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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
TWO IMMORTAL CHARACTERS, A CHANCE MEETING, A VISIT TO 221B BAKER STREET. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MOST FAMOUS FRIENDSHIP EVER RECORDED. Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson, famous for their crime-solving capabilities, are mysterious figures themselves. What is known about their pasts, and the reasons behind their very different personalities? What led two strikingly different individuals to form a relationship which would last for over forty-six years? This detailed and enthralling account ponders answers to the many uncertainties and enigmas which surround the pair. And there are other puzzles to be solved. When did the case of the Hound of the Baskervilles actually occur? Who was John Watson's mysterious second wife? And what is the real location of the legendary 221B Baker Street? A thorough investigation commences as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous creations are placed under the magnifying glass . . .
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Seitenzahl: 511
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012
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Holmes and Watson
JUNE THOMSON
For Andrew, Lee, Frances and John Paul
Contents
PROLOGUE
Any attempt to write a biography of Holmes and Watson is fraught with problems. Not only is the canon itself immense, amounting approximately to 700,000 words, but Sherlockian commentators have, over the years, written many thousands more words about it and around it, their contributions ranging from suppositions regarding Holmes’ astronomical sign – was he a Scorpio or a Virgo? – to a full-length novel by Cay Van Ash, Ten Years Beyond Baker Street, in which Holmes, having brought about the downfall of Professor Moriarty, takes on no less a protagonist than Dr Fu Manchu.
It is impossible to refer to all these writings in detail within the scope of this biography. I have therefore chosen only those which tend to affect the chronology of the subjects’ lives. Rather than hold up the narrative by including these in the main part of the book, I have placed the references to them in two appendices, in which those readers interested in particular areas of Sherlockian research, such as the dating of some of Watson’s accounts or the location of 221B Baker Street, will find the relevant theories set out in condensed form.
Wherever possible, I have kept to the facts given by Holmes and Watson in the canon and, where there are gaps, have used other sources of information to supply the missing data. When that has been impossible and I have been forced to speculate, I have made this quite clear.
Because readers might find it tedious, I have also limited the number of attributions to the places in the canon where direct quotations can be found and, with some of the less important data, have given no references at all. However, where any detail is stated as fact, readers may be assured that this is based on given information. Nor have I supplied, except in a few cases, potted accounts of the inquiries in which Holmes and Watson were involved. I have assumed that the readers are already acquainted with the narratives or would prefer to read them for themselves.
In the course of this biography, I have also put forward some theories of my own, for example, those regarding the identities of the King of Bohemia and the second Mrs Watson, both of which, as far as I know, are original. Some Sherlockian commentators may find these unacceptable, as they may find much else that is in the book.
But the biography is not intended for the experts. It was written with a very different reader in mind: the ordinary man or woman who, like me, has found much pleasure in Watson’s chronicles of his adventures with Holmes and would like a more detailed account of their lives as well as background information about the period in which they lived.
My main concern, however, as the title suggests, is to celebrate the friendship between Holmes and Watson, arguably one of the most famous ever recorded, and to chronicle its progress, including the setbacks from which it inevitably suffered.
It was not, I believe, homosexual, although some evidence in the canon might suggest, on first reading, a homoerotic relationship, such as the fact that Holmes and Watson share a double bedroom during the Man with the Twisted Lip inquiry or that Holmes bundles Watson out of sight in the Dying Detective case with the words ‘Quick, man, if you love me!’ Although on occasions he might have been naïf, Watson possessed a great deal of common sense and, knowing, as he must have done, the penalties of social ostracism should sexual deviation be suspected, or imprisonment should he be found engaging in homosexual activities, he would hardly have risked rousing suspicion by publishing these admissions unless he knew his own and Holmes’ sexual behaviour was beyond reproach.
Watson also married twice, on both occasions for love. No one who has read his account of his courtship of Mary Morstan and his description of his feelings for her can doubt they are anything other than genuine. Nevertheless, Rohase Piercy in his book My Dearest Holmes has claimed that Watson, who was in love with Holmes, married Mary for convenience only, in order to appear respectable and to cloak his own homosexual practices.
I consider this a quite erroneous interpretation of his relationships both with Holmes and Mary Morstan. Watson, one of whose most endearing qualities was an inability to lie convincingly, was incapable of carrying through such a sustained deception on his readers.
His relationship with Holmes was therefore exactly as he describes it: a close friendship and an example of male bonding which, though not unusual in itself, especially in an age of single-sex schools and gentlemen’s clubs, is unique because of the detailed account of it which Watson has given us and also for its strength of endurance, despite the many strains to which it was subjected. It was a friendship which was to last for at least forty-six years.
CHAPTER ONE
HOLMES AND WATSON Beginnings
‘My dear fellow, life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.’ Holmes to Watson: ‘A Case of Identity’
Holmes and Watson: their names are inextricably linked, while their friendship is known throughout the world, a fame which is largely attributable to Watson who, as Holmes’ chronicler, was to write over half a million words about their relationship and their adventures together. These accounts, which have never been out of print, were later translated into most languages and used as the basis for numerous films and plays, as well as television and radio programmes, which have assured their continuing popularity.
And yet remarkably little is known about their early lives before their celebrated meeting in 1881. Not even their dates of birth can be established with any certainty.
It is not altogether surprising. Holmes was deliberately reticent about his past for reasons which will be examined in more detail later in the chapter. As for Watson, he was more concerned with recording Holmes’ exploits and publicising his friend’s unique skills as a private consulting detective than with thrusting his own personal reminiscences upon his readers. However, there are clues within the canon and, where evidence is lacking, some of the gaps can be filled from other sources of information.
