The Holiday by Elaine Lintzenich

Welcome March! Hopefully, spring will arrive on time!

I was so entranced with the idea of Holmes swimming after we discussed "The Lion's Mane" that a report on other times Holmes had the opportunity of swimming would be of interest. Alas! He may have had opportunities but, unless he did so during the Hiatus, nothing comes to light in Watson's chronicles. If someone runs across such a reference, please let me know.

What did come to light, searching through my Sherlockian ephemera ,was an issue of The Parallelogram from 1999. My name was listed as an attendee at that month's meeting. Holy Cow! I am celebrating my Silver Anniversary as a Sherlockian!   So now I continue rummaging through the past quarter century and I came across a short pastiche, condensed from a longer story. This was written for a Holmes Under the Arch conference.  I still liked it and hope you do, too.

 

                                           THE HOLIDAY

I had been associated with Sherlock Holmes for nearly two years when an even occurred that inspired me to hurl down a gauntlet, so to speak. My Aunt Hannah wrote to tell me of a death in the family and expressed a desire to see me. As Holmes was, at that time, engaged in a problem in Malta, I decided to slip away without leaving a clue as to my whereabouts..

I checked the train schedules to Edinburgh, packed my valise, my medical bag and fishing pole, and simply dashed off a note to Holmes saying I was taking a holiday. I left my note with Mrs. Hudson and started my journey north.

My Aunt Hannah was glad to see me, so I settled in comfortably for a fortnight's visit. On the third day of my sojourn, I returned from an invigorating walk to find my aunt pouring tea for the noon meal. Holding a cup while she poured was Sherlock Holmes.

"My dear Watson, you look very surprised."

"I rather suppose I do. Obviously you've met my Aunt Hannah."

"A reasonable deduction."

"John, " said Hannah, "do shut your mouth and sit down. Your friend said you might be expecting him, but he wasn't sure. Have a scone each of you while I dish up the stew."

It was amazing to me that Holmes portrayed his presence here at my aunt's as perfectly reasonable. We chatted of this and that. Then Hannah cleared the table and ladled the remaining stew into a container for an elderly neighbor. As she left, she invited Holmes to take the second bedroom if he would be staying.

"You left me quite a puzzle, Watson."

"One you readily solved."

"Not that readily. One who didn't know you as well as I would have had more difficulty, I believe.

"Mrs. Hudson gave me your note scrawled on the back of that notice your tobacconist sent you, reminding you at Burry's Gold Leaf was in. I'll have to try that.  I thought a spur-of-the-moment holiday to be out of character, Watson. Something must have initiated your departure. So I surveyed the room to see if anything was disturbed."

 "How could you see anything? I was quite thorough. I took the letter from Aunt Hannah with me."

"Ah, there was a letter. I thought so but I didn't ask Mrs. Hudson. I determined that would be cheating."

"At any rate, I did find a disturbance. My first clue appeared on the bookcase. The book of train schedules was set tidily in place. This was unlikely. Our constant use has made its pages tend to bunch up. The little book always bulges out."

"I simply shook my head.

"I took the book down and found that each page had been smoothed out and the wrinkled corners straightened. Turning the pages carefully, I found a page where the inner edge had been carefully aligned, probably with your fingernail. There was a slight indentation part way down the page. I sat at the desk, the nearest flat surface, where you had most probably sat as well. Some papers on the corner were stacked so neatly that it had to be deliberate.. I took the top piece and holding it at the edge of the desk, brushed some dust and ashes from the desk's surface onto the paper. When I shook it gently, times appeared. You removed at least the first piece of paper under the one on which you'd written the times, but you do tend to press down when writing. I found that Scotland was your destination and that you'd left from Euston Station, therefore taking the London and North Western Railway which would have connected you with the Caledonian at Berwick.

"I asked about you at the Caledonian Station in Edinburgh, your medical bag making you memorable, and found you'd hired a trap for Calder. Once I was in Calder it was an easy matter to inquire at the post office for relatives of Dr. John Watson."

