4 Who wrote this story? There is widespread speculation. Edgar W. Smith, in “Adventure of the Veiled Author,” argues for Mycroft, partly on the grounds that only he would know the secret Foreign Office history that lay behind Holmes’s career as Altamont. H. W. Bell, in Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: The Chronology of their Adventures, contends that “His Last Bow” and “The Mazarin Stone” were written by the same author, without identifying who that author was. S. C. Roberts suggests, in Dr. Watson, that a wife of Watson’s (that is, his post-Mary Morstan wife, mentioned in “The Blanched Soldier”) wrote both stories. Graeme Decarie argues that Holmes himself wrote “His Last Bow,” a story that is “almost entirely fictitious.” Leaning on Watson’s remark, in his introduction to “Thor Bridge,” that “in [other cases] I was either not present or played so small a part that they could only be told as by a third person” (italics added), D. Martin Dakin concludes that Dr. Watson wrote the tale. And Lord Donegall, going perhaps the furthest afield, suggests Billy the page!
5 William II, Friedrich Wilhelm Victor Albert (1859–1941), king of Prussia and German emperor. See “The Second Stain,” note 10.
6 Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg (1856–1921), who served as chancellor from 1909 to 1917, stumbled in many of his diplomatic efforts. His enlarging of Germany’s peacetime army played a substantial role in exacerbating the tensions that led to war, as did his support for Austria-Hungary’s aggressiveness toward Serbia and his compliance with the aims of the war-hungry German General Staff. He did, however, attempt to secure U.S. mediation of the conflict and worked to restrict submarine warfare once it was apparent that the United States would not remain neutral. Bethmann-Hollweg was forced to resign in 1917 by conservatives angry over his proposed electoral reforms for Prussia.
7 A vehicle drawn by four horses.
8 The Olympia amphitheatre in Kensington could hold 10,000 people (according to Baedeker) and hosted sporting events, concerts, roller-skating, and large-scale performances, including the Barnum and Bailey circus.
9 Known in Dutch as Vlissingen, the city of Flushing lies on the southern coast of the island of Walcheren, in the Zeeland province of the Netherlands. Because it blocks outside access to Antwerp, the medieval seaport has traditionally been a site of great strategic importance, and several battles have been fought there. Napoleon used it as a naval base during French occupation of the Netherlands (1795–1814).
10 Even though the outbreak of World War I effectively negated Parliament’s 1914 passage of Home Rule, or self-government for Ireland, the notion continued to be fiercely resisted by Unionists and Protestants in Ulster, who preferred outright independence to inclusion in the British union. Opposition was also strong among Irish Catholics, motivating Arthur Griffith—a former member of the revolutionary Fenian society—to found Sinn Féin (“We Ourselves” in Gaelic), a cultural organisation dedicated to preserving Irish traditions and language. Germany was sympathetic to the anti-British sentiment, supplying some arms to two insurgent militia forces, the Ulster Volunteers and the Dublin-based Irish Volunteers (the military arm of Sinn Féin and precursor to the Irish Republican Army). In the so-called Easter Rising of 1916, which Germany aided through the manipulation of Sir Roger Casement, violence finally erupted in a week’s worth of fighting in Dublin; the overwhelmed rebellion forces were put down, but Irish support for the movement swelled after the British government executed leaders of the opposition.
11 In Greek mythology, the Furies were the vengeful daughters (three in number, according to Euripides) of Mother Earth. By “window-breaking Furies,” Von Herling could be thinking of the Women’s Social & Political Union, the militant organisation fighting for women’s voting rights. From 1910 to 1914, many members were taking part in window-smashing raids, and some committed arson. Alternatively, Jack Tracy suggests that Von Herling might have had labour unrest in mind, as violent retribution was also the goal in the several major labour strikes and related riots that crippled the country in 1912. Because the Furies were female, however, it seems most likely that Von Herling’s reference is to the suffragettes.
12 Portsmouth was the chief naval station of England. For more on the forts of Portsmouth, see “The Five Orange Pips,” note 23.
13 A town and important naval base in Scotland, located upon the northern shore of the Firth of Forth, a few miles to the west of Edinburgh. The naval base served as a ship-repair station in World War I.