Holmes was probably born in 1854.* In His Last Bow: The War Service of Sherlock Holmes, dated August 1914, Holmes is described as a man of sixty. Therefore, he was, like Watson, a Victorian, born within the reign of Queen Victoria, who succeeded to the throne in 1837. The month of his birth is unknown; so, too, is the place, although some commentators have put forward various theories about both.*
Little is known either about his immediate family apart from the fact that he had one brother, Mycroft, who was seven years his senior. However, his background was what his fellow Victorians, with their fine distinctions over such matters of social status, would have defined as upper middle-class. Holmes himself has provided some information about his antecedents. His ancestors, he tells Watson in ‘The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter’, were country squires ‘who appear to have led much the same life as is natural to their class’. In other words, they were more concerned with running their estates and following such leisure activities as hunting, shooting and fishing than in scholarly or artistic pursuits.
Holmes ascribes his own and his brother’s quite different interests to his grandmother, the sister of Vernet, the French painter, from whom both had inherited their less conventional natures.
As Holmes remarks, ‘Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms.’
Holmes does not say whether this Mlle Vernet was a paternal or maternal grandmother nor which Vernet was her brother. There were several Vernets, all artists, but the most likely candidate, as many commentators agree, is Horace Vernet (1789–1863), the son of Carle Vernet (1758–1836), who was awarded the Legion d’Honneur by Napoleon for his painting, Morning of Austerlitz. Horace Vernet was himself a distinguished artist. Holmes’ grandmother was most probably a daughter of this same Carle Vernet and was therefore Horace Vernet’s sister. The dates agree and there is further confirmation in a comment made by the composer Felix Mendelssohn on Horace Vernet’s extraordinary memory, which he compared to a well-stocked bureau. ‘He had but to open a drawer in it to find what was needed,’ he is quoted as saying.
This gift was inherited by both the Holmes brothers, by Mycroft with his capacity for storing and correlating facts which he was to put to good use in his future career, and by Sherlock in his ability to recall information at will, a talent which is remarkably similar to that of his great-uncle Horace Vernet.
‘I hold a vast store of out-of-the-way knowledge, without scientific system, but very available for the needs of my work,’ he was later to say of himself.
Some commentators have expressed surprise that Mycroft Holmes had apparently not inherited the family estates. But Holmes makes it quite clear that it was his ancestors who were the country squires, possibly as far back as a great grandfather or even a great-great grandfather. If he and Mycroft were descended from a younger son, they would have belonged to the cadet branch of the family and therefore Mycroft would not have been a direct heir. Or they may have descended through the female line, in which case ‘Holmes’ would not have been the ancestral surname.
Holmes may have inherited more from his French grandmother than his unusual talents. His mercurial temperament suggests the influence of his Gallic genes rather than those of his more stolid and conventional Anglo-Saxon antecedents. Indeed, the extreme swings of mood from which he suffered in his early manhood, and presumably also in childhood and adolescence, suggest some of the symptoms of manic depression without its psychotic features, although whether this should be entirely blamed on his French blood is questionable. He could have inherited this tendency from one of his English fox-hunting forebears. But, whatever its source, this cyclothymic temperament is undoubtedly part of his personality which may have been exacerbated by his upbringing.
Holmes says nothing at all about his parents. However, his ‘strong aversion to women’, as Watson was later to report, is significant. From various comments Holmes made on the subject, it is possible to form a clear idea of his attitude towards them. They are inscrutable, trivial, illogical and vain. They vacillate, are subject to emotional outbursts and are naturally secretive.
‘Woman are never to be entirely trusted – not even the best of them,’ he states in one particularly revealing remark. However, he was always polite to them, the mark of a gentleman, and, when he wished, could have a ‘peculiarly ingratiating way’ with them.
This mistrust can only have been formed from personal experience and the most likely cause, as many psychiatrists would agree, is found in the mother/child relationship.
Given Holmes’ remarks, it is possible to build up a credible, if speculative, picture of his mother. She was a vain, shallow and self-centred woman, more interested in her own pleasures than in forming a close and loving bond with her children, whom she handed over to the care of servants, as was usual at that time among women of her class.
To a small child, who may well have inherited a tendency towards manic depression, such lack of maternal affection would have had serious effects on his subsequent psychological development. At the very least, it would have given rise to anxiety and tension, evident, in Holmes’ case, in such nervous mannerisms as nail-biting, pacing restlessly about, twisting his fingers together or drumming them on the table.
Even his dislike of chess† may be traced back to those early childhood experiences. As a game, it has all the intellectual and logical challenges which should have appealed to him. However, it is significant that the most dominant piece in chess is the queen, which alone has the ability to move freely about the board, an obvious symbol of the all-powerful mother.
Such symbolism may also be reflected in Holmes’ interest in later life in bee-keeping, an activity in which a queen again plays an important role. However, in this instance, though forming the nucleus of the hive, she is an inert, passive creature whose only function is to lay eggs. In short, although a sex object, she is rendered harmless. He was to write a Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with Some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen. Although Holmes himself may have been unaware of the significance of this title, readers will not need to have their attention drawn to it.
A child who is deprived of his mother’s love may also find difficulty in forming close relationships. This, too, is true of Holmes who, as a protective shell against further rejection, could have deliberately developed that coldness of temperament which Watson was to criticise on several occasions, unaware that this lack of emotional warmth was a consequence of Holmes’ upbringing.
Such suppression of the feelings could also have encouraged Holmes to regard logical and rational thought as superior to the emotions, leading in turn to his interest in science, in particular to chemistry with its emphasis on precise analysis. This analytical turn of mind combined with his undoubted intelligence and an unwillingness to suffer fools gladly made him insensitive to other people’s feelings. He was far too quick to see others’ weaknesses and too frank in pointing them out, an outspokenness which led Watson to accuse him, not without justification, of egotism.
Watson tempered this criticism by adding that, although callous, Holmes was never cruel. Certainly, there were occasions when he was downright rude and his behaviour hurtful, although it should be said in his defence that he was also capable of great kindness.
