AHMM, March 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "You! How could you call?"

  "Your cipher was not difficult, madam. Your presence here was desirable. I knew that I had only to flash ‘Vieni’ and you would surely come."

  The beautiful Italian looked with awe at my companion.

  "I do not understand how you know these things,” she said. “Giuseppe Gorgiano—how did he—” She paused, and then suddenly her face lit up with pride and delight. “Now I see it! My Gennaro! My splendid, beautiful Gennaro, who has guarded me safe from all harm, he did it, with his own strong hand he killed the monster. Oh, Gennaro, how wonderful you are! What woman could ever be worthy of such a man?"

  "Well, Mrs. Lucca,” said the prosaic Gregson, laying his hand upon the lady's sleeve with as little sentiment as if she were a Notting Hill hooligan,[20] “I am not very clear yet who you are or what you are; but you've said enough to make it very clear that we shall want you at the Yard."

  "One moment, Gregson,” said Holmes. “I rather fancy that this lady may be as anxious to give us information as we can be to get it. You understand, madam, that your husband will be arrested and tried for the death of the man who lies before us? What you say may be used in evidence.[21] But if you think that he has acted from motives which are not criminal, and which he would wish to have known, then you cannot serve him better than by telling us the whole story."

  "Now that Gorgiano is dead we fear nothing,” said the lady. “He was a devil and a monster, and there can be no judge in the world who would punish my husband for having killed him."

  "In that case,” said Holmes, “my suggestion is that we lock this door, leave things as we found them, go with this lady to her room, and form our opinion after we have heard what it is that she has to say to us."

  Half an hour later we were seated, all four, in the small sitting-room of Signora Lucca, listening to her remarkable narrative of those sinister events, the ending of which we had chanced to witness. She spoke in rapid and fluent but very unconventional English, which, for the sake of clearness, I will make grammatical.

  "I was born in Posilippo, near Naples,” said she, “and was the daughter of Augusto Barelli, who was the chief lawyer and once the deputy of that part. Gennaro was in my father's employment, and I came to love him, as any woman must. He had neither money nor position—nothing but his beauty and strength and energy—so my father forbade the match. We fled together, were married at Bari, and sold my jewels to gain the money which would take us to America. This was four years ago, and we have been in New York ever since.

  "Fortune was very good to us at first. Gennaro was able to do a service to an Italian gentleman—he saved him from some ruffians in the place called the Bowery, and so made a powerful friend. His name was Tito Castalotte, and he was the senior partner of the great firm of Castalotte and Zamba, who are the chief fruit importers of New York. Signor Zamba is an invalid, and our new friend Castalotte has all power within the firm, which employs more than three hundred men. He took my husband into his employment, made him head of a department, and showed his goodwill towards him in every way. Signor Castalotte was a bachelor, and I believe that he felt as if Gennaro was his son, and both my husband and I loved him as if he were our father. We had taken and furnished a little house in Brooklyn, and our whole future seemed assured, when that black cloud appeared which was soon to overspread our sky.

  "One night, when Gennaro returned from his work, he brought a fellow-country-man back with him. His name was Gorgiano, and he had come also from Posilippo. He was a huge man, as you can testify, for you have looked upon his corpse. Not only was his body that of a giant, but everything about him was grotesque, gigantic, and terrifying. His voice was like thunder in our little house. There was scarce room for the whirl of his great arms as he talked. His thoughts, his emotions, his passions, all were exaggerated and monstrous. He talked, or rather roared, with such energy that others could but sit and listen, cowed with the mighty stream of words. His eyes blazed at you and held you at his mercy. He was a terrible and wonderful man. I thank God that he is dead!

  "He came again and again. Yet I was aware that Gennaro was no more happy than I was in his presence. My poor husband would sit pale and listless, listening to the endless raving upon politics and upon social questions which made up our visitor's conversation. Gennaro said nothing, but I who knew him so well could read in his face some emotion which I had never seen there before. At first I thought that it was dislike. And then, gradually, I understood that it was more than dislike. It was fear—a deep, secret, shrinking fear. That night—the night that I read his terror—I put my arms round him and I implored him by his love for me and by all that he held dear to hold nothing from me, and to tell me why this huge man overshadowed him so.

