The Adventure Of The Six Napoleons--The South Shall Rise Again?!?

I've gone off on some odd tangents in some of my essays on various stories in the Canon.

But this may be the oddest, having relatively little to do with the story itself (which is quite a nice tale, by the way). But whenever I read The Adventure of The Six Napoleons, I always find myself fixating on one question:

Why are there so many statues and busts of Napoleon in Victorian (or Edwardian) England?

Let me begin by saying that I'm not looking for a debate on the historical record of Napoleon. He has as many defenders as detractors, as many admirers as harsh critics. Suffice it to say, his legacy is still to this day a fairly controversial one. As Max Hastings wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal, there is still great argument over whether Bonaparte was "an enlightened despot who laid the foundations of modern Europe or, instead, a megalomaniac who wrought greater misery than any man before the coming of Hitler." There's no way I grok enough history to make any intelligent commentary on either side of the issue.

But to England? Napoleon was a hated, mortal enemy. They fought in several wars; Britain still treats anniversaries of major military victories over Napoleon as major national celebrations; Napoleon actually planned to invade England at one point!!

You would think, therefore, that a nation as quick and proud to celebrate their superiority as Great Britain wouldn't have a lot of truck with statues and busts of a hated, vanquished enemy. Yet, Sherlock Holmes opines while pondering the case, "Considering how many hundreds of statues of the great Emperor must exist in London..." The manager of Gelder & Co. confirms this, saying that from his company alone "hundreds of casts had been taken from a marble copy of Devine's head of Napoleon."

Assuming that this isn't just something that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has pulled out of thin air as the basis for the story, why were there (at least) hundreds of statues and busts of England's hated rival about the country? Who was so interested in celebrating a conquered enemy?

Surely, some museums would want some, and perhaps schools? The story establishes that Dr. Barnicot, who had purchased two of the busts, was "an enthusiastic admirer of Napoleon, and his house is full of books, pictures, and relics of the French Emperor." (The 1965 BBC adaptation has Holmes and company go and interview Barnicot, and makes clear that he is a bit of an obsessive nutter)

Journalist Horace Harker just purchased one for his room, without any explanation of why he chose Napoleon. And no reason is given for why Josiah Brown of Chiswick or Mr. Sandeford of Reading made their choices in decorating their abodes. (Again interestingly, the BBC 1965 version had it that Mrs. Brown had purchased the bust, not knowing that it was Napoleon---she just thought it resembled her husband, so she bought it as a present for him!)

These can't be atypical cases, if Gelder & Co thought it worthwhile to churn out hundreds of these things. And if they did, no doubt other companies followed suit. Was there really that large a market for busts and statues of defeated enemies of the realm?

Maybe it's because it's now the 21st century, or because I'm a dopey American, but that just seems odd to me. Not to go all Godwin's Law here, but you wouldn't expect to see, say, hundreds of busts of Hitler adorning homes and offices throughout London, would you (or, to be less provocative, Mussolini?)? And if so, people possessing them would not be well thought of by most, right?

Of course, plenty of places in, say, the U.S. southern areas have art celebrating various heroes of their side in the Civil War. But then again, that's why it's not analogous--Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis were defeated, but they were on the South's side. You're not going to see a lot of those busts in the northern states.

So is this just some English habit of celebrating the underdog? Did the intervening 80 or 90 years since the wars making it safe to admire Napoleon and his legacy again? Perhaps--just maybe--there was a certain longing amongst the English population for a radical, revolutionary reformer to upturn the applecart and restructure society--the admiration for a defeated foe actually being a (perhaps subconscious) critique of current leadership?

Again, I'm ill-qualified to render any serious verdict here. But every time I read this story, that's the first thought that pops into my head--"Why the hell are there so many busts of Napoleon floating around England?"

OTHER TRIFLES AND OBSERVATIONS:

**My trivial obsessions aside, Six Napoleons is still a corking good story. A good gimmick, lots of interesting characters, Sherlock Holmes at his sharpest, a touching payoff between Holmes and Lestrade...good stuff.

**Between this story and the Blue Carbuncle, I'm forced to ask--just how many famous stolen jewels were there stashed in emergency hiding places in London? Is, say, the Hope Diamond stashed inside a potted plant? Are the Graff Diamonds cooked inside a very special doughnut waiting to be claimed?

**Speaking of the Blue Carbuncle, Six Napoleons is often compared to that story. And it's a fair cop, as far as the "famous stolen jewel stuffed in unlikely hiding spot" gimmick is used in both.

But it's not really the same story. In Blue Carbuncle, Holmes was working backwards--he found the jewel, and then he traced it back to the thief. In Six Napoleons, it was the opposite--he started by trying to track the party responsible for odd crimes, and ended up finding the pearl at the end.

And of course, whereas in Carbuncle Holmes displayed some holiday mercy and allowed the thief to flee, this case involved a murder--and Sherlock was not about to allow Beppo to go free.

**This story tests how you may feel about play fair mysteries.

The revelation at the end--"let me introduce you to the famous black pearl of the Borgias!" comes completely out of nowhere. There's not a clue or a hint that anything like that is in the offing, and the reader is completely in the dark. The murder victim had the same last name as the maid at a famous robbery? Well, that would have been nice to know before the big reveal. Instead, the reader doesn't even know that there was a robbery, let alone that a maid may have been involved.

Now, I don't think this hurts the story--it's still a smashing success, not a bust. But since in modern mysteries, where the reader has become accustomed to having the author/lead detective share clues with us so we can at least pretend to have a chance to solve the mystery, I can see where this out of left field resolution could be a bit unsatisfying to some.

We should contrast this, however, with the BBC 1965 version, which begins with Holmes returning a check to the Prince of Colonna, as he was unable to find the pearl after it was stolen. Well, this does introduce the MacGuffin ahead of time, so the ending is no longer a complete surprise.

However, it also sets off the "too big a coincidence" alarms: right after announcing a failure in a case, Lestrade brings to Holmes' attention a complete independent case--which magically provides the resolution to the first case!! So perhaps that version is more nearly play fair--although no clue is given that the two cases are related until near the end--but also more clunky and coincidental and unconvincing.

I'm fine with the prose version--every mystery doesn't have to be "play fair." Sometimes, the journey to the solution is as (or more) important than the solution.

**Doyle adopts a new technique of presenting long interviews here--Watson merely summarizes these conversations, seemingly only presenting the interviewees answers. But look more closely--the ways Watson writes it up, we can tell what the questions are, and the interviewees' personalities come through quite clearly.

It's really quite a clever conceit, and manages to condense what would be a multi-page interrogation to a (longish) single paragraph without our losing any information. Here, for example, is the conversation with the first shop owner, Morse Hudson:

"Yes, sir. On my very counter, sir," said he. "What we pay rates and taxes for I don't know, when any ruffian can come in and break one's goods. Yes, sir, it was I who sold Dr. Barnicot his two statues. Disgraceful, sir! A Nihilist plot--that's what I make it. No one but an anarchist would go about breaking statues. Red republicans--that's what I call 'em. Who did I get the statues from? I don't see what that has to do with it. Well, if you really want to know, I got them from Gelder & Co., in Church Street, Stepney. They are a well-known house in the trade, and have been this twenty years. How many had I? Three--two and one are three--two of Dr. Barnicot's, and one smashed in broad daylight on my own counter. Do I know that photograph? No, I don't. Yes, I do, though. Why, it's Beppo. He was a kind of Italian piece-work man, who made himself useful in the shop. He could carve a bit, and gild and frame, and do odd jobs. The fellow left me last week, and I've heard nothing of him since. No, I don't know where he came from nor where he went to. I had nothing against him while he was here. He was gone two days before the bust was smashed."

 A Nihilist plot! Red republicans!! What we pay taxes for? Wonderful stuff--Doyle manages to convey lots of information in a more compact way without sacrificing character moments.

Doyle uses this technique three times in the story, and really, it works very well. You wouldn't want to use it every time--especially when you want to see Holmes using some of his cleverness to wheedle information form people--but here it works quite well.

**Some commentators have opined that Morse Hudson must actually be the Hudson from The Gloria Scott, AND the (ex?)husband of Mrs. Hudson, as well.

C'mon, guys, this is reasoning unworthy of the Great Detective. Seriously, are we to believe that everyone with the common surname of Hudson is actually the same person,or related to the same person?!?

**There are lots of great character moments here, but my favorite is probably Harker, the journalist, who is far more worried about getting shut out on a big story than he is about a dead body on his doorstep: "If I had come in here as a journalist, I should have interviewed myself and had two columns in every evening paper. As it is, I am giving away valuable copy by telling my story over and over to a string of different people, and I can make no use of it myself."