Holmes never married and he almost certainly remained celibate all his life. In Victorian times, the opportunities for sex outside marriage were limited either to casual encounters with prostitutes or a more permanent liaison with a mistress. Holmes was too fastidious for the former type of relationship and too wary of women to commit himself to the latter, although he was not entirely asexual. Later, he was to be attracted to one woman in particular and, had events not prevented it, might have married her or at least had an affair with her. But she was exceptional and he was never again to meet anyone who measured up to her beauty, intelligence and strength of personality. Holmes was too much of a perfectionist to settle for second-best. Instead, his sexual energy was channelled into other outlets, principally into an overwhelming need for achievement, the roots of which may also be traced back to his childhood.
An emotionally deprived child may suffer from low self-esteem, a feeling that, if he is not given love, then it is because he is unworthy of it. This, too, can lead to depression or, as the child grows older, to a strong urge for success in order to prove to himself and other people that he is indeed worthy. He may also look for admiration as a means of boosting his self-esteem. Holmes was certainly ambitious and susceptible to flattery, as Watson was to discover, while Watson’s unfailing admiration was an important factor in maintaining their friendship.
Another consequence of early emotional deprivation is hostility, even hatred, towards the mother for withholding that affection for which the child naturally craves. Unable to cope with the guilt such violent feelings arouse, the child may sublimate the aggression into more acceptable forms. Holmes’ interest in sensational literature, his knowledge of which Watson says was immense, probably originated in childhood. This type of reading matter, with its emphasis on violence and murder, could well have acted as an outlet for the hidden hostility Holmes felt towards his mother. It was to lead eventually to his specialisation in the study and investigation of crime.
These aggressive urges were later to find a more direct expression in Holmes’ study of anatomy. In the dissecting room at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, it was more or less acceptable for a student, in the name of forensic research, to beat dead bodies with a stick in order to discover to what extent bruises are produced after death. However, even Stamford, Watson’s former dresser, who, as a member of the hospital staff, was surely not over-squeamish, considered such behaviour bizarre and extreme, as indeed it was. Holmes carried out similar research on a dead pig which he stabbed furiously with a huge, barb-headed spear in an attempt to prove that it could not be transfixed with a single blow. Significantly, he returned from this experiment much invigorated and with a hearty appetite.
This same transferred aggression is seen in his choice of sporting activities: boxing, fencing, singlestick play and baritsu, the latter a Japanese form of self-defence. All are combative sports carried out against one individual opponent, not as part of a team.
Some sufferers learn to cope with their recurrent bouts of depression by immersing themselves in activity so that their minds are stimulated and fully occupied. This is also true of Holmes. He was to become a workaholic, frequently staying up all night and sometimes working for days at a stretch without proper food or rest. On two occasions, he drove himself to the point of physical and mental breakdown. It was only when he was idle that he became prone to depression, when he would lie on the sofa, hardly speaking or moving, staring vacantly up at the ceiling.
As well as work, Holmes became dependent on other stimulants in later life: tobacco, strong black coffee and cocaine, which itself can exacerbate the symptoms of manic depression, causing ‘high’ and ‘low’ states of mind. On occasions, he used morphine as well.
His manic-depressive tendencies could also account for the complexities and apparent contradictions in his character, those light and dark sides to his nature. The brighter, more optimistic qualities found expression in his zest for life, his undoubted charm and energy, his enthusiasm and sprightly conversation, and even in more minor traits such as his enjoyment of good food and wine. The darker side to his character gave rise to pessimism, to feelings that nothing in life was worthwhile and to an ascetic, almost monk-like disregard for his creature comforts. Even his sense of humour had its darker element when the wit turned to sarcasm.
Another contradiction is seen in his personal habits, in his extreme untidiness with his possessions compared with his ‘cat-like love of personal cleanliness’ shown in his care over his clothes and appearance.
Holmes says nothing at all about his father, not even obliquely. The impression conveyed by this complete silence is one of absence, either through early death or physical withdrawal. His parents may have lived apart or his father’s profession, which Holmes does not specify, may have taken him away from home for long periods. Or, if present, he may have shown little interest in his sons. As they grew up, Mycroft, as the older brother, seems to have acted in some respects as a surrogate father, giving Holmes advice and taking on responsibilities on his behalf. His habit of addressing Holmes as ‘my dear boy’ has a paternal ring to it.
Mycroft was also affected by his upbringing and the same lack of maternal love. Like Holmes, he never married and, while not showing his brother’s manic-depressive tendencies, was even more unsociable than Holmes. He had no close friends at all and his later life was restricted to his office, his club and his bachelor apartment. He also lacked Holmes’ driving ambition. In this respect, he appears to have inherited more of the phlegmatic qualities of his English forebears.
It is not known where Holmes was educated, whether at a public school, where boys of his class would normally be sent, or at home with a private tutor, as some commentators have claimed. Certainly his sporting interests do not suggest a conventional school, where at that time only team games would have been encouraged. Superficially, his education appeared erratic. After their first meeting, Watson was to draw up a list in which he tried to rate Holmes’ knowledge of various subjects, giving him a zero mark for literature, philosophy and astronomy.
In fact, Holmes was better educated than Watson’s list might suggest. He evidently spoke French like a native, for later he was able to pass himself off as a French workman. He may have learnt the language in France when visiting his French relations. He may also have been able to speak German, which he considered unmusical although ‘the most expressive of all languages’. He had certainly read Goethe, could quote from his works in the original and he knew ‘Rache’ was the German for ‘revenge’. His interest in languages was to persist all his life. For example, he formed the theory that ancient Cornish was similar to Chaldean and may have derived from the Phoenician-speaking tin-merchants who had traded with Cornwall in the past.
His reading included the Bible, Shakespeare, Meredith, Carlyle, Poe, Boileau and Flaubert as well as the works of Darwin, Thoreau and the German philosopher Richter.
As for astronomy, which Watson marked ‘nil’, Holmes had studied it in sufficient depth to discuss ‘the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic’ or, in layman’s terms, the alteration to the angle at which the sun’s circuit stood in relation to the equator. It is doubtful if Watson was as well informed about the subject.
