HYPOTHESES
by
Philip R. Liebson
delivered to
The Chicago Literary Club
March 18, 2002
When you entered this club tonight did you observe all
the furniture and the windows
to evaluate whether there was any unusual change? When
encountering a new member
tonight, one you did not know particularly well, did you attempt
to assess his or her
profession from the characteristics of his appearance? Did you
attempt to surmise his or her
habits and character from the appearance of the hands, or the
wear and tear of the shoes, the
way the laces were tied, or the speech patterns? If you have
this observational ability, and
have a special interest in crime, you may become a consulting
detective or a masterful
criminal, depending upon your moral inclinations.
No doubt while listening to these comments, some of you have
almost intuitively thought of
Sherlock Holmes, whose characteristics have had enough of an
influence on erudite readers to
form clubs devoted to the minutiae of the 56 short stories and
four novelettes of Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle. Are there such clubs devoted to Miss Marple, Father
Brown, Hercule Poirot, or
Nero Wolfe? Is there an annotated Dupin or Maigret?
There is something in the character of Sherlock Holmes that has
transcended The Canon, as
the classic Doyle stories are called by the aficionados. And we
are talking not only of the
present. The first collection of Holmes stories was published
monthly in a new middle-brow
London journal, The Strand, from 1891-1893. After just two
years of these stories,
Conan Doyle decided that enough was enough and he decided to kill
off Holmes in the
Reichenbach Falls so that he could go onto his more important
historical novels. The resulting
protest was enough that Conan Doyle revived Holmes eight years
later with The Hound of
the Baskervilles, and continuing the publications of the
short stories in The
Strand, with occasional breaks, through 1927, three years
before he died. Virtually
simultaneously, these stories were published in the American
periodicals, mostly Harper's
Weekly, but also McClure's and Collier's, and
The American.
Holmes's following became immense on both sides of the Atlantic.
One of the early
American organizations dedicated to Holmes was and is the Baker
Street Irregulars, which
meets in New York annually, and has done so for over 70 years.
Its constitution calls for
three officers, a Gasogene, Tantalus and Commissionnaire. The
latter is responsible for the
White Rock, ice, and other assorted beverages. The by-laws
indicate that all business be left
to the monthly meetings. The by-laws also indicate that there
will be no monthly meetings,
and finally, no by-laws.
Attempts have been made to crystallize Holmes's entire life
from the brush strokes placed in
the stories. One such book, by William Baring-Gould, has Holmes
born in 1854 and living a
grand total of 103 years. According to this book, Holmes died on
the shore of the English
channel sitting sedately in a beach chair and murmuring the name
of "Irene", referring to
Irene Adler, the one woman who outsmarted him (in A Scandal in
Bohemia).
Parenthetically, Watson was supposed to have died in 1929, aged
77, exactly one year before
Conan Doyle himself passed away. This particular book,
Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street,
A Life of the First Consulting Detective, gleaned from these
subtle clues such interesting
deductions such as the evidence that Nero Wolfe was actually a
product of the union of
Holmes and Irene Adler.
Another interesting proposition in this book was the
evidence that Jack the Ripper
was in fact none other than Athelney Jones, one of the stable of
Scotland Yard detectives
whose careers Holmes was constantly advancing by his brilliant
interventions. From the
Sign of the Four: Holmes: "I am the last and highest court
of appeal in detection.
When Gregson or Lestrade or Athelney Jones are out of their
depths (which, by the way, is
their normal state) the matter is laid before me."
The identity of Jack the Ripper remains in doubt but the
fanciful play of fiction and
fact always fascinates. In this particular case, Holmes decoys
Jack while being dressed as a
woman, one of his many ingenious disguises. The ending is
remarkable in its conclusion.
Unlike any of the Holmes stories in the Canon, except one, Holmes
is saved by Watson, who
at the last moment as Jack is about to advance on the body of the
unconscious Holmes with a
nine-inch knife in an isolated courtyard, leaps from a wall and
smashes Jack's head against
the cobblestones knocking him out. In this case, it is Watson who
has deduced the identity of
the Ripper from evidence that Inspector Athelney Jones had at one
time attended lectures in
surgery, and could have been the only one of three candidates to
have heard a previously
murdered woman singing Sweet Violets. He thus shadowed the
inspector and was there to
save Holmes. "Holmes took his pipe from his mouth" as Watson
described his own
deductions. "Extraordinary, my dear Watson", exclaimed Holmes.
