Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume II (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (134 page)

These were the whole of the facts as communicated to me by his relatives in the country. Endeavouring to see the matter through the eyes of Mr. Holmes, I answered by return of post that he was evidently either in Glasgow or in Edinburgh. I proved later that he had as a fact gone to Edinburgh, though in the week that had passed he had moved to another part of Scotland.

There I should leave the matter, for, as Dr. Watson has often shown, a solution explained is a mystery spoiled. However, at this stage the reader can lay down the magazine and show how simple it all is by working out the problem for himself. He has all the data which were ever given to me. For the sake of those, however, who have no turn for such conundrums I will try to indicate the links which make the chain. The one advantage which I possessed was that I was familiar with the routine of London hotels—though, I fancy, it differs little from that of hotels elsewhere.

The first thing was to look at the facts and separate what was certain from what was conjecture. It was
all
certain except the statement of the person who heard the missing man in the night. How could he tell such a sound from any other sound in a large hotel? That point could be disregarded if it traversed
^gi
the general conclusions. The first clear deduction was that the man had meant to disappear. Why else should he draw all his money? He had got out of the hotel during the night. But there is a night-porter in all hotels, and it is impossible to get out without his knowledge when the door is once shut. The door is shut after the theatre-goers return—say at twelve o‘clock. Therefore the man left the hotel before twelve o’clock. He had come from the music-hall at ten, had changed his clothes, and had departed with his bag. No one had seen him do so. The inference is that he had done it at the moment when the hall was full of the returning guests, which is from eleven to eleven-thirty. After that hour, even if the door were still open, there are few people coming and going; so that he with his bag would certainly have been seen.

Having got so far upon firm ground we now ask ourselves why a man who desires to hide himself should go out at such an hour. If he intended to conceal himself in London he need never have gone to the hotel at all. Clearly, then, he was going to catch a train which would carry him away. But a man who is deposited by a train in any provincial station during the night is likely to be noticed, and he might be sure that when the alarm was raised and his description given some guard or porter would remember him. Therefore his destination would be some large town, which he would reach in daylight hours, as a terminus, where all his fellow-passengers would disembark and where he would lose himself in the crowd. When one turns up the time-table and sees that the great Scotch expresses bound for Edinburgh and Glasgow start about midnight, the goal is reached. As for his dress-suit, the fact that he abandoned it proved that he intended to adopt a line of life where there were no social amenities. This deduction also proved to be correct.

I quote such a case in order to show that the general lines of reasoning advocated by Holmes have a real practical application to life. In another case where a girl had become engaged to a young foreigner who suddenly disappeared I was able by a similar process of deduction to show her very clearly both whither he had gone and how unworthy he was of her affections. On the other hand, these semi-scientific methods are occasionally laboured and slow as compared with the results of the rough-and-ready practical man. Lest I should seem to have been throwing bouquets either to myself or to Mr. Holmes, let me state that on the occasion of a burglary of the village inn, within a stone-throw of my house, the village constable, with no theories at all, had seized the culprit, while I had got no farther than that he was a left-handed man with nails in his boots.

The unusual or dramatic effects which lead to the invocation of Mr. Holmes in fiction are, of course, great aids to him in reaching a conclusion. It is the case where there is nothing to get hold of which is the deadly one. I heard of such a one in America which would certainly have presented a formidable problem. A gentleman of blameless life, starting off for a Sunday evening walk with his family, suddenly observed that he had forgotten his stick. He went back into the house, the door of which was still open, and he left his people waiting for him outside. He never reappeared, and from that day to this there has been no clue as to what befell him. This was certainly one of the strangest cases of which I have ever heard in real life.

Another very singular case came within my own observation. It was sent to me by an eminent London publisher. This gentleman had in his employment a head of department whose name we shall take as Musgrave. He was a hard-working person with no special feature in his character. Mr. Musgrave died, and several years after his death a letter was received addressed to him, care of his employers. It bore the postmark of a tourist resort in the West of Canada, and had the note “Conf films” upon the outside of the envelope, with the words “Report Sy” in one corner. The publishers naturally opened the envelope, as they had no note of the dead man’s relatives. Inside were two blank sheets of paper. The letter, I may add, was registered. The publisher, being unable to make anything of this, sent it on to me, and I submitted the blank sheets to every possible chemical and heat test, with no result whatever. Beyond the fact that the writing appeared to be that of a woman, there is nothing to add to this account. The matter was, and remains, an insoluble mystery. How the correspondent could have something so secret to say to Mr. Musgrave and yet not be aware that this person had been dead for several years is very hard to understand—or why blank sheets should be so carefully registered through the post. I may add that I did not trust the sheets to my own chemical tests, but had the best expert advice, without getting any result. Considered as a case it was a failure—and a very tantalizing one.

Mr. Sherlock Holmes has always been a fair mark for practical jokers, and I have had numerous bogus cases of various degrees of ingenuity, marked cards, mysterious warnings, cipher messages, and other curious communications. Upon one occasion, as I was entering the hall to take part in an amateur billiard competition, I was handed a small packet which had been left for me. Upon opening it I found a piece of ordinary green chalk such as it used in billiards. I was amused by the incident, and I put the chalk into my waistcoat pocket and used it during the game. Afterwards I continued to use it until one day, some months later, as I rubbed the tip of my cue, the face of the chalk crumpled in, and I found it was hollow. From the recess thus exposed I drew out a small slip of paper with the words, “From Arsène Lupin
^gj
to Sherlock Holmes.” Imagine the state of mind of the joker who took such trouble to accomplish such a result!

