Sherlock Holmes on Screen: “The House of Fear” (1945)

“Viewed today however, one is inescapably reminded of a ‘reality TV’ format: seven diverse housemates are nominated one-by-one for permanent eviction until just one is left to scoop a prize of exactly £100,000. So if The House of Fear fails as both a Sherlock Holmes film and a properly satisfying murder-mystery, its premise is at least enduring.” (Alan Barnes, 92)

Occasionally, I think that Nigel Bruce gets a bad rap. Once in a great while, his performance as Dr. John Watson touches a soft place in my heart. I find myself susceptible to moments like his rendition of “Loch Lomond” in Pursuit to Algiers (and from the same film, his recounting of a recent adventure with Sherlock Holmes using a celery stalk as the Detective and a hunk of cheese as himself); or his utterly crestfallen expression in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes when the Detective snappishly refers to his companion as “an incorrigible bungler” (though he is soothed by a gentle pat on the shoulder). For all his foolishness and sometimes blatant stupidity, there is warmth and openness in Bruce’s interpretation, with a certain guilelessness that goes a long way towards explaining how he has managed Holmes’s peculiarities for so long – perhaps it is simply because he sees no malice in the Detective’s actions, no animosity, and cannot bring himself to harbor any resentment or bitterness towards his friend.

But in the 1945 film, The House of Fear, such moments of softness and affectation are notably absent. Despite one rather astute and crucial observation, and one poignant moment between the two friends at the conclusion of the film (Holmes does seem rather touchingly grateful for his friend’s survival), Bruce’s Watson is at his vaudevillian worst. It’s hard to find any redemptive qualities in a scene in which Watson – unearthing a grave while Holmes stands about smoking a pipe – finds himself embroiled in an Abbott and Costello-style argument with an owl. Holmes’s comment of “Having a nice little chat, Watson?” is the only one of his many needle-like barbs throughout the film that is utterly deserved. According to Alan Barnes:

“Despite furnishing Holmes with the one last vital piece of evidence, Nigel Bruce’s Watson does not fare well, being a source of irritation to the detective (Holmes loudly informs the entire household that Watson snores ‘like a pig’) and the butt of a semi-jokey five minute sequence in which, guarding downstairs on his own, he flaps hither and thither while attempting to track down the source of a number of strange noises. (He shoots a suit of armour and a cat before asserting, ‘They’ve got me completely surrounded!’)” (94).

To be fair, Rathbone’s Holmes does not come across at his very best in this film either. As Barnes points out, the Detective makes a rather pointed, public and personal joke at the Doctor’s expense: “You snored like a pig!” Later, Watson is attacked in the sitting room while Holmes investigates upstairs. Watson screams rather ardently for his friend, to which Holmes responds by descending the stairs at a pace that could best be described as a “saunter,” or perhaps a leisurely stroll. There is no urgency in his manner, while Watson, for all appearances, has just escaped a brutal death. Holmes’s most animated moment comes only when his own life is in danger – as well as the Doctor’s – at the hands of a falling boulder.

However, Basil Rathbone might have been as much to blame as the film’s screenwriters for the Detective’s apathetic characterization in this film. According to David Stuart Davies: “It was becoming noticeable that Rathbone was beginning to tire of the role of Sherlock Holmes. After nine features and numerous radio broadcasts, the character was so familiar to him that he felt there was nothing fresh he could bring to the part. The reviewer in the New York Times called his performance in this movie ‘as pedestrian as a cop on patrol’” (59). There is a tiredness to Rathbone’s performance in this picture, as if he is trying to summon energy and enthusiasm for the role that he simply does not have. In response, Bruce’s Watson and Dennis Hoey’s Inspector Lestrade (inexplicably present in Scotland in his role as a police inspector, despite being rather clearly out of his jurisdiction) appear to move ever further into the role of caricature, seemingly becoming mere parodies of their roles. Lestrade, for example, loudly and brazenly takes credit for the capture of Professor Moriarty.