  "He told me, and my own heart grew cold as ice as I listened. My poor Gennaro, in his wild and fiery days, when all the world seemed against him and his mind was driven half mad by the injustices of life, had joined a Neapolitan society, the Red Circle, which was allied to the old Carbonari.[22] The oaths and secrets of this brotherhood were frightful; but once within its rule no escape was possible. When we had fled to America Gennaro thought that he had cast it all off forever. What was his horror one evening to meet in the streets the very man who had initiated him in Naples, the giant Gorgiano, a man who had earned the name of ‘Death’ in the south of Italy, for he was red to the elbow in murder! He had come to New York to avoid the Italian police, and he had already planted a branch of this dreadful society in his new home. All this Gennaro told me, and showed me a summons which he had received that very day, a Red Circle drawn upon the head of it telling him that a lodge would be held upon a certain date, and that his presence at it was required and ordered.

  "That was bad enough, but worse was to come. I had noticed for some time that when Gorgiano came to us, as he constantly did, in the evening, he spoke much to me; and even when his words were to my husband those terrible, glaring, wild-beast eyes of his were always turned upon me. One night his secret came out. I had awakened what he called ‘love’ within him—the love of a brute—a savage. Gennaro had not yet returned when he came. He pushed his way in, seized me in his mighty arms, hugged me in his bear's embrace, covered me with kisses, and implored me to come away with him. I was struggling and screaming when Gennaro entered and attacked him. He struck Gennaro senseless and fled from the house which he was never more to enter. It was a deadly enemy that we made that house which he was never more to enter. It was a deadly enemy that we made that night.

  "A few days later came the meeting. Gennaro returned from it with a face which told me that something dreadful had occurred. It was worse than we could have imagined possible. The funds of the society were raised by blackmailing rich Italians and threatening them with violence should they refuse the money. It seems that Castalotte, our dear friend and benefactor, had been approached. He had refused to yield to threats, and he had handed the notices to the police. It was resolved now that such an example should be made of him as would prevent any other victim from rebelling. At the meeting it was arranged that he and his house should be blown up with dynamite. There was a drawing of lots as to who should carry out the deed. Gennaro saw our enemy's cruel face smiling at him as he dipped his hand in the bag. No doubt it had been pre-arranged in some fashion, for it was the fatal disc with the Red Circle upon it, the mandate for murder which lay upon his palm. He was to kill his best friend, or he was to expose himself and me to the vengeance of his comrades. It was part of their fiendish system to punish those whom they feared or hated by injuring not only their own person, but those whom they loved, and it was the knowledge of this which hung as a terror over my poor Gennaro's head and drove him nearly crazy with apprehension.

  "All that night we sat together, our arms round each other, each strengthening each for the troubles that lay before us. The very next evening had been fixed for the attempt. By mid-day my husband and I were on our way to London, but not before he had given our benefactor full warni
ng of his danger, and had also left such information for the police as would safeguard his life for the future.

  "The rest, gentlemen, you know for yourselves. We were sure that our enemies would be behind us like our own shadows. Gorgiano had his private reasons for vengeance, but in any case we knew how ruthless, cunning, and untiring he could be. Both Italy and America are full of stories of his dreadful powers. If ever they were exerted it would be now. My darling made use of the few clear days which our start had given us in arranging for a refuge for me in such a fashion that no possible danger could reach me. For his own part, he wished to be free that he might communicate both with the American and with the Italian police. I do not myself know where he lived, or how. All that I learned was through the columns of a newspaper. But once, as I looked through my window, I saw two Italians watching the house, and I understood that in some way Gorgiano had found out our retreat. Finally Gennaro told me, through the paper, that he would signal to me from a certain window, but when the signals came they were nothing but warnings, which were suddenly interrupted. It is very clear to me now that he knew Gorgiano to be close upon him, and that, thank God! he was ready for him when he came. And now, gentlemen, I would ask you whether we have anything to fear from the Law, or whether any judge upon earth would condemn my Gennaro for what he has done?"

  "Well, Mr. Gregson,” said the American, looking across at the official, “I don't know what your British point of view may be, but I guess that in New York this lady's husband will receive a pretty general vote of thanks."[23]

  "She will have to come with me and see the Chief,” Gregson answered. “If what she says is corroborated, I do not think she or her husband has much to fear.[24] But what I can't make head or tail of, Mr. Holmes, is how on earth you got yourself mixed up in the matter."

  "Education, Gregson, education. Still seeking knowledge at the old university. Well, Watson, you have one more specimen of the tragic and grotesque to add to your collection. By the way, it is not eight o'clock, and a Wagner night at Covent Garden! If we hurry, we might be in time for the second act."

