by June Thomson
August 1898? Retired Colourman January 1927
January 1899? Charles Augustus Milverton April 1904
Summer 1899? (Old Abrahams) (unrecorded)
Summer 1899? Lady Frances Carfax December 1911
May 1900? (Ferrers Documents; Abargavenny Murder Trial (both unrecorded)
May 1900? Priory School February 1904
May 1900? (Conk-Singleton Forgery) (unrecorded)
May* 1900? Six Napoleons May 1904
4th October* 1901? Thor Bridge February–March 1922
May* 1902? Shoscombe Old Place April 1927
June 1902* Three Garridebs January 1925
On reading through Watson’s accounts of these investigations in sequence, several interesting and important factors emerge, one of which is Holmes’ increasing involvement in cases concerning matters of state security which had European significance and which were to bring him into contact with international espionage, an experience which was to have important repercussions after his retirement. The inquiry into the missing Bruce-Partington plans was, as Mycroft pointed out, a ‘vital international problem’ in which Holmes had never had ‘so great a chance of serving his country’.* In carrying out the investigation, Holmes would have the ‘whole force of the State’ at his back, should he need it. Mycroft was in a position to make such assurances, as he himself had enormous political influence, a fact which Holmes confided in Watson for the first time, adding the remark already quoted in which he states that on occasions Mycroft was the British Government.
The Second Stain inquiry also involved an important document, in this case a letter from a foreign ruler criticising British colonial policy which, if it fell into the wrong hands, could cause a serious rift in Anglo-German relations, leading even to war between the two nations.* In fact, so serious was the situation that no less persons than Trelawney Hope, Secretary of State for European Affairs, and Lord Bellinger, Prime Minister, called on Holmes personally to ask him to take up the case (see p. 398). It is a mark of Holmes’ growing influence that he was prepared to buy the letter back at any cost, even if it meant another penny on income tax.
He also continued to enhance his international reputation in France in 1894 by bringing about the arrest of Huret, the Boulevard assassin, for which he received the Legion of Honour, the only award he agreed to accept, as well as an autographed letter of thanks from the French President. The following year, 1895, the Pope again called on his services to enquire into the sudden death of Cardinal Tosca, a case which almost certainly necessitated his presence once more in Rome. He was also able to assist another religious body, the Coptic church,* in an inquiry involving two of its patriarchs, although Holmes appears to have conducted the investigation from Baker Street, for he was engaged at the same time with the Retired Colourman case in Lewisham, south London. None of these foreign inquiries were recorded by Watson apart from references within the canon.
Despite his increasing fame, Holmes continued to charge his clients on a fixed scale, rarely claiming large fees and occasionally waiving payment altogether. However, although there are few references to his finances after 1894, he presumably earned enough to maintain his standard of living, although Watson reports that his tastes were ‘frugal’ and there are no references during this period to the epicurean little suppers and choice wines in which he had indulged himself and his guests in earlier years. But the remark he made to the Duke of Holdernesse – ‘I am a poor man’ – as he pocketed his Grace’s cheque for £6,000, a huge sum in those days, is meant ironically, so too is the affectionate pat he gave to his notebook in which the cheque was placed. Taking the Duke’s money was one way of making the man pay, quite literally, for his unjustifiable treatment of his young son, Lord Saltire.
There are subtle changes also in his attitude to Watson. Although Holmes refers to him as his ‘friend and partner’, he tends to treat him at times more as a secretary and even, on one occasion, almost as a bodyguard. In ‘The Adventure of the Norwood Builder’, Watson is requested to read a lengthy newspaper account out loud and is also expected to keep abreast of current affairs and inform Holmes of any interesting news items, as happens at the beginning of ‘The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans’, while in the Norwood Builder case, Holmes declines Watson’s help as there is unlikely to be any danger. Otherwise, he says, ‘I should not dream of stirring out without you.’
Watson also had his uses as a research assistant when Holmes himself was too busy with more important matters. Holmes calls on his services in three cases: the Retired Colourman, the Solitary Cyclist and the Carfax inquiries. In the latter investigation, Watson is sent off to France to trace the whereabouts of Lady Frances Carfax. Watson’s efforts were not always successful and he came in for criticism from Holmes over his methods, a response which not unnaturally angered Watson, who had done his best. But to be fair to Holmes, he gave praise where it was due and in the Retired Colourman case complimented Watson on noticing the smell of paint in Josiah Amberley’s house and remembering the number on the man’s theatre ticket.