Fun stuff, and not the only jibes Doyle takes at journalists in this story...

**As mentioned above, whereas Doyle doesn't do too much with Dr. Barnicot, BBC 1965 has us meet him, and plays him up as a full-on obsessive eccentric. He has some remarkably obscure Napoleonia in his collection, and is quite certain the the bust smashing is a plot by those who wish to hurt the emperor's reputation. Funny stuff.

**So wait--this story has both Kennington and Kensington as locations?? Please, Sir Arthur, are you trying to confuse your dim American readers?

**This might be a dumb question--why didn't Beppo just buy the last of Hudson's busts (or have one of his friends do it for him)? It only cost a few shillings. By buying it, and breaking it home, he would avoided the risks of smashing there in shop: being recognized, and perhaps being caught. He might have also avoided the case becoming interesting enough to interest Scotland Yard (and Sherlock Holmes).

**Doyle's use of language is wonderful throughout this story. When Sherlock describes our mysterious bust-smasher as a "promiscuous iconoclast," well, that may be the best thing ever written in the English language.

(Not really, but it is a wonderful turn of phrase)

**I believe this story brigs us the first real discussion of psychology in the Canon. Usually Holmes and Watson will go on about corrupt bloodlines and inherited tendencies for evil and atavism and the like. But here Watson refers to "modern French psychologists" and the "idee fixe."

Holmes seems to be dismissive, but please note that it's only for this particular case--even if deranged, the mystery villain had access to a lot of information, and on closer examination seemed to be a canny planner (not that that would necessarily rule out mental disease). But Holmes doesn't challenge the work of psychologists in general...

**More untold tales. Holmes himself alerts us how "the dreadful business of the Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day," one of the more famous apocryphal references in the Canon. And later he has Watson fetch the materials on the "Conk-Singleton forgery case."

**More canny social commentary from Doyle, as Holmes notes the crowds surrounding Harker's home: "It's attempted murder at the least. Nothing less will hold the London message-boy. There's a deed of violence indicated in that fellow's round shoulders and outstretched neck."

**Harker, upon discovering a corpse on his stoop: "I had just time to blow on my police-whistle, and then I must have fainted."

See, Victorian men fainted, too. Watson's spell in The Empty House had far greater provocation, as well...

**More great language: "this presentment of the great emperor, which seemed to raise such frantic and destructive hatred in the mind of the unknown."

**Holmes using the press to mislead a suspect:

Tell him for me that I have quite made up my mind, and that it is certain that a dangerous homicidal lunatic, with Napoleonic delusions, was in his house last night. It will be useful for his article."

Lestrade stared.

"You don't seriously believe that?"

Holmes smiled. "Don't I? Well, perhaps I don't. But I am sure that it will interest Mr. Horace Harker and the subscribers of the Central Press Syndicate..

And of course, Sherlock later tells his partner, "The Press, Watson, is a most valuable institution, if you only know how to use it."

Someone once wrote that they thought this was the first literary example of a hero planting false information in the media to entrap a suspect (sorry, I simply can't remember where I read that? Any clues, peeps?) Certainly, Sherlock had place false classified advertisements before, but getting a newspaper to run a false story is quite another matter entirely, one that has almost become a cliche in crime fiction. To think that it, like so much else, started with Holmes over a century ago!

**Both the BBC 1965 and the Granada adaptations eliminated the Harding Brothers shop from the story--all six bust were purchased and resold by Morse Hudson in their versions. A sensible move for economy in storytelling.

**On the drive to Stepney: "In rapid succession we passed through the fringe of fashionable London, hotel London, theatrical London, literary London, commercial London, and, finally, maritime London, till we came to a riverside city of a hundred thousand souls, where the tenement houses swelter and reek with the outcasts of Europe."

Some have objected that seeing all of these areas on this journey was impossible, while others have explanations and workarounds to make it work.

Pish posh, people--you're missing the forest for the trees!! Just sit back and enjoy the prose!

**The mafia "red herring" may not have been entirely incorrect. It is certainly possible that the theft of the black pearl was a job done by or for for the mafia, after all. We'll see more of these criminals later...

**Holmes: "...well, it all depends upon a factor which is completely outside our control. But I have great hopes--in fact, the betting is exactly two to one--that if you will come with us to-night I shall be able to help you to lay him by the heels."

Sherlock Holmes admitting that something is beyond his control!!

**More grist for those who, like me, insist that Watson is not a dunderhead:

 ...and, though I could not yet perceive the goal which we would reach, I understood clearly that Holmes expected this grotesque criminal to make an attempt upon the two remaining busts, one of which, I remembered, was at Chiswick. No doubt the object of our journey was to catch him in the very act, and I could not but admire the cunning with which my friend had inserted a wrong clue in the evening paper, so as to give the fellow the idea that he could continue his scheme with impunity.

Watson was certainly able to follow Holmes' reasoning and methods more closely than Lestrade, even if the ultimate answer remained beyond him (mainly because Sherlock was keeping all of the good information to himself).

**The story works only if the pearl happens to not be in the first 4 busts Beppo smashes. Otherwise, he gets away with the pearl and the murder.

That is akin to playing Russian Roulette and having the first four chambers come up empty. Dramatically satisfying, perhaps. But the odds are against it happening that way, and thinking about it too closely leads you to realize that even though Sherlock comes up with all the right answers, he catches his man by sheer luck.

**Mr. Sandeford of Reading:"Well, I am an honest man, though not a very rich one. I only gave fifteen shillings for the bust, and I think you ought to know that before I take ten pounds from you."

That does do his scruples credit.

Still, the fact the Holmes was willing to pay such an outrageous amount, and that he required Sandeford to sign away any rights he might have had, should have set off alarm bells, right? Sandeford should have realized that something was up. His greed for the £10 blinded him to the possibility of a larger payday (in the form of a reward from the prince, of course).

**A wonderful glimpse into Sherlock's psyche, via Watson:

It was at such moments that for an instant he ceased to be a reasoning machine, and betrayed his human love for admiration and applause. The same singularly proud and reserved nature which turned away with disdain from popular notoriety was capable of being moved to its depths by spontaneous wonder and praise from a friend.

**We shouldn't be too hard on Lestrade in this case. After all, he identified the body quickly; and he found a mafia connection, which might actually have been part of the case (pending Beppo's gallows confession). It's not unlikely that, with the information he had and the photograph, Lestrade might actually have caught Beppo before he went out to Reading the next day in search of the sixth Napoleon, even without Holmes help!

He may not have had the ultimate motive, but again, that's because Sherlock was withholding information about the black pearl. And they might very well have convicted Beppo without motive, if they found the murder weapon on him.

**Something a good many adaptations with Lestrade would do well to reread before they present him in an adversarial relation with Holmes:

"Well," said Lestrade, "I've seen you handle a good many cases, Mr. Holmes, but I don't know that I ever knew a more workmanlike one than that. We're not jealous of you at Scotland Yard. No, sir, we are very proud of you, and if you come down to-morrow, there's not a man, from the oldest inspector to the youngest constable, who wouldn't be glad to shake you by the hand." "Thank you!" said Holmes. "Thank you!" and as he turned away, it seemed to me that he was more nearly moved by the softer human emotions than I had ever seen him.

I'm just sayin.'

SHERLOCK HOLMES WILL RETURN IN--THE ADVENTURE OF THE THREE STUDENTS!

The Adventure Of Snell Being Really, Really Late!

OK, epic fail time again.

I'm farther behind than a thought. So The Adventure Of The Six Napoleons will have to wait yntil next week.

But the good news is, after that most of my obligations will have cleared up, and I'll be back to a (mostly) weekly schedule.

Probably.

Sigh...go enjoy the weather.

The Adventure Of Charles Augustus Milverton--The Boba Fett Of The Canon!!

Amongst some Star Wars fans, there are those who seem to hold the bounty hunter Boba Fett to a level of esteem unjustified by any of his accomplishments (in the movies, at least).

Sure, Fett looks cool, and his ship, while resembling nothing more than a flying iron, is kind of badass.

But he doesn't really do much of anything, really. Sure, he manages to follow a crippled Millennium Falcon. But he doesn't capture the rebels--he calls the Empire to come and do all the actual heavy lifting. And the only time he actually fights in the movies, he is accidentally beaten by a guy who can't see what he's doing, and dies in a particularly inglorious fashion.

Still, despite that paucity of accomplishments, there are those who elevate the bounty hunter as the paragon of a dangerous guy, someone whose badassedness is so cool it becomes legendary.

Which brings us to Charles Augustus Milverton.

In some respects, it seems as if Milverton, like Boba Fett, has achieved a status in the Canon incommensurate with his actual mence.

