The Midwinter Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes: Three Adventures & The Grand Gift of Sherlock (33 page)

[294]
Watson’s first visit to the Diogenes Club was during
The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter
.

[295]
Watson is again referring to
A Christmas Carol
, obviously.

[296]
Mycroft is seven years older than Sherlock, as noted in
The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter
.

[297]
Mycroft’s only other on-scene appearance in the Canon is in
The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
, which took place in 1892, shortly before the events related in this tale.

[298]
Mycroft is referring to the fact that their grandmother’s brother was Emile Jean Horace Vernet (1789-1863), the French artist, as revealed in
The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter
.

[299]
Home to the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, aka the Bank of England, and also the banking firm of Holder & Stevenson (
The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet
).

[300]
The Tower of London was founded by William the Conqueror in 1066, while the iconic Tower Bridge was opened in June 1894.

[301]
Andrew Farrar appears to be a Watsonian attempt to hide the actual identity of Sebastian Garrard, one of the partners of Garrard & Co., appointed as Crown Jewelers by Queen Victoria in 1843. Their headquarters were located on Threadneedle Street. They produced numerous pieces of silverware and jewelry for the Royal Family, as well as being responsible for the upkeep of the Crown Jewels. They created the Imperial Crown of India in 1911, the coronation crown of Queen Mary, and the Crown of Queen Elizabeth in 1937. In 1852, they were responsible for the re-cutting of the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond.

[302]
The uniform of the Yeoman Warder in the 1890’s differed in design from today’s red and black version.

[303]
This would have been the old Jewel House whose construction dated back to 1378. It is now vanished, having been replaced by the current structure north of the White Tower in 1967.

[304]
Queen Victoria ascended the throne fifty-five years earlier in 1837, and would not pass it to her son for another eight years. That is how you affix your name to an age!

[305]
It appears that Major Cornwell was either not an avid reader of the Strand Magazine, or had a poor memory. Otherwise, how could he be unaware of Watson’s account, published in 1892, of Holmes’ role in the successful return of the three beryls stolen by Sir George Burnwell (
The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet
)?

[306]
The crown pulled from the Hurlstone pond was described by Holmes in
The Musgrave Ritual
as being “old rusted and discoloured metal and several dull-coloured pieces of pebble or glass…. the metal was almost black, and the stones lustreless and dull. I rubbed one of them on my sleeve, however, and it glowed afterwards like a spark, in the dark hollow of my hand. The metal-work was in the form of a double-ring, but it had been bent and twisted out of its original shape.” The fact that the metal appeared “rusted” suggests that it could not have been made of gold, thus tarnished silver seems likely.

[307]
Interestingly, this relic is not listed or shown with the other Crown Jewels today. In fact, most consider Llywelyn’s coronet to be one of the lost treasures of Welsh history. Dafydd ap Llywelyn ascended to the throne of Gwynedd in 1240. While many believe that the coronet was forged during the reign of Owain Gwynedd (1137-1171), the Arthurian legend persists. It is generally thought that the coronet was destroyed alongside most of the original English Crown Jewels (excepting the Black Prince’s Ruby) by order of Oliver Cromwell, however, contemporary inventories of the Protectorate make no mention of it. This fully supports the role of Musgrave’s Roundhead ancestor in hiding the Coron Arthur. Its current location is a mystery. Perhaps it still resides in the undisclosed locale where the other Crown Jewels were hidden during World War II?

[308]
As mentioned by Holmes in Chapter III of
A Study in Scarlet
.

[309]
Watson says something to this effect in
The Adventure of the Cardboard Box
.

[310]
If you take an “n” from “Blunt,” a common surname meaning “blonde, fair” (from the Old French ‘blund’), the remaining word, “Blut,” is German for ‘blood’.

[311]
Edward Asbury appears to be a Watsonian attempt to thinly veil the identity of William Waldorf Astor (1848-1919), founder of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotels. Waldorf derives from the German, meaning ‘Walled Village.’ In English etymology, the term ‘bury’ is synonymous with this. The description of the house supports this identification, as it fits all of the particulars of 2 Temple Place, the mansion Astor built. 

[312]
The Right Honorable Trelawney Hope and Lord Bellinger appear in
The Adventure of the Second Stain
.

[313]
Holmes identifies his bank in
The Adventure of the Priory School
.

[314]
Given Watson’s tendency to obscure some facts in his reports of Holmes’ adventures, the true nature of the ‘Star of India’ is not entirely clear. There is of course a real gem of that name, the 563-carat famous blue star sapphire, presently owned by the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, where it is exhibited in the J. P. Morgan Hall of Gems. This stone was discovered in the alluvial gem deposits of Sri Lanka (formerly known as Ceylon) probably while the country was under Dutch rule (1640-1795) and before Sri Lanka became a colony of the British Empire (1795-1948). It should thus more properly be called the ‘Star of Ceylon’ or ‘Star of Sri Lanka.’ The gem trade at that time was mainly in the hands of the Moors of Sri Lanka (descendants of Arab settlers of the 7th to 8th century CE). However, the Moor traders who had acquired the rough star sapphire did not sell it to the British East India Company, which would have led the world’s largest blue star sapphire ending up as part of the British Crown Jewels, in the Tower of London, like the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond of India. Instead the diamond was probably sold to other private dealers of European origin, through whom it eventually came into the possession of the American industrialist and Financier J. P. Morgan in the 19th century, who donated it in 1900. It cannot be the famous ‘Star of Africa’ which graces St. Edward’s Sceptre, as that gem was not discovered until 1905. It is conceivable that the ‘Star of India’ is in fact a thinly disguised Koh-i-Noor. However, the Koh-i-Noor was mounted in a brooch which Queen Victoria often wore. It was kept at Windsor Castle rather than with the rest of the crown jewels at the Tower of London. Only after Queen Victoria's death was it set in Queen Alexandra's brand-new diamond crown, with which she was crowned at the coronation of her husband, King Edward VII, and thereby became part of the collection of Crown Jewels at the Tower.

