A second Ku Klux Klan was formed in Georgia by William J. Simmons in 1915, inspired in part by books about the original Klan and by D. W. Griffith’s powerful film The Birth of a Nation, which expressed pro-Klan sentiments. This incarnation of the Klan embraced a broader, more national agenda, expanding its targets of hate to include Catholics, Jews, foreigners, and organised labour. At its peak, the Klan counted millions of members. While the membership has dwindled sharply today, the organisation continues to deliver its messages of hate throughout America and has apparently gained footholds in England and Canada.
36Manly Wade Wellman argues that Holmes’s tale of the hounding of Elias Openshaw is a distortion of reality. He writes, “Preservation of Klan secrets were no matter for killing men in far countries: John C. Lester, one of the Klan’s original six founders, published a revealing history of the order in 1884, and he was neither ambushed nor threatened nor even blamed by his former fellows. . . .” Wellman surmises that the case of Elias Openshaw was “something more—a history of theft or extortion or robbery. . . . The adventure unquestionably revolved around membership in a post-Klan mob of Southern hoodlums.”
Conversely, Richard Lancelyn Green notes that after the Civil War, the leaders of the former Confederacy still maintained their ties to the Klan and its offshoots, in many cases fraternising with those people in charge of orchestrating murderous activitites. Thus the existence of papers proving that the supposed “new” rough element who had taken over the Klans were in fact the original leaders would have had politically devastating consequences for Southern Democratic leaders, the “first men in the South.” “So the background of the story is historically sound,” Green concludes. “What is wrong is the date. By 1891, or indeed from the return of the Democratic party to presidential power in 1885, such revelations would have had little effect, and ex-Confederate white power in the ex-Confederate states would have quashed any attempt to bring prosecutions. In 1881–2, on the other hand, something might have been made of serious proofs of participation in the Klan murders of 1867–8 by members of the social élite.”
37In 1891, this was one of the twenty-two administrative divisions of the Metropolitan Police, now sixty-three districts. H Division was very generally analogous to the metropolitan borough of Stepney, at the extreme western edge of which lie the Tower of London and the Royal Mint. Stepney, along with the boroughs of Rotherhithe, Limehouse, and Shadwell, borders the Thames and enclosed the docks. It was filled with lodgings for sailors, warehouses, pubs, and other nautical necessities, as well as immigrants such as the Huguenots and the Jews who landed there, bringing the weaving and clothing trades. There is an old tradition that any child born on the high seas may claim to be a native of Stepney.
38Built in 1817 over the Thames, this bridge was known as the “Bridge of Sighs” for the numerous suicides leaping from its railings. Thomas Hood’s 1844 poem, “The Bridge of Sighs,” mourns “One more unfortunate, / Weary of breath, / Rashly importunate, / Gone to her death!”
39Properly the Thames Division of the Metropolitan Police, the “water police” was the oldest of the police branches incorporated within Scotland Yard, established in 1798. Its area of patrol included the whole of the Thames from just below Kingston to Barking. According to Dickens’s Dictionary of the Thames, “Both night and day several boats patrol the river in different parts; a fresh boat starting from the station hard every two hours to relieve the one whose watch is up. Each boat contains an inspector and two men, the latter of whom do the rowing, and a careful system of supervision is maintained by which the passing of each boat is checked at varying points.” Steam launches of the River Police figure prominently in the conclusion of The Sign of Four.
40The “Victoria Embankment,” on the north bank of the Thames, stretches about one and one-quarter miles from Westminster Bridge to Blackfriars Bridge. There are various pedestals from which to view the Thames and various statues. Its most prominent landmark is “Cleopatra’s Needle,” an Egyptian obelisk erected here in 1878, which stands 681-2 feet in height and is flanked by two (modern) sphinxes. The “sister” to the Embankment’s obelisk stands in New York City’s Central Park.
41In The Valley of Fear, likely set in 1887 or 1888, Holmes remarks that Watson is “developing a certain un-expected vein of pawky humour,” implying that, in general, Watson is not very humourous. Commentators point to this sterling bit of Watsonian understatement as a refutation of such criticism.
