These foundational techniques and principles are essentially present in every Sherlock Holmes story, whether explicitly referred to or not. In addition, I have identified eight important techniques that Holmes used throughout his career, of which he uses seven in his first investigation with Dr. Watson. (I do not include burglary among the eight because it is only used three times—MILV, BRUC, RETI). Let’s take these frequently used techniques one by one:
Technique (1): Analogy or reference to previous cases, either from Holmes’s encyclopedic memory for crime or from his commonplace books. In the first chapter of A Study in Scarlet, he mentions so many cases that Stamford suggests he start a newspaper called “Police News of the Past.” At the end of the case, explaining the solution to Watson, Holmes sites two cases of forcible administration of poison which, he says, “would occur to any toxicologist.”
(How odd, by the way, that he never calls attention to the parallels in his own cases. Should not “The Three Garridebs” or “The Stock-Broker’s Clerk” have reminded him of “The Red-Headed League,” “The Six Napoleons” of “The Blue Carbuncle,” and “The Second Stain” of “The Naval Treaty?” And how about the parallel between The Valley of Fear and “The Norwood Builder?” But I digress.)
Interestingly, while Holmes’s dependence on his knowledge of criminal history doesn’t change, his way of describing it does. In the third chapter of the first book, he quotes the Bible: “There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.” In the second chapter of his last book-length adventure, The Valley of Fear, Holmes sounds rather Buddhist instead: “The old wheel turns and the same spoke comes up,” he says. “It’s all been done before, and will be again.”
Technique (2): Music, either at the concert the hall or provided by his own violin. Music was an aid to his cases and not an escape from them, it seems to me. Holmes hints at this in “The Red-Headed League” when he says the German music on the concert hall program “is introspective, and I want to introspect.” In A Study in Scarlet, Holmes enjoys a concert by Norman-Néruda as well as his own violin playing.
Technique (3): Advertising. The ad for a wedding ring found in the Brixton Road (chapter five) is the first of seven occasions throughout the Canon in which Holmes uses a newspaper ad on a case. Nero Wolfe did this a lot, too. Like father, like son?
Technique (4): On-scene investigation or, in a few cases, legwork such as visiting a records office. This is how Holmes gathers data, which is all-important. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data,” he says early in A Study in Scarlet. As the Oxford edition of the Canon notes, variations of this maxim appear in six other tales (CARD, REIG, ABBE, SECO, WIST, SUSS).
Technique (5): Following the suspect or someone else. In this broad category I include both surveillance and tracking, and both occur in A Study in Scarlet. The tracking is made easier by the fact that the murderer wore square-toed boots. It is a curious matter that quite often when Holmes tracks someone that person is wearing square-toed boots (RESI), and yet Holmes generally acts as if this footwear were unusual and therefore easy to follow.
Technique (6): The Baker Street Irregulars. These lads go where Holmes and Watson cannot, and there are more of them. They make their debut in chapter six of A Study in Scarlet and also appear in The Sign of Four (where they are called irregulars for the first time), and in “The Crooked Man.”
Technique (7): Tobacco. This is helpful not only in three-pipe problems (REDH), but in less complicated ones as well. “Of the 60 cases, only 4 are without some reference to smoking,” according to Steve Doyle and David A. Crowder (Sherlock Holmes for Dummies, p. 204). In addition to smoking tobacco, Holmes also looked to it for clues. In A Study in Scarlet, identifying the ash of a Trichinopoly cigar provides the occasion for Holmes to tell Watson that he has written a monograph on cigar ashes—one of at least eleven works of Sherlock Holmes from “The Book of Life” to The Practical Handbook of Bee Culture. In The Sign of Four we learn that this monograph describes 140 different tobacco ashes. In “The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez,” Holmes scatters cigarette ashes on the floor to detect footprints.
