The Secret Journals of Sherlock Holmes (A&B Crime)

by Thomson, June

  2 In 1905, the Frenchman, Henri Lemoine, claimed to have manufactured diamonds in his London laboratory, using a secret method. He persuaded Sir Julius Wernher, the South African financier and governor of De Beers Consolidated Mines, to provide him with financial backing. However, there was so little difference between Lemoine’s so-called synthetic diamonds and natural stones that eventually Sir Julius became suspicious. After an investigation, Lemoine was arrested and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for fraud. Aubrey B. Watson.

  3 The Almanack de Gotha, a German publication, gave historical and statistical information in both French and German on the countries of the world. It was best known, however, for its detailed genealogies of European royal families. Dr John F. Watson.

  4 Dr John H. Watson first met Mycroft Holmes when he introduced his younger brother, Mr Sherlock Holmes, to the case involving Mr Melas, an account of which was later published under the title of ‘The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter’. This case, which is undated, has been ascribed by students of the canon to various dates between 1882 and 1890. However, it would appear from this evidence that it must have occurred before April 1887. Dr John F. Watson.

  5 Mycroft Holmes was a founder member of the Diogenes Club in Pall Mall. Dr John F. Watson.

  6 The Countess of Morcar was staying at the Hotel Cosmopolitan when she was robbed. Vide: ‘The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle’. Dr John F. Watson.

  7 Lady Frances Carfax kept her account at Silvester’s, the London banking company. Vide: ‘The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax’. Dr John F. Watson.

  8 Billy, surname unknown, was employed as a pageboy at 221B Baker Street at the end of the ’80s. He is described as ‘young but very wise and tactful’. Vide: The Valley of Fear, ‘The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone’ and ‘The Problem of Thor Bridge’. Dr John F. Watson.

  9 The Carlton Club was situated in Pall Mall, not far from the Diogenes Club. Sir James Damery was a member of the Carlton. Vide: ‘The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter’. Dr John F. Watson.

  10 There are several references to Mr Sherlock Holmes’ unfortunate habit of injecting himself with a 7% solution of cocaine. On occasions, he also took morphine. Vide, among others, A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four and ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’. Dr John F. Watson.

  11 Mr Melas, a Greek by birth, knew nearly all languages and acted as an interpreter at the Law Courts and also to foreign visitors to London. It was he who, through Mycroft Holmes, introduced Mr Sherlock Holmes to a case, an account of which Dr John H. Watson published under the title of ‘The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter’. Dr John F. Watson.

  12 Prussic acid or hydrocyanic acid is the fastest acting poison known and can cause death within seconds. Cyanide is found in many plants, including bitter almonds. Hence its distinctive odour. In A Study in Scarlet, Mr Enoch Drebner was poisoned, probably by Prussic acid or one of its salts, sodium or potassium cyanide, for when Mr Sherlock Holmes gave his landlady’s sick terrier one of the pills found in Joseph Stangerson’s room, it died almost immediately. Dr John F. Watson.

  13 In ‘The Adventure of the Reigate Squire’, Dr John H. Watson refers to the Netherland-Sumatra Company and Baron Maupertuis but gives as his reason for not publishing an account of the case that it is ‘too recent in the minds of the public, and too intimately concerned with politics and finances, to be a fitting subject for this series of sketches.’ Dr John F. Watson.

  14 William Kirwin was murdered by his employers, Squire Cunningham and his son, Alex. Vide: ‘The Adventure of the Reigate Squire’. Dr John F. Watson.

  15 ‘Midas, the Golden King’. In Greek mythology, Midas, King of Phrygia, was given the power to turn anything he touched into gold by the god Dionysus. However, when King Midas discovered that even the food he touched turned to gold, he prayed to Dionysus to help him and the magic power was removed. Dr John F. Watson.