He studied Latin, a prerequisite in those days for boys of his class, and was familiar with such authors as Horace and Tacitus. He may also have learnt Italian. In later life, he once carried a copy of Petrarch in his pocket on a train journey.
His ability to play the violin is well attested by Watson, who also states that he composed as well as performed. His interest in music was almost certainly formed in his childhood and reflects the more creative and intuitive side of his nature. He may also as a child have begun to develop those many other hobbies and interests which Watson mentions and which are too numerous to list in full. They included Buddhism, ancient documents, antiquarian books, miracle plays, guns, golf clubs and the effects of heredity, the latter possibly arising from his own family background. Other interests, such as in codes and cyphers and in tracking footprints, both human and animal, which were to prove useful in his later career as a private consulting detective, may also have begun as boyhood hobbies.
The picture which emerges of Holmes when young is of a highly intelligent but solitary child, the age gap of seven years between himself and Mycroft being then too wide to make them close playmates. Lively and energetic, he could at times be moody and withdrawn, apparently preferring his own company while secretly longing for affection and admiration. He may already have learnt to cope with the pain of his mother’s lack of interest in him by throwing himself into a variety of sports and hobbies and by avoiding any close contacts with others for fear of further rejection. It is therefore not surprising that, as an adult, he would shun any discussion about his family and childhood, preferring to keep those old emotional scars hidden even from Watson, his close friend and confidant. His Victorian upbringing, with its emphasis on keeping a stiff upper lip, would have further inhibited him from revealing his emotions.
Watson’s date of birth is less easily established. For reasons which will be fully explained in Chapter Three, where Watson’s medical training is more closely examined, he was probably born either in 1852 or 1853 which would have made him a year or two older than Holmes.
Little is known about his family background but it was apparently fairly well-to-do middle-class. Although his profession is not stated, Watson’s father was wealthy enough to own a fifty-guinea watch, the only fact known about him. Like Holmes, Watson had an older brother, whose name is not given although his first name began with an H. He was later to become the black sheep of the family, much to Watson’s deep embarrassment. This reaction suggests a conventional, respectable upbringing.
Watson appears to have had a normal childhood, for he suffered from none of the effects of psychological damage which characterise Holmes’ personality. His reticence about his family background and early life is due more to a natural modesty and to his self-appointed role as Holmes’ chronicler, not as his own, than to a desire to repress unhappy memories.
Dorothy L. Sayers has suggested he may have had Scottish connections.‡ Whether or not this theory is correct, Watson was clearly educated at an English school, possibly a boarding school, although this is not firmly established. Another commentator has suggested that, because of Watson’s skill at rugby, he may have been a pupil at Rugby, the well-known public school where the game was first introduced in 1823. This, however, is unlikely. One of Watson’s fellow pupils was Percy Phelps, the nephew of Lord Holdhurst,§ the Conservative politician. Watson and the other boys bullied Phelps because of this ‘gaudy relationship’, as Watson terms it. Pupils at Rugby, or at any other of the famous public schools such as Eton and Harrow, where boys from an aristocratic background were the norm rather than the exception, would not have ragged Phelps about his noble connections. The attitude of Watson and his friends suggests the school was a minor establishment.
The passage in which Watson reminisces about Percy Phelps is also revealing about other aspects of Watson’s schooldays. ‘Tadpole’ Phelps was an intimate friend of Watson, indicating that, unlike Holmes, Watson was capable of making close relationships. He was also apparently on good terms with the other boys, joining in the ragging of the unfortunate ‘Tadpole’. Phelps seems not to have borne Watson any grudge and later was to appeal for his help in persuading Holmes to investigate the case of the Naval Treaty.
In addition, the passage shows that, although about the same age as Watson, Phelps, a brilliant scholar who was to win all the school prizes, was two classes ahead of him, suggesting Watson was a pupil of average intelligence and attainment, an assessment which will be more fully examined in Chapter Three.
Watson’s love of rugby, a team game, is also significant, indicating an ability to co-operate with others as well as to enjoy the rough and tumble of a highly physical sport. It also bears out his own statement about himself that he was ‘reckoned fleet of foot’.
As an adult, he also prided himself on his common sense while admitting to extreme laziness, a judgement which shows a clear insight into his own personality, although in the latter estimation Watson was being a little hard on himself. Although he shows none of Holmes’ ambitious drive, when given the right incentive he was capable of aspirations and was willing to work hard to achieve them.
Despite his criticisms of Holmes’ accomplishments, Watson was less widely read or educated than Holmes and his interests and hobbies were much more limited, being restricted in later years to billiards and horse-racing. His taste in books extended little further than the sea stories of William Clark Russell. This preference for an exciting yarn was probably established in boyhood and may well have bred in him a love of travel and adventure. It was a part of his personality which, as will be seen later, was to influence his subsequent career as well as form an essential factor in his friendship with Holmes. It was also to contribute to his later success as a writer. In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Watson was to say of himself, ‘The promise of adventure had always a fascination for me.’
Quite apart from his talent as a writer, an attribute which will also be examined in more detail later, Watson showed this creative side to his personality in other ways. Although not a performer himself, he enjoyed listening to music, in particular to Mendelssohn, a romantic composer. He also possessed a deep love of the English countryside, which is frequently expressed in his writing, and a sympathy for other people, especially for women, in which that romantic quality is again seen.
His attitude to women was normal. He was chivalrous towards them, admired them and enjoyed their company. He was to marry twice,¶ the first time very happily. His second marriage, about which Watson says nothing, will be dealt with in more detail at the appropriate time.
As well as a romantic, Watson was an idealist. Of the few personal possessions he contributed to the shared Baker Street sitting-room two were portraits, one of General Gordon, the hero of Khartoum, the other of Henry Ward Beecher, the American preacher and supporter of Negro rights during the American Civil War. His choice could well reflect a boyhood admiration for men of courage, distinguished, in Gordon’s case, for physical bravery, in Beecher’s for the moral stand he took in the name of freedom and care for the oppressed. This tendency towards hero worship was to play a significant role in his friendship with Holmes.