More significant still is Holmes’ change of attitude towards such basic principles as law and justice, influenced no doubt by his increasing power and also by his near-fatal experience at the Reichenbach Falls which, as well as altering his opinion on publicity and public honours, brought about a fundamental shift in attitude towards certain moral issues. Holmes became more prepared to break the law when his own conscience told him justice was better served by contravening it. ‘Once or twice in my career,’ he declares to Watson in the Abbey Grange inquiry, ‘I feel I have done more real harm by my discovery of the criminal than he had ever done by his crime. I have learnt caution now, and I had rather play tricks with the law of England than with my own conscience.’
It was a tendency he had already shown earlier as, for example, in the Yellow Face inquiry when he suggested breaking into a cottage to discover the truth about its mysterious inhabitant, or in the Blue Carbuncle case when he allowed the thief, Ryder, to go free on the grounds that he will not steal again whereas, if he were sent to prison, he will become a ‘gaolbird for life’. After the Great Hiatus, he was prepared to act even more as a maverick. He actually breaks into Amberley’s house in the Retired Colourman case, an illegal action he repeats even more spectacularly in the Charles Augustus Milverton inquiry when, equipped with a first-class, up-to-date burgling kit, probably bought specially for the occasion, Holmes, accompanied by Watson, forces an entry to Milverton’s house in order to destroy the papers used by Milverton for purposes of blackmail. At first, Watson is horrified both by the illegality of the act and its consequences should Holmes be arrested. But once Holmes convinces him of the moral purpose behind the escapade, Watson, game as ever for a little excitement, eagerly joins in. He even makes the black silk masks which they wear during the burglary. ‘Far from feeling guilty,’ he remarks, ‘I rejoiced and exulted at our dangers.’
Later, Holmes allows Milverton’s murderer to escape justice even though he knows her identity, an act of leniency he also extends to Dr Sterndale for his murder of Mortimer Tregennis in the Devil’s Foot case, while in the Three Students inquiry, he holds a ‘private court martial’ at the end of which both Bannister and Gilchrist are freed of any consequences arising from their attempt to cheat over the Fortescue Scholarship examination.
Holmes goes even further in the Abbey Grange inquiry when, with himself acting as judge and Watson as jury, they acquit Captain Croker of the murder of Sir Eustace Brackenstall, a drunken and violent brute, whom Croker has killed in a fight after Brackenstall struck his wife, Lady Brackenstall, across the face with his stick. Holmes justifies his decision with the comment that, unlike the police, he has the right to private judgement and, provided no one else is arrested for Brackenstall’s death, Croker should go free.
Less justifiable, in my opinion, is Holmes’ attitude at the end of the Priory School inquiry* when he agrees to withhold essential evidence from the police
so that James Wilder, the Duke’s illegitimate son, will not be charged with conspiracy to abduct the young Lord Saltire, on the understanding Wilder will emigrate to Australia. Wilder’s crime has led to the murder of Herr Heidegger and the forcible imprisonment of a ten-year-old schoolboy under distressing conditions. Holmes’ attempt to give the Duke marital advice by suggesting a reconciliation with the Duchess from whom he is separated is also difficult to accept, for it shows a disturbing tendency on Holmes’ part to interfere in other people’s private lives, an inclination he has already shown in his behaviour towards Watson over the sale of the Kensington practice and his veto on publication.
The official police were, of course, ignorant of these occasions when Holmes withheld evidence or perverted the course of justice. Had they known, their attitude towards him might have been very different. As it was, there is a marked increase in respect and admiration, especially from Lestrade, who openly acknowledges the debt Scotland Yard owes to Holmes and his methods.
‘We’re not jealous of you at Scotland Yard,’ Lestrade assures him at the end of the Six Napoleons case. ‘No, sir, we are very proud of you, and if you came down tomorrow there’s not a man, from the oldest inspector to the youngest constable, who wouldn’t be glad to shake you by the hand.’
