason, logic, and independent
Hugo, Alexander Dumas, as well as the lady” Holmes responds coolly, action are a male prerogative.
Honoré de Balzac. They were surely “she seems indeed to be on a very American scholar Rosemary Jann
an inspiration for Conan Doyle, too, different level to your Majesty.” It is believes that Irene “threatens male
together with the famous explorer clear that in Holmes’s opinion, she authority.” Yet Holmes, although
Richard Burton (1821–1890), whose is far above him. The King offers shaken, does not seem threatened.
many exploits in disguise, such as Holmes an emerald ring as a reward Instead, he demonstrates perfectly
sneaking into Mecca dressed as a for his work, but he asks instead his dictum that one should not be
Muslim, so intrigued Victorians. to have Irene’s photograph. Some blinded by preconceptions. Irene
readers insist that Holmes’s choice has opened his eyes wonderfully.
A worthy adversary
In “A Scandal in Bohemia,” Irene In realizing his error, and being
sees through Holmes’s disguise, aware that a woman can easily
despite his brilliance, and it is she take control of a situation without
who pulls the wool over his eyes. resorting to sexual power games
She escapes with her picture, and or emotionalism, Conan Doyle’s
it seems that for her—as so often Holmes seems far ahead of his
with Holmes—winning the game time. More than a century on, it is
is enough. Now happily married, a lesson that some adapters of this
story have been slower to learn. ■

The bohemians wealth. With their soft, colorful
clothes and unkempt hair, they
Bohemia is a real place that was were easy to recognize. Some
once a kingdom, but is now a bohemians were political rebels,
region in the Czech Republic. but for many it was just a way of
However, “Bohemia” was also the life. Most were poor and lived in
imaginary spiritual home of the run-down neighborhoods such
gypsy people, which is why, in as Montmartre in Paris, Soho in
the mid-19th century, the term London, and Telegraph Hill in
“bohemian” came to refer to the San Francisco, but there were
unconventional, rootless lifestyle rich bohemians, too—those
practiced by some artists, writers, who rejected society’s values.
and musicians. The bohemians Bohemianism appeared in cities
were associated with romantic in Europe and the US in the
living—they were dedicated to mid-1800s, and reached its peak
artistic creation and free love— in the 1890s, when Conan Doyle
and some rejected material wrote “A Scandal in Bohemia.”

62 IN CONTEXT

I REALLY TYPE
WOULDN’T MISS Short story
YOUR CASE FOR
THE WORLD FIRST PUBLICATION
UK: August 1891
THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE (1891)
COLLECTION
The Adventures of
Sherlock Holmes, 1892

CHARACTERS
Jabez Wilson Pawnbroker.

Vincent Spaulding
Assistant at Jabez Wilson’s
pawnshop.

Duncan Ross
Man at the offices of the
Red-Headed League.

Peter Jones
Scotland Yard detective.

Mr. Merryweather
Chairman of the City
and Suburban Bank.

A lthough “The Red-Headed
League” was written
after “A Case of Identity”
(pp.68–9), it was the first of the
two to be published in The Strand
Magazine. Some Holmesian
scholars have surmised that
the Strand considered “The Red-
Headed League” to be the better
story, and wanted to establish
the detective’s popularity as
quickly as possible—it was
certainly one of Conan Doyle’s
favorites. But there is another,
perhaps more likely reason: “The
Red-Headed League” took just
seven days to write, and Conan
Doyle finished the first three short
stories during April 1891. There

THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE 63

Holmes’s analysis of Jabez Wilson

Wilson’s right hand He is wearing an His tattoo of a fish His right cuff
is “quite a size arc-and-compass is “quite peculiar to is very shiny, and
breastpin (an emblem China,” and he has his left cuff has a
larger” than his left, of the Freemasons). a Chinese coin on smooth patch near
and his muscles are the elbow where it
more developed. his watch chain. rests upon a desk.

Jabez Wilson has worked in manual labor,
is a Freemason, has been in China, and has
done a considerable amount of writing lately.

is a good chance that “The Red- is a man florid of face, stout, and from it, contrary to speculation
Headed League” and “A Case of altogether an unremarkable example that Holmes himself was a mason.
Identity” were sent to the Strand of “an average commonplace British Holmes also observes that Wilson
together, resulting in a confusion tradesman”—that is, except for has been doing a great deal of
about their intended order. Holmes’s his mane of fiery red hair. Holmes writing; and this remarkable case
reference in this story to “the very swiftly realizes that Wilson is a revolves around this mundane task.
simple problem presented by Miss Freemason. Conan Doyle was,
Mary Sutherland” (who appears in at times, a member of this secret Little sympathy
“A Case of Identity”) makes this society, but here Holmes makes It is unlikely that Wilson, as a
mistake clear. a pointed reference to “your order,” pawnbroker, would have aroused
showing the detective’s aloofness much sympathy in contemporary ❯❯
This is a story which focuses
on gullibility and credulousness,
and Conan Doyle brings attention
to the bizarre, almost unbelievable
nature of the case as a claim for its
veracity. As Holmes remarks, “…for
strange effects and extraordinary
combinations we must go to life
itself… always far more daring
than any effort of the imagination.”

Commonplace beginnings
Watson calls on Holmes one day to
find him deep in conversation with
Jabez Wilson, a pawnbroker, who

Jabez Wilson (played by Roger
Hammond in the 1984 Granada
television production) is ushered
through crowds of red-headed men.

64 THE EARLY ADVENTURES

readers, as his trade is the Your case is an with all his might to make sure it
equivalent of today’s thriving exceedingly remarkable is not a wig; this is a masterpiece
high-interest payday loan one, and I shall be happy of theater, as is his lament that
industry—a service to which “I could tell you tales of cobbler’s
poorer people were often obliged to look into it. wax [being used as a hair dye]
to turn, using jewelry and other Sherlock Holmes which would disgust you with
valuables as security to borrow human nature.” It transpires that
cash. Wilson himself remarks that story, even though he was soon the work requires copying out by
his work is “mostly done of an able to command much higher fees. hand the whole of the Encyclopaedia
evening, Mr. Holmes, especially On the appointed day, says Wilson, Britannica from 10 am until 2 pm
Thursday and Friday evening, Fleet Street was awash with men every weekday. Fortunately, these
which is just before pay-day.” with red hair, and the thoroughfare hours do not interfere with Wilson’s
Nevertheless, Wilson tends not looked like a “coster’s orange pawnbroking business. However,
to leave his premises very often. barrow”—costermongers being Wilson is told that if he leaves the
a kind of greengrocer seen all over office during the prescribed hours,
Wilson’s story London (the name comes from he will instantly forfeit his new job.
Wilson tells Holmes and Watson a medieval word for apple). The
that two months previously, his image is both potent and bizarre. Double deception
new assistant, Vincent Spaulding, At the offices of this League, Wilson’s assistant, Spaulding,
alerted him to an advertisement Duncan Ross (his name is taken began working for him a few months
in the newspaper. It was placed from the Italian, rosso, meaning earlier. An eager employee, he was
by an organization called the red) delightedly offers Wilson first “willing to come for half wages, so
Red-Headed League, based in refusal on the job. His “test” of the as to learn the business.” Holmes
the US in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, pawnbroker’s hair is to tug on it notes that Wilson is fortunate to
but with an office in (fictional) have an employee who “comes
Pope’s Court, off Fleet Street. under the full market price.” But
The League sought “red-headed Spaulding disappears into the
men… above the age of twenty- cellar of Wilson’s shop for hours
one years” to apply for a post at a time, supposedly developing
involving “purely nominal services,” photographs. It becomes clear to
at a weekly rate of £4. This amount Holmes that the real “league” is
was not to be sniffed at: Conan between Spaulding and Ross; the
Doyle was only paid £25 for this sole aim of their elaborate ruse

The Boylston Although Holmes declares city.” For the six weeks prior
Bank Robbery “The Red-Headed League” to to the theft, Bullard and Worth
be a ruse without precedent, the had operated the next-door
heist itself was not so original. premises as a hairdresser’s, all
In November 1869, a remarkably the while secretly tunneling
similar bank robbery took place into the bank’s vaults. Like
in Boston, Massachusetts. Charley the villains in this story, they
Bullard and Adam Worth (who had made the final moves over
may have been the inspiration for a weekend, so the losses were
Moriarty, pp.28–9) tunneled into only discovered when the bank
the Boylston National Bank from reopened the following Monday
a neighboring shop, then shipped morning. The robbery’s full
their loot down the east coast to details were later uncovered by
New York. The Boston Tribune Pinkerton’s detectives, the same
called it “one of the most bold organization that would feature
and successful robberies which prominently in The Valley of
has ever been perpetrated in this Fear (pp.212–21) in 1914.

THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE 65

Aldersgate Street Station, one of
the original Underground stations on
London’s Metropolitan Railway, opened
in 1865. This engraving appeared in
The London Illustrated News in 1866.

(which Conan Doyle returned to in alias “William Morris.” Wilson was Holmes and Watson’s journey
“The Three Garridebs”, pp.262–65) given an address in King Edward to Aldersgate Street Station (now
is to get Wilson out of his house, Street, near St. Paul’s: “I started off, Barbican Station) on the oldest
and keep him out, for some Mr. Holmes, but when I got to that stretch of the London Underground
evidently nefarious purpose. address it was a manufactory of network is the only recorded
artificial knee-caps, and no one in it instance of them traveling by Tube:
This unlikely tale sustains itself had ever heard of either Mr. William a remarkable fact, since there was
partly because it is so outlandish, Morris, or Mr. Duncan Ross.” (and still is) a Tube station at the
and partly because it is hard to end of Baker Street. “Saxe-Coburg
know what the two villains are The scene of the crime Square,” which Wilson gives as
cooking up. But Wilson’s own Although Holmes declares the case the location of his shop, does not
recognition that it all sounds too to be “quite a three-pipe problem”— actually exist. It has a royal name,
good to be true also goes some way meaning that he would usually take and Conan Doyle might have
to relieving the reader’s suspicions. the time to ponder and let his mind been inspired by Bloomsbury’s
In fact, to overcome his reservations, wander through all the elements Mecklenburgh Square—named
Wilson applies a reasoning rather of the mystery—he immediately after the wife of George III—near
like Holmes’s: sometimes the truth recognizes Spaulding from Wilson’s Holmes’s first London lodgings in
is stranger than fiction. description, as the telltale white Montague Street. However, while
acid-splash scar on his forehead that square is fairly grand, the
For eight weeks, Wilson copied is so distinctive (the alert reader fictional Saxe-Coburg Square is
from the book and the money kept in 1891 would know that acid “a poky, little, shabby-genteel place,
coming. Then, on the morning of was used by coin counterfeiters). where four lines of dingy two-
his visit to 221B Baker Street, “Spaulding” is in fact John Clay, storied brick houses looked
he had arrived at Pope’s Court to “one of the coolest and most daring out into a small railed-in enclosure.”
find a sign pinned to the door, criminals in London.” It remains
reading: “The Red Headed-League only for Holmes to visit Wilson’s On arrival at Wilson’s shop, and
is dissolved, Oct 9, 1890.” Wilson shop and find out what Clay is up to. certain that Clay will not recognize
asked around, and discovered that him, Holmes knocks at the door.
Ross had also been going by the Clay responds curtly to his request ❯❯

We are spies in an enemy’s
country. We know something

of Saxe-Coburg Square.
Let us now explore the
parts which lie behind it.