When it came time for Granada to adapt the story, they made it into a "feature-length special," double the usual length, renaming it The Master Blackmailer. The third series of BBC's modernization, Sherlock, roughly adapted the story for its season finale, making "Charles Augustus Magnussen" the big bad.

That seems like a lot of attention for what is, honestly, not too great a Sherlock Holmes story.

Oh, it's a fine enough story, but once again Sherlock is the Dunsel Detective--if Holmes never became involved in events, everything would have turned out exactly the same. The unnamed noblewoman would have turned up at exactly the same time, and would have killed Milverton in exactly the same way. (It is unclear what would have happened to all of the blackmail material had Holmes not been there to burgle the safe and burn the letters. Would the police have taken them as evidence? Did Milverton have an heir or lawyer set up to continue his schemes after death, or send everything on immediately as a "poison pill"?)

And, it must be said, Holmes himself does not come off to well in this story. He makes no feats of deduction, and does little detecting--his great plans to defeat Milverton are to mug him and burgle him, rather than outwit him. Seriously, Holmes thought Milverton would have the letters on his person? Sherlock comes off as rather a cad for the callous manner of his wooing and dumping of the maid Agatha. And the reader is given pause by the fluid ethics on display by detective, where Sherlock finds ways to justify all manners of felony, and even condones premeditated murder as "justified private revenge." So not really Holmes' finest hour on display here.

So it must be the villain that causes this story to receive the expand-to-full-movie-and-season-ending-blockbuster status. And, in that case, well...Boba Fett.

Charles Augustus Milverton is referred to once or twice as "one of the most dangerous men in London"--if true, that's quite a come down from Moriarty and Moran. He is venal and vile, to be sure, a despicable ruiner of lives. But for all that, he's not a particularly clever villain. He doesn't outwit Holmes (mainly because Holmes doesn't show much wit in this tale), so much as behave exactly as any other blackmailer should. Except that he shows a stunning lack of home security--Holmes' plan would have worked, had he not been interrupted (unless Milverton had a back-up stash of copies elsewhere?), and the "master blackmailer" allowed an unknown person to walk into his back door, which results in his death. Sure, it's a nice irony that his greed results in his own murder. But there's no reason that this hadn't happened earlier, if this is indicative of the carelessness with which he sets up secret rendezvous. So he is hardly a master villain, and hardly worthy of his reputation as the most dangerous man in London.

So what is the allure? Part of it is surely that Milverton is clearly based on a real person: Charles Augustus Howell. Howell was an art dealer who had a reputation--which was never proven--as a blackmailer of the rich and famous. He also died a lurid death--he was found dead outside a pub, his throat cut and a sovereign coin shoved in his mouth! Amazingly enough, his death was ruled natural causes--tuberculosis--with the throat cutting allegedly coming after death. So, conveniently for many in authority, there was never an inquest, or a serious investigation! Some of the intrigue of Howell's life and demise clearly carried over to the thinly veiled surrogate Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used as the villain in his story.

There is also the (slightly guilty pleasure) element of seeing someone stick it to the upper classes. Blackmail is not a victimless crime, of course. But let's be honest, the poor are usually not the victims of extortion. It is the Victorian wealthy class and the nobility, who put so much emphasis on discretion and honor yet are caught in what would be perceived as indiscreet and dishonorable acts, who Milverton goes after. Admit it, audiences love to see the upper crust caught in hypocrisy and brought low, and have a sneaking admiration for the gentleman who can pull it off. It also helps that we never actually meet any of Milverton's victims until the very end--Doyle makes it all tell, no show, and that makes it difficult to empathize with the victims whose lives are shattered by the blackmailer.

Holmes' continual flogging of Milverton as some master craftsman of crime obviously played a role, as well. If our hero is continually thwarted and stymied by this guy, and is as vile as Holmes tells us, well, then he's got to be a badass, right?

Again, total Boba Fett. Nothing Milverton does is really any more or any less than any other blackmailer would do. It's just that, as victims are obviously reluctant to come forward and testify, blackmail is a difficult crime to catch and prosecute. Even for the world's greatest detective. Doyle does a good job of laying out the difficulties.

But the reason Milverton is hard to stop is inherent in the crime itself, not the perpetrator. He is no Moriarty-level intellect. He keeps his blackmail ammunition in a visible safe, in  his estate without much security, in a room that he invites perfect strangers into. He's smart enough not to carry incriminating letters with him when he goes to negotiate, and he's wise enough to actually follow through with some of his threats, rather than merely go for the quick buck. But he's not some kind of genius.

And when he dies? Milverton doesn't look like the most dangerous man in London when an angry widow just walks into his home (by his invitation!) and empties her gun into him. It's hard to conceive of that happening to Moriarty.

So Charles Augustus Milverton. An average villain in a sub-par Holmes story, whose reputation has been somehow inflated to far above his actual accomplishments. Boba Fett, man...Boba Fett.

OTHER TRIFLES AND OBSERVATIONS:

**Despite my feeling that this is not a great Sherlock Holmes story, it is a good story, very well-written. Doyle's prose is particularly free and fanciful, full of clever turns and insightful metaphors. And the story, while not much of a mystery, does a wonderful job of examining the society and power relationships of Victorian England.

**In the story, all of Milverton's victims seem to be women. Perhaps this is because ladies were perceived as far more likely to hold on to "imprudent" correspondences. More likely, it is a sign of Victorian gender hypocrisy: a man's peccadilloes are just "boys being boys," forgivable if tawdry. But a lady having dalliances before marriage? For shame, there can be no greater dishonor!!

The Granada adaptation ameliorates this a bit, by showing us the case of the disrupted marriage of the Honourable Miss Miles and Colonel Dorking, only mentioned passingly in Doyle's story. Milverton is blackmailing the colonel for homosexual affairs, and Dorking kills himself after his fiancee learns the truth.

**The story also touches upon some "class warfare" issues. Holmes says that Milverton receives the bulk of his blackmail material from "treacherous valets and maids." We see Milverton negotiating with (whom he thinks is) one of these: "If the Countess is a hard mistress, you have your chance to get level with her now."

The Granada adaptation really plays up this aspect, with down-trodden and poorly-treated servants taking the opportunity (and the cash) to stick it to their wealthy, oblivious masters.

Of course, emphasizing this also has the effect of making most of Milverton's targets look deserving of his treatment--they're being punished for their sins against the serving class!

**Watson announces at the beginning of the tale the great lengths he's going to to protect the identities of everyone involved. He will "conceal the date or any other fact by which he might trace the actual occurrence."

Yet people still try to place the story chronologically, by Watson's description of the "frosty winter" and other weather.

John Watson is no fool. If he's hiding the date, changing names, and "concealing any other fact," isn't it just possible that he is dissembling about the season and weather, as well, to throw people off the track, and to protect identities?

**The story can now be told, says Watson, because the "principal person concerned is beyond the reach of human law." Most people take it to mean that the unidentified Noble Lady has passed on, and therefore can no longer be punished for murdering Milverton.

Others have tried to argue that it refers to King Edward VII, who had taken the throne a few years before the story was published, and as monarch of the Empire was now "beyond the law's reach."

Certainly, Edward's reputation as a bit of a playboy, carouser and adulterer meant that he was possibly vulnerable to blackmail. It is hard, though, to see where he would fit as any of the characters that we know Milverton was squeezing. Was Watson being hyper-discreet, leaving Edward's tale out all together?

**This story, of course, is the main source for Holmes' legendary contempt for blackmailers. He argues that they are worse than murderers:

[H]ow could one compare the ruffian, who in hot blood bludgeons his mate, with this man, who methodically and at his leisure tortures the soul and wrings the nerves in order to add to his already swollen money-bags?

Well, Milverton was a deliberate ruiner of lives, and caused the Noble Lady's husband to die of "a broken heart" (and in the Granada adaptation, his extortions caused strokes and suicides). So, if you want to argue that he is worse than someone who kills once in the heat of passion, you might have a case.

Then again, in the Canon we have seen a man try to murder his step-daughters (and succeed with one of them) for their inheritance; a criminal group terrorize and murder several innocent people just to obtain some papers; a thief murder a bank guard and stuff his body in a safe; a man send his romantic rival to die a horrifying death (or at least, so he hoped); a vicious sailor murdering a rescued castaway for his stock certificates; two cads torture a man for weeks so that he'll sign over his sister's wealth (no doubt so they can marry and kill her); a man train a vicious beast to attack people on the moor for simple greed; and so on and so on.