Holmes’ own attitude to the police also improved, especially towards the more intelligent members of the force, such as Inspector Baynes of the Surrey Constabulary and Stanley Hopkins, a young Scotland Yard inspector, although Hopkins comes in for some criticism during the Black Peter investigation. Sadly, for Holmes genuinely liked the big Scotsman, there is no reference to Inspector ‘Mac’ MacDonald during this period. Perhaps he had been promoted and transferred to another force. Athelney Jones, who may have retired, also disappears from Watson’s accounts.
But despite all these changes, much remained the same. Holmes still showed those manic-depressive tendencies which had been evident in his behaviour as a younger man, his ‘hilarious manner’ and ‘spasms of merriment’ which Watson observes during the Norwood Builder case alternating with more sombre moods when he was ‘taciturn’, not to say ‘morose’. Even in his more lighthearted moments there was a ‘sinister quality’ about his cheerfulness which Watson has never remarked on before. In fact, the references to Holmes laughing or even smiling are much less frequent. One feels he has lost some of his sparkle and youthful zest, although he still continued to be an active man who was physically very fit – more so than Watson who, in the Solitary Cyclist inquiry, had difficulty in keeping up with Holmes’ faster pace. Of the two men, it was Watson who was beginning to feel his age, complaining of feeling ‘rheumatic and old’, in consequence of which he treated himself to the comforts of a Turkish bath. But he was no longer troubled by the wound to his leg, which seems to have healed completely, and he was still agile enough to scale a six-foot-high wall at the end of the Milverton investigation.
There was no change either in Holmes’ coldness of temperament and his indifference, amounting at times almost to callousness, towards other people, which Watson still had reason to deplore. He was particularly concerned over Milverton’s housemaid, Agatha, to whom, under the assumed identity of Escott, a plumber, Holmes proposed marriage, solely for the purpose of gaining access to the house.
‘But the girl, Holmes?’ Watson cries on hearing of the engagement, to which protest Holmes responds by shrugging his shoulders. It is on this occasion that Holmes indulges in one of his rare fits of laughter, silent, inward merriment which does indeed have a sinister ring to it. Holmes’ manipulation of the young woman’s affections is hardly excused by the fact that she had another suitor vying for her hand. However, in the Veiled Lodger inquiry, Holmes does show compassion towards Eugenia Ronder, hideously disfigured by a circus lion.
And despite Watson’s efforts to dissuade him, Holmes was still occasionally using cocaine. Although Watson had over the years ‘gradually weaned him from the drug mania which had threatened once to check his remarkable career’, he had not been entirely successful as he himself suggests in ‘The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot’, in which he refers to those ‘occasional indiscretions’, which had helped to bring about Holmes’ breakdown in health. Boredom was largely responsible for his use of drugs.
Holmes was no better at dealing with tedium than he had been in the past. He himself refers to the ‘insufferable fatigues of idleness’ and compares his mind to ‘a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built.’
Nor had Holmes cured himself of another habit: that of overwork. He remained a workaholic, taking on too many cases and depriving himself of both food and sleep during some investigations. In the spring of 1897, the inevitable happened and he suffered another major breakdown in health, similar to the one he had already experienced in 1887. On the advice of his physician, Dr Moore Agar of Harley Street, who warned him that unless he rested he would never work again, Holmes, accompanied by Watson, travelled down to Cornwall where they rented a small cottage at Poldhu Bay. But even there, Holmes could not remain idle. Fascinated by the Cornish language, he had books on philology sent to him and, as happened during his earlier convalescence in Reigate, he became involved, despite Watson’s objections, in an investigation, the case of the Devil’s Foot, also known as ‘The Cornish Horror’, the outcome of which could have been fatal for them both had it not been for Watson’s quick thinking and presence of mind.
When Holmes was not occupied with his professional work, there were still his hobbies to keep him busy. He continued to play the violin and to conduct his chemical experiments, long established interests of his to which he added several more: the music of the Middle Ages, the philology of the Cornish language, already referred to, and early English charters, research for which took both him and Watson to one of the university towns, almost certainly Oxford, his old Alma Mater,* where he made use of the library, probably the Bodleian. It was during this period that he found time, in the middle of the inquiry into the missing Bruce-Partington plans, to write his monograph on the polyphonic motets of Lassus, already referred to in Chapter Two.
