103 D. S. Friesland, in a letter to the Baker Street Journal, points out that “offices” in this context meant “the parts of a house, or buildings attached to a house, specially devoted to household work or service; the kitchen and rooms connected with it, as pantry, scullery, cellars, laundry, and the like.”
104 This modern-sounding slang was clearly in use in the nineteenth century. John Camden Hotten’s Slang Dictionary (1865) defines it as “a term applied to anything young, small, or insignificant; CHICKEN STAKES; ‘she’s no Chicken,’ said of an old maid.” It is unclear as to when the saying was altered to specify the fowl as a “spring chicken.”
105 Utrecht, in the Netherlands, was the site of a series of peace treaties signed from 1713 to 1714. Under the Peace of Utrecht, France and Spain came to terms with a number of European powers to conclude the War of Spanish Succession. Holmes’s interest in Utrecht would have likely been more natural than political, as the province was a center for bee-keeping, with a bee-market held nearby in Veenendaal.
Curiously, for over two hundred years, Utrecht was the headquarters of Jansenism, a Roman Catholic movement founded by the theologian Cornelis Jansen (1585–1638). Jansenists claimed to be disciples of St. Augustine and opposed the Jesuits in many theological respects. Yet there is no known connection between the sect and the “Van Jansen” that Holmes mentions. “Jansen” (the Dutch equivalent of Johnson) is, in fact, a common name in Holland.
106 Ecclesiastes, 1:9: “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” Holmes’s expression of philosophy here clearly has a practical bent and motivates his study of criminal history. “As a rule,” he explains in “The Red-Headed League,” “when I have heard some slight indication of the course of events, I am able to guide myself by the thousands of other similar cases which occur to my memory.”
107 Paul Phillip Barraud was the founder of a seventeenth-century watchmaking dynasty that lasted into the twentieth century; his firm’s early watches and clocks were marked “Barraud, London.” After about 1840, the firm traded as Barraud & Lund and had premises at 49, Cornhill, E.C. Owen Dudley Edwards comments that possession of such a prestigious gold timepiece is surely indicative of its owner’s “self-indulgence and profligacy.”
108 A watch-chain made up of heavy links, named after Albert, prince consort of Queen Victoria. Albert, himself viewed as stolid and pompous by the masses, was not very popular but nonetheless set the style of male society. Pawnbroker Jabez Wilson (“The Red-Headed League”) and “Hosmer Angel,” Mary Sutherland’s supposed fiancé (“A Case of Identity”), also wore gold Albert chains, and those two men would seem to share with Enoch J. Drebber a vulgar ostentation.
109 Freemasons (the shorthand term for Free and Accepted Masons) were members of a secret society, the origin of which, by tradition, has been traced back to the Knights Templar, the old Roman empire, the pharaohs, Hiram of Tyre, the Temple of Solomon, or even to the times of the Tower of Babel and the Ark of Noah. The masons of England date back to 926 A.D., although modern freemasonry arose in the eighteenth century.
According to D. A. Redmond, in “The Masons and the Mormons,” by the time of A Study in Scarlet there was significant hostility between adherents of American freemasonry and those of Mormonism. Redmond quotes the “Proceedings of the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of the State of Kansas, 29th Annual Communication” (Emporia, 1885) as stating that freemasonry, “in a territory over which barbarism prevails, will if continued, be the principle [sic] means on which reliance can be placed to dispel the baleful shadow cast by Mormonism and root out this latest form of tyranny, based on stolid, deplorable ignorance and gross uncleanness.” Redmond speculates that Drebber wore the insignia “as a cover, to lend respectability and possibly to provide an entrée to genuine lodges in his travels.”
Jabez Wilson was a Freemason (“The Red-Headed League”), as were John Hector McFarlane (“The Norwood Builder”) and Holmes’s “hated rival,” detective Barker (“The Retired Colourman”). Cecil A. Ryder, Jr., in “A Study in Masonry,” concludes that Holmes and Watson were also members. Arthur Conan Doyle joined the Phoenix Lodge of the Masons in 1887, and Ryder suggests that it was there that Dr. Doyle met Dr. Watson, leading to the publication of A Study in Scarlet.
