Holmes and Watson (34 page)
Authors: June Thomson
‘The Adventure of the Priory School’:
Watson has dated the disappearance of Lord Saltire to Monday 13th May but failed to give the year. In 1901, 13th May was indeed on a Monday and this is the year most favoured by commentators. However, there was a full moon on the night the young lord disappeared and there was no
full moon on Monday 13th May 1901. Dr Zeisler has therefore suggested the case took place on Monday 14th May 1900 when the moon was indeed full.
‘The Adventure of the Six Napoleons’:
The case is undated by Watson. However, Beppo was last paid on the 20th May the year before. Assuming he was paid on a Saturday, the most likely year when 20th May fell on a Saturday was 1899. This would then date the case to 1900. William S. Baring-Gould has suggested the inquiry took place between 25th and 29th May. If this dating is correct, Holmes was particularly busy during May 1900, for, as well as the Priory School and the Six Napoleons investigations, he was also involved with the Conk-Singleton forgery case, the affair of the Ferrers documents and the Abergavenny murder trial.
‘The Problem of Thor Bridge’:
Watson states the case took place on the 4th October but has failed to give the year. Although some commentators have assigned it to 1900, others, including D. Martin Dakin, have opted for 1901. Holmes refers to ‘a month of trivialities and stagnation’ which would apply to 1901 as Watson records no other cases for that year.
‘Shoscombe Old Place’:
Watson only gives the month, which was May, but not the year. Both Dr Zeisler and William S. Baring-Gould, taking into account the date of the Derby and the phases of the moon, theories too long
and complex to be explained here, have chosen 6th May 1902, a date with which D. Martin Dakin concurs.
Out of the thirty recorded cases which occurred between April 1894 and September 1903, fourteen concerned murder or attempted murder, including one old murder case which had taken place several years before and one attempt on Watson’s life. Three cases involved manslaughter or had mitigating circumstances which might have prevented a murder charge being brought. Four were cases of fraud or theft, or attempted fraud or theft. Of the rest, three involved no crime, four if one includes the Thor Bridge case, which was a suicide (although the attempt to make it appear a murder had criminal intent). The remaining three involved malicious wounding, an attempted abduction and a failure to register a death.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Readers are referred to the entries under Chapter Fourteen for the dating of the Thor Bridge, Shoscombe Old Place and the Three Garridebs inquiries.
‘The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone’:
This case is told in the third person and no date is given, apart from a reference to ‘the evening of a lovely summer’s day’. But as Watson has moved out of Baker Street and is practising as a GP, the case must have occurred after June 1902 but before Holmes’ retirement in the autumn of 1903. The case must
therefore have taken place in the summer of 1903, possibly in late June of that year, as D. Martin Dakin suggests.
‘The Adventure of the Three Gables’:
This case is also undated and some commentators have doubted its authorship. However, as Watson is not living at Baker Street, it must, like the Mazarin Stone inquiry, belong to the period between June 1902 and the autumn of 1903. The reference to ‘geranium beds’ indicates it took place in the summer. I have therefore assigned it to July 1903.
EPILOGUE
The Irish problem continued to trouble British politics. The Liberal Government, which needed the support of Irish MPs in order to keep in office, tried between 1912 and 1914 to pass a Home Rule Bill, giving Ireland self-government. This, however, was opposed by Protestant Ulster which feared that a majority of Catholics would dominate an Irish Parliament. Ulster’s resistance to Home Rule was supported by Sir Edward Carson, a Protestant MP, who spoke against the bill and encouraged the formation of the Ulster Volunteers, a military organisation which tried to import arms from Germany. The Ulster Volunteers were challenged by the rapidly growing Sinn Fein movement which also opposed Home Rule, preferring instead complete independence from Britain. In turn, they set up their own military force, the Irish Volunteers, which also tried to acquire German
arms. The situation was extremely volatile and, had the Home Rule Bill been passed, might have led to civil war in Ireland. However, the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 led to its postponement.
Although many Irishmen, both Catholic and Protestant, remained loyal and enlisted in the British army, an uprising did take place at Easter 1916, when a force of about 2,000 Sinn Feiners, some equipped with German guns, took part in an armed rebellion in Dublin and, having seized some public buildings including the Post Office, declared an Irish Republic. After five days of fighting, the Republicans were defeated and their leaders executed, among them Roger Casement who, for his attempt to gain German support for the Republican cause, was found guilty of treason and hanged.