The sympathetic, idealistic side to Watson’s nature, with its concern for the underprivileged, may have prompted him to choose medicine as his future career, while his love of adventure would have drawn him towards the army with its promise of excitement and action.
His upbringing, though stable, may however have been strict, with an emphasis on such middle-class virtues as good manners, modesty, loyalty, honesty and kindness towards others. Certainly Watson shows all these traits as well as the guilt which often results from such an upbringing when the child falls short of such high moral standards. As a result, Watson was to grow up to be a thoroughly nice man.
If this sounds a little too dull and worthy, he could on occasions be short-tempered, impatient and forthright, prepared to stand up for himself and to express his opinions quite forcibly when the need arose. As he himself admits, he also had a tendency at times towards self-importance.
Unlike Holmes, he was also willing to express his feelings openly and references to his emotional reactions are found throughout the canon, whether to the sympathy he felt towards some of Holmes’ clients, particularly the women, or his exasperation towards Holmes himself, as well as the horror, excitement or occasional fear his experiences roused in him.
The impression one receives of Watson as a child is of a sturdy, sensible, nicely brought-up little boy, from a stable if conventional background, who was generally on good terms with other children. Although not scholastically brilliant, he was capable of average academic success when he put his mind to it. He may already have shown in childhood that more romantic and idealistic side to his nature in a tendency towards day-dreaming of exciting adventures in exotic places and, as he grew older, of aspirations towards making a positive contribution to the good of mankind.
Much less complex than Holmes, Watson nevertheless possesses far more depth of character than he is sometimes credited with, even by Holmes himself who, in one rather backhanded compliment, suggests that he lacked luminosity.
‘It may be that you are not yourself luminous,’ he tells Watson, ‘but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.’
Characteristically, rather than being offended, Watson was delighted by the remark.
As a personality, Watson may indeed not glitter quite as brightly as Holmes, but nevertheless there is a warm, steady glow about him which was to illuminate their friendship as much as Holmes’ more pyrotechnic brilliance. Without it, it is doubtful if their relationship would have survived intact for all those years.
* See Appendix One.
† In ‘The Adventure of the Retired Colourman’ Holmes states that Amberley’s proficiency at chess was the mark of a ‘scheming mind’. As William S. Baring-Gould has pointed out, most Sherlockian students believe Holmes was not himself a chess-player although he used chess terms and expressions in his conversation.
‡ See Appendix One.
§ Like most personal names in the canon, this is a pseudonym, devised by Watson to hide the individual’s identity. Many places and addresses are also similarly disguised, including the location of 221B Baker Street.
¶ See Appendix One.
CHAPTER TWO
HOLMES Oxford and Montague Street 1872–1880
‘It is my business to know things. Perhaps I have trained myself to see what others overlook.’ Holmes: ‘A Case of Identity’
Holmes is more forthcoming about his life after his schooldays. Even so, there are gaps and apparent discrepancies in the information he confided to Watson, largely because it was given in a piecemeal fashion during the course of conversations and not as a straightforward autobiographical account. Watson himself has further confused the issue by his carelessness in recording some of the facts.
However, it is possible to gather up the references and from them to piece together a fairly coherent account of Holmes’ life and career before 1881.
He went to university, either Oxford or Cambridge. At that time, an upper middle-class family would not have considered sending its son anywhere else and the fact that Reginald Musgrave, the heir to one of the oldest families in the country, was one of Holmes’ fellow students puts the matter beyond doubt.
Although Dorothy L. Sayers has opted for Cambridge,* the weight of evidence favours Oxford as the more likely choice, based largely on the references in ‘The Adventure of the Three Students’, a case which Holmes investigated in 1895 and which is clearly set in Oxford. Both Holmes and Watson speak of ‘quadrangles’, a term never applied to Cambridge where the equivalent reference is ‘court’. It is also quite evident that Holmes was familiar with the place. He knew, for example, that there were four stationers of any importance in the town and was acquainted with Mr Hilton Soames, a tutor and lecturer at St Luke’s College. As there is no evidence to suggest that Soames was ever one of Holmes’ clients, they must have met during their time together at university. St Luke’s is a pseudonym. Watson admits that he has deliberately altered the details so that the college cannot be identified. It may also conceal the name of Holmes’ own college, although this cannot be proved.
The whole subject of Holmes’ university career is fraught with problems, especially over the dating, and all theories regarding it are therefore speculative. It is not even known when Holmes entered university but, assuming he went up at eighteen, the usual age, he would have begun his undergraduate studies in October 1872.† It is not known, either, what he read, but in view of his subsequent knowledge of chemistry, which Watson says was profound, it was probably this subject. With his own medical training, Watson was in a good position to judge Holmes’ expertise.
It is likely that Holmes was introduced to cocaine and morphine while he was at university. Both were rich man’s drugs, unlike opium which was considered a working-class indulgence. It should be pointed out that Holmes, in taking drugs, was not breaking the law. Until the Dangerous Drugs Acts of 1965 and 1967,‡ it was not illegal to possess or even to deal in such substances. Holmes was eventually to become an addict, regularly injecting himself three times a day with a 7 per cent solution of cocaine, or ‘mainlining’ to use the modern jargon. Its effect is to create a sense of euphoria followed by a relaxed drowsiness, the ‘high’ and ‘low’ states already referred to in Chapter One. He also occasionally used morphine, a narcotic and analgesic. It was to take Watson several years before he finally persuaded Holmes to give up the habit.
Holmes gives the impression he found little satisfaction in his time at university, not even in his studies. Throughout his life he preferred to follow his own individual interests rather than to keep to a formal course of education, a tendency already seen in his childhood reading of sensational literature, certainly not part of any school curriculum or recommended reading list.
