Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #33 E-Book

Janice Law

• Herausgeber: Alien Ebooks
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #33 presents new tales by modern writers, great nonfiction, as well as classic Holmes adventures. In this issue:

FEATURES

FROM WATSON’S NOTEBOOKS, by John H Watson, M.D.
ASK MRS HUDSON, by (Mrs) Martha Hudson
SCREEN OF THE CRIME, by Kim Newman

NON-FICTION

SIX DEGREES OF TENTACULAR SEPARATION, by Elizabeth Crowens

FICTION

THE ADVENTURE OF THE DURHAM MONOGRAPH, by Robert Dawson
THE CASE OF THE DIRTY PAWS, by J.M. Walker
LONG SHOT, by Hal Charles
CAPTAIN DAYLIGHT, by Andrew Salmon
ONE NIGHT AT MCGUFFIN’S TAVERN, by Teel James Glenn
THE ADVENTURE OF THE TWO GUINEAS, by Michael Mallory
THE HOLMES IMPERSONATOR ON THE BOARDS, by Janice Law
THE MAN WHO SLIPPED BETWEEN, by Dennis Maulsby
THE ADVENTURE OF THE IRON ELEPHANT, by Jim Robb

CLASSIC SHERLOCK HOLMES

THE ADVENTURE OF THE THREE STUDENTS, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

SHERLOCK HOLMES MYSTERY MAGAZINE #33.

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

STAFF

FROM WATSON’S NOTEBOOKS

ASK MRS HUDSON, by (Mrs) Martha Hudson

SCREEN OF THE CRIME, by Kim Newman

SIX DEGREES OF TENTACULAR SEPARATION, by Elizabeth Crowens

THE ADVENTURE OF THE DURHAM MONOGRAPH, by Robert Dawson

THE CASE OF THE DIRTY PAWS, by J.M. Walker

LONG SHOT, by Hal Charles

CAPTAIN DAYLIGHT, by Andrew Salmon

ONE NIGHT AT McGUFFIN’S TAVERN, by Teel James Glenn

THE ADVENTURE OF THE TWO GUINEAS, by Michael Mallory

THE HOLMES IMPERSONATOR ON THE BOARDS, by Janice Law

THE MAN WHO SLIPPED BETWEEN, by Dennis Maulsby

THE ADVENTURE OF THE IRON ELEPHANT, by Jim Robb

THE ADVENTURE OF THE THREE STUDENTS, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

SHERLOCK HOLMESMYSTERY MAGAZINE #33.

Vol. 10, No. 1Issue #33

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 2024 by Wildside Press LLC.

All rights reserved.

wildsidepress.com

STAFF

Publisher & Executive EditorJohn Betancourt

EditorCarla Kaessinger Coupe

Assistant EditorsSam Hogan, Karl Würf and Steve Coupe.

FROM WATSON’S NOTEBOOKS

The winter cold is beginning to loosen its grip and the appearance of daffodils, those early heralds of warmer weather, have raised my spirits. The receipt of this issue’s contents for my perusal has added to my joy, for I delight in reading all of the creative stories and informative essays, and the current crop are very entertaining. I must admit, however, that I find it rather unnerving to read a story written by my descendant. Although I’m extremely proud of both the fine young man who penned “The Durham Monograph” and the young woman with whom he partnered, whose bravery and intelligence can’t be gainsaid, their adventure quite took my breath away. Imagine the catastrophic consequences if they had failed!

I believe I have mentioned before that Sherlock Holmes could be quite tight-lipped on occasion, but his streak of mystery was nothing compared to that of his brother. I knew that Mycroft’s position was of more import than ever he acknowledged, but I was truly surprised to read “The Adventure of the Two Guineas” and “Captain Daylight”. To think that he helmed an organization instrumental in protecting so many people, both noble and common, in addition to maintaining order within the empire. On the other hand, I am quite astonished to read “The Man Who Slipped Between”. The possibilities discussed in this tale leave me quite confounded, not to mention unsettled. I will leave it up to the Reader to reconcile this account with their notion of reality, if at all possible.

