Holmes and Watson

by June Thomson

  As has already been pointed out, ballistic evidence was unheard of, and the bullet which killed Adair was a soft-nosed, expanding bullet, usually fired from a revolver, which, in Watson’s words, ‘mushroomed out’ on impact, while the bullet fired at Holmes’ bust had flattened itself against the wall. This in itself would have made comparison with other ammunition in Moran’s possession impossible even if an attempt at making such a comparison occurred to Lestrade or any other of his Scotland Yard colleagues. Motive, too, would have been hard to prove. With Adair dead, there was no witness to confirm Holmes’ theory that Adair had caught Moran cheating at cards and had threatened to expose him. If, as suggested, Moran also had an alibi for the night of Adair’s murder, the case against him would have collapsed.

  Holmes’ decision not to co-operate with Inspector Lestrade over the charge of attempted murder against himself was therefore extremely foolish. Had he done so, Moran would have been found guilty on this lesser charge and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment.

  By law, there was nothing to prevent the police, with Holmes acting as witness, to bring such a charge even after Moran was acquitted of Adair’s murder. This is another curious aspect of the case, which Watson also fails to elucidate. For surely Holmes’ objection to his name being associated with Moran would have been outweighed by the risk of letting a murderer like Moran escape justice? He was, after all, ‘the second most dangerous man in London’,* as Holmes himself states. However, if Moran disappeared after the Adair murder trial, possibly abroad, then any attempt by the police to arrest him would have been futile.

  Moran’s subsequent fate is unknown. He may have still been alive in 1914, for in ‘His Last Bow’, when Von Bork promises revenge, Holmes compares him to ‘the late lamented Professor Moriarty’, adding that Colonel Sebastian Moran had also made the same threats. But, in the absence of any qualifying adjective to suggest Moran was dead, the remark is ambiguous. If Moran were still alive, he must have then been in his late seventies or eighties.

  After this, nothing more is heard of him and the old shikari, who was once Moriarty’s Chief of Staff, passes at last into decent obscurity.

  * There had been an outbreak of garotting, principally in London, between 1861 and 1864. These attacks were usually carried out by three people, the ‘choker’ who attacked the victim from behind, his assistant who committed the robbery, and a lookout, often a woman. The frequency of these attacks caused much alarm and demands for more efficient policing.

  * Readers are referred to Appendix Two.

  * I have not included the three years of the Great Hiatus when Holmes was absent and assumed dead.

  * It was not until 1910 that ballistic evidence was used by police forces in the investigation of crimes involving the use of guns.

  * Although Professor Moriarty was dead, Holmes probably ranked him as the first most dangerous man in London, the note on Moran’s file in which he refers to the Colonel as the second most dangerous having been added by Holmes before the Final Problem, when he was still investigating Moriarty’s criminal background.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  RETURN TO BAKER STREET

  April 1894–June 1902

  ‘You know,’ I answered, with some emotion, for I had never seen so much of Holmes’ heart before, ‘that it is my greatest joy and privilege to help you.’

  Watson to Holmes: ‘The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot’

  It was at Holmes’ request that Watson sold up his Kensington practice and moved back to his old lodgings, where he was to remain for the next eight years and three months. This must have happened soon after Holmes’ return to London in April 1894, for by August of that year, the date of the Norwood Builder inquiry, Watson was already installed at 221B Baker Street. In his account of the investigation, Watson also refers to ‘our months of partnership’ during which two unrecorded cases had already taken place, one concerning the papers of the ex-President Murillo,* the other the ‘shocking affair’ of the Dutch steamship Friesland, which so nearly cost them both their lives.

  Watson sold his practice to a young doctor called Verner who, to Watson’s astonishment, paid the full asking price without protest. It was only years later that Watson discovered that not only had Holmes put up the money but that Dr Verner was a distant relative of Holmes, presumably on his French grandmother’s side of the family, as Verner sounds very much like an Anglicised form of the surname Vernet.

  It was a generous gesture on Holmes’ part and it was typical of him to keep the information secret for so long but his motives may not have been as disinterested as at first they seem. For it suited Holmes to have Watson living once more in Baker Street and, by using this subterfuge, he was certain of getting his own way. Although on the whole Holmes enjoyed his own company, there are signs that as he grew older – and he was now forty – he felt more in need of other people, a change of heart which the three years he had spent travelling alone may have helped to bring about. Watson supplied that companionship as well as serving other useful functions as assistant, amanuensis, confidant and, above all, appreciative audience.

  Watson appears to have agreed with Holmes’ suggestion without any overt protest. At least, he expresses none. And in many ways, the move may have suited him as well. He was now a widower and, although still only forty-two or forty-three, was by the standards of the time already well into middle age. The first flush of enthusiasm at resuming his former career as a doctor may have passed. As we have seen in Chapter Ten, he found his practice ‘not very absorbing’ on occasions and, with the death of his wife, that feeling may have increased to the point at which the hard work and long hours no longer seemed worth the effort. While he was prepared to expend a great deal of time and energy on specific activities, such as making the Paddington practice a success or setting about the colossal task of writing and publishing the twenty-three accounts of Holmes’ earlier investigations, he was always prone to take the line of least resistance and may well have allowed Holmes, with his more dominant personality, to make up his mind for him.

