Monthly Meeting Minutes - 2nd December 2023

Date of Meeting: 2nd December 2023

 

Location of Meeting:

The Sherloft, My House, Portsmouth, UK

 

Attendees:

"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller)

 

Apologies:

I apologise for the hasty distracted nature of this meeting.

 

Presentation:

Paul Thomas Miller (The Entire Canon) presented the following mean-spirited pastiche what he wrote. He explained that he had already rejected the idea of sharing this piece once before because it was at once a horrible bullying sort of thing to write and also rather hypocritical. However, as he was overloaded with other things and struggling to come up with anything new, he had wheeled it out anyway.

The Adventure of the Modern Day, Poorly Researched, Ill Thought Out, Badly Written Pastiche Which Nevertheless Gets Published by a Bad Publisher Who Pumps Out Any Old Crap Without Proof Reading It

(Or “Poorstiche” for short)

It had been a typically hot English March morning in 1902. Mrs Hudson had just cleared away our breakfast of grits and waffles and Holmes and I fell to discussing the announcement that morning that Queen Victoria had just commissioned a sailing vessel named The Titanic on which she planned to travel to America. She was to be accompanied by Irene Adler, the well-known adventuress - because it was an adventure,

Just as Holmes was suggesting that the unsinkable ship might one day prove capable of going around the world in eighty, days, there was a ring at the bell. We heared Mrs. Hudson open the door and this was quickly followed by footsteps clattering up the stairs and the door to our quarters bursting open.

Holmes is not one for surprise, but even he was left speechless by the sight of Sir Winston Churchill – leader of the Labor Party and president of the United Kingdom of Britain – standing they’re upon our threshold. Winston was quite out of breath and could barely keep his cigar in his mouth as he stood panting in our doorway.

Once he was settled in an armchair by the roaring fire with a glass of Pernod and black and some Spam sandwiches, he began to speak.

“I apologize for my appearance, gentlemen, but I have run all the way here from Downing Street to seek your help.”

“Think nothing of it,” replied Holmes, “we are used to such entrances here at 221b. Prey compose yourself and tell us the cause of your consternation.”

“You have heard, no doubt, of the successful experiments in aviation by the Wright brothers in Texas last month?”

“Indeed. It made for rather surreal reading.”

“Well, this clearly marks the beginning of airborne warfare. If we encounter another world war, we need to be able to bomb from the sky better than the communists in Russia.”

Up until this point, I had been able to follow the goings on and largely ignore the anachronisms, Americanisms, errors in spelling, grammar and punctuation, general mistakes about Victorian language and the wilful misinterpretation of the original Canon, but things were about to get much, much worse.

“Naturally. As we, in The West, love, above all things, our democratic freedom, we must all be on guard against the insidious threat of communism as perceived by the current author who will now spend several paragraphs putting their personal barely considered political opinions into the mouths of Watson, Churchill and Holmes.”

…

“Indeed,” replied Holmes again, although I don’t know what he was agreeing with, because I, like any reader who may have foolishly purchased this book, had chosen to skip forward a page.

“In summary, then,” Churchill helpfully interjected, “the prototype of the RAF’s Spitfire plane has been stolen from RAF Digby and we need you to find it. We think it is being held by a group of spies based in the sportsground behind the lecture building of the University of Cambridge.”

“Of course,” said Holmes. “I know all about Spitfires and will now spend two and a half pages talking about them because the author wishes to show off that they have real the WHOLE page about them on Wikipedia.”

…

“So you, see Watson,” said Holmes once I skipped to the start of the next chapter, “that is why we are on this express train to Scotland station: so that we can go to the Lecture Building at The University of Cambridge. Where I will entirely forget who I am and instead become a James Bond like character and battle the forces of something the author isn’t keen on and which Victorians had never heard of.”

“Yes,” I said, although I wasn’t really paying attention because I was thinking about how the font was stupidly large and the text was all double spaced so that the publisher could get away with pretending this short story was a novel and charging accordingly.

When we disembarked at a train station, Mycroft was there to meet us. He was holding a turbo-horse which was towing a hansom cab that we got into through the side doors.. We entered into an in depth discussion of something controversial the author is either massively in favor of or massively against 100 years before a term for it would be invented. The characters present all agreed that it was a black and white issue and allowed no room for the gray middle ground the real world exists in. And then the character who initially thought differently to Holmes rethought their values and agreed with him wholeheartedly. Any pretence to be an attempt at a pastiche was abandoned at this point. But then the author remembered what they were supposed to be doing.

