The Blanched Soldier

Want to read this along with me? This essay is part of The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, published in 1927. I used the epub version found on Feedbooks.com.

This week we come to “The Blanched Soldier,” the second story written from the perspective of Holmes. This story ends up containing a number of surprising insights into Holmes’ innermost thoughts, particularly how he sees Watson (who, by this point in January 1903, has married again).

For example, in the first sentence, Holmes takes a swing at Watson: “The ideas of my friend Watson, though limited, are exceedingly pertinacious.” Later, however, he comes to admit he may have been wrong in some of his previous criticisms of Watson:

Perhaps I have rather invited this persecution, since I have often had occasion to point out to him how superficial are his own accounts and to accuse him of pandering to popular taste instead of confining himself rigidly to facts and figures. “Try it yourself, Holmes!” he has retorted, and I am compelled to admit that, having taken my pen in my hand, I do begin to realize that the matter must be presented in such a way as may interest the reader.

Later Holmes continues to speak highly (and yet backhandedly) about Watson:

Speaking of my old friend and biographer, I would take this opportunity to remark that if I burden myself with a companion in my various little inquiries it is not done out of sentiment or caprice, but it is that Watson has some remarkable characteristics of his own to which in his modesty he has given small attention amid his exaggerated estimates of my own performances. A confederate who foresees your conclusions and course of action is always dangerous, but one to whom each development comes as a perpetual surprise, and to whom the future is always a closed book, is indeed an ideal helpmate.

And near the end, Holmes has a surprisingly tender moment: “And here it is that I miss my Watson. By cunning questions and ejaculations of wonder he could elevate my simple art, which is but systematized common sense, into a prodigy.”

We also learn why Holmes regularly blurts out deductions about his clients (“I have found it wise to impress clients with a sense of power….”), and his tendency to assume the people around him are smarter than they really are shows up in this narrative (“It presented, as the astute reader will have already perceived, few difficulties in its solution”). There’s an interesting (if garbled) reference to “The Priory School,” and Holmes laments his inability to be dramatic when he is writing the story himself:

I passed on into the study with my case complete. Alas, that I should have to show my hand so when I tell my own story! It was by concealing such links in the chain that Watson was enabled to produce his meretricious finales.

I ended up quoting more than writing on this story, but really the high points of “The Blanched Soldier” are the insights we get about Holmes in his own words. The story itself isn’t amazing (it’s a bit long on the monologues), but it’s a solid enough story to showcase the Master Detective’s abilities in this new format.