32The dining room of the hotel.
33Holmes and Watson therefore departed for Geneva on the evening of Monday, the twenty-seventh (although Michael Kaser, after consulting the 1890–1891 winter timetable for the Swiss Federal Railways, concludes that they actually departed in the small hours (3:55 A.M.), arriving at 3:18 the following afternoon). If Kaser’s timetable is correct (although his dates are off by a day), the pair would have arrived in Geneva on the afternoon of Wednesday, April 29, 1891.
34The Gemmi Pass crosses the Bernese Alps (a section of the central Alps) to connect the Bern and Valais cantons in southwestern Switzerland. To get to the Gemmi Pass, Holmes and Watson would have hiked through the mountains, alongside the glacier-fed Daubensee, and on to the summit, with its view of the Rhone Valley and the Alps. Baedeker describes the path as follows: “The windings are skilfully hewn in the rock, often resembling a spiral staircase, the upper parts actually projecting at places beyond the lower. The steepest parts and most sudden corners are protected by parapets. Distant voices reverberating in this gorge sometimes sound as if they are issued from its own recesses.” The guidebook estimates the ascent at two and a half hours.
35Michael Kaser erroneously concludes that Holmes and Watson left Strasburg in the wee hours of April 29, which he mistakenly calls “the third day,” and places them in Geneva on Thursday, April 30. Seeing as how Watson soon reveals that he and Holmes had reached Meiringen by May 3, Kaser calculates that—given the speed of the train from Geneva to Meiringen—the two could have been travelling around the countryside for no more than one day (specifically May 1). “When Watson writes of a ‘week wandering up the valley,’ ” Kaser concludes, “it is obviously a sarcastic reference to the easy pace of the train, for while from Geneva the slowest train of the day took eight and three-quarter hours, even the fastest took six hours to reach Leuk: today the journey is less than three hours.” A correct computation, however, puts the pair in Geneva on Wednesday, April 29. There is no evidence that they spent a night in Geneva, and if they departed immediately, an arrival in Meiringen on Sunday, May 3, gives a four-day interval, which, while still not a “week,” is sufficient time to be “charming.”
Gordon Speck suggests that the leisurely travel was deliberately planned by Holmes, who intended to confront Moriarty and then escape overland: “First, Holmes must allow Moriarty time to discover his general location and direction of travel so that all three would arrive in the Meiringen area at approximately the same time. Second, he had to acclimate his muscles and lungs to Alpine conditions, partly to prepare for the fight with Moriarty and partly to accommodate his post-flight plan. Third, he needed to learn the tricks of travel in the Swiss mountains and to question the natives about shortcuts and byways to various points throughout the country.”
36Many commentators have identified the “Englischer Hof” (which means literally a hotel where English is spoken) with the Hôtel du Sauvage, which had an English chapel.
37Located at Victoria Station and opened for business in 1861, the Grosvenor was owned by the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway. Mr. Steiler must have set an elegant table in his new establishment, if his opulent former employer was any indication; Michael Harrison, in The London of Sherlock Holmes, writes that it, among others, “established new standards of luxury and paved the way for the ultra-luxurious standards of the hotels of the century’s end, when hotel standards reached a peak never attained either before or since.”
38According to Baedeker, to reach the Reichenbach Falls—one of the highest waterfalls in the Alps—one would take a path from the Zur Zwirgi inn, an hour from Rosenlaui, to “a narrow gorge of the brawling Reichenbach, spanned by a wood bridge.” A different path, five minutes away, descends further to the falls themselves.
39Bryce Crawford, Jr., and R. C. Moore state that in 1891 there was no path up the right side of the hill (this is still true today), but that there was (and still is today) a path up the left side. “[A resident of the area] not only confirmed that there had been a ledge on the left side of the fall where the path would have come,” they report, “but also revealed that in March, 1944, there was a substantial erosion and fall of rock at the middle segment.”