  16 Mr Sherlock Holmes, who states that he was ‘fairly familiar with all forms of secret writings’, wrote a monograph in which he analysed one hundred and sixty separate ciphers. During his investigations, he solved four coded messages. Vide: ‘The Adventure of the Dancing Men’, ‘The Adventure of the Red Circle’, The Valley of Fear and ‘The Adventure of the Gloria Scott’. In ‘The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual’, he successfully interpreted a series of puzzling questions and answers which led to the discovery of the Musgrave treasure. Dr John F. Watson.

  APPENDIX

  An Hypothesis Regarding the Identity of the Second Mrs Watson

  Students of the Sherlock Holmes canon will be aware of the mystery surrounding the identity of Dr Watson’s second wife and the precise date when this marriage took place.

  The only reference to it is made by Sherlock Holmes, not Dr Watson, in a terse and enigmatic sentence found in ‘The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier’. In this narrative, recounted by Sherlock Holmes, the great consulting detective merely states that, at the time of this particular investigation, January 1903, ‘the good Watson had … deserted me for a wife, the only selfish act which I can recall in our association’.

  Dr Watson himself never refers to this second marriage, an extraordinary omission when one considers that he shows no such reticence concerning his first wife, the former Miss Mary Morstan. Indeed, the circumstances of his meeting with and courtship of Miss Morstan are fully described in The Sign of Four while in such subsequent accounts as ‘The Adventure of the Stockbroker’s Clerk’ and ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’, references are made to his domestic life which was evidently happy though childless.

  The first Mrs Watson died between 1891 and 1894, when Sherlock Holmes was absent from England after his apparent death at the hands of Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. On Sherlock Holmes’ return, Dr Watson, now a widower, sold his Kensington practice and moved back to his former lodgings at 221B Baker Street, possibly in 1894.1

  It was at some time after this date that Dr Watson met the young lady whom he subsequently married.

  Although the exact date of the wedding cannot be established, there are certain clues within the published canon which allow an approximation to be made.

  As already stated, the case of the Blanched Soldier occurred in January 1903, by which time Dr Watson was already married and had, as Sherlock Holmes implies, moved out of the Baker Street lodgings. However, as Dr Watson was still in residence there at the ‘latter end’ of June 1902 at the time of the case concerning the three Garridebs, it may safely be assumed that he had not yet ‘deserted’ his old companion for a second wife.

  But in ‘The Adventure of the Illustrious Client’, which is precisely dated to 3rd September 1902, Dr Watson states that he was then already living in his own rooms in Queen Anne Street.2

  Although he gives no explanation for this change of address, it is generally assumed that this was on the occasion of his second marriage. It must therefore have taken place between the end of June and the beginning of September 1902.

  This dating is confirmed in ‘The Adventure of the Creeping Man’, also assigned to early September 1902, in which Dr Watson receives a message from Sherlock Holmes summoning him to Baker Street where, as Dr Watson explains, ‘he greeted me back to what had once been my home.’

  Unfortunately, there is no such evidence available to help with identifying the lady who became the second Mrs Watson and any attempt to do so must rest on mere speculation.

  It is, however, possible to make an educated guess, based on information found elsewhere in the canon, concerning Dr Watson’s attitude to women and in particular to the type of young lady who was likely to appeal to him.

  As he himself admits in The Sign of Four, he had an experience of women which extended over ‘many nations and three separate continents’3 and yet it was the charms of Miss Mary Morstan, later to become the first Mrs Watson, which finally won his heart. As he describes his meeting with her in some detail, the researcher is given valuable information on which to base an hypothesis.

 
Although not strictly beautiful, she was attractive in appearance and Dr Watson was particularly struck by the ‘spiritual and sympathetic’ expression in her eyes and the signs of a ‘refined and sensitive’ nature in her features. Always a chivalrous man, he was also deeply touched by her plight, indicated by her ‘intense inward agitation’, despite her ‘outward composure’. In addition, he was impressed by her courage, for, although she was alone in the world, she had supported herself through her own efforts as a governess. This had given her an experience of life which also appealed to him.

  Moreover, he fell in love with her on first acquaintance.