As he acknowledges, when he went up to university he was already deeply immersed in his ideas about crime and its detection which, over the next few years, he was to expand into his theories of scientific deduction and analysis, based on careful observation of material evidence and its logical interpretation, not on mere speculation. However, this theory did not entirely rule out the application of intuition and ‘scientific use of the imagination’. He was later to criticise the police for their lack of ‘imaginative intuition’.
He admits he rarely mixed socially with the other students, preferring to remain in his rooms, mulling over these ideas, although he must have discussed them with his acquaintances because he tells Watson that his methods had already begun to gain him a reputation among the other undergraduates. These contacts were to prove useful to him after he left Oxford.
Despite his unsociable habits, he made two friends, one of whom was particularly close. This was Victor Trevor, whose bull terrier bit him on the ankle as Holmes went to chapel one morning, incidentally the only occasion recorded in the canon of Holmes attending a church service. As he was laid up for ten days, Trevor used to call to see how he was, visits which led to their friendship. The other was Reginald Musgrave, who was a fellow student at Holmes’ college. Although he was never more than a slight acquaintance, he became interested in Holmes’ theories. Both were later to introduce him to two of his earliest cases.
There were, however, diversions. Holmes spent some time fencing and boxing, the only sports he indulged in during his time at university. He excelled in the latter sport and, according to Watson, was one of the best boxers of his weight he had ever seen, a claim supported by the professional prizefighter McMurdo, with whom Holmes was to fight four rounds at the former’s benefit night and who maintained Holmes could have turned professional. Holmes does not state if he boxed or fenced for either his college or the university and there is no evidence to suggest he gained a ‘Blue’ for either of these sports.
Holmes apparently left university after only two years, instead of the more usual three, without sitting his final examinations and therefore without taking a degree. There is, however, confusion over even this fact. Holmes refers on one occasion to ‘the two years I was at college’ and on another to ‘my last years at university’, implying he was there for at least three years. It is possible Watson either misheard or misquoted Holmes and the latter remark should read ‘my last year at university’. If that is the case, then Holmes went down in 1874 at the age of twenty.§
One reason for his early departure could have been that dissatisfaction, already mentioned. Another was possible financial problems. Neither Holmes nor his brother Mycroft appear to have inherited much money, for both were obliged to earn their own livings. In fact, it was shortage of funds which was later to compel Holmes to share lodgings with Watson. A family financial crisis at this point in Holmes’ university career could have meant that there was no longer enough money to support him or pay his fees.
For whatever reason, Holmes left Oxford for London, where he found rooms, presumably the same lodgings in Montague Street which he was still occupying at the end of 1880. If the dates are correct, he was to remain there for the next five and a half years. It was a convenient address, handy for the British Museum and its Reading Room, where Holmes no doubt studied the many subjects in which he was interested. The rents, too, were reasonable, a single room costing £1 10s a week (£1.50p), two rooms £3. This would have included food and cleaning. As Holmes speaks of ‘rooms’, he presumably had two, a bedroom and a sitting-room where, once he had established himself professionally, he interviewed his clients.
Montague Street, which runs along the side of the British Museum towards Russell Square, is still lined with the same terraces of flat-fronted, four-storeyed houses, built of brick and stucco, with basement areas and iron balconies on the first floors. Since Holmes’ time, several of them have been converted into hotels.
On first coming down from university, Holmes had no idea what profession to follow, for at that stage in his life he regarded his interest in detection as ‘the merest hobby’. It was a chance remark that was to decide his future for him.
That same summer of 1874¶ he was invited by Victor Trevor to stay for a month at his family home in Donnithorpe, Norfolk. At the time, Holmes was working on an experiment in organic chemistry, suggesting that soon after coming down from university he had already set up the equipment he would need to continue his chemical studies, which might indicate that he had considered a career as an experimental chemist.
While at Donnithorpe, Holmes was unwittingly drawn into a situation which was to lead to the Gloria Scott inquiry, the first, he told Watson, that he was asked to investigate. Strictly speaking, this is not accurate. Holmes’ involvement was limited to deciphering a cryptic letter sent by one of the participants in an old crime which had taken place thirty years earlier on board a convict ship.¶ Apart from this, he merely acted as an observer of the events, taking no active role in their solution. But the case was important for the part it played in Holmes’ decision to become a private consulting detective: the only one in the world, as later he was proudly to inform Watson.
On meeting Trevor’s father, Holmes impressed him by deducing several facts about his background so correctly that he caused his host to have a heart attack, much to Holmes’ and young Trevor’s consternation. On recovering, Trevor senior made a remark which was to have significant consequences. Detection, he announced categorically, was Holmes’ ‘line in life’. He backed up this assertion by adding, ‘You may take the word of a man who has seen something of the world.’
It was the first time it had occurred to Holmes that he might turn his hobby into a profession.
It is not known what his second case involved. He may have been asked to investigate it by another of his varsity acquaintances. Holmes told Watson that the few cases which came his way during his early years in Montague Street were mainly from this source. But the third of these inquiries was undoubtedly the Musgrave Ritual case. He was introduced to it by Reginald Musgrave, his former fellow student at St Luke’s College, who travelled especially to London to ask for Holmes’ help, suggesting that word of his growing expertise was spreading among the varsity set.
Holmes says that it was four years since he had last seen Musgrave. Assuming June 1874 is the correct date for Holmes’ departure from Oxford, the case therefore occurred either in 1878 or 1879, depending on how precise Holmes was over the matter of the time gap.|| That being so, Holmes had undertaken only three cases during those four years. They were lean times indeed and Holmes’ comment about his ‘all too abundant leisure time’ was fully justified.
Although Holmes does not say as much, he may have charged Musgrave a fee for his services. When Musgrave arrived, Holmes told him, ‘I have taken to living by my wits.’ It is possibly a hint that he had turned professional and expected to be paid. This would accord with a statement Watson was to make many years later. In the opening sentence of ‘The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger’, Watson states quite categorically that Holmes was in active practice for twenty-three years and that ‘during seventeen of these I was allowed to co-operate with him’. Although Watson is notoriously unreliable about facts and figures, it seems that on this occasion at least his arithmetic was partly correct, according to this dating scheme.