To its credit, The House of Fear has much going for it in the way of atmosphere – an eerie, gothic manor seated on top of a high cliff in Scotland, a morose and sinister housekeeper who acts as the harbinger of ill-tidings and death, and a strange men’s club shrouded in secrecy and strange ritual. Even the manners in which the “Good Comrades” are murdered demonstrate a distinct variety and creativity. They are gruesome and evocative, summoning an array of horrifying images with the simple phrase: “No man goes whole to his grave.” The House of Fear’s link to the Canon story “The Five Orange Pips” is tenuous at best – the only reference to the source material being the orange pips each Good Comrade receives prior to his death. But the film does manage to invoke the violence of the original story, the grim and sometimes coldhearted nature of humanity.

There are elements of The House of Fear that are reminiscent of the earlier Rathbone/Bruce picture, Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943). As Davies says, “…Sherlock Holmes Faces Death brings Holmes back to the world of creepy old houses, wild windy nights and mysterious unsolved murders. The mood is Victorian Gothic but the presence of the Second World War is still in evidence…” (50). Unfortunately, The House of Fear demonstrates little to none of the strength of its earlier counterpart. Perhaps, this is demonstrative of how much of a Sherlock Holmes film’s success is derived from the strength and vitality of the actor in the title role, and how much the film suffers if he finds himself indifferent.

oOo

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Sources:

• Barnes, Alan. Sherlock Holmes on Screen. (September 2011).

• Stuart Davies, David. Starring Sherlock Holmes: A Century of the Master Detective on Screen (January 2006).

“The Meaning of This Extraordinary Performance” (COPP): Granada Television’s “The Dancing Men”

Jeremy [Brett] was always in danger of playing some kind of grotesque if he wasn’t directly properly. I remember [Jeremy] Paul saying to him one day, “Jeremy, isn’t there going to be anything of you in this portrayal?” Brett responded well, replying, “What a good thought. You’ve pulled me up short and made me realize that I could be going too much into the area of a bizarre character.” Paul agreed, noting, “Don’t, because there is a place in this for things of your own, Jeremy – your magnetism, your ability to charm people, to deal with people – use those in playing Holmes. Don’t put them aside. Don’t think this man is a wierdo [sic] because he’s not” (David Stuart Davies).

Perched anxiously on the edge of the sofa in the sitting room of 221B Baker Street, Hilton Cubitt (Tenniel Evans) bristles at a pointed question directed at him by Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett): “You have a way of putting things, Mr. Holmes,” he says. Dr. Watson (David Burke) has already apologized once for his friend’s gruff behavior, and now he can do nothing except shake his head and look back down at his notes, hoping that Holmes will not irreparably offend their client. Brett often commented on the nature of the relationship of his Holmes to his Watsons: “And so I've had wonderful Watsons – I’ve had two who kind of go [groans], ‘Holmes is doing it again.’ And, I mean, I've even had people in the studio, when I had suddenly crawled across the floor, say, ‘Not another of those’ [laughs]. And that's the lighter side.”

Holmes, will you please stop playing "Keep Away" with the cipher?

And there are a lot of both elements in Granada’s adaptation of “The Dancing Men.” Viewers successfully seek and find the physicality and vitality that Jeremy Brett so famously brought to the role, as well as a Watson that seems equal turns flabbergasted and charmed by his eccentric friend. Brett’s Holmes is at his charming, vivacious best, and Burke’s Watson is at his most endearing and earnest. The episode opens with one of Granada’s most enduring scenes: Holmes successfully outlines how he was able to deduce that Watson has declined a new investment opportunity, to which Watson responds that the deduction was an “absurdly simple” one – despite the promise Holmes had secured just moments earlier that he would not say precisely that. Holmes looks petulant, but not surprised, and Watson looks briefly contrite – until a moment later when he correctly deduces that Holmes has found himself a new case.