And now it is time for my afternoon siesta. I will hand the reins to Our Editor while I rest and restore my energy.

* * * *

I’ve tried something a little different with issue 33: a collection of spin-off stories. In some fashion, these side tales parallel or are adjacent to the Canon. We have stories about a Holmes and Watson in the Old West by Jim Robb and in an alternate universe by Dennis Maulsby. As the dear Doctor mentioned, Robert Dawson has passed on a story written by Watson’s descendant. Michael Mallory’s and Andrew Salmon’s contributions feature agents who work for Mycroft, and investigator and reporter Kelly Locke solves a mystery during the Kentucky Derby weekend in Hal Charles’s “Long Shot”.

The stage is well-represented by actor William Gillette, who dons the guise of Holmes to solve a domestic mystery in J.M. Walker’s “The Case of the Dirty Paws”, and Janice Law’s Holmes Impersonator appears in Gillette’s play about Holmes although, alas, as Watson and not as Holmes himself. Still, that doesn’t stop him from investigating an attempted murder.

Elizabeth Crowens has penned an amusing exploration of the possibility of Captain Nemo and Sherlock Holmes encountering each other in overlapping worlds. Even Arthur Conan Doyle shows up on these pages, haunting—appropriately—an otherworldly pub in Teel James Glenn’s “One Night at McGuffin’s Tavern”. Our classic mystery this issue is “The Adventure of the Three Students,” where academic pressure can corrupt even a good man.

Of course Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine wouldn’t be complete without our usual features by Mrs Hudson and Kim Newman, as well as a Marc Bilgrey cartoon. There’s a little something for everyone.

Happy reading!

Canonically yours,

Carla Kaessinger Coupe

ASK MRS HUDSON,by(Mrs) Martha Hudson

Good morning, dear readers—or good evening, depending upon when you’re reading my little column. It is morning here on Baker-street, although you wouldn’t know it by the silence upstairs. My illustrious tenants “had a case on,” as they like to say, and got in long after midnight. They tried to be quiet, but of course I heard them. I wasn’t blessed with children of my own, but I do have a mother’s ears, and I cannot truly relax until I know my boys are home safe.

They are hot on the track of a jewel thief, Dr Watson told me, as they rushed out early yesterday morning. Their jubilance might have appeared unseemly to anyone else, but it is their first case of the year. Soon after Christmas, our little household was stricken with illness, and it has taken all of us several weeks to get back on our feet. Mr Holmes was the last to recover (I tell him it is because of all of his tobacco, but he just waves me away), and for the past few days he has been pacing their flat as if he were a tiger in a cage, being rather beastly to everyone. I could have kissed Inspector Lestrade when he showed up at the door, all befuddled with a new case. I was about to send my tenants out on an “errand” and bar the door behind them!

Which brings us to our first letter….

* * * *

Dear Mrs Hudson,

I am currently training to become a nurse, and in the process have become a great fan of Dr Watson’s detective tales. I find that they are exciting enough to provide a welcome distraction from the difficult work of caring for our patients, but not so scary that they keep me awake at night! We nurses need our rest!

As I was feeding one sufferer his porridge yesterday, I found myself wondering, “I wonder what Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are like when they are ill? Are they difficult patients? Is it helpful to have a doctor in the house?” I should imagine that it would be. I always thought I would marry a soldier, but now that I have tended so many of our wounded and bitter invalids, I now believe it would be better to set my cap at a medical man. What do you think?

Sincerely,

Cordelia Howard

c/o Charing Cross Hospital

London

*

My Dear Miss Howard,

First, allow me to congratulate you on choosing such a noble occupation! Nursing is a natural fit for a woman, and I am gratified to see members of my sex now able to be remunerated for tasks we have performed devotedly, and without pay, for centuries. Mind your back, though, my dear. You will find it takes a good deal of punishment.