All of the above techniques appear in A Study in Scarlet. The only major method used throughout his career that does not appear here is:
Technique (8): Disguise. Holmes is such a master of disguise that he even fools Watson on several occasions (SIGN, TWIS, FINA, EMPT). Closely allied to this is the use of an alias, a false pretense, or a pretended illness. The only disguise in A Study in Scarlet is used against Holmes in chapter five, causing him to cry, “We were the old women to be fooled.” Remember, to argue that the world of Sherlock Holmes is remarkably consistent is not to say that there are no changes.
There is, however, “one fixed point in a changing age”—Dr. John H. Watson, M.D., late of the Army Medical Department. From page one of A Study in Scarlet he is “a man of action,” as Holmes calls him in The Hound of the Baskervilles. By chapter three he is the admiring companion. In chapter four, after another cry of amazement early in the chapter, he goes on to say, “I am rather in the dark still.” That’s our Watson! So is the loyal friend who, at the end of the story, vows to write up the adventure so that the world’s first consulting detective will get the credit he deserves. In “The Adventure of the Dying Detective,” when Holmes is pretending to be talking out of his head, the one true statement is when he tells Watson, “You never did fail me.”
For all of this we can forgive him the minor eccentricity of his Jezail bullet wound—which seemed to travel from his arm in A Study in Scarlet to his leg in The Sign of Four before Watson just gave up and located it “in one of my limbs” in “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor.”
In the second chapter of A Study in Scarlet, he and Holmes take up rooms together at 221B Baker Street, London—surely one of the most famous addresses in the world, and one to which their names are forever linked.
Their landlady is never named in A Study in Scarlet, but undoubtedly she is Mrs. Hudson from the beginning (whoever Mrs. Turner in “A Scandal in Bohemia” may be), just as surely as Lestrade and Gregson climb those seventeen steps to 221B in the very first story.
Although many other Scotland Yard officials make their appearance in the Canon—particularly young Stanley Hopkins in the later years—Lestrade and Gregson remain the archetypical inspectors. They may not have the grip on the popular imagination of Mycroft or Moriarty, but they appear far more often in the Canon than the two M’s. Lestrade appears or is alluded to in thirteen stories, with the latest being “The Adventure of the Three Garridebs” in 1902. Gregson is in five stories, including the first two.
The attitude of the official police toward Holmes does change over the years, ranging from denial that they need him in A Study in Scarlet to praise in later years. By “The Adventure of the Six Napoleons,” Lestrade says “we’re proud of you at the Yard,” and in “The Adventure of the Empty House” he willingly admits “It’s good to see you back in London, sir.” Gregson is equally fulsome when he says in “The Adventure of the Red Circle,” “I was never in a case yet that I didn’t feel stronger with you at my side.”
And so we see that not only were the characters of Holmes and Watson, and the detective’s methods, largely established full-blown in their very first adventure, but so was what we might call the Baker Street scene—the setting and the minor members of the troupe. And in the immortal words of Vincent Starrett (albeit not his most famous):
Shall they not always live in Baker Street? Are they not there as one writes?…Outside the hansoms rattle through the rain, and Moriarty plans his latest deviltry. Within, the sea coal flames upon the hearth and Holmes and Watson take their well-won ease…So they still live for all that love them well: in a romantic chamber of the heart, in a nostalgic country of the mind, where it is always 1895.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dan Andriacco has been reading Sherlock Holmes for half a century. His eight books all nod toward Holmes, in
cluding a recent collection of shorter mysteries, Rogues Gallery. Dan also writes a popular blog, Baker Street Beat, which was also the name of his first book.
SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE AUTUMN OF TERROR, by J.G. Grimmer
31 October, 1888: 221B Baker Street
It was the worst year for my friend and me. The unspeakable acts committed by the Whitechapel butcher now known as “Jack the Ripper” were the news of the day.
“Watson, I’ve reread the letter the Ripper sent to The Times and believe that I’ve deduced an insight,” Sherlock Holmes said.
I emptied my pipe into the ashtray and squinted through the haze produced by the copious amount of smoke made by our pipes. “Oh? What is that, Holmes? Have you discovered the lunatic’s identity?”