42Several scholars conclude that it is not the K.K.K. whom Holmes pursued but rather his adversary from “The Final Problem,” Professor Moriarty, who, they contend, organised all three murders. John Lockwood, in “A Study in White,” suggests that because “The Five Orange Pips” was published in the Strand Magazine in 1891, Watson may have left out any mention of Moriarty in the story so as not to prejudice the forthcoming trials of the rest of the Moriarty gang.
43The world’s first and largest ship-classification society began in 1760 as a register of ships likely to be insured by marine insurance underwriters meeting at Lloyd’s coffeehouse in London. Though it remains headquartered in London, Lloyd’s Register is now an international nonprofit organisation focussed on maritime management and safety. Its register book, issued annually, lists all merchant ships of 100 or more tonnes gross. Today the register is accessible on the Internet and in CD-ROM format, a development that Holmes would undoubtedly have appreciated!
44A city on the Thames, known as the “gateway to the port of London.” Pocahontas, the Indian princess who saved the life of Captain John Smith, coloniser of Virginia, is buried there at St. George’s Church, having died of tuberculosis while visiting England with her husband, John Rolfe, in 1616–1617. In 1896 a memorial tablet to Pocahontas was placed in the chancel of the Church, and the Colonial Dames of America presented memorial windows in 1914.
45The Goodwin Sands is a dangerous line of shoals at the entrance to the Strait of Dover, about six miles off the east coast of Kent, and a once-frequent scene of shipwrecks. Attempts to erect a lighthouse on the shifting sands have failed, and lightships mark the limits of the sands.
46An island county in the English Channel, off the southern coast of Hampshire. Prince Albert and Queen Victoria summered there at Osborne House, a thousand-acre property that they bought and rebuilt in 1845. After Albert’s death in 1861, the queen spent even more time at Osborne with her family; she died there in 1901.
THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP1
“The Man with the Twisted Lip” opens in an opium den in the crime-ridden East End of London, a milieu vivid in the Victorian popular imagination. Watson’s tale is one of the earliest examples of a “play-fair” mystery, in which all of the clues are known to the reader at the same time as the detective. Holmes solves the puzzle in a manner available to the reader—by sheer intellect—and Watson draws the indelible image of Holmes, surrounded by pillows, sitting cross-legged in his dressing gown, smoking his pipe and contemplating the problem before him. There are tantalising hints of a romantic interlude between Holmes and the lovely Mrs. Neville St. Clair, but Watson’s unexpected appearance on the scene leaves her longings apparently unfulfilled, and the reader is left to wonder whether Watson’s cynical views of Holmes’s feelings towards women (expressed in his opening remarks in “A Scandal in Bohemia”) are accurate.
ISA WHITNEY, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D.D., Principal of the Theological College of St. George’s,2 was much addicted to opium.3 The habit grew upon him, as I understand, from some foolish freak when he was at college, for having read De Quincey’s4 description of his dreams and sensations, he had drenched his tobacco with laudanum5 in an attempt to produce the same effect. He found, as so many more have done, that the practice is easier to attain than to get rid of, and for many years he continued to be a slave to the drug, an object of mingled horror and pity to his friends and relatives. I can see him now, with yellow, pasty face, drooping lids and pin-point pupils, all huddled in a chair, the wre
ck and ruin of a noble man.
One night—it was in June, ’89—there came a ring to my bell, about the hour when a man gives his first yawn, and glances at the clock.
I sat up in my chair, and my wife laid her needlework down in her lap and made a little face of disappointment.
“A patient!” said she. “You’ll have to go out.”
I groaned, for I was newly come back from a weary day.
We heard the door open, a few hurried words, and then quick steps upon the linoleum. Our own door flew open, and a lady, clad in some dark-coloured stuff, with a black veil, entered the room.
“You will excuse my calling so late,” she began, and then, suddenly losing her self-control, she ran forward, threw her arms about my wife’s neck, and sobbed upon her shoulder. “Oh! I’m in such trouble!” she cried; “I do so want a little help.”