As to how Mr Holmes and Dr Watson are as patients, I will tell you that, contrary to what everyone seems to think, Mr Holmes is quite docile—if a wee bit fractious—when taken ill. No one is pleasant when they are poorly, of course, but other than the occasional petulant complaint and constant, very impatient demands for tea (which I provide) and tobacco (which I most certainly do not), he spends most of the time burrowed in his blankets, willingly following any treatment I or “his” doctor (Dr Watson, of course) prescribes. He desperately wants to be better, you see, and his logical mind has long since deduced that, if his iron constitution has finally failed him (always a bit of a shock to the poor man, if not to his friends), then he must do all he can to repair it, and thus get back to his work.

Dr Watson—well, Dr Watson is quite another matter. No doubt, during your hospital work, you have heard the saying “Doctors make the worst patients,” and I can testify that, in the case of John Watson, it is certainly true. They learn to practice their profession under the most brutal of conditions, and when you remember that Dr Watson began his medical career as an army surgeon, working under fire, you can well imagine he simply cannot allow himself to be defeated by a mere bronchial infection. He seems to take it as both a personal affront (how dare a disease broach his defences!) and a challenge to his very manhood. And if I dare to suggest that he consult one of his colleagues for treatment—well, my Heavens, you would think that I had asked him to cut off a limb. Indeed, I think he would rather do that than make a call to Dr Anstruther, no matter how friendly they are betweentimes. “I’ve seen too many idiot doctors,” he says, conveniently forgetting that he allows that “idiot” Anstruther to cover his practice. The truth is, he cannot bear to think that another physician might know more than he. I cannot tell you whether you should find a doctor-husband, my dear, but if you do, and he should take ill, be prepared to provide tea with plenty of honey and lemon while keeping any medical advice to yourself. A doctor’s most vulnerable organ is his pride.

*

Our next letter takes us back to Christmas. My, how long ago that seems! We had a wonderful time at 221 Baker Street, but our next correspondent did not:

* * * *

Dear Mrs Hudson,

I should have written you for advice before Christmas, but alas I did not, and I have paid dearly for it. I am a new bride—Charles and I were married in October—and I must tell all young ladies planning autumn nuptials that, no matter how pretty the trees and amenable the weather, it is a mistake! For when you marry in October, no sooner do you get home from your honeymoon than you must prepare for Christmas—and that is a very different matter when you, and not your mother, are in charge of the household. And I do not have much of a “household”: in fact, it is just me, my cook (who had also never done an entire Christmas dinner by herself) and a little maid-of-all-work, who did her best, but she is only thirteen and can barely make a passable cup of tea.

Because of this, I thought that we should spend Christmas with my family in Kent, where I could prepare the dinner with my mother—something I never thought to do when I had the chance—and then we could have guests next Christmas. But Charles is so proud of our little home, and of me, that he insisted that we host his family for dinner. He brought home a fine goose, and suggested that, since his mother is French, we have some sort of festive French dish in her honor. I said I thought I could do haricôts verts, but he said he thought it should be a “Bûche de Nöel,” which is a chocolate cake that looks like a tree log. I had my doubts, but I love my dear husband, and thought perhaps that love would help me perform some culinary miracle. I certainly prayed for one!

Well, Christmas dinner—and then Christmas itself—was a disaster. I had no idea a goose had so many feathers, and we must have left more than a few on, as we could smell them, roasting. This added a certain je ne sais quoi to the vegetables which accompanied it, while the goose itself was burnt on the outside but practically raw the further in Charles carved. The haricôts verts I had such confidence in were “overcooked” for half the table, and “undercooked” for the other. Likewise, the parsnips were “too runny” for some, but “too lumpy” for others. Only the bread and butter went uncriticized, but cook’s mother had made them for us, so we could not take the credit. As for the Bûche de Nöel, it resembled nothing so much as a large chocolate mud puddle; not even the most generous soul could imagine it was a “log,” and our guests were most decidedly not generous. The chocolate was simultaneously too sweet, and too bitter, depending on who was giving an opinion. After dinner, there were games, but I retired to our bedchamber, claiming headache, which I certainly had after a few hours of crying. Charles has told me repeatedly that he was not angry, and that I tried my best, but ever since the New Year, he has been taking his meals at his club. Cook, the little maid, and I have become great friends, having our bread-and-butter suppers in the kitchen. This is not how I envisioned being a wife and mistress of my own house, Mrs Hudson. I need your help!