"Elementary, my dear
Holmes", replied Watson. For those of you Sherlockians who have
not remembered the one
story in the Canon in which Watson saved Holmes' life, by shoving
him out of a room with
poisonous fumes, it was The Adventure of the Devil's Foot.
This contribution notwithstanding, Watson is a mistaken
by some readers as a
bumbler, though adroit athletically, and remarkably supportive to
Holmes by his presence.
Certainly, although he overlooks clues, he really doesn't get in
the way of the progress of
Holmes's deductions.
It is generally concluded by the Sherlockians that
Holmes was born on January 6,
1854. The evidence for the year is fairly conclusive since Holmes
is described as a man of 60
in His Last Bow, which takes place in 1914. The date of
January 6th is more
speculative. Among the most credible reasons are two: in The
Valley of Fear, Holmes
appears unusually grumpy on the morning of January 7th,
suggestive of a hangover. It was
concluded by some scholars that Holmes had celebrated his
birthday the night before. Another
reason, perhaps less credible, if possible, was that Holmes liked
to quote from Twelfth
Night, which is, of course, the 6th of January. However,
Conan Doyle was by no means
disposed to provide a clue to this important fact. How could one
rely on the author anyway,
for the Canon is filled with inconsistencies? The most notorious
example is Watson's war
wound suffered in Afghanistan from a Jezail bullet, which
involved his shoulder in A
Study in Scarlet, and his leg in The Sign of the Four.
Given this example, there
may be some question as to whether Holmes was really 60 in 1914.
In science, a hypothesis is made after careful
examination of observations. The
purpose of the hypothesis is to test a possible connection, a
cause and effect relationship, that
may explain the workings of a small part of the universe. The
more focused the hypothesis
testing, the more likely a result may be determined for or
against the hypothesis, based upon
statistical evaluation. The interesting thing about scientific
hypotheses, is that the experiment
to test the hypothesis attempts to disprove what is called a
null-hypothesis, presumably that
the results, if they are significant statistically, were not due
to chance alone. Even if this is
determined to be so, there is always the possibility that a
putatively proven hypothesis may be
due to bias in setting up the experiment.
In the 19th and early 20th century, before this form of
statistical analysis was developed,
Holmes nonetheless predicted some of these considerations in his
science of deduction. " We
must fall back upon the old axiom that when other contingencies
fail, whatever remain,
however improbable, must be the truth" [From The Adventure of
the Bruce-Partington
Plans]. Here, indeed, is an expression of the null hypothesis
in Holmes's terms.
Much as a current scientific researcher, Holmes begins with
a series of related
observations before he can develop a hypothesis. In A Scandal
in Bohemia, he will
not interpret without appropriate observation; "I have no data
yet. It is a capital mistake to
theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist
facts to suit theories, instead of
theories to suit facts". This, in fact, perfectly describes the
problem of bias in scientific
evaluation.
Unlike the scientist, who tests observations by performing
controlled studies to determine
whether the one intervention really produces the desired result,
Holmes must analyze the
meaning after collecting all the information. In The Hound of
the Baskervilles, as an
example, Holmes studies the dead corpse of Sir Charles
Baskerville. A problem is stated:
How did sir Charles die? A hypothesis is developed. The man
either died of a heart attack or
by a dog. The research process requires Watson to spend time
openly in the Baskerville
home, keeping a diary, while Holmes himself, as we discover
later, secretly spends time in a
secluded cave on the moor and visits the nearby village,
collecting data. Holmes concludes
from his analysis that only Stapleton could have been the killer
for a plausible reason that he
wanted the family wealth for himself. However, he has to test
this hypothesis by a final and
dangerous experiment, set up so that Stapleton is provoked to
release his hound to attack the
younger Baskerville. Such experiments are common in the field of
detective literature ,
whereas scientific investigation involving humans is usually
bolstered with safeguards, as
much as possible, at least since the Nuremberg conventions for
ethical research were
instituted.
This is not always the case. I have been involved in a
large scale study published 10
years ago where the results indicated that, surprisingly, the
drugs used presumably to save
lives were associated with a higher mortality rate than the
placebo controls.
