HY: Such a combination would perhaps not be a usual one for a Victorian gentleman; Watson would surely have needed a razor and a clean collar, at the very least.
However, Holmes clearly considered that a tooth-brush was the essential item of a personal nature for Watson to carry with him. Such a recommendation might lead us to suspect that Watson was actually a woman; but in that event (s)he would also require a large amount of cosmetics. [JH: No western man would have dared to write that! And I even fear for HY should Hiroko read it.]
As I have noted elsewhere, Sherlock Holmes suffered from periodontitis, and lost most of his teeth. Holmes might be conscious of this condition, and this may point to Watson’s also suffering from the same disease.
Watson would be a little over thirty years old at the time, and that is the sort of age when one might expect the initial stages of the disease. However, Watson may have first suffered from periodontitis during his service in Afghanistan. On the battlefield it is not always easy to find the time or place to clean one’s teeth properly, and ‘In a large number of instances pyorrhoea is associated with disturbance of the general health,’ (Henry Sewill, Dental Surgery, Bailliere, Tindall and Cox, London, 1901, p 427). Watson was healthy enough before the battle of Maiwand to control bacteria in his mouth, but after is injury his condition was critical, and it might be that his mouth condition was not of the best either.
In those days the cause of periodontitis was unclear, but it was known that one main cause was ‘lack of cleanliness and care about the teeth.’ (LR Meredith, The Teeth and How to Save Them, William Tegg, London, 1872, p 164.)
‘The treatment of pyorrhoea must be first directed to thorough removal of tartar. General antisepsis of the mouth must be assiduously practised by the patient. A soft toothbrush, and a suitable dentifrice and antiseptic lotions must be used. The spaces between the teeth, which become widened as the alveoli waste, should be frequently cleared of foreign particles with a thin quill tooth-pick.’ (Henry Sewill, Dental Surgery.)
Holmes would have been told by his own dentist that brushing was essential for suffers from periodontitis, and might have recommended this self-treatment to his good friend Watson.
HY: Why did Dr Roylott go to India to work, rather than buy a practice in England?
JH: Helen states that Roylott ‘obtained an advance from a relative, which enabled him to take a medical degree and went out to Calcutta.’ It is marginally possible that Roylott had already shown some character flaws, and consequently that this ‘relative’ made the advance conditional upon Roylott’s leaving England. However, if Roylott had become an embarrassment to his family, they would perhaps have insisted that he leave England at once, rather than stay for the long time it took to obtain a medical degree, so that is probably not what happened.
The real clue might lie in Roylott’s destination: Calcutta was for a long while the most prosperous city in India under the Company and the Raj, it was the place to which all those ‘loungers and idlers of the Empire’ (or at any rate those of them who did not gravitate to London!) were irresistibly drawn. It is perhaps true that the pickings were not quite so rich as they had been when Charnock, Clive, or Hastings strolled arrogantly about the Maidan; but there were still good pickings in the mid-1800s. Roylott was simply making what was, in truth, a sound financial or business decision when he opted for India.
JH: ‘“You see it, Watson?” . . . But I saw nothing.’ Why? Why did Holmes see the snake, where Watson did not?
HY: Lionel Heedleman (‘Unravelling “The Speckled Band”,’ BSJ, 34, No3, Spring 1986, pp 5-13) argues that ‘if the snake had been on the bell-pull when Holmes struck, Watson would have seen it. A snake had coiled round a ripe cannot suddenly disappear. It could, of course, have fallen on to the floor, in which case Watson would have heard it fall, or it could, as Holmes believed, have crawled back up the bell-pull, when again Watson would have observed it.’ But a Japanese Sherlockian and zoologist, Saneyoshi Tatsuro, points out that a snake cannot turn back on a rope.
Needleman also notes Watson’s ‘the sudden glare flashing into my weary eyes made it impossible for me to tell what it was at which my friend lashed so savagely.’ But Leslie Klinger (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Gasogene Books, Indianapolis, 1998) argues ‘But the eye adjusts to the glare of a match in a fraction of a second. Watson’s loyalty to his friend forbade him to protest that there had been no snake on the bell-pull, but his honesty prevented him giving the reassurance that Holmes had sought.’ If Klinger is right, where was the snake? I suspect that there was a second hole near the floor, for the return trip to Dr Roylott’s room. The snake would have fallen from the topmost hole, or used the rope as a guide of sorts; after biting the victim, the snake then used the floor-level hole to go back to its home.
JH: Ingenious! But still Watson failed to see the snake at any point. What if the snake were never properly in the room, but had merely popped its head through the (top) ventilator hole prior to entering, and it was at that point that Holmes saw it and lashed out, causing it to return before Holmes could strike a match?
HY: After threatening Holmes in London, what did Dr Roylott do in London? Also, why didn’t Holmes and Watson think that Dr Roylott would hurry back home to bully his daughter - and, if necessary, to throw them into the river as he had thrown the local blacksmith?
