The Cardboard Box

Want to read this along with me? This essay is part of His Last Bow, published in 1917. I used the epub version found on Feedbooks.com.

“The Cardboard Box” is actually a good classic tale, if a bit darker than some others in the canon. Of course, part of the reason why it feels more classic in tone is that it was published a good fifteen years before the previous story. The story was considered so controversial, however, that Arthur Conan Doyle suppressed publication of the story in the first edition of Memoirs, and American publishers didn’t reprint it until His Last Bow. However, in my cursory research, I couldn’t find any information on why he suppressed the story – it appears none of his biographies address the point. Mysterious….

Anyhow, since this was published in 1892 (and thus, before “The Final Problem”), the story is clearly set pre-Hiatus. However, The Sign of the Four is mentioned, so it has to be post-marriage. And yet, his wife is never mentioned, and it is implied (although not stated out-right) that Watson is living with Holmes. It is possible that it took place in the increasingly cramped space between Watson’s engagement and his marriage, though.

Regardless, this story is full of great little details. We learn that Watson is good at tolerating heat better than the cold, due to his wartime activities. There is a reference to Watson’s wound (“Your hand stole towards your own old wound”), but no clarity on the “leg or shoulder” debate. We discover that Holmes does not like to go out for the holidays, preferring to stay in the city and that “[a]ppreciation of nature found no place among his many gifts.” Holmes’ violin obsession comes out here, including his detailed knowledge of Paganini and the often-noted reference to his owning a Stradivarius violin. We learn that Holmes has written “two short monographs” about the ear in the Anthropological Journal.

More interestingly (and perhaps, more tellingly), Watson casually mentions a “depleted bank account.” I was reminded of a similar reference in “The Dancing Men,” where Holmes reminds Watson that his checkbook was locked up in Holmes’ drawer. Some have drawn a connection between these two quotes, and a few have even connected both with Watson’s familiarity with horse races and gambling, painting the picture of a man who is perhaps more free with his money than he should be.

But the scene that gets the most attention is the one right near the front. In it, Sherlock deduces Watson’s thought processes by observing his actions. The first and most commonly cited problem with this section is that it’s completely reprinted in “The Resident Patient.” Word for word, the whole scene is duplicated there – likely because the American editors liked the scene even though they didn’t like “The Cardboard Box” for whatever reason, so they edited it (rather clumsily) into “The Resident Patient.” But more than that, and more frustrating to me, is the complete reversal that Holmes has. First, there’s this quote from “Box”:

“You remember,” said he, “that some little time ago when I read you the passage in one of Poe’s sketches in which a close reasoner follows the unspoken thoughts of his companion, you were inclined to treat the matter as a mere tour-de-force of the author. On my remarking that I was constantly in the habit of doing the same thing you expressed incredulity.”

“Oh, no!”

Now, compare it to this quote from A Study in Scarlet:

Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. “No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin,” he observed. “Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends’ thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour’s silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine.”

Quite showy and superficial? You’re doing the same thing, Holmes. Not only is Holmes contradicting himself, but he’s shoving his own dismissal of Dupin onto Watson! I could say that this is actually intentional and a foible of Holmes’ (and there are some places in the canon that implies that Holmes does exactly that), but I have the sinking suspicion that this is a flat-out contradiction. Some people rage about the character change that results from having Greedo shoot Han Solo first, and to me this is on par with that. If we accept that it’s intentional, it means that Holmes has somehow come to believe that Dupin is now on Holmes’ level, and is attempting to shove it under the rug by pretending that Watson was the skeptical one, not Watson. But this same story shows how egotistical Holmes really is.

“I should prefer that you do not mention my name at all in connection with the case, as I choose to be only associated with those crimes which present some difficulty in their solution.”

And yet, Lestrade agrees that it is simple, and Holmes is bothered by that, reinforcing his egotism. Further, the whole deductive scene at the start really paints Watson as a bit of a buffoon. I actually hope that it’s a mistake, because I would rather have a contradiction in the canon than think of Holmes – thus far proving to be egotistical and full of confidence in his own abilities – as being willing to insult and offend his friend in order to validate a foreign detective.

That ranting aside, there are some great little Victorian details as well. Our old friend, brain fever, makes another appearance. Holmes mentions driving to a decent hotel in order to have lunch – apparently hotels served lunch to people who weren’t staying there. There’s also mention of blue ribbons, a reference to a temperance organization (the use of blue ribbons by contemporary temperance organizations is believed to come from Number 15:38.

Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments, throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue….

Finally, one of the theories through the story is that the ears are a prank from some medical students. This reminds me of the notorious actions of the “resurrectionists,” or the grave robbers of the day.  Medical schools of the time could only dissect the bodies of condemned criminals, but early in the 1800s the practice had dropped off, and there came to be an illegal trade in corpses. Two of the most notorious were William Burke and William Hare, who actually turned to murder in order to provide the number of corpses necessary. Their actions ultimately led to the passing of the Anatomy Act of 1832, which expanded the number of corpses available for medical dissection. If you’re interested, Robert Louis Stevenson’s short story “The Body Snatcher” was based on the exploits of Burke and Hare.