The Crooked Man

Want to read this along with me? This essay is part of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, published in 1894. I used the epub version found on Feedbooks.com.

Although this is another interesting case of a romantic triangle and another example of a Sherlockian “locked room” mystery, this story is better recognized for showing a different side of the post-marriage Holmes and Watson relationship. It’s been a long time (since “The Man with the Twisted Lip”) since we’ve seen Watson’s home, but for the second time, Holmes comes there to meet Watson.

This time, Holmes imposes himself (quite successfully) on Watson’s hospitality by arriving at a very late hour and making himself immediately at home. The fact that Watson doesn’t seem particularly put out by this is telling about both the nature of their friendship and Watson’s tolerance of Holmes’ strange habits. During this scene, however, Holmes makes a series of rapid-fire deductions almost immediately upon entering the Watson home, but there isn’t really a lot of reason for him to do so. Whether he’s doing it to keep Watson disoriented or because Holmes knows that such deductions generally delight and amaze Watson, either way I think he does it to defuse Watson’s frustration and the late hour in which Holmes imposes himself on his old friend. During the bombardment of deductions, though, Holmes teases Watson about “keeping him up,” and even takes a shot at his chronicler at the lack of “playing fair” in the previously documented cases:

“The same may be said, my dear fellow, for the effect of some of these little sketches of yours, which is entirely meretricious, depending as it does upon your retaining in your own hands some factors in the problem which are never imparted to the reader.”

The shot is probably Doyle expressing his frustration with writing the stories through the vehicle of Holmes. There are only three more stories after this one until (spoiler alert!) he attempts to kill off Holmes, and his reluctance to continue writing the stories shows through in the exchange between Holmes and Watson. On the other hand, the disconnect on whether Holmes has emotions or not – something that has come up time and again in different stories – takes another, more moderate turn. By degrees, Doyle has tried to reshape Holmes’ apparent emotionlessness into something that exists more on the surface instead of Holmes being utterly emotional or utterly emotionless, and he brings it up on two separate occasions in this story to drive home the point.

His eyes kindled and a slight flush sprang into his thin cheeks. For an instant only. When I glanced again his face had resumed that red-Indian composure which had made so many regard him as a machine rather than a man.

and

In spite of his capacity for concealing his emotions, I could easily see that Holmes was in a state of suppressed excitement…

Ultimately, Holmes asks for Watson’s help on the case, but Watson doesn’t really contribute much to the case. Sadly, this is the start of a slow slide from a sharp and talented Watson assisting a brilliant but flawed Holmes to Watson being just a chronicler to Holmes’ unerring genius.

There’s a brief mention of Holmes’ “Baker Street Boys,” the street urchins that work for him, although instead of Wiggins, we meet a new one: Simpson. (Sadly, this is also the last time we hear mention of the Irregulars in the canon, despite their well-entrenched status in the Holmes myth.) Holmes also displays his knowledge of the Bible at the end, even though Watson ranked Holmes’ knowledge of literature and philosophy to be “nil” in A Study in Scarlet.

Finally, another rant: Holmes never utters the phrase “Elementary, my dear Watson” at any point in the canon. None. It’s not there. However, this story contains an exchange that is probably the closest to it:

“I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson,” said he….

“Excellent!” I cried.

“Elementary,” said he.

The Reigate Squires

Want to read this along with me? This essay is part of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, published in 1894. I used the epub version found on Feedbooks.com.

First, a bit of clarity. This story was originally published as “The Reigate Squire,” but was subsequently renamed as “The Reigate Squires” when collected into Memoirs. When it was published in America in Harper’s Weekly, however, it was changed to “The Reigate Puzzle,” and subsequent reprintings of the American Memoirs (including the version I’m reading from Feedbooks) retain the American title. I’m more familiar with the story under “Squires” rather than “Puzzle,” so that’s what I’ll defer to, even if the version I’m reading differs.

