The Isle of Devils (59 page)


        
Modern medicine can claim multiple medications that can mimic the pinpoint pupils of the opioids, but it is doubtful that any of them were available to the Victorian physician, so Watson’s statement that Sims’ pupils could not have been faked should not be counted against his skill as a doctor.


        
Powder marks were used by Holmes to predict the firing of a gun at least once (
The Adventure of the Dancing Men
).


        
Watson never makes clear exactly which brass replica of the Great Seal of the Confederacy was in the possession of Mr. Dumas. While the embossing press and brass replica die were made in London, they never made their way to Richmond due to the naval blockade between Bermuda and America. Did Dumas purchase the die while in Bermuda? Where was he taking it? We may never know the answer. It appears likely that after Dumas’ death this die was returned to its Bermuda caretakers, and it can now be found in the National Trust Museum within the Globe Hotel, St. George’s, Bermuda.


        
The lead-enhanced cane of Mr. Dumas is reminiscent of the walking stick belonging to Justice Trevor (
The ‘Gloria Scott’
), though Dumas’ cane was even further improved with the sword-option, making it a very formidable weapon indeed.


        
Watson’s thoughts while staring at Dumas’ body very closely mirror his thoughts while trying to solve the murder of Mr. McCarthy before Holmes deigned to fill him in (
The Boscombe Valley Mystery
). 


        
Watson claims to have acquired his classical education at Winchester College (see notes to Chapter VI).

CHAPTER XI: THE EVIDENCE OF THE PROPRIETRESS

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Not having ever experienced a hurricane himself, Holmes nonchalantly compares a moderate English gale to one, which made the ground harder to read than a palimpsest (
The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez
).


        
The Canon has several examples of maps reproduced for the reader’s enlightenment. Like Mrs. Foster’s maps, two were drawn by others, one by Percy Phelps (
The Naval Treaty
), and the other by Stanley Hopkins (
The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez
). Only one map was definitively drawn by John H. Watson, since he signed it (
The Adventure of the Priory School)
. The maps reproduced herein are digital re-creation, as the original versions found with the manuscript (presumably the ones drawn by Mrs. Foster) were so water-damaged as to be almost unreadable.


        
A dark lantern was modified kerosene hand-lantern that could be darkened while lit by a sliding shield that covered the light without extinguishing the flame. Holmes used one while springing his trap in the cellar of one of the principal London banks (
The Red-Headed League
).


        
Mrs. Foster and Constable Dunkley give an accurate representation of the activities of Major Walker and his wife during their sojourn in St. George’s.


        
It is not clear from the historical records if Ralph Foster ever left the island of Bermuda, nor is it recorded why he chose the Globe name for his hotel. It is plausible that the account found in the Bermuda Manuscript is accurate in this regard.

CHAPTER XII: THE EVIDENCE OF THE AUSTRALIAN RUGBY-PLAYER


        
The practice of transporting English criminals to Australia in order to decrease the burden of the English prisons began in 1788 and continued through 1850 in New South Wales and as late as 1868 in other parts of the continent. The story of Bruce Sims’ father was little different
from Mr. James Armitage’s tale, albeit without the escape from the transport ship and subsequent name change (
The “Gloria Scott”
).


        
Upon first reading the Bermuda Manuscript, I assumed that I had discovered proof that it was a modern forgery when I read what I thought to be an obvious anachronism: ‘three sheets to the wind.’ Imagine my surprise when I found that this phrase goes back in printed form to at least 1821. Robert Louis Stevenson placed a version of this phase three years later into the mouth of Long John Silver in his masterpiece
Treasure Island
.


        
The first known international Australian Rugby tour took place in 1899, when the teams from New South Wales and Queensland played a four match series against a team from Britain. The first known international tour for the Australian Rugby team was in 1908, when a squad of players travelled nine months through United Kingdom, Ireland and North America, even winning the gold medal in the 1908 London Olympic Games. Assuming the authenticity of the Bermuda Manuscript, either an Australian Rugby team actually blazed that trail twenty-eight years prior to the official records, or Sims was lying through his teeth about what he was doing in Cambridge, Massachusetts when he injured his knee.


        
Robert Ferguson mentions the name of Watson’s Rugby Club in the postscript to his letter to Holmes (
The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire
). Interestingly, many years later, Godfrey Staunton would also play for Blackheath (
The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter
).


        
“I have never had much of a head for dates.” Truer words were never spoken! Much sleep has been lost and more arguments kindled because Watson could not be bothered to put a simple date on the majority of his manuscripts!


        
Watson mentions his damaged
tendo Achilles
by location only once (Chapter VIII,
The Sign of the Four
). Before the Bermuda Manuscript, it had never been entirely clear whether this was wound sustained in Afghanistan, or something less glamorous, such as a rugby injury. Fortunately, this wound healed better than his shoulder, and by 1889 Watson was once again reckoned fleet of foot (Chapter XIV,
The Hound of the Baskervilles
).


        
Godfrey Staunton also once slipped his knee-cap (
The Adventure of the Missing Three Quarter
).


        
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809 – 1894) was an American physician, poet, professor, lecturer, and author. He was regarded by his peers as one of the best writers of the nineteenth century, and was great friend with Longfellow and other giants of American letters. His most
famous prose work was
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table
(1858). He was on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and was also recognized as an important medical reformer. Since he measured only ‘five feet three inches when standing in a pair of substantial boots’ and was pushing seventy-one years of age by the time that Sims met him, Sims’ description is likely a fair one. Watson never mentions O.W. Holmes again in his writings, but the inspiration of a medical-man-turned-author upon Watson’s later literary pursuits is crystal clear, though the shared name with Sherlock Holmes can only be a coincidence.


        
Typical of his generous nature, Watson forgave Robert Ferguson for his injurious assault when, in 1896, Richardson called upon the assistance of Holmes and Watson in solving the mystery of his infant child and bloodthirsty wife (
The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire
).


        
The proverbial ‘drop that made the cup run over’ is from the French: ‘
c'est la goutte d'eau qui fait déborder le vase.’
A more typical English expression would be: ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back,’ which dates back to the works of none other than Charles Dickens (
Dombey and Son
, 1848), though he clearly found it in an earlier work, as the proverb is originally Arabic.


        
Douglas Maberley also had a small annuity (
The Adventure of the Three Gables
). Stocks were a great source of income during the Golden Age of the London Exchange. Miss Mary Sutherland derived her little income solely from the interest of her New Zealand Stock (
A Case of Identity
). Mawson and Williams was a great stockbroking firm on Lombard Street where Mr. Hall Pycroft was once hired as a clerk (
The Stock-Broker’s Clerk
).


        
The coca leaves that Sims chews are directly related, albeit in a much weaker form, to the infamous seven-per-cent solution that Holmes was wont to utilize when he felt the stagnation of the mind (Chapter I,
The Sign of the Four
).

CHAPTER XIII:
THE EVIDENCE OF THE PORTUGUESE WINE-MERCHANT


        
Madeira was well known to the Victorians as a locale to travel to on vacation. Holmes once asked Mrs. Maberley whether she would prefer to travel to Cairo, Madeira, or the Riviera (
The Adventure of the Three Gables
).


        
Mr. James Windibank was also a traveler in wines (
A Case of Identity
), and worked for the great claret importer Westhouse & Marbank. It was clearly a good occupation for moving around without attracting too much attention.


        
Watson must have decided that he liked Cordeiro’s silent tennis shoes so much that he acquired a pair of his own, used for his nocturnal house-breaking with Holmes (
The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton
), despite the fact that there is no other evidence in the Canon that Watson ever learned to play tennis.