So is Milverton a snake? Is he a right bastard who deserves his fate? Sure. But I'm not ready to say that he's worse or more dangerous than any of those blackguards

**Not to belabor the often odd-seeming standards of Victorian morality, but were the ladies of the day expected to be virgins emotionally as well as physically? Holmes insists that Lady Eva's letters were "imprudent, nothing worse," and insists that there no possible harm in them. Milverton counters that the letters were "sprightly--very sprightly"--whatever the hell that means--and that the Earl would immediately call off the marriage one he saw them.

"Sprightly"?!?! Was this some Victorian form of sexting via the mail?!? Seriously, was it really a scandal that a woman had been in love at a prior time in her life? Of course, it's possible that Lady Eva was not entirely honest with Sherlock about the content of those letters when she hired him, perhaps out of embarrassment. Still, grow up, Earl Of Dovercourt and all you other males calling off weddings and the such!

The 1965 BBC adaptation does try to make Lady Eva's situation a little more relatable to modern standards. They had it that Lady Eva was having her correspondence with the "impecunious young squire" take place after she had already met the Earl. Also, it turns out that she was a bit of a self-plagiarizer, using much the same language and phrases in both her letter to the squire and her letters to her fiancee. So, yeah, the Earl might have been OK to be upset in that case.

**Watson picked up a chair to attack Milverton with, after he revealed that he was armed!! Good show, John!!

**It is very hard to be comfortable with Holmes' treatment of Agatha the maid, especially as the information she provided turned out to be wrong--or at least inapplicable on the night they chose to burgle Milverton. "It was a most necessary step" my butt! And Holmes' justification boils down to, "Oh, well, she'll get over it." Callous and cruel.

**I love the language Doyle uses as Watson contemplates the consequences of Sherlock getting caught breaking and entering:

I had a catching of the breath, and my skin went cold at the words, which were slowly uttered in a tone of concentrated resolution. As a flash of lightning in the night shows up in an instant every detail of a wild landscape, so at one glance I seemed to see every possible result of such an action--the detection, the capture, the honoured career ending in irreparable failure and disgrace, my friend himself lying at the mercy of the odious Milverton.

This was not, as some have contended, Watson being cowardly--his fear is for his friend's safety and reputation.

And the situation is different from The Speckled Band, where Watson quickly and readily agreed to help Holmes invade Stoke Moran. In that case, while they did sneak in, they were let in and invited in by a legal resident of the house; nor did they intend to steal anything, as they did in this case. Had they been caught then, the legal jeopardy Holmes faced was much less.

**Holmes persuading Watson that his course is moral is another bit of good writing from Doyle, as Sherlock gets Socratic with his friend:

I suppose that you will admit that the action is morally justifiable, though technically criminal. To burgle his house is no more than to forcibly take his pocketbook--an action in which you were prepared to aid me."

I turned it over in my mind. "Yes," I said, "it is morally justifiable so long as our object is to take no articles save those which are used for an illegal purpose."

"Exactly. Since it is morally justifiable, I have only to consider the question of personal risk. Surely a gentleman should not lay much stress upon this, when a lady is in most desperate need of his help?"

**John Watson: the staunchest of allies:

"You are not coming." 

"Then you are not going," said I. "I give you my word of honour--and I never broke it in my life--that I will take a cab straight to the police-station and give you away, unless you let me share this adventure with you."

A friend indeed.

**Another nifty line: "With our black silk face-coverings, which turned us into two of the most truculent figures in London, we stole up to the silent, gloomy house."

**This was supposedly a terribly chilly time of year. So when Holmes broke in through the greenhouse, cutting away a "circle of glass"--did his actions kill all the "exotic plants?" More criminal charges against our duo...

**"In the corner, between the bookcase and the wall, there stood a tall, green safe, the firelight flashing back from the polished brass knobs upon its face."

As I mention above, surely a hidden safe would have been better, especially as so many people knew that Milverton had to be keeping all of his blackmail material there. Then again, perhaps C.A.M. was such an over-confident fool, that he felt an ostentatious display of an "impregnable" safe made his victims feel more hopeless...

 **Holmes says that he would have made a fine criminal, but it is Watson who seems to be most enjoying the lifestyle:

I thrilled now with a keener zest than I had ever enjoyed when we were the defenders of the law instead of its defiers. The high object of our mission, the consciousness that it was unselfish and chivalrous, the villainous character of our opponent, all added to the sporting interest of the adventure. Far from feeling guilty, I rejoiced and exulted in our dangers.

**When Holmes opens the safe, he takes time to grab the lantern and try to find the bundle of letters being used to torment Lady Eva Blackwell. Was he not planning on helping all of the other victims? Was he going to leave all of the other letters? If not, why bother to try and sort through them when time was at a premium?

Did Milverton's death inspire Holmes to help all of his victims? Or, with the household being roused by the gunfire, did he simply have no more time to sort through all the material, so he just burned everything?

**John Watson, man of action! If Milverton noticed the safe being ajar, well...

I had determined that if I were sure, from the rigidity of his gaze, that it had caught his eye, I would at once spring out, throw my great coat over his head, pinion him, and leave the rest to Holmes.

**The Noble Lady's husband died of a "broken heart?" Really? He was that traumatized by his wife's indiscretions? (The Granada adaptation at least made it a stroke...)

**The Noble Lady grinding her heels in the face of Milverton's corpse is such a wonderfully perfect detail...

**Many have asked, how did the Noble Lady get away?

Presumably, the same way she got in!

Holmes and Watson were being pursued, so they had no choice but to climb the six-foot wall. But that's not the way they entered ("through the gate") when they had ample time. And the Lady had a bit of a head start on our duo in her flight, as Holmes stopped to burn everything. So she would have had time to leave via the gate.

Surely no one believes she had to climb a six-foot wall to get into the grounds, right? Milverton was expecting her--the gate wouldn't have been locked!

**The reasons given for not interfering with the Noble Lady as she murders Milverton--"that it was no affair of ours, that justice had overtaken a villain, that we had our own duties and our own objects..."--sound like a weak rationalization from a good man trying to justify allowing another man to be murdered in front of your eyes.

**Holmes made several trips to the fireplace with "two arms filled with bundles of letters." Just how many people was Milverton blackmailing? He had "eight or ten similar cases" to Lady Eva, and Holmes told us that the blackguard had plenty of more information that he would wait to use until the right moment.

**Ah, yet another case where Lestrade would have been completely wrong--he would have caught the burglars, but not the killer, had he known how to follow the clues without Holmes' help.

Surely the mark of a heel being ground into Milverton's face should have been a clue that another party--doubtless female--was involved. Oh, Lestrade...

**The under-gardener's description, which "might be a description of Watson": "a middle-sized, strongly built man."

Let's hope Hollywood remembers this whenever they cast another Holmes production and decide to make Watson older, and portly.

It is nice to notice, by the way, that Watson's wound(s) were doing so well that he could take part in such an energetic evening's work.

**Holmes' defense of vigilante justice:

I think there are certain crimes which the law cannot touch, and which therefore, to some extent, justify private revenge.

We seen Holmes taking justice into his own hands before, but usually it was the opposite side of the coin--allowing guilty parties to go free because he felt that they had suffered enough, or were unlikely to commit more crimes.

But to sign off on private murder as justified? Even if Milverton deserved to die, who is Holmes to determine that? He's a detective, and a brilliant one, but perhaps this might make some reconsider whether he should be the sole arbiter of people's fates, as it's rather a Death Wish approach to law and order.

**Holmes: "My sympathies are with the criminals rather than with the victim, and I will not handle this case."

Of course, Holmes was trying to justify not taking the case so Lestrade wouldn't become suspicious. But we have been told earlier of a case Holmes didn't take, to clear a party he knew to be guilty. We have lots of listing of apocryphal cases Holmes did take. Just as interesting, I think, would be a list of the ones he didn't take, and the reasons given...

SHERLOCK HOLMES WILL RETURN IN--THE ADVENTURE OF THE SIX NAPOLEONS!!

The Adventure Of Black Peter--The Victorian Enron?!?

The Adventure Of Black Peter is about two (or three) criminals in pursuit of one goal.

One of them is a drunken lout who terrorizes his family, assaults the local pastor, and (allegedly) murders a man for financial gain. His is not the most interesting story.

Another criminal is also a sailor, an admittedly blackmailer who killed the first criminal in (allegedly) self-defense. Again, his is not the story that most engages my interest here.

No, what really intrigues me here is the father of John Hopley Neligan, and the financial shenanigans he was involved here.

Allow to share an extended passage, with a few asides deleted, where the younger Neligan describes the scandal that enveloped his family years ago:

"Well, I will tell you," he said. "Why should I not? And yet I hate to think of this old scandal gaining a new lease of life. Did you ever hear of Dawson and Neligan?"
...