Holmes’ direct knowledge of Irish politics in the years 1912–14 would have been extremely useful to the British Government during World War I, especially with regard to events leading up to the Irish Uprising of Easter 1916. Under his cover as Altamont, he may even have become personally acquainted with some of the leading figures in the Irish Volunteers and the Sinn Fein movement.
THE SITE OF 221B BAKER STREET
Various theories, too numerous to describe in detail, have been suggested for the site of 221B Baker Street. These include, among others, 21, 27, 49, 59, 61, 63 and 66. Mr James Holroyd’s claim for number 109, based on evidence in ‘The Adventure of the Resident Patient’, was apparently supported by Dr Chandler Brigg’s discovery that the house opposite, number 118, was actually called Camden House and must therefore have been the same house from which Holmes and Watson kept watch on 221B Baker Street in ‘The Adventure of the Empty House’ (1894). Unfortunately, it has since been shown that Camden House was then in use as a private school and would therefore not have been empty.
Mr Bernard Davies’s claim for number 31 seems more likely. Basing his theory on a large-scale map of Baker
Street, he demonstrated that number 34, opposite number 31, fitted the description of the Empty House, having rear access through a mews and a yard, its front door to the right when faced from the road, and no street lamp nearby. Number 31 has since been demolished to make way for a block of flats.
However, according to the street directory for the period, in 1894 number 34 was occupied by Arthur Canton, a dentist and surgeon, and therefore would also be ineligible as the Empty House.
Wherever 221B was situated, it was almost certainly on the east side of Baker Street, facing west, for in ‘The Adventure of the Cardboard Box’, Watson refers to the morning sun shining on the façades of the houses opposite. It must also have been far enough away from the station in Marylebone Road for Alexander Holder (‘The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet’) to consider taking a cab there.
Watson’s references to a ‘bow’ window are confusing. When the houses were built in the eighteenth century, all of them had tall, narrow sash windows. There is no record of any of them being bow-shaped. Nor is there any evidence either in nineteenth-century photographs or other documentation that a bow window was installed in any of the houses prior to Holmes’ and Watson’s time. As the properties were leasehold, it is doubtful if the ground landlord, the Portland estate, would have allowed such an alteration to the fabric of the building.
It is also significant that in Watson’s initial description
of the sitting-room in
A Study in Scarlet
, recording his first visit to the lodgings, he refers only to ‘two broad windows’. There is no reference to a bow window until much later in the ‘The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet’, published in May 1892, and ‘The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone’, published in October 1921, by which time not only was Holmes’ fame as a consulting detective already established but also Watson’s as his chronicler.
It is possible Watson introduced the bow window as a deliberate ploy to throw curious readers off the scent in case they came looking for 221B Baker Street. It would have been embarrassing for Holmes’ clients, many of whom were important and influential people, to find sightseers gathered outside the house.
Alternatively, Watson may be referring to the arched brick soffit, or inner curve, to the semi-circular head of the window opening.
As the bibliography of Sherlock Holmes is so extensive, only principal sources are quoted. For all other unattributed sources within the book, readers are referred either to the complete annotated edition of the Holmes’ novels and short stories, edited by William S. Baring-Gould, or to D. Martin Dakin’s
A Sherlock Holmes Commentary
.
ARONSON, THEO
,
The Kaisers
(Cassell, London, 1971)
ASH, CAY VAN
,
Ten Years Beyond Baker Street
(Futura Publications, London, 1985)
BREND, GAVIN
,
My dear Holmes: A Study in Sherlock
(George Allen and Unwin Ltd, London, 1951)
CHESNEY, KELLOW
,
The Victorian Underworld
(Temple Smith, London, 1970)
CLAMMER, DAVID
,
The Victorian Army in Photographs
(David and Charles, Newton Abbot, 1975)
DAKIN, D. MARTIN
,
A Sherlock Holmes Commentary
(David and Charles, Newton Abbot, 1972)
DOYLE, SIR ARTHUR CONAN
,
The Sherlock Holmes’ Novels and Short Stories: Complete Annotated Edition
, editor
WILLIAM S. BARING-GOULD
, (Wings Books, New Jersey, 1992) Oxford Edition: General Editor
OWEN DUDLEY EDWARDS
, (Oxford University Press, 1993)
FARWELL, BYRON
,
Armies of the Raj
(Viking, London, 1990)
FULBROOK, MARY
,
A Concise History of Germany
(Cambridge University Press, 1990)
HAINING, PETER
(editor),
A Sherlock Holmes Compendium
(W. H. Allen, London, 1980)
HALL, TREVOR H
.,
Sherlock Holmes and his Creator
(Duckworth, London, 1978)
HARDWICK, MICHAEL
,
The Complete Guide to Sherlock Holmes
(Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1986)
HARRISON, MICHAEL
,
In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes
(David and Charles, Newton Abbot, 1971)
HARRISON, MICHAEL
,
London by Gaslight
1861–1901 (Gasogene Press Ltd, Iowa, 1963)
HARRISON, MICHAEL
,
The London of Sherlock Holmes
(David and Charles, Newton Abbot, 1972)
HARRISON, MICHAEL
,
Immortal Sleuth
(Gasogene Press Ltd, Iowa, 1983)
HOWARD, MICHAEL
and
FORD, PETER
,
The True History of the Elephant Man
(Allison and Busby, London, 1980)
KEATING, H. R. F.,
Sherlock Holmes: The Man and his World
(Thames and Hudson, London, 1979)
KELLY’S STREET DIRECTORIES
for 1881, 1882, 1894.