Sherlock Holmes

66 THE EARLY ADVENTURES

The “real” John Clay is Lowly clerk of Young man
described by Scotland Yard’s indeterminate age. whose grandfather
Peter Jones as a “murderer, thief, is a Royal Duke.
smasher, and forger.” As his alias,
Vincent Spaulding, he appears Educated at Eton
at first to be quite the opposite. College and Oxford

Intelligent and Vincent Spa ulding University.
willing to learn. John Clay

Good loyal Smart and
worker with no cunning, and at
apparent vices.
the top of his
Avid profession.
photographer who
develops his photos Elusive man,
in the basement. seen in Scotland one
week and Cornwall

the next.

for directions to the Strand. In truth, instance, it does not make sense Time to “play”
Holmes has only summoned him in that Holmes and Watson go to Holmes now has all the pieces of
order to get a look at his trouser-legs. Aldersgate Street Station to walk the puzzle he needs, and he and
Sure enough, the knees are dusty as far as Farringdon Street. It is also Watson continue to St. James’s Hall
and worn—proof that something odd that St. Bartholomew’s hospital, in the West End to hear the real-life
has been going on in the cellar. which is just around the corner, is Spanish violinist and composer
Holmes has already concluded that not mentioned, since this is where Pablo Sarasate. Watson—still in
the only possible explanation is Holmes and Watson first met in the dark about the case—muses
that Clay is digging a tunnel, so A Study in Scarlet (pp.36–45). on the way Holmes’s behavior
he raps his stick on the pavement fluctuates from “extreme languor
outside to test for a hollow sound, A considerable crime is in to devouring energy.” Building on
but there is none. However, walking contemplation. I have every the atmospherics in The Sign of
around the corner, Holmes realizes reason to believe that we Four (pp.46–55), this taps into
that the shop backs on to the shall be in time to stop it. 19th-century anxieties about the
Coburg branch of the City and unconscious mind and can also be
Suburban Bank in the much finer Sherlock Holmes read as a reference to the idea of
grand parade of Farringdon Street. the “double life,” a major literary
trend of the time featuring in novels
Incidentally, as Holmes and such as Oscar Wilde’s The Picture
Watson scout the scene, Holmes of Dorian Gray (1890) and Robert
remarks, “It is a hobby of mine Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of
to have an exact knowledge of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886).
London.” Conan Doyle would have Holmes’s “dual nature” also has
done well to do the same, as his roots in Detective C. Auguste
descriptions of London are often Dupin’s “bi-part soul” in Edgar
riddled with inconsistencies. For

THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE 67

Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the This illustration, entitled “It’s no use, explained how he had deduced
Rue Morgue” (1841). But perhaps John Clay... you have no chance at all,” that Wilson was a Freemason, the
Holmes is simply treating his brain from The Strand Magazine, 1891, shows pawnbroker said bluntly, “I thought
as a machine, using a little music Holmes capturing Clay as he emerges at first that you had done something
to stay relaxed—there is nothing from the tunnel. clever, but I see that there is nothing
to be done now until nightfall. in it after all.” Holmes’s erudite
the effete heroes of Oscar Wilde, response to his client, a line from
Caught in the act J. K. Huysmans, and others. It is also the Roman author Tacitus, not only
Later that evening, Holmes and reminiscent of the 19th-century displays his learning but would
Watson meet at 221B, along with French poet Charles Baudelaire, work equally well as a motto to this
Peter Jones, “the official police whose book Le Spleen de Paris strange case: “Omne ignotum pro
agent,” and Mr. Merryweather, head (published posthumously in 1869) magnifico,” which translates as
of the City and Suburban Bank. helped establish the appeal of “that which is most mysterious
Jones reassures Merryweather by affectedly melancholic boredom. always seems most magnificent.” ■
remarking on “that business of the
Sholto murder and the Agra treasure” Holmes’s final remark, a slightly an experience which is in many
(events in The Sign of Four), showing misquoted aphorism from the ways unique.” In anticipation
that Holmes has become recognized French novelist Gustave Flaubert of the later villain Moriarty, the
at Scotland Yard. (“the man is nothing, the work aristocrat of crime, Clay is
everything”), suggests that the the grandson of a royal duke.
The group heads to Farringdon literary allusions might not have He was educated at Eton—one
Street and the vaults of the Coburg been accidental. It is clear that of Britain’s most elite private
branch of the City and Suburban while the Holmes who appears schools—and Oxford University,
Bank, which is temporarily housing in “The Red-Headed League” is where some Holmesian scholars
£30,000 worth of gold “napoleon” relatively consistent with the believe the detective studied.
coins borrowed from the Bank Holmes of The Sign of Four, there Clay’s snobbery is clear in his
of France. Merryweather strikes has been a marked shift in his actions toward Jones, the
the flagstone floor with his stick character since A Study in Scarlet. Scotland Yard policeman—he
and declares that “it sounds quite In that first story, Watson remarked insists that the officer call him
hollow.” After a long wait, with of Holmes, “Of contemporary “sir,” and demands not to be
Watson’s army revolver cocked and literature, philosophy and politics touched by his “filthy hands”
the tension palpable, a “lurid spark” he appeared to know next to as he is handcuffed.
appears through a chink in the nothing.” Yet earlier in “The Red-
floor. When the two villains appear Headed League,” when Holmes
from their tunnel, Holmes collars
Clay, while “Ross/Morris”—whose John Clay
real name turns out to be Archie—
tries to escape the way he came, A young man “at the head of
but is arrested by the police officers his profession,” John Clay is a
waiting outside Wilson’s shop. worthy adversary for Holmes,
and the detective holds a certain
Deep thinker admiration for Clay’s cunning
Back at 221B, Holmes remarks and the challenge he presents.
to Watson that the case has Although Clay does not appear
provided a welcome break from anywhere else in the canon, it
the tedium of everyday life: seems that Holmes has met him
“It saved me from ennui. Alas! before. After declining a reward
I already feel it closing in upon at the end of this case, Holmes
me.” In the 1890s the word ennui states that “I have had one or
(French for “boredom”) carried two little scores of my own to
connotations of decadent, fin de settle with Mr. John Clay… I
siècle world-weariness, recalling am amply repaid by having had

68

THE LITTLE THINGS
ARE INFINITELY THE
MOST IMPORTANT

A CASE OF IDENTITY (1891)

IN CONTEXT W hile Holmes and Watson with a “preposterous hat” and a
sit by the fire in 221B “vacuous face” looking up nervously
TYPE Baker Street, Holmes from the street below. She is soon
Short story remarks, “Life is infinitely stranger being shown in by the bellboy,
than anything which the mind of who announces her as Miss
FIRST PUBLICATION man could invent.” The case that Mary Sutherland.
UK: September 1891 unfolds proves to bear this out.
US: September/October 1891 Rising to peer out of the window, She is anxious to find her
Holmes observes a young woman fiancé, Hosmer Angel, who
COLLECTION disappeared on the morning
The Adventures of
Sherlock Holmes, 1892 Holmes’s observations of Miss Sutherland

CHARACTERS Clearly defined Wearing Both glove
Mary Sutherland double line half-buttoned and finger clearly
Young woman seeking above her wrist
her missing fiancé. and the dents of odd boots stained with
a pince-nez but otherwise violet ink.
James Windibank on her nose. neatly dressed.
Mary’s young stepfather,
a wine merchant.

Mrs. Windibank Mary’s
mother, who is 15 years older
than her second husband.

Hosmer Angel
Mary’s missing fiancé.

Miss Sutherland is a short-sighted
typist in a hurry, who had written a note

just prior to leaving home.

A CASE OF IDENTITY 69

Typewriters, which were common by which make them easily identifiable. The larger crimes
1891, offered standardized text. Yet the He then invites Windibank to Baker are apt to be the simpler,
quirks specific to each machine enable Street and, as expected, sees from for the bigger the crime,
Holmes to trace Windibank’s letters. his acceptance letter that it was
typed on the same machine. the more obvious, as
of their wedding. Her story throws a rule, is the motive.
up a number of clues for the alert Holmes corners his man Sherlock Holmes
reader. Miss Sutherland lives with Windibank is confronted with the
her mother and young stepfather, truth. He married Miss Sutherland’s reveal the truth to Mary, arguing
James Windibank. She has a small mother for her money, and has that it would be dangerous to take
annuity of £100 left to her by an enjoyed Mary’s annuity too. Fearing away her delusions, is a troubling
uncle, which she gives to her he would lose this annual income loose end. It effectively places her
parents, and has her own income, were Mary to marry, Windibank in the same position she was in at
since she works as a typist. Her disguised himself as a suitor, then the outset—filled with longing for
meetings with Angel have occurred abandoned her in the hope that her so-called suitor—and she has
only when Windibank was away, she would be paralyzed by loss gained nothing by seeking help.
during which Angel spoke in and indecision for years to come, She is portrayed as a weak, comical
a whisper, wore tinted glasses, leaving him in control of her funds. figure, yet emerges from the story
and had a bushy mustache and as a stoical and faithful victim
sideburns. He has sent her only Unrepentant, Windibank sneers whose innocence and naiveté are
typed letters (even typing his that the law cannot touch him. cruelly exploited by the people
“signature”), and given only Holmes, raging that “there was closest to her. Most disturbingly of
a post office address. never a man deserved punishment all, her own mother has colluded in
more,” rushes at the “cold-blooded the deceit—a poignant betrayal. ■
The investigation ensues scoundrel” with a horsewhip, only
Holmes promises to investigate, for Windibank to flee. Laughing for greedy and unscrupulous
but urges her to forget Angel. She despite his anger, Holmes predicts husbands, like Windibank,
claims this is impossible. He points that he will “rise from crime to to use marriage as a way of
out that Miss Sutherland is clearly crime” and end up on the gallows. acquiring property. In “A Case
short-sighted, but her real myopia of Identity,” Windibank devised
signals a more profound blindness: Undoubtedly, this tale is a clever a convoluted and malicious plan
her lack of suspicion has made her demonstration of Holmes’s opening to acquire the fortune of both his
a victim of exploitation. assertion—closely observed truth is wife and stepdaughter. He first
indeed stranger than highly wrought managed to convince his wife to
Angel’s letters are a further fiction. But Holmes’s refusal to sell her first husband’s business,
opportunity for Holmes to show apparently at a loss. As a single
his acute powers of observation, Women and property woman, Mary had the right
as he identifies unique features in to bestow her income where
the way certain characters look, For much of the 19th century, she chose, but Windibank was
a woman who married ceased able to prey on her innocence
to be a legal entity in her own and generosity to appropriate
right, and as such was unable it for himself.
to formally own property—all
her possessions would belong
to her husband. All this changed
with the three Married Women’s
Property Acts of 1870, 1882,
and 1893, which gave married
women rights to their own
earnings and property, and to
property, such as an inheritance,
acquired during the marriage.
These reforms made it harder

70

THERE IS NOTHING
MORE DECEPTIVE THAN
AN OBVIOUS FACT

THE BOSCOMBE VALLEY MYSTERY (1891)

IN CONTEXT Holmes deduces the A s Watson is enjoying
position of a window a leisurely breakfast in
TYPE his matrimonial home,
Short story Watson is known for a telegram from Holmes arrives,
his characteristic summoning him to the 11:15am
FIRST PUBLICATION train out of Paddington. Holmes
UK: October 1891 military neatness. has not given him much notice,
and the doctor immediately panics,
COLLECTION He shaves every despite living close to the train
The Adventures of morning by sunlight. station. Fortunately, as Watson’s
Sherlock Holmes, 1892 wife points out, a neighboring
His shaving is less doctor, Anstruther, can cover
CHARACTERS complete on the left of his his comparatively busy medical
Charles McCarthy Murder practice, freeing him to hightail
victim, tenant farmer originally face, suggesting that the it for the train. There, Holmes is
from Australia. right is better illuminated. waiting for him with the facts of
“one of those simple cases which
James McCarthy Principal Watson’s bedroom are extremely difficult.”
suspect, and Charles window must be on
McCarthy’s only son. the right-hand side. A fatal quarrel
Charles McCarthy, a tenant farmer
John Turner Wealthy, from a rural country estate, has
widowed landowner, and been found murdered near a small
landlord of Charles McCarthy. wooded lake called Boscombe Pool.
He has few friends in the area,
Alice Turner Daughter of save for his landlord, John Turner,
John Turner. who amassed a great fortune in
Australia many years earlier
Inspector Lestrade Scotland and has been very generous to
Yard detective. McCarthy on account of their
acquaintance in those more
adventurous days. Suspicion has
fallen squarely upon the victim’s
hot-blooded son, James, who was