"You mean the West Country bankers," said [Holmes]. "They failed for a million, ruined half the county families of Cornwall, and Neligan disappeared." "Exactly. Neligan was my father."
 ...

"It was my father who was really concerned. Dawson had retired. I was only ten years of age at the time, but I was old enough to feel the shame and horror of it all. It has always been said that my father stole all the securities and fled. It is not true. It was his belief that if he were given time in which to realize them, all would be well and every creditor paid in full. He started in his little yacht for Norway just before the warrant was issued for his arrest. I can remember that last night when he bade farewell to my mother. He left us a list of the securities he was taking, and he swore that he would come back with his honour cleared, and that none who had trusted him would suffer. Well, no word was ever heard from him again. Both the yacht and he vanished utterly. We believed, my mother and I, that he and it, with the securities that he had taken with him, were at the bottom of the sea. We had a faithful friend, however, who is a business man, and it was he who discovered some time ago that some of the securities which my father had with him had reappeared on the London market. You can imagine our amazement. I spent months in trying to trace them, and at last, after many doubtings and difficulties, I discovered that the original seller had been Captain Peter Carey, the owner of this hut."
...

"In any case, if I could prove from Peter Carey's evidence how these securities came on the market it would be a proof that my father had not sold them, and that he had no view to personal profit when he took them."

Well, well. There a lot to digest here.

First, let me say that I take some comfort in knowing that failing banks ruining the lives of massive numbers of families isn't a new phenomenon. It's not, as some like to opine, some result of ethical failures unique to those terrible, ethically-challenged post-Baby Boomers. 120 years ago, the same thing was happening. [Yes, I know this is merely a fictional case. But certainly Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used this as a plot point because such things did occasionally happen in Victorian England.]

The next thing to note is, the story we're given is filtered through the memories of a ten year old boy eager to believe in his father. Of course young Neligan going to accept his father's claims of innocence! Of course he's going to believe any odd piece of "evidence" will clear his father's name, when it does nothing of the sort. So we shouldn't be too hard on John because his story is almost certainly being hogwash.

There are many possible reasons for a bank to fail--poor investments, bad loans that are never repaid, poor economy, mismanagement, bad luck--that don't rise to the level of criminality. Yet the younger Neligan's story doesn't tell us why the bank collapsed, which may in and of itself be an indication that something was awry--if the bank failed for a "legitimate" reason, wouldn't he eagerly be offering this information, to help clear his father's name?

Yet the elder Neligan fled the country "just before the warrant was issued for his arrest." Now, that doesn't mean he was automatically guilty--we've certainly seen plenty of times in the Canon when the authorities went after the wrong man. But it does indicate that the police must have had some evidence that this wasn't just a typical bankruptcy.

His son's insistence that the father didn't "steal" the securities, but just took them overseas to "realize" them and pay off the firm's creditors, shows an ennobling amount of child-like faith. Yet aside from the obvious question of why you would go to Norway to best sell off stocks in North American and Latin American companies, the fact is those stocks were stolen. When Dawson & Neligan failed, it would have gone into court-controlled bankruptcy, and the court-appointed receiver would have control of those securities. It was his duty to take those stocks, "realize" them, and distribute those proceeds to the creditors. It was no longer the elder Neligan's job to reimburse the creditors. There was no reason to try and do it himself. Did he think the British receiver incompetent? Even if he thought he could somehow get more money for the stocks in Norway, there is no reason the receiver couldn't have done that.

We should also question the story on this basis: if the bank had enough stocks to covers the losses ("failed for a million"), then they wouldn't have collapsed. Just sell them and pay your creditors and go quietly out of business. This makes the decision to steal away abroad, ahead of the law, even more suspicious, and harder to believe that it was an honest collapse, and not embezzlement or worse, by the elder Neligan.

Seriously, although ten year old Neligan couldn't see it, the whole story stinks to high heaven. To put it in a modern context: say that after the Enron collapse, CEO Kenneth Lay is caught fleeing in his yacht to Guatemala with a briefcase full of the company's only real assets just before the arrest warrant is issued. Would any sane adult believe a story that he was just going so he could sell off these assets there and give the money to the people whose lives he had ruined, and he'll be back soon, promise?

That's simply not the way an innocent man behaves. The arrest warrant, the panicked plight, the stealing of a million dollars worth of securities--everything points to the elder Neligan being guilty of some malfeasance, whether it is embezzlement or fraud or some Ponzi scheme. And whatever the full story, he played a part in "ruining half the county families of Cornwall." That doesn't mean he deserved to die, but it defies belief to think that he was some innocent samaritan trying to help his poor creditors.

And sadly for John Neligan, recovering the securities from Peter Carey could in no possible way "prove" that his father "had no view to personal profit when he took them." It would just prove that Carey had them. Even if Carey had stolen them from Neligan, that doesn't in any way prove that Neligan wasn't planning on selling them for himself once he got to Norway, had the theft (and murder) not taken place.

It's unclear how informed Holmes on the disposition of such financial doings--his declaration that Inspector Hopkins "must return the tin box" to Neligan is ridiculous, of course. Those securities belong to the bank's creditors, not the elder Neligan's heir.

This case involves a pair of murders. But it also involves financial shenanigans that ruined the lives of hundreds or thousands of people. And Holmes shows the attitude that sadly seems to still prevail today--go after the killers, but let the robber barons keep their ill-gotten gains with little punishment...

OTHER TRIFLES AND OBSERVATIONS:

**Meanwhile, there are the 2 murders.

The "facts" are these. The elder Neligan was lost at sea. He used rescued by the Sea Unicorn. One night, Peter Carey killed him, throwing him overboard, in order to get the securities he carried with him. Years later, the sole witness to this act, Patrick Cairns, tracked down Carey to blackmail him. In a drunken rage, Carey tried to kill Cairns, so Cairns slew him in self-defense.

And yet, all of that--100% of that--comes from Patrick Cairns, a man who has a definite motive to lie.

Cairns is facing the gallows, and has two hopes for a lighter sentence--to claim self-defense, and to claim that Carey himself was a vile murderer who deserved to die, so he was just saving the state "the price of the rope." Pretty clearly, then, Cairns has strong reason to shade the truth, or outright lie.

Should we trust the word of an admitted blackmailer and killer? There are reasons to be skeptical of Cairns' story.

First of all, we have an important question: Why didn't Carey sell all of the stocks he took from Neligan? We're told that "the great majority" of the stocks had not yet been sold. Why was Carey hanging on to them? Saving them for old age? Waiting until the "heat" was off before cashing more in?

Perhaps. But one could also propose that Carey had a partner in the murder of Neligan, and he was holding the stocks until that partner returned. Cairns, perhaps?

Secondly, the pages for that month's logs of the Sea Unicorn were torn away. John Neligan didn't tear them away--he was looking for them. Did Carey rip the out, in a clumsy attempt to hide his guilt?

But Cairns also had access to the books in Carey's "outhouse," after he killed Carey. And if those logs implicated him Cairns in Neligan's murder, then he had ample motive to rip them out that night.

Certainly, we've no evidence for these suppositions--but mainly because Cairns conveniently killed the only other witness to the events.

As to the self-defense, Cairns' own words tell us that Peter Carey was very drunk, and hadn't even unsheathed his knife. Was he really a threat to Cairns? Or was Carey attempting to pull his knife in self-defense when Cairns came at him with the harpoon?

I'm not going to argue that it is a certainty that Cairns is far guiltier than he lets on. But this alternate tale--Cairns partnered with Carey in the murder of Neligan, and years later killed Carey in a fight between partners--fits what little evidence we have just as well as Cairns' story. And as a blackmailing blackguard himself, there is ample reason to be skeptical of Cairns' self-serving statement.

Sherlock Holmes should have been far less trusting of his tale, and, as he chided Hopkins for not doing, "look for a possible alternative, and provide against it."

**When Cairns took the infamous tin, he found "nothing but papers that I would not dare to sell."

Why not? Carey sold some of them. Was Carey that much more financially savvy than Cairns? Did Cairns really think the tin box held a fortune in cash, or jewels? I suppose this disproves my theory above--if Cairns really was this ignorant about the contents of the tin, he couldn't have been a partner with Carey in the whole affair...

**By the way--thank you, Sir Arthur, for giving us two characters with such easily confused names. Peter Carey and Patrick Cairns? Would you like to know how many times I mixed them up while writing this?

Of course, P.C. are common enough initials, so I can't object to the coincidence of both characters' having them. Yet Doyle could have named one of them, oh, I don't know, Pinky Clydesdale, to distinguish them more, and reduce the confusion of poor readers and bloggers.