“This is much like the case I wrote up named “The Bruce Partington Plans”, isn’t it Holmes”, I said, so that the reader knows how clever the author is at weaving their story imperceptibly into The Canon.

“The matter is a perfectly trivial one but there are points in connection with it which are not entirely devoid of interest and even of instruction.” said Sherlock. 

“Are you just lifting quotes from The Canon to try to sound more like Arthur Conan Doyle?”

“Yes. Is it working?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because you are using quotes from The Canon that don’t make any sense here.”

“I am next to the apple tree” interrupted someone who we will not mention until much later so that the conversation becomes impossible to follow because you don’t know who is talking to who.

“Thun ’er by thee garn t’pit in thy ‘arrogarb” said someone in an attempt by an American to invoke some sort of imagined regional accent from the Englandish Kingdom.

…

Somewhere in the next chapter, I began paying attention again and was amazed by Holmes’s invention of ninjitsu. Having subdued all the guards,, a love making session was embarked upon that involved any number of the following: Irene Adler, Dr. John H. Watson, Sherlock Holmes, Silver Blaze, Moriarty and…

“Of course!!!,” cried Holmes, interrupting the badly written sex scene.

“What?” I said, wiping off whatever it was I had put into someone or had had put into me.

“I forgot to mention Moriarty! We should go off on a tangent about Moriarty. Everyone loves it when it all turns out to be Moriarty again!”

… 

Skipping to the last page I discovered a resolution which left a dozen loose ends and relied on the supernatural. Or did it? Yes! Or did it? No!  Or did it? Ect.

I retired to bed that evening worn out but unable to sleep due to the sounds of the author waggling their eyebrows pridefullizingly.

 

Any Other Business:

"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) asked whether there was any port. There was no port.

 

Monthly Meeting Minutes - 15th November 2023

Date of Meeting: 15th November 2023

 

Location of Meeting:

The Sherloft, My House, Portsmouth, UK

 

Attendees:

"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller)

 

Apologies:

"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) apologised for being late, explaining that he had had difficulty selecting which cardigan to wear.

Toast:

"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) gave the following toast to a coffee pot:

Coffee-pot, silver-plated,

Polished well and when rotated

Can perform the sneaky trick

Of showing Watson with a stick.

 

Presentation:

"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) presented the following short essay which was made all the better by his excellent choice of cardigan:

Sherlock Holmes and Suitrimony

The 528th sentence of the 12th chapter of The Sign of the Four reads:

“I should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgment.” (SIGN 12:528)

This has always struck me as unusual wording. When someone says “I should not eat chocolate cake, it makes me put on weight,” it is reasonable to interpret this as meaning “I do eat chocolate cake, even though I should not.” This is true in most negative uses of “I should”: “I should not stay in bed until noon,” “I should not tell people my secrets,” “I should stop the killings now.”

So, when Holmes says he “should never marry [him]self,” he is, by inference, telling us that he does marry himself.

Holmes, then, was an autogamous person who indulged in the practice of suitrimony – self-marriage.

But that is not all, the wording of “I should never marry myself” is suggestive of a repeated practice. The unspoken second half of this statement feels as if it should be “but I keep doing it.” So, not only did Holmes enter into a sologamous union with himself, but he repeatedly renewed his vows.

Is there any further evidence in The Canon of Holmes’s egophilia? I submit that there is plenty. Consider the following exchange between Holmes and Watson in the first chapter of The Valley of Fear:

“You have heard me speak of Professor Moriarty?”

“The famous scientific criminal, as famous among crooks as—”

“My blushes, Watson!” Holmes murmured in a deprecating voice.

“I was about to say, as he is unknown to the public.” (VALL 1:19-22)

This would certainly seem to suggest Holmes loves himself. Other such indications of sologamy include the following:

“Well, I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one in the world.” (STUD 2:131-132)

“He knows that I am his superior” (STUD 3:57)

“Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere.” (SIGN 1:31)

“I have a curious constitution. I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely.” (SIGN 8:193-194)

“When I said that you stimulated me I meant, to be frank, that in noting your fallacies I was occasionally guided towards the truth.” (HOUN 1:40)

“Indeed, your example is an unfortunate one for your argument,” said Holmes, taking the paper and glancing his eye down it. “This is the Dundas separation case, and, as it happens, I was engaged in clearing up some small points in connection with it... Take a pinch of snuff, Doctor, and acknowledge that I have scored over you in your example.” (IDEN 1:19-22)

