Holmesian Derivations

Watson escorts Mary Morstan home, and places her on a pedastel in his mind, in a way which just right out puzzles me:

After the angelic fashion of women, she had borne trouble with a calm face as long as there was someone weaker than herself to support, and I had found her bright and placid by the side of the frightened housekeeper.

That doesn’t sound like a purely womanly characteristic, or even mostly womanly. Both men and women do this—being supportive of someone in need, in spite of one’s own fears and trauma, really comes quite naturally and may not necessarily be purely Samaratin in nature. Confusing at best, sexist at worst, but I suppose some like the romantic element.

Truly, I feel for Watson when he compares himself as a half-pay surgeon to Morstan’s possible level-up to Ultimate Heiress. He holds back because he doesn’t want to take advantage of her emotional state—which is a far nobler tact than most people would have were they in his place. Definitely no creepy stalking Edward Cullen antics here, and let’s hope it stays that way.

And as for Mrs. Cecil Forrester… well, it’s quite a warm scene when Morstan returns home:

She opened the door herself, a middle-aged, graceful woman, and it gave me joy to see how tenderly her arm stole round the other’s waist and how motherly was the voice in which she greeted her. She was clearly no mere paid dependant but an honoured friend.

Awww. The world surely needs Morstan and Forrester stories.

Now we get to the obtaining of Toby, the mongrel bloodhound, from Pinchin Lane. Mr. Sherman’s house is lovely beyond belief, and reminds me again of a Terry Pratchett character (Red Crescent, I think, from Feet of Clay, though Crescent speaks rather differently than Sherman):

“Step in, sir. Keep clear of the badger, for he bites. Ah, naughty, naughty; would you take a nip at the gentlemen?” This to a stoat which thrust its wicked head and red eyes between the bars of its cage. “Don’t mind that, sir; it’s only a slowworm. It hain’t got no fangs, so I gives it the run o’ the room, for it keeps the beetles down.”

I am amused and in love with the previous chapter and this one.

Meanwhile, Sergeant Colon has arrested everybody save for Holmes.

I’m not sure what the card hanging from Holmes’ neck is for, but watching him spryly climb up and around the roof is real entertainment, especially when he comes to a rather high point where the murdererous assistant leapt down, wonders if he’ll make it, and then goes down the rainpipe anyways.

Doyle doesn’t completely ignore Watson’s game leg or pretend it doesn’t exist, I notice. This is good and relatively realistic: the pain when the weather’s bad. This is weird: a six-mile trudge presents no problems, although it’s implied that it merely presents no problems at that time and he still limps. At another time, Watson might well have been incapacitated. But Watson wants adventure, is my impression, so he’ll ignore and not write about any pain.

Toby follows the scent of the creosote one of the murderous team accidentally stepped in, Holmes gives an accounting of what must have happened with Jonathan Small, Arthur Morstan, Sholto Sr. There must have been someone else too, else why “the sign of the four”?

And then Toby leads them to a barrel of creosote, instead of continuing down the scent of the murderers, and Holmes and Watson have a good laugh.

This and the previous chapter are quintessential Holmes fiction. Lovely when it works. Let’s hope this keeps up, and I suspect it will, though there’s probably some misrepresentation trouble at the end, given how the titles of the chapters are laid out (“The Death of the Islander” is the one I’m eyeing).

The highlight of this chapter is most definitely Inspector Athelney Jones, but more on that later.

The other interesting aspect of this chapter is how much of the formula for almost all later stories is set down here, unlike in A Study in Scarlet:

• Holmes’ intense method of investigation, often compared to the actions of a bloodhound hot on the scent: “so swift, silent, and furtive were his movements, like those of a trained bloodhound picking out a scent…”

• Medical conclusions drawn by Watson (who, unlike Holmes, is not skilled with any other kind of deduction; not a bad character trait or a dumb one, just that compared to Holmes, Watson looks duller in comparison except where medicine is concerned). ((I believe these show up less often as the canon wears on, contributing to an impression of, years later, loss of interest on Watson’s part.))

• Hilarious and/or frustrating interruption by the local bumbling police force, depending on how Doyle wants to play it. ((Jones falls firmly into the “and” category.))

• The immortal line, “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”

• Watson’s assurance that he wants to embark on adventure, no matter how much it touches his nerves: “I give you my word that this succession of strange surprises to-night has shaken my nerve completely. I should like, however, to see the matter through with you, now that I have got so far.” ((This is definitely mentioned less and less in later canon stories.))

• Holmes’ assurance that he would love Watson’s assistance: “Your presence will be of great service to me.” ((Later on, when Holmes is in Jerk Mode, sometimes meant sarcastically.))