**Two more of Holmes' unrelated cases: "his famous investigation of the sudden death of Cardinal Tosca--an inquiry which was carried out by him at the express desire of His Holiness the Pope--down to his arrest of Wilson, the notorious canary-trainer, which removed a plague-spot from the East End of London."

**Watson confirms that Holmes frequently worked for little remuneration--although we should note that the doctor tells us the Sherlock "seldom" claimed "any large reward," both important qualifiers to at least partially rebut those who claimed that Holmes for free.

But the more interesting point might be how much Sherlock spent himself on cases he wasn't even hired for.

Remember, Holmes had been investigating this case for quite awhile before he even had a client. Apparently, after reading the newspapers'  account of the inquest, he dedicated himself to solving the case, even though he hadn't been contacted by Inspector Hopkins yet. At the end of the affair--that is, on his second day of official involvement--Holmes sighs that the case has "haunted me for ten days."

In that time--again, with no client--Holmes took it upon himself to put a lot of effort into this investigation for eight days before he was even invited--harpoons, fake captain, fake expeditions, ads. In his own words:

I spent three days in wiring to Dundee, and at the end of that time I had ascertained the names of the crew of the SEA UNICORN in 1883. When I found Patrick Cairns among the harpooners, my research was nearing its end. I argued that the man was probably in London, and that he would desire to leave the country for a time. I therefore spent some days in the East End, devised an Arctic expedition, put forth tempting terms for harpooners who would serve under Captain Basil--

Add in the time he spent trying to harpoon a pig at the butchers, and you have Holmes making a huge investment of time, and money, investigating a case in which he isn't even involved in!! Three days of wiring, setting up fake ads and a fake expedition, paying rejected seamen candidates a half sovereign each, paying the butcher for the pig, buying a harpoon...That's a lot of spending on a case where he had no expectation of being hired.

If that was typical of Holmes in this era, it's little wonder he was eager to take the reward that the Duke of Holderness offered in The Priory School. If the man was willing to part with his money so freely, why shouldn't Sherlock use it to finance the out-of-pocket expenses on his private investigations?

**"Captain Basil"--c'mon, admit it, you immediately thought of Basil Fawlty, didn't you.?

**Meet Inspector Hopkins--this is our first encounter with the detective, even though he's apparently known Holmes for quite awhile, and become something of a protegee to Sherlock.

It's refreshing to see a Scotland Yard man who is not resistant to Holmes methods (even though they're all willing enough to take his results!), and even embraces them.

And Holmes seems to respond well to the mentor's role. Even when he chides Hopkins, it's much more gently than his rebukes to other Yard men.

Until he's away from Hopkins, of course. Then Sherlock is far more blunt in his evaluations:

At the same time, Stanley Hopkins's methods do not commend themselves to me. I am disappointed in Stanley Hopkins. I had hoped for better things from him.

Dude, not so harsh!!

**Carey slept in an "outhouse"--heh heh.

Childish laughter aside, it is a fairly telling character detail--a man so inured to life at sea, he cannot sleep unless it is a room made up to look exactly like a ship's cabin.

You could play it up as a moral, I suppose--even with the money Carey stole when he killed Neligan, he couldn't buy himself anymore happiness than he already had, as captain of a vessel. Even after purchasing a nice estate, he couldn't bring himself to sleep there. Guilt over his crimes? Or just so conditioned by the life at sea that he simply couldn't adjust to life on land?

And contrast it with Cairns', who couldn't wait to get "free of the sea for life." I have to wonder if Cairns would have slept well had he escaped with his treasure, or if he, too, would have had to make a shelter from life on land...

**Why was Peter Carey so hard to track down? It was 12 years later--why did it take Cairns and Neligan so long to track him down? Granted, he "travelled for some years"--but he lived at Woodman's Lee for six years. It's not as if he was living under an assumed name...and he fairly infamous in his community. It couldn't have been hard to track him down, could it?

Of course, that just heightens the unlikely and enormous coincidence that, after years of searching, both Cairns and Neligan found Carey--within days of each other. And that Neligan just happened to show up moments after Cairns killed Carey.

**Times have changed a bit, I guess.

Holmes focuses on the rum as a clue, asserting that no one but a sailor would drink rum when whiskey or brandy was available.

Perhaps that may have been true in Victorian England. As the manager of a liquor store, however, I can tell you that it is most certainly not true in 2015 in America. Indeed, in my experience, a good 75% of college aged youth (near to John Neligan's age) would never, ever drink brandy or whiskey if rum were available.

**The tobacco pouch clue is simultaneously a great clue (Carey didn't smoke, there was no pipe) and a great red herring (the initials). That's crackerjack mystery writing there. Well done, sir Arthur.

**The police initially dismiss the testimony by the stonemason Slater of seeing a stranger in Carey's cabin two nights before the murder. It was before the murder, it was through the trees, at some distance, and Slater had been at the pub drinking.

Yet Holmes gives 100% credence to Slater's sighting. All of the above objections still exist, though. Under such conditions, could Slater really have made a firm negative identification from a silhouette on a window shade? And even if Slater was correct, that fact that person A was in the cabin on Monday doesn't prove that person B didn't commit the murder on Wednesday. (It also doesn't prove that person B wasn't also in the cabin on Monday, merely away from the window...)

Cairns' confession means that Slater's testimony wasn't necessary, of course. But for the purposes of Holmes' deductions, it does seem a very slender thread upon which to hang "Neligan couldn't have done it."

**Holmes: "My good Hopkins, I have investigated many crimes, but I have never yet seen one which was committed by a flying creature."

So much for those who would give us a Holmes Vs. Dracula pastiche...

**It is good to see Holmes taken aback by the revelation of the notebook.

 Sherlock Holmes's face showed that he was thoroughly taken aback by this new development. 

"I must admit both your points," said he. "I confess that this notebook, which did not appear at the inquest, modifies any views which I may have formed. I had come to a theory of the crime in which I can find no place for this.

Of course, this clue, while vital, leads Hopkins in the wrong direction. It does "give them for the first time some indication of the motive." But it also points Hopkims to Neligan who, while present in the cabin, was not the murderer.

Holmes manfully admits that he, too, might have been led astray in the investigation had he learned of the notebook and its stock listings from the beginning. He succeeded "[s]imply by having the good fortune to get the right clue from the beginning."

It is interesting to hear Holmes admit the role that chance might play in an investigation, and in a detective's flow of logic, and how sometimes even the right evidence can lead to the wrong conclusion, if you don't properly understand the context.

**Hopkins to a captured Neligan: "If you have no answer, it may go badly with you at the trial."

So much for the right to remain silent...and "the magnificent fair play of the British criminal law,"of which Watson was enamored back in The Dancing Men...

**The capture of Cairns:

"Shall I sign here?" he asked, stooping over the table. Holmes leaned over his shoulder and passed both hands over his neck. "This will do," said he. I heard a click of steel and a bellow like an enraged bull. The next instant Holmes and the seaman were rolling on the ground together. He was a man of such gigantic strength that, even with the handcuffs which Holmes had so deftly fastened upon his wrists, he would have very quickly overpowered my friend had Hopkins and I not rushed to his rescue. Only when I pressed the cold muzzle of the revolver to his temple did he at last understand that resistance was vain.

This is essentially the exact same ruse and set-up that Doyle used in the capture of Jefferson Hope in A Study In Scarlet...

**Hopkins: "I am the pupil, and you are the master." Getting dangerously close to quoting Star Wars here.

Someone, quick--write a fanifc where Hopkins takes what he learns from Holmes and becomes a crime lord. When confronted, he tells Holmes, "When I left you  I was but the learner. Now, I am the master!" "Only a master of evil, Hopkins!" replies Holmes.

Yes, I should be severely beaten for that.

**"If you want me for the trial, my address and that of Watson will be somewhere in Norway--I'll send particulars later."


What the heck?!? This comes out of nowhere. Was this a planned vacation? Can it be a mere coincidence that, suddenly, Holmes is keen on traveling to Neligan's planned destination? Did he deduce some lead on where some more of the missing securities might be?


Cairns had just told Holmes moments earlier that the crew of Neligan's yacht had "made for the Norwegian coast in a dinghy." Can it possibly be just a coincidence that Holmes immediately announces, out of the blue, a trip to Norway?

Or maybe Sir Arthur was just teasing us...?

SHERLOCK HOLMES WILL RETURN IN--THE ADVENTURE OF CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTON!

Once Again I Fail

Obviously, this is not The Adventure Of Black Peter.

I had forgotten how overextended I am each year in February and March, and things are piling up too quickly for me to keep up.

So, let's just make this blog bi-weekly for the next few months.

And I heartily promise that The Adventure Of Black Peter will be here next week.

Sorry.