Mrs Charles (Barbara) Woolencott-Stokes

55 Ladbroke Grove

Kensington

*

Dear Mrs Woolencott-Stokes,

Oh, my poor dear, what a time you have had! You do not say whether or not you have written to your own mother, but if you haven’t, you must do so at once, and then go for a nice long visit, where she should be able to help you learn some of the household management lessons young ladies, even those of the upper classes, used to learn as a matter of course, but which seem to have fallen by the wayside in our modern times. I do not fault your mother, my dear; I am sure she has done her best by you, but these days it is hard enough to supply one’s daughter with all of the lessons and accomplishments she is said to need to make a good match that such necessary yet practical skills as cooking are neglected. A more heartless woman would tell you to fire your young cook and find another, more experienced one, but all good cooks have burnt a goose in their time, and we all must start somewhere, mustn’t we? Besides, I can tell you have grown quite fond of her, and despite what some may tell you, I see no harm and some real benefit in being friendly with your household staff. Instead, I suggest that you either take her to Kent with you, where she can learn under your mother’s head cook or, if that is not possible, bring one of your mother’s cooks home with you, so that she can take you both under her wing. Who knows? You may surprise yourself and choose to host next Christmas dinner!

As for your in-laws—well, they seem quite ill-bred, no matter what their place in society. It is exceptionally bad manners to criticize one’s food at table, particularly when it is served by your son’s anxious young bride. How unkind they were! I must assume your husband does not take after his family, but even so, you will be spending plenty of time with them, so I advise you to practice nodding, smiling, and saying, simply, “Thank you for your valuable advice,” over and over, until you can do it convincingly. Mr Holmes says that you are clever for coming up with a “headache” after dinner; now that you have established your martyrdom to such an ailment, you can reliably use it to escape from future family unpleasantness. Dr Watson says that he is almost certain one of his friends is a member of the same club as your Charles. He will endeavor to go to dinner there next week and see if he can’t persuade him to spend his evenings at home. He then said something about the best thing in marriage not being the cooking. Men!

*

Well, dear readers, I must leave off now, and use the carpet sweeper Mr Holmes gave me for Christmas in the foyer and the parlor of 221B. It is the latest model, and while I do appreciate how clean it gets my carpets, I am fairly certain Mr Holmes plans to use it for collecting evidence from his clients’ shoes! But before I go, here is a simple way to prepare a goose, from Anne Bowman’s New Cookery Book. As much as I do like Mrs Beeton’s book, I find it helpful to consult others from time to time!

To Roast a Goose

Great care must be taken in plucking a goose to remove all the quill sockets and singe the hairs. Cut off the neck close to the back, and the feet and pinions at the first joint. Put a skewer into the wing, and draw up the legs close. Dry the goose well inside and outside. Boil for ten minutes two chopped onions, then mix them with five or six leaves of sage minced fine, three tablespoonfuls of bread-crumbs, two teaspoonfuls of salt, one of pepper, and an ounce of butter. Put this stuffing into the body of the goose and tie up the openings firmly. Baste it plentifully, roast from an hour and a half, even to two hours, if a very large bird, for a goose is disgusting and unwholesome food unless thoroughly cooked. Serve it with brown gravy and apple sauce.

If you prefer chestnut stuffing, readers, Mrs Bowman suggests the following: boil one onion, mix with a sprig of parsley and a shallot, all minced, and add pepper and salt to taste. To this, add twenty roasted chestnuts, minced, and mix well before putting into the goose.

Until next time!

—Mrs Martha Hudson

Note: Recipe taken from Bowman, Anne. The New Cookery Book: A Complete Manual, English and Foreign Cookery on Sound Principles of Taste and Science. London: George Routledge and Sons, 1880, p. 374.