THE BOSCOMBE VALLEY MYSTERY 71

seen having a heated argument characters to forgo their urban What a tissue
with his father at the scene of the attire. Holmes cuts an “even of mysteries and
crime, before allegedly returning gaunter and taller” figure than improbabilities the
later to find the old man dying of usual in his “long grey travelling- whole thing was!
his wounds, which were caused cloak,” while there is a hint of
by a blow to the head. comedy in the apparel of Inspector Dr. Watson
Lestrade of Scotland Yard, who
James has refused to divulge meets them at the station—he more so than during this particular
the cause of their dispute, and is conspicuous as ever as a city case, where those occasional
when quizzed about old McCarthy’s detective “in spite of the light glimpses of mutual respect
final mutterings, he recounts an brown dustcoat and leather-leggins that appear in other stories
unintelligible reference to “a rat.” which he wore in deference to are markedly absent. Lestrade
Furthermore, the young man his rustic surroundings.” is “indifferent and contemptuous”
appears wracked by guilt, and was toward Holmes’s methods, while
seen carrying a gun, the stock of Another detective in town Holmes berates the inspector most
which could have been the heavy, Lestrade has already been on-site bitterly for trampling all over the
blunt object used as the murder for some time when they arrive, crime scene. The two detectives
weapon. Holmes has been enlisted and although it may appear that snipe at each other incessantly
by Turner’s daughter, Alice, who he is acting privately, he actually (and enjoyably), and there is one
has known James since they is still functioning at this time moment, during a coach journey,
were children, and who believes also as an official policeman. where a string of jibes ends with
unquestioningly in his innocence. Like Holmes, he has ostensibly Lestrade nearly losing his temper
been hired to clear James of the and snapping at Holmes (“with
A jaunt to the countryside crime. However, his priority is some warmth”). ❯❯
“The Boscombe Valley Mystery” to persuade everyone around him
is the first story in which Holmes of the young man’s guilt. In his
and Watson head out into the opinion, “McCarthy senior met
English countryside, leaving his death from McCarthy junior
the “great cesspool” of London and… all theories to the contrary
behind them, and in his telegram, are the merest moonshine.”
Holmes clearly tantalizes Watson
with the promise of fresh air and Throughout the Holmes canon,
perfect scenery. The trip also Lestrade’s relationship with Holmes
provides an opportunity for the is often a fractious one, and never

Sherlock Holmes’s he describes it as “his earflapped through the muddy hollow of
iconic deerstalker traveling cap.” The full credit for Boscombe Pool and completely
Holmes’s now-iconic image must absorbed by the chase, perhaps
The deerstalker—a soft cloth in fact go to illustrator Sidney the deerstalker is not such an
cap with peaks in front and Paget, who first provided Holmes odd choice after all.
behind, and ear flaps—has with his signature deerstalker
become an iconic accoutrement in his illustrations of “The
of Sherlock Holmes, although, Boscombe Valley Mystery” for
surprisingly, this hat was never The Strand Magazine. It is odd
mentioned explicitly by name that Paget should have picked
in any of the original stories. such an incongruously rustic hat
Here in “The Boscombe Valley for a traveling city gentleman,
Mystery,” Conan Doyle refers but the deerstalker was Paget’s
to Holmes’s headgear for his favorite hat to wear in the
country trip as “a close-fitting country. As the reader later
cloth cap,” while in the later observes Holmes with his nose
story “Silver Blaze” (pp.106–09), to the ground, tracking his prey

72 THE EARLY ADVENTURES

You know Nevertheless, despite James’s I find it hard enough
my method. It is former reluctance to talk to to tackle facts, Holmes,
founded upon the the police, Holmes, the master without flying away after
observation of trifles. manipulator, manages to wheedle
Sherlock Holmes some highly significant truths out theories and fancies.
of the young McCarthy. Inspector Lestrade
Holmes’s resolution of the case
relies on a mixture of psychological More beast than man everyone else has missed,
insight and tenacious crime-scene The scene in which Holmes eventually presenting Lestrade
analysis. Where others see guilt investigates the surroundings with the true murder weapon—
in James’s remorse, reticence, and of Boscombe Pool is one of the a jagged stone—and announcing
apparent invention, Holmes divines most vivid portrayals of the great to the skeptical inspector that the
the predictable emotional turmoil detective imitating a bloodhound. criminal “is a tall man, left-handed,
of a grieving but innocent man. Picking his way along the trail, limps with the right leg, wears thick-
His interrogation of James is “off- he undergoes a transformation, soled shooting boots and a grey
camera” in the cells, but he returns appearing more beast than man, cloak, smokes Indian cigars, uses
with a full testimony. As is so often as “his nostrils seemed to dilate a cigar-holder, and carries a blunt
the case with earnest young men with a purely animal lust for the pen-knife in his pocket.” The
who refuse to give up information, chase.” His body warps as he solution is at hand, and Holmes
James’s silence had been because becomes tense and hunched, his has both murderer and motive.
the honor of a lady is at stake. steely eyes fixed on the ground,
his veins standing out “like Antipodean intrigue
whipcord in his long sinewy neck.” Later, in a private meeting with
Indeed, his metamorphosis is so Turner, Holmes reveals the truth.
complete that, as Watson remarks, Turner’s riches, it seems, had come
“men who had only known the quiet not from enterprise, but from a
thinker and logician of Baker Street lucrative spree as a highway robber
would have failed to recognize him.” in Australia, where he had been
known as Black Jack of Ballarat—
Despite the obscured state of hence the dying man’s garbled
the crime scene, Holmes of course allusion to “a rat.” McCarthy, a
turns up a whole string of clues that witness to one of Turner’s violent
crimes, had been blackmailing
his landlord for years, but when
he demanded that his son marry
Turner’s daughter Alice, it was too

Holmes’s quest for clues can be so
intense that he takes on the manner
of a bloodhound, as captured in this
Strand illustration during his exhaustive
investigation of Boscombe Pool.

John Turner becomes a THE BOSCOMBE VALLEY MYSTERY 73
murderer when he cracks
under the combined Present
pressures of his past,
present, and future. Past Future
Past: as a former violent
highwayman in Australia, The pressures on
one of his crimes was John Turner
witnessed by Charles
McCarthy and threatens
to ruin Turner. Present:
McCarthy then used his
knowledge to blackmail
Turner for money, land, and
a home. Future: McCarthy
finally is demanding the
one thing Turner refuses to
consent to—his daughter’s
hand in marriage.

much for the old man to bear. With legally or otherwise. The return of the odds in favor of a happy ending:
his own health failing rapidly, and a prodigal son from profitable yet having obtained, following their
the very real prospect of his only dubious antipodean adventures, meeting, a signed confession from
child ending up at the mercy of his as with Turner in this case, was the ailing murderer, Turner, he
worst enemy, Turner was driven to a theme to which Conan Doyle promises not to use it unless
silence McCarthy once and for all. would return later in his career, absolutely necessary. In the end,
and there are distinct echoes of Holmes manages to get the case
When anarchic and disreputable “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” thrown out on the strength of a
goings-on creep into Conan Doyle’s in “The Gloria Scott” (pp.116–19). number of objections, and young
ordered English society, they often James and Alice are free to build
appear to have originated from the Getting away with it? a future together, happily ignorant
younger nations. Primarily it is “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” of their turbulent family history. ■
America that stands by with is neither the first nor the last time
a ready supply of corrupt Mormons, that the trickiest aspect of the case, Your own deathbeds,
Texan racists, and migrant Irish for Holmes at least, is the moral when they come, will be
gangsters, but occasionally the dilemma presented by its solution. the easier for the thought
trouble has its origins in Australia. In revealing the full details of what of the peace which you
At the time this story was written, he has discovered, Holmes will
the country had long since ceased clear James McCarthy, but as have given to mine.
to be a penal colony, with the last a consequence, both John Turner John Turner
convict ship having disembarked and his daughter will be ruined.
on the coast of Western Australia Fortunately, there are some benefits
some time before the young Conan to being a consulting detective
Doyle’s tenth birthday, but the rather than a police officer, and
notion of exile there, albeit Holmes is able to use his discretion
voluntary, persisted. in this particular case.

Conan Doyle’s Australia is a Provided he fulfills his obligation
land of myriad opportunities and to keep young McCarthy from the
few questions, where new starts gallows, Holmes is free to stack
and fortunes can readily be made,

74 IN CONTEXT

I AM THE TYPE
LAST COURT Short story
OF APPEAL
FIRST PUBLICATION
THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS (1891) UK: November 1891
US: December 1891

COLLECTION
The Adventures of
Sherlock Holmes, 1892

CHARACTERS
John Openshaw Young
landowner from Horsham,
West Sussex.

Joseph Openshaw John’s
late father and owner of a
bicycle factory.

Elias Openshaw John’s
late uncle, who had emigrated
to America before retiring
back to Sussex.

C onan Doyle wrote “The Five
Orange Pips” early in 1891,
but was delayed in posting
it to The Strand Magazine until May
that year by an attack of influenza.
It is one of the strangest and saddest
of the Holmes tales—Holmes fails
to prevent the murder of his young
client or apprehend the murderers,
and never quite gets to the bottom
of the mystery. And yet Conan Doyle
listed it as among his favorites.

Watson partially explains why
when he introduces the story. He
says that there have always been

THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS 75

Three members of It is a client—a man in his early
the Openshaw family twenties, dripping wet from the
meet their death after storm and deeply worried.
receiving five dried
orange seeds through Recovering his alertness,
the post: first Elias Holmes at once deduces that the
(John’s uncle), then man has come from somewhere
Joseph (John’s father), southwest of London due to the
and finally John himself. mix of chalk and clay on his boots.
As Watson later acknowledges,
Holmes is thoroughly informed on
virtually every branch of knowledge
relevant to his detective work, and
geology is one of them. It turns out
that the young man is from near
Horsham, in what is now West
Sussex, where distinctive blue
gault clay is found at the foot of
the chalky South Downs.

Uncle Father Son A tale of three letters
Elias was found Joseph fell into John drowned in the His provenance established, the
face-down in a shallow a chalk quarry Thames River, near young man introduces himself as
pool of water seven three days after Waterloo Bridge, two John Openshaw, and tells how his
weeks after receiving the letter from days after receiving family has suffered a “mysterious
the letter from India. Dundee arrived. the letter from London. and inexplicable chain of events.”
His father, Joseph, became rich
cases that have been only partially Holmes to keep its horrors at bay. making bicycles and inventing an
solved, with “explanations founded As is so often the case in the “unbreakable tire”; John’s uncle
upon conjecture and surmise.” The Holmes tales, London is seen as a Elias, meanwhile, emigrated to
strange case of “The Five Orange haven of rationality with danger America and made a fortune as a
Pips,” he says, is one of these, but lurking in the countryside beyond. plantation owner in Florida, fought
its remarkable details convince But it is a fragile sanctuary that as a colonel in the American Civil ❯❯
him that it is a story worth telling. Holmes must be constantly
Indeed, it is the rich narrative that on his guard to protect. No
makes this story. Also, Conan Doyle wonder he is in a dark mood.
most likely felt that including a
failure helped to enhance the sense As the storm reaches its height,
of realism in the stories as a whole there is a ring at the door. Such is
and keep his readers engaged, the ferocity of the weather that it
since they could not always be sure seems Holmes’s usual prescience
that an adventure would end well. has deserted him. He considers it
unlikely that the visitor is a client
A stormy case on such a night, and assumes it is a
The story is set in 1887 and begins “crony” of his landlady. He is wrong.
in the middle of a violent September
storm, which Watson describes in The original illustration from the
apocalyptic terms. It seems as if Strand depicts Joseph Openshaw—
the whole world might easily be the second member of the family to fall
overwhelmed by chaos, and it victim to the Ku Klux Klan—receiving
needs the constant vigilance of five dried orange seeds. Within three
days, he was dead.