It’s by no means boring, but will become a comforting pattern when mysteries start to slide into the weird—somehow that makes me think of a more genteel Doctor Who. Sonic screwdrivers and patter, or investigating like a bloodhound and logical deduction; they’re grounding principles when the fictional world tilts. In this respect, it’s perhaps why the best stories in the Holmes canon often cover the weirdest spectacles, the difference between “Adventure of the Speckled Band” and “The Stock-broker’s Clerk”, if you will.

Now, getting back to Athelney Jones. Man, is he EVER so much worse than Lestrade or Gregson. He brings to mind Sergeant Colon from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books more than anything else, and his demeanor and actions are just… wow.

“Oh, come, now, come! Never be ashamed to own up. But what is all this? Bad business! Bad business! ((The repeat is verbatim from the canon. Jones really is that… something.)) Stern facts here—no room for theories. How lucky that I happened to be out at Norwood over another case! I was at the station when the message arrived. What d’you think the man died of?”

Damn, man, do your own work, especially if you’re going to spend the rest of your presence in this chapter putting down Holmes’ methods.

My favorite Sergeant Colon Inspector Athelney Jones quotes:

• “Ha! I have a theory. These flashes come upon me at times.”

• “His appearance is—well, not attractive.”

• “You see that I am weaving my web round Thaddeus.”

• “The card is some hocus-pocus—a blind, as like as not.”

• “Don’t promise too much, Mr. Theorist, don’t promise too much!”

At least Sergeant Colon didn’t sneer. Though apparently Jones does indeed have flashes of intelligence for reals, rarely, though I think perhaps Holmes gives him too much credit. Holmes says of him, “Il n’y a pas des sots si incommodes que ceux qui ont de l’esprit!“, or, “There are no fools so troublesome as those with some wit!” ((From Michael Shapiro’s Language Lore article, Discontinuous Lexica, which quotes from this particular chapter for examples.))

Oh, right, the plot. Getting to that. Holmes needs a dog and Morstan needs to go home since it’s been a long night, and so Watson is going to run both errands while Holmes interviews the servants and deals with Jones’… zeal. I’m pretty sure Holmes got the short end of that stick.

We now launch into the case quite a bit earlier than in A Study in Scarlet, which is quite welcome. We still combine this all with a little bit of characterization side-by-side, of a sort, namely Watson’s “experience of women which extends over many nations and three separate continents”, which is a little hmmmm. You just know that, whatever else, Holmes is going to tease the hell out of Watson when he reads The Sign of Four post-publication. In any case, Watson does have an eye for the ladies with his particularly detailed observations that would usually be employed with a crime scene, but never mind that for now.

Random note: Holmes has “clear-cut, hawk-like features.” I’ll leave the audience to figure out for themselves which actor fulfills this role the best. ((I vote for Brett, but that’s just me.))

The delivery of the case is matter-of-fact and yet intriguing, mostly due to the strangeness of the circumstances involved: Morstan’s father’s disappearance years ago, the strange gift of a large, high-quality pearl every year, the mysterious letter telling her to meet… someone… at a special time and place for justice of wrongs done to her. Whatever those are. Holmes pays particular attention to the paper, detail-orientated to an extreme extent as always, and amusingly reinterprets the letter’s advisement to “bring two friends” as meaning “two friends of each other, not necessarily friends of Miss Morstan.” He identifies Watson as friend explicitly here, which is again warming for someone so distanced from the rest of humanity.

I’ll note that Morstan has every indication of initiative and agency here, which is a relief from other works in this time period and even some in the present (Hollywood, I’m looking at you); still, we’ll see if this holds up later in the story.

After she leaves, here comes even more foreshadowing of romantic interest from Watson’s direction:

“What a very attractive woman!” I exclaimed, turning to my companion.

He had lit his pipe again and was leaning back with drooping eyelids. “Is she?” he said languidly; “I did not observe.”

“You really are an automaton–a calculating machine,” I cried. “There is something positively inhuman in you at times.”

He smiled gently.

“It is of the first importance,” he cried, “not to allow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities. A client is to me a mere unit, a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor.”

I just have this feeling that Holmes is pulling Watson’s leg here, especially since he is indeed sensitive to the “winning” qualities of a woman, if criminally depraved. Incidentally, you could take Holmes’ disinterest in his client in a number of ways, including: staying with professional behavior (because, you know, his detecting is quite a serious business to him), asexuality or homosexuality, or pulling Watson’s leg. Take your pick; the gods know the fandom can quibble over this sort of detail more than enough.

