Holmes and Watson

by June Thomson

  But when, towards the end of this period, Watson finally lost his heart and fell in love for the second time, it was with a young woman of an entirely different complexion. It was also an affaire de coeur which very nearly brought about an end to his friendship with Sherlock Holmes.

  * See Appendix One under the notes for Wisteria Lodge.

  * Although the concepts of monomania (paranoia) and the idée fixe had been known since the beginning of the nineteenth century, the first serious research into abnormal psychology was carried out by J. M. Charcot at Salpêtrière, the hospital for nervous diseases outside Paris, where he studied patients suffering from hysteria. Sigmund Freud was one of Charcot’s students in 1885.

  * After William II dismissed his chancellor, Bismarck, in 1890, he began enlarging the German navy. The theft of the Bruce-Partington submarine plans was almost certainly connected with the young Kaiser’s naval ambitions, which so alarmed France and Russia that in 1894 they signed the Dual Alliance.

  * See Appendix One.

  * Members of the Coptic Church, which is based in Egypt, practise their own form of Christianity. The church is governed by bishops known as patriarchs.

  * In ‘The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier’, Holmes refers to ‘the case which my friend Watson has described as that of the Abbey School, in which the Duke of Greyminster was so deeply involved.’ This is clearly a mistaken reference to the Priory School inquiry, which involved the Duke of Holdernesse. I suggest this confusion arose over Watson’s choice of pseudonyms for both the school and the Duke, designed to conceal their real identities. Watson may have originally, with Holmes’ agreement, decided on the names of the Abbey School and Greyminster, but changed them, perhaps on the advice of his publishers, in order to avoid confusion with the Abbey Grange inquiry and the actual Duke of Westminster. Holmes must have been referring to his notes in which the original pseudonyms were indexed and had forgotten they had been changed.

  * See the entry for Chapter Two in Appendix One for the identification of the university that Holmes attended.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  MARRIAGE AND PARTING

  June 1902–October 1903

  ‘I was nearer to him than anyone else, and yet I was always conscious of a gap between.’

  Watson on Holmes: ‘The Adventure of the Illustrious Client’

  The identity of the woman with whom Watson fell in love and whom he later married is not recorded. Watson himself makes no reference to her at all and our knowledge of the existence of the second Mrs Watson depends entirely on one single, brief statement made by Holmes in ‘The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier’ in which he reports: ‘The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action which I can recall in our association.’ To drive home the point, he adds, with a touch of self-dramatisation, ‘I was alone.’ He quite clearly feels hard done by and sorry for himself.

  Because of Watson’s total silence about his second marriage, some commentators have doubted if it ever took place. Instead, they suggest that Watson’s ‘sad bereavement’ during the Great Hiatus of 1891–4 refers either to the death of a child or to a serious breakdown in Mrs Watson’s health, and they ascribe her disappearance from Watson’s accounts after 1894 and his return to Baker Street to her long-term illness. She was, they argue, in a sanatorium where Watson visited her regularly. On her recovery, Watson went back to live with her: hence Holmes’ reference to ‘a wife’.

  Quite apart from the lack of evidence to support these theories and their failure to explain satisfactorily Watson’s silence over the matter, both Watson’s and Holmes’ choice of words alone would tend to refute them. If Mary Watson had been seriously ill, Watson would hardly have described this as a ‘sad bereavement’. Nor would Holmes have referred to her as ‘a wife’. If Watson had left him to return to Mary, whom Holmes knew quite well, it would be more natural to use the term ‘his wife’. Other evidence within the canon also points to the existence of a second Mrs Watson. But who was she? Where and when did Watson meet her? When were they married? And why was Watson so careful never to refer to her in his accounts?

  One theory suggesting she was Watson’s housekeeper after he moved out of the Baker Street lodgings whom he married merely for practical reasons and was too ashamed to mention is not, in my opinion, tenable. Watson was a romantic man who was much more likely to marry for love than for such mundane considerations. And why should he go to the trouble of marrying her? Or, come to that, why should he even move out of Baker Street, where his material needs were well looked after by Mrs Hudson?

