27 Holmes’s logic here is baffling. Given that Moran had witnessed his “escape” and never actually saw whether either stone he threw hit his mark, wouldn’t the colonel have assumed that Holmes was still alive—and thus wouldn’t Holmes have feared his cover blown? Yet Holmes instead seems strangely complacent in the certainty that no one knows his true fate. “In other words,” Stanley McComas sums up in “Lhove at Lhassa,” “Moran saw him alive, so Moran will believe he is dead. Every underworld character in London must have known Holmes was alive. Watson’s acceptance of this incongruous tale can only be put down to his shock at seeing Holmes again.”
28 June Thomson, writing in Holmes and Watson, is one scholar who believes Holmes’s reasoning “sounds suspiciously like an attempt to excuse the inexcusable.” While Holmes excels at scrutinising objective, external situations, he is far less adept at analysing his own actions and motivations, and thus has chosen to shift the burden of fault onto Watson’s hapless shoulders. “[Holmes] was not given to deep or critical self-examination,” Thomson explains, “and his first instinct when faced with the need to explain his own unacceptable behaviour was to look for something or someone else to blame, in this case, Watson’s inability to dissemble. By doing this he could justify his conduct not only to Watson but also to himself.” Thomson is unsympathetic toward Watson, labelling him “not given himself to subtle psychological inquiry and prone anyway to believe Holmes was usually right”—which, in fact, he does here.
29 Again, Holmes’s explanation of his behaviour rests on thin logic. While it may be true that Holmes wanted to avoid drawing attention to himself in public, history shows that he was in little danger of Watson even giving him a second glance and therefore had no need to turn away. On nearly every occasion reported in the Canon in which Holmes disguised himself, Watson failed to see through the disguise at first glance, whether it be that of a drunken-looking groom (“A Scandal in Bohemia”—Watson said it took three looks to be sure that it was Holmes), a tall thin old man (“The Man with the Twisted Lip”), an Italian priest (“The Final Problem”), or an unshaven French workman (“The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax”). “Will this explanation hold water?” Walter P. Armstrong, Jr., marvels, “It is incredible that [Holmes’s] confidence in his art of make-up had grown so weak that he was afraid Watson would recognize in the aged bookseller a man whom he thought long dead.”
30 At this time, the mountainous, secluded region of Tibet was nominally a Chinese protectorate, the ruling Qing (or Manchu) Dynasty having sent troops in 1720 to drive out the occupying Mongols. Because the Chinese had brought with them Tibet’s seventh Dalai Lama (the spiritual leader had been sequestered in China for his “protection”), Tibetans welcomed the liberators and accepted a Chinese presence at the capital city of Lhasa. At least initially, these representatives, or ambans, wielded only symbolic power, and throughout the nineteenth century Tibet strove to ignore them and go about administering its own affairs.
In visiting Tibet, Holmes was in fact violating a century-old ban against foreigners, instituted in 1792 after a Gurkha invasion. Tibetans deeply mistrusted a British government not only connected to the Gurkhas but also plainly covetous of a trade route to China through Tibet; in this latter respect, Britain was anxious that Russia, with its own expansionist plans, might succeed where it had failed. Yet Tibet, its borders closed, continued to reject its ardent British suitor. Finally, in 1903, the thirteenth Dalai Lama’s alarming reliance on his Russian adviser led Britain to send a military force, commanded by Francis Younghusband, to Lhasa to force negotiation of a trade agreement. The Tibetans, naturally, refused to cooperate, and in March 1904 Lord Curzon gave Younghusband the order to attack. Within minutes, 628 Tibetans were dead, 222 injured. (The British lost six men.) The Dalai Lama fled to Mongolia with his adviser, and in his absence Britain signed the Lhasa Convention, establishing relations with Tibet and granting the region its autonomy. Without Chinese approval, however, the Lhasa Convention held up only until 1906, when the British did an about-face and negotiated another treaty with China—a treaty that was in turn nullified when the Qing dynasty’s collapse in 1912 granted Tibet a brief period of independence.
While there is much debate over whether Holmes could have penetrated Tibet, other foreigners had been there before him, notably, George Bogle, the first Englishman to visit (1774), Thomas Manning, who visited Lhasa in 1811, and French Lazarist priests Huc and Gabet, whose 1846 visit to Lhasa is detailed in their 1850 Souvenirs d’un Voyage . . .
