This is a special bonus, to celebrate the end of the “Tour de Holmes.”

In 1924, Doyle wrote a special miniaturized book to be placed with in the Queens’ Dolls’ House, which he titled “How Watson Learned The Trick.” It is one of five known extracanonical works of Doyle, and one of the few that is complete. Special thanks to Sherlockian.net for the text.

And thank you, my dear and patient readers, for going with me through these seventy-five essays.

Watson had been watching his companion intently ever since he had sat down to the breakfast table. Holmes happened to look up and catch his eye.

“Well, Watson, what are you thinking about?” he asked.

“About you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, Holmes. I was thinking how superficial are these tricks of yours, and how wonderful it is that the public should continue to show interest in them.”

“I quite agree,” said Holmes. “In fact, I have a recollection that I have myself made a similar remark.”

“Your methods,” said Watson severely, “are really easily acquired.”

“No doubt,” Holmes answered with a smile. “Perhaps you will yourself give an example of this method of reasoning.”

“With pleasure,” said Watson. “I am able to say that you were greatly preoccupied when you got up this morning.”

“Excellent!” said Holmes. “How could you possibly know that?”

“Because you are usually a very tidy man and yet you have forgotten to shave.”

“Dear me! How very clever!” said Holmes. “I had no idea, Watson, that you were so apt a pupil. Has your eagle eye detected anything more?”

“Yes, Holmes. You have a client named Barlow, and you have not been successful with his case.”

“Dear me, how could you know that?”

“I saw the name outside his envelope. When you opened it you gave a groan and thrust it into your pocket with a frown on your face.”

“Admirable! You are indeed observant. Any other points?”

“I fear, Holmes, that you have taken to financial speculation.”

“How could you tell that, Watson?”

“You opened the paper, turned to the financial page, and gave a loud exclamation of interest.”

“Well, that is very clever of you, Watson. Any more?”

“Yes, Holmes, you have put on your black coat, instead of your dressing gown, which proves that your are expecting some important visitor at once.”

“Anything more?”

“I have no doubt that I could find other points, Holmes, but I only give you these few, in order to show you that there are other people in the world who can be as clever as you.”

“And some not so clever,” said Holmes. “I admit that they are few, but I am afraid, my dear Watson, that I must count you among them.”

“What do you mean, Holmes?”

“Well, my dear fellow, I fear your deductions have not been so happy as I should have wished.”

“You mean that I was mistaken.”

“Just a little that way, I fear. Let us take the points in their order: I did not shave because I have sent my razor to be sharpened. I put on my coat because I have, worse luck, an early meeting with my dentist. His name is Barlow, and the letter was to confirm the appointment. The cricket page is beside the financial one, and I turned to it to find if Surrey was holding its own against Kent. But go on, Watson, go on! It ‘s a very superficial trick, and no doubt you will soon acquire it.”

Sixty stories. Nine books. That’s a lot of reading to get through, and it’s a very small portion of the ink spilled over Sherlock Holmes outside of Doyle. So, which ones are the best?

Well, in 1927, Doyle himself selected that he thought were the best of his short stories in an essay for Strand Magazine. He picked twelve stories and ordered them from most to least favorite. Later he then added seven more, for a total of ninteen:

1. “The Speckled Band”
2. “The Red-Headed League”
3. “The Dancing Men”
4. “The Final Problem”
5. “A Scandal in Bohemia”
6. “The Empty House”
7. “The Five Orange Pips”
8. “The Second Stain”
9. “The Devil’s Foot”
10. “The Priory School”
11. “The Musgrave Ritual”
12. “The Reigate Squires”
13. “Silver Blaze”
14. “The Bruce-Partington Plans”
15. “The Crooked Man”
16. “The Man with the Twisted Lip”
17. “The Greek Interpreter”
18. “The Resident Patient”
19. “The Naval Treaty”

As for me, let’s say that I disagree with some of Doyle’s choices. I have my own list of favorites.

Of the novels, the best is far and away The Hound of the Baskervilles. There’s a reason why it’s the book most people know of when they think of Holmes, and why the deerstalker hat is so well known (even if it only shows up in this book and one or two other places).