It is generally accepted by most commentators that Holmes retired in 1903. After discounting the three years of the Great Hiatus, the period in which Holmes disappeared and was thought dead, we arrive at 1877, possibly the same year in which Holmes undertook his second case, as the date when he also began his ‘active practice’, a term which probably implies his decision to turn professional and charge fees. The second part of Watson’s statement, that he co-operated with Holmes during seventeen of these years, will be examined in more detail in a later chapter.
It is not known how Holmes supported himself financially during the two and half years from the summer of 1874 when he left university until 1877 when he may have begun charging his clients. Presumably he had a little money of his own or his family may have paid him a small allowance, to which his brother Mycroft may also have contributed. By that time, it is likely Mycroft was established in his career as a Civil Service auditor and was living in London in his own bachelor lodgings. Certainly he took an active interest in his younger brother’s career, for he introduced Holmes ‘again and again’ to cases, amongst which were some of the most interesting he was to undertake.
We are on safer ground when we come to consider how Holmes spent that ‘all too abundant leisure time’ during those early years. He used it to study ‘all those branches of science’ in which he needed to become an expert before turning professional. In short, he was perfecting his tradecraft, to use one of John le Carré’s terms.
One method of achieving this goal was to join the anatomy and chemistry classes at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in West Smithfield, near St Paul’s Cathedral. These courses were open to members of the general public who, while not intending to become doctors, were interested in medical subjects. Holmes could have found out about these classes from the registrar of the University of London, which had its offices in Malet Street, only a few minutes’ walk from Montague Street.
It is possible Holmes chose Bart’s in preference to other London hospitals because it was then one of the largest, with 676 beds, and because of its reputation. Its staff included Sir James Paget,** the distinguished consulting surgeon who lectured on anatomy, one of the subjects Holmes elected to study. Bart’s ran four separate courses of anatomy lectures as well as two demonstration classes. It is not known which of these Holmes chose to attend but he almost certainly enrolled for the demonstration class in Morbid Anatomy under Dr Gee. He also joined at least one of the chemistry courses, possibly the one on Practical Chemistry, taught by Dr Russell. The fees varied from ten guineas for an unlimited course in anatomy to three for practical chemistry.
During this period, Watson was himself a medical student at Bart’s and he was probably present at some of the classes which Holmes attended, although they never became acquainted. However, they may well have passed each other on the stairs leading up to the chemistry laboratory or watched the same anatomy demonstrations. They may even, without knowing it, have sat together reading in the library or examining the jars of specimens in the Pathological Museum.
Apart from these courses at Bart’s, Holmes’ time was taken up with conducting his own chemical experiments at his lodgings, where he had presumably set up a work-bench similar to the one he was later to install at 221B Baker Street. He was also perfecting his skills in other areas.
Throughout his professional life, Holmes stressed the importance to a detective of a knowledge of the history of crime. ‘Everything comes in circles,’ he was to tell Inspector MacDonald, whom he advised to shut himself up for ‘three months and read twelve hours a day’ into the subject. No doubt, this advice was based on personal experience of his time at Montague Street before his practice was established and he had the leisure for such sustained reading.
‘All knowledge comes useful to a detective,’ was another of his maxims, and it was probably also during these years that he made a serious study of tobacco on which he wrote a monograph: ‘Upon the Distinction between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccos’. This may have been published while he was still at Montague Street. It was certainly in print by March 1881, the date of the Study in Scarlet case. Two other articles published in the Anthropological Journal on the subject of ears may also belong to this period. If not, Holmes would have carried out the research while a student at Bart’s.
Over the years, he was to publish other articles and monographs on codes and cyphers in which he analysed 160 different types, on tattoos, on the influence of a man’s trade on his hands, and on footprints, a special interest of his which, as has already been suggested, may have stemmed from a boyhood hobby.
‘There is no branch of detective science which is so important and so much neglected as the art of tracing footprints,’ he was to inform Watson.
From such prints he was able to tell not only the type of footwear a suspect was wearing but also his height from the length of his stride. Holmes was to put this skill to use in numerous cases and, in his monograph on the subject, was to add some remarks about the use of plaster of Paris in taking impressions of the prints.
Other specialised subjects in which he took a professional interest and which no doubt he studied during these years were the dating of documents, watermarks in paper, the analysis of handwriting and perfumes, and the study of different makes of bicycle tyres. He also made himself familiar with the types used by newspaper printers and, at one stage, he considered writing monographs on typewriters and their own distinctive print as well as the use of dogs in detection.
His writing activities were not confined only to the subject of crime. Several years later, in November 1895, when in the middle of the inquiry into the theft of the Bruce-Partington plans, a case of national importance, he was working on a monograph on the polyphonic motets of Orlandus Lassus, the sixteenth-century German composer, which was published privately and was considered by the experts to be the last word on the subject.
But, above all, he studied his fellow human beings, a subject on which he was to publish a magazine article entitled ‘The Book of Life’ in which he asserted that a man’s whole history, as well as his trade or profession, could be deduced from his appearance. It was a skill which, as we have seen, he had already demonstrated to Victor Trevor’s father with such unfortunate results. As Watson read the article soon after meeting Holmes, it was almost certainly written and probably published while Holmes was still living in Montague Street.
Some at least of these early monographs were later translated into French by François le Villard, a French detective who also consulted Holmes about a case involving a will. As M. le Villard corresponded with Holmes in French, this is further proof of Holmes’ familiarity with the language.
This exchange of ideas was not just in one direction. Holmes was to become an enthusiastic admirer of the Bertillon system for identifying criminals. Devised by Alphonse Bertillon, who was Chief of Criminal Investigation with the Paris police force from 1880, it was based on detailed descriptions, photographs and precise bodily measurements. It was eventually superseded by fingerprinting.