“You know me too well to think that I am boasting when I say that I shall either confirm or destroy his theory by means which he is quite incapable of employing, or even of understanding.” (BOSC 1:85)

“I am the last court of appeal.” (FIVE 1:55)

“I suppose that I am commuting a felony, but it is just possible that I am saving a soul.” (BLUE 1:534)

“I had formed my conclusions as to the case before our client came into the room.” (NOBL 1:289)

“…I am exceptionally strong in the fingers…” (BERY 1:375)

Can one really read all of these statements from Holmes and reach any conclusion other than that he loves himself and wants everyone to know. It is not even a comprehensive list. I am certain the reader can bring one or two other examples of their own to mind. 

Devotees of The Canon will know already that Holmes’s attitude toward women was one of distrust bordering on misogyny. We know, then, that he never had a wife. Indeed, when he retired at a young age, he took himself off to the Sussex Downs where he remained unattached to another person:

“I, my old housekeeper, and my bees have the estate all to ourselves.” (LION 1:14)

The housekeeper would, at this time in English history, certainly have been a woman, who Holmes would have no interest in. Therefore, we can be quite certain that all the marriages Holmes partook of, were to himself and were for love rather than practical reasons.

Now that we can be assured that Holmes did enter in suitrimony, let us consider the sentiment of the original statement as a whole:

“I should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgment.”

Holmes seems to feel the act of suitrimony is somehow a bad thing which will, if he keeps renewing his vows, eventually ruin his ability to deduce, abduce and infer. How could this be?

For starters, there was a legal aspect to consider. Up until 2013, the only legal definition of marriage  in the UK was a union between a man and a woman. Even now, while same sex marriage has been legalised, the only number of people allowed to marry is two. I don’t know what kind of minister Holmes had found who was willing to carry out his marriage ceremonies, but both the minister and Holmes were toying with disgrace and legal action at every wedding of the happy single. This repeated flirting with disaster would be a cause for concern to Holmes. The more often he risked discovery, the more the fear would play on his mind. The more fear played on his mind, the less he would be able to concentrate on his work.

Secondly, Holmes was aware of the effect marriage and romance had upon his male acquaintances. In his early days he had seen what romantic entanglements led to for Butler Brunton (MUSG). This was by no means an isolated tale of woe. Consider the Dundas Separation Case (IDEN), the Gibson marriage (THOR), Ricoletti’s abominable wife (MUSG), Kate Whitney nagging Isa Whitney to give up his hobbies (TWIS), the unfortunate end of Lord Brackenstall's wedded bliss (ABBE), Mrs Barker's life wasted on a marriage built on a lie (CROO). The list of terrible marriages is almost as long as The Canon itself. Holmes, then, was presented with an unfortunately biased view of marriage. Being more likely to see bad marriages than good marriages (due to his line of work) it is understandable that he began to see the entire institution as something to be avoided.

Finally, we have Watson’s own explanation of Holmes’s desire to remain unwed:

“He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer—excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his.” (SCAN 1:7-10)

Holmes believed that by allowing himself to love, he would ruin his ability to think. Much though he strongly wished he could consummate his love for himself, he also wished to resist so that he could continue to be the best reasoner the world has ever known.

However, love will find a way. Holmes did end up marrying himself. Repeatedly. It was, no doubt, his inability to keep from suitrimony which led to Holmes’s early Sussex retirement. In his rural seclusion, he could indulge his fantasy without fear of persecution from onlookers or the need to worry about the detrimental effects a romantic relationship would have on his abilities as a consulting detective.

Any Other Business:

"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) once again wanged on about his new Canonical locations book - Finding Sherlock Holmes which is now available on Amazon:

US - https://a.co/d/hD1ErmO

UK - https://amzn.eu/d/0k0BZRb

(All other countries - just search "Finding Sherlock Holmes" on Amazon. I can't be bothered to do it for you.)

It has already been described as "the greatest book on any subject ever". But that was by "The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) himself, so I'm not sure how reliable that is.

Monthly Meeting Minutes - 21st October 2023

Date of Meeting: 21st October 2023

 

Location of Meeting:

The Sherloft, My House, Portsmouth, UK

 

Attendees:

"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller)

 

Apologies:

None.