In scientific investigation, plausibility is important in
testing hypotheses, but
plausibility depends upon a rational view of the universe. If you
believe in witchcraft and the
supernatural, plausibility expands immensely. Plausibility is
therefore a weak link in the chain
of hypothesis testing, along with bias in collecting data. In
terms of my experience, from the
same study, it was biologically plausible that a drug that
decreased abnormal heart rhythms in
people with underlying heart disease would save lives. In fact,
it was more dangerous.
Parenthetically, this study had a remarkable effect on the
treatment of heart arrhythmias.
Sherlock Holmes's method of collecting information
frequently mystifies the Scotland
Yard Inspectors calling for his assistance, as well as Watson.
One example should serve. In
the very first novelette, A Study in Scarlet, Holmes and
Watson are called to
investigate a murder in a vacant house in London. The dead body
is present in one of the
rooms. Watson, not knowing Holmes that well yet, expects that he
would "at once have
hurried into the house and plunged into the study of the
mystery". However, Holmes slowly
and nonchalantly assesses the surroundings of the house,
including the pavement, railings,
sky, and opposite houses. Satisfied, he finally enters the house
and spends the better part of
an hour examining not only the body but the dust on the floor,
scratch marks on the wall in
which a bloody word "RACHE" is inscribed, meanwhile using a tape
measure for some
unexplained purpose. Finally, Holmes deduces that the murderer
was a man, that he smoked a
particular brand of cigar (from the type of cigar ash on the
floor), that he came with his
victim in a four-wheeled cab, that he had a florid face
susceptible to nosebleeds (no blood or
wound was present on the victim to account for the bloody word on
the wall) and that the
fingernails of his right hand were remarkably long (from the
scratch marks near the bloody
letters). However, he needed something more than observation to
conclude that the word
"RACHE" was not an uncompleted woman's name, but the German word
for revenge. This
took imagination, or intuition, a leap from analysis alone.
Many analyses have been entertained about Holmes'
techniques. It is too bad that
the Whole Science of Deduction, which Holmes was to write
in his retiring years, was
never compiled by Conan Doyle. Although, it is commonly assumed
that deduction is the
main factor in Holmes's systematic approach, it is in fact
inductive reasoning that is the
initial mechanism of approach more often than deduction. Thus,
inductive reasoning is used to
develop hypotheses as to why a bloody fingerprint appears on a
wall well after the crime is
committed, why a sailor's knot is used to tie up a victim, and
why one of three empty glasses
of port has no dregs. Lastly, the hypotheses produced from the
inductive reasoning lead to
testing of these hypotheses by deduction. In A Study in
Scarlet, Holmes states: " By
the method of exclusion, I had arrived at this result, for no
other hypothesis would meet the
facts". Holmes characteristically used the word "hypothesis" to
describe this aspect of his
reasoning, rather than the term "induction". For example, in
Silver Blaze, " I have
already said that he must have gone to King's Pyland or to
Mapleton. He is not at King's
Pyland. Therefore he is at Mapleton. Let us take that as a
working hypothesis and see what it
leads us to." In The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, he
remarks "I have devised
seven separate explanations, each of which would cover the facts
as far as we know them.
But which of these [hypotheses] is correct can only be determined
by the fresh information
which we will no doubt find waiting for us".
Sherlock Holmes's processes of thought may be summarized
in sequence of analysis as
searching observation, analysis, and imagination. As to the
latter, Holmes states, in The
Valley of Fear, "Breadth of view"is one of the essentials of
our profession. The interplay
of ideas and the oblique uses of knowledge are often of
extraordinary interest. In The
Hound of the Baskervilles, he comments directly on the
importance of imagination in his
deductions. "[We are coming] into the region where we balance
probabilities and choose the
most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination , but we
have always some material
basis on which to start our speculation".
As for the oblique uses of knowledge, Holmes had built up
compendia of special
knowledge in arcane subjects. He was an expert on tobacco ashes,
poisons, the characteristics
of special soils, the appearance of hands in regard to the trade
of their bearers, and deduction
of writing. In The Reigate Puzzle for example, he analyzes
a written communication
of several sentences, concluding that each word was written
alternatively by a younger and
older man, who were probably blood relations, father and son. He
concludes the different ages
by the strong hand of half the words, and the "broken backed"
appearance of the other half
with the loss of crossing of the t's and absence of the i dots in
the latter reinforcing older age
of one of the writers. The blood relationship of the two writers
is determined by the similarity
of the peculiar writing of the letter e, and the tails of some of
the other letters.