JH: Another sneaky two-part question! As to what Roylott did in London: Helen said that ‘he spoke of coming into town to-day upon some most important business,’ but she did not say when he said this.
If it were said that morning, then it may be that Roylott had not previously intended to visit London, but made an excuse so that he might follow Helen. However, Helen herself says, ‘I was too shaken to go to bed again, however [this after she had been frightened by the night’s odd events], so I dressed, and as soon as it was daylight I slipped down, got a dog-card at the Crown Inn, which is opposite. . . [and thence to London and Baker Street.]’ This reads as if Helen did not see her step-father that morning at all. Further, had Helen seen Roylott, and had he said that he - too - was going to London, there would be no reason why they should not travel together. (And, indeed, in that case Helen would most likely have been too nervous to visit Holmes!)
This all goes to suggest that Roylott had made the remark the previous day, and that in turn suggests that his visit was originally unconnected with Helen’s own visit to Holmes, and that Roylott changed his plans slightly (even if only by getting out of bed earlier than he had intended) when he decided to follow Helen.
What, then, might he have wanted to do, other than follow his step-daughter? It seems to me that there are two possibilities, the financial, and what one might loosely term the social. We know that Roylott had killed once for monetary gain, and thus that money mattered to him; he might very well have been seeing his banker or stockbroker - or pawnbroker! - to rustle up a bit more cash. Again, he was a man of violent passions, and had no wife; he may well have wished to avoid a local scandal and have made some arrangement with one of the ladies of the town in London. (Depending on the exact nature of such a hypothetical arrangement, he may have needed extra cash first anyway!)
Either (both?) of these appointments might well have occupied him for the rest of the day. And he seems to have been pretty confident that he had scared Holmes with the poker-bending trick, and so he might not have thought that Holmes and Watson would visit Stoke Moran; Roylott may simply not have been any too concerned that there was any real danger. As to bullying Helen, Roylott most probably would have gone on to do just that - the perfect end to a perfect day - had the opportunity arisen.
9. “THE ENGINEER’S THUMB”
JH) The usual metal for forged half-crowns was pewter (lead/tin alloy). Watson himself says that ‘Large masses of nickel and of tin were discovered,’ on the premises. These metals would surely need a furnace for their transformation into fake c
oins, not a hydraulic press?
HY) As JH pointed out, the most effective and fast way to make fake coins is metal casting and plating. On December 3 2003, there was an Indonesian flight attendant arrested for using fake five hundred yen coins in Sakai-shi, Osaka. Nearly sixty such fake coins were found in that case in western Japan, and the flight attendant told police she exchanged her money in Bali into Japanese yen, and she did not know they were false. On December 5 of that year, there was a fire at an iron factory in Ipoh, Malaysia. From that burned-out site, police and fire department authorities found many fake five hundred yen coins and manufacturing machines, so that it was concluded that this was the origin of the fake Japanese coins. They first took impressions of the real coins, and cast them with brass. After, they plated them with nickel. That is the most common way to produce coins for cobblers.
But the German cobbler “Fritz” seems to be interested in a different method of forgery. I do not know why he did not like the ordinary way of forgery, but anyway he challenged himself to produce his own original method. I suspect that Fritz had the idea when he had been to a dentist, or Fritz himself was a dentist. Dental amalgam has been a popular filling material in dental treatment since 1826, and is consisted of silver, tin and mercury. Bliss Austin said “Nor could the material used to make the spurious coins have been an amalgam of nickel or tin, because ... and the latter does so to such a limited extent that it would have been of little use for this purpose” in “Thumbing His Way to Fame” (BSJ [OS] I, No.4 (October 1946), 424-32), but in that sense, his conclusion is not accurate. Dental amalgam cures without any pressure or heat, but the hydraulic press would be used for punching marks on both sides of coins. I am not sure such a huge press was needed for that purpose, but this system might not be made just for forgery.
Nickel would be used as a furring plate, which makes products harder and better glazed. Fritz would have them plated once more, perhaps in gold, silver, or brass.
Some scholars wonder why no mercury was found there, but the boiling point of mercury is only 357C. On the other hand, fire is from about 600 to 1100C. It is easy to evaporate mercury in “a house of fire”. When the Big Buddha of Nara was made 1300 years ago, an amalgam of gold and mercury was painted on its surface, and then a big fire was set around the Buddha. It was a primitive way of gold plating in ancient Japan.
However, if Fritz chose a traditional casting system, it would have been much easier at less cost. He did not need such a huge hydraulic press, but just a small furnace and a casting machine which could be carried anywhere by just two people. In addition, the plating system would need only a small tank. Fritz had a new idea, but it was not effective or useful.
JH) Hatherley said, ‘the face and manner of my patron had made an unpleasant impression upon me, and I could not think that his explanation... was sufficient to explain the necessity for my coming at midnight.’ So why did he go?