"I suppose my lot in life is to be constantly amazed at your perspicacity."

"Indeed, I have worked diligently, as you know, to develop this gift. But tomorrow, I shall depend on yours."

"How so?" I asked.

"Why, to find another pole! A little rejuvenation would be welcomed after Malta. I shall relate my adventure as we see what the Almond River has to offer. And when we return, we might allow Mrs. Hudson to come in and dust up a bit." 

The True Story(ies) Behind the Politician, the Lighthouse, and the Trained Cormorant

February's meeting of The Parallel Case of St. Louis was a Zoom session discussing "The Veiled Lodger."  The introduction includes the following passage:

"I have Mr. Holmes’s authority for saying that the whole story concerning the politician, the lighthouse, and the trained cormorant will be given to the public. There is at least one reader who will understand."

So what is the whole story behind that?  Well, some of our members had thoughts:

Brad Keefauver:

The was a very active steam barge named "The Cormorant" on Lake Superior from 1873 to 1907, which carried lumber for the Edward Hines Lumber Company, a company which also had lumber trains and most certainly dealt with many a politician. In 1927, the year "Veiled Lodger" came out, Hines had attained just status that the following year he would meet the Pope and Mussolini, and his family would have most certainly have been looking to clear his name some illegalities involving a secret lighthouse where the Cormorant would dock to unload stolen goods on to a train.

Sandy Kozin:  

Once there was a politician, married of course, who found a young lady of interest; they eventually began an affair.  Since both of them were well known in society, he purchased an old lighthouse in  a quiet shore area where they could meet in safety.  To ensure that safety when they were busy with each other, he trained a cormorant to flap around and make noise so the woman could hide and the man come out and announce that this was his private retreat, no visitors welcome.

I believe this because I can easily imagine politicians behaving this way, from events I have personally witnessed. (Yes, that's the truth, and no, I don't think I care to tell THAT  story, but it really happened, during JFK's inauguration.)

Edith Pounden:

The opening paragraphs of The Veiled Lodger make clear that certain people involved in past cases are afraid that John Watson will share too much information in his stories: “I may say that the writers of agonized letters, who beg that the honour of their families or the reputation of famous forebears may not be touched, have nothing to fear.” He then states that he will rescind this protection for one such party, who has attempted to steal papers relating to his own case. Watson describes this case as concerning a politician, a lighthouse, and a trained cormorant, but if this case had involved these three elements literally, then what secret would there be left to keep? 

He must therefore be speaking in a kind of code, which only the receiver would understand. My theory is that the “cormorant” Watson refers to is not a bird at all, but a person. A cormorant is trained to retrieve fish for the benefit of a fisherman; its motivation is to feed itself, but it is prevented from fully swallowing its prey by the fisherman’s noose. So, the “cormorant” that Watson refers to could be a person who had tried to obtain something of value for his own gain, but was manipulated into giving it to someone more powerful. If, for example, this person came to Sherlock Holmes as a client, he may even have made the comparison himself while telling his story. With this one line, Watson communicates to this mysterious person that he can share the true details about the case at any time, while casual readers of the Strand think he describing a case involving a bird.

Alisha Shea:

I think the story of the politician, the lighthouse and the trained cormorant is likely a tale of espionage. Cormorants are sent by their masters to obtain fish. Lighthouses are designed to convey messages. It seems only reasonable, therefore, that cormorant is code for "spy" who "fishes" for information, which is then conveyed via lighthouse to their "master" who waits in a vessel lurking just off the coast.

Bob Sharfman:

ACD was saying in his best "Nicely Nicely" words that politicians don't have the brains of a trained cormorant.  They just head for the brightest light like a moth to a flame.

Case closed!

*Nicely Nicely" Johnson was a bookie in the Damon Runyon stories.

Michael Waxenberg:

“Politician” is Winston Churchill.

“Lighthouse” is the Mehmetçik Lighthouse on the Turkish coast, at the entrance to the Dardanelles and Gallipoli, the site of the worst defeat of the Royal Navy in the Great War, at a time when Churchill was the First Lord of the Admiralty.