  In short, Dr Watson was attracted to women of a warm and sensitive nature who roused in him admiration for their courage as well as compassion for the difficulties of their circumstances.

  It has been suggested that the second Mrs Watson was Miss Violet de Merville, the daughter of General de Merville, who featured in ‘The Adventure of the Illustrious Client’. Young, rich and beautiful, she had fallen obsessively in love with Baron Gruner, a highly undesirable suitor with a criminal background from whom her family was trying to separate her. Through the intervention of Sherlock Holmes, the engagement was eventually broken off and the Baron left the country.

  However, in my opinion, Miss Violet de Merville is not the type of young lady to appeal to Dr Watson. Despite her passionate attachment to the Baron, she is at heart hard, inflexible and self-willed. Besides, there is no evidence that Dr Watson ever met her, Sherlock Holmes having interviewed her in the absence of his colleague.

  But there is one young lady whom Dr Watson met and who possesses many of the qualities which he would have looked for in a woman. As a candidate for the second Mrs Watson, she is much more likely to have won his affections than Miss de Merville. Dr Watson was immediately drawn to her, as he was to Miss Morstan, and felt towards her the same protective urge. She was, moreover, a governess like the first Mrs Watson, and displayed those same qualities of refinement and sensitivity which had attracted him to his first wife.

  If my hypothesis is correct, then marriage to this particular young lady would also explain Dr Watson’s unprecedented reticence over her identity.

  The lady in question is Miss Grace Dunbar.

  Dr Watson made her acquaintance during the investigation into the death of Mrs Gibson, the wife of Mr Neil Gibson, the American gold millionaire, an account of which he later published under the title of ‘The Problem of Thor Bridge’.

  Accused of the murder of Mrs Gibson, Miss Dunbar was in prison awaiting trial at Winchester Assizes and it was in her cell that Dr Watson was first introduced to her.

  In a lengthy passage, as detailed as his account of his meeting with Miss Morstan, Dr Watson describes her appearance and the immediate attraction he felt towards her. He writes: ‘I had expected from all we had heard to see a beautiful woman but I can never forget the effect which Miss Dunbar produced upon me.’

  But it was not only her beauty which captivated him. As in the case of Miss Morstan, he was impressed by the sensitivity of her features and her ‘nobility of character’ as well as touched by the ‘appealing, helpless expression’ in her dark eyes.

  Although the two women were physically very different, Miss Morstan being small, fair and dainty of figure whereas Miss Dunbar was a tall, dark brunette with a commanding presence, I believe readers will acknowledge the many striking similarities in the two descriptions, not least in the immediate effect both young ladies had on Dr Watson’s susceptibilities.

  Indeed, Dr Watson was so taken by Miss Dunbar that the short journey from Winchester to Thor Place seemed intolerably long to him, so impatient was he for Sherlock Holmes to begin the investigation which was eventually to prove her innocence.

  At the end of ‘The Problem of Thor Bridge’, Sherlock Holmes comments that, now the case has been satisfactorily resolved, it is ‘not unlikely’ that Miss Dunbar will marry Mr Neil Gibson. It is a curiously negative remark, as if the great consulting detective himself had doubts over the matter. And indeed many readers would also regard such an outcome as highly improbable.

  Of all the clients to cross the Baker Street threshold, Mr Neil Gibson is surely one of the most unpleasant. Feared by his household, he is described by his estate manager as a ‘man of violence’ and an ‘infernal villain’. On Gibson’s own admission, it is because of his ill-treatment of her that his wife, a passionate and neurotic Brazilian lady, was driven to take her own life in such a manner as to throw suspicion of murder on Miss Dunbar, the children’s governess, to whom Gibson had transferred his attentions.

  Far from welcoming his advances, Miss Dunbar had threatened to leave Thor Place and was only prevailed upon to remain at her post by her employer’s assurance that his offensive behaviour would cease. In addition, she had dependents who relied on her financially and, according to Gibson, she was convinced that, by staying, she could influence him for the better.