76 THE EARLY ADVENTURES

The Ku Klux Klan to frighten local black people. that Holmes cites is genuine, or
But what started as a joke soon whether the KKK really did use
The Ku Klux Klan (or KKK) escalated into violent terror, orange seeds as warnings. But
emerged in the southern United as white-sheeted vigilantes the heart of the movement was
States during the late 1860s, in roamed across the South on certainly secretive and used
the aftermath of the Civil War, horseback, killing black people every conceivable method, from
as resentment boiled over the and burning their houses. intimidation to horrific violence,
freeing of slaves and their to instill terror and loyalty.
resultant inclusion in the Confederate general Nathan
political process. The KKK Forrest was the organization’s After a massive crackdown
allegedly began when six former first “grand wizard,” but the by the federal government of
Confederate officers formed a mob attracted every white President Grant, clan activity
social club in Tennessee in 1866. person with a grudge in the did die down around 1870, just
They named it the Ku Klux South. Tens of thousands of as Conan Doyle suggests in this
Klan in mockery of their Greek- black people died as they were story. But the KKK simply went
named fraternities at college, lynched, shot, or burned alive underground, only to reemerge
and dressed up in white robes in their homes. It is unknown in the early 20th century, and
whether the encyclopedia article then again more recently.

War on the Confederate side, and “Dundee” (Scotland), containing The detective at work
then, strangely, retired to a secluded five orange seeds, with “KKK” and Hearing John’s story, Holmes
Sussex estate around 1869. John the words “Put the papers on the is aghast, realizing at once the
says his reason for leaving America sundial” written on the envelope. terrible danger his client faces.
was a “dislike of the Republican Since Elias seemed to have burned When told the police would not
policy in extending the franchise the papers in question, Joseph did take the situation seriously, Holmes
to negroes”; but, as we discover nothing. Three days later, he too explodes: “Incredible imbecility!”
later, that is only part of the story. was found dead, having apparently John has a charred scrap of paper
fallen into a chalk quarry. with some “enigmatic notices”
The grumpy Elias was a recluse written on it saved from the brass
and seemed to care only for his John then inherited the estate, box, and Holmes advises him to
adolescent nephew, John, to whom and for two years, all was quiet. But go straight home at once and put it
he gave complete control over his the day before coming to Holmes, on the sundial, together with a note
household—except for an attic that he too had received an envelope saying the rest of the papers have
was always kept locked. Then, one with five orange seeds and the been burned and that this is the
morning in March 1883, Elias was same message and “KKK” mark— only one remaining.
struck by terror on receiving a letter this time with a London postmark.
from Pondicherry, India, which held As John sets off into the night,
just five orange seeds (pips), the The laugh was struck from Holmes explains to Watson how he
mark “KKK” on the envelope, and a my lips at the sight of his sees the case. He has, from just
note that he refused to let John read. face. His lip had fallen, his a few telling clues, worked out
In a panic, Elias rushed to the attic eyes were protruding, his the nature of the threat. Holmes
and returned with a brass box with skin the colour of putty… explains how just as the French
the same letters “KKK” on the lid. He naturalist Georges Cuvier (1769–
burned all the papers inside, then John Openshaw 1832) could describe a whole
made his will in favor of John’s animal from looking at a single
father, Joseph. Seven weeks later, bone, “so the observer who has
Elias was found dead in a shallow thoroughly understood one link in a
pool. The verdict at the inquest was series of incidents should be able to
suicide, but John was unconvinced. accurately state all the other ones,
both before and after.” Holmes was
After Joseph took over the not the first fictional detective to be
estate, nothing happened for more inspired by Cuvier in this way. Both
than a year, until in January 1885 C. Auguste Dupin, in Edgar Allan
he received a letter postmarked

THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS 77

A man should keep his little an organization—rather than an Holmes has also worked out that
brain-attic stocked with individual—is behind them, and the the killer or killers take longer to
all the furniture that he is letters “KKK” must be its initials. reach the victim than the warning
Holmes shows Watson an American letter, because they are traveling
likely to use, and the rest he encyclopedia that cites “KKK” as by sailing ship, whereas the letter
can put away in the lumber- the initials for the Ku Klux Klan— goes much faster by a mailboat
a secret society that was formed steamer. The delay from Pondicherry
room of his library, where by ex-Confederate soldiers after the would have been seven weeks, but
he can get it if he wants it. Civil War (see box). In just a few it was just three days from Dundee.
years, they acquired a terrible The London postmark on the most
Sherlock Holmes reputation for their killings of their recent letter indicates the killers
opponents and black people, often are now extremely close.
Poe’s “The Murders on the Rue sending chilling warnings in the
Morgue,” and Émile Gaboriau’s form of oak twigs, melon seeds, Disaster strikes
character Monsieur Lecoq, invoke or—as in this case—orange seeds. After his brilliant analysis, and
Cuvier as well. feeling there is nothing more to
The seeds, Holmes believes, be done that evening, Holmes
This logic-based approach of a are a warning to do what the KKK picks up his violin and starts
“new breed” of detective differed demands or face the consequences. to play. However, unusually for
from that of the police, who would The surviving fragment of paper Holmes, this time he has drawn the
look at cases in isolation and work suggests to him that the burned wrong conclusion. The following
just with the facts before them, papers were a list of those who had morning, he and Watson awake to a
rather than drawing on information previously been sent seeds by the report in the newspaper of a tragic
from other sources—including a KKK and their resulting response. and fatal accident to young John
broad knowledge base—and then He guesses that Elias Openshaw’s Openshaw, who has been found
making connections. This is one possession of this list must be a drowned in the Thames River near
reason why, as here, the police often huge threat to the organization. Waterloo Bridge. “Holmes,” writes
exasperate Holmes. Only in modern Interestingly, his disappearance Watson, “was more depressed and
police investigations has a logical, from the US in 1869 coincided with shaken than I had ever seen him.” ❯❯
scientific way of thinking become the sudden collapse of the real KKK.
an official part of detective work.

The secret society
Holmes deduces that Elias must
have had a strong reason for leaving
America, and that his reclusiveness
suggests he was in hiding. The
efficiency of the murders suggests

In 1945 the movie The House of Fear
was released. Loosely based on “The
Five Orange Pips,” it features Holmes
investigating a series of deaths at an old
manor house, each death foretold by the
delivery of orange seeds to the victim.

78 THE EARLY ADVENTURES

First, Holmes Dates He then deduces
investigates every that the dates the ship
shipping vessel was in port must match the
that docked in the postmarks on the letters:
January 1883 (Pondicherry);
three ports of January 1885 (Dundee);
Pondicherry, Dundee, September 1887 (London).

and London. Lone
Star
Ports

Holmes identifies the ship on American Finally, the ship must
which the murderers are traveling ships be American—home of
by a process of elimination. He begins the KKK. Thus Holmes
with three facts about the ship: the finds the Lone Star—the
ports in which it docked, the dates Lone Star State being a
on which it docked, and the fact that
it is American. A ship that matches all nickname for Texas.
three criteria is the one he is looking for.

A poignant ending police in Savannah to pick up the the ringleaders of a frightening and
Determined to avenge Openshaw, three wanted murderers as soon murderous organization from across
Holmes pledges to track down the as they arrive. the Atlantic, and arranged for their
killers himself. The police are not arrest. However, for all of Holmes’s
to be trusted. “I shall be my own It is one of the most brilliant successes here, the young man
police,” he insists, “When I have pieces of detective work in the who came to him for help is dead,
spun the web they may take the Holmes canon. Within 24 hours, and, as it turns out, the Lone Star
flies, but not before.” from an envelope containing some never reaches Savannah. The
orange seeds and some initials, he storms at sea were severe, and
Remarkably, he does just that, has identified and tracked down Holmes learns that “somewhere
discovering from Lloyd’s shipping far out in the Atlantic a shattered
registers that an American sailing It becomes a personal matter stern-post of the boat was seen
ship named the Lone Star was in with me now, and, if God swinging in the trough of a wave,
Pondicherry and Dundee on the sends me health, I shall set with the letters ‘L.S.’ carved upon
corresponding dates—and has just my hand upon this gang. it.” The story has seen one of the
left London bound for Savannah, Sherlock Holmes greatest triumphs of Holmes’s
Georgia. There are three Americans methods, and perhaps their
on board, including a Captain most dismal resolution.
James Calhoun. Holmes sends a
letter containing five orange seeds, Reaction to the tale
with “SH for JO” written on the flap Not long after the “The Five Orange
of the envelope, to “Captain James Pips” was published, four brothers—
Calhoun, Bark Lone Star, Savannah, Edmund, Dillwyn, Wilfred, and
Georgia,” knowing the mail steamer Ronald Knox—analyzed it in detail
will arrive in Savannah ahead of and found a string of inaccuracies
the Lone Star. He then cables the

THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS 79

and contradictions. They wrote to could let his client venture out into A view of Waterloo Bridge from
Conan Doyle to inform him of their the night to his death. They have Hungerford Bridge in 1888. It was from
findings, but the author did not criticized the suicide verdict on here that the final KKK victim, John
reply for a long time. Twenty years Elias Openshaw as implausible, Openshaw, fell to his death—yet it was
later, in 1911, Ronald Knox wrote and found inconsistencies between officially recorded that he “had been
the first serious analysis of the the historical Ku Klux Klan and the the victim of an unfortunate accident.”
Holmes stories entitled Studies in KKK in Conan Doyle’s story. They
the Literature of Sherlock Holmes, have also queried why the KKK story rather misses the point, as
and in the process launched a tide didn’t ever attempt to directly Conan Doyle would no doubt have
of studies known as the Grand recover the incriminating papers. agreed. “The Five Orange Pips” is
Game (see p.326), which have deeply atmospheric. The five little
grown ever since, and in which Power and fallibility seeds exert a terrifying symbolic
Holmes enthusiasts examine the Although those participants in power, as each appearance signals
tales and analyze any errors as if the Grand Game were Holmesian another death and the story gathers
Holmes were a real person. in their thoroughness and research, an unstoppable momentum, as dark
their criticism and analysis of the events and secret conflicts across
When Knox sent him the article, an ocean come home to roost in
Conan Doyle finally broke his silence in the Civil War. Readers can the quiet Sussex countryside.
and replied: “I cannot help writing only guess that he joined the
to tell you of the amusement—and KKK in 1866, that he was In no other Holmes tale do we
also the amazement with which I somehow involved in their see the great detective so nakedly
read your article on Sherlock Holmes violent campaigns, and that vulnerable and so keenly aware of
… That anyone should spend such around 1869 he fled the US with the huge responsibility he has in
pains on such material was what papers that will incriminate his role as crime fighter. “I am the
surprised me. Certainly you know many KKK members. Unusually last court of appeal,” he admits to
a great deal more about it than I do, for this kind of story, the reader his young client, and we see in this
for the stories have been written in never learns what Elias did, how story that he knows the burden is a
a disconnected (and careless) way, the papers came into his hands, heavy one. His failure to prevent his
without referring back to what had why he left America, or why client’s death cuts him to the quick,
gone before.” the KKK is on his trail. By not and it is perhaps this fallibility and
providing the background compassion that emerge briefly from
In their analysis of “The Five story, Conan Doyle tantalizes time to time—in between his feats
Orange Pips,” the Grand Game the reader brilliantly with a of brilliance—that has sealed
enthusiasts have shown their past that remains an enigma. Holmes in the hearts of readers
disbelief that the infallible Holmes all over the world for so long. ■

Elias Openshaw

In “The Five Orange Pips,”
Conan Doyle uses a device
that is familiar in detective and
horror stories of a ghost coming
out of someone’s past to haunt
them or their offspring. In Elias
Openshaw’s case, the KKK are
still coming to get him long after
he believes he left them behind.
His nephew recalls how he was
a “fierce and quick-tempered,
very foul-mouthed” man. Elias
was a racist who made a fortune
in Florida on a slave plantation
and fought for the Confederates

80

IT IS BETTER TO
LEARN WISDOM
LATE THAN NEVER
TO LEARN IT AT ALL

THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP (1891)

IN CONTEXT Holmes examines an envelope

TYPE The name is written in dark ink The address is grayish in
Short story that dried naturally, indicating color, showing that the ink here
has been blotted immediately.
FIRST PUBLICATION a pause after writing.
UK: December 1891
US: December 1891 (as “The The writer knew the addressee’s name but
Strange Tale of the Beggar”) had to go and find out the address, which
indicates that he was not familiar with it.
COLLECTION
The Adventures of U nusually, this story begins Among the opium fumes
Sherlock Holmes, 1892 in the home of Watson and Watson arrives at the Bar of Gold,
his wife, Mary, when they near London Bridge, and enters a
CHARACTERS are disturbed one evening by a “long, low room, thick and heavy
Neville St. Clair distressed friend of Mary’s, Kate with the brown opium smoke, and
Affluent businessman. Whitney. Her husband Isa is an terraced with wooden berths, like
opium addict and has been missing the forecastle of an emigrant ship.”
Hugh Boone for two days; Kate suspects he is He soon encounters Isa Whitney—
Disfigured beggar. holed up in a opium den. As his in the sorry state his wife had
doctor, Watson is dispatched to predicted. To the doctor’s sheer
Mrs. St. Clair retrieve him. This scene provides a astonishment, he also sees Holmes
Wife of Neville St. Clair. rare insight into Watson’s domestic among the mumbling addicts,
life; his tone seems to hold both disguised as a decrepit slave to
Isa Whitney Patient of affection and resignation when he the drug and clearly engaged in
Watson’s, addicted to opium. remarks, “That was always the way. an investigation. Watson packs
Folk who were in grief came to my Whitney off in a cab home and
Kate Whitney Wife of Isa wife like birds to a lighthouse.” joins his old friend on the hunt.
and old friend of Mary Watson.

