Sherlock Holmes (4 page)

In tone the two halves of
The Valley of Fear
are radically different. “The Tragedy of Birlstone,” as the first part is called, prefigures those elaborately contrived puzzle-murders of the
1920
s and '
30
s, in which witty amateur detectives solve impossible crimes. But the second part, “The Scowrers,” could have been published in
Black Mask
; it is abrupt and violent in word, action, and denouement, almost a foreshadowing of Dashiell Hammett's brutal
Red Harvest
. Among Conan Doyle's contemporaries it somewhat resembles a social-realist novel by Jack London or Upton Sinclair, while some aspects of its plot call to mind Conan Doyle's nasty stories about the murderous pirate Captain Sharkey.

In Conan Doyle's work, violence—usually in conjunction with ill-gotten wealth—nearly always originates outside England's green and peaceful land, typically in gangsterish America. Consequently Holmes, like the medieval knights his creator idolized, often works to preserve the civilized values of the British Empire against barbarity and disorder. That said,
The Valley of Fear
is only partly about the danger of lawlessness. On closer inspection, both halves are built around a tangled spiderweb of promises, oaths, and pledges. No matter what the cost or how long it takes, contracts—whether honorable or ignoble—must always be fulfilled.

Throughout, Conan Doyle sets up, and quickly skates over, a series of moral ambiguities. Under what circumstances, if any, can a man stand by and allow bloodshed to occur without acting? Does Sherlock Holmes himself cause the death of two men? Is John Douglas's wife betraying him with his best friend? And, most troubling of all, has Holmes's deductive genius actually been subverted by Moriarty to assist the professor's nefarious purposes? An epilogue, set amid the seeming security of Baker Street, adds further twists to this most intricate, most Heisenbergian of all the Sherlock Holmes novels. After all, nearly every element in the narrative is susceptible to multiple interpretations, so much so that reality itself comes to seem labile, any truth undecidable. Even more than in the other novel-length adventures, Conan Doyle actually avoids neat and tidy closure. Mysteries remain. The modern world has arrived.

Arthur Conan Doyle once wrote, “So elementary a form of fiction as the detective story hardly deserves the dignity of a preface.” But are the Holmes adventures so “elementary”? I'm writing this during the centennial year of
The Valley of Fear
. Over the past century and more, the Sherlock Holmes “canon” has received the kind of microscopic attention usually bestowed on the Bible, Shakespeare, and James Joyce. Every word has been studied, every angle explored, multiple interpretations expounded. There have been annotated editions, scholarly editions, and even manuscript editions of the stories; there are critical studies, journal articles, and Internet rants about Holmes; conferences and blogs are devoted to every aspect of his life and times.

I myself have contributed to this plenty. In
2002
I was invested into the Baker Street Irregulars and given the canonical name “Langdale Pike.” Pike is a journalist, a gossip columnist really, who appears in arguably the worst Sherlock Holmes story, “The Three Gables.” Since then I've written playful accounts of Pike's various misadventures, a book about Arthur Conan Doyle, and presented numerous talks on Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Still, most important of all, I've been privileged to share with many others—artists and scientists, businessmen and bureaucrats, lawyers and doctors, people of every age and from every walk of life—a common delight in the world of
221
B Baker Street. After you read these four novels, and then go on to the short stories, you might want to be part of that world too.

In the end, though, it is worth remembering that Holmes's adventures, while inviting endless annotation and exegesis, chiefly aim to provide, as Conan Doyle once said, “distraction from the worries of life.” So turn to
A Study in
Scarlet
, let the introduction be made—“Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes”—and settle back with a contented sigh. The game is afoot!

MICHAEL DIRDA

The texts of these novels have been drawn from the individual Penguin Classics editions. Interested readers should turn to the following
2001
Penguin Classics editions:
A Study in Scarlet
, with an introduction by Iain Sinclair and notes by Ed Glinert;
The Hound of the Baskervilles
, edited with an introduction and notes by Christopher Frayling; and
The Sign of Four
, with an introduction by Peter Ackroyd and notes by Ed Glinert.

PART ONE

Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson MD, late of the Army Medical Department

1 Mr Sherlock Holmes

2 The Science of Deduction

3 The Lauriston Gardens Mystery

4 What John Rance Had to Tell

5 Our Advertisement Brings a Visitor

6 Tobias Gregson Shows What He Can Do

7 Light in the Darkness

PART TWO

The Country of the Saints

1 On the Great Alkali Plain

2 The Flower of Utah

3 John Ferrier Talks with the Prophet

4 A Flight for Life

5 The Avenging Angels

6 A Continuation of the Reminiscences of John Watson MD

7 The Conclusion

Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson MD, late of the Army Medical
Department

In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy's country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties.