KIPLING, RUDYARD,
A Choice of Kipling’s Verse by T.S. Eliot
(Faber and Faber, London, 1961)
LAFFIN, JOHN
,
Surgeons in the Field.
(J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd, London, 1970)
LANE, PETER
,
Success in British History
1760–1914
(John Murray, London, 1978)
MAGNUS, PHILIP
,
King Edward VII
(John Murray, London, 1977)
MASSIE, ROBERT K
.,
Dreadnought: Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War
(Jonathan Cape, London, 1992)
MAYHEW, HENRY
,
London Labour and London Poor Vol.11
(Dover Publications Inc, New York, 1968)
NEAL, COLONEL J. B
.,
The History of the Royal Army Medical College
(Privately Printed)
NEEL, ALEXANDRA DAVID
,
My journey to Lhasa
(Virago Press, London, 1969)
NEW ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
(Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., Chicago, 1993)
PARK, ORLANDO,
The Sherlock Holmes Encyclopaedia
(Citadel Press, New Jersey, 1981)
PASCOE’S
London Guide and Directory 1880–1881
PECK, ANDREW JAY
,
The Date Being?
…
A Compendium of Chronological Data
(Privately Printed in a limited edition)
PETERSON, JOANNE M.
,
The Medical Profession in Mid-Victorian London
(University of California Press, 1978)
PIERCY, ROHASE
,
My Dearest Holmes
(GMP Publications Ltd, London 1988)
RICHARDS, DENIS
and
HUNT, J. W.
,
An Illustrated History of Modern Britain 1783-1964
(Longmans, London, 1965)
SAYERS, DOROTHY L
.,
Unpopular Opinions
(Victor Gollancz Ltd, London, 1946)
SHREFFLER, PHILIP A
, (editor):
Sherlock Holmes by Gaslight: Highlights from the First Four Decades of the Baker Street Journal
(Fordham University Press, New York, 1989.) Articles by:
ANDERSON, POUL
, ‘A Treatise on the Binomial Theorem’ (pp. 272–278);
HUBER, CHRISTINE L
., ‘The Sherlock Holmes Blood Test’ (pp. 95–101);
SHREFFLER, PHILIP A.
, ‘Moriarty: A Life Study’ (pp. 263–271)
SINGER, ANDRE
,
Lords of the Khyber: The Story of the North-West Frontier
(Faber and Faber, London, 1984)
STARRETT, VINCENT
,
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
(George Allen and Unwin Ltd, London, 1961)
STORR, ANTHONY
,
The School of Genius
(Andre Deutsch, London, 1988)
STORR, ANTHONY
,
Churchill’s Black Dog and Other Phenomena of the Human Mind
(Collins, London, 1989)
TAYLOR, A. J. P.
,
The First World War: An Illustrated History
(George Rainbird Ltd, London, 1963)
TRACY, JACK,
The Encyclopaedia Sherlockiana
(New English Library, London, 1977)
VINEY, CHARLES
,
Sherlock Holmes in London
(Phoebe
Phillips Editions, London, 1989)
WAGNER, GILLIAN
,
Barnardo
(Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1979)
WINTER, CORDON
,
Past Positive: London’s Social History Recorded in Photographs
(Chatto and Windus, London, 1971)
WOODHAM-SMITH,
CECIL
(
MRS
),
Florence Nightingale
(Constable, London, 1954)
YEO, GEOFFREY
,
Images of Bart’s:
An Illustrated History of St Bartholomew’s Hospital in the City of London
(Historical Publications Ltd in Association with the Archives Department of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, 1992)
ZEISLER, ERNEST BLOOMFIELD
(
DR
),
Baker Street Chronology
(Alexander J. Isaacs, Chicago, 1953)