Of the short stories, I’ve narrowed it down to my top ten (and let me tell you, I shuffled these around for the past twelve months). These aren’t necessarily the stories I would encourage a new reader to pick up, but rather the ones that I find myself reading over and over:

1. “A Scandal in Bohemia”: Although the first two novels predate this story, I feel this is where Doyle really finds his feet with Holmes.
2. “The Final Problem”/”The Empty House”: Yes, I’m cheating here, but I really feel these are both one connected story, and they also comprise most of the canonical references to Moriarty. Absolutely gripping stories.
3. “The Blue Carbuncle”: The first place where I deviate from Doyle, but for purely personal reasons. This story is such a part of my childhood that I can’t possibly be rational about it.
4. “The Red-Headed League”: Doyle uses this plot a few times throughout the canon, but the first time is, to me, the best.
5. “The Musgrave Ritual”: The actual ritual is used in various Sherlockian societies, and it’s very likely the seed for the cliche of “the butler did it.”
6. “Charles Augustus Milverton”: The other place where I disagree with Doyle. Milverton is probably the second-best villain in the canon.
7. “The Second Stain”: Probably the best example of the Lestrade/Holmes dynamic.
8. “The Bruce-Partington Plans”: Big use of Mycroft, a great spy story, and a good companion to “The Second Stain.”
9. “The Devil’s Foot”: The story isn’t always the best, but the powerful exploration of the friendship between Holmes and Watson is just too good.
10. “Silver Blaze”: I had a tough time between this and “The Five Orange Pips,” but the tracking scene and some of the dialogue just manages to put this into the top ten for me.

Shoscombe Old Place

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.

So, here we are, the last story ever written for the canon. It has been a long tour with a lot of bumps and delays, but we end on… well, a fairly ambiguous note. At least it isn’t “The Mazarin Stone.”

We find another Yard detective — this time, Merivale. Merivale is the only policeman Holmes calls friend, and only one of three men that he considered a friend in the entire canon (the others are Charlie Peace and, of course, Watson). Holmes uses more card-playing references, but seems to have forgotten all that he knew about horse-racing from “Silver Blaze,” enough though this story is dates after that one (roughly around 1902). However, we finally get confirmation of Watson’s gambling habit, which previously had only been eluded to:

“By the way, Watson, you know something of racing?”

“I ought to. I pay for it with about half my wound pension.”

We see Holmes observing dogs, praising microscopes, and waxing poetic about fishing, and we get another reference to “Queer Street” (the previous one was in “The Second Stain”). He does not, however, take the law into his own hands, and seems positively against the idea, claiming that it “was my duty to bring the facts to light, and there I must leave it. As to the morality or decency of your conduct, it is not for me to express an opinion.” Perhaps even more unusual, Watson becomes surprisingly snobbish. His reluctance to accept Sir Robert as a murderer is at odds with not only his previous comments about Sir Robert nearly murdering someone, but also at odds with the line of upper class villains he’d encountered previously (including Moriarty!)

There are a couple of references to “Jews” in this story, but it’s really Victorian slang for “moneylender,” although it was still quite likely that the moneylenders in question were actually Jewish. Oh, casual racism.

The Veiled Lodger

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 is the shortest of the stories, so there’s not a lot to say. It’s also not a mystery at all. Not in the “it was a pretty simple problem” sense, but in the “Holmes and Watson do nothing but listen to other people” sense. Holmes does nothing, because there is nothing to do.

Granted, there are some cool bits. I love the return to vague references that imply a word outside the stories, as when Watson talks about the attempts to destroy his papers. I enjoy Holmes’ blatent sarcasm as he says “Mrs. Merrilow does not object to tobacco, Watson, if you wish to indulge your filthy habits.”

