The Isle of Devils (52 page)

Authors: Craig Janacek

BOOK: The Isle of Devils

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Can we th
us
believe that Watson was embroiled in a murder mystery as fantastic as that set down in the preceding pages
now
known as the Bermuda Manuscript? Even if it is a genuine product of Watson’s hand, as our research clearly supports, perhaps this tale of treasure and
revenge is more the product of a feverish imagination after having read one too many tale of Poe and Collins? And yet, we know that Watson seemed to attract law-breakers. Holmes once called him “the stormy petrel of crime” (
The Naval Treaty
). Besides the case of Percy Phelps, Watson also provided Holmes a convenient personal introduction to Robert Ferguson (
The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire
), and furthermore, he
brought
to Holmes’ notice the cases of both Victor Hatherley and Colonel Warburton, the latter of which was never fully documented (
The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb
).

Therefore, perhaps there is an element of truth to this tale, which would solve one of the great mysteries of Doctor Watson’s background. What happened to the missing five months between the Battle of Maiwand (July 27, 1880) and the fateful meeting of Holmes and Watson at St. Bart’s (the date is never exactly specified, but it is commonly supposed by the noted Sherlockian scholar Christopher Morley to have occurred on January 1, 1881)
, given that the typical sea voyage between India and England lasted only about one month
? Are we to believe Watson when he reports that he spent all of that time in the base hospital at Peshawar (Chapter I,
A Study in Scarlet
)? A clue perhaps exists in the mention of the HMS
Orontes
, which was a troopship intended for carrying men to the British colonies in Southern Africa and the West Indies, unlike the HMS
Serapis
, which plied the route to India. If Watson accurately reported that he disembarked the
Orontes
on a Portsmouth jetty, then it can likely be concluded that he did not come directly from India.

Some readers may suggest that elements of the tale contained in the Bermuda Manuscript appear to borrow rather too heavily from other Holmes and Watson stories
(
and even fictional mysteries concocted by other writers
)
to be authentic. And yet, as the Master Detective himself tells us: “The old wheel turns and the same spoke comes up. It’s all been done before, and will be again” (Chapter II,
The Valley of Fear
). Perceived unoriginality, I am afraid, cannot solely be used to fashion a
n
assertion of forgery. And what about claims that parts of the manuscript simply do not sounds like Watson? Admittedly, there were fragments of the manuscript that were too water-damaged to interpret, and these small sections required some careful extrapolation. I had considered bracketing these sections for the sake of complete transparency, but ultimately decided it was too distracting from the main thrust of the tale. Scholars who must know exactly which portions I was forced to invent may contact me for clarification. Any other sections of the Bermuda Manuscript that do not appear to have an authentic Watsonian voice can only be
explained by the fact that this was his first foray into the world of literature, and it is perhaps not surprising that he had not yet found the mature tone
that characterizes
such later masterpieces as
The Adventure of the Speckled Band
or
The Hound of the Baskervilles
. I freely admit only to creating the somewhat fantastic title, as Watson clearly had not intended these notes for publication, and thus he never bothered to name them. However, I believe that given the titles
employed for
his other four novellas
,
The Isle of Devils
has a certain faithfulness of which
the goo
d doctor would have likely approved.

Finally, Watson had many outstanding attributes that vastly contributed to the success of his partnership with Holmes. We all know of his
famous
“grand gift of silence” (
The Man with the Twisted Lip
).
Holmes calls him “scintillating” (
The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter
) and that he has a “native shrewdness” and “innate cunning” (Chapter I,
The Valley of Fear
).
But one of his greatest strengths was his immense modesty. He preferred to be the reflector of Holmes’ undisputed brilliance. But by so doing, he unfortunately left his readers with the false impression that he was lost without Holmes. And yet, Holmes himself says in 1903 that “Watson has some remarkable characteristics of his own, to which in his honesty he has given small attention amid his exaggerated estimates of my own performances” (
The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier
). And in 1896, Holmes admitted that “I never get your limits, Watson. There are unexpected possibilities about you”
(The Adventure of Sussex Vampire
). Perhaps this tale is one of those unexpected possibilities? It may finally set the record straight about the true nature of John Hamish Watson, MD.

PREFACE: THE BERMUDA MANUSCRIPT



Many of the items discovered in the Fort St. Catherine storeroom have strange echoes of things later encountered by Watson during the course of his adventures. For example, Holmes raised doubts about the accuracy of the Martini-Henry rifle in 1888, when he claimed he “would sooner face a Martini bullet” than the blowgun of Tonga (Chapter VII,
The Sign of the Four
).



It turns out that Henry Watson’s dispatch box was even more battered than the one belonging to his brother (
The Problem of Thor Bridge
). This is perhaps not surprising since even his brother admits that Captain Watson was “a man of untidy habits – very untidy and careless” (Chapter I,
The Sign of the Four
).



Foolscap
is a traditional paper size from the British Commonwealth that was cut to the size of 8.5 × 13.5 inches, as opposed to the now standard A4 paper size of 8 x 13 inches. Watson was well known to have written on foolscap folio (Chapter I,
The Valley of Fear
and
The Adventures of the Bruce-Partington Plans & Norwood Builder
). The effects upon writing while travelling in a moving vessel (a train, specifically) were carefully noted by Holmes (
The Adventure of the Norwood Builder
), but this likely also applies to writing on ocean-going ships of the day.



There are, of course, sixty stories that make up the official Sherlock Holmes Canon, however, two were written by Holmes himself (
The Adventures of the Blanched Soldier & the Lion’s Mane
), while two were told in a third-person voice, presumably that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Watson’s first literary agent (
The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone
&
His Last Bow
). As such, those four manuscripts are obviously not in Watson’s distinctive handwriting, and are of no use when attempting to confirm the authenticity of this report.



The Houghton Library of Harvard University is the repository for the manuscript of
The Adventure of the Three Students
. The Berg Collection of the New York Public Library possesses
The Adventure of the Norwood Builder,
Chapter XI of
The Hound of the Baskervilles,
as well as the aforementioned
The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier
, the latter of which we did not bother to consult. Haverford College in Pennsylvania is the proud owner of
The Adventure of the Second Stain
, having been bequeathed it by the estate of the author Christopher D. Morley (1890-1957), Haverford class of 1910. The Lilly Library at Indiana University holds the manuscript for
The Adventure of the Red Circle
. The Bibliotheca Boderiana in Cologny/Geneva preserves
The Adventure of the Abbey Grange
. The British Library is fortunate to have two genuine Watson manuscripts,
The Adventures of the Missing Three-Quarter & the Retired Colourman
. The Richard Lancelyn Green Bequest at the Portsmouth City Museum acquired
The Adventure of the Creeping Man
in 2009. Finally, the skeptics at the National Library of Scotland possess the manuscript for
The Adventure of the Illustrious Client
. It should be noted that this is one of the last Holmes stories published (only four genuine adventures followed it). Although the events therein took place in 1902, the story was not released until 1924, and it is therefore unclear exactly when Watson would have set it down in pen (certainly no sooner than 1912, since he asked Holmes’ permission “for the tenth time in as many years”). Therefore the studied manuscript was written at least thirty-two (and
possibly as many as forty-four) years after the events recorded in the Bermuda Manuscript. It would not be an enormous conjecture to hypothesize that a man’s handwriting might evolve somewhat from that of a robust man of eight and twenty years, to that of a more mature man of sixty or seventy odd years, especially if his health had begun to decline. Watson’s date of death is unclear, though it has been reported to have occurred as early as 1929 (when he would have been seventy-seven years of age).