 

Presentation:

"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) presented the following hastily compiled essay which he pulled together just so that there could be an October meeting. It is very far from his best work:

Holmes and His Friends

 

“Why,” said I, glancing up at my companion, “that was surely the bell. Who could come to-night? Some friend of yours, perhaps?”

“Except yourself I have none,” he answered.

 

In FIVE - set in 1887 - Holmes was explicit that he was a friendless man. Yet, four years later, during FINA, in 1891, his note to Watson betrays a change in the situation:

 

“ I am pleased to think that I shall be able to free society from any further effects of his presence, though I fear that it is at a cost which will give pain to my friends, and especially, my dear Watson, to you.”

 

Note the plural: “…my friends…”. What could have changed so much in the four years between these cases?

 

The obvious suggestion would seem to be that this is the influence of sharing accommodation with Dr. Watson. We might propose that through the social-life and sociability of his flatmate, Holmes was brought into contact with more people in social settings. This in turn led to him becoming more sociable himself. But this theory does not hold water. Holmes and Watson had moved in together in 1881 (some scholars suggest 1882, but they are wrong). By the time of FIVE, they had been together six years. In all this time, Watson remained Holmes’s only friend. Clearly Watson had no effect on Holmes in this time. Why should the next five years be any different. Indeed, in July 1888, Watson married Mary Morstan and moved out of 221b (some scholars suggest other dates, but they are wrong). It was, therefore, in the years that Watson was absent from 221b that Holmes became more sociable.

 

It seems more likely that Holmes’s level of sociability was linked to his drug use. We know that in SIGN, Holmes was a user of cocaine and morphine. But in MISS, Watson claims to have weaned him from his drug mania. Perhaps, once clean, Holmes became a more sociable person. To be sure, we must look at the dates. SIGN, like FIVE, is an 1887 adventure. This, then, was a year when Holmes was using drugs a lot - in SIGN, he had been injecting himself with one substance or another three times a day for many months. MISS appears to be set subsequent to the return of Holmes from the Great Hiatus as it is part of the Return of Sherlock Holmes collection. Indeed, internal evidence in the story suggests a 1904 date (some scholars suggest other dates, and they might be right). It is difficult, therefore, to be sure from this whether Holmes was clean before or after the incident at The Reichenbach Falls.

We do know from TWIS - set in June 1889 - Holmes was still a user then. When Watson finds Holmes in an opium den, Holmes remarks:

 

“I suppose, Watson… 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.”

 

This serves as an admission that Holmes seems to be using cocaine still but, it also suggests he is registering Watson’s advice. Note also that morphine has ceased to be mentioned. Indeed, the same is true in SCAN - set in 1888. Watson says:

 

“Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature.”

 

There are several points of relevance here: firstly, Holmes is no longer using morphine and the frequency his drug use is less than it was the previous year. But also, Holmes still loathes society and, it follows, being sociable. So, while Watson was beginning to wean Holmes off the drugs, his friendships had not yet started to increase.

(In support of this, 1888 also seems to be the year of GREE (some scholars suggest other dates, but they are wrong), in which Holmes confessed that he enjoyed the unsociable atmosphere of the Diogenes Club.)

The big clue on when Holmes quit drug abuse, for my money, comes from COPP. The story opens with a bored and grumpy Holmes in need of a case:

 

“Sherlock Holmes had been silent all the morning, dipping continuously into the advertisement columns of a succession of papers until at last, having apparently given up his search, he had emerged in no very sweet temper to lecture me upon my literary shortcomings.”

 

This is a very bored Holmes being incredibly tetchy. A Holmes in this predicament in 1887 would have reached straight for the needle. Here, he did not. This strongly suggests that Watson had weaned Holmes from his drug-mania by the time of this story. WIth the case set in March 1891 (some scholars suggest other dates, but they are wrong), this is just two months prior to FINA. My conclusion, then, is that the “years” Watson spent weaning Holmes from his drug-mania were 1888 - 1891. These are also the very same years during which Holmes went from considering himself friendless to having friends.

So, with the dates matching up, all that remains is to find out if is it possible that cocaine use could result in someone becoming friendless and vice-versa? For me, it seems entirely plausible. The use of cocaine produces a euphoric high and an increase in alertness and energy. The user tends to feel invigorated, energized, and invincible. As a result, they become incredibly annoying to any sober person unfortunate enough to be in their presence. Then, when the drug wears off, they crash and suffer symptoms such as paranoia, depression, and anxiety - conditions not conducive to a sociable manner. These extremes of high-annoying-twat and low-miserable-bugger could very easily make a person friendless.