  * * * *

  The Secret Message

  There are apparent problems with the secret message as decoded by Sherlock Holmes. Professor Louis E. Lord of the Classics Department at Oberlin College points out that the Italian alphabet contains no K (and, he might have added, no W, X, or Y, and only occasionally J). More complicated still, Holmes was initially unaware that the message was being transmitted in Italian, and thus would have seen no need to consider any but the twenty-six-letter English alphabet. Professor Lord argues, as reported by Vincent Starrett in his “Explanation” (Introduction) to 221B: Studies in Sherlock Holmes, that in Italian, twenty flashes is not a “T” (as immediately interpreted by Holmes) but—by virtue of the missing “K"—actually a “U.” He continues, “The full message as read by Holmes is ‘Attenta, pericolo!’ Yet the omission of K must have misplaced every letter below it, and Holmes should have read, not ‘Attenta pericolo!’ but ‘Assemse, oeqicnkn!’ Or, if Signor Lucca, sending his warning, had—for the convenience of Holmes and Watson—used the English alphabet, his wife, who knew little English and was expecting the message in Italian, would have read ‘Auueoua, qesicpmp!’ Well, it is a sufficiently startling message, either way; and it is no slight testimony to the ability of Sherlock Holmes that he brought off the case with honours."

  Careful study of Lord's argument reveals a basic contradiction in his own work. S. F. Blake writes that “it is unfortunately necessary for me to point out [an error] which Prof. Lord himself committed. He says that Holmes should have read the message ‘Assemsa, oeqicnkn.’ Since Holmes counted the first three series of flashes as 1, 20, 20, and then translated them A, T, T, we have to infer that he counted the other flashes in this word as 5, 14, 20, 1 in order to translate it as ‘attenta.’ But 1, 20, 20, 5, 14, 20, 1 flashes do not spell out ‘assemsa’ in any language known to me, certainly not in English or Italian, the only two in question here. They spell ‘attenta’ in the English alphabet and ‘auueoua’ in the Italian. In the English alphabet, ‘assemsa’ would call for 1, 19,19, 5, 13, 19, 1 flashes, and in Italian, 1, 18, 18, 5, 12, 18, 1. A similar situation holds, obviously, with regard to the word ‘pericolo’ (or oeqicnkn). It is clearly lése majesté, or something approaching it, to accuse the keen-eyed Holmes of being unable to count up to 20."

  Donald A. Yates expresses the view that the code agreed upon must have been to spell Italian in the English alphabet ("A Final Illumination of the Lucca Code"). He argues that Gennaro selected English so as to make the code unreadable by Gorgiano. Further, Yates points to Signora Lucca's “smooth flow of perfect, well-phrased English sentences.” However, Blake contends that Gorgiano undoubtedly learned English in New York and observes that the sentences of Signora Lucca to which Yates refers were expressly made grammatical by Dr. Watson. Blake argues instead that Gennaro selected the English language alphabet because he needed the letter K to transmit specific words (for example, “Black Joe"). Josh Pachter argues that Gennaro Lucca gave his wife the “key” to the cipher, consisting of using the Italian alphabet but inserting the letter K.

  D. Martin Dakin comments, “I wonder if an unnecessary fuss has not been made over this. Although Italian does not use K (or W, X or Y), I doubt if Italians are taught an alphabet without them, and surely it is not unreasonable to suggest that a common alphabet of twenty-six traditional letters is generally accepted all over western Europe.” This seems borne out by the Encyclopoedia Britannica (9th Ed.), which lists the Russian and Cyrillic alphabets as the only European alphabet variants of note.

  Blake performed the interesting experiment of attempting to flash a lighted candle as rapidly as possible across a window to convey the recorded message. He concludes that about 477 candle waves are required, consuming almost five minutes, for the brief message recorded. This experiment was redone by Allen Mackler and Sheldon Wesson, who report in “Light Upon the Candle” that while Blake is in error and the message requires only 384 passes, 7 minutes 7 seconds seems to be a more likely time.

  Dakin responds: “A greater mystery is why Gennaro should have chosen such a protracted and cumbersome way of sending Emilia a (three times repeated, with Gorgiano at his heels at any moment!) rather pointless message about a danger of which she was already aware and couldn't do anything about anyway. He could have said it just as well in his newspaper advertisements."

  * * * *

  Annotations copyright (c) 2005 by Leslie S. Klinger. Reprinted from The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, edited by Leslie S. Klinger, with the permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

  * * * *

  Bibliography

  Ackroyd, Peter. London: The Biography. London: Chatto & Windus (2000).