“Trained cormorant” is a coded reference. A cormorant is a marine bird that is good at fishing. Admiral John Fisher, the First Baron Fisher, was the First Sea Lord serving under Churchill at the start of the Gallipoli campaign. Fisher had advised against the campaign, which was a disaster and resulted in Fisher resigning as First Sea Lord, and Churchill being fired from the position of First Lord of the Admiralty, in 1915.

Explanation:

In the 1920s, Churchill was busy building his political climb to power, and furiously writing a vast history of the Great War in six volumes, titled The World Crisis, which were published between 1923 and 1931. Churchill was writing to make money, and to bolster his own reputation for leadership. He has been accused of whitewashing his own culpability for the failure of the Gallipoli campaign, and blaming others, including Lord Fisher. For example, see here. 

Lord Fisher died in 1920, and was deceased before the first volume of Churchill’s war history was published, but it is likely that Fisher’s family were distressed at Churchill for putting blame for the Gallipoli campaign disaster on Admiral Lord Fisher. It is likely that they consulted Holmes to protect the reputation and honour of the late Lord Fisher, and to persuade Churchill to correct his writings about Fisher.

Watson’s warning to the “politician” is contained in The Veiled Lodger which was first published in January 1927. That same month, Churchill traveled to the Mediterranean and visited Italy, Greece, and sites of the naval battles of the Gallipoli campaign. It is possible that Churchill was gathering additional information for his history of the war in that part of the world around the “lighthouse.” Watson’s warning to the “politician” would have been just in time to prevent further defamation of the late Admiral Fisher, a/k/a “The Trained Cormorant.” As Watson wrote, "There is at least one reader who will understand." That one and only reader who understood the coded message was Churchill, until now.

Here is an illustration of Churchill and Fisher consulting when they were in charge of the Royal Navy in January 1915, before the Dardanelles (Gallipoli) campaign, which I found on the website cited above:

At long last, now the world knows the true meaning behind the enigmatic phrase from Watson’s writing. One can only hope that the fracas between Holmes and Watson, on one part, and Winston Churchill, on the other part, did not detract from the warm friendship between Churchill and the literary agent and occasional author, Arthur Conan Doyle.

So, readers, what say you?  Do you buy any of these explanations, of do you have one of your own?

Dogs in the Canon of Sherlock Holmes (with a short mention of cats) by Michael Waxenberg

The domesticated dog comes in many different sizes, colors, and breed names, but actually are all considered to be one species of animal, scientific name Canis lupus familiaris. Rather bizarre, since the one species has a dramatic variety from Chihuahua to St. Bernard, Greyhound to Golden Retriever, yet all dogs are genetically so similar they can interbreed, and are all one species. In the Canon of Sherlock Holmes, there are several different dogs mentioned, and this essay attempts to look at all the dogs in the Canon, describe them, and briefly indicate something significant about them. Please let me know if I missed any so I can update this report. (Note 1).

By my count, at least thirteen (13) different dogs are mentioned in the Canon. Of these, we are given the names of only five (5) of them. For some, we are given descriptions or breeds. Most of the dogs are significant for one reason or another in the cases wherein they are mentioned. 

Here are the dogs:

Dog	Breed or Description	Action or Significance	Case
Roy	Wolfhound	SH discusses possibly writing a monograph on dogs in detective work.	CREE
Unnamed	An Airedale Terrier	Fitzroy McPherson’s little dog, tossed through a plate glass window. Also McPherson’s dog. Found dead on the beach near the Cyanea capillata. Said to have died of grief, but was a victim of the Cyanea. And was it the same dog as the prior one?	LION
The Shoscombe Spaniels	Spaniel	SH quote: “Dogs don’t make mistakes.”	SHOS
Unnamed		Terrier, terminally ill, poisoned in experiment. Reminiscent of sheep experiment in SILV.	STUD
Toby	Half spaniel, half lurcher	Good sniffer , tracked the suspects.	SIGN
The stable dog		Did nothing in the night.	SILV
A beast of a dog		Guarded the house.	MILV
Pompey	Mix beagle and foxhound	Tracked the missing man.	MISS
Unnamed		Dog drenched in petroleum and set on fire.	ABBE
Unnamed	Curly haired spaniel	Owned by Dr. James Mortimer And killed by The Hound.	HOUN
Hound of the Baskervilles		Shot and killed by Holmes.	HOUN
Carlo	Spaniel	Paralyzed by young boy’s poison.	SUSS
Carlo	Mastiff	Shot and killed by Watson.	COPP