Granada’s 1984 adaptation of “The Dancing Men” was the second episode in their Sherlock Holmes series, airing just after their adaptation of “A Scandal in Bohemia.” It is notable that the studio chose to adapt this story very early in the production, when the original tale was, in fact, the third story in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, and according to William Baring-Gould’s chronology, took place in 1898. Despite this chronological deviation, the episode reaches out to the Canon in interesting ways. For example, there is Holmes’s mention of his monograph on secret ciphers, which Watson uncomfortably confesses he found “rather heavy going.” But the episode is at its most riveting when Brett is at his most dynamic. Audiences remember this episode’s Sherlock Holmes with a telegram between his teeth, leaping about in a vigorous demonstration of the various “Dancing Men” figures, in a desperate bid to convey their meaning to Dr. Watson. Less memorable, but no less powerful, is the scene in which Holmes and Watson receive the final telegram from Hilton Cubitt (unaware of the man’s death), revealing the partially decoded message: “ELSIE - RE – ARE TO MEET THY GO-.” Watson is still in his shirtsleeves and Holmes in his dressing gown, but in a brilliantly acted moment, the pair need only exchange a meaningful glance before rushing off in aid of their client.


Photo Credit: www.jeremybrett.info

But the death of Hilton Cubitt takes the wind out of the Detective’s over-inflated sails in a very obvious way. When asked how he could have possibly known about the crime and come down to Ridling Thorpe Manor from London so quickly, Holmes replies: “Mr. Hilton Cubitt… was my client” [emphasis mine]. There is so much effort in that pause – in admitting to his client’s death, and therefore his own perceived failure in the matter – and it weighs visibly on his face. Even the police inspector’s kind words about the pleasure of working with Holmes and his hope that he should have the Detective at his side again one day, seemingly fail to register with Holmes in any meaningful way. He gives only the merest nod to this compliment. The words do not register, and Brett’s performance manages to manifest physically for the viewer, everything that Holmes has already managed to internalize.

Photo Credit: bookishadventures.tumblr.com

Likewise, the death of his client seems to soften Sherlock Holmes, making him more susceptible to Dr. Watson’s improving influence. While Holmes is interviewing the household staff about the night of the murder, Watson whispers a mostly unheard suggestion to the Detective that he invite the elderly housekeeper to sit down. If Holmes seems slightly annoyed by the suggestion, it should be noted that he does comply. Furthermore, in a later scene, Holmes goes out of his way to inform the same housekeeper that her mistress – Mrs. Cubitt – is quite innocent, a kindness which appears to go a long way towards easing the woman’s troubles.

The episode ends with Watson attempting to decode the “Dancing Men” cipher sent by Sherlock Holmes, which had brought Abe Slane to Ridling Thorpe Manor and neatly ensnared him in Holmes’s trap. Watson stumbles for a moment before reading: “COME HERE AT ONCE.” Holmes smiles at the Doctor’s successful attempt at decoding and says, “How absurdly simple.” His words echo back to the episode’s opening scene, but this time there is no bite or petulance in the words. Only the easy understanding of a comfortable companionship, colored by the spent energy of a case concluded – if not in an entirely satisfactory way for all parties. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson ran the gamut of human interaction in Granada’s adaptation of DANC – from magnetism to charm to shear physical undertaking – but every element has a place, every point perfectly plotted.

oOo

“Better Holmes & Gardens” now has its own Facebook page.  Join by “Liking” the page here, and receive all the latest updates, news, and Sherlockian tidbits.

Currently on Twitter...

As part of an ongoing project on my Twitter feed, I'm delivering stories from the Sherlock Holmes canon in tiny installments of 140 characters or less. I recently finished up "The Adventure of the Abbey Grange," which finds Sherlock Holmes acting as judge, and Dr. Watson in the role of jury (but the executioner is conspicuously absent).

The current story is "The Engineer's Thumb," which is one of only two cases that Dr. Watson's was able to bring to Sherlock Holmes's attention (the other being the unpublished case of Colonel Warburton's madness).