The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a pack-horse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.

Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to the base hospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied, and had already improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little upon the verandah, when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse of our Indian possessions. For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to myself and became
convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to England. I was dispatched accordingly in the troopship
Orontes
, and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it.

I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air – or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained. There I stayed for some time at a private hotel in the Strand, leading a comfortless, meaningless existence, and spending such money as I had, considerably more freely than I ought. So alarming did the state of my finances become that I soon realized that I must either leave the metropolis and rusticate somewhere in the country, or that I must make a complete alteration in my style of living. Choosing the latter alternative, I began by making up my mind to leave the hotel, and to take up my quarters in some less pretentious and less expensive domicile.

On the very day that I had come to this conclusion, I was standing at the Criterion Bar, when someone tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round I recognized young Stamford, who had been a dresser under me at Bart's. The sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of London is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man. In old days Stamford had never been a particular crony of mine, but now I hailed him with enthusiasm, and he, in his turn, appeared to be delighted to see me. In the exuberance of my joy, I asked him to lunch with me at the Holborn, and we started off together in a hansom.

‘Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Watson?' he asked in undisguised wonder, as we rattled through the crowded London streets. ‘You are as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut.'

I gave him a short sketch of my adventures, and had hardly concluded it by the time that we reached our destination.

‘Poor devil!' he said, commiseratingly, after he had listened to my misfortunes. ‘What are you up to now?'

‘Looking for lodgings,' I answered. ‘Trying to solve the problem as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable price.'

‘That's a strange thing,' remarked my companion, ‘you are the second man today that has used that expression to me.'

‘And who was the first?' I asked.

‘A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital. He was bemoaning himself this morning because he could not get someone to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he had found, and which were too much for his purse.'

‘By Jove!' I cried; ‘if he really wants someone to share the rooms and the expense, I am the very man for him. I should prefer having a partner to being alone.'

Young Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wineglass. ‘You don't know Sherlock Holmes yet,' he said; ‘perhaps you would not care for him as a constant companion.'

‘Why, what is there against him?'

‘Oh, I didn't say there was anything against him. He is a little queer in his ideas – an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as I know he is a decent fellow enough.'

‘A medical student, I suppose?' said I.

‘No – I have no idea what he intends to go in for. I believe he is well up in anatomy, and he is a first-class chemist; but, as far as I know, he has never taken out any systematic medical classes. His studies are very desultory and eccentric, but he has amassed a lot of out-of-the-way knowledge which would astonish his professors.'

‘Did you never ask him what he was going in for?' I asked.

‘No; he is not a man that it is easy to draw out, though he can be communicative enough when the fancy seizes him.'

‘I should like to meet him,' I said. ‘If I am to lodge with anyone, I should prefer a man of studious and quiet habits. I am not strong enough yet to stand much noise or excitement. I had enough of both in Afghanistan to last me for the remainder of my natural existence. How could I meet this friend of yours?'

‘He is sure to be at the laboratory,' returned my companion. ‘He either avoids the place for weeks, or else he works there from morning till night. If you like, we will drive round together after luncheon.'

‘Certainly,' I answered, and the conversation drifted away into other channels.

As we made our way to the hospital after leaving the Holborn,
Stamford gave me a few more particulars about the gentleman whom I proposed to take as a fellow-lodger.

‘You mustn't blame me if you don't get on with him,' he said; ‘I know nothing more of him than I have learned from meeting him occasionally in the laboratory. You proposed this arrangement, so you must not hold me responsible.'

‘If we don't get on it will be easy to part company,' I answered. ‘It seems to me, Stamford,' I added, looking hard at my companion, ‘that you have some reason for washing your hands of the matter. Is this fellow's temper so formidable, or what is it? Don't be mealy-mouthed about it.'

‘It is not easy to express the inexpressible,' he answered with a laugh. ‘Holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes – it approaches to cold-bloodedness. I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch of the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you understand, but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea of the effects. To do him justice, I think that he would take it himself with the same readiness. He appears to have a passion for definite and exact knowledge.'

‘Very right too.'

‘Yes, but it may be pushed to excess. When it comes to beating the subjects in the dissecting-rooms with a stick, it is certainly taking rather a bizarre shape.'

‘Beating the subjects!'

‘Yes, to verify how far bruises may be produced after death. I saw him at it with my own eyes.'

‘And yet you say he is not a medical student?'