ANALYSIS OF THE DATA

The list above has 14 dogs, or 13 if the two dogs in LION are one and the same dog, although it is not likely that any dog would survive being tossed through a plate glass window. Rather than argue, we can take 13 as the total number of dogs. Of the 13 dogs listed, 7 are maimed or killed. Manners of death are not always quick or kind, such as poisoning and being set on fire. Holmes shoots one dead (the famous Hound), and Dr. Watson shoots one dead (Carlo from "Copper Beaches"). Those killings were arguably cases of self-defense, and not animal cruelty, although the owners of those two dogs treated them cruelly, which is why they were dangerous to Holmes and Watson.

Dogs are helpers in solving some cases. The best example is the dog who did nothing in the night, from "Silver Blaze," whose inaction was an important clue to the identity of the culprit. Holmes uses two dogs for tracking people, one in London and one in the country. In "Lion’s Mane," McPherson’s dead dog, the Airedale Terrier, offers a clue to the murderer of his master.

The brutality and cruelty to dogs in these stories is hard to take. In England, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was formed in a London coffee shop in 1824. Perhaps if it had been formed in a pub it would have been more effective. It received royal patronage from Queen Victoria in 1840, allowing it to be called the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, but even Queen Victoria’s support was not enough to prevent cruelty, judging by the level of mayhem to dogs listed above. Lest you think the British were insensitive to the suffering of dogs and other animals, consider that the U.K. Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was formed in 1889, which was 65 years after the formation of the society to prevent cruelty to animals. Parliament passed a law making it a criminal offence to be cruel to animals in 1835, and then passed a law against cruelty to children in 1889, some 54 years later. Maybe the British were insensitive to cruelty to animals, but at least we can be consoled by the fact that they were even more insensitive to cruelty to children.

If I had to be reincarnated as a character from the Canon, I would not choose to be one of the dogs. The risk of mayhem and death is too high. You may think it better to be a Canonical cat, the domesticated Felis catus. But no domestic cats are characters in any of the 60 original cases. The only mention of a cat is a brief anecdote about the loathsome Jonas Oldacre in "Norwood Builder," who was rumored to have once turned a cat loose in an aviary. (Note 2). In that example, the action of Oldacre shows cruelty to animals, specifically to the birds in the aviary, not cruelty to the cat. We do not have enough data to determine if Holmes or Watson were cat fanciers, but it seems unlikely, since cats do not get mentioned as appearing anywhere, despite the existence of millions of them in London and throughout Britain. We may speculate that Holmes and Watson were not cat fanciers. Which leads us to note the creative brilliance of T.S. Elliot, who wrote the poem “Macavity: The Mystery Cat,” a feline substitute for the evil Professor Moriarty, in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939). Elliot was a Sherlockian of note, an admirer of the Canon, and an admirer of cats, apparently unlike the Master Detective and the good Doctor.

NOTES:

Note 1: If anyone knows of any dogs, or cats, not mentioned in this paper, please comment on this blog, or let me know some other way. I did not include dog-carts, because they are cruel to dogs. Attempts at humor are always welcome, but you do not need to mention the dog in Bruce-Partington Plans, who was killed and fell of the roof of a subway car, namely Arthur CaDOGen West. He died. That is not funny.

