29 That is, until the death-rattle, or until death.
30 This sentence is the beginning of Part II of “The Illustrious Client,” published in the March 1925 issue of the Strand Magazine. The part begins with the following synopsis:
The Illustrious Client on whose behalf Sherlock Holmes is consulted is anxious to prevent the marriage of the young, rich, and beautiful Miss Violet de Merville to Baron Gruner, an unscrupulous adventurer. Gruner has told her every scandal of his past life, but in such a way as to make himself out to be an innocent martyr. She absolutely accepts his version, and will listen to no other.
Sherlock Holmes interviews the Baron, who warns him of the risk he is running in interfering in his affairs. He then visits Miss de Merville in company with a Miss Winter, one of the Baron’s many victims, in the hope that her story may induce the infatuated girl to change her mind. But all to no purpose.
“So now you know exactly how we stand,” said Sherlock Holmes, finally, “and it is clear that I must plan some fresh opening move, for this gambit won’t work. I’ll keep in touch with you, Watson . . . though it is just possible that the next move may lie with them rather than with us.”
And it did. For two days later Watson’s eyes fell upon a newspaper placard, and a pang of horror passed through him as he read the words: “Murderous Attack upon Sherlock Holmes.”
31 Dr. Samuel R. Meaker criticises the vaunted Dr. Oakshott for his shoddy suturing job, which has soaked Holmes’s dressing through with blood even before the doctor has left the house. Eight days later, Holmes’s head is described as “girt with bloody bandages” even after his stitches are removed. Holmes’s forthcoming statement about his plan to “exaggerate” his injuries to the doctor, adds Murray A. Cantor, demonstrates even more of a disconnect between Oakshott’s reputation and his actual abilities.
32 Holmes’s malingering abilities should have been well known to Watson after “The Dying Detective.”
33 Arthur Conan Doyle witnessed outbreaks of this highly contagious skin infection in July 1900 at Bloemfontein, South Africa, during his investigation of the Boer War. Erysipelas is “an acute febrile infectious disease of the skin from which several orderlies [then] died,” according to Alvin E. Rodin and Jack D. Key’s Medical Casebook of Doctor Arthur Conan Doyle. “Only at the time of World War II, when penicillin became available, was it no longer a frequently fatal disease.”
34 Baron Gruner was to leave Liverpool in the Ruritania on a Friday, despite the fact that Cunard liners then sailed for New York only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, according to Jack Tracy’s Encyclopedia Sherlockiana.
35 “Harry” is slang for the Devil. Some believe it derives from “hairy,” but E. Cobham Brewer, in his Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, writes, “There is an ancient pamphlet entitled The Harrowing of Hell. I do not think it is a corruption of ‘Old Hairy,’ although the Hebrew Seirim (hairy ones) is translated devils in Lev. xvii. 7, and no doubt alludes to the he-goat, an object of worship with the Egyptians.” Brewer also notes that the Scandinavian hari is equivalent to Baal, the Canaanite deity whose name was distorted to Baal-zebub.
36 Located at 14 St. James’s Square, the London Library was a large subscription library founded in 1841 by a group that included Thomas Carlyle and John Stuart Mill. Their goal was to allow the library’s members—who qualified by presenting a recommendation by another member and then paying an annual subscription fee—access to “good books in all departments of knowledge.”
37 The ancient Chinese calendar consisted of six sixty-day cycles, divided up into ten-day periods. Three of those periods (what we might consider weeks) made up a month. The years, too, were grouped into major cycles of sixty, with minor cycles consisting of five years each.
38 Hung-wu (1328–1398) was the founder of the Ming dynasty, which lasted from 1368 to 1644. Born Chu Yüan-chang to a poor peasant family and orphaned at the age of sixteen, he joined a monastery and later became a leader of rebel forces that stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Educated by learned men he encountered on his travels, Chu became a formidable opponent of the Mongolian Yüan dynasty, capturing Nanking in 1356 and systematically overpowering or eliminating his rivals. In 1368, he established himself as emperor of the new Ming dynasty and gave himself the title Hung-wu, or Vastly Martial. History regards him as a despot who restored stability and Chinese culture to the government after the reign of the Mongol invaders.