110 The masterpiece of Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375), Italian poet and scholar, consists of 100 stories, told over the course of ten days by seven women and three men who have fled plague-ravaged Florence in 1348. (Decameron means “Ten Days’ Work.”) At the end of each day, the story-teller sings a song meant for dancing. Boccaccio’s theme was the way of life of the bourgeoisie. By focussing on human limitations and moral values, he depicted man overcoming his misfortunes by accepting the consequences of his own actions. This was a startling departure from most literature of the Middle Ages, which tended to look to the divine to explain and respond to the complications of human life.
While Boccaccio’s work is hailed as the first great example of Italian prose, its Victorian reputation lay in no insignificant part as a source of “dirty” stories. For example, several Victorian editions omitted the tenth story of the third day, “Alibech Puts the Devil Back into Hell,” as indecent, and the Comstock laws in America made it illegal for decades to mail copies of the work. Owen Dudley Edwards suggests that the edition carried by Drebber was the selection published in 1884 by George Routledge & Sons, with an introduction by Henry Morley, in “Morley’s Universal Library.”
111 More properly, Gillig’s United States Exchange at 9 Strand, which also had a reading room with American newspapers.
112 James Montgomery, in “A Hearty Sea-Story,” reproduces several advertisements of the Guion Shipping Line: “ ‘The provisions supplied,’ says a card, ‘are abundant and excellent in quality, and are served and cooked by the company’s stewards.’ ‘Bear in mind,’ says another, ‘that the Guion Line has not lost a single English, Welsh, Scotch or Irish passenger for the last 25 years.’ ” Presumably Mr. Drebber of Cleveland felt that the same safety record would hold for an American.
The Guion Line.
113 James Cole, in “The Curious Incident of Holmes’s Doing Little in the Daytime,” is critical of Holmes for failing to examine the murder scene before leaving the room but chalks it up to Holmes’s inexperience with cases other than those of the “armchair” variety. If Lestrade had not made his discovery of the writing, Cole wonders, would Holmes have even troubled to investigate the room?
114 In “Sherlock’s Murder Bag,” J. N. Williamson counts sixteen stories in which Holmes is reported as using the lens. Michael Harrison, in The World of Sherlock Holmes, wonders why a man of Holmes’s young age (twenty-seven, by most accounts) “should need a glass to see anything? … [I]f a large piece of wallpaper had peeled away, then an equally large ‘yellow square of coarse plastering’ must have been left. And, not improbably, the word Rache was written in ‘blood-red’ characters not small.” He concludes that Holmes’s use of “the sort of high-powered single lens with which shaky old men read newspapers in public libraries” is an indication of his markedly precocious presybyopia (usually age-related blurring of near objects). For other theories about Holmes’s vision, see note 90, above.
115 William S. Baring-Gould reminds us that this sentiment may be attributed to Thomas Carlyle, who wrote, in Life of Frederick the Great, “Genius … which is the transcendent capacity for taking trouble first of all.” Of course, Holmes has earlier inquired “in the naivest way who [Carlyle] might be and what he had done.” His quoting the historian here seems to prove that his earlier ignorance was merely an act.
116 There is no Kennington Park Gate in London. Kennington Park is located at the intersection of Kennington Park Road and Camberwell New Road, and an Audley Square does exist, though far removed from Kennington. Bernard Davies identifies “Audley Court” as Aulton Place, the combined name given to Aulton Passage and Gro
ve Place in 1893.
117 There are 65 murder victims and 57 murderers mentioned in the Canon, comprehensively listed in Kelvin Jones’s The Sherlock Holmes Murder File.
118 The city and district of Trichinopoly, located near Tiruchirapali, in southern India, was a well-known source of tobacco.
119 The horse’s right side; the left side, on which the rider mounts, is known as “near.”
120 Jay Finley Christ disputes whether any of the evidence adduced by Holmes to this point is helpful, pointing out that none of it conclusively incriminates the criminal.