Note 2: Mentioning the loathsome Jonas Oldacre from "Norwood Builder" reminds me that I need to express my thanks to Randy Getz for his assistance in 2017 in assembling the first draft of the chart of dogs in the Canon. He and I prepared the chart in connection with a night at the local horse track for a Silver Blaze (Wessex Cup) race, which was also a fundraiser for a charity that rescues dogs and trains them to become service dogs. We had a genuine Dog and Pony Show.

Streaming Sherlock Holmes by Nellie Brown

In the past year I acquired a Starlink internet connection and have been able to finally indulge in the joys of high-speed streaming in my rural home (one of the few things Elon got right!) While nearly everyone else of my acquaintance has been able to enjoy entertainment this way for more than a decade, it is a new experience for someone as persistently behind the times like me. To my joy, the streaming options include a far wider range of Sherlock Holmes media than I had ever anticipated. 

Of course, I was delighted to find the Jeremy Brett Granada episodes, in addition to the less well-known Sherlock Hound, by the famed animation artist Hayao Miyazaki. Up until recently, Roku was showing the notable Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, written and produced by Billy Wilder and starring Robert Stevens. Rarely seen, this version shows an unusually sensitive Holmes, more discernably along the queer spectrum than any others to that date.

But a deeper dive into the Kanopy app yielded an even greater treasure, or so I thought at the time. I was able to use some of my library subscription credits to watch the 1916 silent film Sherlock Holmes, starring William Gillette and based off the play he wrote of the same name. In 2015, a mislabeled silver nitrate copy of the previously lost film was found in a French archive and restored the following year. Gillette has long held the reputation of providing the best portrayal of our iconic detective ever, so I was quite interested in watching this sole representation of his acting skills. 

Many Sherlockians today have seen a version of this play Gillette wrote based off Doyle’s stories. Incriminating letters, Professor Moriarty teaming up with the Larrabees, the denouement in the Gasworks, and of course the love interest Alice Faulkner: the only thing this play lacks other than Irene Adler is adherence to the aromantic aspect of our detective. We have all been there and restrained ourselves from rolling our eyes with varying degrees of success. 

And then there was Gillette himself. Deerstalker, calabash pipe, the works. He was masterful. I can easily understand why Doyle considered him the best actor to play him. Gillette inhabited Sherlock Holmes as good as any other actor I have seen.

What I failed to consider before viewing this movie, though, was the age disparity between Gillette and his leading lady/love interest. In 1899, when he wrote and starred in his play, he was forty-six years old. Mature, yes, but perhaps plausible as the potential love interest for a young woman for that day and age. (Shades of Laurie King, anyone?) But by the time of the film in 1915 he was sixty-three years old, and the wrinkles could not be hidden by the stage makeup. During the final revival of the play Gillette participated in, he was seventy-six years old. Seventy-six! To be played as the love interest of a very young woman of approximately twenty years of age. 

In a post-Harvey Weinstein period, this was just . . . no. No, no, no. A big helping of NOPE.

So, my effort to conduct as fair a fan girl review of William Gillette as I could come up with was forever tainted. Please accept my apologies. May I direct you instead to the marvelous Collier’s illustrations of the same actor done by Frederick Dorr Steele? They are stunning, dramatic and beautiful enough to cleanse your palette of that sour aftertaste of patriarchy.

Or, maybe there is another, more modern streaming version of Sherlock Holmes I could share with you? Have you ever tasted Bitter Karella? No, not the melon. The award-winning gothic horror writer, with twitter, tumblr, and substack feeds, creates a regular satire called “Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Pals.” This imagined late night club parody of horror writers meet periodically to share scary stories around a late-night campfire, with scorching fun poked at the regulars as well as guests. The regulars include Stephen King, Dean Koontz, HP Lovecraft, Clive Barker, Edgar Allen Poe and of course my favorite, Mary Shelley.

The Midnight Pals have just recently been produced as an audio podcast, streaming on a variety of apps near you, including Spotify. Last month on November 21st, the guest was Arthur Conan Doyle, and after much arm twisting, he shared his Tale of Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Midnight Society.  No one wanted to hear about Professor Challenger, and Doyle was coerced once again into telling a story about the character he was just so tired of writing about.