Holmes makes a particular point of distinguishing analytical
from synthetic reasoning.
From A Study in Scarlet: " The grand thing is to reason
backward" There are fifty
who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically.
Most people, if you
describe a train of events to them, will tell you what the result
would be. "There are few
people, however, who, if told them a result, would be able to
evolve from their own inner
consciousness what the steps were which led up to the result.
This power is what I mean
when I talk of reasoning backward, or analytically".
This is seen in the design of studies, well beyond Holmes's
time, in what is called a
case-control study. In clinical medicine, a group of patients is
in the hospital with a certain
condition. What is a risk factor for this condition? A hypothesis
is generated that a certain
cause or a number of causes leads to this condition. How can you
test this hypothesis by
reasoning backward? The answer is to take another group of
patients hospitalized in the same
location, of the same age, and with similar physical findings
except for the disease
investigated and determine compare the presence of risk factors
in the past history of each
group. If the putative causes of the disease are present in a
statistically significantly greater
amount in the study group compared with the non-diseased group, a
cause and effect
relationship is suggested.
One of the most well-known examples of this deductive
reasoning by Holmes is found in
Silver Blaze, when Holmes learns a curious fact in
relation to the disappearance of the
horse, Silver Blaze, from the behavior of the guard dog in the
stable.
Inspector: "Is there any point to which you would wish to
draw my attention?"
Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the
night-time."
Inspector: "The dog did nothing in the night-time".
Holmes. "That was the curious incident".
This deduction leads Holmes to conclude that whoever led
the horse out was familiar to
the dog and was, in fact, the horse's trainer.
There is considerable speculation about the model for
Sherlock Holmes. Most have
concluded that it was primarily Dr. Joseph Bell, a surgeon at the
Edinburgh infirmary when
Conan Doyle was a medical student. Bell was physically similar to
Holmes. He was described
by Conan Doyle as tall, thin and dark, like Holmes, with piercing
gray eyes and a narrow,
aquiline nose. Here are the own words of Dr. Bell:
"In teaching the treatment of disease"all careful teachers
have first to show the student
how to recognize accurately the case. The recognition depends in
great measure on the
accurate and rapid appreciation of small points in which the
disease differs from the healthy
state"The student must be taught to observe. [It is important
that] a trained use of observation
can discover in ordinary matter such as previous history,
nationality, and occupation of a
patient [ in the diagnosis of disease]".
Bell would observe the way a person moved, and indicate
how the walk of a soldier
was vastly different from that of a sailor. Tattoos on a sailor's
body would indicate not only
that he was a sailor but where he had traveled. The hands of
patients were important for
determining occupation, by the location of calluses or the
appearance of the fingers and
fingernails.
Dr. Bell would call a student down to observe a patient
brought into the lecture hall
by the House Surgeon, and ask for a diagnosis. In one case,
observed by Dr. Harold Emery
Jones, a contemporary of Conan Doyle, a student was asked for the
diagnosis of an obviously
limping man. "Use your eyes, sir!", he would exclaim. "Use your
ears, your brain, your bump
of perception". In one case the student observed the patient and
diagnosed hip-joint disease.
"Hip-nothing", responded Bell. "This man's limp is not
from his hip, but from his foot.
If you observe closely, you would see that there are slits, cut
by a knife, in those parts where
the pressure of the shoe is greatest against the foot. The man is
a sufferer from corns,
gentlemen! [Since ] we are not chiropodists, his condition is of
a more serious nature. This is
a case of chronic alcoholism, gentlemen. The rubicund, bloated
face, the bloodshot eyes, the
tremulous hands and twitching muscles with the throbbing of the
temporal arteries, all show
this. These deductions, gentlemen, must be confirmed by concrete
evidence' In this instance
my diagnosis is confirmed by the fact of my seeing the whiskey
bottle protruding from the
patient's right-hand coat pocket".
I should comment here that the embarrassment of medical
students by the medical
faculty has not changed until recently, when the concern about
possible harassment has
considerably moderated this ordeal. In the 1920's through the
1940's, the Yale Medical School
Professor of Pathology would call a student down to evaluate a
specimen. According to one
student observer, he would hand the student a heart, for example,
and ask him " an incessant
stream of questions". If a student responded that the heart
appeared normal, the Professor
would reply, "You think it's normal? Are you normal?" and begin a
series of personal insults.