Mary Watson
Wife of Watson.

THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP 81

Holmes reveals his mission to sleeps, Holmes at last has the This engraving by Gustave Doré
Watson: a respectable man of solution. Castigating himself for entitled The Lascar’s Room in Edwin
business, Neville St. Clair, has gone not seeing the truth sooner, he Drood conveys the seedy squalor of
missing. He was last glimpsed in and Watson make their way to Bow the Victorian opium den. It was made
the upstairs window of this same Street police station, brandishing a in 1872, two years after Dickens’s death.
opium den by his wife, who bathroom sponge with which, quite
happened to be passing by sheer literally, to clean up the matter. But Holmes’s poor opinion of the
chance. Mrs. St. Clair gained access lascar seems to stem more from
to the establishment, but found As Holmes reveals by scrubbing his murderous criminality than his
the upstairs room occupied only by the face of the imprisoned beggar, race, and the representation is far
a filthy, disfigured beggar named Hugh Boone and Neville St. Clair are less uncomfortable to the modern
Hugh Boone. There was blood on in fact one and the same. A former reader than that of the crudely
the windowsill, and items of St. actor turned journalist, St. Clair caricatured black boxer, Steve
Clair’s clothing and property were had discovered while researching Dixie, in “The Adventure of the
found concealed in the room and an article just how much money a Three Gables” (see pp.272–73). ■
floating in the river outside. Boone successful beggar might make, and
was arrested, but in the absence of for some years has been disguising
any further leads, Mrs. St. Clair has himself grotesquely in the pursuit
commissioned Holmes to get to of easy cash. Unexpectedly sighted
the bottom of it. The detective is by his wife in his changing room
convinced that this will prove to be above the opium den, he managed
a straightforward murder case. He to preserve his secret, but at the
knows the opium den to be “the cost of a murder charge. However,
vilest murder-trap on the whole since no crime has actually been
riverside” and its manager “a man committed, St. Clair is released,
of the vilest antecedents.” promising an end to Hugh Boone.

One and the same “That rascally Lascar”
Much to Holmes’s surprise, however, Charges of racism are occasionally
his theory is proved incorrect when leveled against Conan Doyle’s
Mrs. St. Clair receives a note in her portrayal of the lascar who runs
husband’s handwriting assuring the opium den. Lascars were Indian
her that all is well. While Watson sailors working on British vessels,
many of whom settled in London.

Opium dens in Victorian London

Dr. Watson’s evocation of the visitors. Ah Sing’s den was to be cellar, but could
dreamy, seedy world inside immortalized in Dickens’s final be anyone who
the Victorian opium den is a work, The Mystery of Edwin was regularly
captivating piece of writing, and Drood (1870), and Ah Sing liked prescribed
the description may have been to boast that the great novelist laudanum (an
based on a real opium den at the had visited his establishment. opium tincture)
time. London’s best-known den for pain relief or
in the 19th century was almost However, there were far fewer other symptoms.
certainly known to Conan Doyle. opium dens in London than the Laudanum was
It was run not by an Indian lascar literature and popular press of the so ubiquitous
but by a Chinese immigrant day implied. The Pharmacy Act of it is sometimes
called Ah Sing. The clientele 1868 restricted the sale of opium referred to as
was mostly Chinese sailors, but products to pharmacists, and “the aspirin
curious gentlemen and members many of London’s addicts would of the 19th
of the literary elite were also not have been the stereotypical century”.
immigrant men smoking in a hazy

82

IN THE LARGER AND
OLDER JEWELS EVERY
FACET MAY STAND
FOR A BLOODY DEED

THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLUE CARBUNCLE (1892)

IN CONTEXT T he story opens on a frosty he left the hat with Holmes for
morning two days after examination and took the goose
TYPE Christmas. Watson calls back to his wife to cook.
Short story on Holmes one day to find his friend
busy examining an old hat. This An extraordinary discovery
FIRST PUBLICATION “battered billycock,” has been The reader soon learns the victim
US: January 1892 (as found early on Christmas morning, was a man named Henry Baker.
“The Christmas Goose that along with a fine plucked goose for On examining the hat, Holmes
Swallowed a Diamond”) the pot, by a commissionaire named establishes that Baker is a middle-
UK: January 1892 Peterson, who had witnessed their aged man with gray hair, which he
owner being attacked by a street anoints with lime cream and has
COLLECTION gang. In the struggle that ensued, recently had cut. More surprisingly,
The Adventures of the victim had dropped the hat he deduces that Baker is intellectual,
Sherlock Holmes, 1892 and goose before fleeing. Peterson was once well off but has fallen on
picked them up and headed straight hard times (probably due to drinking),
CHARACTERS to Holmes to tell him of the events; and is physically unfit, and that his
Henry Baker British Museum
employee, and drinker. Jewel theft create one of the greatest jewel
thieves of all time. In 1898, E. W.
Peterson Commissionaire. Although jewel theft makes Hornung, who was married to
a compelling story, a glance Conan Doyle’s sister Connie,
Countess of Morcar Wealthy through the Old Bailey’s court wrote the first of 27 stories
owner of the blue carbuncle. records around the period when dealing with the exploits of
“The Adventure of the Blue A. J. Raffles, the gentleman
Catherine Cusack Lady-in- Carbuncle” was written shows thief. Much as Holmes’s work
waiting to Countess of Morcar. only a smattering of such cases. is chronicled by Watson, Raffles’
Most crimes were small-scale adventures are recorded by his
Breckinridge Poultry seller domestic burglaries, and there erstwhile companion Bunny
at Covent Garden market. is certainly no prize approaching Manders. The first volume of
the value of the countess’s these tales, The Amateur
John Horner Plumber famous carbuncle. Cracksman, was published in
accused of stealing the 1899 with a dedication to his
blue carbuncle. In the world of fiction, brother-in-law that read “To
however, Conan Doyle’s own A.C.D. This Form of Flattery.”
James Ryder Attendant at brother-in-law was about to
the Hotel Cosmopolitan.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLUE CARBUNCLE 83

home does not have gas lighting. few months in 1891, shortly before In the 19th century, Covent Garden
Holmes’s keen deductions are only writing this story, Conan Doyle market, where the goose in this story
slightly compromised in that he lived just behind the British was sold, bustled with buyers and
makes use of the now-debunked Museum and practiced medicine sellers hawking fresh food.
science of phrenology (see p.188), as an eye doctor in a clinic on
when he points out the size of the Upper Wimpole Street. He rented criminal record. An inexperienced
hat, saying “a man with so large a a consulting room and a share of a opportunist, Ryder took the gem
brain must have something in it.” waiting room, but patients were so to a criminal acquaintance who
scarce that, in his own words, “they would sell it on his behalf. Fearful
Suddenly Peterson bursts into were both waiting rooms.” He soon he would be stopped by the police,
the room and announces excitedly abandoned medicine to focus on Ryder attempted to conceal the
that while preparing the goose for his burgeoning career as a writer. carbuncle by feeding it to a goose
roasting, his wife found a large blue that his sister had promised him for
gem in its crop. Holmes at once Holmes the trickster Christmas, but somehow he ended
recognizes the stone as the famous As well as good old-fashioned up choosing the wrong bird from
blue carbuncle, recently stolen from legwork, Holmes employs a fair her flock. Meanwhile, the gem
the Countess of Morcar at the Hotel bit of psychological manipulation made its way via Covent Garden’s
Cosmopolitan. A suspect named in his pursuit of the jewel thief. poultry market, the Bloomsbury
John Horner, a plumber, is already On meeting the poultry butcher pub, and an unfortunate street
in custody, but Holmes’s interest is who first sold the goose to the pub, altercation in Tottenham Court
piqued, and when the hat’s rather he capitalizes on the man’s evident Road, safely into Holmes’s hands.
down-at-heel owner, Henry Baker, weakness for gambling to wheedle
shows up, he unwittingly provides information out of him. Later, he The spirit of Christmas
the detective with his first lead. utilizes carefully stage-managed “The Adventure of the Blue
Clearly ignorant of the goose’s shock tactics to prove one man’s Carbuncle” is a sort of Sherlock
contents, Baker informs Holmes innocence and another’s guilt. Holmes Christmas special, with
he bought the bird at a “goose club” a heart-warming Dickensian dash
set up by the landlord of the Alpha At the story’s denouement, of redemption. It is suffused with
pub, near the British Museum. the head attendant at the Hotel light, comedic moments, and
Cosmopolitan, James Ryder, is Holmes gets so carried away
Conan Doyle’s footsteps revealed to have himself stolen with what he terms “the season
Holmes and Watson take a stroll the gemstone with the help of of forgiveness” that he ends
through the “doctors’ quarter” of Catherine Cusack, the Countess’s up letting the distraught and
Wimpole Street and Harley Street, lady-in-waiting. He then framed remorseful culprit go free. ■
bound for the Alpha pub, following Horner, whom he knew to have a
a route that was once Conan
Doyle’s own daily commute. For a

Chance has put in our
way a most singular and

whimsical problem.
Sherlock Holmes

84 IN CONTEXT

VIOLENCE TYPE
DOES IN TRUTH Short story
RECOIL UPON
THE VIOLENT FIRST PUBLICATION
UK: February 1892
THE ADVENTURE OF THE
SPECKLED BAND (1892) COLLECTION
The Adventures of
Sherlock Holmes, 1892

CHARACTERS
Dr. Grimesby Roylott
Widowed former medical
doctor, now living on his
family estate in Surrey.

Helen Stoner Roylott’s
stepdaughter, who lives
with him in Surrey.

Julia Stoner Helen’s
late twin sister, who died
mysteriously two years before.