  There were, of course, advantages from Watson’s point of view. He needed companionship, more so than Holmes, and after the death of his wife must have felt particularly lonely. There was also the old lure of excitement and adventure which life with Holmes never failed to provide. But one would like to think that he felt a few pangs at selling his old home and parting with the furniture and other possessions which he and Mary had bought with so much pleasure when they had first set up house together in 1889, five years before, although no doubt he retained a few of the more personal items to take with him to Baker Street.

  Although in some ways Watson may have welcomed his retirement from professional life, he may also have felt a little sad at selling up his practice. He was a good GP who had made a success of his medical career, and the decision to abandon it may not have come easily. However, although in the Red Circle case Holmes speaks of the time when Watson ‘doctored’, as if he were no longer actively practising, there is other evidence which might indicate that Watson continued to work as a GP if only on a more limited basis. In ‘The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger’, Holmes has to send a hurried note to Watson, summoning him back to Baker Street, suggesting he was absent for some reason. He may, of course, as some commentators have argued, have been merely visiting friends, but it is possible, according to others, that he was acting as locum for a colleague. He may even have continued to treat a few of his more special patients, such as the Whitneys. Although he had sold his practice, he was still licensed and could therefore continue working as a doctor. Even after he had returned to Baker Street, he gave medical treatment when the need arose as, for example, in the Carfax case, when he revived Lady Frances Carfax with artificial respiration and an injection of ether. Some critics have commented a little derisively on the fact that Watson always seems to have his medical bag with him when it was needed. I find nothing unusual about this. As a doctor, Watson was used to snatching up his ba
g before leaving the house and experience would have taught him that any of Holmes’ enquiries could end in someone getting hurt. In much the same way, Holmes always carried a magnifying glass about with him. Both the medical bag and the lens were part of their professional equipment.

  However, Watson was certainly becoming out of touch professionally during this period, as he acknowledges in ‘The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter’ when he is introduced to Dr Leslie Armstrong, one of the heads of the medical school at Cambridge University, who had a European reputation in his particular branch of the science. ‘It argues the degree in which I had lost touch with my profession that the name Leslie Armstrong was unknown to me,’ Watson admits with perhaps a hint of regret. Nevertheless, he made an effort to keep abreast with some aspects of medicine. He was still reading up on surgery, for in ‘The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez’ he reports that he was ‘deep in a recent treatise’ on that subject and he was evidently interested in the comparatively new study of psychology,* for in the case of the Six Napoleons, he speaks knowledgeably about monomania and the idée fixe.

  If Watson did indeed continue to practise, if only on an occasional basis, it must have been out of professional not financial interest. He cannot have needed the money. Quite apart from any savings he may have made when a GP, the sale of his Kensington practice would have provided him with quite a large capital sum which he apparently invested in stocks and shares, the interest from which would have augmented his army pension. Holmes refers to such investments in ‘The Adventure of the Dancing Men’. In addition, Watson had earned other professional fees as an author on publication of the twenty-three accounts, already referred to in Chapter Twelve, which were published in this country and in America as well as appearing in volume form. But without Mary to keep a housewifely eye on the family budget, Watson reverted to his old, more extravagant bachelor habits, playing billiards with Thurston and betting on horses, the latter pursuit costing, as he himself acknowledges, ‘half my wound pension’. At one point, the state of his friend’s finances caused Holmes so much concern that he was forced to keep Watson’s cheque book under lock and key in his desk.

  Quite apart from the decision to sell his practice and move back to Baker Street, Holmes was to influence another aspect of Watson’s life in his other professional role – that of author. Not to put too fine a point on it, Holmes positively forbade Watson to publish any more accounts, as Watson makes clear in ‘The Adventure of the Norwood Builder’, a case which occurred, as we have seen, in August 1894, not long after Holmes’ return and Watson’s move back to Baker Street. Holmes’ ‘cold and proud nature’, Watson explains, ‘was always averse’ to ‘anything in the shape of public applause’ and ‘he bound me in the most stringent terms to say no further word of himself, his methods, or his successes.’

  This sounds like a case of special pleading on Watson’s part. Holmes had not ‘always’, as he states, objected to publicity and, although he had admittedly criticised Watson’s early efforts as an author, he had never issued such a strict ultimatum before. Indeed, on occasions he had positively relished the admiration which his enhanced reputation had brought him. It would seem that Holmes’ attitude to publicity had changed during his three years spent travelling abroad incognito. He may also have been affected by the experience of coming so close to death at the Reichenbach Falls. Other people have undergone a similar change of outlook after a near-fatal event in which their whole philosophy of life is radically altered. In Holmes’ case, it would seem he no longer desired the outward trappings of worldly success, an attitude which is seen in other aspects of his private and professional life. The work itself was its own reward, as he states in the Norwood Builder case; and in the inquiry into the missing Bruce-Partington plans, he declined Mycroft’s offer of his name appearing in the honours list with the words ‘I play the game for the game’s own sake,’ although he accepted an emerald tie-pin from Queen Victoria in recognition of the part he had played in the recovery of the submarine plans. Later, in June 1902, he refused a knighthood for unspecified services which were probably performed on behalf of the government or the royal family. It also amused his ‘sombre and cynical spirit’ to allow the police to claim all the credit at the end of a successful inquiry, as ‘all public applause was abhorrent to him’.