He also maintained his interest in nature which, as we have seen, marked a change of attitude in the late 1880s when he was investigating Moriarty’s criminal career. During the Black Peter case, he invites Watson to join him on a walk through the woods where they will ‘give a few hours to the birds and the flowers’. As we have also seen, this interest in the countryside and the beauty of nature was linked to a longing for a quiet, private life and this was still very much in Holmes’ thoughts. He was already making specific plans for his retirement, for he speaks of a ‘little farm of my dreams’ and of devoting his ‘declining years’ to writing a textbook on the art of detection. Unfortunately, for it would have been of great general interest as well as of immense value to Sherlockian students, he apparently never found the time to complete this project.
But there were breaks in this punishing schedule of work. Holmes and Watson went on walks together round London, visited Covent Garden to hear a Wagner opera and also the Albert Hall for a concert given by Carina, dined out at an Italian restaurant, Goldini’s, and even went trout-fishing in Berkshire as part of their cover during the Shoscombe Old Place inquiry, the only instance of either of them showing any interest in this particular country sport. In 1895, at the end of the Black Peter inquiry, they both went to Norway for a holiday, a trip no doubt prompted by the Norwegian connections of the case, although, with the investigation over, their visit was purely for pleasure.
Watson must have benefited from these social outings as much as Holmes, for it cannot have been easy for him to share lodgings with someone of such exasperating habits and so volatile a temperament, especially as he had known the pleasures of owning his own home and following his own daily routine, however humdrum it may have seemed at times. Generally speaking, Watson tolerated it all with remarkable stoicism, although there were occasions when even his p
atience was sorely tried and he expressed a not unnatural exasperation. These instances, however, are less frequent than they were in the earlier period (1881–9) when they shared lodgings.
On the whole Watson expresses far more admiration than criticism of Holmes, that ‘extraordinary man’, as he once refers to him. It was an admiration amounting at times to reverence. One of the reasons Watson agrees not to publish any accounts during this period is his fear that he might, by overburdening his readers, damage Holmes’ reputation, ‘a man whom above all others I revere’. Watson had always had a tendency towards hero-worship, seen in his admiration of General Gordon and Henry Ward Beecher and, as Holmes’ reputation increased internationally, so Watson’s regard for him grew proportionately. After the death of his wife, Watson also relied more and more on Holmes for that companionship for which he naturally craved. It was an attitude which left him vulnerable to criticism. However, although Holmes was still capable of hurting Watson’s feelings, as for example during the case of the Three Students when he remarks that, as the inquiry is more mental than physical, it is unlikely to interest him, Watson was more than compensated by those other occasions when Holmes allowed his defences to drop and openly expressed his real feelings. This happened at the end of the Three Garridebs case when, thinking Watson was seriously injured when Killer Evans fires at him, Holmes shows a genuine concern. ‘It was worth a wound – it was worth many wounds – to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask,’ Watson remarks, adding that it was the first time he caught a glimpse of ‘a great heart as well as a great brain’. Holmes shows a similar concern at the end of the Devil’s Foot inquiry when his experiment with the West African poisonous root almost had fatal consequences, a response which prompted Watson’s reply, quoted in the heading to this chapter.
This friendship and companionship, together with the opportunities for adventure and excitement which his association with Holmes afforded him, helped Watson to recover gradually from his wife’s death. He had always been susceptible to female charm, and women in turn found him attractive. As we have seen, Holmes teased him sometimes on this subject, referring to the ‘fair sex’ as being his ‘department’. But although Watson continued to feel concern for Holmes’ female clients, going to the trouble, for example, of reporting that, after the conclusion of the Solitary Cyclist case, Miss Violet Smith inherited a large fortune and married Cyril Morton, her faithful suitor, it was not until the Abbey Grange inquiry in 1897 that Watson felt any real plucking at his heartstrings at the sight of a beautiful woman. She was Lady Brackenstall, blonde, golden-haired, blue-eyed; very similar in colouring, in fact, to his late wife Mary, who was also fair-haired.