Check out my Twitter feed for a daily installment, although I am usually inspired to post more than once a day. And don't forget you can read through the original canon online.

“Mere random sketches of children” (DANC): Young Adults and Disseminating Knowledge in the Stories of Sherlock Holmes

[As presented at "A Scintillation of Scions V," in Laurel, Md., on June 9, 2012.]

Of all the verbal cleverness in the Canon, of all the subtle linguistic quips and well-placed witticisms, I am especially fond of one particular use of the word strategically. “’Dear little chap!’ said Holmes strategically.” This application is from The Sign of Four in which the reader finds Sherlock Holmes seeking information about the steam launch Aurora and he presents the “dear little chap” with two shillings for seemingly nothing more than being “a rosy-cheeked young rascal.” The Detective uses young people – quite often small children – regularly in the course of his canonical investigations. Information gleaned from young people was frequently instrumental in providing the solution to more than one case, but Holmes was also known to use children as actual clues. In “The Copper Beeches,” for example, Holmes explains how he was able to infer the behavior of Mr. and Mrs. Rucastle by considering the behavior of the family’s youngest member: “I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children.” And as Edward Quayle said in his 1948 essay “Suffer the Little Children,” there are even canonical stories where children act as both clue and contributor: “In The Sussex Vampire a boy was the miscreant and a baby boy was exhibit A,” he says. And so the use of the word strategically found in The Sign of Four is just another example of Holmes’s often purposeful view of young people. 

But Sherlock Holmes uses the young people he encounters in the Canon not only to collect information from them, but to convey it to them. It is no great secret that Sherlock Holmes often seemed to casually pass along life lessons in the same way that he would pass along a box of matches or a pencil stub – that is to say frequently and easily. But it is to the young adults of the Canon – those characters who are nearly grown or merely believe themselves to be so; as opposed to the incorrigible and childish Irregulars who immediately leap to mind when one thinks of young people in the Canon – that Holmes imparts to, and therefore preserves with, his most valuable information: the lessons that were really the nucleus of some of his most remarkable cases. And in this narrow, specific distribution of information, the reader suddenly sees a Sherlock Holmes who has an eye towards his own future; a Detective who was, in fact, very concerned with ensuring his own posterity. Furthermore, the Canon is dotted with linguistic clues that highlight these passages. Each instance (or example) includes a single key word that indicates a descending relationship or succession, or implies a patriarchal or familial relationship (if only metaphorically, of course).

In “The Man with the Twisted Lip,” Holmes advises: “…it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all.” And the three students we find featured in the story of the same name (“The Three Students”) are no longer children, but they are still quite young in the way of most university or college students – convinced of their own experience and maturity, which only serves to emphasize how inexperienced and immature they really are. Indeed, Giles Gilchrist has managed to surreptitiously obtain an advance look at the exam, and in doing so has committed a youthful blunder, a rather common one, in fact – Gilchrist is not, for example, robbing a bank by tunneling beneath it while his employer copies an encyclopedia by hand. And his actions ultimately harm no one but himself. His decision is ill-advised and he is suitably remorseful. For his part Holmes reacts with a proportionate level of concern: “…it is human to err, and at least no one can accuse you of being a callous criminal…For once you have fallen low. Let us see, in the future, how high you can rise.” The word future speaks to what is fundamentally at stake in the story – both for Gilchrist and in terms of the lesson that Holmes imparts. The story concludes with Gilchrist revealing his decision to join the Rhodesian police and with that pronouncement, there is a glimpse of a future where he might apply the lesson he learned firsthand from Sherlock Holmes – a lesson about leniency and second chances. This is, of course, nearly the exact same lesson that Holmes imparts to James Ryder in “The Blue Carbuncle” – a man whose desperate concern for what his parents are going to say when they hear about this, harkens back to an uncomfortable moment in almost everyone’s formative years. Furthermore, Holmes’s ability to intuit Ryder’s eventual fate – should he have ended up in prison – demonstrates the same empathetic streak he showed to Gilchrist.