A t the opening of this story,
Watson clearly sets out to
whet the reader’s appetite
for what is to follow: “I cannot recall
any [case] which presented more
singular features than that which
was associated with the well-known
Surrey family of the Roylotts of Stoke
Moran.” The time now has come,
he says, to reveal a long-held secret,
given that the embargo on revealing
the truth has been lifted by the
“untimely death of a lady.” This is
a classic literary device that draws
in the reader and gives a sense of
immediacy to a story set in the
past. Although the lady he speaks
of is not named in his introduction,
it becomes apparent that she must

THE ADVENTURE OF THE SPECKLED BAND 85

In Paget’s illustration, a frightened
Helen Stoner lifts her veil; as the victim
of a powerful male, she is typical of
Holmes’s female clients, but she also
contributes to the case’s resolution.

be Helen Stoner, Holmes’s client can see deeply into the manifold trouble one day when, in a fit of rage,
in the story, who has recently died wickedness of the human heart,” he beat his butler to death. After
from natural causes, some years she says. “You may advise me how serving a long prison sentence, he
after Holmes saved her life. to walk amid the dangers which met and married a young widow,
encompass me.” Confident that Mrs. Stoner—the mother of Helen
A cry for help she has at last found someone who and her twin sister Julia—and
Early one morning in April 1883, will take her fears seriously and brought the family back to London,
a woman of about 30 years of age be able to help her, she tells Holmes where he planned to set up a new
arrives at 221B Baker Street in a and Watson her chilling story. medical practice. Soon after their
highly agitated state. It is so early, return, Mrs. Stoner was killed in
in fact, that Watson is still in bed. Roylott of Stoke Moran a railroad accident, leaving a
When Holmes quickly wakes him, The woman’s name is Helen Stoner, considerable sum of money in her
he throws on his clothes and goes and she lives with her stepfather, will. This was to remain in Roylott’s
into the sitting room to see the lady, Dr. Grimesby Roylott, who is the last hands until such time as Helen and
who is veiled and dressed in black. living member of one of the oldest Julia were married, after which each
families in England. The Roylotts would be able to claim an annual
Picking up on her anxiety, once enjoyed great wealth, but in income from their mother’s estate.
Holmes immediately helps her to recent centuries a succession of
relax, urging her to sit closer to the spendthrift heirs frittered this family Giving up the idea of living in
fire and ordering her a hot drink. fortune away, and by the time London, Roylott used the money to
Demonstrating his powers of Grimesby came to inherit, all that relocate his family to his ancestral
deduction in order to reassure her, remained was an old house with home in Surrey. At this time, Helen
he says he knows that she got a a big mortgage at Stoke Moran in says, Roylott underwent a “terrible
dog-cart to the station and caught Surrey. Roylott earned a degree in change.” He became increasingly
the early train to London simply medicine and then emigrated to eccentric and reclusive, emerging
from the pattern of mud spatters India, where he set up a successful only sporadically to wander off with
on the left arm of her jacket and the practice. But while his finances the gypsies he allowed to camp
ticket in her hand. This is just what improved, his “violence of temper on his land. He got into fights with
the frightened woman needs. “I approaching mania” got him into several local men and became the ❯❯
have heard, Mr. Holmes, that you
He refused to
associate himself with
any investigation which did
not tend towards the unusual,
and even the fantastic.

Dr. Watson

86 THE EARLY ADVENTURES

“terror of the village,” and also Sherlock Holmes has long enjoyed same noises, always around 3am,
developed a passion for exotic international success, as this French during the nights leading up to her
animals. Helen explains that a book jacket (c. 1920) shows; today, the death, and she had also mentioned
baboon and a cheetah are still stories have been translated into more being troubled by the smell of cigar
roaming loose in the grounds. She than 100 languages, including Braille. smoke coming from Roylott’s room.
describes both pets as “Indian” These clues, though, made little
(but as baboons live only in Africa stepfather, where she found Julia sense. Helen believes her sister had
and Arabia, this must surely be convulsing in agony. She managed died of fright, and wonders whether
an error by Conan Doyle). Helen’s to shriek a few words—“Oh, my “the speckled band” she spoke of
dark description of Roylott clearly God! Helen! It was the band! The could be a reference to the “band”
positions him as the story’s villain. speckled band!”—before falling of gypsies camping outside, who
unconscious and dying. wore spotted handkerchiefs on
their heads. By now, the reader’s
The inquiry showed that Julia’s mind is racing, trying to interpret
door had been bolted shut from the all this carefully released data.
inside (the girls always locked their
doors before going to bed, as they Helen says that two years have
were afraid of the cheetah and the passed since her sister’s death, and
baboon), the windows were barred, she herself is about to get married.
and there was no indication of how But one night ago, she experienced
an intruder could have entered or a terrifying echo of the past. Roylott
left the room. Julia’s body was left had asked her to sleep in Julia’s old
unmarked and there was no sign room while repairs were carried out
that she had been poisoned. She on a wall in her quarters. Helen did
had been clutching a previously lit as he asked, but in the early hours
match and a box of matches when she had heard an eerily familiar
she died, so had clearly had some sound: a low, clear whistle. She was
light and would therefore have been so frightened, she stayed awake all
able to see something in the room. night, and in the morning came
The only other clues were the odd straight to Holmes.
sounds Helen had heard just before
she found her sister: a low whistle As Helen concludes her story,
and a metallic clanging. Apparently Holmes observes bruises on her
Julia too had been wakened by the wrist and realizes Roylott has been
abusing her. He is now certain of

Strange last words Dr. Grimesby Roylott
Helen’s story then shifts to focus
on an intriguing puzzle, one which Dr. Roylott is one of the most face, seared with a thousand
Holmes—and the reader—must colorful of all Holmes’s villains, wrinkles, burned yellow with
unravel before Helen falls victim a huge and brutish man who the sun, and marked with every
to Roylott. This puzzle element keeps wild animals as pets and evil passion” and “his deep-set,
is crucial to the success of the terrorizes all who cross his path. bile-shot eyes, and his high,
Holmes stories, as it is in much of At the time, it was commonly thin, fleshless nose, gave him
the best detective fiction. Here it believed that criminals were somewhat the resemblance to
centers on the sudden, unexplained born, not made, and that they a fierce old bird of prey.” He
death of Helen’s sister, Julia, two possessed certain physical also has an explosive temper,
years previously—just two weeks characteristics that marked which Helen believes has “been
before her wedding. On a wild, them apart—a theory called intensified by his long residence
windy night, Helen was awoken by “anthropological criminology” in the tropics,” but when he
her sister’s scream: she rushed to (see pp.310–15), and Conan unleashes this on Holmes, the
Julia’s bedroom, which was located Doyle certainly gives Roylott a detective uses humor to deflect
between her room and that of her striking physiognomy: “A large it and refuses to be intimidated.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE SPECKLED BAND 87

Roylott has total If either Julia Roylott’s £750-a-
control of the family or Helen were to year income splits
income from his
wife’s will, which get married, by a third upon
enables him to give Roylott would be each marriage.
his stepdaughters forced to share
enough money his annual income Julia’s £250
to live on, while claim reduces
retaining the vast with them. Roylott’s share
majority for himself.
He is desperate to to £500.
prevent the girls
from marrying, Helen’s claim
since they would of another £250
gain the right to takes Roylott’s
their own incomes. share to £250.

the urgent need to protect Helen, pool of blood, it could be “abduced” entertain the reader: “I should be
and says he will visit Stoke Moran that the dead person had been shot. very much obliged if you would
that afternoon, while Roylott is out. Abduction provides an initial theory slip a revolver into your pocket,” he
As Helen heads for home, Holmes which must then be tested. says to Watson. “Eley’s No. 2 is an
is already forming various theories. excellent argument with gentlemen
Holmes is convinced that Roylott who can twist steel pokers into
A logical process is implicated in Julia’s death, since knots. That and a tooth-brush
At the time that Conan Doyle the potential loss of income from are, I think, all that we need.”
was writing “The Adventure of his late wife’s legacy, should his
the Speckled Band,” an American stepdaughters marry, gives him a A locked-room mystery
philosopher, Charles Sanders Peirce strong motive. He speculates that At the house, Holmes inspects the
(1839–1914), was developing a new Roylott may have asked a gypsy room in which Julia died and Helen
theory of logic that chimed perfectly to get into Julia’s room and kill her, now sleeps. He immediately sees
with Holmes’s way of working, and that the man must have made a flaw in his theory that the killer
although it was not widely known his escape through the window, escaped through the window: ❯❯
at that time. Previously, there had making the metal bars on the
been just two recognized methods shutters clang. However, Holmes Fancy his having the
of reasoning: “deduction,” in which knows he must also test this in situ. insolence to confound
the outcome is a logical, inevitable
consequence, and “induction,” in At that very moment, Dr. Roylott, me with the official
which there is good reason to expect who has followed his stepdaughter, detective force!
a particular outcome but it is not bursts ferociously into 221B. He
certain. In his new theory, Peirce warns Holmes not to interfere in his Sherlock Holmes
suggested there was a third type affairs and, to underline his point,
of reasoning, one which Holmes grabs a poker and bends it into a
himself often uses: “abductive” curve as he leaves. Holmes laughs
reasoning. Abduction involves it off and calmly wrenches the
developing a theory based on all poker straight again—an indication
the available facts (see p.307). For of his physical strength.
example, if, following the sound of a
gunshot, a body was found lying in a Holmes and Watson then ready
themselves to investigate. As is
so often the case, Holmes’s use of
understatement and wry humor

88 THE EARLY ADVENTURES

there is simply no way that anyone in the Rue Morgue,” in which a Sherlock Holmes, played here by
could have entered or exited this woman and her daughter are found Jeremy Brett in the 1984 television
room. The story now turns into a murdered inside a room that is episode of “The Speckled Band,”
classic “locked-room” mystery— locked from the inside. In that case, spots several clues inside Roylott’s
this is a major device in detective the killer turns out to be an ape; bedroom, including a saucer of milk,
fiction in which a crime, usually Conan Doyle’s inclusion of a pet and then realizes his diabolical plan.
murder, has been committed in a baboon in “The Speckled Band” may
room from which there seems to be be a tribute to Poe’s story. Along the ventilator; he also claims he
no possible way that the criminal with the cheetah and the gypsies, knew there would be a ventilator
could have gotten in or out. An however, it is also a red herring. between Roylott and Julia’s rooms:
early locked-room mystery appeared how else would she have been able
in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders A trail of clues to smell his cigar smoke? When
Conan Doyle now provides several Holmes moves on to Roylott’s room,
It is a wicked world, and key clues that will help the reader he finds four further clues—an iron
when a clever man turns formulate theories about Julia’s safe, a saucer of milk, a wooden
death. As he examines her room, chair, and a strangely looped “dog-
his brains to crime it Holmes spots two unusual items whip.” Holmes now has his theory,
is the worst of all. that Helen says were installed and perhaps the reader does too,
shortly before her sister’s death: but still, it must be tested.
Sherlock Holmes a small ventilator that opens into
Roylott’s room, rather than outside Holmes decides that he and
the house, and a fake bell-pull next Watson must spend the night in the
to the bed that is attached to room in which Julia was killed. He
a hook above the ventilator. Later, explains his plan to Helen: when
Holmes tells Watson that he also her stepfather gets home, she is to
saw that the bed was bolted into feign a headache and remain in her
place, so it could not be moved from room. Once Roylott is in bed for the
its position beneath the rope and night, she is to send a signal via a
lamp to Holmes and Watson—who

THE ADVENTURE OF THE SPECKLED BAND 89

will be watching from the window Homes explains how, when Julia I had never seen my friend’s
of a nearby hotel—and then sneak became engaged, Roylott knew his face so grim or his brow so
into her former bedroom. income would diminish greatly, and
so he hatched an ingenious plan to dark as it was when we
As planned, just after 11pm, kill her, using one of his exotic pets turned from the scene.
the duo enter Julia’s old room. They as a weapon. For a succession of
extinguish the lamp, in case Roylott nights he stood on the chair in his Dr. Watson
sees the light through the ventilator, room and carefully lifted a specially
and then wait in the dark. Watson’s trained snake into the ventilator Pick of the crop
fears grow as the hours drag by, until shaft, from where it would slither During a visit to South Africa
at 3am they see a light glimmering into the girl’s room, and then climb in 1900, Conan Doyle was asked
through the ventilator, followed by down the dummy bell-pull and onto by a journalist if he could name
a hissing sound, “like that of a small her bed. Before the light of dawn, his favorite Holmes story. “Perhaps
jet of steam escaping continually he would whistle for the snake to the one about the serpent”, he
from a kettle.” Holmes strikes a return for its saucer of milk, and replied. It is easy to see why
match and lashes furiously at the then the reptile would be stowed he chose “The Adventure of
bell-pull with his cane as, ominously, away once more in the safe— the Speckled Band”: it contains
Watson hears a low, clear whistle. which closed with a metallic clang. all the classic ingredients of a
great detective story—a dastardly
Killed by his own weapon It took several attempts before villain, a seemingly inexplicable
Moments later, a terrible cry of pain the snake finally bit Julia, but when death in a locked room, a young
and fear comes from the next room. it did, the venom affected her so lady in great distress, moments of
Warily, they enter and find Roylott rapidly that she could identify it real danger, an injection of exotic
sprawled dead in a chair with a only as a “speckled band” before and foreign “otherness,” and some
“speckled band” wrapped around she died. Helen would have met inspired and brilliant sleuthing. ■
his head. The band begins to move: the same dreadful fate if Holmes
it is a snake, and from the pattern and Watson had not taken her place
on its back Holmes can see it is a in the room. As the snake entered
venomous “Indian swamp adder.” through the ventilator, Holmes drove
He grabs the dog-whip and uses it it back with his cane, inciting it to
to deftly capture the creature and attack the waiting Roylott. At the
return it to Roylott’s safe. All that end of the story, Holmes admits that
remains now is for Holmes to reveal he is partly responsible for Roylott’s
how he solved the strange puzzle. death, but says he feels no guilt.