The use of disguise was another aspect of detection which Holmes must have studied during this period. He was a natural actor, capable of taking on a role so convincingly that Watson was later to state that ‘his very soul seemed to vary with each fresh part he assumed’. Even old Baron Dowson, for whose arrest Holmes was responsible, said of him on the night before he was hanged that ‘what the law had gained the stage had lost’. Among the many disguises Holmes was to adopt during his career were those of a plumber, an elderly Italian priest, a sailor and an old woman.
William S. Baring-Gould has suggested that between 1879 and 1880 Holmes was touring the United States of America as an actor with the Sasanoff Shakespearean Company. There is no evidence in the canon to support the theory. On the contrary, all the available information tends to show that Holmes was fully occupied and living in Montague Street during these years. Nor was there any need for him to take to the professional stage to learn the art of disguise. There were plenty of retired or out-of-work actors in London who could have taught him how to fix on a wig or false moustaches and to apply greasepaint.
But it wasn’t all work and study. London offered plenty of opportunities for diversion and amusement in the way of plays, operas, concerts and music-hall entertainments. Although there is no evidence in the canon to suggest he ever went to the theatre or music-hall, he certainly attended operas and concerts. He was familiar with St James’s Hall in Westminster, for he was to discuss its acoustics with Watson. It was there that he heard Wilhelmine Norman-Néruda play the violin at concerts given by Sir Charles Hallé, whom she later married. Holmes admired her bowing technique and the vigour of her performances. However, other concert-goers must have found his habit of beating time to the music with one hand annoying, although, as Holmes kept his eyes shut, he was probably quite unaware of their reaction.
And if the price of a concert or opera ticket was beyond his means while he was struggling to establish himself professionally, there were plenty of other ways he could amuse himself for nothing.
Holmes enjoyed walking and it was during his time in Montague Street that he began the habit of taking long walks about the capital, familiarising himself with its streets, particularly the slum areas of the East End with its docks and with the gin shops and opium dens of Limehouse.
He also became acquainted with the second-hand shops in and around Tottenham Court Road, for it was here that he bought his Stradivarius violin, worth at least five hundred guineas, for fifty-five shillings (£2.75p) from a Jewish broker. Today it would be worth many more times this amount.
For a man interested in antiquarian books, there were the booksellers as well, although at this stage in his career Holmes may not yet have been able to afford to indulge his hobby of collecting unless he was lucky enough to find a bargain, such as the little brown-backed volume of De Jure Inter Gentes, published in Liége in 1642, which he found on a stall selling second-hand books and which he later showed to Watson.
But business was picking up. Between 1878 and the last months of 1880, at least eight more cases came his way. As he was later to tell Watson that his practice became ‘considerable’, there were undoubtedly more which he failed to mention. Those he listed were the Tarleton murders and the case of Vamberry, the wine merchant, as well as the inquiries involving an old Russian woman, the club-footed Ricoletti and his abominable wife, and a particularly curious investigation which concerned an aluminium crutch. Unfortunately, Holmes has given no further details about these cases.
Other clients included a Mrs Farintosh, who consulted him about an opal tiara, and a Mr Mortimer Maberley, whom Holmes was able to help over a ‘trifling matter’ and whose widow later requested his advice over the sale of her house, the Three Gables. A Mrs Cecil Forrester also asked for his assistance. Although her case was straightforward, involving only a minor domestic complication, Mrs Forrester was to play an important part in Watson’s future, for it was through her that Miss Mary Morstan heard of Holmes and several years later came to consult him about a much more complex problem of her own. Some of these cases came, as he told Watson, from private detective agents who turned to him for help when they found themselves in difficulties and whom Holmes charged for his services.
It is clear from even the limited list he gave Watson that Holmes’ reputation as a private consulting detective was spreading far outside the circle of his former varsity acquaintances and that he was considered expert enough to be consulted, presumably by the police, over such serious crimes as murder.
It is not known when Scotland Yard first asked Holmes for his assistance, but it was before the end of 1880, by which date he was already acquainted with Inspector Lestrade and was helping him with a forgery case. This investigation, which lasted into the early part of 1881, was probably one of the last Holmes undertook while at the Montague Street lodgings. His attitude towards what he called the ‘Scotland Yarders’ was contemptuous and shows all the arrogance of a young man aware of his own superior intelligence. As he grew older and more mature, he was to moderate his opinions. At the time he considered Lestrade and Gregson, whom he also met during this period, ‘the pick of a bad lot’, quick and energetic but shockingly conventional in their methods. He was exasperated, too, by their professional jealousy and their habit of claiming all the credit when a case was successfully solved.
Watson, with his gift for sketching people in a few vivid words, has given us descriptions of them. Lestrade was a ‘little sallow, rat-faced, dark-eyed fellow’ in contrast to Gregson who was a ‘tall, white-faced, flaxen-haired man’.
During these years, Holmes may also have made the acquaintance of Athelney Jones,†† another Scotland Yard detective, a ‘very stout, portly man’, as Watson describes him. If Holmes met him before the end of 1880, then he was also involved in the Bishopgate jewel case, on which he lectured Jones and his colleagues on its causes, inferences and effects – an occasion which clearly rankled and led Jones several years later to refer to Holmes sneeringly as ‘the theorist’. His comment may well sum up the general attitude of the police at that time towards Holmes and his methods.
Holmes’ disdain was not entirely unjustified. At that time, senior police officers came up through the ranks and their standard of education was not high, compared with Holmes’. Nevertheless, one can appreciate how Lestrade, an officer of twenty years’ experience, must have felt when taught his business by a young man who was himself only in his twenties. Watson was right in thinking that at times Holmes was bumptious.
Watson has given us many descriptions of Holmes, the most detailed the one he drew of him soon after their first meeting. He was, Watson writes, rather above six feet in height and ‘so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller’. His eyes were ‘sharp and piercing … and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the prominence and squareness which mark the man of determination’.