As I make my way through the canon, I’ve largely abandoned any sane attempt to date the stories. However, there’s a problem in this story that I just can’t let slip past. In the story, Watson claims that Holmes was in active practice for 23 years, and that Watson was taking notes for only 17 of them. Holmes’ part of this is simple: Assuming you don’t count the three years of the Great Hiatus as being “active practice,” and you add 26 to the retirement year of 1903, you get 1877. This coincides with “The Musgrave Ritual,” which many chronologists set at 1879. However, Watson joined Holmes in 1881 or 1882, which only accounts for four or five years. There are a lot of theories to account for the missing year or two (the most plausible of which being that Watson didn’t actually take notes of the cases for a while, although this does contract “A Study in Scarlet”), but at the end of the day I have to accept that it’s just an error and be irritated by it.

Which is fine. The whole story irritates me. It’s not terrible, but it certainly isn’t good.

The Retired Colourman

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.

“Tour de Holmes” week begins!

After two stories told from Holmes’ perspective, we’re back to a first-person story told by Watson. The classic formula is fully on display in this story, and there are some great moments between the two friends. For example, Watson is sent off as an “understudy” to collect evidence (an act that is retold later for good effect — it not only helps pacing, but also allows Holmes to comments on Watson’s efforts). Watson starts to explain what he’s found:

“… Right in the middle of them, a little island of ancient culture and comfort, lies this old home, surrounded by a high sun-baked wall mottled with lichens and topped with moss, the sort of wall —”

“Cut out the poetry, Watson,” said Holmes severely. “I note that it was a high brick wall.”

Holmes again chides Watson for missing details (like in “The Solitary Cyclist”), but at least this time he is more moderate, and often praises Watson’s observations, if not his deductions: “No one else would have done better. Some possibly not so well. But clearly you have missed some vital points.”

We see Holmes lamenting his relationship with the Yard (and how they send “incurables” to him), his preferences for city life (and “the horrors of a country inn” — quite at odds with his eventual retirement), and the fact that he considered burglery as an alternative profession. He remarks on Watson’s abilities to sway women, and the fact that there’s a telephone in Baker Street (previously mentioned in “The Illustrious Client” and “The Three Garridebs”). We also learn of a supposed rival to Holmes — Barker in Surrey — that we haven’t heard of before (or since). Many scholars have tried to link him to other characters in the canon; most notably the detective in “coloured glasses” noticed by Watson in “The Empty House.”

Historically, there’s a reference to Watson’s old school number. In boarding schools, each pupil was given an identification number, which is kept throughout the student’s career at that school. There’s also a passing mention of “Broadmoor,” which was a prison specifically for criminal lunatics (and is now a psychiatric hospital).

One thing that irritates me is that I’ve seen multiple references in my research that the story is set in 1898, but I can’t find anything in my version of the text that explicitly says that. Baring Gould seems to confirm it, though, so I’m not inclined to argue the point. However, this again brings up one of the irritations of Holmes scholarship. There are three different “official” versions of the text: the version published in the Strand magazine, the version eventually compiled into the British publications, and the version that was edited for the American publications. For casual reading the differences are largely negligable, but as you dive more and more into the study of Holmes and try to reconcile or even just track facts, time and again you’ll run into some flavor of “oh, that was mentioned in some other version of the text.” I swear, sometimes studying the different translations of the Bible is easier.

Tour de Holmes

Whew.

After fifteen months of reading, writing, and research, I’ve finally finished all of my “Tour de Holmes” essays — seventy-five in all. The last four are done, so I decided to spend all next week (Monday through Friday) putting them out. Friday will also have a special bonus — a rarely seen Holmes story by Doyle!

Now that the essays are done, what happens next? Well, as I’ve mentioned a few times, I’m going to compile all of them into one manuscript. Part of the reason to get these done now is that I want to use November to get my Far West short story done for Gareth, and to just take a break from writing about Holmes for a while. In December or January, I’ll pull up the manuscript up and start revising it. I already have a few places I want to add some more material, and there are a number of essays where I quickly hammered through to hit the deadline rather than digging into the text or the history as much as I could have. Once the manuscript is nicely polished and expanded upon, I’ll start shopping it around — I already have a couple of publishers who have expressed interest, and I want to explore that route before I consider self-publishing it.