It is ribald and rude. The actors lean into their roles with gusto, and the quick-witted writing flirts and dances (possibly even twerks) with so many of the Sherlockian tropes we all know so well. The Midnight Pals stories, including this one, are fully conversant in the not so adjacent queer aspects of literature both past and present. The audience of the 1899 Sherlock Holmes play probably would have been absolutely horrified by this podcast.

And I loved it.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked William Gillette as Sherlock Holmes. But his storyline did not hold up to the interior logic of Doyle’s stories. When he told Gillette “You may marry him or murder him or do what you like with him” generations of fans suffered the consequences.  And then there was the age difference between the actors. It was just too much to swallow.

And while raunchy, I have to say that I prefer Bitter Karella’s writing to Gillette’s. It logically follows the style and more of the intent of the writer being parodied. It leans into the humor instead of manufacturing romance where none would fit. Audiences change along with the times, and so do the pastiches and parodies.

Besides, who doesn’t want to imagine Mary Shelley with a switch blade?

A Great Heart, Revisited by Madeline Quiñones

Let’s start with this: I fully expect this blog post to be greeted with torches and pitchforks. I expected it when I first broached my ideas at the virtual October meeting of the Parallel Case, and I still expect it now. 

One does not simply utter heresies in this fandom, after all.

The story up for discussion in October was “The Adventure of the Three Garridebs,” and we had gotten as far as Watson’s gunshot wound at the hand of Killer Evans. The passage goes thus:

“In an instant he had whisked out a revolver from his breast and had fired two shots. I felt a sudden hot sear as if a red-hot iron had been pressed to my thigh. There was a crash as Holmes's pistol came down on the man's head. I had a vision of him sprawling upon the floor with blood running down his face while Holmes rummaged him for weapons. Then my friend's wiry arms were round me and he was leading me to a chair.

“‘You're not hurt, Watson? For God's sake, say that you are not hurt!’

“It was worth a wound — it was worth many wounds — to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.”

This is a passage so beloved by thousands of Sherlockians, and yet when I read it, I can only wish I felt about it the way that others do. For me, this moment does not stick the landing.

Watson says “for the one and only time” he saw a “great heart as well as a great brain”... And I have to call him out on it. It’s a beautiful bit of writing, and it is also patently false.

Sherlockians talk a lot about Watson as an unreliable narrator — favorite vectors for this topic include case dates and his wives. But we talk far less about something arguably more important: how unreliable he is when it comes to Sherlock Holmes himself.

Consider, if you will, that Watson is reasonably open and honest in his first two published stories, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four. He describes a young Holmes as a complete oddball in the first story and does not shy away from depicting Holmes’s drug use in the second story, despite his disapproval of it. He’s also open about his own thoughts and emotions.

Then comes The Strand Magazine, and “A Scandal in Bohemia.” And Watson opens that story with a commentary about Sherlock Holmes and romantic love, and closes the story by circling back to that commentary. This is Watson spin-doctoring, and though he’s rarely quite so blatant about it again, we do see more spin-doctoring moving forward.

Watson tells us that he comes to think of Holmes sometimes as “an isolated phenomenon, a brain without a heart” (“The Greek Interpreter”). In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Watson also says, “[Holmes] burst into one of his rare fits of laughter as he turned away from the picture. I have not heard him laugh often, and it has always boded ill to somebody.”

Watson wants us to think of Sherlock Holmes in a certain light. Holmes is “the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen,” as described by his friend in SCAN. Watson wants us to think of Holmes as coolly logical and unemotional (which is most certainly how Holmes wants himself to be perceived).

And yet, as recorded by Watson himself, Holmes is no stranger to emotions. The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes Vol. II bears witness the work done by Charles E. Lauterbach and Edward S. Lauterbach to document the number of times Holmes smiles, laughs, jokes, or chuckles, etc., for a total of 316 instances across 60 stories, as originally presented in the The Baker Street Journal Christmas Annual No. 5.