My friend took a long draw from his pipe and blew out a noxious cloud created by shag tobacco when ignited by flame, a grin on his face. “Hardly—no, the insight points to character type.”
“Oh,” I replied.
Holmes stood at the window looking at the hustle and bustle of Baker Street, so lost in his thoughts that he forgot we were having a conversation, or so I thought.
“And?” I prompted him.
“Forgive me, dear fellow,” he said contritely. “Yes, the writing suggests a crude intellect, but I believe it is a mask concealing something more.”
“What?”
“The truth—a truth I fear is far more terrible than can be imagined.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I repeat, what is that?”
“I fear that the Ripper is not the madman he is made out to be.”
Holmes annoyed me to no end when he did this. And he knew it. I was about to tell him so when there was a knock at the door. I rose and opened it to reveal Holmes’s older brother Mycroft.
“Doctor,” he grumbled perfunctorily and waddled toward his brother. “I cannot imagine what could keep you so occupied that you would allow this wholesale slaughter to continue.”
Holmes put his pipe on the mantel without emptying it only to pick up a cigar and light it. “Mycroft, that is sheer nonsense! I’ve offered my help to the Yard, and it was rejected by everyone from Inspector Lestrade to Sir Charles Warren himself.”
I nodded my assent as Mycroft settled his large frame on the leather chair. “That may well be,” he said, “and yet I am offering you the opportunity to put this ghastly business to an end.”
“Indeed?” Holmes said. “On whose authority am I presented with this opportunity?”
Mycroft shifted in the chair. “I cannot say.”
“Cannot or will not?”
“That is irrelevant. Do you accept?”
“Of course. Who shall I report to?”
Mycroft raised an eyebrow. “Me.”
Sherlock smiled. “Of course.”
Mycroft rose from the chair. “I shall be expecting a report soon—might I suggest tomorrow?”
“You will have it, “Holmes replied. “Will you receive it here?”
Mycroft exhaled sharply. “Certainly not!” he exclaimed. “At the Diogenes Club. Until tomorrow.”
I opened the door for him.
“Thank you, Doctor,” he said cordially and departed.
Holmes returned to the window and watched Mycroft’s carriage make its way down Baker Street. “What do you make of this?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “It must be of great importance to your brother. He rarely leaves his club.”
“Agreed,” Holmes said, removing his smoking jacket. “Time to go to work.”
Before I could speak, he disappeared into the room that served as his laboratory, which was filled with vials, tubes, and beakers from which emanated the vilest odors that gave our landlady, Mrs Hudson, fits. I shrugged my shoulders, knowing that once that door was shut, Holmes would be as isolated as any cloister. So I picked up a copy of The Times, sat down, and commenced to read.
Sometime later, a knock on the door woke me. Groggily I made my way to it. “Holmes?” I said.
“No, it’s me,” Mrs Hudson said from the other side. “I thought you two would like something to eat.”
I opened the door and in bustled Mrs Hudson carrying a tray. She set it down, wiped her hands on her apron, and looked around.
“Where’s Mr Holmes?” she asked.
I went to the door to the laboratory. “Holmes?” I called and knocked, then opened it only to find the room empty. “Did you see him, Mrs Hudson?”
“No, there hasn’t been a sound since his brother left hours ago. Well, you’d better eat, Doctor. Shepherd’s Pie cools quickly enough, and who knows where Mr Holmes has got to.” She took one of the covered plates and left.
“Thank you.” I called after her and closed the door. Yes indeed, I thought while eating—where are you Holmes?
31 October, 1888, Eleven p.m., Whitechapel:
Holmes assumed the appearance and dress of a common labourer and would have been unidentifiable, even by his own brother. The thread-bare clothes, the grime under his fingernails, the dirt on his face, and the appearance of teeth uncared for for years were the perfect camouflage—and would have to be if he were to be accepted by the slum denizens as one of their own.