“Why,” said my wife, pulling up her veil, “it is Kate Whitney. How you startled me, Kate! I had not an idea who you were when you came in.”
“I didn’t know what to do, so I came straight to you.” That was always the way. Folk who were in grief came to my wife like birds to a lighthouse.6
“It was very sweet of you to come. Now, you must have some wine and water, and sit here comfortably and tell us all about it. Or should you rather that I sent James7 off to bed?”
“Oh, no, no, I want the doctor’s advice and help, too. It’s about Isa. He has not been home for two days. I am so frightened about him!”
It was not the first time that she had spoken to us of her husband’s trouble, to me as a doctor, to my wife as an old friend and school companion.
We soothed and comforted her by such words as we could find. Did she know where her husband was? Was it possible that we could bring him back to her?
It seems that it was. She had the surest information that of late he had, when the fit was on him, made use of an opium den in the furthest east of the City. Hitherto his orgies had always been confined to one day, and he had come back, twitching and shattered, in the evening. But now the spell had been upon him eight-and-forty hours, and he lay there, doubtless among the dregs of the docks, breathing in the poison or sleeping off the effects. There he was to be found, she was sure of it, at the “Bar of Gold,” in Upper Swandam Lane.8 But what was she to do? How could she, a young and timid woman, make her way into such a place, and pluck her husband out from among the ruffians who surrounded him?
There was the case, and of course there was but one way out of it. Might I not escort her to this place? And, then, as a second thought, why should she come at all? I was Isa Whitney’s medical adviser, and as such I had influence over him. I could manage it better if I were alone. I promised her on my word that I would send him home in a cab within two hours if he were indeed at the address which she had given me. And so in ten minutes I had left my armchair and cheery sitting-room behind me, and was speeding eastward in a hansom on a strange errand, as it seemed to me at the time, though the future only could show how strange it was to be.
But there was no great difficulty in the first stage of my adventure. Upper Swandam Lane9 is a vile alley lurking behind the high wharves which line the north side of the river to the east of London Bridge.10 Between a slop shop11 and a gin shop, approached by a steep flight of steps leading down to a black gap like the mouth of a cave, I found the den of which I was in search. Ordering my cab to wait, I passed down the steps, worn hollow in the centre by the ceaseless tread of drunken feet and by the light of a flickering oil lamp above the door I found the latch and made my way into a long, low room, thick and heavy with the brown opium smoke, and terraced with wooden berths, like the forecastle of an emigrant ship.
London Bridge.
The Queen’s London (1897)
Through the gloom one could dimly catch a glimpse of bodies lying in strange fantastic poses, bowed shoulders, bent knees, heads thrown back, and chins pointing upwards, with here and there a dark, lack-lustre eye turned upon the new-comer. Out of the black shadows there glimmered little red circles of light, now bright, now faint, as the burning poison waxed or waned in the bowls of the metal pipes. The most lay silent, but some muttered to themselves, and others talked together in a strange, low, monotonous voice, their conversation coming in gushes, and then suddenly tailing off into silence, each mumbling out his own thoughts, and paying little heed to the words of his neighbour. At the further end was a small brazier of burning charcoal, beside which on a three-legged wooden stool there sat a tall, thin old man, with his jaw resting upon his two fists, and his elbows upon his knees, staring into the fire.12
“Staring into the fire.”
Sidney Paget, strand Magazine, 1891
As I entered, a sallow Malay attendant had hurried up with a pipe for me and a supply of the drug, beckoning me to an empty berth.
“Thank you. I have not come to stay,” said I. “There is a friend of mine here, Mr. Isa Whitney, and I wish to speak with him.”
There was a movement and an exclamation from my right, and peering through the gloom, I saw Whitney, pale, haggard, and unkempt, staring out at me.
“My God! It’s Watson,” said he. He was in a pitiable state of reaction, with every nerve in a twitter. “I say, Watson, what o’clock is it?”
“Nearly eleven.”
“Of what day?”