Prior to this story, we’ve had references to various apocryphal cases, but this is the first time in which the consequences of an undocumented case impacts a documented one – in this instance, Holmes becoming ill. To digress for a bit, this is what I consider to be the turning point in the apocryphal side of the Holmes canon. Thus far, the references have been scattered here and there, teasing indications of the life of Holmes outside of what we read. But with “The Reigate Squires,” I really felt that the world of Holmes and Watson came alive. The various ways to try and make Holmes and Watson seem like a part of the world have, in this story, gelled into them having a cohesive world of their own. Whether it reflects or ties into the world we understand (or, more accurately, the contemporary world of Doyle’s original audience), this story makes the narrative reality of Holmes and Watson feel less like a jumble of facts and dates to me, and more like an organic reality that I want to know more about and be a part of. Even when I stop reading the stories, in some part of my mind they still exist, solving crimes and thwarting villains that I will never see and know about.¹

Some of this feeling of emotional reality comes out in how we learn more about Watson as he cares for Holmes. We meet Colonel Hayter, who is a former patient of Watson’s in Afghanistan. We find out that Watson cares deeply for Holmes, so much that he’s willing to butt heads with Holmes and admonish him not to take any new cases while he is recovering from his illness. Of course, Watson ultimately loses the battle of wills with Holmes, but his stubborn refusal to cave to Holmes’ ego and pouting shows another side of Watson’s support for his friend, and how he’s willing to go against Holmes himself to do what is best. Of course, in the end it is the mental puzzle that causes Holmes to recuperate, showing that Watson cares for Holmes far more than he understands Holmes, even though he tries:

“I don’t think you need alarm yourself,” said I. “I have usually found that there was method in his madness.”

“Some folks might say there was madness in his method,” muttered the Inspector.

There are some interesting juxtapositions of Holmes’ analytical skills with his showmanship. Twice Holmes uses his illness to make “mistakes” that progress the case, another indication of his acting skill. He also explicitly mentions his open presentation of his skills, mentioning that “it has always been my habit to hide none of my methods.” On the other hand, he tosses out that he made “twenty-three other deductions” which he glosses over, correctly assuming that his audience has no interest in the level of minutia they detail.² It shows that Holmes is coming to terms with the necessity of combining his scientific methods with more popular interest in order to spread word of his methods (and, of course, his own career).

The Musgrave Ritual

Want to read this along with me? This essay is part of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, published in 1894. I used the epub version found on Feedbooks.com.

Right after “The ‘Gloria Scott’,” we have another case in Holmes’ pre-Watson career.¹ In my opinion, this one has far more flair and character than “The ‘Gloria Scott’.” Here we have some more exploration of Holmes’ early adult life, a good old-fashioned treasure hunt, some intrigue and romance, and there are more staples of the Holmes canon introduced here. In fact, this story is so iconic that the Baker Street Irregulars recite the actual ritual during their annual dinner, and T. S. Eliot paraphrased it in his play Murder in the Cathedral. This story is listed as one of Doyle’s favorites, and on reflection, it’s probably one of mine as well – a great, classic read.

Like the previous story, this one doesn’t feature Watson in a support role and has Holmes as the primary narrator. As such, we get another glimpse in Holmes’ methods from his own words:

“You know my methods in such cases, Watson. I put myself in the man’s place and, having first gauged his intelligence, I try to imagine how I should myself have proceeded under the same circumstances.”

Holmes also mentions more apocryphal cases (and failures), as well as some of the details of his college days. This actually leads to another interesting question of canon lore: what college did Holmes go to? Even though three stories now reference Holmes’ college days, none of them specify which college it was, although many Sherlockians, including William Baring-Gould, have narrowed the debate to being between Oxford and Cambridge. (I’m inclined against Cambridge, as he doesn’t seem to recognize or remark on anything when his cases take him to the Cambridge area, but I’ve seen evidence both ways.)

One of the things he may have studied “which might make me more efficient” was phrenology, the now outdated science of studying the measurements of the human head to determine behavioral characteristics. For example, in “The Blue Carbuncle,” Holmes mentions the size of the skull as an indication of intelligence. But many in Victorian England believed in phrenology. During “The Musgrave Ritual,” Reginald Musgrave described his intelligent butler, Brunton, as such:

“‘He was a well-grown, handsome man, with a splendid forehead….’”

In fact, Brunton is a quietly unrecognized contribution to literate. This is one of the stories in which the cliché of “the butler did it” originated, but it also plays to a second trope, that of the intelligent servant who outwits their employer. The second cliché is best seen (to a comedic extreme) in P. G. Wodehouse’s “Jeeves” stories and novels: Jeeves, an English valet, repeatedly develops elaborate schemes to get his master, Bertrum Wooster, out of an endless variety of social and romantic problems. But while this is probably the first detective story in which the butler is the culprit, there are actually surprisingly few mystery stories overall in which one of the servants is actually responsible for the crime. Many stories use the butler as a red herring, subverting the cliché early on in the 20th century, even though it persists to this day. The reason why these tropes were so strong at the time was due to the utter reliance that the upper and middle class had on their servants, and the notion that they might somehow be untrustworthy was terrifying. You can compare it our growing reliance on technology in the later part of the 20th century, and the subsequent rise in movies and stories that featured robots, machines, and other technology turning against humanity.