31 Which “head Lama”? Upon Holmes’s arrival in Tibet in 1891, the thirteenth Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso (1876–1933), would have been around fifteen years old; the ninth Panchen Lama (or Tashi Lama, the second most powerful figure in Tibet), Panchen Choekyi Nyima (1883–1937), even younger at nine or so. It is possible, but not probable, that Holmes would have spent several days consulting with a minor, regardless of his titular status.
In any event, neither the Dalai Lama nor the Panchen Lama is ever referred to as “head lama”; in fact, events to come would illustrate just how thorny and complex the sharing of spiritual leadership could be. At the close of the nineteenth century, Tibetan leadership had been marked by a string of Dalai Lamas who had either been weak leaders or who had died prematurely (some say under suspicious circumstances), whereas the Panchen Lamas had come to embody Tibetan resistance to Chinese rule. During the ensuing trade entanglements among Britain, China, and Tibet, the thirteenth Dalai Lama and the ninth Panchen Lama were pitted against each other by the Chinese government, creating a rift between the two positions that has never really been repaired. One leader, the Dalai Lama, would eventually return from exile to rule Tibet for two decades as “the Great Thirteenth,” restoring faith in the institution of the Dalai Lama; the other would be forced to flee to China to spend the rest of his own life in exile. When the Panchen Lama wrote to the Dalai Lama complaining about the way he had been treated, the Dalai Lama’s response was unsympathetic, to say the least: “You seem to have forgotten the sacred history of your predecessors and wandered away to a desert. . . . It is difficult to believe that a person who thinks of himself only . . . should be regarded as a lama of Buddha.”
In light of the young ages of the two lamas during Holmes’s visit as well as Holmes’s unconventional use of the title, A. Carson Simpson identifies the “head lama” as the Regent, abbot of the Ten-gye-ling Monastery; he was referred to as the “Head Lama” in Sir Charles Bell’s Tibet, Past and Present (1924). Bell befriended the thirteenth Dalai Lama during his exile and also wrote a biography of the Great Thirteenth.
Oddly, the word is “Llama” in the Strand Magazine, many other magazine publications, and early American texts. One doubts that Holmes would have spent his time in collaboration with a pack animal (one that in any case was indigenous to the Andes, not the Himalayas).
32 It is possible, notes June Thomson, that Holmes chose his assumed Scandinavian nationality out of admiration for (or competition with) the Swedish explorer Sven Hedin (1865–1952). By the early 1890s, Hedin had already published a number of books about his travels throughout Persia, Mesopotamia, and other areas of Central Asia, and his accounts were eagerly received by newspaper readers. Holmes was probably still in Tibet when Hedin embarked on a four-year exploration of Russia, China, and northern Tibet in 1893, nearly perishing in his first crossing of the great Taklamakan Desert. Hedin returned to Asia to explore Tibet more thoroughly in an 1899–1902 expedition, publishing the first detailed maps of Tibet in 1905–1908. Unlike Holmes, Hedin was not able to visit Lhasa, his poor disguise as a Buddhist pilgrim failing to gain him entry (although he was able to meet the Panchen Lama).
33 Thomson dismisses the oft-repeated complaint that Holmes could not have entered Mecca as an Englishman or even as a Norwegian. After all, if Richard Burton could enter Mecca in disguise (in 1853), why couldn’t Holmes, who had expertise in masking his appearance (although lacking Burton’s fluency in languages and sincere
adoption of the Muslim faith)? In fact, Holmes’s visit may have been inspired by Burton’s Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El- Medinah and Meccah, published in three volumes from 1855 to 1856. “[I]t is quite possible,” hypothesises Thomson, “that for this part of his journey [Holmes] adopted not only a new name and a new nationality, as he had done in Tibet, but also a new religion and appearance, passing himself off as either an Algerian or Moroccan Muslim. . . .” As proof that he might have pulled it off, Thomson draws attention to Holmes’s “dark eyes and hair as well as his lean features and hawk-like nose . . . [which] already gave him a cast of features not unlike an Arab’s, a similarity which would have been enhanced by the deep tan he had acquired through exposure to the sun and wind during his travels in Tibet.” As for Holmes’s presumed inability to speak Arabic, posing as an Algerian or Moroccan Muslim would have helped to conceal that defect, for the primary language of those countries was French at that time, “and Holmes spoke French like a native.”