*

SCREEN OF THE CRIME,byKim Newman

THE BBC’S 1960S SHERLOCK HOLMES SERIES

I: Detective, “The Speckled Band” (1964)

Along with Comedy Playhouse and Drama Playhouse, Detective—which aired forty-five episodes over three series—was a BBC-TV try-out skein, offering one-off dramas adapted from classic mystery fiction which served as backdoor pilots featuring sleuths who might be suitable TV series material. The first series had an onscreen host in the form of Rupert Davies, reprising his role as Georges Simenon’s Inspector Jules Maigret from the BBC’s hit show, introducing his possible rivals (or replacements). “The Drawing”, with Leslie Sands as Gil North’s Detective Sergeant Caleb Cluff, and “The Case of Oscar Brodski”, with Peter Copley as Austin Freeman’s pathologist Dr. John Thorndyke, led swiftly to the series Thorndyke (1964) and Cluff (1964-5). Promising crimebusters who didn’t immediately get series commissions include Edmund Crispin’s Gervase Fen (Richard Wordsworth in “The Moving Toyshop”), John Dickson Carr’s Sir Henry Merivale (David Horn in “The Judas Window”), Ngaio Marsh’s Inspector Alleyn (Geoffrey Keen in “Death in Ecstasy”), Michael Innes’s Sir John Appleby (Dennis Price in “A Connoisseur’s Case”), and G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown (Mervyn Johns in “The Quick One”).

The eighth episode of Detective was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Speckled Band”, which cast Douglas Wilmer and Nigel Stock as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. One of the best-known Holmes stories, “The Speckled Band” has long been a staple in different media. Director Robin Midgley had produced an adaptation by Michael Hardwick for BBC Radio in 1962; this Detective version—scripted by Giles Cooper, a mainstay of Maigret—retains Felix Felton and Liane Aukin, who played villain Dr. Grimesby Roylott and heroine Helen Stoner on the wireless. Detective had a distinctive, award-winning titles sequence designed by Bernard Lodge, which—along with Maigret—is dropped from the version of “The Speckled Band” released on DVD, replaced with the titles sequence of Sherlock Holmes (this was prepared so the pilot could be included with the series for overseas sales). Cooper’s teleplay (translated by Ruth Hammelmann) was used for the first episode (“Das gefleckte Band”) of Sherlock Holmes (1967), a German series with Erich Schellow and Paul Edwin Roth which drew on the BBC for scripts.

In 1910, Doyle took a six-month lease on London’s Adelphi Theatre to present The House of Temperley, which proved a costly flop—its fortunes were finally dashed by the sudden death of the King, which prompted all theatres to close for a period of mourning. To recoup his losses, Doyle turned to his proven cash cow and adapted “The Speckled Band” into a play he first called The Stonor Case—which changes names from the story and builds up the role of Billy the Page, who for a while threatened to eclipse Dr. Watson as Holmes’s primary sidekick on stage and even in film (the role of narrator being deemed superfluous to requirements, especially in the silent era). Doyle later admitted that with more time to think he might have picked another story, since the play tended to let the villain (Dr. Rylott in this version) eclipse the sleuth. Lyn Harding played Rylott in the original production, bending a fireplace poker and tossing it at Holmes (H.A. Saintsbury). He recreated this plum role over twenty years later in The Speckled Band (1931), an early talkie with Raymond Massey as Holmes; Harding went on to play Professor Moriarty, seemingly typecast as the Great Detective’s nemeses.