The Adventure Of The Priory School--The Nobility Really IS Different!!

One of the things I love most about the Canon is the glimpse it gives into the culture of another era (and for the non-British reader, into the culture of another country). Through 4 novels and 56 short stories, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle takes us through all strata of Victorian society, from the most humble servant to the most exalted master, from the most vile criminals to the noblest, most illustrious people in the land.

Sometimes, though, these cultural differences can make their characters seems, to a modern reader (at least, a modern American reader), like aliens.

Which brings us to The Adventure of The Priory School.

We Americans are taught to admire--and yes, to occasionally laugh at--the famous (and obviously stereotyped) British reserve, the "stiff-upper lip," the "keep calm and carry on."

But if we're to believe Doyle's tale of the aristocracy, the English upper-upper class could take emotional repression to levels a Vulcan would be jealous of.

Arthur, Lord Saltire, has been missing for three days--either run away or kidnapped--as has one of the teachers at the Priory School. For almost anyone normal human parent, this would be a cause for almost unendurable agony, and the parent would do almost anything--and many would strike the almost--to get their child back.

Yet time and time again in this story, we're told that Arthur's father, the Duke of Holdernesse, insisted on less effective means being used to find his son--and even that at times he blocked important avenues of investigation. Why? Because the Duke was uncomfortable discussing his private life, and feared public scandal.

Again--his son was missing, and he surely seemed as he were more concerned with his personal reputation than finding the child.

Dr. Huxtable tells us that they Duke tried to keep it out of the papers. When Holmes chides him for what has so far been a "deplorably handled" investigation, Huxtable admits it, but blames that on the Duke: "His Grace was extremely desirous to avoid all public scandal. He was afraid of his family unhappiness being dragged before the world. He has a deep horror of anything of the kind." A deeper horror and unhappiness than possibly losing his son forever?

When describing the Duke's relationship with his son, Huxtable paints what surely seems to be an unflattering picture: "His Grace is never very friendly with anyone. He is completely immersed in large public questions, and is rather inaccessible to all ordinary emotions. But he was always kind to the boy in his own way."

Rather inaccessible to ordinary emotions? Kind the boy in his own way?

 When they arrive in Mackleton, the Duke's private secretary, James Wilder, upbraids Huxtable for involving Sherlock Holmes: "His Grace is particularly anxious to avoid all public scandal. He prefers to take as few people as possible into his confidence." Admittedly, we will find out that Wilder has an ulterior motive for wanting to impede the investigation. But he is making this objection in front of the Duke, who does not refute the characterization of himself as a man who puts a higher priority on avoiding scandal than find a missing heir.

The Duke even agrees that the realm's greatest detective shouldn't have been involved without prior consultation. As Holmes is already there, the Duke is wise enough to make use of this resource. After a brief discussion, though, the Duke leaves, even though Holmes clearly has more questions:

It was evident that to his intensely aristocratic nature this discussion of his intimate family affairs with a stranger was most abhorrent, and that he feared lest every fresh question would throw a fiercer light into the discreetly shadowed corners of his ducal history.

So "intensely aristocratic nature" means being so repressed that you're willing to risk your son's death rather than be frank with the one man most likely to find him? Unfathomable!

And when Holmes solves the mystery, and the Duke has learned that his illegitimate son has kidnapped his heir, and placed him in the care of a murderous blackguard, what is his primary concern? Arthur's safety? Punishing Wilder?

Nope. "I appreciate your conduct in coming here before you spoke to anyone else," said he. "At least, we may take counsel how far we can minimize this hideous scandal." Minimizing the scandal. That's what is uppermost in the Duke's mind.

And even though the Duke knew that Wilder was a cad, he kept him around, in part, because of "his power of provoking a scandal which would be abhorrent to me." When the Duke discovered where his son was, he did not rush to him immediately, "because I could not go there by daylight without provoking comment." Oh, heaven forbid that anyone comment.

Am I being too harsh on the Duke? A tad, perhaps. Walk a mile in another man's shoes and all that.

Yet If I were to be smart-alecky, I might suggest that if the Duke found public attention that abhorrent, he should have not lived a public life. No one forced him to be First Lord Of The Admiralty, or hold other cabinet posts. Of course, he might have felt that to be a duty to Queen and Country and all that. And I could suggest that if the knowledge that he had a child out of wedlock with someone of low status was too damaging to bear, well, don't have out of wedlock sex with such a person. Again, too cruel of me to say that--life happens, right? And I might suggest that if the woman you loved more than life itself couldn't marry you because you're a Duke, well, stop being a Duke. Nobility has abdicated for love before, and since. Oh, but to give up the 3 homes and 250,000 acres and mines and money? Heavens, no.

The worst part is, the consequences of any "public scandal" would be completely inconsequential.  The Duke isn't currently part of the government--he's "the late Cabinet minister." So it's not as if he could lose his job. He couldn't be fired from being Duke (could he?). Up until he learns the truth, none of the "scandal" that would be revealed was in the least illegal. So the only real consequence of any of this becoming public would be a brief bout of personal embarrassment. Yet the Duke fears this so much, he's willing to risk his son's safety, and shield murderers and kidnappers. Amazing.

Through the Duke of Holdernesse, Doyle paints a damning portrait of aristocracy--and Watson's comments would imply that it applies to most of the nobility. A savage repression of emotion, a fanatical fear of scandal and dishonour, a lack of attachment to loved ones--all covering up an emotional immaturity and a willingness to flout social laws, as long as no one finds out.

The nobility really are different than you or I.

OTHER TRIFLES AND OBSERVATIONS:

**So, has the Duke never read King Lear? Keeping your illegitimate son around your to watch your legal heir get ready to inherit everything really isn't a good game plan.

**When, exactly, was Wilder going to make his demands? The boy had been missing three days before Holmes arrived, and the police were nowhere near the truth.

The Duke said that Wilder hadn't made any demands yet because "events moved too quickly for him, and he had not time to put his plans into practice."

How much time did he need? What was he waiting for?

**Had I written this six months ago, I'm sure that I would have made some "Dr. Huxtable" jokes.

That would be terribly inappropriate now, of course. Let us instead mock his given name, Thorneycroft. Really? Throneycroft?

It is an a real name, jokes aside, albeit nearly extinct. This website tells us that there is exactly 1 person in the entire United States with that name...lucky guy. There are, however, 111 people with Thoneycroft as a surname.

**Goofy name aside, what a great entrance!!

...and then he entered himself--so large, so pompous, and so dignified that he was the very embodiment of self-possession and solidity. And yet his first action, when the door had closed behind him, was to stagger against the table, whence he slipped down upon the floor, and there was that majestic figure prostrate and insensible upon our bearskin hearth-rug

**More apocryphal cases: "I am retained in this case of the Ferrers Documents, and the Abergavenny murder is coming up for trial."

**Of course, as a consequence of those cases, Holmes initially claims that, once again, he is unable to take up a new case from a desperate client. This has been a growing problem since his return from the Hiatus.

In Norwood Builder, Holmes opined, "London has become a singularly uninteresting city since the death of the late lamented Professor Moriarty." Yet in the three subsequent stories, Holmes has declared himself far too busy to take on new cases immediately, and Watson spoke of the hundreds of cases which he had in the period. And he obviously wasn't too busy for the Ferrers Documents and the Abergavenny murder.

Given that someone died as a result of this "I'm too booked up" attitude (in Dancing Men), we have to wonder what Holmes' priorities were at that time.

**Many have questioned Sherlock taking the reward offered by the Duke, to which I have three responses.

First, Sherlock has often taken rewards. Indeed, we're told in Final Problem, for example, that rewards for cases he took on for the Scandinavian royal family and the French republic have left him so well off that he could retire if he wished. So, no, taking payment or rewards from well-to-do clients is nothing new for Sherlock.

Secondly, if we look at the fact that Sherlock seems compelled to take more cases than he can handle in this period, a supposition suggests itself: after three years of wanderings during the Hiatus, and after surreptitiously buying Watson's practices, perhaps Holmes was now broke, and needed the money. Quite possibly his "I am a poor man" at this end of this story isn't a jest...

Finally, we must say the Duke certainly wasn't deserving of being one of Holmes' "charity" cases. His behavior was fairly reproachable after his son's kidnapping. And throughout the story, His Grace throws around the weight of his checkbook, trying to buy his way through problems. When the red herring gipsies are arrested, Huxtable declares that "either the fear of the law or the Duke's purse will certainly get out of them all that they know." Holdernesse pretty unsubtly tries to bribe Holmes and Watson to keep quiet about the outcome of the affair, offering to pay them twice the promised reward if the details "go no farther." And when Holmes says "but I have no doubt that your Grace could make [Hayes] understand that it is to his interest to be silent," it's pretty clear that Holmes is certain the Duke will once again be wielding his wallet to buy his way out of the mess. Given all of that, I can't see how anyone can reproach the detective for speaking to the Duke in the only language he seemed to be able to communicate in.