The manner in which Holmes speaks to Gilchrist could be described as “fatherly,” perhaps, although that specific description is never given explicitly in the text of “The Three Students.” In fact, the story, “The Noble Bachelor,” is the only one to feature this particularly telling descriptor – one suggestive of a patriarchal relationship. In relating to Dr. Watson how he found the secretly married Mr. and Mrs. Moulton, he says, “I ventured to give them some paternal advice and to point out to them that it would be better in every way that they should make their position a little clearer both to the general public and to Lord St. Simon in particular.” Hatty Doran is no longer quite a child either – in the strictest sense – but she is, by Lord St. Simon’s own description: “wild and free, unfettered by any sort of traditions”; he also uses the words, “impetuous” and “volcanic.” And so she is a young woman, childish if no longer a child, and like Gilchrist (and Ryder), she has made an impulsive decision that she would rather her father never learn of – as unlikely as that might be. And it is the word paternal that speaks to Holmes’s view of this young bride – who is also likely to soon be a young mother. Holmes has a view to a future full of little Moultons, with whom their mother can share the valuable lesson of a how a truth, no matter how painful, is better than a lifetime of uncertainties. And the fatherly advice that Holmes bestowed to her and her husband is not unlike that he which imparts in “The Yellow Face”: “Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.”

Finally, in “The Illustrious Client,” the reader finds Violet de Merville. Although no specifics about her age are given, she is referred to as “young” no less than five times throughout the course of the story. Violet has also found herself at a rather childish impasse – much like Gilchrist’s academic dishonesty or Mrs. Moulton’s clandestine union – but Violet is stubborn in the way of so many young women and men who find themselves newly in love and unreceptive to the words of parents, who know that their child’s new paramour is just no good – whether it is because he rides a motorcycle, was caught smoking under the bleachers, or has a documented history of murdering his wives. In any event, Holmes confesses to Watson, somewhat shockingly: “I thought of her for the moment as I would have thought of a daughter of my own.” The word daughter places emphasis on a family relationship and clearly indicates and stresses Violet’s gender. Holmes has given advice to young women before – and furthermore, he is used to having young women disregard that advice (having already dealt with another Violet – Miss Hunter – in 1890). He already knows that his next steps with Miss de Merville will have to be resolute, dramatic, and probably somewhat unpleasant. And so when Holmes says, “All my hot words could not bring one tinge of colour to those ivory cheeks or one gleam of emotion to those abstracted eyes” – it brings to mind his advice from “A Case of Identity”: “If I tell her she will not believe me. You may remember the old Persian saying, ‘There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman.’ There is as much sense in Hafiz as in Horace, and as much knowledge of the world.”

As we know, Holmes was never pleased with Watson’s efforts to preserve his methods for posterity – often stating that his Boswell’s stories were too romantic or florid for his taste. So, Sherlock Holmes never saw his deductive methods put to paper in a way that was precisely to his liking – his oft-mentioned monographs only partially served this purpose and cannot be considered a complete compendium of Holmesian investigation. And for the purposes of the Canon, Holmes died unmarried and childless (my apologies to Mr. Baring-Gould), and he speaks of his own family in an absent, off-hand manner as if it were a footnote in one of those monographs. Perhaps Holmes chose young adults, rather than small children (of whom he was also famously fond) because young adults had the most potential for an immediate payout on his lessons. The canonical characters mentioned just now were all just on the cusp of a significant age-related milestone – a career, a marriage, children. These characters were all just old enough to really appreciate the enormity of Holmes’s lesson (if not the finer details of his methods), but also young enough for the lesson to still have a real impact. There was still time for the lesson to sink into their skin and linger there, rather than be brushed off as just one more lecture in a collection of a lifetime of experiences.