Ceramics created during the Ming period are highly prized, characterised primarily by delicate white porcelain pieces hand-painted with blue artwork. The style was widely copied in seventeenth-century Europe.
39 Yung-lo (1360–1424), born Chu Ti, was the third Ming emperor, a younger son of Hung-wu. A favourite of Hung-wu but not his official heir, Chu Ti was assigned by his father to pursue and conquer the remaining Mongols. Upon Hung-wu’s death, Chu Ti’s nephew (Chu Yün-wen, the young son of the deceased crown prince) became the new emperor; but Chu Ti, convinced of his own supremacy, usurped the throne in 1403 after a lengthy civil war.
40 Tang-ying (1470–1523), or Tang Yin (also T’ang Yin), was a painter and poet of the Ming dynasty. Briefly imprisoned for cheating on his governmental exams, he was forced to give up on a life of scholarly comfort and instead sold his paintings to make a living. He is best known for his landscapes. Tang-ying was also the name of the director of the imperial Chinese porcelain kilns in the eighteenth century.
41 The Sung dynasty spanned the years from 960 to 1259, achieving substantial educational, economic, and artistic progress (at least by modern American standards)—paper currency was introduced, civil service examinations were expanded, and a welfare policy was implemented—before falling to the Mongols. There were, in fact, two Sung dynasties: the Northern Sung was followed by the Southern Sung, established in 1127. Pottery in the Northern Sung dynasty was glazed brown and black, whereas the Southern Sung produced pieces in white, pale green (or celadon), and black. Both types of pottery are esteemed for their simple shapes and purity of colour.
42 The Yüan, or Mongol, dynasty (1271– 1368) was established when Kublai Khan (1215–1294), the grandson of Genghis Khan, came down from northern China to overthrow the Sung dynasty in the south. Maintaining their distance from the Chinese population, the Mongols staffed the government with Central Asians and encouraged the input of Europeans, such as the European traveller Marco Polo. Art was not particularly encouraged by the state, leading artists to seek their own inspiration and to hone and enhance the styles of the T’ang and Northern Sung dynasties. Somewhat ironically, this led to a grand flourishing of the arts. Ceramics during this period began to display the blue-and-white colours that became prominent during the Ming dynasty.
43 “Eggshell” porcelains, called by the Chinese “bodyless” because of their extreme thinness, were made as early as the reign of Yung-lo.
44 Bishops are automatically appointed to represent the Church of England in the House of Lords, where seating is on open benches.
45 The Tang, or T’ang, dynasty spanned the years 618 to 907. It was a glorious period for arts and culture, with poetry especially celebrated and western and other types of foreign music performed with great fanfare at imperial ceremonies. Ceramics were mostly white porcelain, tri-coloured pottery, and stoneware glazed a deep black.
46 Nature similarly bestows Colonel Sebastian Moran’s facial features with signs of warning, in “The Empty House”: “But one could not look upon his cruel blue eyes, with their drooping, cynical lids, or upon the fierce, aggressive nose and the threatening, deep-lined brow, without reading Nature’s plainest danger-signals.” Various Canonical individuals assert a connection between physical appearance and character—see, for example, Moriarty’s comments on Holmes’s appearance in “The Final Problem” and the discussion there of the “science” of phrenology.
47 The Japanese emperor Shomu (701–756) took the throne in 715. He distinguished himself by heavily fostering Buddhism and Buddhist
thought, devoting considerable state resources to the creation of Buddhist temples, monasteries, and artifacts.
48 Nara was the first permanent capital of Japan. Emperor Shomu built the enormous Todai Temple (or Todai-ji) there, dedicating it with a speech in 752 in which he declared himself subject to “Three Precious Things”: Buddha, the law of Buddhism, and the organisation of the church. Shoso House (Shoso-in), the one surviving structure of the Todai Temple, houses a vast collection of more than six hundred of Emperor Shomu’s personal objects, and over nine thousand works of art in all.