Holmes does employ graphology, the study of handwriting, here; sadly, since then it’s been very much disproven in ways that Holmes would undoubtedly admire.

The chapter ends with… well… really quite heavy-handed foreshadowing of romantic interest, going on for paragraphs, ending with a reflection of his poor fortunes keeping him from seriously going after her, even though he’s likely experiencing infatuation right now. This is going to result in SO MUCH Holmes snark, you just know it, off-screen. (Or maybe even on-screen later on, I don’t remember exactly.) And in the interest of covering all sides of a debate, as well as amusement in talking about shipping wars in so old and outwardly staid a fandom as Sherlock Holmes, you could interpret all this as protesting too much, or an indication of skirt-chasing that will lead to future infidelity (perhaps one of his vices when he’s well, as briefly mentioned in Study), etc. etc. etc.

For my part, these days I wonder if Watson’s actually bisexual, with a lust for women and a more romantic love for men. It’s an interesting dynamic that would fall in line with his description of women versus men, and after all, sexuality is not so binary as all that. Or you could take it as him wisely refraining from indicating what was considered at the time an abnormal sexual preference.

I know some people don’t like the idea of discussing sexuality in the canon, even if it’s simply straight, but you gotta admit that Watson is not exactly helping that case here.

We open on a much more dynamic note than in A Study in Scarlet: on an actual scene, rather than a flashback. ((I’ll note that the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Study made the wise choice of also opening on a scene, transformed from Watson’s flashback of the battlefield.)) What makes for a scene, a storytelling mechanism tied to “showing” as opposed to merely “telling”? That there are characters, a defined place, and it’s happening in the “present” of the story (not necessarily the same as present-tense). Often some form of action is ideal, rather than just dialogue, but even peppery dialogue can act as the “action” in a scene.

Here, the action is subtle, but nonetheless a compelling showing of someone injecting themselves with cocaine, laced with anticipation:

Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long,white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle and rolled back his left shirtcuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist, all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally, he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-lined armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction.

Note that Watson’s eye for detail is very much present and adds a realness to the scene, painting a picture in our minds with words. Doyle definitely is quite a good writer, though his storytelling is sometimes a bit heavy-handed.

Getting on with the scene, we instantly have conflict, with Watson’s desire to get Holmes unhooked from the drug. Having hesitated for, as we learned, months now (in fact, many, implying double digits), he finally unleashes a speech about “a pathological and morbid process which involves increased tissue-change and may at last leave a permanent weakness.” As it turns out, he’s in fact right about this part. Holmes, with surprising short-sightedness, only worries about the “secondary action”, i.e. the acute deal, but Watson is more far-sighted. ((We’ll learn that this is usually the case with Holmes and Watson.)) Watson even talks about the crashing after the high, and as morbid as this may be, Holmes is almost certainly addicted—a psychological addiction, to be sure, but one that will nevertheless take up brain space. Sort of the point to Holmes, in fact. ((If you ever read some of the criticism that Nicholas Meyer’s pastiche, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, has received, there’s the idea that psychological addiction could not possibly produce as severe effects as observed in the book. This is as myopic (and inaccurate) an idea as any that Holmes has about medical matters as applied to himself.))

And why does Holmes engage in this self-destructive act? For a similar reason that Watson found himself attracted to a most unusual roommate: to solve the problem of being bored, bored, bored. Holmes even launches into a rehash of his status as, at the time, the only consulting detective. Then, amusingly, he shifts the topic to A Study in Scarlet, which also exists verbatim in-universe. ((Which is one of the reasons it’s so tempting to play “The Game”, where events are viewed purely in-world and Doyle’s position is replaced entirely by Watson, for reals.)) And he doesn’t like the story, particularly the romance—i.e., five chapters spent in Utah. And Doyle (as Watson), responds indignantly to this criticism, which surely must have occurred in real life at the time as well: “I confess, too, that I was irritated by the egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should be devoted to his own special doings.” LOL.

It’s worth noting, particularly how this story ends, that Holmes is doing quite well for himself now, even earning accolades from France—his name truly is now, in some measure, famous. And yet, this is not enough to satisfy him; “I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for?”

We get an interesting demonstration of his deductive powers, akin to what his real-life counterpart, Dr. Joseph Bell, also showed. This part isn’t boring either, although in the hands of a lesser writer it could have been. There is an interesting back-and-forth between Holmes and Watson, even including conflict when Watson believes, briefly, that Holmes has been spying on his familial affairs.

And then the lady of the story shows up, Mary Morstan, and Holmes wants Watson to stay. This is heart-warming coming from him when he’s in his more calculating moods.