Of course, there are many cocaine users in modern society who manage to get along perfectly well in everyday life. I have acquaintances who have been regular recreational users and they were certainly never without friends. But Holmes was not a normal man - he was a genius and was already set apart from the rest of society by his intellect. Added to this, many commentators have found good evidence in the Canon to support the theory that Holmes was neuro-divergent in some manner. Diagnoses vary from scholar to scholar but popular candidates are bi-polar disorder and/or autism. These are both conditions which also have an effect an individual’s sociability.

In his, case, then, the unsociable side effects of cocaine use would be on top of a genius which separated him from most people and a neuro-diversity which made it difficult for him to socialise. By removing the cocaine from the equation, Holmes had less to contend with and he began to feel able to turn some of his acquaintances into friendships.

We can see one example of this in Lestrade. When Watson first met Lestrade, it was through a case  Holmes was called in on back in 1881 (STUD). There was no love lost between them - Holmes originally claimed to only be taking on the case to laugh at Gregson and Lestrade as they quarreled with each other and throughout the account he takes several opportunities to belittle Lestrade. Lestrade, in return, seems to harbour considerable resentment for Holmes and, at the end of the case, has little compunction about taking the credit for the case and leaving Holmes in the shadows. Over time, this attitude softens on both sides. In SIXN, set in 1900 (some scholars suggest other years, but they are wrong), Lestrade starts the account just hanging out at 221b as a chum. He then ends the case by praising Holmes so highly it moves the normally repressed Holmes emotionally.

The pained friends Holmes refers to in his 1891 Reichenbach note no doubt included many new acquaintances too (Shinwell, Pike and Mercer, perhaps) but an awful lot of them would be people he had already known for a long time who found his company a good deal more tolerable once Watson had weaned him off of cocaine. Lestrade was definitely one of these, but other examples most likely include the likes of Hudson, Baynes and Bradstreet. All in all, by the time he met Moriarty on that cliff edge, the preceding two years of sobriety meant that many more than just Dr. John H. Watson mourned the loss of a good Friend.

Any Other Business:

"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) started droning on about his new book - Finding Sherlock Holmes - and how it has just been published, just because it is the best book ever written about Canonical locations. It is available on Amazon:

US - https://a.co/d/hD1ErmO

UK - https://amzn.eu/d/0k0BZRb

All other countries - just search "Finding Sherlock Holmes" on Amazon. What am I? Your mother? Tsk.

Monthly Meeting Minutes - 1st September 2023

Date of Meeting: 1st September 2023

 

Location of Meeting:

The Sherloft, My House, Portsmouth, UK

 

Attendees:

"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller)

 

Apologies:

None.

 

Presentation:

"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) presented the following paper about the true identity of Dr John H Watson:

 

Who is Dr. John H. Watson?

 

Several times in The Canon, Sherlock Holmes appears to read Watson’s mind. He explains how he produced the effect afterwards, but it all seems rather magical anyway. Furthermore, we never see him make such accomplished readings of anyone else. Indeed, in the case of Helen Stoner, he couldn’t even tell the difference between shivering from cold and shivering from terror. Sure, we get him “deducing” Grant Munro’s name by reading it in the lining of his hat. There’s a moderately impressive reading of Jabez Wilson too, in which he sees snuff powder and deduces he takes snuff and a freemason pin and deduces he is a freemason and a Chinese tattoo and deduces he has been to China. But this all pales into insignificance next to the inferences he makes about Watson.

Take their first meeting as an example. Sherlock confidently states that Watson has just returned from Afghanistan. Later he explains how he deduced this. Within his chain of reasoning is the following unusual statement: “Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of a military man. Clearly an army doctor, then.” What on Earth is a “medical type” or “the air of a military man”? These meaningless explanations are quickly passed over and it is easy to take them at face value. But they simply do not make sense. It is as if Holmes himself cannot explain how he achieved his results.

These moments occur repeatedly throughout The Canon. Remember the opening mind-reading scene from The Cardboard Box (later transposed onto the front of The Resident Patient). Apparently, from seeing Watson putting a paper down, looking around the room and moving his lips, Holmes was able to infer that Watson was reflecting on war and its futility. The entire scene stretches credulity.