One of the mysteries submitted to Mr. Holmes was rather upon the psychic plane, and therefore beyond his powers. The facts as alleged are most remarkable, though I have no proof of their truth save that the lady wrote earnestly and gave both her name and address. The person, whom we will call Mrs. Seagrave, had been given a curious secondhand ring, snake-shaped, and of dull gold. This she took from her finger at night. One night she slept in it, and had a fearsome dream in which she seemed to be pushing off some furious creature which fastened its teeth into her arm. On awakening the pain in the arm continued, and next day the imprint of a double set of teeth appeared upon the arm, with one tooth of the lower jaw missing. The marks were in the shape of blue-black bruises which had not broken the skin. “I do not know,” says my correspondent, “what made me think the ring had anything to do with the matter, but I took a dislike to the thing and did not wear it for some months, when, being on a visit, I took to wearing it again.” To make a long story short, the same thing happened, and the lady settled the matter for ever by dropping her ring into the hottest corner of the kitchen-range. This curious story, which I believe to be genuine, may not be as supernatural as it seems. It is well known that in some subjects a strong mental impression does produce a physical effect. Thus a very vivid nightmare-dream with the impression of a bite might conceivably produce the mark of a bite. Such cases are well attested in medical annals. The second incident would, of course, arise by unconscious suggestion from the first. None the less, it is a very interesting little problem, whether psychic or material.

Buried treasures are naturally among the problems which have come to Mr Holmes. One genuine case was accompanied by the diagram here reproduced. It refers to an Indiaman who was wrecked upon the South African coast in the year 1782. If I were a younger man I should be seriously inclined to go personally and look into that matter. The ship contained a remarkable treasure, including, I believe, the gold crown regalia of Delhi. It is surmised that they buried these near the coast and that this chart is a note of the spot. Each Indiaman in those days had its own semaphore code, and it is conjectured that the three marks upon the left are signals from a three-armed semaphore. Some record of their meaning might perhaps even now be found in the old papers of the India Office. The circle upon the right gives the compass bearings. The larger semicircle may be the curved edge of a reef or of a rock. The figures above are the indications how to reach the X which marks the treasure. Possibly they may give the bearings as 186 feet from the 4 upon the semicircle. The scene of the wreck is a lonely part of the country, but I shall be surprised if sooner or later someone does not seriously set to work to solve the mystery.

One last word before I close these jottings about my imaginary character. It is not given to every man to see the child of his brain endowed with life through the genius of a great sympathetic artist, but that was my good fortune when Mr. Gillette
^gk
turned his mind and his great talents to putting Holmes upon the stage. I cannot end my remarks more fittingly than by my thanks to the man who changed a creature of thin air into an absolutely convincing human being.

1
(p. 201)
Waterloo ... Marengo:
Holmes uses battles from the career of Napoleon Bonaparte as metaphors suggesting his progress on the case. The Battle of Waterloo in 1815 marked the end of Napoleon. In the Battle of Marengo, fought in 1800, the French forces were first beaten, then rallied and eventually won.

2
(p. 233)
Porlock’s:
One cannot help but think of the visitor from Porlock whose knock at the door awoke Samuel Taylor Coleridge during his intense opium dream about Kubla Khan.

3
(p. 234)
apocrypha
of the
agony column:
“Agony columns” were personal advertisements in the newspapers. Amid these anguished outpourings one could occasionally find coded messages. Holmes uses this ploy himself on several occasions.

4
(p. 236)
Machiavellian:
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) wrote The Prince (1513) to advise rulers of Italian city-states how to hold power. The first exponent of realpolitik, he was considered immoral if not wicked by the English. As no one is less like Machiavelli than Watson, Holmes comment is ironic, of course, as was his earlier referral to Watson’s “innate cunning.”

5
(p. 237)
He had spoken in jesting vein:
Holmes is indeed jesting because in the previous line he had irreverently quoted the Bible,
Isaiah
6:5: “Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone,” and John 19:30: “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head and gave up the ghost” (King James Version).

6
(p. 246)
the time of the first crusade ... Red King:
The First Crusade lasted from 1095 to 1099. The identity of Hugo de Capus is not known. A fortalice is a small fort. The Red King refers to William Rufus, or William II (c.1056-1100), son of William the Conqueror.

7
(p. 272)
“Shocking, Watson, shocking!”:
Holmes’s clearly ironic retort reminds one of Claude Rains in
Casablanca,
who is “shocked, shocked” to find gambling going on in the gin joint where he seconds later receives his nightly take. It may even have been the inspiration for that scene.

8
(p. 280)
the concealment
of
Charles ...
a
visit there by the second George:
During the English Civil War (1642-1651) between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists, King Charles I went into hiding in a futile attempt to escape being beheaded, which finally happened in 1649. The second George was King George II, who ruled from 1727 to 1760. Birlstone Manor has had a rich and eventful history.

9
(p. 333)
the repulsion and fear which the huge Danton may have felt for the puny but dangerous Robespierre:
Georges-Jacques Danton (1759-1794) was a leading voice in the French Revolution. His personal magnetism, a combination of his imposing physical presence and his grandiloquence as an orator, helped him become president of the Committee of Public Safety and the effective head of government in 1793, but his opposition to the Reign of Terror, largely run by Max imilien François Robespierre (1758-1794), cost him his head in 1794. Robespierre—slight of build and frail in health, but possessed of a steel will—lost his own head a few months after Danton.