  Although one can sympathise with Holmes’ attitude, there is nevertheless an element of selfishness about it. Watson had enjoyed enormous success as an author. What right had Holmes to deny Watson the opportunity to express this creative side to his nature or to deprive his many readers of the pleasure of seeing his accounts in print? There is, too, the suspicion that Watson was obliged to agree with the prohibition. Had he not done so, Holmes could have refused to allow him to accompany him on his investigations, thus depriving him of the very material on which his accounts were based. In short, there is the unpleasant whiff of coercion about the veto which might even amount to a subtle form of blackmail.

  To be fair to Holmes, the situation may not have been quite as bad as this. Watson may very well have agreed quite willingly with Holmes’ decision. He had, after all, spent every hour he could spare over the past three years writing and publishing the twenty-three accounts already referred to and he may indeed have welcomed a break from his literary labours. Nevertheless, the suspicion still remains that Holmes used his more masterful personality to exert psychological pressure on Watson, as he may also have done over the sale of the Kensington practice. Part of Holmes’ unwillingness to permit Watson to publish any more accounts stemmed from his dislike of Watson’s style and approach to his material, an attitude he had already shown over the first two narratives to appear in print, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, as well as those he had read in manuscript. On his return to London after the Great Hiatus, Holmes undoubtedly read the further twenty-three accounts, published during his absence, and saw nothing in them to make him change his mind. Quite apart from Watson’s habit of telling his stories ‘wrong end foremost’ and his tendency to put in too much ‘poetry’, by which Holmes meant descriptive passages, Holmes objected to Watson’s ‘fatal habit of looking at everything from the point of view of a story instead of as a scientific exercise’. It was a criticism Holmes had made before about Watson’s narrative style and one which Watson countered with the same hurt and angry retort. ‘Why do you not write them yourself?’ he asked, with ‘some bitterness’.

  But Holmes’ attitude was ambivalent. He evidently did not intend the prohibition to last indefinitely, for at the end of the Lady Frances Carfax inquiry, he comments that Watson might care to add the case to his annals, and he may have intended allowing Watson to write an account of his life after they both had retired from active practice, for on one occasion he refers to Watson as his ‘trusted biographer’. He certainly had no objection to Watson keeping notes on the cases, for there are several references during this period to the ‘extensive archives’ Watson was accumulating and which were filed either in a ‘long row of year books’, which filled a whole shelf, or in despatch cases, which probably included the ‘battered tin despatch box’ with Watson’s name and the words ‘Late Indian Army’ painted on its lid. This was crammed with papers, some of them relating to particularly sensitive inquiries, which Watson later deposited at his bank Cox and Co. at Charing Cross.

  Towards the latter end of this period, Holmes lifted his veto to the extent of allowing Watson to publish The Hound of the Baskervilles, which appeared in serial form in The Strand between August 1901 and April 1902, and was also published in volume form in 1902. This, however, is the only account to appear in print between 1894 and 1902, although Holmes was to allow Watson to publish other chronicles in the following year, as we shall see in the next chapter. Any regret Watson may have felt over Holmes’ prohibition against publication was no doubt mitigated by the number and importance of the cases in which he participated over the next eight years, some of which he was later to record. A suggested chronology of
these inquiries is set out below. Readers are again referred to Appendix One for those cases for which the date is in question and for an analysis of the crimes involved.

  Date Case First publication

  April 1894* Empty House October 1903

  April–August 1894* (Murillo Papers; Friesland case) (both unrecorded)

  August 1894* Norwood Builder November 1903

  November 1894* Golden Pince-Nez July 1904

  (Other unrecorded cases for 1894: the repulsive story of the red leech and the terrible death of Crosby, the banker; the Addleton tragedy and the singular contents of the ancient British barrow; the Smith-Mortimer succession case; the tracking and arrest of Huret, the Boulevard assassin.)

  March* 1895? Wisteria Lodge September–October 1908

  April 1895* (John Vincent Hardern) (unrecorded)

  April 1895* Solitary Cyclist January 1904

  June? 1895* Three Students June 1904

  July 1895* Black Peter March 1904

  November 1895* Bruce-Partington Plans December 1908

  (Other unrecorded cases for 1895: the sudden death of Cardinal Tosca; the arrest of Wilson, the notorious canary trainer.)

  January 1896? Second Stain December 1904?

  Early 1896* Veiled Lodger February 1927

  November* 1896? Sussex Vampire January 1924

  January? 1897* Abbey Grange September 1904

  March 1897? (Colonel Carruthers) (unrecorded)

  March 16th 1897* Devil’s Foot December 1910

  Winter* 1897? Red Circle March–April 1911

  December 1897? Missing Three-Quarter August 1904

  July 1898? Dancing Men December 1903

  August 1898? (Two Coptic Patriarchs) (unrecorded)