Other examples include the clairvoyant identification of Watson examining Mortimer’s stick in The Hound of the Baskervilles. This is explained by Holmes apparently managing to watch Watson’s reflection in a teapot without Watson noticing. In The Sign of the Four Holmes manages to relate the entire life story of Watson’s brother from a brief viewing of a freshly cleaned watch. In The Dancing Men, he knows exactly where Watson has been and what his financial plans are because he has a chalk mark on his hand. Not only does this sound preposterous, even the identification of the chalk mark makes little sense when we know his attention had been upon a chemical experiment and not Watson’s hand prior to his deductive tirade.

In summary then, Holmes seems to be able to read Watson in a way he never replicates with other people. So, what is going on here? The three obvious explanations are easily dismissed. Firstly, the accounts are to be taken at face value. For some reason, Sherlock Holmes is truly able to pluck these “deductions” about Watson from trifles, but he chooses never to replicate this ability with anyone else. I think I have already demonstrated that this is not the case.

Secondly, Sherlock Holmes can read Dr John H. Watson’s mind psychically. As telepathy is impossible, this cannot be the answer. (At this point, there will be those among my readers who exclaim that I am silly sceptic and telepathy IS possible. I respond “No it isn’t. Don’t be telepathetic.”)

The third explanation that may be offered is that the written accounts are wrong, either Holmes may have deceived Watson as to the real way he achieved his results or Watson exaggerated Holmes’s results in his writings. This is tantamount to sacrilegious. Watson and Holmes are alike in that they are true gentlemen – knowingly lying to or about each other is beneath them both.

That rules out the impossible. Now we must consider the improbable. That is, Sherlock Holmes can see what is going on in Dr John H. Watson’s mind because they share one mind. I propose that Sherlock Holmes and Dr John H. Watson were the same person. I further propose that neither of the pair were aware of this fact. In short, I propose a theory of Split Watsonality. That is, unknown to Holmes and Watson, Sherlock Holmes’s personality split, creating Watson as a secondary persona.

It may be asked why I believe Holmes conceived Watson and not the other way around. There are good reasons for this. Watson arrived from Afghanistan conveniently with “neither kith nor kin in England”. Holmes, on the other hand, at the very least has a brother who shares Sherlock’s surname. Holmes then, is more anchored in reality. He has a verifiable backstory. Watson has very few people to vouch for his existence prior to meeting Sherlock Holmes.

Furthermore, it makes more sense for the genius – Holmes – to have the mental capacity to create the everyman – Watson – than it does the reverse. Consider how Holmes speaks about his mind throughout The Canon. When he gets bored, he says it is “like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built,” (WIST). In The Sign of the Four he is shown resorting to drug use to relieve his boredom. (Note, that this was only shortly after the creation of the Watson persona and that later in The Canon, Watson would take credit for weaning Holmes off drug abuse). There are also a few references in The Canon to Holmes wanting to abandon mental stimuli and retire to a quiet spot in the country. For example, in The Creeping Man he stated, “It's surely time that I disappeared into that little farm of my dreams.” A desire he, apparently, did fulfil when he eventually retired to the Sussex coast to keep bees.

Bearing this in mind, it is easy to see how Holmes, in the quiet early days of his career, lacking the stimuli his racing engine brain needed, might have cracked. I’m no expert on mental health issues, but I see no reason not to admit the possibility that a cracked genius brain could create a split personality. Desirous of some tranquillity, Holmes’s unconscious mind created the Watson persona. Neither the Holmes persona nor the Watson persona were aware of this. But when the Holmes persona thought he got “in the dumps at times, and [didn’t open his] mouth for days on end” he was really allowing the Watson persona to take over and think at a more normal pace. And when Watson persona thought he was waiting around at 221b for his friend to arrive he was actually in a mental limbo while the Holmes persona took over, went out and got things done.

After conceiving this idea, I found a few other problems of The Canon also began to resolve themselves.