34 This would be Khalifa Abdallahi, or ’Abd Allah (1846–1899), who assumed leadership of the religious and political Mahdist movement following the death of Muhammad Ahmad (al-Mahdi) in 1885. (For more on al-Mahdi, see “The Cardboard Box,” note 9). Abdallahi may have lacked the Mahdi’s religious fervor, but he worked to establish his authority among the different Mahdist factions and to continue the Mahdi’s campaign against Egypt. By the time Holmes visited him, Abdallahi had weathered famine and various unsuccessful military campaigns and was enjoying a four-year period of administrative stability. But in 1896—perhaps acting on information provided by Holmes—British and Egyptian troops again attempted to take Sudan, and the last of the Mahdists (along with Abdallahi himself) fell on November 24, 1899.
35 Immediately after the Mahdists’ capture of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, in 1885 (see “The Cardboard Box,” note 9, for a discussion of the rôle of General Charles Gordon, Watson’s hero), al-Mahdi and his followers abandoned the devastated city and established a new cultural and administrative centre at nearby Omdurman. This village of mud houses was higher and better-drained than Khartoum; and by moving there al-Mahdi sought to disassociate himself completely from a city that had been founded by Egyptians. (Khartoum was retaken by the British in 1898 and rebuilt under the command of Governor-General Lord Kitchener.) Given that Khalifa Abdallahi was not living in Khartoum when Holmes had his audience, Holmes presumably refers to “Khartoum” in the expansive sense of the seat of government; in the modern era the “Three Towns of Khartoum” encompass Khartoum, Khartoum North, and Omdurman.
36 Which “derivatives” (dyes? oils? carbolic acids?) and why they interested Holmes is the subject of endless speculation. One scholar points out that 80 percent of all chemical research in the last century was devoted to studies of one form or another of the “coal-tar derivatives.”
37 The name is misspelled “Montpelier” in the Strand Magazine and various book editions. Holmes would likely have conducted his experiments at, or with the backing of, the University of Montpellier, founded in 1220 and focussed on medicine and the law, boasting a fine anatomical museum and a rich library. Suppressed by the French Revolution of 1789, the school was divided into separate faculties (of medicine, pharmacy, science, and letters) for nearly a hundred years, regaining recognition as an official university in 1896. Montepellier is also known for its many vineyards, which might have further attracted an oenophile such as Holmes.
38 This was clearly Moran; but what happened to the other, unnamed enemy?
39 The reader may recall that in “The Final Problem,” Holmes reports that Moriarty’s men had “set fire to our rooms” but that “no great harm was done.” The image of Mycroft busily arranging Holmes’s rooms to his liking might give one pause, or at least it does Walter P. Armstrong, Jr. Considering that Mycroft had previously made only a single visit to Holmes’s rooms (in “The Greek Interpreter”), it seems implausible that he would have known how to restore them “exactly as they had always been,” regardless of his vaunted powers of observation. Casting about for others who may have had a hand in the renovations, Armstrong also dismisses Mrs. Hudson, “for she seldom crossed the threshold,” and Holmes’s eccentric contraptions would most likely have baffled her. “In fact,” Armstrong concludes, “only one man could have done it, and that man was Watson. Naturally he did not want his name to appear, because he is supposed to have thought that Holmes was dead.”
40 Does this mean the death of Mary Morstan? Once again, some theorists, seeing that Watson rarely discusses his wife in the Canon, take the view that his marriage was an unsuccessful one and that his “bereavement” does not refer to grief over his wife’s death. Wingate Bett, in “Watson’s Second Marriage,” advances the hypothesis that “bereavement” here means deprivation, either by estrangement (which he dismisses as unthinkable) or by mental derangement. Bett suggests that “the prolonged strain to which Miss Morstan’s sensitive nature had been subjected during the events of The Sign of Four and for some years previously might well have led to a mental breakdown.” C. Alan Bradley and William A. S. Sarjeant note that Watson does not even identify the name of the deceased person; “it could have been Watson’s mother, his father or his brother, for all that the chronicle tells us.”