Cooper sticks closer to the original short story than Doyle did, but opens the piece out in much the same way. We get a full eleven minutes of set-up at gloomy Stoke Moran, where Roylott lets a cheetah and a baboon prowl by night and his stepdaughters tremble in fear, with Julia (Marian Diamond) mysteriously and horribly struck down days before her wedding and expiring after babbling about the “speckled band”. Surviving Helen Stoner pays a call on 221B Baker St., and we meet Holmes and Watson. On the assumption that these characters need no introduction, they don’t really get one. Wilmer is first seen from behind, sat in a chair, listening to his client’s sad story, and Stock potters into shot to lend an ear. Midgely doesn’t even cut in a close-up of, say, Wilmer pensively lighting his pipe or making a brilliant deduction. When Holmes mentions an irrelevant detail—that Helen travelled to the station by dog-cart—he has deduced because of the particular mud splashes on her clothes, it comes across as smug rather than clever and liable to make the poor woman self-conscious for the rest of the day. Doyle often liked to show his hero, about whom he felt ambiguous, in a less-than-glowing light, but it’s an odd note to sound on a first acquaintance with the detective. Wilmer had second thoughts about his first performance as Holmes, deeming it too cerebral—perhaps suspecting he had, like poor H.A. Saintsbury in 1910, been upstaged by the showier villain. Felton, gravel-voiced and corpulent, is outstanding as the thoroughly repellent blackguard, an educated brute willing to murder two women to keep control of an income of £750 per annum.1 In the series, Wilmer would play a more mercurial, sometimes maniacal Holmes.

“The Speckled Band” is a stark gothic take on the material, with a heavy emphasis on patriarchal Victorian cruelty and abuse. There’s little comic by-play with the genial heroes and a lot of trembling terror in the grim, grimy, cold mansion. Charles Carroll’s art direction is splendid, making Stoke Moran a horrible place in contrast with the cozy clutter of Holmes’s digs. Wild animals prowl by night, red herring gypsies camp in the grounds (entirely innocently), a mad maidservant (Nan Marriott-Watson) cackles, and an Indian swamp adder is used as a murder method. The snake in question, like many hounds of the Baskervilles, has a problem living up to the fearsome beast on the page—it’s only seen after it has fatally bitten its master and is then just calmly slithering away to be easily (if gingerly) captured by Holmes. Stock’s stalwart Watson is incensed against Roylott by the sight of Helen’s bruised wrist, but Holmes really takes against the dastard when Roylott, prefiguring Dr. No’s dismissal of James Bond as “just a stupid policeman”, presumes he’s an official plod. Indeed, one of the most cynical touches of “The Speckled Band” is that Holmes isn’t motivated by love of puzzle-solving or a gallant desire to protect the helpless—in effect, he murders Dr. Roylott for sneeringly calling him a “Scotland Yard jack-in-office”.

II: Douglas Wilmer in Sherlock Holmes (1965)

For this run of Arthur Conan Doyle adaptations, Wilmer and Stock were carried over from “The Speckled Band”. Giles Cooper had writing credits on four further episodes and Anthony Read, who’d worked on Detective, was generally script editor. Rights to The Hound of the Baskervilles were still with Hammer Films and three key stories were unavailable because the Doyle estate had at the time licensed them to the makers of a Broadway musical—which is why Wilmer doesn’t face Irene Adler, Professor Moriarty, or Sebastian Moran. Felix Felton’s Dr. Roylott was a turn equivalent to the “Special Guest Villain” on Batman—a dastard so entertainingly vile he makes all the running in the story and often upstages the heroes. Several episodes of Sherlock Holmes go that route by bringing in guests to play particularly perfidious rotters whose schemes are undone by Holmes—or, in two cases, by random aggrieved ladies with acid or a revolver—but nevertheless give the shows an air of horrific Victorian malevolence.