Conan Doyle himself observed a most dramatic example of Dr.
Bell's faculty of deduction.
In first seeing one of his patients Bell remarked, " you are a
soldier, and a non-commissioned
officer at that. You have served in Bermuda". To the medical
students:
"How do I know that gentlemen? Because he came into the
room without even taking
his hat off as is his habit in an orderly room. He was a soldier.
A slight, authoritative air,
combined with his age, shows that he was a non-commissioned
officer. A rash on his
forehead tells me he was in Bermuda and subject to a skin
infection only present there".
Compare this with Holmes famous line on first meeting
Watson, in A Study in
Scarlet. "You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive", he says
while shaking his hand.
"How on earth did you know that?", exclaims Watson. Holmes coyly
puts off an explanation
until later. When Watson persists in calling for an explanation,
Holmes elaborates. "From
long habit the train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind
that I arrived at the
conclusion without being conscious of intermediate steps". He
arrives at these conclusions
from his knowledge that Watson is a doctor, but with the air of a
military man, that his face
is dark, but his wrists light, indicating a suntan, that his left
arm has been injured, that he has
undergone hardship and sickness. Therefore he "had been in the
tropics in a location of recent
warfare- clearly Afghanistan". This was in 1881 or 1882, mind
you. Perhaps, history recurs in
cycles.
Further on, in the same story, while Holmes and Watson
are sitting in their newly
acquired flat, Watson looks out the window and points to a
"stalwart, plainly dressed
individual" walking down the street, and wonders what the fellow
is looking for.
Holmes: "You mean the retired sergeant of Marines".
Watson calls this "brag and bounce" but, fortunately, the
individual appears at Holmes's
door to hand him a request from a Scotland Yard Inspector to
investigate the murder and is
available to confirm this deduction. Holmes has arrived at this
correct conclusion on the basis
of the great blue anchor tattooed on his hand, his air of
command, his regulation side
whiskers.
There are numerous theories about the origin of the names
Holmes and Watson, involving
considerable studies of Conan Doyle's encounters with these
names. One James Watson was a
leading member of the local literary and scientific society where
Conan Doyle first set up
practice, for example. In Dr. Bell's Manual of the Operations
of Surgery, published in
1883, which Conan Doyle had read, the first two cases described
under Disorders of the Hip
and Knee Joints cite a Mr. Holmes and a Dr. Watson respectively
as authorities of the first
two cases. Finally, a Mr. Croft is mentioned in the second case.
Is this the source of the name
Mycroft, Holmes's brother? There are numerous other coincidences
involving these names
cited in Conan Doyle's experience. I will take all the elements I
have discussed and set up my
own hypothesis : this time associating a Bell with a Watson --
Alexander Graham Bell and
Thomas A. Watson, in fact. The first telephone conversation, in
1876, was: "Ahoy, Watson!
Can you hear me?" Conan Doyle would certainly have heard about
this well before 1887,
when the first manuscript, A Study in Scarlet, was
published. To place all this into an
all encompassing package, that Yale Professor I previously
mentioned who emulated Joseph
Bell, quite coincidentally, married Thomas A. Watson's daughter!
It has been proposed by one Sherlockian, Dr. Carl L.
Heifetz, that much of Sherlock
Holmes's obfuscation concerning his origins, early life and
ongoing activities, and his
reticence to be photographed and in having his participation in
crime ever appear in the
newspapers was a result of his participation in British
government undercover activities. It
has been definitely established that 221B Baker street was not
his real address, hidden
because of his undercover activities. Similarly, the extreme
reticence of Holmes to have
Watson publish his cases (only 60 out of over 1000) also suggests
an excessive secrecy that
cannot be attributed to modesty [Holmes himself admitted that
modesty had no importance in
his character].The basis for this hypothesis was his involvement
in at least three
acknowledged cases in which the government was involved, wherein
stolen documents were
retrieved, The Naval Treaty, the Bruce-Partington
Plans, and The Second
Stain.
It was noted by Heifetz that his real calling was
revealed in His Last Bow, in
which it was revealed that he truly served as an undercover agent
for the British government.