HY) It is money, money money!
Hatherley said “Two years ago, having served my time, and having also come into a fair sum of money through my poor father’s death, I determined to start in business for myself, and took professional chambers in Victoria Street.... During two years I have had three consultations and one small job, and that is absolutely all that my profession has brought me. My gross takings amount to twenty-seven pounds ten. Every day, from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon, I waited in my little den, until at last my heart began to sink, and I came to believe that I should never have any practice at all.”
This resembles Conan Doyle’s case. In his autobiography MEMORIES & ADVENTURES, he wrote
I made 154 pounds the first year, and 250 pounds the second, rising slowly to 300 pounds, which in eight years I never passed, so far as the medical practice went. In the first year the Income Tax paper arrived and I filled it up to show that I was not liable. They returned the paper with “Most unsatisfactory” scrawled across it. I wrote “I entirely agree” under the words, and returned it once more.
However, Hatherley’s income a year was only a little less than fourteen pounds, which was less than ten percent of Doyle’s first year income. In addition, he had his office in Victoria Street, and had a clerk. It is said a specialist in London would earn a little less than five-hundred pounds a year at that time. Such a person would pay forty-two pounds to two servants. That servant received more payment than Hatherley.
Charles Booth estimated a household whose income was under twenty-two shillings a week as poor, in Life and Labour of the People in London (3rd ed, 1902-03). The lowest non-poor household yearly income was a little more than fifty-seven pounds. It is four times Hatherley’s income. He was a member of the poor class, based on his earning. He could maintain his life and his office from the inheritance from his father, but if it was large enough to support his whole life with its interest, he would not have considered opening his office. It is easy to suppose he spent a large part of his inheritance, and had not too much left at that time. Colonel Stark offered him fifty guineas, which is fifty-two and a half pounds. He could thereby be free from poverty. This was the reason why he accepted such a doubtful offer.
JH) Holmes asked about the horse which drew Colonel Stark’s carriage: ‘Tired-looking or fresh?’ and that gave him a clue as to how far it had travelled. But he also asked: ‘Did you observe the colour?’ What on earth did the horse’s colour matter?
HY) This was one of Sherlock Holmes’ favorite investigation techniques as when he adopted the disguise of a groom in SCAN. If the horse had any characteristic colour (not pink or violet, but white or a “silver blaze” type would be outstanding), he planned to search such horses kept by grooms in the area, or ask horse doctors in nearby towns. However, the horse was “chestnut”, a very popular colour, and it would be impossible to trace it from that point.
These questions by HY, are also answered by myself.
HY) Why did the woman who cried ‘Fritz’ speak in English, and why did Colonel Stark answer in English?
HY) Hatherley said Colonel Stark had “a German accent”, “several German books were scattered” on the table in his house. But I suspect Colonel Stark and Elise were not really German. In emergency situations, any persons would speak in their own tongue, not in a foreign language. They might have been disguised as Germans, though they were really English. Or they might be German-English, like Queen Victoria or the Prince of Wales. They were English, but their ancestors were German, and their father or mother was German. It is said the Queen and the Prince had a German accent, though they were born in England.
HY) Why did Colonel Stark abandon his intention of killing Hatherley?
HY) As there was a big fire in his house, Colonel Stark might have been injured by some explosion caused by the chemicals used for plating or other processes of forgery. If the Colonel was unconscious, Elise or Ferguson might have brought Hatherley near the station.
HY) Why did Colonel Stark make false coins in England, and not Germany, his homeland?
HY) Even if Colonel Stark was already suspected by the authorities, there were many nations in Germany at that time, and there were many coins issued by each small nation in Germany. It would be easier for him to move around Germany, and to make many designs. Even if he was not able to stay in Germany, he could go to other eastern European nations or Italy, which was also full of small kingdoms. Britain was a united nation which had talented police, and it is not easy to escape from this country because of the sea.
I also wonder why the Colonel did not print false bank notes. It was easier and cost less.
The first chapter “A Scandal in Bohemia” is published in The Ritual, Autumn 2000, No.26 (The Northern Musgraves).
The second chapter “Case of Identity” and the third chapter “The Red Headed League” are published in The Ritual, Autumn 2001, No.28, and The Shoso-in Bulletin vol.11, 2001
“The Five Orange Pi
ps” chapter is published in The Shoso-in Bulletin vol.13, 2003.
About the Authors
JOHN HALL has written several works of Sherlockian pastiche, as well as many articles of the Canon, together with a Holmesian chronology, I Remember the Date Very Well, studies of Holmes - Sidelights on Holmes - and Dr Watson - Unexplored Possibilities.
HIRAYAMA YUICHI (The Japanese Vase) was the editor-in-chief of The Shoso-in Bulletin, and co-editor of Japan and Sherlock Holmes (Baker Street Irregulars). He also published some works on Japanese detective stories and translations of foreign mysteries.
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