Victorian 221b

This is also one of my favourite stories, and its Granada adaptation was brilliant. I love the opening of this story, when Lestrade came over to Baker Street on a friendly visit. It's a far cry from the beginning, when Holmes laughed at him behind his back and lamented that Lestrade grabs all the spotlight. Years went by, and now all three of them are very comfortable with their positions in life and have mutual respect for each other.

I love Watson's medical expertise, how he stays up to date with the newest developments in medicine. It's fun that Holmes admits he can't laugh at trivial beginnings because they can lead to unique and complicated cases. Holmes definitely learned his lesson from the time of the Copper Beeches, when he found nothing better to do than getting on Watson's nerves, having received a letter from a governess asking for advice.

As always, I checked the blog called An Observance of Trifles, and I agree with a point which was made there: isn't it strage that there are so many Napoleon fans in Victorian Britain? So many, in fact, the his busts are manufactured in hundreds.

This story is a finest example of Holmes's mental powers. Unlike the previous story, he does a great deal of brain work here which is crucial to the solution of the case. Lestrade, however, is not a bungler from STUD anymore; he does some good job too. It's really a pleasure to see the seasoned professionals at work.

Holmes was excellent at planting fake news before it became mainstream. It's so fun that he uses the media to his advantage. And here I wonder whether he experienced the reverse side of being a celebrity, whether the tabloids chased him. Perhaps it was the case if he asked Watson not to publish more stories for the time being.

And as always Watson demonstrates that he knows Holmes so well. He reads Holmes easily, seeing when Holmes is preoccupied with ideas of his own while politely listening to something else. 

Returning to the Granada adaptation of this story, the opening always gets me: it's so hysterically funny and over-the-top. And I was also completely flabbergasted, having found out that Marina Sirtis of Star Trek TNG guest starred in this episode. I didn't recognise her at all!

Time flies, doesn't it? Today is the last day of July, unbelievable! But our read-along continues. The Black Peter is a great adventure story and has everything to make a great TV-episode: neat deductions, waiting in an ambush, the wrongly accused suspect, and finally a spectacular grand reveal. It is really a pity that no major adaptation includes it. Fair enough, the ending is somewhat similar to STUD, when Holmes catches Cairns with a cunning trick, but excercising in harpooning? Holmes's boltholes? Captain Basil? I'd like to see all that. 

This tale was clearly inspired by ACD's experience on a whaler during his student days, so he had some first-hand experience with sea-folk and harpooning techniques. And there's also a fascinating insight into Neligan's crime, that he actually was a fraud who had no intention of returning the money to his creditors because there was no need to sell the securities abroad. I highly recommend the blog called An Observance of Trifles.

I don't have any more notes on this story except that I enjoyed it and that there's one of my favourite lines in the canon characterizing Watson: "He said nothing of his business to me, and it was not my habit to force a confidence." I keep returning to it when I write Holmes fic.

This time it will be a lengthy post as I'd like to go quote by quote. There are so many remarkable things!

- “I cannot be sure of the exact date, for some of my memoranda upon the matter have been mislaid, but it must have been towards the end of the first year during which Holmes and I shared chambers in Baker Street.”

Is Watson Holmes’s opposite in terms of papers? Holmes had a horror of losing/destroying his papers and thus hoarded them, whereas Watson mislaid his.

- “For three hours we strolled about together, watching the ever-changing kaleidoscope of life as it ebbs and flows through Fleet Street and the Strand. His characteristic talk, with its keen observance of detail and subtle power of inference held me amused and enthralled. It was ten o’clock before we reached Baker Street again.”

So Watson sits cooped up indoors the whole day because he isn’t sure the weather would be good for his health, but as soon as Holmes suggests a walk, Watson agrees, at 7 pm, when it must be colder? Wow.

Compare with this quote from YELL, where they have lived together for a few years:
“For two hours we rambled about together, in silence for the most part, as befits two men who know each other intimately.”

In RESI it’s their first year together and already they ramble about for THREE hours, Watson listening to Holmes spellbound.

- “I was sufficiently conversant with Holmes’s methods to be able to follow his reasoning,”

By the end of their first year together Watson is already “sufficiently conversant with Holmes’s methods”, a keen pupil, isn’t he?