121 The Parthians, an ancient Persian race, legendarily had the habit of turning around in the saddle to discharge an arrow at a pursuer—hence, a parting shot.
CHAPTER
IV
WHAT JOHN RANCE HAD TO TELL
IT WAS ONE o’clock when we left No. 3, Lauriston Gardens. Sherlock Holmes led me to the nearest telegraph office,122 whence he dispatched a long telegram.123 He then hailed a cab, and ordered the driver to take us to the address given us by Lestrade.
“There is nothing like first hand evidence,” he remarked; “as a matter of fact, my mind is entirely made up upon the case, but still we may as well learn all that is to be learned.”124
“You amaze me, Holmes,” said I. “Surely you are not as sure as you pretend to be of all those particulars which you gave.”
“There’s no room for a mistake,” he answered. “The very first thing which I observed on arriving there was that a cab had made two ruts with its wheels close to the curb. Now, up to last night we have had no rain for a week, so that those wheels which left such a deep impression must have been there during the night. There were the marks of the horse’s hoofs, too, the outline of one of which was far more clearly cut than that of the other three, showing that that was a new shoe. Since the cab was there after the rain began, and was not there at any time during the morning—I have Gregson’s word for that—it follows that it must have been there during the night, and therefore, that it brought those two individuals to the house.”
Dustjacket, A Study in Scarlet.
(London and Melbourne: Ward, Lock & Co., Ltd., ca. 1950)
“That seems simple enough,” said I; “but how about the other man’s height?”
“Why, the height of a man, in nine cases out of ten, can be told from the length of his stride.125 It is a simple calculation enough, though there is no use my boring you with figures. I had this fellow’s stride both on the clay outside and on the dust within. Then I had a way of checking my calculation. When a man writes on a wall, his instinct leads him to write above the level of his own eyes. Now that writing was just over six feet from the ground. It was child’s play.”
“And his age?” I asked.
“Well, if a man can stride four and a half feet without the smallest effort, he can’t be quite in the sere and yellow.126 That was the breadth of a puddle on the garden walk which he had evidently walked across. Patent-leather boots had gone round, and Square-toes had hopped over. There is no mystery about it at all. I am simply applying to ordinary life a few of those precepts of observation and deduction which I advocated in that article. Is there anything else that puzzles you?”
“The finger-nails and the Trichinopoly,” I suggested.
“The writing on the wall was done with a man’s forefinger dipped in blood. My glass allowed me to observe that the plaster was slightly scratched in doing it, which would not have been the case if the man’s nail had been trimmed. I gathered up some scattered ash from the floor. It was dark in colour and flaky—such an ash is only made by a Trichinopoly. I have made a special study of cigar ashes—in fact, I have written a monograph upon the subject.127 I flatter myself that I can distinguish at a glance the ash of any known brand128 either of cigar or of tobacco. It is just in such details that the skilled detective differs from the Gregson and Lestrade type.”
“And the florid face?” I asked.
“Ah, that was a more daring shot, though I have no doubt that I was right. You must not ask me that at the present state of the affair.”
I passed my hand over my brow. “My head is in a whirl,”129 I remarked; “the more one thinks of it the more mysterious it grows. How came these two men—if there were two men—into an empty house? What has become of the cabman who drove them? How could one man compel another to take poison? Where did the blood come from? What was the object of the murderer, since robbery had no part in it? How came the woman’s ring there? Above all, why should the second man write up the German word RACHE before decamping? I confess that I cannot see any possible way of reconciling all these facts.”
My companion smiled approvingly.
“You sum up the difficulties of the situation succinctly and well,” he said. “There is much that is still obscure, though I have quite made up my mind on the main facts. As to poor Lestrade’s discovery, it was simply a blind intended to put the police upon a wrong track, by suggesting Socialism and secret societies.130 It was not done by a German. The A, if you noticed, was printed somewhat after the German fashion. Now, a real German invariably prints in the Latin character, so that we may safely say that this was not written by one, but by a clumsy imitator who overdid his part. It was simply a ruse to divert inquiry into a wrong channel. I’m not going to tell you much more of the case, Doctor. You know a conjurer gets no credit when once he has explained his trick, and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all.”