14 The German Embassy was 9 Carlton House Terrace in London, E.C.
15 As members of the landed gentry in Prussia and eastern Germany, Junkers (German for “country squire”) were politically conservative, supporting the monarchy, the military, and agricultural protectionism. Otto von Bismarck, the chancellor from 1871 to 1890, was a Junker of old Brandenburg stock.
16 A bronze statue of the Duke of York (second son of George III) perches atop the York Column, located at the head of the steps on Waterloo Place’s southern side. The German Embassy is located to the west of the column.
17 This sweet white wine is produced in the area around the Hungarian town of Tokay (or Tokaj, in Hungarian), in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. It is made from three grapes: Furmint, Hárslevelü, and, occasionally, Muscat or Muskotály, with the Furmint contributing approximately 50 percent. The bottle’s label would have read Tokaji (the possessive) followed by Aszu, Szamorodui, or Essencia, indicating the terroir.
18 The Essex seaport was then the base for the British destroyer and submarine fleets.
19 Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838– 1917) was a German military officer who, after retiring from the army in 1890, dedicated himself to developing motor-driven airships. In 1900 he invented a rigid airship, or dirigible, called the LZ-1. Although it launched with only limited success, the performance satisfied the German government sufficiently to fund Zeppelin’s research thereafter, granting him a commission for an entire fleet after he accomplished a twenty-four-hour flight in 1906. The Zeppelin Foundation was founded at Friedrichschafen in 1908, and the German military would end up using more than one hundred Zeppelins during World War I.
20 By mid-1914 there were more than 500,000 Model Ts on the roads of the world. John L. Benton challenges the identification of the vehicle as a “Ford,” stating that the word “came to be used nearly in generic fashion to describe almost any kind of small, light car.” Benton concludes that, based on the description of the “spare seat,” the car was a three-wheeled Morgan.
21 To welcome someone enthusiastically.
22 That is, radio telegraphy. Guglielmo Marconi was not the first to produce and transmit radio waves, but the system of wireless communication that he developed gave birth to modern radio. Having experimented with a signalling system that could transmit radio waves for over a mile, Marconi filed his first patent in 1894. Over the next several years he gave public demonstrations to show off his new technology; at La Spezia in 1897, he was able to communicate with Italian warships up to 19 kilometers (11.8 miles) away. That same year, with his brother’s financial backing, Marconi established the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company, Ltd., to further the development and marketing of his efforts. The value of his public demonstrations paid off handsomely in situations such as the 1899 America’s Cup, when he enabled two American yachts to report back to New York City on their ongoing progress in the race. Excitement about Marconi’s efforts spread around the globe. In 1901, at St. John’s, Newfoundland, he received history’s first transatlantic message, sent from Poldhu, Cornwall (see “The Devil’s Foot,” note 8). He was awarded the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics en route to even more triumphs, including successful experiments with shortwave communication during World War I and a transmission from England to Australia in 1918.
23 The Isle of Portland, properly a peninsula of the coast of Devonshire, England, which then was the seat of a 1,600-inmate prison and a naval base.
24 With the passing of the Victorian age into that of the Edwardian, Edgar W. Smith is amused to
note, in “On the Forms of Address,” that Holmes and Watson have conceded nothing to familiarity and are still addressing each other by their last names. Certainly nicknames such as “Jack” might seem inappropriate, writes Smith, but “perhaps ‘John’ and ‘Sherlock,’ in deference to the mellowing times and their own mellowing middle-age? But no—in 1914, when they had shared each others’ lives for a full thirty-three years, we find them still ingrained in their old habit . . .”
25 Imperial Tokay came from one particular vineyard and is no longer made. Michael Broadbent reports tasting a bottle of 1885 Imperial Tokay but says it was not particularly distinguished. The 1889 and 1906 vintages of Tokay were exceptional (Broadbent calls the latter “the last great vintage of the Austro-Hungarian empire”), and, given the provenance of the bottle and the refined tastes of the Baron, it was likely from the former vintage.