‘No. Heaven knows what the objects of his studies are. But here we are, and you must form your own impressions about him.' As he spoke, we turned down a narrow lane and passed through a small side-door which opened into a wing of the great hospital. It was familiar ground to me, and I needed no guiding as we ascended the bleak stone staircase and made our way down the long corridor with its vista of whitewashed wall and dun-coloured doors. Near the farther end a low arched passage branched away from it and led to the chemical laboratory.

This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless
bottles. Broad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled with retorts, test-tubes, and little Bunsen lamps with their blue flickering flames. There was only one student in the room, who was bending over a distant table absorbed in his work. At the sound of our steps he glanced round and sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure. ‘I've found it! I've found it,' he shouted to my companion, running towards us with a test-tube in his hand. ‘I have found a re-agent which is precipitated by haemoglobin, and by nothing else.' Had he discovered a gold mine, greater delight could not have shone upon his features.

‘Dr Watson, Mr Sherlock Holmes,' said Stamford, introducing us.

‘How are you?' he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength for which I should hardly have given him credit. ‘You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.'

‘How on earth did you know that?' I asked in astonishment.

‘Never mind,' said he, chuckling to himself. ‘The question now is about haemoglobin. No doubt you see the significance of this discovery of mine?'

‘It is interesting, chemically, no doubt,' I answered, ‘but practically –'

‘Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years. Don't you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains. Come over here now!' He seized me by the coat-sleeve in his eagerness, and drew me over to the table at which he had been working. ‘Let us have some fresh blood,' he said, digging a long bodkin into his finger, and drawing off the resulting drop of blood in a chemical pipette. ‘Now, I add this small quantity of blood to a litre of water. You perceive that the resulting mixture has the appearance of pure water. The proportion of blood cannot be more than one in a million. I have no doubt, however, that we shall be able to obtain the characteristic reaction.' As he spoke, he threw into the vessel a few white crystals, and then added some drops of a transparent fluid. In an instant the contents assumed a dull mahogany colour, and a brownish dust was precipitated to the bottom of the glass jar.

‘Ha! ha!' he cried, clapping his hands, and looking as delighted as a child with a new toy. ‘What do you think of that?'

‘It seems to be a very delicate test,' I remarked.

‘Beautiful! beautiful! The old guaiacum test was very clumsy and uncertain. So is the microscopic examination for blood corpuscles. The latter is valueless if the stains are a few hours old. Now, this appears to act as well whether the blood is old or new. Had this test been invented, there are hundreds of men now walking the earth who would long ago have paid the penalty of their crimes.'

‘Indeed!' I murmured.

‘Criminal cases are continually hinging upon that one point. A man is suspected of a crime months perhaps after it has been committed. His linen or clothes are examined and brownish stains discovered upon them. Are they blood stains, or mud stains, or rust stains, or fruit stains, or what are they? That is a question which has puzzled many an expert, and why? Because there was no reliable test. Now we have the Sherlock Holmes test, and there will no longer be any difficulty.'

His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand over his heart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his imagination.

‘You are to be congratulated,' I remarked, considerably surprised at his enthusiasm.

‘There was the case of Von Bischoff at Frankfort last year. He would certainly have been hung had this test been in existence. Then there was Mason of Bradford, and the notorious Muller, and Lefevre of Montpellier, and Samson of New Orleans. I could name a score of cases in which it would have been decisive.'

‘You seem to be a walking calendar of crime,' said Stamford with a laugh. ‘You might start a paper on those lines. Call it the “Police News of the Past”.'

‘Very interesting reading it might be made, too,' remarked Sherlock Holmes, sticking a small piece of plaster over the prick on his finger. ‘I have to be careful,' he continued, turning to me with a smile, ‘for I dabble with poisons a good deal.' He held out his hand as he spoke, and I noticed that it was all mottled over with similar pieces of plaster, and discoloured with strong acids.

‘We came here on business,' said Stamford, sitting down on a high three-legged stool, and pushing another one in my direction with his foot. ‘My friend here wants to take diggings; and as you
were complaining that you could get no one to go halves with you, I thought that I had better bring you together.'

Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his rooms with me. ‘I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street,' he said, ‘which would suit us down to the ground. You don't mind the smell of strong tobacco, I hope?'

‘I always smoke “ship's” myself,' I answered.

‘That's good enough. I generally have chemicals about, and occasionally do experiments. Would that annoy you?'

‘By no means.'

‘Let me see – what are my other shortcomings. I get in the dumps at times, and don't open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I'll soon be right. What have you to confess now? It's just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another before they begin to live together.'

I laughed at this cross-examination. ‘I keep a bull pup,' I said, ‘and I object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at all sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of vices when I'm well, but those are the principal ones at present.'