- My favourite Paget illustration is from this story:



- “I followed Holmes into our sanctum.”
Our sanctum. Just think about the choice of words. Not to “our rooms” or “our flat” but “sanctum”, a safe, private place. And that’s just their first year together!

( Read more... )

My somewhat belated notes for MUSG. It's a special story in many ways. It's one of examples of Holmes's narrative style: concise, spare, exact, without romantic and poetic elements which characterise Watson's tales. It is also another story of his early days which he basically told Watson to avoid cleaning :D

There's so much we learn about the Baker Street rooms and Holmes's habits from the opening paragraphs: Holmes's antics and Watson's lax attitude towards housekeeping. Watson calls it 'being Bohemian'. I wonder what a mess the place turns into when Mrs. Hudson has a holiday. What about their house in Sussex?? I've always imagined it as nice and cosy but perhaps some adjustments are in order.

Tobacco in the Persian slipper and papers transfixed by a jack-knife are such iconic features of Holmesiana. Jeremy Brett noted that a Persian slipper is not the best place to keep tobacco because it becomes dry--but what if Holmes smoked so much that there was no time for it to dry? Or, perhaps Holmes kept a tobacco pouch in the slipper?

This is a canon story where Holmes looks at Watson 'with mischievous eyes'. Seriously. How can one ever deny shippers their pleasure after such canonic descriptions?

One of the untold stories Watson mentions here is 'the singular affair of the aluminium crutch'. I found an interesting bit about it in Observance of Trifles:

Of particular interest might be the aluminium crutch. In those days, they hadn't yet developed a cheap and efficient process of extracting aluminium from ore, and as a result, the metal was prohibitively expensive--more so than even gold or platinum, at times. So to make something like a crutch from aluminium would be unusual and extravagant beyond belief. So why do it? Perhaps to make a lightweight crutch that could conceal something within...perhaps a weapon...?

I didn't know that titbit about aluminium before. Sounds very intriguing indeed!

Holmes mentions that he had built a considerable but mostly non-profit practice by the time he met Watson. Meaning that the police consulted him whenever they wished and allowed Holmes to visit crimes scenes for practice, probably. He also says that his methods were much discussed by his fellow students. Was it due to his involvement in the Gloria Scott case? It's rather suggestive that there was a scandal after all, with Victor fleeing and Holmes becoming somewhat notorious.

However, Holmes states in GLOR that he was in the university for only two years. But here he says 'during my last years at the University there was a good deal of talk there about myself and my methods'. Was it YEAR instead of YEARS? Or was it after Holmes left the university himself? Many possibilities for headcanons.

Montague Street. Holmes's famous abode before Baker Street. As it often happened, ACD wove some of his real life into the Holmes universe. Having left Southsea, young and recently married Conan Doyle went to study ophthalmology in Vienna and later moved to London in hopes of building a practice in the capital. His first address in London was in Montague Place:



What 'large issues' proved to be at stake in the Musgrave case? Did the finding of the Charles I crown become a sensation which contributed to Holmes's reputation as a private investigator? He does mention that there was some sort of litigation and a big sum of money involved for Musgrave to be able to keep the crown at his estate.

The way Reginald Musgrave is described, he is quite a queer-coded character: 'a young man of fashion', 'a bit of a dandy', 'languid and yet courtly manners'. Perhaps Holmes recognised him as a fellow queer man? Yet it doesn't seem that they were close: 'Once or twice we drifted into talk, and I can remember that more than once he expressed a keen interest in my methods of observation and inference.'
Another point that I noticed is the description of Brunton. It has mutually exclusive statements. At first he is characterised as 'a man of great energy', but by the end of the paragraph 'he was comfortable, and lacked energy to make any change'. Perhaps it depended whether or not he had energy? Quite energetic to become the head of the household staff, but not interested in a career of a scholar?This story has this running gag of 'excitable Celts': Welsh, Irish, doesn't matter. It seems like Doyle did indeed believe in this stereotype as he said of himself:

'I am half Irish, you know,’ he once told one of London’s press lords, after losing his temper over a newspaper story, ‘and my British half has the devil of a job to hold the hotheaded rascal in.’ (Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters)Despite Musgrave's aloofness, he is a considerate master: he tells Rachel to go to bed and not to work when he sees that she looks unwell. I suspect that not all employers were so attentive to their domestic help. 