But ultimately what was at stake was the lesson, and as has hopefully been demonstrated, that lesson was shared, and Sherlock Holmes once again succeeded. Young people are mere random sketches of both children and adults – close to both roles without fully encompassing either. They are able to pick and choose details, disregarding irrelevancies, until their self-portrait is finally complete. Just as the lessons Holmes conveyed to them were mere random sketches of lessons he had outlined in previous stories – rough mirror images, cleverly concealing their significance, as well as their potential for so much more.

oOo

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Some Thoughts on Character: Reginald Musgrave

“In appearance [Reginald Musgrave] was a man of an exceedingly aristocratic type, thin, high-nosed, and large-eyed, with languid and yet courtly manners. He was indeed a scion of one of the very oldest families in the kingdom… Something of his birth-place seemed to cling to the man, and I never looked at his pale, keen face or the poise of his head without associating him with gray archways and mullioned windows and all the venerable wreckage of a feudal keep.”

In the 1986 Granada Television adaptation of “The Musgrave Ritual,” Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson arrive at Hurlstone Manor for a holiday – much needed (on Holmes’s part) and much encouraged (on Watson’s part). They are greeted by Reginald Musgrave, and the conservation is polite, if a little stilted. Finally, Holmes and Musgrave walk off alone – leaving Watson in friendly conversation with Brunton, the butler. Musgrave compliments Holmes on making a successful living off of his wits, to which Holmes replies, while looking about absently: “And how is the dear wife?” A brief silence follows before Musgrave replies: “I’m not married, Holmes.” There is another, longer, more awkward silence before Holmes claps Musgrave on the shoulder: “How wise!”

Photo Credit: bookishadventures.tumblr.com

And that is the disconnect with Reginald Musgrave; that is what separates Musgrave from other figures from Sherlock Holmes’s past – Victor Trevor, for example. Although the plot of MUSG was slightly altered for the Granada adaptation to compensate for the somewhat advancing ages of the series’ stars – Jeremy Brett, for example, was 53-years-old at the time of filming and was therefore perhaps ill-suited to play the 25-year-old Sherlock Holmes as seen in the original text of MUSG – the dynamic between Holmes and Reginald Musgrave remains true to the source material. Holmes and Musgrave are not friends. That is not to say that they are antagonistic, far from it. They are merely acquainted. Musgrave spins in and out of Sherlock Holmes’s orbit in much the same way as any of his other clients. At times there seems to be no difference between Reginald Musgrave and Violet Hunter, Victor Hatherley, or Grant Munro – that is to say, once they have served their purpose, they are rarely, if ever, heard from again. Musgrave at least has the added benefit of being openly appreciative of Holmes’s talents, where many had seemed initially incredulous: “Once or twice we drifted into talk, and I can remember that more than once he expressed a keen interest in my methods of observation and inference.”

But like Victor Trevor, Reginald Musgrave intrigues because he knew Sherlock Holmes when. He knew him when he was young and was not yet fully formed or fully in possession of his powers. He knew him when his career as the world’s only consulting detective was not yet sculpted out or defined to his satisfaction. More importantly, Reginald Musgrave knew Sherlock Holmes when Dr. Watson did not. Reginald Musgrave was present at the beginning of Sherlock Holmes – which for some Sherlockians is somewhat equivalent to being present for the Big Bang – and so he is in possession of a piece of the puzzle, which we are not. But does that truly lend any extra weight to Musgrave’s presence in the Canon – does that give him more merit as a character, when Holmes appears to give him the same level of consideration as the dottles and plugs of tobacco left on the mantelpiece of Baker Street every morning?

Unlike Victor Trevor, who was present from the very inception of Holmes’s career (“And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby.” [GLOR]), Holmes appears to lose track of Reginald Musgrave for a bit of time before their paths cross again: “For four years I had seen nothing of him until one morning he walked into my room in Montague Street. He had changed little, was dressed like a young man of fashion–he was always a bit of a dandy–and preserved the same quiet, suave manner which had formerly distinguished him.” Holmes’s description of this first meeting with a long-lost acquaintance is rather interesting, in that he manages to both insult and compliment Musgrave in the same sentence. It is up to the reader to determine if the balance of the remark is ultimately neutral. But the casual way in which Holmes marks the length of their separation indicates that it was all the same to him if Musgrave had never walked through his door at Montague Street at all, save for the puzzle he brought with him.