26 Schönbrunn Palace (or Schloss Schönbrunn) in Vienna was the summer residence of the Austrian royal family. A former hunting lodge, it became the glittering centre of imperial life and politics during the reign of Maria Theresa in the mid-1700s. It is celebrated for its exquisite gardens and its zoo, believed to be the oldest in Europe and opened to the public in 1779.
Franz Joseph I (1830–1916) was the emperor of Austria and the king of Hungary, the uncle of Francis Ferdinand, whose assassination was the trigger that started World War I—although Franz Joseph took his own, proactive role in precipitating war, issuing the ultimatum to Serbia that brought events to a head.
27 Vincent Starrett, in “The Singular Adventures of Martha Hudson,” advances the controversial theory that “Martha” was Mrs. Hudson, Holmes’s former landlady. Although taken up by many later commentators without any analysis, the theory was finally exploded in William Hyder’s “The Martha Myth,” in which he demonstrates that (a) Mrs. Hudson is never referred to by her full name and (b) there is no basis in “His Last Bow” on which to identify “Martha” with Mrs. Hudson.
28 In the Strand Magazine version of “His Last Bow,” Holmes says: “I know. His car passed ours. But for your excellent driving, Watson, we should have been the very type of Europe under the Prussian Juggernaut.” Holmes jokes here that the secretary nearly ran them over. Perhaps Watson, in 1917, as the war staggered to its finish, wanted to temper Holmes’s inflammatory remark.
29 An arm of the English Channel between the south coast of England and the Isle of Wight.
30 “His Last Bow” occurs in 1914. The penultimate recorded meeting of Holmes and Watson took place in “The Creeping Man,” in September 1903.
31 Holmes quotes the proud warrior Gaius Marcius Coriolanus in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, Act V, Scene 6. In this final scene, Coriolanus’s reluctant brokering of peace between the Romans and the Volscians has brought forth accusations of betrayal and cowardice from Tullus Aufidius, the general of the Volscian army and Coriolanus’s sometime ally. In response, Coriolanus reminds Aufidius that it was he who once roused the Roman army to conquer the Volscians: “If you have writ your annals true, ’tis there / That, like an eagle in a dovecote, I / Fluttered your Volscians in Corioli. / Alone I did it.” Immediately after Coriolanus utters this line, the Volscians turn upon him, killing the warrior in a wave of rage. Holmes knew his audience better, however, likely arousing only murmurs of “Marvellous! Wonderful!” from the loyal Dr. Watson.
32 Those who believe that Watson penned “His Last Bow” might take note of the doctor’s questioning of Holmes here. As D. Martin Dakin reminds us, Watson was not present during the opening scene between Von Bork and Von Herling—and nor was anyone else, for that matter—thus making it difficult to re-create that conversation with any true fidelity. “[U]nless old Martha had her ear to the keyhole all the time, and was a stenographic genius,” Dakin writes, “then what passed between Von Bork and Von Herling . . . could not possibly be known to any third person; and as neither of them is likely to have obliged Watson with a transcript, [the author] must have been drawing on his imagination, aided by such facts as Holmes could give him about his previous dealings with the master spy.” Indeed, the inclusion of such details seems to support those who regard the entire story as fiction. See note 4, above.
33 Herbert Henry Asquith, Earl of Oxford and Asquith (1852–1928), was prime minister of England from 1908 to 1916. He was not considered a particularly strong wartime leader, and, facing conflicts within his cabinet, heavy British losses on the Western Front, and a vicious press campaign attacking his competency, he was forced to resign before the war had ended.
34 June Thomson theorises that Mycroft must have had a hand in nominating his brother to infiltrate the German spy ring—and may have even persuaded Holmes personally to come out of retirement in service of his country. Calculating that Mycroft would have retired himself upon reaching the age of sixty-five in 1912, Thomson reasons that he would likely have maintained his connections with the government, meeting with former colleagues occasionally at the Diogenes Club.