In short, Watson tells us one thing, and shows us another.

And by the publication of 3GAR, he has been doing this for a very long time — more than thirty years. The popular image of Holmes as serious and unrelentingly rational has been solidified.

But here, Watson is shot, an event that triggers a massive reaction in the Great Detective. Now, Watson has to reckon with the image that he’s built up.

“For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain.”

This is demonstrably false.

Watson would have to have been obtuse in the extreme — fully the embodiment of his pop-culture duffer persona — to miss the glimpses of Holmes’s heart which he shared with us himself. 

Consider when Holmes lets James Ryder off the hook in “The Blue Carbuncle” — “I suppose that I am commuting a felony, but it is just possible that I am saving a soul.” Or in “The Devil’s Foot,” after an ill-conceived drug trip: “I owe you both my thanks and an apology. It was an unjustifiable experiment even for oneself, and doubly so for a friend.” Or back in The Sign of the Four, when Holmes realizes how tired Watson is: “Look here, Watson; you look regularly done. Lie down there on the sofa, and see if I can put you to sleep”

In “The Final Problem,” Holmes writes to Watson, “I am pleased to think that I shall be able to free society from any further effects of [Moriarty’s] presence, though I fear that it is at a cost which will give pain to my friends, and especially, my dear Watson, to you.” And after Watson has both fainted and come to in “The Empty House,” Holmes cautions: “Wait a moment! Are you sure that you are really fit to discuss things? I have given you a serious shock by my unnecessarily dramatic appearance.”

Our hearts are not revealed in big moments of drama but in the little things, the small moments that add up to a full picture of who we are. Watson is observant enough to know exactly how large his friend’s heart really is, long before they ever meet Killer Evans.

“It was worth a wound,” but he already knows. He knows with every case Holmes has invited him to join, with every person his friend has helped who is more, always, than a “mere unit, a factor in a problem.” 

However, likely for Holmes’s safety as much as his reputation, Watson prefers that we think of him as being as invincible as possible. And so, rather than acknowledge the many small moments of revelation, he plays up a big moment to fit the narrative he’s crafted.

But, of course, Watson has known his friend’s heart all along.

The Spy Who Love Watson by Heather Hinson

Let me take you back to the beginning of this year. I wrote a blog post talking about His Last Bow and discussed Martha, the housekeeper of Baron Von Bork. In my post, I surmised that Sherlock Holmes needed someone back home to help him out as he established his undercover persona in America to finally get the contacts to get to Von Bork. Holmes’ undercover mission was a long and arduous process that took the better part of two years.

But what I didn’t mention is who exactly Martha the housekeeper was.

Hold tight folks because I am about to drop something so controversial, I fully expect to be strung up at the next Parallel Case meeting. The Von Bork’s housekeeper, Martha, is none other than the sixth Mrs. Watson.

Before the pitchforks come out, let me explain my reasoning.

In His Last Bow, after Von Bork is knocked out and tied up, Holmes and Watson have a comfortable moment where they’re sharing a bottle of Tokay while Holmes catches Watson up on everything that’s been happening. Holmes has been out of the country for two years, living in America as an Irish- American man by the name of Altamont who has no love for the English and is willing to sell his abilities to the highest bidder. This isn’t something he volunteered to do, rather he was asked: “Ah, I have often marveled at it myself. The Foreign Minister alone I could have withstood, but when the Premier also deigned to visit my humble roof—!” (LAST)

When looking up the word “premier” on Google it is defined as “the leader of the government of some countries.” Or the highest-ranking government leader. While we all know the British Prime Minister is the highest-ranking government leader, the premier would be the next highest. There are few people who would both have the Prime Minister’s ear and be able to convince Sherlock Holmes to come out of retirement and spend two years in America building up an alias to stop a German spy in August of 1914. Even though he’s not specifically mentioned by name, we can assume that Mycroft Holmes would be the only person to fit that bill.