Roylott’s snake nerve endings) and can cause
paralysis and heart failure, often
There has been much speculation within an hour but sometimes
about the species of the snake in in just 15 minutes (although,
this story. Holmes identifies it as inconsistently, Roylott himself
a swamp adder—“the deadliest dies within just a few seconds).
snake in India”—but this name It is the species most commonly
is one of Conan Doyle’s inventions. used by India’s snake charmers,
Some commentators have decided too, and during the Hindu
it must be an Indian cobra (Naja festival of Nag Panchami (in
naja, pictured) since this matches which devotees worship live
the description of a reptile with a cobras) snakes are fed milk,
“diamond-shaped head and puffed which may be where Roylott
neck.” The Indian cobra’s poison is got the idea to reward his snake.
suitably fast-acting, too: it blocks However, since snakes are not
the transmission of nerve signals mammals, they cannot digest
at the synapses (gaps between milk and it is harmful to them.

90

EACH NEW DISCOVERY
FURNISHES A STEP
WHICH LEADS ON TO
THE COMPLETE TRUTH

THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENGINEER’S THUMB (1892)

IN CONTEXT A s the reader is informed conductor arrives with a young man
by Dr. Watson early on in who has alighted from the morning
TYPE “The Adventure of the train and asked to see a doctor.
Short story Engineer’s Thumb,” this case is
one of only two that he has brought The severed digit
FIRST PUBLICATION to Sherlock Holmes’s attention. Watson learns the patient is a
UK: March 1892 Another unusual, although by no hydraulic engineer by the name
means unique, feature is the fact of Victor Hatherley. He is pale
COLLECTION that the criminals manage to evade and agitated, and when the doctor
The Adventures of capture. In a few other cases, the suggests that his train journey
Sherlock Holmes, 1892 perpetrators initially escape from might have been monotonous,
Holmes, but then fate steps in Hatherley breaks into wild laughter
CHARACTERS to mete out justice. In this story, that borders on mild hysteria.
Victor Hatherley however, there appears to be He soon reveals to Watson the
Young hydraulic engineer. no retribution for the crime. reason for his distress: he has
suffered a terrible injury—the
Colonel Lysander Stark An early-morning visitor loss of his thumb.
Middle-aged German man So many of Holmes’s cases begin
who hires Victor Hatherley. with a knock on the door of the Holmes sat in his big
detective’s 221B Baker Street armchair with the weary,
Elise Young German woman rooms, but here the victim arrives heavy-lidded expression
who helps Hatherley to escape. at Watson’s home. As the doctor
stresses, the events occur during which veiled his keen
Mr. Ferguson a quiet, comfortable time in his life: and eager nature.
Stark’s “manager.” following his recent marriage, he Dr. Watson
has established a medical practice
close to Paddington Station and
now only occasionally visits
Holmes, for social reasons.

Watson has a useful ally at the
nearby station—a train conductor,
who directs a steady stream of
patients toward his consulting
rooms. Early one morning, the

THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENGINEER’S THUMB 91

Some critics have suggested that ideas, which were not revealed Victor Hatherley, illustrated here
this loss of a thumb could be seen until 1895 with the publication by Sidney Paget in The Strand
as akin to a symbolic castration, of Studies on Hysteria, his Magazine, finds himself trapped
and that Conan Doyle was using groundbreaking book written inside the large hydraulic press
it to issue a warning. In the 1890s, with Joseph Breuer. Yet there that he was hired to repair.
many people worried that young is an uncanny similarity in the
British men were becoming rather way that both Freud and Holmes Lysander Stark, visited him earlier
decadent and effete. So here this listen to a narrative before working that week and offered him a hefty
“castration” may be a reminder of toward their conclusions through a fee—10 times his usual rate—to
the need to maintain good moral steady process of logical deduction. repair a hydraulic press, he was
fiber and resilience in a world that eager to agree. Hatherley admits to
challenged Britain’s dominance. A tempting offer having had some misgivings about
Hatherley explains that he is alone the new client’s manner and his
Many Holmes stories feature in the world—both an orphan and a insistence that the work should be
ruthless villains and gruesome bachelor. He has been making little carried out in complete secrecy,
crimes, some of which contain headway in his small business, so saying he evoked “a feeling of
graphic descriptions of physical when a middle-aged German man, repulsion” and “something akin to
injury; yet, Watson’s recollection who introduced himself as Colonel fear.” However, he overlooked his ❯❯
of Hatherley’s injury is shocking
in its vividness: “There were four
protruding fingers and a horrid red,
spongy surface where the thumb
should have been. It had been
hacked or torn right out from
the roots.” Conan Doyle does not
usually resort to such sensational
detail to grab attention, but here it
works. Like Watson, the reader is
roused from the preceding, rather
sleepy, narrative, and the tale
suddenly gains momentum. In its
way, this injury is as horrifying as
a murder and, like the doctor, the
reader is anxious for Holmes to
step in as soon as possible.

An analytical mind
When Watson and Hatherley
arrive at 221B, Holmes immediately
instills calm. After producing
some bacon and eggs, he listens
with close attention to Hatherley’s
story. Holmes invites the young
man to lie down on his couch while
recalling the events: an approach
that is strikingly reminiscent of a
key technique that the esteemed
psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud
was using with his patients at the
time Conan Doyle was writing this
story. Of course, the author could
not have known about Freud’s

92 THE EARLY ADVENTURES

When Hatherley 12-mile journey The actual route
is taken from the station was roughly circular,
to the house where The house lasting an hour but
the press is located, the Eyford returning to near
journey takes an hour, train station
so the police estimate the station.
it was a distance of 12-mile radius
about 12 miles. Holmes Police believe the
believes that because house could be located
the horse was “fresh
and glossy” the house anywhere within a
is in fact located very 12-mile radius
close to the station— of the station.
a belief that proves
to be correct.

distrust and dislike because he an hour through the darkness, in a young woman, later identified
so desperately wanted the work. horse-drawn carriage with frosted- as Elise. In broken English, she
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, given the glass windows, to the house where repeatedly implored the young
warning signs, it is Stark who turns the press was located. At this engineer to leave immediately.
out to be the villain of the piece. point, Holmes interrupts to ask a However, Hatherley was in
Conan Doyle’s choice of a German seemingly trivial question about desperate need of his fee, and
national for his evil-doer was the carriage’s horse—was it tired- determined to prove his toughness
probably no coincidence, since it looking or fresh? The response— by seeing the job through, so he
may have been a reflection of the “fresh and glossy”—gives the chose to ignore her warning.
growing anti-German sentiment detective his first clue.
in Britain at the time. Germany Stark returned with his alleged
was becoming increasingly At the house, Stark briefly left manager, a Mr. Ferguson, and the
militaristic under the ambitious Hatherley alone, at which point pair took Hatherley to the press,
and hostile rule of Kaiser Wilhelm, he was approached by a beautiful located inside a small room. As
who was supporting the Boers in they entered, the colonel explained
South Africa against the British that they were now standing inside
during the Boer War (1899–1902). the machine itself, and that it
would be “a particularly unpleasant
A narrow escape In the silence I heard thing for us if anyone were to turn
Hatherley explains to the group a sound which sent my it on,” since the ceiling would come
that Stark persuaded him to head heart into my mouth. down with crushing force to meet
out into the Berkshire countryside the floor. Hatherley examined the
late that same evening, to examine Victor Hatherley press, and after discovering a leak
and mend a hydraulic press being in the mechanism, he advised
used to compact Fuller’s earth— Stark on how to fix it. However,
a clay used in the wool-making during his inspection it dawned on
process. He was met by Stark at him that this device was not being
the isolated station and driven for used for crushing Fuller’s earth;
instead, it was being used to press

THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENGINEER’S THUMB 93

metal. Upon hearing this, Holmes …every moment now Holmes’s deduction is confirmed
quickly realizes that it is a machine is precious, so if you feel when, on arrival, they notice flames
for making counterfeit coins. equal to it we shall go coming from a nearby house and,
down to Scotland Yard. as they approach, Hatherley is sure
Recognizing that Hatherley had it is the one he was taken to (the
seen through their ploy and afraid Sherlock Holmes discovery by firemen of his severed
that he may have realized the true thumb proves it). The oil lamp that
nature of their illegal work, Stark House on fire Hatherley had used to inspect the
exited the room, locked the door, After hearing the story, Holmes, press had started the blaze and it
and turned on the press—intending Watson, and Hatherley set off by has destroyed all evidence of the
to grind the engineer to a pulp. train for Eyford, with policemen in counterfeiting gang’s machine. The
Hatherley screamed and begged tow, to apprehend Stark. En route, mysterious German, Elise, and Mr.
to be let out, but his cries were they calculate the house’s likely Ferguson (who it turns out is really
ignored. The ceiling began its location, using Hatherley’s estimate named Dr. Becher) have already
ominous descent and it was just a that it took an hour to get to the fled, taking their hoard of
few feet away from Hatherley’s house, and therefore it was about counterfeit coins with them, and
body when the engineer suddenly 12 miles from the station. Yet they are never apprehended.
spotted a concealed panel in the Holmes insists the house is close
walls of the press. He threw himself to the station, surmising from A painful lesson
through it, narrowly avoiding death. Hatherley’s assertion about the As they return to London, Holmes
fresh state of the horse that is remarkably sanguine about the
Waiting on the other side was the carriage had gone in a circle case’s outcome. When Hatherley
Elise, who led him to a second- in order to confuse the engineer’s complains that he has lost both his
story window and urged him to sense of distance and direction. thumb and his fee, Holmes laughs
jump. As Hatherley clung to the and tells him to simply dine out on
windowsill by his hands, Stark the experience. The story, it seems,
arrived brandishing a cleaver and is not meant to be one of the typical
hacked off his thumb. The engineer expositions of Holmes’s brilliance,
fell into the garden below and then which is relatively modest here, but
staggered into some rose bushes instead a salutary tale about how
before passing out. He regained easy it is to get sucked into shady
consciousness the next morning and dangerous dealings if one is
and, nursing his injury, made his tempted by easy cash. ■
way to the train station, which he
was surprised to find close by.

Coiners and smashers Coins were counterfeited on a the low-life criminals who
huge scale in Victorian London. would subsequently pass the
It is thought that at the beginning forgeries into circulation were
of the 19th century there were called “smashers.” The fake
nearly 50 mints churning out coins themselves were known as
forged half-crowns and other “snide,” and the smasher’s
coins, and that by 1850, more job was often referred to as
than one-fifth of all the trials held “snide-pitching.”
at London’s Central Criminal Court
(the Old Bailey) were for “coining” Counterfeiting was a labor-
(counterfeiting coins). The guilty intensive and skillful business,
parties included both men and since the forgers had to get
women. hold of a press and all the metal
they needed to make the coins,
The forgers who set up a press, and then correctly set up the
like Colonel Lysander Stark and his machine to churn them out. Yet
accomplices, were known as it proved to be a profitable (if
“coiners” or “bit-fakers,” while disreputable) business for many.

