The Adventure of the Pharaoh's Curse (The Assassination of Sherlock Holmes Book 1)

by Janacek, Craig

  Are there other examples from the Canon where Holmes and/or Watson seemingly gloss over any cases that drift into the neighborhood of a realm beyond the veil? Incidents which are hard to reconcile with the settled order of nature? The cause of Colonel Warburton’s madness is never explained,[135] nor the reason why Abrahams was in mortal terror for his life.[136] What were the singular contents of that ancient British barrow?[137] And why exactly was the world not yet prepared to hear the story of Matilda Briggs and the giant rat of Sumatra?[138] These may be the realms in which even the most acute and most experienced detective is helpless.

  Furthermore, are we seriously to believe that Sherlock Holmes, the finest mind of his generation (barring perhaps only his brother and the late, lamented Professor Moriarty), was unable to provide a final explanation on not one, but multiple occasions? Watson calls these cases “complete failures:”

  “Among these unfinished tales is that of Mr. James Phillimore, who, stepping back into his own house to get his umbrella, was never more seen in this world. No less remarkable is that of the cutter Alicia, which sailed one spring morning into a small patch of mist from which she never again emerged, nor was anything further ever heard of herself and her crew. A third case worthy of note is that of Isadora Persano, the well-known journalist and duellist, who was found stark staring mad with a matchbox in front of him which contained a remarkable worm, said to be unknown to science.”[139]

  Watson refuses to provide further details, claiming that he did not wish to “annoy the casual reader.” But was it, in fact, Holmes himself that was annoyed? In each unfathomed case, was there an explanation that Holmes refused to consider? As Watson’s first literary agent, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, once wrote:

  “… However much our tiny brains may endeavor to comprehend and classify these extraordinary phenomena, there still remain so many unknown causes and unexplained conditions that for many a long year to come our best efforts can only be regarded as well-meant approximations to the truth.”[140]

  §

  * * *

  [1] Dating to 1887, when a Holmes adventure (A Study in Scarlet) first appeared in press.

  [2] A paraphrase of the final lines of the great poem ‘The Hollow Man’ by T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), which allude to the failed gunpowder plot of Guy Fawkes.

  [3] Perhaps most notably in The Adventure of the Six Napoleons.

  [4] Such as the somewhat underwhelming tale, The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger.

  [5] As recounted by Holmes himself in The Adventure of The Lion’s Mane.

  [6] As told by a third-person narrator in His Last Bow.

  [7] The Adventure of the Creeping Man.

  [8] Though there is surprisingly little evidence that he actually wore such a cap.

  [9] As seen in The Adventures of The Lion’s Mane and the Blanched Soldier.

  [10] As mentioned in both The Problem of Thor Bridge and The Adventure of the Creeping Man.

  [11] Sources vary as to whether this was due to a V-1 or V-2 rocket, or from a Luftwaffe-dropped bomb.

  [12] Watson is believed to have been born in 1852, which would make him 58 years old at the time of this adventure.

  [13] The polygraph machine used by President Thomas Jefferson was not a lie-detector, as the term has now come to be used, but rather an ingenious 1803 device to copy a piece of writing. Examples are preserved at both Monticello and the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

  [14] Watson stored many cases at the bank of Cox & Co. at Charing Cross (The Problem at Thor Bridge).

  [15] An event once narrowly prevented by Holmes (The Red-Headed League).

  [16] As was 221B Baker Street by orders of Professor Moriarty (The Final Problem).

  [17] This is the only evidence that we have, tenuous as it may be, that Watson procured a new dog after he retired.

  [18] This appears to be a subtle allusion to the fact that Mycroft Holmes appropriated the manuscript, and prevented publication, of the non-Canonical case entitled The Adventure of the Spanish Sovereign.

  [19] This raises the interesting possibility that duplicate versions of additional Holmes cases may yet survive in some as-of-yet undiscovered locale.