  However, before any attempt is made to name the second Mrs Watson, it is important to try to establish the date of the marriage, if only approximately, for her identification depends largely on this factor.

  It is clear that at the time of the Three Garridebs inquiry, a case which Watson positively assigns to June 1902, he was still unmarried and living in Baker Street. But by 3rd September 1902, the date of the Illustrious Client inquiry, Watson had already moved out of the Baker Street lodgings and was not only living in his own rooms in Queen Anne Street but was again practising as a doctor, facts which most commentators agree are connected with his second marriage. It is therefore often assumed that the wedding must have taken place between June and September 1902. However, as we shall see later in the chapter, Watson’s marriage plans were probably more complex than this.

  One fact at least emerges from the information set out above: Watson must have met the woman he was later to marry at some date before September 1902. This immediately rules out one candidate whom some commentators have put forward as the second Mrs Watson: Violet de Merville, who features in the Illustrious Client case. Watson had already moved into Queen Anne Street and resumed his medical career before this investigation took place.

  Other factors also mitigate against her. Violet de Merville was not the type of woman whom Watson would have found attractive. Young, rich and beautiful, she had fallen obsessively in love with Baron Gruner, a charming but highly undesirable suitor with a criminal past, whom Holmes suspected of murder and from whom her family was trying to separate her with Holmes’ assistance. She was also self-willed, spoilt and, despite her passion for the Baron, a hard-hearted woman whom Holmes himself accused of ‘supreme self-complaisance’. Watson preferred women of a softer and more agreeable nature. Neither would she, with her longings for a romantic lover like Baron Gruner, a wealthy man with an aristocratic and fascinatingly mysterious background, have been attracted to Watson, a middle-aged widower and a relatively dull and humble GP. The social conventions of the time would not have encouraged such a match either. Violet de Merville was the daughter of General de Merville, who had friends in high places, including Sir James Damery, who asks Holmes to take up the case and who was, as Holmes himself says, ‘a household name in society’. Sir James was acting on behalf of an even more illustrious client who, Watson hints, had ducal if not royal connections. It has even been suggested that he was none other than Edward VII. In short, Watson was not sufficiently wealthy nor of a high enough social rank to make such a marriage likely. There is no evidence either that Watson ever met her. When Holmes goes to her house to interview her, he is accompanied only by Kitty Winter, the Baron’s former mistress. Watson is not present. Lastly, and I believe conclusively, Watson had, as stated earlier, already met the young woman whom he was later to marry. By the time of the Illustrious Client case, he had certainly moved out of Baker Street and was again in practice as a GP, two factors which, as we have seen, are generally accepted as related to his second marriage.

  However, there is one young woman whom Watson had already met by June 1902 and who possessed many of the qualities he would have looked for in a prospective wife. Moreover, she was, like Mary Morstan, his first wife, a governess and therefore came from Watson’s own middle-class background. There are also other similarities between the two women and Watson’s feelings towards them which are too striking to be coincidenta
l. This theory concerning her identity would also explain Watson’s unprecedented silence about her, a reticence which he had not shown over his first wife, about whom he has given his readers a great deal of information in The Sign of Four, including an account of her background as well as details of his courtship of her and their subsequent married life together. The young woman in question is Grace Dunbar.

  Watson first met her during the Thor Bridge investigation into the death of Mrs Gibson, the wife of Neil Gibson, the American gold millionaire. At the time Holmes took up the case, Grace Dunbar, governess to the Gibson children, had been arrested for the murder of Mrs Gibson, found shot dead on a bridge in the grounds of Thor Place, the Gibson family home, and was in Winchester prison awaiting trial. In fact, Watson was introduced to her in her cell. In a lengthy passage, as detailed as his account of his initial meeting with Mary Morstan thirteen years earlier, Watson describes her appearance and his reactions on seeing her for the first time. ‘I had expected from all we had heard to see a beautiful woman,’ he writes in ‘The Problem of Thor Bridge’, ‘but I can never forget the effect which Miss Dunbar produced upon me.’