35 Gordon R. Speck, in “Spy and Counterspy,” scoffs at this characterisation, citing Von Bork’s vast incompetence as a spy, at least as displayed in the events of this story. “What does Von Bork do with the fruits of his genius and enterprise?” Speck marvels. “He commits a baffling array of fundamental mistakes that would shame a neophyte. He retains originals of copied secret documents. He keeps them in a carelessly concealed safe in his home. He schedules a grossly ostentatious meeting with Baron Von Herling, whose ‘large Benz car’ blocks the rural road. He gratuitously divulges vital information (date of German offensive and combination to the safe) to a subordinate foreign agent. He sends his wife off ‘with less important papers,’ papers that could get the old girl jailed if not hanged.” Von Herlin’s assessment of Von Bork as “the most astute secret-service man in Europe” certainly casts doubt on the quality of the entire German organisation (a point, in 1917 when “His Last Bow” was published and the war not yet ended, which the author certainly intended).
36 The Royal Irish Constabulary, a paramilitary force, was established in 1822. It was frequently called upon to suppress violence instigated by the Fenian society.
37 In the county of Cork, Ireland. Ian Smyth suggests that Holmes had not only become a member of the Fenians but had also participated in gun-running at Skibbereen for the society’s military arm (which would become the IRA). By working for the British government, Holmes would have been regarded by the Fenians as an opponent and a traitor—hence the secrecy over his place of retirement.
38 Belden Wigglesworth argues, in “The Road to Skibbereen,” that Holmes would not make a direct approach to Von Bork, for such a tactic might well have been suspicious, but instead went to Russia (another sphere of German interest) from Skibbereen, to attract the attention of this subordinate.
39 Donald Hayne suggests that Holmes first migrated to the town of Altamont, New York, and took as his own the name of that village. Willis B. Wood suggests that “Altamont” took his alias in memory of an eponymous station on the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway between Joplin, Missouri, and Wichita, Kansas. Mrs. Crighton Sellars observes that William Makepeace Thackaray in Pendennis and Sir Walter Scott in The Pirate chose “Altamont” as the alias of their villains and suggests that Holmes did so to taunt the Germans. William S. Baring-Gould points out that the full name of Arthur Conan Doyle’s father was Charles Altamont Doyle, but there is no suggestion that Holmes knew this.
40 Anthony Boucher notes that in infiltrating the German spy ring, Holmes has paid the ultimate compliment to Birdy Edwards, the Pinkerton agent whom he met in The Valley of Fear: imitation. The events of “His Last Bow” take place in the same year that The Valley of Fear was published, and Holmes’s tactics here bear striking resemblance to Edwards’s in that case. According to Boucher, Holmes not only changed his name in going deep undercover but also “seemed one of the most dangerous and active men in the organization, while slyly seeing to it that all its plans went awry, and finally upset the whole a
pple-cart immediately after discussing with the top man the terrible possibility that ‘there’s a stool-pigeon or a cross somewhere.’ ”
41 Astute readers may recall that it was not Holmes who separated Irene Adler from the king of Bohemia but Adler herself, who fled with her new husband upon learning that Holmes was on her trail. D. Martin Dakin suggests that sometime after Watson wrote up the account, the king might have retained Holmes once again, this time successfully persuading Adler to return the implicating photograph. Thus Holmes would feel entitled to take final responsibility for settling matters between them.
42 Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz (1849–1930) was appointed secretary of state for naval affairs in 1897. He built up the German navy in the years leading up to World War I and was an advocate of using unrestricted submarine warfare to defeat the Allies. When the navy began to falter in the face of superior Allied strength, von Tirpitz (who had apparently been misled as predicted by Holmes’s disinformation) resigned his post in 1916.
43 The German ambassador to Britain from 1912 to 1914 was Prince Karl Max Lichnowsky (1860–1928), whose opposition to the war eventually led to his dismissal and exile. Holmes is undoubtedly joking here, for Von Bork would never have been allowed to return to Germany after it was learned that the information supplied by “Altamont” was false.
44 “What further part Watson took in the war remains unknown,” S. C. Roberts writes. At this point he was likely past the age of permissible duty in the field, but as a loyal veteran he may have offered his medical services at a nearby military hospital. His friend Arthur Conan Doyle also found his offer of military service rejected and instead formed a volunteer corps of local militia.
The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories: The Return of Sherlock Holmes, His Last Bow and The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (Non-slipcased edition) (Vol. 2) (The Annotated Books) Page 77