Holmes and Watson (11 page)

By degrees, as Watson’s confidence grew, he began to put forward his own ideas as, for example, in the Greek Interpreter inquiry, in which he suggests that the young Greek woman found out about her brother’s arrival in England only by accident, a theory which Holmes greeted with the exclamation, ‘Excellent, Watson! I really feel you are not far from the truth.’ It was also Watson who suggested that an almanac might hold the key to the coded letter in the Valley of Fear case.

But Watson’s chief role was still that of an appreciative audience. Holmes remained susceptible to flattery, as is seen in ‘The Adventure of the Reigate Squire’ when Colonel Hayter complimented him by suggesting the inquiry was too petty to interest someone of his reputation. Although Holmes brushed the remark aside, his smile, Watson observes, ‘showed that it pleased him’. And it was exceedingly flattering to Holmes’ ego to have Watson at his side, constantly exclaiming in surprise and admiration at his, Holmes’, brilliant detective skills and superior intellectual powers. However, while he was admittedly
not as intelligent as Holmes, Watson was no fool and, one suspects that – kind man that he was – he sometimes deliberately exaggerated his bewilderment in order to give Holmes the pleasure of explaining how he had arrived at his conclusions.

Another indication of their growing intimacy was Holmes’ admission of his drug addiction. Watson does not state exactly how or when he learnt of Holmes’ habit of injecting himself with a 7 per cent solution of cocaine. The first reference to it is in ‘The Adventure of the Yellow Face’, assigned by some commentators to 1885 or 1886. However, Watson’s awareness of Holmes’ dependency might suggest that the earlier date of 1882 is correct. It is unlikely that Holmes could have kept his addiction secret from Watson for four or five years. Watson was a doctor and, as we have seen, was already suspicious of Holmes’ symptoms within a few weeks of their moving together into the Baker Street lodgings. Over the following years, Watson was to try weaning Holmes from the habit.

Holmes also came to express more openly to Watson that darker, more melancholy side of his nature. In ‘The Adventure of the Copper Beeches’, Holmes remarks: ‘It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the beautiful countryside.’ He was in an even more solemn and philosophical mood at the end of the Cardboard Box inquiry.

‘What is the meaning of it, Watson?’ he enquires. ‘What is served by this circle of misery, violence and fear? It must
tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But to what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.’

Holmes must have found considerable relief from having, possibly for the first time in his life, so close a companion in whom he could confide such thoughts.

However, it was not all gloom. There was a great deal of laughter as well and the image of Holmes as an introspective intellectual, sunk deep in thought, is only partly true. Throughout Watson’s accounts, there are numerous references to Holmes either smiling or laughing, from a ‘low chuckle’ to ‘an uncontrollable fit of laughter’ in which Watson joined.

Holmes possessed a keen sense of humour, often ironic, as demonstrated by his comment, quoted in
The Valley of Fear
, on the style of
Whitaker’s Almanac:
‘though terse in its earlier vocabulary, it becomes, if I remember right, quite garrulous towards the end.’ However, when that irony turned to sarcasm and was directed against himself, Watson became annoyed at Holmes’ ‘sardonic’ interruptions, as he reports in the same account.

For despite their growing friendship and Watson’s unaffected admiration, there were still times when he found Holmes exasperating, particularly when he was in what Watson calls a ‘disputatious mood’. It was then that Watson was reminded of the egoism which was ‘a strong factor’ in Holmes’ personality and which he found repellent. Much warmer by nature, Watson also
found it difficult to come to terms with Holmes’ colder, less emotional character, to the extent that on occasions he considered him as nothing more than a ‘brain without a heart’, so lacking was he in human sympathy.

This side of Holmes’ personality is seen in his attitude to certain individuals, especially those he had reason to dislike, such as Dr Grimesby Roylott (‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band’) on whose death, for which he was indirectly responsible, he remarks dismissively, ‘I cannot say that it is likely to weigh very heavily on my conscience.’