  It was not only her beauty which captivated him. As with Mary Morstan, he was impressed by the sensitivity of her features which expressed ‘a nobility of character’ and was touched, too, by ‘the appealing, helpless expression’ in her dark eyes.

  Although physically the two women were very different, Grace Dunbar being a tall brunette with a commanding presence, whereas Mary Morstan had been a small, dainty blonde, there are many similarities in the two descriptions. As well as Watson’s immediate attraction towards them both, he also felt an urge to protect them combined with an admiration of their courage in facing life alone. Mary Morstan was an orphan who worked to support herself; Grace Dunbar had dependants who relied on her financially. In fact, Watson was so taken by Grace Dunbar that the short journey from Winchester to Thor Place seemed intolerably long to him in his impatience for Holmes to begin work on the case and prove her innocence, which Holmes eventually succeeds in doing.

  At the end of the Thor Bridge inquiry, Holmes comments that, now Grace Dunbar has been cleared of the murder charge, it seems ‘not unlikely’ that she and Neil Gibson will marry. It is a curiously negative statement as if Holmes himself was not convinced of its likelihood. If he were aware, as seems highly likely, of Watson’s feelings towards the young woman, the comment could be wishful thinking on Holmes’ part for, if she married Gibson, it would place her beyond Watson’s reach.

  But a marriage between Gibson and Grace Dunbar is, I believe, out of the question. Gibson is a violent and cunning man, hated by his servants, one of whom, his estate manager, comes specially to Baker Street to warn Holmes about him. Gibson, the manager declares, is a brute and ‘an infernal villain’. On Gibson’s own admission, it is because of his ill-treatment of her that his wife, a passionate and neurotic Brazilian, was driven to commit suicide in such a way as to throw suspicion of murder on Grace Dunbar, to whom Gibson had transferred his attentions. Far from welcoming his advances, Grace Dunbar had threatened to leave Thor Place and was only persuaded to remain by Gibson’s assurances that he would stop pestering her. In addition, she had, as we have seen, dependants and, according to Gibson, she was convinced that, if she remained in her post as governess, she could influence him for the better.

  None of this carries any weight in the argument that she later married him. At the time this happened, Mrs Gibson was still alive and any question of marriage between Grace Dunbar and the Gold King would not have arisen. It seems highly unlikely that, after Mrs Gibson’s death and her own release from prison, Grace Dunbar, a woman of great strength and nobility of character, would have married a man whose brutal conduct had not only driven his first wife to commit suicide but had put her own life in jeopardy.

  The date of the Thor Bridge inquiry is not known. Watson specifies the month only, which was October, but not the year. However, as the internal evidence makes it quite clear that Watson was still living in Baker Street, it must have occurred before September 1902 and Watson’s move to Queen Anne Street. D. Martin Dakin and Dr Zeisler, among others, suggest October 1901, a date with which I concur.

  Although the rest of the theory is merely speculative, I also suggest that, after her release from prison, Grace Dunbar left Gibson’s household. As she would then have been out of work, nothing would have been more natural for her than to come to London in order to visit one of the employment agencies which specialised in finding posts for governesses. Violet Hunter had made use of such an agency, Westaways, at the beginning of the Copper Beeches inquiry. And while she was in London, it would also have been quite natural for Grace Dunbar to pay a call on Holmes in Baker Street to thank him personally for his help in saving her from the gallows, an opportunity she had not had during the final stages of the Thor Bridge case. It was during this interview, I suggest, that Watson renewed his acquaintance with her, an occasion which led to further meetings and to their subsequent marriage.