  [20] Watson is infuriatingly vague as to the identity of this wife. Her existence is without doubt, for Holmes reports in his notebook from January 1903 that Watson had recently ‘deserted him for a wife’ (The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier). We have reasonable evidence that this is his third wife. Of course, his marriage to Mary Morstan (m.1888-c.1892) is well known (The Sign of the Four). However, there is some evidence that Mary was his second wife, after Lucy Harrier (as alluded to in the non-Canonical novel The Isle of Devils). It is tempting to speculate that this third and presumably final wife was none other than Miss Violet Devere, with whom Watson was reunited after a long separation (also mentioned in The Isle of Devils).

  [21] From this we can deduce that sometime between 1904 and 1909, Watson sold his home and practice in Queen Anne Street (as noted in The Adventure of the Illustrious Client) and also retired to the south coast of England. He once expressed a longing for Southsea in The Resident Patient.

  [22] Expressionism is a modernist movement that originated in Germany as a break from and response to Impressionism. The most famous Expressionist painters were Vincent Van Gogh and Edvard Munch.

  [23] Holmes and Watson visited a Bond Street Gallery in Chapter IV of The Hound of the Baskervilles.

  [24] Watson and Holmes saw a Wagner Opera at Covent Garden at the conclusion of The Adventure of the Red Circle.

  [25] This appears to be a reference to the time that Watson was shot by ‘Killer’ Evans, as the house of Mr. Nathan Garrideb was situated off the Edgeware Road (The Adventure of the Three Garridebs).

  [26] As detailed in The Adventure of The Empty House.

  [27] This appears to be a reference to the time that Watson pulled Holmes’ away from the ill-advised experiment with the fumes of the Devils’ Foot in the eponymous Adventure.

  [28] This unrecorded case was mentioned in The Adventure of the Norwood Builder, but here we learn more about Watson’s role in the adventure.

  [29] The Criminal Investigation Unit (C.I.D.) is the official name for Scotland Yard.

  [30] The general whereabouts of Holmes’ retirement abode was described in the Preface to His Last Bow. However, no such village of Fulworth has ever been located, suggesting that Watson changed the name to protect his friend’s privacy.

  [31] Obviously a reference to the time they sought to protect the life of Sir Henry Baskerville (Chapter XIV, The Hound of the Baskervilles).

  [32] Although not the last case published, chronologists generally regard The Adventure of the Creeping Man as Holmes’ last recorded case in the Canon before his retirement.

  [33] The most definitive examples of Holmes pushing his iron constitution past the breaking point occurred at the beginning of The Reigate Squires and The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot.

  [34] Compare this to the income of Ms. Mary Sutherland, who in 1889 drew £100 a year (A Case of Identity), Mr. Grant Munro, who in 1888 drew £700-800 a year (The Yellow Face), and finally the salary of his brother Mycroft, who in 1895 was paid only £450 a year to occasionally run the British Government (The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans)!

  [35] The most famous of which is called by the evocative name of ‘Holmesdale.’ Sadly, the name of the vale derives not from the Great Detective, but from the Holm Oak, an evergreen oak which was once common in the area.

  [36] As described in The Adventure of the Devils’ Foot.

  [37] While some commentators have seen fit to identify Martha with Mrs. Hudson, the fact that Watson does not address her as such seems to disprove such assertions.

  [38] Holmes also identifies the prints of Lestrade in The Boscombe Valley Mystery.

  [39] ‘4711’ is one of the oldest continuously produced fragrances in the world. Watson never explains where Lestrade would have picked up the habit of wearing t
his particular fragrance.

  [40] Who exactly Tooley killed in the ‘Porter Murder,’ and why, are questions lost to time, as this case never made its way into the papers of the day.

  [41] While Holmes attempts to brush off this inquiry, his explanation is not convincing. One could postulate that he was walking with the ‘most complete and remarkable’ Maud Bellamy, who Holmes encountered in 1907 while investigating the death of her intended fiancée (The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane). Perhaps, after a suitable period of mourning, Holmes and Maud began a special friendship?

  [42] Holmes is clearly referring to his return from the Great Hiatus in 1894.

  [43] This must have joined Holmes’ regal collection, along with the gold snuffbox from the King of Bohemia and the diamond ring from the reigning family of Holland, as detailed in A Case of Identity.