Aside from the contributions to Holmes’ past and to literature in general, this story has a few nuggets of information about the Baker Street years (which is the frame for this story). Watson talks about Holmes’ slovenly habits again, but this time contrasts it with Holmes’ extreme neatness of dress. Watson admits to being a bit of a slob himself, but not as much as Holmes. In Watson’s description of (and frustration with) Holmes’ habits, we get some of the most iconic images of their rooms at Baker Street.

But with me there is a limit, and when I find a man who keeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin to give myself virtuous airs. I have always held, too, that pistol practice should be distinctly an open-air pastime; and when Holmes, in one of his queer humours, would sit in an arm-chair with his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges, and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V. R. done in bullet-pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved by it.

The 'Gloria Scott'

Want to read this along with me? This essay is part of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, published in 1894. I used the epub version found on Feedbooks.com.

It’s the beginning of a new year, so it’s appropriate that today is a review of the first case Holmes was ever involved with.

There are a few similarities, both fortunate and unfortunate, between this story and A Study in Scarlet. Both stories feature iconic moments in the history of Sherlock Holmes — in this case, acting very much as an “origin story” for the Great Detective. Unfortunately, “The ‘Gloria Scott’” shares the flaw that A Study in Scarlet does of being only half a Sherlock Holmes story, as the second half is entirely taken up with a second narrative that explains the events behind the case. And both stories introduce snarls in chronology that make it hard to work the other cases around.

Since this is the first case in which Sherlock Holmes was involved with, let’s spend some time working out the timing. The confession that Trevor left indicates that the events on the Gloria Scott happened in 1855. Later, he writes that “For more than twenty years we have led peaceful and useful lives,” which would put the story at 1875, which is consistent with Holmes being in college, and makes the idea that A Study in Scarlet takes place around the early 1880s plausible. However, when Hudson meets Trevor, he says “’Why, it’s thirty year and more since I saw you last….’”, which would make the events of the story 1885, and pretty much impossible to reconcile with the established canon. I choose to think that Hudson is a liar, and stay with the 1875 date.¹

Holmes mentions that he was in college for only two years, and that he was schooled in fencing and boxing. He confirms that he wasn’t “a very sociable fellow,” and that he only had one friend at school, who ends up taking a somewhat similar role as Watson does in Holmes’ early cases. Holmes also surprisingly notes that he originally didn’t consider being a detective, but that his deductive skills were merely a hobby:

“One evening, shortly after my arrival, we were sitting over a glass of port after dinner, when young Trevor began to talk about those habits of observation and inference which I had already formed into a system, although I had not yet appreciated the part which they were to play in my life.”

And later:

“’I don’t know how you manage this, Mr. Holmes, but it seems to me that all the detectives of fact and of fancy would be children in your hands. That’s you line of life, sir, and you may take the word of a man who has seen something of the world.’

“And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby.”

Despite the similarities to the formula in Scarlet, this is still quite a departure from the Holmes formula. Not only is it the first case that doesn’t feature Watson in any meaningful way, but it’s the first case told from Holmes’ perspective. Granted, Holmes doesn’t do a lot of deduction during the case, but we do see glimpses of Holmes explaining his thought process, especially when he decodes the cypher. And the story in Trevor’s confession is interesting in and of itself. It is even pointed to by scholars as the likely origin of the phrase “smoking gun” meaning a damning piece of evidence:

“… there he lay with his brains smeared over the chart of the Atlantic which was pinned upon the table, while the chaplain stood with a smoking pistol in his hand at his elbow.”

But despite an interesting attempt to do something new in a Holmes story, in the end it only ends up being mediocre. I’m not as frustrated by this story as I am with Scarlet (at least we know who all the narrators are this time!), but the glimpse into Holmes’ past ends up being too short, and too consumed by the drama of the Gloria Scott, which ultimately ends with both threads being only somewhat resolved.