[315]
These actions sound not dissimilar to those of the exalted person who used the Beryl Coronet as collateral in the eponymous adventure. That person is widely believed to have been Albert Edward, Prince of Wales and future King Edward VII. He also likely appeared as the force behind the scenes in
The Adventure of the Illustrious Client
.

[316]
Count Negretto Sylvius planned to so dispose of the Crown Diamond in
The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone
.

[317]
Professor Moriarty’s ill-gotten wealth could be measured by his ability to afford a genuine painting by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, which fetched more than forty thousand pounds c.1888 (Chapter II,
The Valley of Fear
), which would be roughly equivalent to five million dollars in 2014.

[318]
Holmes closely paraphrases himself from
The Adventure of the Empty House
, with the reference being to Colonel Sebastian Moran.

[319]
The story of Thomas Blood (1618-1680) is an example of truth being stranger than fiction. In April or May of the year 1671, he visited the Tower of London dressed as a parson and accompanied by a female companion pretending to be his wife. At the time, the Crown Jewels were stored in the basement of Martin Tower behind a metal grille, where they could be viewed by the payment of a fee to the custodian. While viewing the Crown Jewels, Blood's ‘wife’ feigned a stomach complaint and begged the newly appointed Master of the Jewel House, 77-year-old Talbot Edwards, to fetch her some spirits. Given the proximity of the jewel keeper's domestic quarters to the site of the commotion, Edwards' wife invited them upstairs to their apartment to recover, after which Blood and his ‘wife’ became close friends with Edwards and his wife, even offering to marry their fictitious nephew to their daughter. On 9 May, 1671, Blood convinced Edwards to show the jewels to him, his supposed nephew, and two of his friends while they waited for a dinner that Mrs. Edwards was to put on for Blood and his companions. Reports suggest that Blood's accomplices carried canes that concealed rapier blades, daggers and pocket pistols. Edwards was struck with a mallet, bound, gagged, and stabbed. After removing the grille, Blood used a mallet to flatten St. Edward's Crown so that he could hide it beneath his clerical coat. Another conspirator, Blood's brother-in-law Hunt, filed the Sceptre with the Cross in two (as it did not fit in their bag), while the third man, Parrot, stuffed the Sovereign's Orb down his trousers. However, Edwards managed to free the gag and raised the alarm shouting, “Treason! Murder! The crown is stolen!” They were captured during their escape from the castle, with Blood declaring, “It was a gallant attempt, however unsuccessful! It was for a crown!” Following his capture, Blood refused to answer to anyone but the king and was consequently taken to the palace in chains. There he was questioned by King Charles, who asked him, “What if I should give you your life?” Blood replied, “I would endeavor to deserve it, Sire!” Amazingly, Blood was pardoned, for reasons unknown.

[320]
As recounted in Chapter II of
The Valley of Fear
.

[321]
Holmes received this gift from an august lady, who could only be Queen Victoria, at the conclusion of
The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
. He did so after refusing to be placed on the honors list announcing peerages, knighthoods, and medals.

[322]
Literally. Holmes refused a knighthood shortly before the events recounted in
The Adventure of the Three Garridebs
for services yet to be fully described.

[323]
The final exchange of Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes draws to mind the final line of the 1823 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” This now classic work codified many of the modern traditions of the American Christmas. First published anonymously in the Troy
Sentinel
(from the upstate New York Town made famous in the novel
The Anger of Achilles Peterson
), it was later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore (1779–1863), though an authorship controversy exists. In any case, the final line still rings true: “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”

[324]
In the Covent Garden area of London, probably named after Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, main spymaster of both Elizabeth I and James I after the death of his mentor Sir Francis Walsingham.

[325]
Charing Cross Road is most famous for its numerous bookshops. The region features in many of the Holmes adventures.

[326]
A narrow road leading from St. Martin-in-the-Fields to Long Acre, it is home to numerous theaters.

[327]
It has been proposed that the owners intended this to be a subtle reference to Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, the two famous but minor characters that Hamlet blithely sends off for execution in England.

[328]
Likely nothing more than a coincidence, this is also the proposed date for the original meeting of Holmes and Watson at St. Bart’s Hospital in 1881.

[329]
Initially postulated by Watson to be a possible reason for the destruction of the plaster busts in
The Adventure of the Six Napoleons
.

[330]
Holmes was nearly converted to “the doctrine of reincarnation” by his study of the Baskerville family portraits in Chapter XIII of
The Hound of the Baskervilles
.

[331]
The historical reality behind the legends of King Arthur is far too complex for a mere footnote. Suffice it to say that one of his earliest titles translated as the ‘War Duke’ of the Romano-Britons against the invading Saxons.

[332]
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910) is, of course, one of the great American writers. Interestingly, given the name of this bookshop, his first novel was titled
The Gilded Age
, which itself is a paraphrase of Shakespeare from
King John
(Act IV, Scene II).
A Connecticut Yankee
was published in 1889, two years after the first public appearance of Sherlock Holmes in
A Study in Scarlet
. Perhaps most interesting of all is the fact that one of Twain’s last works was
A Double Barreled Detective Story
, a pastiche novelette in which Sherlock Holmes finds himself in the American West!