“The Illustrious Client”, scripted by Cooper and directed by Peter Sasdy, casts the reliably fiendish Peter Wyngarde, then specializing in guest baddie shots on The Avengers, The Saint, etc., as Baron Gruner, who hisses with a non-specific foreign accent through pearly teeth and ensnares well-born Violet de Merville (Jennie Linden) in his clutches, though he’s left a string of abandoned women and at least one murdered wife across Europe. Throughout the series, Cooper and the other writers—Vincent Tilsley, Anthony Read, Jan Read, Nicholas Palmer, Clifford Whitting—rearrange Doyle’s typical plot structure. In the stories, a client comes to Baker Street and explains their plight, which is transcribed by Dr. Watson, then the detective goes into action. An effect, much-loved by generations of Holmes fans, is to bookend the stories with fireside coziness—evil intrudes into the idyll, sometimes directly as Moriarty or Dr. Roylott invade Holmes’s rooms, but our heroes venture out to confront and dispel it. Without this frame, the TV adaptations are seamier, often more disturbing. We begin with dark deeds in grim, desolate settings—black and white film/video makes the BBC’s period sets look grimy and stark or cluttered and suffocating—and often the finales find mysteries solved but disturbing aspects unaddressed. The scripts also show directly scenes Doyle/Watson has to infer or hear about: in “The Illustrious Client”, Wyngarde and Linden play out a Gaslight-style scene of sexually charged coercion that undermines the premise of the story—there’s little point in exposing Gruner as a decadent swine by showing Violet (every other heroine in Doyle stories is called Violet) his explicit sex diary, since in this version of the story she already knows how vile he is but can’t break free of him. Holmes sends Watson in undercover as a collector of Chinese pottery (!) but Gruner gets his comeuppance when the tart Kitty (Rosemary Leach) whom he has “ruined” throws vitriol in his face. At the end of the episode, Violet is free and Gruner will need a Phantom of the Opera mask—but viewers were more likely to be sorry that Leach’s bitter, clever Kitty has to go to jail than relieved that weak-willed posh girl Violet is detached from her murderous fiancé. Sasdy directs this Victorian melodrama with the critical viciousness he would bring to Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)—joyless roistering in a rowdy music hall, seduction and sadism, Holmes being brutally beaten and left for dead in the street by thugs, and that final splash of acid.

The impression of the pilot and the first episode that this Sherlock Holmes would be a horror show rather than a period mystery romp is furthered by the opening scene of “The Devil’s Foot”, scripted by Cooper and directed by Max Varnel, in which a sister is slumped dead at a dinner table in a cramped Cornish cottage while two of her brothers laugh insanely. In a variation which features in surprisingly few of Doyle’s mysteries, the villain is not apparent from the outset, but a holidaying Holmes doesn’t take long to twig that the third Tregennis brother, played unctuously by beetle-browed Patrick Troughton, has tossed an African root on the fire and filled the room with hallucinogenic fumes because he’s sulking over an inheritance. Then he turns up dead of the same cause, and another culprit has to be found and—in a somewhat high-handed way—let off. Again, Holmes lets someone else—African explorer Dr. Sterndale (Carl Bernard) administer vigilante justice—but here the avenger is upper-class enough to be let off scot-free, a situation which recurs in “Charles Augustus Milverton” where a veiled lady combines the plot functions of Kitty and Dr. Sterndale to plug the odious blackmailer. The BBC spring for a location trip to picturesque Cornish cliffs, but the gloom isn’t relieved. In this story, Holmes has been ordered to take a holiday to avert a nervous breakdown—and, if he’s constantly tackling cases as misery-inducing as these, it’s no wonder he’s turning to drugs. Much has been made in subsequent Holmes films and TV shows of the detective’s cocaine use, a minor element of Doyle’s stories (his tobacco habits, as described, would be more likely to wreck his health). In “The Devil’s Foot”, a key sequence has Holmes and Watson subject themselves to the smoke of the eponymous root to gauge its effects—as it happens, a terrible idea but an impressive nightmare scene.