Once Holmes agrees to this, he would need someone on the home front, someone willing to play the long game, to feed him information when needed so he would know when to strike.  All the while, feeding information to the Home Office as well. It would have to be someone trusted.

Bear with me again while I invoke BBC Sherlock. There are quotes from Mycroft Holmes in “The Abominable Bride”:

“Our way of life is under threat from an invisible enemy, one that hovers at our elbow on a daily basis. These enemies are everywhere, undetected, and unstoppable. We don’t defeat them. We must certainly lose to them. Because they are right, and we are wrong.” (TAB)  

In WWI, England was using women as spies. There was a group of female spies, well-educated and fluent in multiple languages known as the Alice Network that was run by Louise de Bettignes. Martha would have more than likely been part of a group like this. Recruited by Mycroft Holmes, Martha would be the best person to be hired by the Von Bork’s for the long game, two years as the devoted housekeeper. But this person would also need to be someone Sherlock Holmes would trust. Someone who, if something happened to him in America, would know who to contact. We know that John Watson wasn’t involved until he received the telegram from Holmes asking him to meet in Harwich with the car. Multiple other stories have Watson casually mentioning how Mrs. Watson was always in the countryside visiting family. At the beginning of WW1, thinking his wife safe in the countryside, Watson would offer his services where they could be used in the War Efforts. All the while never knowing that his own wife was a British spy somewhere on the English coast serving as housekeeper to a well-known and dangerous German spy.

But what about the fact that Watson wouldn’t know his own wife? Why didn’t Martha say anything to him? Wouldn’t Watson be in on it?

As mentioned, if Mrs. Watson is supposedly up North visiting relatives, then Watson would think her safe from the war and not worry about where she was or what she was doing. As we’ve seen with poor Mary, once John Watson marries his wives, they tend to become an afterthought. So intent on helping with the upcoming war effort, chances are he didn’t think about her. Plus, Mycroft could have had him doing small things outside his practice.

If Watson knew his wife was a spy helping England, that would be the end of that. John Watson might have married a woman named Martha, but as we saw with the Mary’s and Violet’s, there are so many of them that Sherlock saying the name wouldn’t have even registered. Again, Watson thinks his wife is with family, he wouldn’t even think to expect her here. If Martha is a spy, then she could be good at disguises as well. Martha is only mentioned as a “dear old ruddy-faced woman in a country cap” (LAST).

Ruddy faced means red faced. Which could come from leaning over an oil lamp or finishing the last of the housekeeping. Or even being out in the sun for prolonged periods of time. If Holmes and Watson are in their late 50’s early 60’s, then hypothetically (in my mind)  Martha is an older woman as well.  Probably not in her 50’s but at least in her 40’s. If not, there’s always the magic of makeup to make her look older. The family would feel more comfortable with a grandmotherly figure taking care of their house.

At the end, Holmes doesn’t keep Martha long, just enough to mention her as his help, “There is no one in the house except old Martha, who has played her part to admiration. I got her the situation here when first I took the matter up.” (LAST). Again, Holmes would want someone he trusted to be his eyes and ears at home and who better than Mrs. Watson? “You can report to me to-morrow in London, Martha, at Claridge's Hotel.” (LAST). This shows that she isn’t just a housekeeper. If she’s due in London the next day to report to Holmes and possibly Holmes the Elder, then she’s working for the British Government. Sending her off to London to give a report suggests that Holmes wants to both show her off and get her out of the house as soon as possible.

Knowing that if John finds out that a) his wife is a British Spy and has been practicing espionage for the last two years and b) Holmes knew about it and was actively collaborating with her, he wouldn’t be too happy about it. That’s why she didn’t acknowledge him, that’s why she was moved out quickly after the plot had finished. This way Martha is debriefed and can be returned to the countryside or stay in London and return to her town residence with her husband.

The last thing Holmes needs after two years of not seeing his friend is an entire car ride to Scotland Yard getting an earful from Watson.

(a special thanks to Ariane DeVere for her TAB transcripts. https://arianedevere.livejournal.com/81144.html)