40Until the early 1900s, the “white plague” was the leading cause of death in the Western world, and it remains epidemic in many developing nations today. Highly contagious, consumption, or tuberculosis of the lungs, had devastating consequences in the crowded urban neighbourhoods of Edwardian and Victorian society, where the substandard hygiene and sanitation created by rampant poverty left people particularly susceptible to infection. Symptoms included fever, loss of energy and weight, and a persistent, often bloody cough; if untreated, tuberculosis could ravage the body, eating away at the lungs and other organs. A test for the disease was developed after identification of the tubercle bacillus bacterium in 1882 by German physician Robert Koch, who won the 1905 Nobel Prize in medicine for his work and also isolated the microorganisms causing anthrax (1876), conjunctivitis (1883), and cholera (1884). (A tuberculosis vaccine was developed in France in 1908, but truly effective drug treatment was not available until the 1950s.) Tellingly, Arthur Conan Doyle records in his Memories and Adventures that his wife Louise was diagnosed with tuberculosis during a visit to the Reichenbach Falls in 1892.
Ebbe Curtis Hoff sees more than happenstance in the fact that the “English lady” was said to suffer from consumption. Although the circumstances of the death of Watson’s wife Mary were never revealed, Hoff concludes that she herself died of consumption sometime in the winter of 1893 and that Watson’s still-fresh grief made him particularly sympathetic toward this stranger who was similarly afflicted. “The genius of Moriarty is here revealed,” Hoff states admiringly, “that he chose the surest way of decoying Watson away from Holmes, knowing from his dossier on Watson that Mrs. Watson was herself a consumptive in an advanced stage.”
41Baedeker states that, from the Hotel Reichenbach in Meiringen, it is only a quarter-hour walk to the lower falls and a three-quarter-hour walk to the upper falls. Watson must have gotten lost on his unguided return but was embarrassed to say so.
42A walking stick.
43What friends? In “The Five Orange Pips,” Holmes says to Watson, “Except for yourself I have none.”
44What of this Inspector Patterson, who allowed Moriarty, Colonel Moran, and two other members of the gang to escape, and incorrectly advised Holmes that the “whole gang with the exception of Moriarty” had been captured? June Thomson surmises that he was likely in Moriarty’s pay, explaining, “Corrupt policemen are unfortunately not unknown and such a theory would explain why Moriarty knew Holmes’s every move and how he, along with other gang members, managed to elude arrest. It might also account for Holmes’s otherwise inexplicable behaviour in keeping such important documents in his desk.” Of course, Thomson concludes, in the end, Holmes had no choice but to turn over the documents to Patterson, as the official in charge of the case.
45In the London Mystery Magazine for June 1955, a document purporting to be the last will and testament of Sherlock Holmes is reproduced, with a prefatory note, unsigned, ascribing the discovery of the paper to Nathan L. Bengis, a prominent Sherlockian. Watson is bequeathed the sum of £5,000 and his choice of any of Holmes’s books or papers (with the exception of the blue envelope in pigeonhole M.).
46Holmes’s body, we learn in “The Empty House,” was not in the water for the simple reason that he did not go over the falls. A. Carson Simpson wonders why Moriarty’s body was not found. While the Reichenbach itself is turbulent, below the falls the water is quite calm as it slows into Brienz Lake. “Moriarty’s corpse should have been found floating in the lake or in one of the streams, but was not. This cannot have been for lack of searching, since, when the incident occurred, it was believed that there were two bodies to look for—Holmes’s as well as the Professor’s.” Simpson concludes, as do others, that Moriarty did not perish in the Reichenbach episode. See the ap
pendix below.
47In October 1891 the village of Meiringen was in great part destroyed by fire. Philip Hench recounts that the fire resulted from an out-of-control cooking fire but that “[i]n Meiringen there were those who declared at the time—indeed some who whisper it today—that the one violence [at the Falls] begot the subsequent violence, that Meiringen’s auto-da-fé was, in fact, the flaming revenge boldly decreed by the surviving eyewitness to the encounter of May 4, the Professor’s slinking partner in crime, Colonel Sebastian Moran, and subtly executed by, or with the help of, that anonymous hireling, the young ‘Swiss messenger.’ ”
48Watson’s final words form an altogether fitting coda, echoing as they do the relationship of another famous historical pair. In Phaedo, an account of the last hour of Socrates’s life, Plato describes his deceased mentor and friend—a man whose teachings are known largely through Plato’s chronicling of them—as “the best and wisest and most righteous man.”
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE1
The Life and Times of Sherlock Holmes
Year Life of Sherlock Holmes Life of John H. Watson Life of Arthur Conan Doyle Events in England Events on the Continent Events in the World
1844 Siger Holmes and Violet Sherrinford marry. Sarah Bernhardt, Richard D’Oyly-Carte born. Charles XIV, King of Sweden and Norway, dies; Oscar I succeeds to throne. Friedrich Nietzsche born.