**Note the story's constant emphasis on Arthur being the "only" son and heir. Heck, that fact is brought up three times in the first five pages of the story! Doyle is setting us up for the twist at the end, and doing so quite well--you really only notice that point being hammered home upon re-reading.

**Except for once near the end, Arthur is always referred to as Lord Saltire, not by his given name. Even his father feels inappropriate calling him by his given name: "But I feared so much lest he should do Arthur--that is, Lord Saltire--a mischief..."

This is probably just the American in me, but it is difficult to imagine a ten year-old boy constantly being called "Lord Saltire." Do even his school chums have to call him that? How can a teacher be stern with him when he has to use terms of nobility to even say his name?

**The mysterious German master Heidegger-- a man with "great references, but silent and morose." How did he get those great references, then? Perhaps in Germany, silent and morose is a compliment?

Just as curious: if he was silent and morose, and "not popular with the masters," how did Aveling become so knowledgeable about Heidegger's bicycle tires? If Heidegger were aloof and uncommunicative, would he have told a fellow teacher about his tires? Was Aveling a cycling enthusiast, and knew the tires everyone at the school used?

**Interference from the Duke or not, the police certainly ran a terrible, terrible investigation. There was a sighting of a man and a boy on a train--surely not an uncommon occurrence--and they completely stopped the investigation, assuming that had to be the missing people?!? One of the closest buildings is a business owned by a man known to have a grudge against the Duke--and they never bothered to even question him? After three days, no one had looked for tracks or a bicycle in the moor? Pathetic.

**Sherlock does a lot of Columbo in this story, giving the "just one more question" bit both to Huxtable and the Duke, and stretching that one question into several in each case.

**More evidence of the Duke's emotional aloofness to Arthur: the house only a couple of miles away the school...yet the Duke writes letters? No visits? No weekends at home?

**Watson's description of the Duke:

He was a tall and stately person, scrupulously dressed, with a drawn, thin face, and a nose which was grotesquely curved and long. His complexion was of a dead pallor, which was more startling by contrast with a long, dwindling beard of vivid red, which flowed down over his white waistcoat with his watch-chain gleaming through its fringe.

Very odd and attention-drawing look for a man so concerned with image and public perception...

**His Grace wrote "twenty or thirty letters" that one day?!? What a demon...just imagine him in the era of voice mails and texts and emails!

**The map that Sherlock shows Watson is a total spoiler!!

It reveals the locations of the tire tracks before Holmes and Watson set out and discover them! It shows the location of Heidegger's body--before we ever know that he is dead!!! Kind of ruins any suspense there...And if Holmes and Watson are studying this map, how can they be surprised when they find the tracks and corpse?!? (Yes, I'm being an idiot, but the point remains, this was a poorly designed map to insert at this point in the story)

Still, it makes you wonder if there is a shop selling spoiler ordinance maps in every town. That certainly would make many a mystery easier to solve...

**The story does lag a bit in the long and terribly unexciting search of the moors. Part of the problem may indeed lie with the map, as we wait (and wait) for our duo to discover the things that the map has already revealed to us. The amazingly long discussion of bicycle treads and tire depths doesn't help...

**Why would Heidegger have climbed down ivy in pursuit of Arthur? Surely, it would have been quicker and safer for a grown man to take stairs? Or was he in the habit of climbing out his window, and already knew that the vines could support his adult weight?

**Sherlock's exchange with Reuben Hayes exchange is a classic:

I suppose you haven't such a thing as a carriage in your stables?" 
"No, I have not." 
"I can hardly put my foot to the ground." 
"Don't put it to the ground." 
"But I can't walk." 
"Well, then hop." 
Mr. Reuben Hayes's manner was far from gracious, but Holmes took it with admirable good-humour. "Look here, my man," said he. "This is really rather an awkward fix for me. I don't mind how I get on." 
"Neither do I," said the morose landlord.

Comedy gold.

**In light of that exchange, which makes Hayes likeable and interesting, we really need to have more of Hayes' story explained. "I was head coachman once, and cruel bad he treated me. It was him that sacked me without a character on the word of a lying corn-chandler." Aside from the issue of what the hell is a corn-chandler, we should be told--what did the "lying corn-chandler" accuse him of? Is this story true? False? Exaggerated? Does Hayes have a legitimate grievance against "the Dook," or he just a typical ne'er-do-well blaming everyone but himself for his own misfortune?

Still, Hayes seems to have ended up OK, as inn-owner, right? He was better off than a lot of folks. Too bad he's going to the gallows...

**Great name, The Fighting Cock.

No, I'm not being dirty-minded (at least, not any more than usual)! There is an American bourbon called Fighting Cock, and that's all I could think of each time the name came up. Occupational hazard of working in a liquor store, I guess...

**I glad Watson's (several?) war wounds were aggravated by Sherlock climbing on his back to peek in a window...

**Holmes certainly can't resist being the showman, and teasing his victims: "I accuse YOU. And now, your Grace, I'll trouble you for that check." Great moment.

**Still ,that does make it ironic that Holmes is completely taken aback by the revelation that Wilder is also the Duke's son. I really hope that Watson never lets him forget how flummoxed he was at that moment.

**A great discussion between Holmes and Holdernesse about the morality and legality of Wilder's culpability for Heidegger's death.

The Duke: "But James knew nothing of that. You cannot hold him responsible for that. It was the work of this brutal ruffian whom he had the misfortune to employ."

Holmes: "I must take the view, your Grace, that when a man embarks upon a crime, he is morally guilty of any other crime which may spring from it."

The Duke: "Morally, Mr. Holmes. No doubt you are right. But surely not in the eyes of the law. A man cannot be condemned for a murder at which he was not present, and which he loathes and abhors as much as you do."

Leaving aside the question of whether Wilder really abhorred the murder, or was just trying to save his own skin, the Duke is clearly wrong about the legalities involved. Britain at the time recognized the doctrine of "felony murder," which held that everyone involved in the commission of a felony was to be held liable for any killings that occurred during that felony, whether they were directly involved in the act or not.

The reader will have to decide for themselves whether an eminent statesman would know that, or if he was being willfully ignorant in order to protect his unworthy son. Or perhaps he just thought the law shouldn't apply to his kin...

**Holmes (quite rightly) has a quite stern remonstrance for Holdernesse's shockingly unbalanced behavior towards his sons:

"Even more culpable in my opinion, your Grace, is your attitude towards your younger son. You leave him in this den for three days...What are promises to such people as these? You have no guarantee that he will not be spirited away again. To humour your guilty elder son, you have exposed your innocent younger son to imminent and unnecessary danger. It was a most unjustifiable action."

Preach on, Sherlock.

**Many commentators have objected that, since Hayes is facing the gallows, the was really no way that the Duke "could make him understand that it is to his interest to be silent."

Of course there is a way. There may be no way to save Hayes from execution. But given how free the Duke is with throwing his checkbook at problems, Holmes surely understood that the Duke could promise that Hayes' family would be taken care of, no doubt with a large sum of money, if Hayes kept quiet about the full circumstances of the crimes. Assuming, of course, that Hayes cared about such things. The man on death row bribed to keep silent/lie so his family will benefit is a staple of crime fiction.

**Holmes is right to rebuke the Duke for aiding in Hayes' flight, which made him an accessory to the murder. But then, Holmes agrees to keep quiet about Wilder being allowed to go Australia to "seek his fortune" (and no doubt with a healthy starting fund supplied by his generous father)?!?!

Who is the accessory now, Sherlock? And after all of your lecturing, does this in any way sound like justice for the blackguard Wilder?

**Even if Wilder's continued presence was the source of the marital difficulties between the Duke and Duchess, somehow I doubt removing him will automatically make things better. After she hears the account of this week, and the Duke's role in it, can you really believe that she would just come back all smiles and forgiveness? That the viper her husband allowed into their home kidnapped her only son; that he placed her child with a low murderer; that the Duke hindered the investigation in the name of "avoiding scandal;" that the Duke learned the truth but allowed his son to be held for three more days; that the Duke paid to help the murderer attempt to escape, and paid to let Wilder get away unpunished?? None of this seems like a foundation for reviving a failed marriage.

Assuming, of course, that the Duchess finds out about most of this. You have to wonder what was in that letter the Duke wrote to her. Probably very little of the truth, I'm thinking...

SHERLOCK HOLMES WILL RETURN IN--THE ADVENTURE OF BLACK PETER!!