This approach probably couldn’t sustain a whole series, and subsequent episodes play up the puzzle elements—also allowing Wilmer more of a meal in that he gets to rattle off Doyle’s distinctive deductions while Stock gazes in astonished admiration. He also gets into false whiskers and funny hats to disguise himself so thoroughly his best friend doesn’t recognize him. Holmes has so often been parodied or played for camp that it’s seldom remembered that some of Doyle’s best stories are basically comic.2 The mood lightens up for episodes like “The Red-Headed League”, directed by Peter Duguid, and “The Six Napoleons”, directed by Gareth Davies, which have clients bring ridiculous circumstances to Holmes’s notice—a bogus society which has paid ginger pawnbroker Jabez Wilson (Toke Townley) not to be in his shop for several hours a day copying out entries from the Encyclopedia Britannica, a reign of petty theft/vandalism in which cheap plaster busts of the Emperor Napoleon are stolen and smashed—and the detective discerns a bank robbery and the search for a stolen pearl beneath the silliness. “The Six Napoleons”, especially, is a wry delight, with Wilmer quizzing a succession of Napoleon-connected eccentrics (Donald Hewlett, Martin Wyldeck, Arthur Hewlett) about their involvement in the case. The sad little collector of Napoleana (James Bree) arranging his hair, putting his hat on sideways and slipping a hand into his jacket in front of a mirror after the detectives have left is a perfect, sweet-creepy moment.

Nevertheless, memorable guest villains recur throughout the series: Jephro Rucastle (Patrick Wymark) in “The Copper Beeches”, a jollier version of Dr. Roylott who concocts a far-fetched imposture scheme to maintain control over his daughter’s income so he can pamper a loathsome brat of a son whose hobby is killing small animals in the futile hope he will grow up to be a great man (Wymark is splendidly self-deluded, delighted to recount his boy’s habit of squashing insects with a slipper); Sir George Burnwell (David Burke), a titled rake who ensnares another naïve daughter (Suzan Farmer) of an aristocratic house and tries to steal “The Beryl Coronet”, a crown jewel which an unnamed personage (perhaps the Illustrious Client) has unwisely left as security for a loan (the hint here is that a Royal is just as much of a rat-wastrel as the episode’s actual villain); Josiah Amberley (Maurice Denham), “The Retired Colourman”,3 a miser who has killed his wife and her supposed lover but is caught because he was too cheap to buy two theatre tickets to secure his alibi (this episode mixes comic runaround, with Denham crustily exasperated as Watson escorts him on a wild goose chase, with horror and cruelty, as Amberley tricks his victims into a sealed room and turns on the gas); and, as perhaps the series’ best baddie, “Charles Augustus Milverton” (Barry Jones), the fastidious, self-justifying, whining, sadistic master blackmailer Doyle seems to despise far more than actual murderers (certainly, the story lets Milverton’s murderer—yes, an upper-class woman—off scot-free).

Guest stars not cast as outright villains include a succession of pretty, prim heroines (Suzanne Neve, Nyree Dawn Porter, Anna Cropper, Penelope Horner, Stephanie Bidmead) and the always-welcome-in-period costume likes of Sheila Keith, Alethea Charlton, Trevor Martin, Anton Rodgers (as “The Man With the Twisted Lip”), Denis Shaw, Olaf Pooley, Leonard Sachs, Allan Cuthbertson, Tony Steedman, Ronald Radd (as bogus clergyman “Holy” Peters in “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax”), Roger Delgado, Joss Ackland, and John Woodnutt. Most Holmes series stress coziness by welcoming other regulars into the circle, but this relegates them mostly to the sidelines. Concave-faced Peter Madden is an excellent Inspector Lestrade in a little under half the episodes, sometimes with very minor involvement in the cases, while Enid Lindsey’s Mrs. Hudson shows up in only three episodes, making so little impression that I hadn’t noticed she replaced Mary Holder of “The Speckled Band” until I checked the credits. Chubby, flared-eyebrowed Derek Francis is well-cast as Sherlock’s corpulent, government-connected brother Mycroft in “The Bruce-Partington Plans” but isn’t in any other episodes (Mycroft features in very few of Doyle’s stories). “The Abbey Grange” and “The Bruce-Partington Plans” survive only in incomplete form, though Cooper’s script for the latter was also shot as “Die Bruce-Partington-Pläne”, an episode of a 1967 German Sherlock Holmes TV series which used the BBC’s scripts.

III: Peter Cushing in Sherlock Holmes (1968)