Other evidence that he participated in government
activities includes his undercover
work as a Norwegian explorer to the Khalifa of Khartoum, with
resulting information
delivered to the British foreign office. It is also well known
that his brother Mycroft, from
his perch in the Diogenes Club, was the auditor of some
government department books and in
fact the final resource for resolving government issues. "He
actually was the British
government", according to Holmes. In the apocrypha [Holmes
stories after Conan Doyle's
demise], it has been insistently confirmed that Mycroft Holmes,
himself, was the founder of
the British secret services M.5 and M.6 in 1909. M stands for
Mycroft, of course!
Let us now evaluate the mysterious pull of the Sherlock
Holmes Canon using one short
story as an example, The Adventure of the Golden
Pince-Nez. The outline of the story
is as follows: Holmes and Watson are called by one of the
Scotland Yard inspectors to assist
in investigating the murder of a male secretary of an invalided
professor, who never leaves
his home. Through the clue of a pince-nez, retrieved from the
murdered secretary's hand,
Holmes finally solves the mystery by determining that the
murderer could not have left the
house and was, ultimately, found hiding in a closet of the
professor. In fact, the murderer, a
Russian woman, was the long estranged wife of the professor, and
had killed the secretary
when he discovered her trying to retrieve important document from
the Professor's study
downstairs. These are the bare bones, so to speak.
The reader who is familiar with these stories and
continues to re-read them finds several
characteristics in common with many of the stories. First,
Watson, the usual narrator,
indicates a list of cases with intriguing names ("the repulsive
story of the red leech", etc), that
are not yet ready for publication, and, indeed, never were, and
that Holmes had achieved still
another honor from a foreign government for his involvement in
solving an international
crime. Despite these, Watson admits that the case to be discussed
is much more singular. The
other point is that Watson draws from his volumes of notes,
indicating to the reader that he
has not randomly selected the case but determined to present it
for its special merits.
The second common characteristic is the weather. It was a
"wild, tempestuous night",
with howling winds, that would only draw a visitor to Baker
street if there were an
extraordinarily pressing matter. Meanwhile, Holmes is involved in
one of his many side
interests, deciphering the remains of the original inscription
upon a medieval manuscript,
which has been occupying him all day. Watson, however, is by no
means idle, himself deeply
absorbed in a surgical tract. Holmes is also shown to be
interested in one of many special
areas, including, from other stories, de Lassus motets, wines,
warships, medieval pottery, and
the history and playing of violins.
The introduction also provides us with an indication of
Holmes' characteristic courtesy,
when Stanley Hopkins, the young inspector, appears, bidding him
to have a warm drink, and
handing him a cigar. However, there is clearly a discernment of a
class difference. Holmes is
a gentleman. Hopkins is, in a sense, a tradesman. He is addressed
as "Hopkins", but it is
always "Mr. Holmes". Conan Doyle always sets apart the characters
with behavior according
to the manners and mores of their particular class. This may
provide comfort for a broad
range of readers who would prefer this distinction to the
ambiguities of a blending of dress
and manners, and not necessarily confined to the Victorian era.
Holmes provides several
examples of his infallibility of observation. This is typical of
the introduction to many of the
stories.
As usual, the crime is summarized comprehensively but
succinctly, in this case by the
inspector, and the points of mystery delineated: The last
ambiguous words of the secretary
"The professor, it was she", the golden pince-nez in the murdered
secretary's hand, with
lenses too close even for a thin-faced Holmes, the murder weapon,
a knife obtained from a
desk in the study. The inspector is completely stymied. He states
that there is nothing really
wanting in the details of the inspection.
"Except Sherlock Holmes", says Holmes, with a bitter smile.
At another point he
indicates to Inspector Hopkins that with all his investigation,
Hopkins "had made certain that
[he] had made certain of nothing". Although Holmes is always
courteous, there is always the
barb to indicate his intellectual superiority. It is Holmes's
almost complete infallibility that
may be one of his attractions to readers.
Based upon this information Holmes concludes that the
murderer is a well-dressed woman
with a thick nose, closely-set eyes, a peering expression, who
has seen an optician twice
during the past month. He then goes on to explain immediately the
reasoning behind his
deductions, which turns out to be based entirely upon his
observation of the pair of glasses
that the inspector provides him. Thus, the reader, within a short
time, is provided with a
dazzling deduction, and the explanation, which almost seems
mundane. It is a repeated
formula, provided only once or twice in each story, designed not
necessarily to educate the
reader or Watson, but to demonstrate Holmes's ongoing superiority
of observation.