49 The Wei dynasty was founded in 220 by Toba nomads who ruled the northern portion of China until the dynastic wars of the sixth century. The Wei gradually assimilated to upper-class Chinese culture and in particular embraced Buddhism, promoting it as the state religion. Most of the significant art produced during this period was Buddhist in theme, but whatever relation to pottery the Baron may have had in mind is unknown.
50 Watson refers here to the highly corrosive sulphuric acid (also called “oil of vitriol”), commonly used in the nineteenth century as a bleaching agent or disinfectant. A vitriol-throwing occurred in “The Blue Carbuncle.”
51 “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life . . .” Romans 6:23.
52 Hans-Uno Bengtsson points out, in “ ‘It Needs Careful Handling,’ ” that this is an unfair criticism, for it is not Watson’s limited knowledge that ends the interview abruptly but rather the unlikelihood of a sale of a unique art object well known to the baron.
53 This seems a suspiciously poor excuse to Brad Keefauver, who hardly believes Holmes to be an innocent bystander in the attack. “What did he think she was hiding?” Keefauver asks in his book Sherlock Holmes and the Ladies. “A gun, maybe? Nothing that could do Gruner any good, in any case. Sherlock Holmes does not come away from the ending to ‘The Adventure of the Illustrious Client’ with clean hands no matter how you look at it.”
54 Watson conceals the identity of Holmes’s illustrious client with a method D. Martin Dakin deems so “transparent” that Watson must have meant for it to be punctured. “I do not think anyone who has ever read the story,” Dakin declares, “could be in any doubt that the client was HM King Edward VII—particularly as he had already appeared under that alias in The Beryl Coronet. . . .” Dakin exaggerates the certainty of the identification slightly here. Although scholars generally believe that “one of the highest, noblest, most exalted names in England,” whom banker Alexander Holder terms his “illustrious client,” is the young King Edward, then Prince of Wales (see “The Beryl Coronet,” note 7), here the phrase “illustrious client” is never used except in Watson’s story title. If this is Watson revealing the client’s name, it is certainly a subtle method.
THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLANCHED SOLDIER1
“The Blanched Soldier” is one of two cases written up by Holmes, rather than Watson. The other, “The Lion’s Mane,” also appears in The Case-Book. Neither can be said to be a literary triumph: the contrast with Holmes’s superb storytelling in stories such as “The ‘Gloria Scott’ ” and “The Musgrave Ritual” is pronounced. Both stories similarly show Holmes presented with a problem which he solves by knowledge known only to him—an early style of mystery fiction that Arthur Conan Doyle publicly disdained. Published in 1926, when the Boer War was but a dim memory to the British public, “The Blanched Soldier” demonstrates Holmes’s knowledge of medicine rather than his detective skills. The case is also a harsh reminder of public attitudes toward mental illness and contagious diseases, even as late as 1903, when the events occur. The real doctor in the case, Sir James Saunders, made such an impression on Sherlockians that there now exists the “Sir James Saunders Society, a dermatological scion of the Baker Street Irregulars,” which meets annually and administers a strict “re-certification” examination to its members.
THE IDEAS OF my friend Watson, though limited, are exceedingly pertinacious. For a long time he has worried me to write an experience of my own.2 Perhaps I have rather invited this persecution, since I have often had occasion to point out to him how superficial are his own accounts and to accuse him of pandering to popular taste instead of confining himself rigidly to facts and figures. “Try it yourself, Holmes!” he has retorted, and I am compelled to admit that having taken my pen in my hand, I do begin to realize that the matter must be presented in such a way as may interest the reader. The following case can hardly fail to do so, as it is among the strangest happenings in my collection, though it chanced that Watson had no note of it in his collection. Speaking of my old friend and biographer, I would take this opportunity to remark that if I burden myself with a companion in my various little inquiries it is not done out of sentiment or caprice, but it is that Watson has some remarkable characteristics of his own, to which in his honesty he has given small attention amid his exaggerated estimates of my own performances. A confederate who foresees your conclusions and course of action is always dangerous, but one to whom each development comes as a perpetual surprise, and to whom the future is always a closed book, is indeed an ideal helpmate.3
I find from my notebook that it was in January, 1903, just after the conclusion of the Boer War,4 that I had my visit from Mr. James M. Dodd, a big, fresh, sunburned, upstanding Briton. The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife,5 the only selfish action which I can recall in our association. I was alone.