“I shall never do that,” I answered; “you have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.”
My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty.
“I’ll tell you one other thing,” he said. “Patent-leather and Square-toes came in the same cab, and they walked down the pathway together as friendly as possible—arm-in-arm, in all probability. When they got inside they walked up and down the room—or rather, Patent-leathers stood still while Square-toes walked up and down. I could read all that in the dust; and I could read that as he walked he grew more and more excited. That is shown by the increased length of his strides. He was talking all the while, and working himself up, no doubt, into a fury. Then the tragedy occurred. I’ve told you all I know myself now, for the rest is mere surmise and conjecture. We have a good working basis, however, on which to start. We must hurry up, for I want to go to Hallé’s concert131 to hear Norman-Neruda132 this afternoon.”
This conversation had occurred while our cab had been threading its way through a long succession of dingy streets and dreary by-ways. In the dingiest and dreariest of them our driver suddenly came to a stand. “That’s Audley Court in there,” he said, pointing to a narrow slit in the line of dead-coloured brick. “You’ll find me here when you come back.”
Audley Court was not an attractive locality. The narrow passage led us into a quadrangle paved with flags and lined by sordid dwellings. We picked our way among groups of dirty children, and through lines of discoloured linen, until we came to Number 46, the door of which was decorated with a small slip of brass on which the name Rance was engraved. On inquiry we found that the constable was in bed, and we were shown into a little front parlour to await his coming.
“The door was decorated with a small slip of brass on which the name Rance was engraved.”
Richard Gutschmidt, Späte Rache (Stuttgart: Robert Lutz Verlag, 1902)
He appeared presently, looking a little irritable at being disturbed in his slumbers. “I made my report at the office,” he said.
Holmes took a half-sovereign from his pocket and played with it pensively. “We thought that we should like to hear it all from your own lips,” he said.
“I shall be most happy to tell you anything I can,” the constable answered, with his eyes upo
n the little golden disc.
“Just let us hear it all in your own way as it occurred.”
Rance sat down on the horsehair sofa, and knitted his brows, as though determined not to omit anything in his narrative.
“I’ll tell it ye from the beginning,” he said. “My time is from ten at night to six in the morning. At eleven there was a fight at the White Hart133; but bar that all was quiet enough on the beat. At one o’clock it began to rain, and I met Harry Murcher—him who has the Holland Grove134 beat—and we stood together at the corner of Henrietta Street135 a-talkin’. Presently—maybe about two or a little after—I thought I would take a look round and see that all was right down the Brixton Road. It was precious dirty and lonely. Not a soul did I meet all the way down, though a cab or two went past me. I was a-strollin’ down, thinkin’ between ourselves how uncommon handy a four of gin hot136 would be, when suddenly the glint of a light caught my eye in the window of that same house. Now, I knew that them two houses in Lauriston Gardens was empty on account of him that owns them who won’t have the drains seed to, though the very last tenant what lived in one of them died o’ typhoid fever. I was knocked all in a heap, therefore, at seeing a light in the window, and I suspected as something was wrong. When I got to the door—”
“He appeared presently, looking a little irritable.”
Geo. Hutchinson, A Study in Scarlet (London: Ward, Lock Bowden, and Co., 1891)
“You stopped, and then walked back to the garden gate,” my companion interrupted. “What did you do that for?”
Rance gave a violent jump, and stared at Sherlock Holmes with the utmost amazement upon his features.
“Why, that’s true, sir,” he said; “though how you come to know it, Heaven only knows. Ye see, when I got up to the door it was so still and so lonesome, that I thought I’d be none the worse for someone with me. I ain’t afeared of anything on this side o’ the grave; but I thought that maybe it was him that died o’ the typhoid inspecting the drains what killed him. The thought gave me a kind o’ turn, and I walked back to the gate to see if I could see Murcher’s lantern,137 but there wasn’t no sign of him nor of anyone else.”
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