“Of Friday, June 19th.”13
“Good heavens! I thought it was Wednesday. It is Wednesday. What d’you want to frighten a chap for?” He sank his face onto his arms and began to sob in a high treble key.
“I tell you that it is Friday, man. Your wife has been waiting this two days for you. You should be ashamed of yourself!”
“So I am. But you’ve got mixed, Watson, for I have only been here a few hours, three pipes, four pipes—I forget how many. But I’ll go home with you. I wouldn’t frighten Kate—poor little Kate. Give me your hand! Have you a cab?”
“Yes, I have one waiting.”
“Then I shall go in it. But I must owe something. Find what I owe, Watson. I am all off colour. I can do nothing for myself.”
I walked down the narrow passage between the double row of sleepers, holding my breath to keep out the vile, stupefying fumes of the drug, and looking about for the manager. As I passed the tall man who sat by the brazier I felt a sudden pluck at my skirt, and a low voice whispered, “Walk past me, and then look back at me.” The words fell quite distinctly upon my ear. I glanced down. They could only have come from the old man at my side, and yet he sat now as absorbed as ever, very thin, very wrinkled, bent with age, an opium pipe14 clanging down from between his knees, as though it had dropped in sheer lassitude from his fingers. I took two steps forward and looked back. It took all my self-control to prevent me from breaking out into a cry of astonishment. He had turned his back so that none could see him but I. His form had filled out, his wrinkles were gone, the dull eyes had regained their fire, and there, sitting by the fire and grinning at my surprise, was none other than Sherlock Holmes. He made a slight motion to me to approach him, and instantly, as he turned his face half round to the company once more, subsided into a doddering, loose-lipped senility.
“Holmes!” I whispered, “what on earth are you doing in this den?”
“As low as you can,” he answered, “I have excellent ears. If you would have the great kindness to get rid of that sottish friend of yours I should be exceedingly glad to have a little talk with you.”
“I have a cab outside.”
“Then pray send him home in it. You may safely trust him, for he appears to be too limp to get into any mischief. I should recommend you also to send a note by the cabman to your wife to say that you have thrown in your lot with me. If you will wait outside, I shall be with you in five minutes.”
“ ‘Holmes!’ I whispered.”
Sidney Paget, Strand Magazine, 1891
It was difficult to refuse any of Sherlock Holmes’s requests, for they were always so exceedingly definite, and put forward with su
ch a quiet air of mastery. I felt, however, that when Whitney was once confined in the cab, my mission was practically accomplished;15 and for the rest, I could not wish anything better than to be associated with my friend in one of those singular adventures which were the normal condition of his existence. In a few minutes I had written my note, paid Whitney’s bill, led him out to the cab, and seen him driven through the darkness. In a very short time a decrepit figure had emerged from the opium den, and I was walking down the street with Sherlock Holmes. For two streets he shuffled along with a bent back and an uncertain foot. Then glancing quickly round, he straightened himself out and burst into a hearty fit of laughter.
“Holmes,” I whispered,
“what on earth are you doing in this den?”
Staff artists “Cargs” and E. S. Morris,
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 12, 1911
“I suppose, Watson,” said he, “that you imagine that I have added opium-smoking to cocaine injections and all the other little weaknesses on which you have favoured me with your medical views.”
London cabmen.
(contemporary photograph)
“I was certainly surprised to find you there.”
“But not more so than I to find you.”
“I came to find a friend.”
“And I to find an enemy.”
“An enemy?”
“Yes, one of my natural enemies, or, shall I say, my natural prey. Briefly, Watson, I am in the midst of a very remarkable inquiry, and I have hoped to find a clue in the incoherent ramblings of these sots, as I have done before now. Had I been recognized in that den my life would not have been worth an hour’s purchase for I have used it before now for my own purposes, and the rascally Lascar16 who runs it has sworn to have vengeance upon me. There is a trap-door at the back of that building, near the corner of Paul’s Wharf, which could tell some strange tales of what has passed through it upon the moonless nights.”
The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (Non-slipcased edition) (Vol. 1) (The Annotated Books) Page 27