  This theory would also explain Watson’s secrecy about the identity and even the very existence of his second wife. He would not want the general public, and in particular his patients and his readers, to know he had married a woman who had been in prison on a murder charge. Social conventions of the time would have inhibited him from publishing these facts. But there was an even more pressing reason for his silence. Gibson was a violent and revengeful man who even went as far as to threaten Holmes when he was at first reluctant to take up the case. In Watson’s presence, he told Holmes, ‘You’ve done yourself no good this morning, Mr Holmes, for I have broken stronger men than you. No man ever crossed me and was the better for it.’ Had he known that Watson had married Grace Dunbar, the young woman whom he himself had hoped to marry, his desire for revenge would have been even stronger. He might have set about ruining Watson’s career or even have threatened his life. Under such circumstances, it is hardly surprising that Watson omitted any reference to his second wife in the canon.

  According to the evidence, Watson apparently failed to be totally frank with Holmes as well, although for entirely different motives. Knowing his old friend’s strong aversion to marriage, Watson must have anticipated Holmes’ reaction to the announcement that he intended marrying again. As it was, Holmes took the news badly, regarding it as a ‘selfish action’ on Watson’s part, an attitude which reveals once more his strong urge to control other people’s lives, Watson’s in particular.

  And from Holmes’ point of view, Watson’s decision to marry again was indeed selfish. At one stroke, Holmes was deprived of a friend, companion, assistant, amanuensis and all the other roles which Watson had filled over the years. It was no wonder he felt deserted and alone. Out of sheer necessity, he was forced to employ a man named Mercer, ‘my general utility man who looks up routine business’, as Holmes rather disparagingly refers to him in ‘The Adventure of the Creeping Man’. Mercer quite clearly carried out some of the duties Watson had once undertaken.* Nor is it surprising that Holmes failed to consider Watson’s happiness or to appreciate that side of Watson which longed for domesticity and the love of a good woman. Watson was uxorious by nature; Holmes decidedly was not. Despite his own feelings for Irene Adler, Holmes had always scorned love as one of the softer emotions and, as he grew older, became, as many of us tend to do, less tolerant. In describing Watson’s action as selfish, he was quite unaware that he himself was displaying a strong selfish disregard for Watson’s needs.

  Watson’s second marriage was to have far-reaching repercussions. It led to a rift in his relationship with Holmes which lasted for about six months and which, even after their reconciliation, gave rise to a coolness between the two men for an even longer period. And it was to hasten Holmes’ decision to retire from his professional career as a private consulting detective.

  The means by which Watson set about the difficult task of informing Holmes of his intention to marry again were much more devious tha
n is at first apparent. Although he had moved out of Baker Street by 3rd September 1902, he evidently did not inform Holmes of his second marriage until several months later, after the Illustrious Client case had taken place, by which time, as we have seen, Watson was already installed in Queen Anne Street and was practising again as a GP. As the relationship between the two men was perfectly amicable during the Illustrious Client case, for they met at the Turkish baths in Northumberland Street at the beginning of the inquiry and dined twice together at Simpson’s in the Strand during its investigation, one can only assume that at that time Holmes knew nothing about Grace Dunbar or Watson’s feelings for her. We can, I believe, extend this theory and further assume that the marriage had not yet taken place.

  It was not until five months later, in January 1903, that Holmes made his comment about Watson deserting him for a wife. The bitterness behind the remark suggests that Holmes had only recently discovered the existence of the second Mrs Watson. Moreover, Watson played no part in the Blanched Soldier inquiry which Holmes investigated on his own in January 1903 and an account of which he wrote and later published himself, an indication of a break in his relationship with Watson. In fact, it was not until June 1903 that Watson was to become involved in an investigation with Holmes, an account of which is told, curiously enough, in the third person under the title of ‘The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone’, the first instance within the whole of the published canon of the use of this narrative form. Indeed, its very unusualness has caused D. Martin Dakin among others to doubt if Watson wrote it, and its authorship has been variously ascribed to Watson’s literary agent, to Dr Verner, who bought Watson’s Kensington practice, and even to the second Mrs Watson. However, I believe that Watson was in fact the author and that he deliberately chose this narrative form in order to indicate a distancing in his relationship with Holmes. Although the breach was to some extent healed, a certain coolness remained between the two men, a state of affairs in which the use of the more impersonal third person seemed more appropriate.