According to Leslie Klinger: “Holmes and Musgrave were never more than ‘slight acquaintance(s)’: thus it is possible that the struggling young detective saw not a social visit but a business opportunity when Musgrave walked through his door. June Thomson speculates that Holmes may have charged Musgrave a fee for his services, pointing to his ‘living by my wits’ remark as ‘possibly a hint that he had turned professional and expected to be paid’” (534). And so, the reader sees Reginald Musgrave present at the time when Holmes has begun to realize that his services had value. Musgrave may not be the Detective’s first paying client, but he was probably one of the earliest. Victor Trevor may have been present for the beginning of Sherlock Holmes, but Reginald Musgrave was present for the event horizon – for the point of no return, for the moment when Holmes’s fate was fully determined and guaranteed.

As has been mentioned before, Holmes ultimately lost track of Victor Trevor – just as he lost track of Musgrave – but that was hardly Holmes’s fault entirely – the sordid circumstances surrounding his father’s death were certainly enough to make a reasonable man want to escape any and all places and persons associated with the events. The weight and merit of Trevor’s character rest largely on what he was present for, and Musgrave bears much the same burden. Though of the two men, Victor is the only one who can honestly wear the title of “friend,” Musgrave is the only one who can be honestly called a “client” – in the fully paying sense of the term. And while Victor Trevor sought out Sherlock Holmes in his hour of need, Reginald Musgrave walked through the door of Montague Street looking for a detective.

oOo

“Better Holmes & Gardens” now has its own Facebook page.  Join by “Liking” the page here, and receive all the latest updates, news, and Sherlockian tidbits.

Currently on Twitter...

As part of an ongoing project on my Twitter feed, I'm delivering stories from the Sherlock Holmes canon in tiny installments of 140 characters or less. I recently finished up "His Last Bow: An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes," which opens "upon the second of August – the most terrible August in the history of the world," and closes with "the last quiet talk" Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson may have ever had.
 
The current story is "The Adventure of the Abbey Grange," which finds Sherlock Holmes acting as judge, and Dr. Watson in the role of jury (but the executioner is conspicuously absent).
 
Check out my Twitter feed for a daily installment, although I am usually inspired to post more than once a day. And don't forget you can read through the original canon online.

“My advice to you, sir, is to speak the truth”: In Defense of “The Resident Patient”

“For in those cases in which Holmes has performed some tour de force of analytical reasoning, and has demonstrated the value of his peculiar methods of investigation, the facts themselves have often been so slight or so commonplace that I could not feel justified in laying them before the public. On the other hand, it has frequently happened that he has been concerned in some research where the facts have been of the most remarkable and dramatic character, but where the share which he has himself taken in determining their causes has been less pronounced than I, as his biographer, could wish.”

If you have ever been to a meeting of any of the many Sherlock Holmes scion societies, you know that these meetings tend to be rather boisterous. Rambunctious, even. Loud, to put it in even more simple terms. Members laugh and shout and argue, but it’s all in good fun, even if it is rather spirited. So, you can imagine my surprise, when attending the most recent meeting of Watson’s Tin Box, when the Gasogene opened up the discussion of “The Resident Patient” only to be met with silence. It was an awkward silence, complete with cricket sounds and forced coughing. After waiting a moment for someone, anyone, to speak, the Gasogene finally prompted: “So, I take it that none of you liked this story?”

“No,” someone finally spoke up. “No, I wouldn’t say that.”

“You liked it, then?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that either,” said another Tin Box member.  “I wouldn’t say I feel much about the story either way.”