Watson’s journey home in A Study in Scarlet doesn’t quite add up. He goes through an awful lot between the Battle of Maiwand (27th July 1880) and Holmes discussing his Book of Life article (4th March 1881). In less than a year, he fought in a very famous battle, recovered from a bullet wound and then contracted and recovered from enteric fever. On its own, this is improbable, but he also claims that he then arrived in Portsmouth aboard the troopship Orontes. The HMS Orontes was a real enough ship. Indeed, it was also reasonably famous as it had been used to bring Louis Napoleon’s body back from the Zulu War in 1879. However, as Percy Metcalfe observed many moons ago, the Orontes only made a trip from Bombay to Portsmouth once between the Battle of Maiwand and March 1882. It left Bombay on 31st October 1880 and arrived in Portsmouth on 26th November. Now, there is absolutely no way Watson could have recovered from a bullet wound and then enteric fever in just three months, so as to be able to return to England aboard this vessel. What is possible is that Holmes’s subconscious constructed a back story for the Watson persona based on a recent famous battle, and a recently docked famous ship. Without knowing it, that’s the real reason the Holmes persona knew so much about the Watson persona at their first meeting. It was a result of sharing the one mind. Which explains why Holmes claims “the train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind, that I arrived at the conclusion without being conscious of intermediate steps.” What really happened was the Holmes persona imagined it all and as he did so it became true for the Watson persona. When he later tried to explain how he came to his conclusion, he came out with his guff about “medical types” and “the air of a military man”. The Watson persona didn’t question this nonsense because it was as invested in the charade as the Holmes persona, though this was not on a conscious level for either of them.

“But what of Stamford?” I hear you cry. He introduced them. He spoke to them both. Surely he would have noticed if they were the same person! In fact, he is one of the few characters in The Canon who knows Watson from before he met Holmes. If Stamford knew Watson before Holmes did, Watson can’t be a figment of Holmes’s imagination. Well, yes. Yes he can. If Stamford, similarly never existed.

Consider the amount of coincidence needed for the Criterion story to be true. Watson and Holmes had to both know the same man. Watson and Holmes both had to be drawn to London. (Remember that Holmes’s “ancestors were country squires”. Either he or someone in his ancestry must’ve made the move from the countryside to London). Watson and Holmes both had to say to the same person on the same day that they were looking for somewhere to live on a budget. In fact, Stamford claims they both used the exact same phrase:

“Looking for lodgings,” [Watson] answered. “Trying to solve the problem as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable price.”

“That's a strange thing,” remarked [Stamford]; “you are the second man to-day that has used that expression to me.”

Now, “Trying to solve the problem as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable price.” is hardly a common expression that trips lightly from the lips of all English speakers. It is a very specific sentence formed by a specific person. And yet Stamford claims that both Holmes and Watson – very different people in personality – used this exact same phrase on the exact same day while speaking to the exact same person without any knowledge of the other person. Inconceivable.

So, what really happened? I suggest that Stamford was another figment of Holmes’s cracked mind. He was little more than an extra in his delusion who appeared solely to introduce the two fully formed personas in his split personality. Stamford was little more than an excuse for the Holmes persona to meet the Watson persona. Stamford was a very two-dimensional character that allowed the two full personas to know about each other, live together and thereby give the original Holmes’s subconscious a way to cool off – by periodically becoming the Watson persona.

Consider the opening of The Reigate Squires. Holmes persona is in the Hotel Dulong recovering from the extreme efforts he put into investigating and thwarting the colossal schemes of Baron Maupertuis. Watson persona travels from London to Lyons to help him recover. Why were they separated for this investigation in the first place? Elsewhere in The Canon, Holmes claims to be lost without his Boswell? The answer is that the Maupertuis case was so involved and difficult that there was no time to indulge in the Watson persona for any rest. He had to keep in full-on Holmes mode to triumph – which he did, but at a cost to his mental health. Thus, the moment the case was resolved, Watson persona magically found its way to Lyons within twenty-four hours and took over. It took three days of Watsoning for this split mind to heal itself and return to Baker Street.

A lot of the mysteries concerning The Great Hiatus also begin to make sense when we apply the Split Watsonality Theory to them. Some of the more troubling ones for me have been:

1. Why did Moriarty not just shoot Holmes? He’s supposed to be a scheming villain. It is improbable that he would leave his fate to a clifftop brawl with a younger, fitter man when a revolver could settle the issue more assuredly.

2. Why were no bodies found?

3. Why did Holmes pretend to be dead for three years to fool Moriarty’s gang when Colonel Sebastian Moran saw him survive?

4. How did Holmes manage to solve the Wisteria Lodge business in 1892, right bang slap in the middle of The Great Hiatus?