He began his reconnaissance in the area of Berner Street and Mitre Square where the infamous “double event” occurred on 30 September, with the murders of Elizabeth “Long Liz” Stride and Catherine Eddowes. Even at this late hour, the streets were alive with labourers going to and from the factories, and rich young men in top hats and tails cruising to sample the forbidden pleasures offered by women undeterred by morality. These unfortunates were driven not by lust, but by the simple desire to have enough money for a bed and perhaps food at some dilapidated lodging house.
From the lurid accounts of the murders in the press, Holmes surmised that the Ripper struck between the hours of midnight and six a.m. From that it followed that this area would be familiar to the killer, who might well be somewhere here now seeking out his next unfortunate victim.
Holmes leaned against a grimy, soot-covered wall, filled a clay pipe, lit it, and surveyed the pathetic people passing before him. Poor devils, he thought, yet always mindful that these were human beings who loved and laughed, whose children played, all trying to go through their lives as best they could despite the cruel trick Fate or Providence played on them.
The hours passed and except for a drunken brawl, the sounds of domestic strife, and children crying, nothing happened as the sky began to brighten.
1 November, 1888, seven a.m., 221 B Baker Street:
Holmes entered his rooms without waking anyone and fell gratefully into bed.
* * * *
I rose at eight a.m. and was relieved to see that the door to Holmes’ room was closed. I could only imagine where he’d been the entire evening—Whitechapel obviously—and whatever he discovered would be related to me at his leisure. Before breakfast I dressed and set out for my morning walk. When I returned at nine a.m., Mrs Hudson informed me that Holmes had left, “without so much as a morsel,” she said.
When I inquired if he had told her where he was going, she replied, “his brother’s club.” I ate breakfast alone and read to pass the time as I had no patients to see. Holmes arrived at midday with a bundle of folders under his arm.
“Sorry to wake you, Watson.”
“What? I wasn’t sleeping,” I replied indignantly. “You startled me, coming and going at all hours.”
He set the stack down on the table. “My apologies, dear fellow.”
I straightened in my chair. “Where have you been?”
“You mean this morning?”
“You know very well I mean this morning and last evening.”
Holmes sat down and opened a folder. “I was in Whitechapel until six this morning. I returned by seven, slept until eight-thirty, and left for Mycroft’s club at eight-forty-five, just missing your arrival. I was at the Diogenes Club until my return a few moments ago.”
“I noticed that
the folders you have there have H-Division written on them—would that be the Yard’s homicide detectives?”
Holmes clapped his hands. “Well done, Watson.”
“Elementary,” I replied. “Have you discovered anything?”
“About the Ripper, I’m afraid not, however I did witness the most appalling squalor in Whitechapel, Watson. Something must be done to improve the lot of those poor souls, especially the children.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more. The Charity Hospitals I’ve visited there are a step in the right direction, providing excellent care to the people who are in need.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Holmes said. “By the way, next time you go to one could you discreetly inquire among your colleagues if they’ve treated any women who may have heard anything?”
“Of course.”
Holmes nodded. “Could you also measure how your colleagues respond?”
“Why? You don’t suspect a doctor is responsible—do you?”
Holmes filled a pipe, a straight, short-stemmed affair. “I’m terribly sorry to tread upon the conventions of your profession, dear fellow, but I suspect everyone. Yes, even a physician may be capable of these deeds, ghastly as they are. Don’t forget, Watson, the mark of Cain is upon us all.”
“Very well,” I consented, “However, I find it highly improbable that any man who swore the Hippocratic Oath could possibly be the Ripper.”
Holmes made no reply. Instead he puffed on his pipe and turned his attention to the open folder on his lap.
The very idea, I thought as I picked up the latest edition of the Medical Journal and ignited the tobacco in my pipe.
“Watson?”
I looked up. “Yes, Holmes?”
“Shouldn’t you be going?”
“Now?”
“Certainly, there’s no time to lose. We must catch this killer. If you leave now, you’ll be back in time for supper.”
I put down the journal, sighed, got up and took my coat and hat from the rack and opened the door. “You’re right. What are you going to do?”
Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, Volume 15 Page 4