  This last consideration carries very little weight in the argument. All of this happened before Mrs Gibson’s suicide when the question of a possible marriage between the Gold King and the governess would not have arisen. It seems highly unlikely that, after Mrs Gibson’s death, Miss Dunbar would have agreed to the match, even after the charge of murder against her was withdrawn. She had too much nobility and strength of character to marry a man who through his own obnoxious behaviour had not only driven his first wife to commit suicide but had put her own life in jeopardy.

  The year when this investigation took place is unknown. Only the month is specified, which was October. However, from internal evidence it can be established that it was during the time when Dr Watson was still living in Baker Street.

  Any theory regarding the dating of subsequent events is therefore merely speculative. I suggest, however, that the case should be assigned to October of 1901 and that, after her release from prison, Miss Dunbar left Mr Gibson’s household. As there was no opportunity at the time for Miss Dunbar to thank Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson for the part they had played in proving her innocence, I further suggest that she travelled to London in order to express her gratitude in person. Nothing would have been more natural; after all, Sherlock Holmes had saved her from the gallows.

  At this interview, Dr Watson renewed his acquaintance with her, an occasion which was to lead to further meetings and to their subsequent marriage in the summer of 1902.

  If this hypothesis is accepted, Dr Watson’s reticence over his second marriage becomes perfectly understandable. He would hardly wish the public, particularly his professional clientele, to know that he had married a woman who had once been accused of murder. Social convention at the time would have inhibited him from making the truth known.

  But there is a still more pressing reason for his silence.

  Mr Neil Gibson was a man of a violent and revengeful nature. He even went so far as to threaten Sherlock Holmes when he seemed at first reluctant to take the case.

  In Dr Watson’s presence, Gibson told the great consulting detective, ‘You’ve done yourself no good this morning, Mr Holmes, for I have broken stronger men than you. No man ever crossed me and was the better for it.’

  How much more likely is it then that the Gold King would seek vengeance on the man who had won the affections of the young lady he himself had hoped to marry?

  Under such circumstances, it is not surprising, therefore, that Dr Watson should have kept secret the identity of his second wife and have refrained from making any reference to her in the published canon.

  John F. Watson, D. Phil. (Oxon)

  All Saints’ College, Oxford.

  14th February 1932

  1 Dr John H. Watson’s return to Baker Street is assigned by some students of the canon to the year 1894. However, in ‘The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger’, dated ‘early in 1896’, Dr Watson states that he received ‘a hurried note’ from Sherlock Holmes, summoning him to Baker Street, which suggests that by that date he had not yet moved back to his old lodgi
ngs. Dr John F. Watson.

  2 Queen Anne Street crosses Harley Street where many important consultants and specialists had their practices, including Dr Moore Agar, Mr Sherlock Holmes’ own physician. Situated in the West End, Queen Anne Street was more fashionable than Baker Street, Dr John H. Watson’s former address. As Dr Watson gives medical treatment to Baron Gruner, including an injection of morphine, it may be assumed that, at the time of this adventure, he was continuing to practise as a professional doctor from the Queen Anne Street address, presumably among a more wealthy clientele. Vide: ‘The Adventure of the Illustrious Client’. Dr John F. Watson.

  3 In The Sign of Four, Dr John H. Watson compares the heaps of earth in the gardens of Pondicherry Lodge to the gold-diggings near Ballarat which he himself had seen, although quite when is unknown. Ballarat, a gold-mining centre, is situated in Victoria, Australia. Dr Watson’s experience had therefore included the continents of Europe, India and Australia. Dr John F. Watson.

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  HOLMES AND WATSON

  Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson, famous for their crime-solving capabilities, are mysterious figures themselves. What is known about their pasts, and the reasons behind their very different personalities? This detailed and enthralling account ponders answers to the many uncertainties and enigmas which surround the pair.

  And there are other puzzles to be solved. Who was John Watson’s mysterious second wife? And what is the real location of the legendary 221B Baker Street? A thorough investigation commences as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous creations are placed under the magnifying glass …