January Meeting: The Six Napoleons

Last Saturday was a busy one for those with Zooms attuned to catch the distant view-halloo.  To avoid conflict with the Baker Street Irregular Birthday Weekend, we moved our meeting back to the third Saturday of the month which had us overlapping with meetings in Baltimore, Nashville, and London, so there were lots of folks in and out.  

If you aren't on the Parallel Case's email list, you can send us an email at parallelcasestl @ gmail DOT com to get added to the list for meeting announcements and blog posts.

You can also follow our Facebook page for Sherlockian news.

Parallel Case of St. Louis pins are available!  You can email Joe to add to your Sherlockian collection.

Michael shared an Etsy listing where you can buy a bust of Napoleon made out of chocolate.

The Baker Street Irregulars have released their 2021 titles, The Staunton Tragedy, Corporals, Colonels, and Commissionaires, and A Quiet Air of Mastery.

The Beacon Society's Joel Senter Essay Contest is currently going on and open to any students between fourth and twelfth grades.  Entries are due by March 1.

Randy gave a great recap of the BSI Birthday Weekend.

And Bill has a great article on our blog looking at the importance of the number FOUR (not six) in this story.

SIXN starts off with Lestrade spending an evening hanging out with Holmes and Watson in Baker Street.  Rob noted that their friendship has really developed by this time, as the three men are just sitting around whiling the evening away until Holmes asks what Lestrade has on his mind.

"Oh no, Mr. Holmes, nothing very particular."

"Then tell me about it."

Lestrade says his matter may actually be more for Watson than Holmes, a type of madness.  Someone has broken three identical busts of Napoleon around London.  Watson agrees with Lestrade that it could be monomania, but Holmes is interested in the fact that all three of the broken busts came from the same mold.

Holmes says that even though it seems trifling, some of his best cases started out small, like the Abernetty business, which hinged on the depth that the parsley had sunk into the butter on a hot day.

We kicked around some other recorded cases that started out as trifles but ended up more serious and came up with BLUE, COPP, STOC, SOLI, REDC, and LADY.

The next morning, Lestrade telegrams Holmes as there's been a development.  Holmes and Watson travel to the home of Horace Harker of the Central Press Syndicate, where not only has another bust of Napoleon been stolen, but a murder was committed on his doorstep!  

While they are looking over the dead man and the photograph he was carrying, the bust has been discovered down the street, smashed.  Holmes deduces that it was smashed in that specific spot because of the lamp that would give the thief light to see what he was doing.

We get to see Holmes toying with Lestrade as they discuss their ideas on how to follow matters up:

Lestrade: I'd ID the dead man and look into his acquaintances.

Holmes: I'd do it a different way.

Lestrade: Really?  How?

Holmes: Never mind, I'm not telling you.

After this, Lestrade lets Holmes keep the photograph that the dead man was holding, which led Rob to wonder why such important evidence would be entrusted to a civilian, especially since it would help Lestrade with his line of inquiry.  Kevin said it was probably either because Lestrade trusted Holmes so much or Doyle didn't understand police procedures.

Holmes and Watson start tracking down the busts of Napoleon which takes them to Morse Hudson's shop.  He tells them that the busts came from Gelder and Company, and he recognizes the man in the photograph.  His name is Beppo, an Italian piece work man who had worked in his shop, but disappeared two days before the bust busting started.

They follow up with a visit to Gelder and Company, where the manager of the place also recognizes the photograph of Beppo, who used to work there until he was arrested for knifing a man about a year ago.  This was right around the time that the Napoleonic busts were being made.

At lunch, Holmes read's Horace Harker's newspaper report of the robbery and murder at his house, including the false information that Holmes and Lestrade purposely fed the reporter.  Holmes chuckles and says, "The press, Watson, is a most valuable institution if you only know how to use it."

And we have a few current and former members of the press in The Parallel Case of St. Louis who had some thoughts on this!  Adam said his history in journalism was that readers would often accuse them of inflating stories to justify their existence, the complete opposite of Harker's events.  Madeline said she gets irritated when Holmes is a jerk to people in the newspaper industry in these stories.

Srini wondered what immigration laws in England were during this time.  Michael shared a story of Marconi having a hard time entering England with his invention when customs officials thought it was a bomb.  Sandy cited an opposite example from the Canon where some Italians from America were let in and led to the events of The Red Circle.

Later on, Lestrade meets Holmes and Watson back at Baker Street and tells them that he has identified the dead man as Pietro Vanucci, "one of the greatest cut throats in London" and Lestrade assumes that the man was Mafia, meaning his murder was Mafia related.

Lestrade's comment coupled with the derivative descriptions of Beppo led us into a spirited debate on racism in this story.  Olivia is part of a non-Sherlockian reading group who'd also read SIXN recently, and they were much more bothered by the anti-Italian sentiments than she expected.  Stacey cited King George IV's divorce where he used the press to fan anti-Italian sentiment during the 1840's.  