I also find interesting this idea: 'A man always finds it hard to realize that he may have finally lost a woman’s love, however badly he may have treated her.' Quite femenist, considering that it comes from Doyle, isn't it?

And finally another thing I borrow from Observance of Trifles:

'And Brunton could hardly try to sell it [the crown] to a collector or a museum (or to the royal family) without revealing its provenance, which of course would reveal that he had stolen the booty. At best, that would likely mean he wouldn't get any money; at worst it would mean jail time.

Perhaps he planned to hide it, and then reveal to Musgrave what the ritual meant, and sell it back to him...I'm starting to think that maybe Brunton wasn't so smart, after all (Of course, if he were smart, he wouldn't have been caught going through family documents in the library like that...)'

The difficulty of the Holmes work was that every story really needed as clear-cut and original a plot as a longish book would do. One cannot without effort spin plots at such a rate. They are apt to become thin or to break. (Arthur Conan Doyle, Memories and Adventures)

STOCK is an example of just that. There was a deadline, and ACD had to come up with something, so he rehashed REDH in a not particularly creative way. He returned to the same plot device again much later in 3GAR. Still, STOCK has its moments.

- Holmes's description: "the high, somewhat strident tones of my old companion’s voice." Jeremy Brett channeled it masterfully. We all know that the main inspiration for Holmes was Dr. Joseph Bell. In a documentary book called The Ardlamont Mystery by Daniel Smith, Dr. Bell is described the following way:

- Holmes&Watson: Yet another instance when Watson is ready to drop everything and follow Holmes anywhere the moment Holmes shows up on Watson's threshold. Watson also tells us how easily Holmes reads him, they basically communicate without words. And their shared interest in strange cases: "unusual and outré features which are as dear to you as they are to me."

- Watson's practice which is better than that of his neighbour: Just how many people should have visited Watson's predecessor to literally wear out the steps so that it is visible with a naked eye? Three inches, seriously? If that's the case, why not replace such obviously shabby steps?

- Hall Pycroft on job hunting: "No one knows how these things are worked. Some people say that the manager just plunges his hand into the heap and takes the first that comes." Some 130 years later I have a feeling that this hasn't really changed.

- 126b Corporation Street: "Today, Corporation Street extends from New Street and its station for some two miles all the way to the site of Conan Doyle's home circa 1880. Clifton House, Aston Road is long gone, along with much of the Victorian city. A blue plaque, erected by the civic society, commemorates the author's residence in what was then still a village. These were formative years for Conan Doyle: as doctor, writer and man. He turned 21 as ship's surgeon aboard the Greenland whaler, Hope, during the first of two maritime adventures that punctuated extended periods in Aston as medical assistant to Dr Reginald Ratcliff Hoare who treated him more like a son than an employee. The family was represented at Conan Doyle's wedding to Jean Leckie in 1907. Hoare lives on as the inspiration for Dr Horton in "The Stark-Munro Letters"...and both doctors perhaps in Sherlock Holmes's identical morning habit of smoking the dottles of a previous night's pipes." (source)




- “The paper! Of course!” yelled Holmes, in a paroxysm of excitement. “Idiot that I was! I thought so much of our visit that the paper never entered my head for an instant. Holmes isn't omniscient. He can't think of everything at once, especially when events unfold very fast. That's very human and true-to-life. Had it been Poirot, this little detail wouldn't have escaped his attention. Poirot is way too perfect. 

- And then Holmes asks Watson to read the newspaper aloud because that's what Watson does in their partnership. Holmes surely likes to hear Watson's voice. There was also a suggestion on tumblr that perhaps Holmes is dyslexic. An interesting possibility, isn't it? 

It's a great story on so many levels! Holmes and Watson's interaction is beautiful: Holmes highly values Watson's input in the case and considers Watson's involvement a great favour. We also have glimpses of Holmes's fallible, human side: he states himself that he'd made a blunder and that he is far from the image of the ideal reasoner he would like to be, that which Watson presents in the stories. Watson is always low-key about his own merits, but this story is one of the best examples how Watson complements Holmes to perfection. He hears out Holmes's reasoning which helps Holmes to have a clear picture (the way Watson does it, though: "I lay back against the cushions, puffing at my cigar..." Quite a languid Bohemian, isn't he?). Then Watson offers his medical expertise, confirming Holmes's conjectures, and identifies the cataract knife for what it is—an instrument for a delicate operation (no doubt here ACD's own training in ophthalmology came in handy)—and thus pushes Holmes into the right direction. He also observes the returning trail of footsteps while Holmes is focused on the other trail and fails to notice it. His help is so substantial, but he, as always, just waves it off and gives all the spotlight to Holmes, like a modest and loving partner he is.