Most scholars, however, accept the conventional view that Watson’s “sad bereavement” was caused by the death of Mary Morstan. Watson, presumably unwilling (unable) to dwell on the details in such a public forum, never does reveal the circumstances of her death. She was still only thirty years old in 1891, which leads some to propose that she died in childbirth, as did so many other women in the Victorian era. Another theory, that Mary Morstan succumbed to tuberculosis—which could explain why Watson was so quick to leave Holmes’s side to take care of the consumptive (and fictitious) Englishwoman in “The Final Problem” (see note 40)—is readily discounted by June Thomson, who observes that tuberculosis was fatal and, at that time, untreatable; patients were prescribed only rest and fresh air as they grew progressively weaker. Yet when Holmes arrived at Watson’s apartment to solicit his aid in capturing Moriarty, Watson revealed that his wife was “away upon a visit,” behaviour hardly appropriate for a woman suffering from a debilitating disease. “Watson would not have allowed it,” Thomson writes, “nor would he have been as eager to accompany Holmes abroad had he known his wife was already suffering from consumption which, as a doctor, he would almost certainly have diagnosed.”
41 Holmes’s possession of the key is yet another mystery. The house is empty, implying that it is available for rent or sale; June Thomson suggests that Holmes, posing as a prospective buyer, paid a fruitful visit to the real estate agent whose name must have appeared on a sign outside. Thomas L. Stix, on the other hand, expresses doubt: “Where did Holmes get the key? We do not know, but our experience is that estate agents do not casually give out keys to properties that they control.”
42 Although Watson’s directions are explicit, in the words of David L. Hammer in The Game Is Afoot, “There are as many candidates for the Empty House as for 221B, and the most which can be said is that it remains a shadowy location.” The principal reason for the dilemma is that in 1881, when Holmes moved to 221 Baker Street, Baker Street had not yet merged with York Place (1921) or Upper Baker Street (1930) and there was no 221. In fact Baker Street was barely a quarter-mile long and consisted of eighty buildings, with the highest number No. 85. Scholars assume that Watson disguised only the number, however, and not the street. Based on their examinations of the route described in “The Empty House,” the descriptive elements described in this and other stories—the mews (“The Empty House”), the back yard (“Problem of Thor Bridge”), the windows (A Study in Scarlet, “The Beryl Coronet”), the absence of a streetlamp (“The Empty House”)—they propose other candidates on Baker Street. The most popular is No. 31, selected by Bernard Davies (“The Back Yards of Baker Street”), William S. Baring-Gould (“ ‘I Have My Eye on a Suite in Baker Street�
�� ”), and David L. Hammer. No. 111 also has its supporters, including the eminent Chandler Briggs and Vincent Starrett (The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes) and Christopher Morley (“Report from Baker Street”), although, as noted, No. 111 was not incorporated into Baker Street proper until long after Holmes had departed. For a detailed listing of candidates, see this editor’s “The Location of ‘A Most Desirable Residence,’ ” in The Return of Sherlock Holmes (Indianapolis: Gasogene Books, 2003).
43 In the English edition, the phrase “your little fairy-tales” has been replaced by “our little adventures.”
44 Apparently a paraphrase of dialogue from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, in which Antony’s friend Enobarbus explains to Caesar’s friend Agrippa the appeal of Cleopatra to the two men: “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety; other women cloy / The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry / Where most she satisfies . . .” (Act II, Scene 2). Modern writers make of this a paean to mature women.
45 It is tempting to wonder whether Monsieur Meunier was employed by Madame Tussaud’s Exhibition, the wax museum founded by Marie Gresholtz Tussaud (1760–1850) and located on nearby Marylebone Road. Tussaud, born in France, learned how to make wax models from an uncle who owned wax museums in Paris. Among her early subjects were both Voltaire and Rousseau; but she was imprisoned during the French Revolution and forced during the Reign of Terror to make death masks from the heads of prisoners (her friends among them) who had just been executed by the guillotine. Tussaud came to London with her two sons in 1802, and they toured their collection of wax models throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland for thirty-three years, finally establishing a permanent exhibition in 1835 on Baker Street and Portman Square. The museum was an immense success, featuring lifelike figures and death masks of figures such as Napoleon, Shakespeare, Admiral Horatio Nelson, Sir Walter Scott, and Benjamin Franklin—with the most popular attraction being the “Chamber of Horrors” (originally the “Separate Room,” which young ladies were advised not to visit and described in 1888 in Dickens’s Dictionary of London as “over-strong meat for babes”), in which famous murderers and other violent criminals were represented alongside their victims. Tussaud’s sons moved the museum to Marylebone Road in 1888, almost immediately adjacent to the Baker Street Underground station and a statue of Sherlock Holmes erected in 1999.
The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories: The Return of Sherlock Holmes, His Last Bow and The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (Non-slipcased edition) (Vol. 2) (The Annotated Books) Page 6