94

I HAD FORMED MY
CONCLUSIONS AS TO THE
CASE BEFORE OUR CLIENT
CAME INTO THE ROOM

THE ADVENTURE OF THE NOBLE BACHELOR (1892)

IN CONTEXT A s the story opens, Watson St. Simon had once been intimate,
is confined indoors by the tried to storm into the reception
TYPE seasonal ache of his war and was subsequently seen talking
Short story wound. His day is brightened by to Hatty in Hyde Park. Flora has
the arrival of an eminent new been arrested but St. Simon does
FIRST PUBLICATION client: Lord Robert St. Simon, one of not believe she has done Hatty any
UK: April 1892 the highest aristocrats in the land. harm, but he is anxious to find
his wife, and so he engages the
COLLECTION The nobleman has recently services of Holmes and Lestrade.
The Adventures of married Hatty Doran, a free-spirited
Sherlock Holmes, 1892 American heiress. However, during In the 1800s, high-society weddings,
their wedding reception, the bride like St. Simon’s, were lavish affairs, with
CHARACTERS excused herself and fled, and has brides wearing white—a new fashion
Lord Robert St. Simon not been seen since. Flora Millar, made popular by Queen Victoria.
Middle-aged second son a jealous chorus girl with whom
of the Duke of Balmoral.

Hatty Doran Young
American woman, recently
married to St. Simon.

Flora Millar Former music-
hall dancer and an intimate
of St. Simon.

Francis (“Frank”) Hay
Moulton Wealthy American
gentleman, formerly a
mining prospector.

Inspector Lestrade Scotland
Yard detective.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE NOBLE BACHELOR 95

My whole examination wedding, Frank sneaked into American heiresses
served to turn my the service and passed Hatty
a note, signed with his initials. Britain’s historic country
conjecture into a certainty. Shocked and confused to see her estates were ruinously costly
Sherlock Holmes first husband alive, Hatty ran to him; to run, and in the late 1800s
Flora accosted her en route, but she the nobility were increasingly
An awkward situation ignored her. And, in an attempt to trading their titles for money
As usual, Lestrade is fixated on the conceal Hatty’s tracks, Frank tossed from across the Atlantic. Just
first solution that presents itself: he her wedding outfit in the lake. as television’s fictional Earl
thinks Flora lured Hatty away from of Grantham saved Downton
her guests and then ambushed her. Holmes locates the hotel that Abbey through his wealthy
The discovery of a sodden wedding Frank had just left, and obtains American bride, so the real-life
dress in Hyde Park’s lake, with a his new address. There he finds Duke of Marlborough secured
note written by someone with the the couple and, after hearing their Blenheim Palace’s future by
initials F. H. M. in its pocket, seems story, encourages them to make marrying Consuelo Vanderbilt
to prove his theory. Holmes is more peace with St. Simon. Faced with (pictured) from New York.
interested in the fact that it was Hatty’s request for forgiveness, There was even a quarterly
scribbled on an expensive hotel bill. the nobleman agrees to shake periodical called Titled
hands, albeit peevishly. Americans, listing all the
As Lestrade becomes ever more ladies of America who had
confused, Holmes announces that Holmes as mouthpiece married old-world aristocrats,
he has already solved the case. To Among Holmes’s socially diverse along with notable bachelors
him, two things are obvious: Hatty clientele, the upper classes do not still on the market.
had been content to go through with always emerge particularly well.
the wedding but something had Lord St. Simon is fussy to the point The American society
occurred immediately afterwards of “foppishness” about his looks, ladies made their mark in
that made her regret it. She must and he is self-important and not political matters, too. Mary
have seen someone—given her very bright. Holmes takes evident Leiter from Chicago became
origins, this was probably an enjoyment in gently mocking his Vicereine of India and an early
American—and whoever it was intellect and exposing his various conservationist; Nancy Witcher
must have been important to her, upper-class hypocrisies. However, Langhorne from Virginia
most likely a man. These clues the duke’s son has escaped lightly (whose husband was US-born
enable Holmes to orchestrate a compared to Flora. Holmes’s worst but ended up a hereditary
resolution to a story that began years characteristic in this story is peer) was later Viscountess
earlier, in the gold fields of California. arguably his careless snobbery in Astor, the first woman to sit
casting off the dancer so unfeelingly. as an MP; and Jennie Jerome
Hatty Doran is, in fact, already from Brooklyn became Lady
married—to an American gold The story is also an opportunity Randolph Churchill and
miner named Francis (“Frank”) Hay for Conan Doyle to express his Winston Churchill’s mother.
Moulton. She thought he had been feelings about America. Although
killed during an Apache Indian it is not always evident from his
attack, but he escaped and has American villains, he was a great
since made his fortune. Tracking her admirer of the US and toured there
down on the morning of her second several times. In 1896, he penned
a letter to The Times advocating
closer ties with the country. In
this story, Holmes gives a voice
to his creator’s vision of a future
in which Britons and Americans
are “citizens of the same world-wide
country under a flag which shall be
a quartering of the Union Jack with
the Stars and Stripes.” ■

96

THERE ARE WOMEN IN
WHOM THE LOVE OF A
LOVER EXTINGUISHES
ALL OTHER LOVES

THE ADVENTURE OF THE BERYL CORONET (1892)

IN CONTEXT T his story is an excellent a guarantee against a substantial
exemplar of Holmes and his loan that is required by one of the
TYPE methodology: logical but “most exalted names in England”—
Short story instinctive, methodical yet fearless. Burdened by the responsibility,
While those directly embroiled in Holder takes the coronet back to
FIRST PUBLICATION the case find themselves blinded by his house in Streatham. That night,
UK: May 1892 suspicion and mistrust, Holmes is he is disturbed by a noise and
able to swiftly apply his ingenious wakes to see his son Arthur
COLLECTION logic and identify the true criminals standing in his dressing room,
The Adventures of in a masterful show of deductive holding the slightly mangled
Sherlock Holmes, 1892 superiority. And yet, while the coronet. Crucially, three of its
crime is successfully solved, this beryls are missing.
CHARACTERS is one of the few Holmes cases in
Alexander Holder Prominent which the perpetrators escape The Holder household
banker, who lives with his before they are brought to justice. Holder is demented with anxiety
son and niece in Streatham. and can only conclude that Arthur,
The client in question is an an irresponsible gambler, is guilty.
Arthur Holder Son of eminent banker, Alexander Holder, Holder is a widower who has
Alexander, and a gambler who has been entrusted with a overindulged his only child and
in serious debt. precious beryl coronet to act as now has little love for him. Holder
reserves his affection for his adopted
Mary Holder It appeared to you to be niece, Mary, an orphan with a
Niece and adopted daughter a simple case; to me it loving, discreet, and loyal nature.
of Alexander. seems exceedingly complex. Arthur is also devoted to Mary, and
Sherlock Holmes it is Holder’s dearest wish that son
Sir George Burnwell and niece should marry, but Mary
Disreputable friend of Arthur has twice refused Arthur’s hand.
and lover of Mary. It also transpires that a handsome
and charismatic friend of Arthur’s,
Sir George Burnwell, is a frequent
visitor to the Holder home.

Holmes is immediately skeptical
about Arthur’s guilt; why would he
refuse to exonerate himself or give

THE ADVENTURE OF THE BERYL CORONET 97

The Beryl Coronet was one of
the 47 silent films (45 shorts and two
features) of the Holmes stories made
by Stoll Pictures between 1921–23; all
starred Eille Norwood as Holmes.

any explanation for the events
of the night? How did he break
the coronet without any audible
noise? And where are the three
beryls concealed?

A classic Holmes investigation
ensues—various false clues are
presented to him, but Holmes
refuses to be thrown off the scent.
He scrutinizes a windowsill with
his magnifying glass, questions
Mary, and observes a set of tracks
in the snow that tell a complex tale.

Culprit revealed become Mary’s lover. He persuaded bureau when he was caught. Out of
Matters grow more complicated her to steal the coronet and pass it love and loyalty for Mary, he refused
when Holder discovers a note to him through a window. Arthur to reveal the truth and her role in it.
from Mary telling him that she is had witnessed the theft, pursued
leaving. Holmes soon reveals the Sir George and grappled him for the During this fast-paced case,
truth behind her decision—and coronet, leaving evidence of their Holmes plays the part of a true
the crime. The true culprit is Sir struggle in the snow. The coronet action hero, disguising himself to
George, “one of the most dangerous had been damaged in the skirmish, glean information, accosting Sir
men in England—a ruined gambler, and Arthur was trying to straighten George over the theft, threatening
an absolutely desperate villain, a it before returning it to his father’s him with a gun, and buying the
man without heart or conscience.” missing beryls back from a third
The scoundrel has inveigled unusually elaborate. The man party (to whom Sir George had
himself into the household and who entrusts Holder with the already sold them) for £3,000.
coronet estimates that it is worth
The coronet around £100,000 ($12 million Holder had let his love for Mary
today), at least twice the value of cloud his judgment, and decided
Coronets are simple crowns the loan drawn on it. The reader wrongly that his son’s lifestyle was
worn by the various ranks of the does not learn the identity of the a sign of his guilt. In fact, Arthur
British peerage as well as minor coronet’s owner, only that “his is unfailingly loyal to both his
royalty, each rank distinguished name… is a household cousin, Mary, and his father.
by a different configuration of word all over the Mary, for her part, has foolishly
strawberry leaves and silver earth,” which has led abandoned the protection of her
balls. Beryl is a colorless many to speculate devoted stepfather and cousin for
gemstone that is often tinted that he is a member that of her dubious lover, and is
by impurities to appear yellow of the British royal likely to receive her retribution
(known as heliodor), green family, probably the at Sir George’s own cruel hand.
(emerald), red (scarlet emerald), Prince of Wales “Whatever her sins are, they will
or blue (aquamarine). (later Edward VII). soon receive a more than sufficient
punishment,” are Holmes’s final,
The gold coronet that ominous words on the case. ■
features in this story, adorned
with 39 “enormous” beryls, is

98 CRIME IS
COMMON.
IN CONTEXT LOGIC IS RARE

TYPE THE ADVENTURE OF THE COPPER BEECHES (1892)
Short story
FIRST PUBLICATION A long and unusually quality of the criminal mind,
UK: June 1892 revealing scene about complaining sardonically, “As to
COLLECTION Holmes’s and Watson’s my own little practice, it seems
The Adventures of relationship opens “The Adventure to be degenerating into an agency
Sherlock Holmes, 1892 of the Copper Beeches.” Holmes for recovering lead pencils and
CHARACTERS takes Watson to task about the way giving advice to young ladies
Violet Hunter he writes about him in his memoirs, from boarding-schools.”
Young governess. accusing the doctor of embellishing
Jephro Rucastle his reports with literary flourishes For the coolly logical Holmes,
Middle-aged landowner. rather than simply detailing the this seems strangely like an
Mrs. Rucastle detective’s skill, and turning “a emotional outburst. It has all
Jephro’s second wife. course of lectures into a series of been triggered, it transpires, by a
Alice Rucastle tales.” Indeed, it seems that the letter from a young woman named
Jephro’s daughter legendarily inscrutable Holmes is Violet Hunter, asking for advice
by his first wife. in a bad mood—and the famously on whether to take up a post as
Toller and Mrs. Toller placid Watson is quite offended a governess, which he tosses to
The Rucastles’ servants. and “repelled by the egotism” of Watson to read. But is Holmes
Mr. Fowler his friend. actually rather intrigued by this
Alice’s fiancé.
In a playful, self-referential The days of the great
manner, Conan Doyle has fun with cases are past. Man, or
the reader, and even has Holmes at least criminal man,
criticize the quality of the writing. has lost all enterprise
It is so adroitly done that the reader
almost forgets that Watson and and originality.
Holmes are fictional characters, Sherlock Holmes
and Watson is not a real person
writing about a real detective.

Holmes in a bad mood
Conan Doyle is clearly setting
up the idea that something is
preying on Holmes’s mind.
After the spat with Watson,
Holmes rues the decline in the