It is my habit to sit with my back to the window and to place my visitors in the opposite chair, where the light falls full upon them.6 Mr. James M. Dodd seemed somewhat at a loss how to begin the interview. I did not attempt to help him, for his silence gave me more time for observation. I have found it wise to impress clients with a sense of power, and so I gave him some of my conclusions.
“From South Africa, sir, I perceive.”
“Yes, sir,” he answered, with some surprise.
“Imperial Yeomanry,7 I fancy.”
“Exactly.”
“Middlesex Corps, no doubt.”
“That is so. Mr. Holmes, you are a wizard.”
I smiled at his bewildered expression.
“When a gentleman of virile appearance enters my room with such tan upon his face as an English sun could never give, and with his handkerchief in his sleeve instead of in his pocket, it is not difficult to place him.8 You wear a short beard, which shows that you were not a regular. You have the cut of a riding-man. As to Middlesex, your card has already shown me that you are a stockbroker from Throgmorton Street. What other regiment would you join?”9
“You see everything.”
“I see no more than you, but I have trained myself to notice what I see. However, Mr. Dodd, it was not to discuss the science of observation that you called upon me this morning. What has been happening at Tuxbury Old Park?”
“Mr. Holmes—!”
“My dear sir, there is no mystery. Your letter came with that heading, and as you fixed this appointment in very pressing terms it was clear that something sudden and important had occurred.”
“Yes, indeed. But the letter was written in the afternoon, and a good deal has happened since then. If Colonel Emsworth had not kicked me out—”
“Kicked you out!”
“Well, that was what it amounted to. He is a hard nail, is Colonel Emsworth. The greatest martinet in the Army in his day, and it was a day of rough language, too. I couldn’t have stuck the colonel if it had not been for Godfrey’s sake.”
I lit my pipe and leaned back in my chair.
“Perhaps you will explain what you are talking about.”
My client grinned mischievously.
“I had got into the way of supposing that you knew everything without being told,” said he. “But I will give you the facts, and I hope to God that you will be able to tell me what they mean. I’ve been awake all night puzzling my brain, and the more I think the more incredible does it become.
“When I joined up in January, 1901, just two years ago—young God
frey Emsworth10 had joined the same squadron. He was Colonel Emsworth’s only son—Emsworth, the Crimean V.C.11—and he had the fighting blood in him, so it is no wonder he volunteered. There was not a finer lad in the regiment. We formed a friendship—the sort of friendship which can only be made when one lives the same life—and shares the same joys and sorrows. He was my mate—and that means a good deal in the Army. We took the rough and the smooth together for a year of hard fighting. Then he was hit with a bullet from an elephant gun in the action near Diamond Hill12 outside Pretoria. I got one letter from the hospital at Cape Town and one from Southampton. Since then not a word—not one word, Mr. Holmes, for six months and more, and he my closest pal.
I lit my pipe and leaned back in my chair. “Perhaps you will explainwhat you are talking about.”
Howard Elcock, Strand Magazine, 1926
“Well, when the war was over, and we all got back, I wrote to his father and asked where Godfrey was. No answer. I waited a bit and then I wrote again. This time I had a reply, short and gruff. Godfrey had gone on a voyage round the world, and it was not likely that he would be back for a year. That was all.
“I wasn’t satisfied, Mr. Holmes. The whole thing seemed to me so damned unnatural. He was a good lad, and he would not drop a pal like that. It was not like him. Then, again, I happened to know that he was heir to a lot of money, and also that his father and he did not always hit it off too well. The old man was sometimes a bully, and young Godfrey had too much spirit to stand it. No, I wasn’t satisfied, and I determined that I would get to the root of the matter. It happened, however, that my own affairs needed a lot of straightening out, after two years’ absence, and so it is only this week that I have been able to take up Godfrey’s case again. But since I have taken it up I mean to drop everything in order to see it through.”
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 82