Once a case was completed, he showed no further concern over his clients, not even for Miss Violet Hunter (‘The Adventure of the Copper Beeches’), a young lady of considerable charm and courage. It was Watson, disappointed by Holmes’ lack of interest, who went to the trouble of finding out and reporting on her subsequent successful career as the headmistress of a private school.

But, when interviewing clients, Holmes was capable of showing admirable patience, listening to their at times lengthy accounts without interruption. He could even sympathise with their distress, as in the case of Miss Helen Stoner (‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band’), whom he pats soothingly on the arm, a rare instance of Holmes’ initiating physical contact with another person. Seeing she is cold, he seats her by the fire and orders a cup of coffee for her. However, he is quite adamant in one respect: his clients had to be completely frank with him. When he suspected Mr Blessington was lying to him (‘The Adventure of the Resident Patient’), Holmes curtly refused to continue with the case.

Despite this stricture on the part of his clients, Holmes was not able to shake off his own delight in mystifying others and even Watson, intimate friend or not, was kept deliberately in the dark on some occasions, as in the Beryl Coronet inquiry when Holmes adroitly sidestepped Watson’s questions by changing the subject. In a later inquiry into the disappearance of the racehorse, Silver Blaze, and the death of its trainer, John Straker, Holmes not only misled Watson but also the horse’s owner, Colonel Ross, as well as Inspector Gregson, who was officially engaged on the inquiry. In this instance, there was some justification for Holmes’ withholding the truth. A too-early revelation would have ruined the drama of the dénouement. For Holmes could not resist the temptation of introducing an element of the theatrical into his investigations, a tendency he admits in the Valley of Fear inquiry.

‘Watson insists that I am the dramatist in real life,’ he remarks. ‘Some touch of the artist wells up in one and calls insistently for a well-staged performance.’

Once he had established himself in both Mrs Hudson’s and Watson’s good books, Holmes soon reverted to his old irregular habits of untidiness and late rising, occasionally lapsing, when in one of his manic moods, into acts of irresponsible behaviour, such as his use of the sitting-room wall for target practice, already referred to in Chapter Four.

Nevertheless, over this period, Holmes’ character shows definite signs of developing and maturing. One indication of
this is his changing attitude to the official police. As the years passed, he grew less contemptuous of both them and their methods, even of Lestrade, whom he refers to as ‘the best of the Scotland Yarders’. In ‘The Adventure of the Cardboard Box’, Holmes remarks that the inspector can be relied on to supply the missing facts of the case, for ‘although he is devoid of reason, he is as tenacious as a bulldog once he understands what he has to do.’ It is doubtful if Holmes would have paid Lestrade even this backhanded compliment a few years earlier. He is also complimentary about Inspector Gregson, whom he describes as an ‘extremely competent officer’, though lacking in imagination.

But it is in his dealings with Inspector MacDonald, a young and intelligent Scotland Yard officer, during the Valley of Fear inquiry, that Holmes’ improved relationship with the police is seen at its best. Watson comments that, although not prone to friendship, Holmes was tolerant of the big Scotsman. Certainly his attitude towards him is relaxed and informal. Holmes refers to him as ‘friend MacDonald’ and addresses him as ‘Mr Mac’, a nickname which has a touch of affectionate regard about it. He also had, as Watson remarks, a genuine admiration for the man’s professional competence.

Another change is seen in Holmes’ willingness to admit he could at times be wrong, a confession he would have also found difficult to make before this period.

‘I had come to an entirely erroneous conclusion,’ he confesses to Watson at the end of the Speckled Band affair, while he is even more frank about his shortcomings over
the Yellow Face inquiry which took place at Norbury. He tells Watson, ‘… if it should ever strike you that I am getting a little over-confident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case than it deserves, kindly whisper “Norbury” in my ear, and I shall be infinitely obliged to you.’
*

Apart from his heavy case-load, Holmes was also busy during these years with his other interests. If the date of August 1888 is correct for ‘The Adventure of the Cardboard Box’, then in 1887 he published the two short monographs in the
Anthropological Journal
on the human ear, already referred to in Chapter Two. He also continued with his chemical experiments, including an analysis of acetones and a successful attempt at dissolving hydrocarbons.