  Blake, S. F., “Sherlock Holmes and the Italian Cipher,” Baker Street Journal, 9, No. 1 (Jan. 1959), 14-20.

  Baedeker, Karl. London and Its Environs. Leipsic: Karl Baedeker, Publisher (1896).

  Dakin, D. Martin. A Sherlock Holmes Commentary. Newton Abbot: David & Charles (1972).

  Doyle, Arthur Conan. His Last Bow: Some Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes. Edited with an introduction by Owen Dudley Edwards. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press (1993).

  Doyle, Steven, writing as Kennedy, Spencer C., “Adventure of the Red Circle: An Examination of the Original Manuscript,” Sherlock Holmes Review, 1, No. 1 (1986), 8-9.

  Galerstein, David H., “A Solution to the Long Island Cave Mystery,” Baker Street Journal, 33, No. 4 (Dec. 1983), 233-34.

  Griffin, Daniel. “Emilia Lucca's Story,” Baker Street Journal, 15, No. 2 (Jun. 1965), 97-102.

  Hall, John. Sidelights on Holmes. Ashcroft, British Columbia: Calabash Press (1998).

  Morely, Christopher. “Was Sherlock Holmes an American?” 221B: Studies in Sherlock Holmes. Edited by Vincent Starrett. New York: The Macmillian Company (1940), p. 5-15.

  Pilot, R
oy, Gianluca Salvatori, and Enrico Sollito, eds. Mandate for Murder: A Facsimile of the Original Manuscript of “The Adventure of the Red Circle" by Arthur Conan Doyle and Commentary. New York: The Baker Street Irregulars (2006).

  Ulrich, William, “Notes After an Evening in the Cave,” Prescott's Press [N. S.], 15 (Sep. 1992), 7-8.

  Vincent, Col. Sir Howard. The Police Code and General Manual of the Criminal Law. London: Francis Edwards and Limpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd. (1904).

  Wesson, Sheldon, “Light Upon the Candle,” Baker Street Journal, 38, No. 4 (Dec. 1988), 238-39

  Yates, Donald A., “A Final Illumination of the Lucca Code,” Baker Street Journal, 6, No. 3 (Jul. 1956), 146-51.

  Annotations copyright (c) 2005 by Leslie S. Klinger. Reprinted from The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, edited by Leslie S. Klinger, with the permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

  * * * *

  Footnotes

  1 The original title in the manuscript is “The Adventure of the Bloomsbury Lodger.” The manuscript is owned by the Lilly Library at Indiana University and is described by Spencer C. Kennedy in “The Adventure of the Red Circle: An Examination of the Original Manuscript.” “The Red Circle” was published in the Strand Magazine in March and April 1911.

  In 2006, The Baker Street Irregulars published Mandate for Murder: A Facsimile of the Original Manuscript of “The Adventure of the Red Circle,” by Arthur Conan Doyle and Commentary, edited by Roy Pilot, Gianluca Salvatori, and Enrico Sollito (referred to below as “Mandate for Murder"). The volume contains a highly accurate transcript of the manuscript.

  2 Mrs. Warren's maid-servant, that is.

  3 Baedeker's London and Its Environs(1896) lists several boarding houses in Mrs. Warren's vicinity, near the British Museum (those belonging to Misses Wright, for example, on Upper Woburn Place, or to Mrs. Snell, on Bedford Place) that had rates of 7-8s. per day, although less expensive locations might run as little as 30s. to 40s. per week. Of course, Holmes and Watson are themselves lodgers, although Mrs. Hudson may appear to be the ideal landlady and no other tenants are ever mentioned. The “B” in 221B implies that there was a 221A which also formed a part of the premises at Baker Street, and there may well have been shared facilities (such as the water closets). In A Study in Scarlet, Watson reveals that upon his return to London from India, when he is receiving a wound pension of 11s. per day, he has been living in a hotel. The expense has been too much for him, however, and he eagerly agrees to share a “suite” with Holmes, who has been looking for someone to go in with him on the Baker Street apartment. Private apartments, such as those in which Holmes and Watson lodge at Baker Street, tended to run 15 to 21s. per week in the less-expensive neighbourhoods, but included only breakfast. We may deduce, therefore, that Watson's share of the cost of lodgings must have been closer to the 7-8s. per day that a boarding house would have cost, although eventually Holmes paid Mrs. Hudson a “princely sum” for the suite ("The Dying Detective").