1845 Sherrinford Holmes born. Irish potato famine; Anglo-Sikh War begins. Engels publishes Condition of the Working Class in England. Poe publishes “The Raven.” Texas and Florida become states.
Year Life of Sherlock Holmes Life of John H. Watson Life of Arthur Conan Doyle Events in England Events on the Continent Events in the World
1846 James Moriarty born. Repeal of Corn Laws. Planet Neptune discovered. Austrian and Russian troops enter Cracow; Austria annexes Cracow. Oregon settlement sets U.S. boundary at 49th parallel. Mormons commence move to Utah.
1847 Mycroft Holmes born. Ten Hours’ Act. Sonderbund War in Switzerland. Thomas Alva Edison, inventor, born.
1848 W. G. Grace born. Second French Republic. Birth of painter Paul Gauguin. Marx and Engels’s Communist Manifesto published.
1851 Opening of the Crystal Palace. Foucault demonstrates earth’s rotation with huge pendulum. First Australian gold discoveries. New York Times first published.
Year Life of Sherlock Holmes Life of John H. Watson Life of Arthur Conan Doyle Events in England Events on the Continent Events in the World
1852 John Hamish Watson born. First Derby-Disraeli government. Louis Napoleon proclaims himself Napoleon III; Second French Empire begins. Polygamy instituted in Utah.
1853 Lillie Langtry, Cecil Rhodes born. Tenor Edouard de Reszke born. Telegraph system established in India.
1854 William Sherlock Scott Holmes born. Family moves to Australia (date approx.). Crimean War begins. Birth of Oscar Wilde. Francis Joseph I, Emperor of Austria, marries Bavarian Princess Elizabeth. Kansas-Nebraska Act. Sacramento becomes capital of State of California.
1855 Holmes family sails to Bordeaux. Lord Palmerston becomes Prime Minister. Daily Telegraph first published. Paris World Fair. Czar Nicholas I of Russia dies.
Year Life of Sherlock Holmes Life of John H. Watson Life of Arthur Conan Doyle Events in England Events on the Continent Events in the World
1856 Treaty of Paris ends Crimean War. “Big Ben” cast. George Bernard Shaw born. Sigmund Freud born.
1857 Joseph Conrad born. Publication of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. Indian Mutiny. Transatlantic cable commences.
1858 Holmes family travels to Montpellier. Second Derby-Disraeli government.
1859 Arthur Conan Doyle born May 22 in Edinburgh, 2d child of Charles Doyle and Mary Foley. Palmerston’s second administration; Darwin’s Origin of Species published. King Oscar I of Sweden dies; succeeded by Charles XV; German Emperor William II born. Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on tightrope.
Year Life of Sherlock Holmes Life of John H. Watson Life of Arthur Conan Doyle Events in England Events on the Continent Events in the World
1860 Holmes family returns to England. Violet’s father dies; Holmes family sails to Rotterdam, settles in Cologne. J. M. Barrie born; Wilkie Collins publishes Woman in White. Lenoir constructs first practical internal combustion engine. Abraham Lincoln elected president.
1861 Holmes family begins Continental tour. Mary Morstan born. Mrs. Beeton publishes Book of Household Management. Alexander II emancipates Russian serfs. Outbreak of American Civil War.
1862 Albert Memorial designed. Bismarck becomes Prussian prime minister. Sarah Bernhardt debuts in Paris. Henry David Thoreau dies.
1863 Metropolitan Railway (Underground) opens in London. Civil War breaks out in Afghanistan. Battle of Gettysburg. Birth of Henry Ford.
Year Life of Sherlock Holmes Life of John H. Watson Life of Arthur Conan Doyle Events in England Events on the Continent Events in the World
1864 Holmes family returns to England, leases villa in Kennington. Sent to a board school with Mycroft, Sherrinford sent to Oxford. Prussia and Austria-Hungary defeat Denmark; beginning of Prussian expansion. Alexander II emancipates the serfs.
1865 Severely ill. Returns to England, attends Wellington College, Hampshire. King George V, Rudyard Kipling born. War breaks out between Boers of Orange Free State and Basutos. Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Ku Klux Klan founded.