  [44] In The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier, Holmes reported that he took a case for Sultan of Turkey, who at that time was Abdul Hamid II the Damned, a brutal and paranoid dictator that was eventually overthrown.

  [45] This military dress-hat must be some relic of one of Holmes’ cases, but the details of how he acquired it or to whom it once belonged have not been preserved.

  [46] The premier museum of France, the Louvre opened in approximately 1801, with its collection deriving first from confiscated royal and church property, and then expanded during the conquests of Napoleon.

  [47] Now called the Bode Museum, this Berlin landmark was originally named after Emperor Frederick III, who was married to one of the daughters of Queen Victoria.

  [48] Lord Backwater is mentioned in Silver Blaze and The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor, but his real identity was never revealed.

  [49] One wonders whether Patterson was involved in the confiscation of Professor Moriarty’s illicit Greuze, and then became interested in the field of Art Crime?

  [50] Inspector Patterson only Canonical appearance was in The Adventure of the Empty House, where he secured the whole gang, only to allow Professor Moriarty to escape.

  [51] The fabled Index of Sherlock Holmes, also known as his commonplace book, has unfortunately been lost to posterity. We see glimpses of the letter ‘S’ (The Adventure of the Missing Three Quarter), and ‘V’ (The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire).

  [52] Also alluded to at the end of The Adventure of the Six Napoleons.

  [53] Unfortunately, it appears that Watson neglected to ever record the cases of Crispin, the Westbourne Crocodile, or the Crossbow Murders.

  [54] Wapping is a district of London. It is filled with warehouses and is part of the London dockyards.

  [55] Cuneiform is the earliest known writing of the Sumerians. Ogham is a Medieval Irish alphabet which survived only on several hundred stone monuments throughout Ireland and Wales. There is no known link between the two, but this interest appears similar to Holmes’ activities in The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot.

  [56] Holmes quotes from Eckermann’s tome ‘Voodooism and the Negroid Religions’ in The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge.

  [57] Holmes is known to have spent time in Chicago in the time preceding the Great War (His Last Bow), but no Canonical source mentions him visiting prior to 1909, the setting for this tale.

  [58] Holmes’ visits to Khartoum and Lhassa during the Great Hiatus were mentioned in The Adventure of the Empty House.

  [59] Unless Holmes is referring to the German town, Nassau is the capital of the Bahamas, making this the first evidence, however tenuous, that Holmes ever travelled to the Caribbean.

  [60] It is unclear in precisely which book Watson would have read this theory.

  [61] Clearly a reference to Big Bob Ferguson and his jealous son Jacky (The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire).

  [62] A reference to Shakespeare’s famous line: “Once more unto the breach, dear friends” (Henry V, Act III, Scene 1). This may also be an allusion to Holmes’ famous line ‘The game is afoot,’ which itself derives from Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I, Act III, Scene 1.

  [63] Watson reported that Holmes had a weakness for a Turkish bath in The Adventure of the Illustrious Client, likely a sign of the advancing rheumatism that forced his early retirement.

  [64] Sir Edward Bond was an actual Librarian at the British Museum from 1873-1888. Perhaps Holmes favored him because he wrote an influential book on English Charters, a topic in which Holmes was also very interested? Holmes appears to be suggesting that he was the anonymous writer of the note.

  [65] One wonders if this was Holmes’ subtle way of admitting that he wrote the anonymous letter. In the days before he and Watson took on the flat at 221B Baker Street, Holmes had rooms on Montague Street, directly across from the Museum.

  [66] Godalming is the name of a short street in the Canary Wharf district of London, which has since been renamed Guildford Road. Bram Stoker may have been inspired by the name during the writing of his great novel Dracula.

  [67] A street in the rough docklands neighborhood of the same name, where Holmes supposedly contracted the Sumatran Fever (The Adventure of the Dying Detective).

  [68] We are unable to verify that the clay of Shadwell, part of London’s notorious East End, is marked by a particular shade of blue, but the affliction of Mr. Bedford is known in medical slang as a ‘Fiddler’s Neck.’