Then there is the inevitable trip to the isolated home, this
time by train, more likely than
not a villa or manor, the careful inspection of the study in
which the victim was murdered
and in this case, the two passages out of the study, one leading
up to the professor's room,
the other out to the garden, and the interesting finding that
both passages were covered with
coconut matting. There is also the red herring of footsteps out
on the garden lawn, possibly
leading away from the study. The coconut matting is important
because the wife, being
nearsighted and having lost her pince-nez went the wrong way and
entered the professor's
bedroom. This is not obvious to Watson, or possibly the reader.
Finally, Holmes meets the professor in his room upstairs and
rapidly smokes four
cigarettes , deliberately spreading their ashes on the floor, as
we learn later, just as a large
lunch is brought up for the professor, who himself has a small
appetite. This is one of a
number of mysterious actions of Holmes that are finally explained
by him in resolving the
crime. When Holmes returns, he sees new footprints defined by the
ashes near the closet, and
the murderer is discovered.
However, the mystery is not yet over. It turns out that the
woman and the professor were
Russian Nihilists, a Russian police officer was killed, and in
order to save his own life, the
Professor betrayed his wife and companions, who were imprisoned,
and fled to England after
receiving a large reward for his actions. The wife fell in love
with one of the companions,
who was imprisoned wrongly. The professor had the evidence in a
diary in his study. His
wife found out about the Professor's location while after being
released from prison in Russia
and eventually found her way into the study where the diary was
located, was discovered by
the secretary who seized her, and because she was nearsighted and
her pince-nez had
dropped, she attacked the secretary with the nearest object at
hand, which turned out to be a
knife.
In the end, everything is neatly rapped up. The woman has
already taken poison when she
is discovered, the papers are to be taken by Holmes and Watson to
the Russian embassy to
free the wronged lover and Holmes explains the final details.
The characteristic in all these stories is the eventual
control of conditions which may
initially seem uncontrollable. The wild November evening turns
into a cool but bright and
placid autumn day, the characters throughout behave according to
their class in society, the
criminals, once discovered, quite freely indicate their
motivations for the crime. There is the
brilliant dénouement in which Holmes ties all the clues together
and explains his thinking.
This is true of other crime stories, though. What is so special
about these stories? Not the
least important is the reader's identification with Watson, who
is not a really a bumbler but
responds as we might to Holmes's flashes of insight. There are
also the mysteries of those
cases that were never published, like lost tomes.
An interesting perspective on the popularity of Sherlock
Holmes is offered in the book,
Myth and Modern Man in Sherlock Holmes. The author, David
S. Payne,
hypothesizes that the complex processes of modernity, which
encompasses the late Victorian
era and continue through the present, brought about consistently
swift changes which upset
the anchor of stability and brought about a nostalgia for a
fabricated stable past built on the
ideas and customs of the recent past. Presumably, the Holmes
stories provide a method of
comprehending these changes by bracketing them within a world of
traditional virtues, with
characters who portray stereotypes of certain social classes and
cultures. In a sense, according
to this hypothesis, a world was created with its own innate
culture and values which was
close enough to a nostalgic reality of the past to draw readers
from a wide variety of
backgrounds into this mystique. Perhaps Holmes is arguably the
most famous character in
English literature because of that. I would entertain the notion
that a good part of the
attraction of Holmes and the continuity among the stories is his
attempt to provide samples of
his analytical skills, his verbal sparring with Watson, and yes,
even his gradually developing
humanity through the evolution of the canon. Two other
characteristics, commented upon by
the author Colin Wilson in a Holmes anthology, is Conan Doyle's
passion for factual detail,
providing "an illusion of reality". Since the first arguably
modern' novel, Pamela, by
Samuel Richardson in 1740, defined by Wilson as one in which the
reader can truly identify
with a character, Conan Doyle may have provided a strong step
forward by combining in
Holmes and his environment, not only a sense of reality, but the
addition of the fantasy of
wish fulfillment, because of the absence of despair or defeat
[aside from Doyle's temporarily
killing Holmes off]. That decision was a grave mistake and the
large group of Victorian
Readers rebelled against it. The readership remains strong today.
From this essay it can be
seen how easy it is to discuss Holmes and his motivations as if
he actually had lived.
We should close by paraphrasing a typical Holmes coda : Ah,
Watson"Draw up your
chair and hand me my violin for some baroque airs, for the only
problem we still have to
solve is how to while away these bleak winter evenings.