1866 Taken to Yorkshire, entered as day boy at grammar school near Mycroft. Herbert George Wells born. Third Derby-Disraeli government formed. War between Prussia and Austro-Hungarian Empire. Alfred Nobel invents dynamite.
Year Life of Sherlock Holmes Life of John H. Watson Life of Arthur Conan Doyle Events in England Events on the Continent Events in the World
1867 Extension of suffrage among male workers. Karl Marx publishes Vol. I of Das Kapital. Canada born through British North America Act. Organisation of Ku Klux Klan.
1868 Sails with parents to St. Malo, travels to Pau; enrolled in fencing salon. Sent away to Hodder, prep school for Stonyhurst—Jesuit-run public school in Lancashire. Gladstone (Liberal Party) takes office as prime minister. Publication of Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone. Whitaker’s Almanack first appears. Impeachment of U. S. president Andrew Johnson.
1869 Birth of Neville Chamberlain. First performance of Wagner’s Das Rheingold. Completion of Suez Canal; Birth of Mahatma Ghandi.
Year Life of Sherlock Holmes Life of John H. Watson Life of Arthur Conan Doyle Events in England Events on the Continent Events in the World
1870 Enters Stonyhurst, remains for 5 years, excelling at cricket and displaying literary talent. Death of Charles Dickens. Irish land reform. Franco-Prussian War. Italian troops take Rome. Birth of Bernard Baruch.
1871 Holmes family returns to England. Gilbert and Sullivan form partnership. Publication of Darwin’s Descent of Man. Bank Holidays introduced. Paris Commune; German Empire proclaimed at Versailles. U.S. passes Ku Klux Klan Act, banning activities.
1872 Tutored by Professor James Moriarty. Enters Christ Church, Oxford. Enrolls at University of London; works in surgery at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. Disraeli’s “Crystal Palace” speech. Civil War in Spain. U. S. Grant reelected president despite scandals; U. S. General Amnesty Act pardons most ex-Confederates.
Year Life of Sherlock Holmes Life of John H. Watson Life of Arthur Conan Doyle Events in England Events on the Continent Events in the World
1873 Cities of Buda and Pesth united. Gunsmith firm of E. Remington & Sons begins to produce typewriters.
1874 “The ‘Gloria Scott’ ”*; enters Caius College, Cambridge. Visits London, stays with uncle Richard Doyle, sees Henry Irving in Hamlet. Disraeli (Conservative Party) becomes prime minister. Winston Churchill born. Harry Houdini (Ehrich Weiss), Marconi born. First Impressionist exhibit. Herbert Hoover born.
1875 Passes matriculation exam with honors, spends year at Jesuit school at Feldkirch, Austria. Disraeli acquires the Suez Canal. London main sewage system; first Gilbert and Sulli
van operetta performed. Birth of Albert Schweitzer. Risings in Bosnia and Herzegovina against Turkish rule.
Year Life of Sherlock Holmes Life of John H. Watson Life of Arthur Conan Doyle Events in England Events on the Continent Events in the World
1876 Decides to become doctor and enrolls at Edinburgh University. Meets Dr. Joseph Bell and Professor Rutherford. Disraeli becomes Earl of Beaconsfield. Wagner’s “Ring” first performed. Alexander Graham Bell demonstrates telephone. Serbia and Montenegro declare war on Turkey.
1877 Takes rooms in Montague St. “Months of inaction.” Victoria becomes Empress of India. Publication of Mozart’s complete works begins. Schiaparelli observes canals on Mars. Death of Brigham Young, leader of the Mormons. Thomas Edison patents phonograph. Publication of Alan Pinkerton’s Molly Maguires and the Detective.
Year Life of Sherlock Holmes Life of John H. Watson Life of Arthur Conan Doyle Events in England Events on the Continent Events in the World
1878 Receives degree of doctor of medicine. Attends Netley for army surgeons’ course. Sails for India. Takes part-time doctoring job. Second Afghan War begins. First performance of H.M.S. Pinafore. C.I.D., New Scotland Yard, established. Congress of Berlin; Austro-German alliance. Birth of Carl Sandburg.
1879 “The Musgrave Ritual”; appears on London stage in Hamlet. Sails for America with Sasanoff Shakespeare Co. Charles Doyle goes into nursing home. Early stories published anonymously. Zulu War begins. Albert Einstein born. Thomas Edison patents incandescent lamp. Birth of photographer Edward Steichen.
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 96