  [69] Clearly a reference to the ancestral tomb of the Falder family (The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place).

  [70] As reported by Watson in The Adventure of the Red Circle.

  [71] The building that houses the collection of the British Museum has never really been completed. Expansions and improvements continue up to the modern day. Watson is probably referring to the opening of the forecourt in 1852.

  [72] There was no Walter Brundage at the Museum in 1909, but Watson commonly changed names of people that appeared in his tales. We can safely assume that this is in fact Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge (1857-1934), who was Keeper from 1894-1924.

  [73] Presumably Francis Llewellyn Griffith (1862-1934) an eminent British Egyptologist. Watson probably neglected to disguise his name as he only appears in the form of mentions.

  [74] There were at least four Pharaohs of that name in the Eleventh Dynasty (c.2134-1991 BCE). In fact, an intact Old Kingdom tomb has never been found, so Watson either misremembered Brundage’s words or one of them is exaggerating.

  [75] This tale is very similar to something that happened at the Manchester Museum in 2013. The recurring event was caught on video. The ten-inch tall statue of Neb-Sanu, which dates back nearly 4,000 years and was found in a mummy’s tomb, had been at the Museum for eighty years. However, it that case, a time-lapse video showed it turning during the day, apparently of its own volition. During the night, however, it remained still.

  [76] Perhaps members of the Ghost Club, a group in London committed to the study of alternative religions and the spirit world.

  [77] Strangely enough, Holmes’ time in the Orient during the Great Hiatus failed to engender a similar belief.

  [78] It is likely that Holmes visited more often, but the last recorded date was during The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge (which took place in 1895), when he was researching Voodooism.

  [79] This appears to be an allusion to the events of the non-Canonical The Adventure of the Manufactured Miracle.

  [80] As referenced in The Problem of Thor Bridge (for more about this issue, see the Appendix).

  [81] One of the highlights of the BM, the pair of colossal lions were excavated from the entrance to the royal palace of King Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BCE) at Nimrud by Austen Henry Layard from 1845-1851.

  [82] For example, Holmes could tell from the distinctive clay and chalk mixture on the shoes of John Openshaw that he had come up from Horsham in the south-west (The Five Orange Pips).

  [83] Holmes mentions his ‘excellent ears’ in The Man with the Twisted Lip.

  [84] Although Watson uses a different name, the position of ‘Director and Principal Librarian of the British Museum’ was occupied from 1909-1
931 by Sir Frederic George Kenyon (1863-1952), a flawed scholar whose lack of scientific rigor fortunately did no permanent harm to the integrity of the museum.

  [85] Watson chronicled Holmes’ obsession with Cornish philology in The Adventure of the Devils’ Foot.

  [86] Holmes and Watson inspected the collection of Mr. Nathan Garrideb c. 1902 in The Adventure of the Three Garridebs, at the end of which Garrideb was left a broken man in a nursing-home. Sadly, he appears to have died in the interval seven years.

  [87] Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) was a British collector, whose curiosities formed the foundation of the British Museum.

  [88] Limehouse is an area of East London near Wapping. Also part of the Docklands, it was home to many sailors, immigrants from the Orient, and opium dens.

  [89] Holmes possessed a honed ability to sense a lie, such as when Blessington tried to deceive him (The Adventure of the Resident Patient).

  [90] Wellingtons were a term for rain-boots during Victorian times, named after the Iron Duke, who was the first to wear them. Holmes wrote a famous monograph upon the tracing of footprints (Chapter I, The Sign of the Four).

  [91] The predecessor was Sir Edward Maunde Thompson (1840–1929), a paleographer noted for his study of William Shakespeare's supposed handwriting in the manuscript of the play Sir Thomas More.

  [92] Holmes’ knowledge of perfume was vast, being able to distinguish at least seventy-five different one (Chapter XV, The Hound of the Baskervilles).

  [93] So-called scholars who start with the belief that the events described in the Bible are historical fact, and then twist the archeologic facts to fit their theories.