Watson is fiercely protective of Holmes and just has to retort when Colonel is disdainful towards Holmes. I'm pretty sure the exchange between the Colonel and Watson would have escalated to high words had not Holmes entered the room. As ever, Watson reads Holmes excellently: he can tell that Holmes arrived at some conclusions, and it is he who touches Holmes lightly, arousing him from the reverie. When Holmes solves the case, he playfully pinches Watson's arm, and Watson has no objection whatsoever about pranking the Colonel who wasn't nice to Holmes.

In this story Holmes's "ear-flapped travelling cap" makes an appearance. I googled it for fun, and it seems that rather than a deerstalker it could be this:


or this:



See this tumblr post for more interesting info.

This story features another reference to Romani people as a red herring. There was already one in SPEC, so this becomes a running gag of sorts.

£37 in 1888 is £4,845.30 in 2019. Quite a costly dress indeed!

Now to inaccuracies in this story. In his autobiography ACD himself admitted that he knew next to nothing about horse racing and didn't bother to research:

Sometimes I have got upon dangerous ground where I have taken risks through my own want of knowledge of the correct atmosphere. I have, for example, never been a racing man, and yet I ventured to write "Silver Blaze," in which the mystery depends upon the laws of training and racing. The story is all right, and Holmes may have been at the top of his form, but my ignorance cries aloud to heaven. I read an excellent and very damaging criticism of the story in some sporting paper, written clearly by a man who did know, in which he explained the exact penalties which would have come upon every one concerned if they had acted as I described. Half would have been in jail and the other half warned off the turf for ever. However, I have never been nervous about details, and one must be masterful sometimes. When an alarmed Editor wrote to me once: "There is no second line of rails at that point," I answered, "I make one." On the other hand, there are cases where accuracy is essential.

Naturally, I had to find out what exactly was wrong. This is a superb explanation, with lots of in-depth info. Highly recommend it!

It’s nice to return to Holmes and Watson and see how kind Holmes is to Watson. At the conclusion of the case Holmes invites Watson to come along with him to the police station since Watson is interested in the case. Holmes keeps including Watson into the action. It’s so considerate of him.

When asked about his actor friend, Hope declines to answer. Frankly, I’d like to know who that person is. I’d love to see Holmes tracing him. This would have made an excellent action sequence and another demonstration of Holmes’s deductive powers. This would work instead of the forced Mormon narrative! As we discussed in the previous post, having John and Lucy’s backstory told from Hope’s POV would be much neater, with all the unlikely and inaccurate things cut. Somehow, I can’t help mentally editing the second part of STUD to make it less awkward.

Back to the London part, it’s weird that Hope, having smelled a rat in the advertisement about the found ring, nevertheless had no suspicion when summoned by a street urchin to the very same address. But considering the previous American chapters, perhaps it’s not that surprising. Hope is a thickhead. Regarding the pills and an equal chance for the persecutor and the persecuted—that’s ACD’s notion of chivalry, isn’t it? Practically, though, it’s very silly. It would have been terribly ironic if Drebber had chosen the harmless pill and Hope had been compelled to eat the poisonous one.

In the last chapter Holmes explains to Watson his train of thoughts which was a revolutionary thing at that point. Very few detective novels did that at the time, and that was one of the factors which made Holmes legendary. His supposition that Hope wouldn’t change his name while travelling in Europe was a bit of a stretch. Hope could have easily done that. But, Hope being Hope, didn’t. The Mormon part aside, STUD is fantastic. It draws me in time and time again. When I was searching for inspiration while trying to write a mystery in another fandom, I read The Mysterious Affair at Styles (the first Poirot novel) and STUD. The difference was colossal. And while I enjoy Agatha Christie, after re-reading STUD a couple of years ago, I found myself in the Holmes fandom.