Maureen felt that Beppo as a villain was a necessary evil for this story.  European travel was common and a working class man was needed to get the pearl into the bust.  Pernille told us that about 4,000 Italians had immigrated to England during this time, and a large number of them were plaster workers.  And Maureen reminded us that so many of Doyle's villains are described as ugly, or in a derogatory fashion.  Pernille supported that with the importance of phrenology during this time as well.  Brad noted that other criminals in the Canon are worse than Beppo, but most of them don't take nearly the verbal abuse that Beppo does.

Sandy reminded us that we were viewing this story through a modern day lens, and we should remember that this is a historical document.  Olivia pushed back that there were people during the Victorian period who would not have spoken this way about Italians.  Michael said that we still have our biases today and society still has racism.  

Josh gave us a great recap of colonial travel during this time, especially in his background of musical history.  He also shared an article on the history of Italian immigration to England in the Victorian Era.  This led to Rob citing an article from The Napoleon Bust Business Again that discussed all of the important contributions to British society from Italian immigrants during that time.

Back in our story, Lestrade has decided that he's got the case as good as solved, until Holmes asks him what role the busts play in his theory.  "You never can get those busts out of your head," he replies.  Rob noted that by the time SIXN is taking place, Holmes and Lestrade have known each other for at least 20 years.  By now, Lestrade should know that if Holmes is interested in a small aspect, it's important.  But time and time again, the inspector blows right past Holmes's ideas!  Some people never learn.

But Lestrade is determined to go to the Italian Quarter that evening to ask around about Venucci and Beppo.  He says he will go with Officer Hill, who knows the area well.  For those of us around St. Louis, "Hill" is almost synonymous with "Italian" as St. Louis's Italian neighborhood is named The Hill!  Michael wondered if our neighborhood was named after this character.

Holmes convinces Lestrade to wait until tomorrow and accompany him to Chiswick that night.  After sending a telegram, Holmes spends the rest of the evening rummaging through old newspapers in the lumber room while Watson and Lestrade hang out in the sitting room.  Rob wondered if it was safe for such a smoker as Holmes to keep a room full of old newspapers in his house.  Quite the fire hazard!

After a stakeout in Chiswick, Holmes, Lestrade, and Watson catch Beppo leaving a house with a Napoleon bust.  In fact, his knife still has Venucci's blood on it! (Ew, gross)

The next evening, Lestrade visits Baker Street again right before a Mr. Sandeford arrives to sell his Napoleon bust to Holmes as they had arranged.  After the man leaves, Holmes breaks the bust with his riding crop and pulls out "a round dark object fixed like a plum in a pudding," the black pearl of the Borgias!

We broke from the canonical story to all remember and appreciate Jeremy Brett's masterful performance of this scene where he pulled the table cloth off of the table...

Stacey gave us some background on the Borgia family, citing they were a very dramatic family.  They had strong connections to the papacy and inspired at least one famous opera.  She also noted that pearls, black pearls specifically, had strong ties to royalty.  Maureen cited that Italy's location would have made it a natural point for black pearls to enter Europe from their natural location of the Pacific Ocean.

Watson and Lestrade applaud Holmes once he's told them the whole story.  Watson records Holmes's reaction: "It was at such moments that for an instant he ceased to be a reasoning machine, and betrayed his human love for admiration and applause."

The pearl had been stolen from the hotel room of the Prince of Colonna about a year ago (side note: if you have a jewel in a hotel room in Victorian London, you're probably going to end up in a Sherlock Holmes story).  The maid was suspected, who was the sister of Pietro Vanucci.  Two days after the theft, Beppo was arrested, but not before he was able to sneak into Gelder and Company and formed the stolen pearl into a Napoleonic bust that was being molded that day.  

Stacey said she couldn't decide if putting the pearl in the bust was brilliant or stupid.  Pernille said it was probably circumstance that dictated his actions, as Beppo was being chased by the police.  Steve argued that Beppo probably would've gotten away with crime if Holmes had not been involved, so it was a pretty smart move.  Stacey thought Beppo was so unlucky.  The odds were four (or five) out of six that he would have gotten the pearl before Holmes did and he still ended up losing it!

Andrew, David, Steve, Pernille, and Sandy discussed the inflation of how much one of the Napoleon busts would sell for today, and Holmes's offer to Sandeford would be quite a sum!

The story ends with Holmes telling Watson to "Put the pearl in the safe."  We can only assume that it was stored right next to the blue carbuncle.

Although monthly meetings were a lot of fun in 2020, we are returning to our bi-monthly schedule.  So please plan to join us via Zoom on March 13 for The Three Students.  Zoom at once if convenient!