And that was the problem then. How does one verbalize: meh (complete with indifferent should shrug)? Is there even a way to discuss a story that appears to inspire such little feeling? Stories that are either greatly loved or greatly hated can inspire magnificent discussion, but a narrative that inspires no feeling likewise inspires no conversation. And relatively speaking, Sherlock Holmes doesn’t really do very much in RESI to inspire any kind of traditional response. The story begins with Holmes and Watson discussing the latest news, followed by a typical Holmesian deduction of Watson’s thought -process, and then the two men take a walk around London. They return to Baker Street, and spend the majority of the story listening to Dr. Percy Trevelyan relaying his very strange story. Holmes doesn’t even meet the man at the heart of the strange tale – Mr. Blessington – until more than halfway through the narrative, and even then he refuses to help him. Blessington is then killed in the middle of the night, and the murderers are eventually lost on the steamship Norah Creina, and thus come to no justice, except perhaps that of a karmic variety. 

So where do readers find the value in a story like RESI? If the mystery itself invokes only a feeling of lukewarm indifference, then what is there to which the reader can respond? And readers do respond to RESI – the story tied for 42nd place (along with “The Engineer’s Thumb,” “The Retired Colourman,” “Shoscombe Old Place,” and “The Yellow Face”) in the 1999 poll of invested members of the Baker Street Irregulars.  If the case itself teaches the reader nothing, then the reader is learning something from somewhere else in the tale, otherwise RESI would have been relegated to the very bottom of the list with the three stories tied for 54th place: “The Three Gables,” “The Mazarin Stone,” and “The Veiled Lodger.”

There’s actually quite a bit of information to gather about Sherlock Holmes from RESI – about his talents and methods – even if they are not on display to their fullest possible extent in this story. Watson begins by sharing with the reader:

“[Sherlock Holmes] loved to lie in the very centre of five millions of people, with his filaments stretching out and running through them, responsive to every little rumour or suspicion of unsolved crime. Appreciation of nature found no place among his many gifts, and his only change was when he turned his mind from the evil-doer of the town to track down his brother of the country.”

This insight into Holmes’s character is followed by a magnificent string of deduction on the Detective’s part. The deductions are of little import to the overall scope of the narrative, but he is able to catalog Watson’s entire train of thought and is even able to accurately remind Watson of how this train of thought began when the Doctor himself was unable to remember. This exercise into fundamental Sherlockian method is followed by the two men taking a stroll around London: “For three hours we strolled about together, watching the ever-changing kaleidoscope of life as it ebbs and flows through Fleet Street and the Strand. His characteristic talk, with its keen observance of detail and subtle power of inference, held me amused and enthralled.”

And so the reader finds this particularly charming sketch of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson as friends – a sliver of insight into the relationship that fuels the narratives of the Canon for so many readers. We see Holmes and Watson in a companionable, easy intimacy that comes with a long acquaintance. We see Dr. Watson charmed by his friend on the mere merit of Holmes being himself, nothing more. We see Sherlock Holmes at ease, and at his best.

I once got into a discussion with another Sherlockian about just how many of the stories in the Canon are owed to characters making extremely poor life choices, or being otherwise unable to spot glaring red flags. Obviously, RESI is one of these stories. Where would the reader be if Dr. Trevelyan had reflected for only a moment on the peculiarities of this stranger’s generous offer, and had decided to try his hand at researching nervous disorders for a bit longer? Likewise, what if Mr. Melas had said, “No, I don’t think I shall accompany you to an undisclosed location to translate for you at this late hour” (GREE)? Or if young Englishwomen had paid more cautious attention to those rumors circulating around that Baron Gruner fellow (ILLU)? Or even if Dr. Watson has said to young Stamford, “Beating the subjects in the dissecting room, you say? Oh, never mind. I’ve always imagined that I would be better off living on my own anyway” (STUD). So every story in the Canon has something to recommend to it, even if it is only a reminder of what might have been, or what never was.

oOo

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