In the meantime, if my fearless readers have had new thoughts or opinions on any of the stories, please feel free to go back and add more comments on the appropriate entries on my blog or LiveJournal. There wasn’t very much discussion during the Tour (although many people told me that they were enjoying reading the essays), but additional thoughts can illuminate places where I beef up or expand on my thoughts on particular topics.

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.

“The Lion’s Mane,” right after “The Blanched Soldier,” is the second (and final) story narrated by Holmes. This story is noteworthy because it is the only one set after Holmes’ retirement, and thus doesn’t involve Watson in any way. The loss of Watson is keenly felt by Holmes:

At this period of my life the good Watson had passed almost beyond my ken. An occasional week-end visit was the most that I ever saw of him. Thus I must act as my own chronicler. Ah! had he but been with me, how much he might have made of so wonderful a happening and of my eventual triumph against every difficulty!

In retired life, Holmes references “his old housekeeper,” although never by name. In “His Last Bow” we learn her name is Martha, and there’s nothing here to contradict that fact. Further, Mrs. Hudson is never given a first name, and many fans consider Holmes’ housekeeper to be Martha Hudson. At first it seems a bit of a stretch that Holmes would suddenly stop calling a woman by her last name and use her first one instead, but it was the Victorian fashion to refer to people by their last names whenever possible, using first names only for family (such as in the case of Mycroft). Around the Edwardian era, though, it became more accepted for friends and close acquaintances to use first names instead. It is telling, however, that Holmes continues to refer to his friend as “Watson,” though.

But it is the post-retirement Holmes’ quirks that fascinate me the most. In his late life, he likes to swim and keep bees. This story does a great job of showing Holmes’ methods of deduction a couple of times throughout (inlcuding a mention of photographing evidence, something not previously detailed). It’s not surprising that Holmes remains “an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles.” What is surprising, though, is how Holmes reacts to the beauty of a woman:

Women have seldom been an attraction to me, for my brain has always governed my heart, but I could not look upon her perfect clear-cut face, with all the soft freshness of the downlands in her delicate colouring, without realizing that no young man would cross her path unscathed…. Maud Bellamy will always remain in my memory as a most complete and remarkable woman.

Later he even mentions that “I value a woman’s instinct in such matters.” What a change from the man who was inherently distrustful of women!

In fact, as you dig into the story, a number of details about post-retirement Holmes feel a bit odd. The Great Detective seems particularly stumped by this case (although likely this is because there would be little other way to provide suspense from Doyle’s perspective), and at one point he admits to being at “the limit of my powers”. More specifically, Holmes admits to being “culpably slow” about whether the victim had been swimming or not, when a simple examination of the body to determine if it was wet would have sufficed. Further, a Holmes that has retired to avoid all mental stimuation seems a very long way from the man who needed cocaine just to get through days of boredom. He also muses on the “beautiful, faithful nature of dogs,” which is a different stance from the man who experimented on dogs in his youth. Finally, Holmes’ description of his own mental processes seem a very long way from his “brain attic” at the start of the canon!

You will know, or Watson has written in vain, that I hold a vast store of out-of-the-way knowledge without scientific system, but very available for the needs of my work. My mind is like a crowded box-room with packets of all sorts stowed away therein — so many that I may well have but a vague perception of what was there.

Much of this can be chalked up to age — we are very rarely the same people in our late years that we were in our youth. It’s not hard to believe that Holmes has merely changed over time, and has convinced himself that he was always this way rather than accept the contradictions in his nature. This is the stance I tend to hold to, because it not only connects with my views on human nature, but it also reinforces the complexity of Holmes’ nature as a man. Of course, other scholars have proposed different theories to explain the inconsistencies. One of my favoritesis from Mary Ann Kluge, who simply believes that the case was actually solved by Watson!

There are two other minor points of interest. Historically, the reference in the story to J. G. Wood and his book are factual, and he really was nearly killed by Cyanea Capillata. As a writer, I appreciate that in the original manuscript for “The Lion’s Mane,” there were several references to a “Dr. Mordhouse,” a naturalist also in the area. He was excised from the story in a later draft, and many of his actions and lines given to Stackhurst and Holmes. Doyle, like many good writers, understood the value of cutting extraneous characters to make a story tighter.