But it was, of course, the investigations which occupied most of his time. As we have seen, he was dealing with about forty-five cases a year, some of which, such as the Baskerville inquiry, took several weeks to complete. The Maupertuis case took even longer, extending over at least two months of intensive and exhausting enquiries. On occasions, it was not unusual for Holmes to be absent from Baker Street for days and nights at a time.

His clientele came from a wide variety of social backgrounds, from the humble, lowly-paid governess,
Miss Violet Hunter (‘The Adventure of the Copper Beeches’), to the wealthy banker, Alexander Holder (‘The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet’) through to the richest and highest-born in the country such as Sir Henry Baskerville and Lord St Simon (‘The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor’). Towards the end of this period, Holmes was to have two even more exalted clients: the Pope, who asked him to investigate the case of the Vatican Cameos, an inquiry which may have necessitated Holmes’ presence in Rome, and the King of Scandinavia.

But Holmes was no snob and he treated his clients exactly the same, whatever their backgrounds. ‘I can assure you, Watson, without affectation,’ he declares in ‘The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor’, ‘that the social status of a client is of less moment to me than the interests of his case.’

It would appear that Holmes never advertised, relying on either his police contacts to introduce him to clients or to ask for his assistance on an inquiry, as happened with the Beryl Coronet and the Cardboard Box investigations, or personal recommendation by former clients. Helen Stoner heard of him through Mrs Farintosh, one of his Montague Street clients, while Lord St Simon was advised by his aristocratic friend, Lord Blackwater, to consult Holmes when the former’s bride disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Holmes’ older brother Mycroft, of whom more in the next chapter, was another source of introductions. It was he who called Holmes in to investigate the Greek Interpreter affair and who brought some of the more interesting cases to his brother’s attention.

The fees Holmes charged his clients varied according to their financial circumstances. In the case of Miss Helen Stoner, dependent on her stepfather, he asked only for his expenses, but from the wealthy Mr Holder he claimed the full reward of £1,000, at that time a very large sum indeed, offered by the banker for the recovery of the beryl coronet.

His increasing financial success made it possible for Holmes to afford to travel first-class, a luxury he indulged in for his own and presumably also Watson’s benefit, when they went by train to Dartmoor to investigate the Silver Blaze affair. As early as 1882, if the dating of ‘The Adventure of the Yellow Face’ to this year is correct, he was already earning enough to pay the wages as well as the board and lodging of a page-boy, referred to in the canon as Billy.

Billy is mentioned several times in Watson’s accounts. However, the Billy who features in ‘The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone’, told in the third person and undated, although it is assigned by some commentators to June 1903, is not the original page-boy. In that account, he refers to the Empty House case of 1894 as being ‘before my time’. Billy, like Wiggins, may be a generic name.

Presumably this first Billy, as well as his replacement, slept on the premises, occupying one of the attic bedrooms and eating in the basement kitchen in company with Mrs Hudson and the servant. His duties included answering the door, showing clients upstairs and running errands. He may have performed other tasks as well, such as cleaning boots, relieving Mrs Hudson of some of the burden of caring for her two gentlemen lodgers.

As his practice grew, bringing increased financial reward, Holmes’ reputation as a private consulting detective was also spreading. Not only were well-to-do aristocrats such as Lord St Simon and Sir Henry Baskerville calling on his services but he was asked to undertake such
causes célèbres
as the Silver Blaze inquiry which was, as Watson states, ‘the one topic of conversation through the length and breadth of England’ and which featured in the national newspapers. Some of these cases were also to result in ‘sensational trials’ which were presumably also reported in the press. As a consequence, his name became well known outside London, not only in England but on the Continent, including Italy and Scandinavia. His international renown culminated in February of the same year as the Reigate Squire case, 1887, with his successful investigation into the Netherland-Sumatra Company. Although the police of three countries had failed to bring Baron Maupertuis, the most accomplished swindler in Europe, to justice, Holmes succeeded in outwitting him, a triumph which brought him European fame.