Seen as an extreme episode of Holmes’s split personalities, all this can be explained. Holmes’s battle of wits with Moriarty was even more taxing than the Maupertuis affair. At the start of The Final Problem Watson persona imagined himself hardly seeing Holmes. He explains this to himself as having been married and setting himself up in active practice. He claims to have only seen Holmes for three cases in 1890 and had not seen him at all in 1891 until the start of this story. This is nonsense. The Holmes persona was once again taking dominance in the real world. This was due to the mental demands of dealing with Moriarty. The Watson persona was effectively on the back burner in the shared mind and was granted a mundane imaginary existence while Holmes persona got the work done. Eventually he succeeded, reunited with Watson persona, and took himself off to the continent while the police finished things up. The police did successfully finish everything off. Moriarty was captured. Moran may have escaped the net, but he did not pursue Holmes across Europe. He stayed in London and kept his head down.

What Watson persona reported – the chase and confrontation with Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls – was all imagined. As with his collapse after catching Maupertuis, after dealing with Moriarty the Holmes persona needed a rest. Subconsciously, he’d hoped a holiday in the peaceful Alps with Watson persona for company might do the trick. But it was much worse this time. Moriarty’s machinations had almost ruined Holmes’s mental health. Holmes persona needed to let Watson persona take over for a good long while. This is why his subconscious constructed the ludicrous ending to The Final Problem. Watson persona was lured away by an imaginary boy with a letter – neither existed, they just got Watson persona out of the way. With Holmes persona in full control again, his subconscious conjured up a scenario in which Holmes persona could be allowed to die. That is why Moriarty used such a bizarre method of attack. That is why Moriarty bizarrely allowed Holmes to write a note before they fought. That’s why Moriarty’s body was never found. Moriarty was never there – it all happened in Holmes’s mind as he prepared to take a step back from existence.

Proof of Holmes’s death had to be available to the Watson persona. This is why Watson persona suddenly became an expert on reading footprints – a skill he had never demonstrated before this moment. Watson persona was essentially borrowing this skill from the Holmes part of their shared mind. But the subconscious Holmes mind knowingly left himself a door open to return, too. He knew his body would never be found. This would leave room for doubt about his death so that if the split mind ever managed to repair itself sufficiently, the Holmes persona could potentially return.

Three years would pass before that amazing mind could safely allow Holmes persona to properly return. In the meantime, it allowed Watson persona to fully assume control. A less taxing existence, though still a noble and gentlemanly one, gave that mind the rest it needed. Finally, when the time was right for the return of the Holmes persona, Watson’s imaginary wife was killed off and the stage was set for a return to Baker Street.

As for the Moran story – this was conjured up as an explanation for where Holmes had been. Both personas believed Holmes had to keep his existence secret from the remains of Moriarty’s gang. The inconsistencies in Holmes’s preposterous tale of Moran seeing him survive at the falls and his tall tale about impossible travels to inaccessible places weren’t noticed by either personae because their shared subconscious did not want to notice them. But, in reality, Moran had escaped arrest. Instead of being locked up with Moriarty, Moran was still at large and was a threat to the British public. Holmes’s mind (still ticking away at a bare minimum amount somewhere behind the Watson persona) knew this and knew Moran had to be stopped. This is why Watson persona felt the urge to investigate the Adair murder. But the Watson persona was not up to the task. And so, the Holmes persona had to be revived.

This provides an acceptable explanation for the business of Wisteria Lodge, too. Scott Eccles was unaware that Holmes was supposed to be dead when he sent a telegram to him. Somehow it found its way into the hands of the Watson persona. The Holmes mind recognised the importance of this matter and had to come back to sort matters out. Which it did. And Watson persona never questioned this, because subconsciously their shared mind did not want him to. After the job was done, Holmes persona faded away again to allow the mind to continue recovering.

This theory also provides an explanation for the many marriages of Dr John H Watson. A strict reading of the dates in The Canon suggests that Watson was in a constant state of flux with regards to matrimony. Without getting bogged down in tedious chronology here, there are occasions when Watson seems to be married one month, a bachelor the next and then his is off being married again a few weeks later. If you take the dates The Canon as accurate, it is impossible to arrive at fewer than six marriages for the good doctor.

Under Split Watsonality Theory we see an easy explanation: the marriages weren’t real. They were a subconsciously created excuse for the absence of Watson persona whenever the Holmes persona had to take dominance.

It makes sense of other matters too. Why was Watson’s cheque-book locked in Holmes’s drawer? Because they were the same person. Why do the two accounts Holmes wrote up sound so much like the accounts Watson wrote up? Because they are the same person. Why did his wife call John Watson “James”? Because she didn’t exist, and it wasn’t an important enough detail for the subconscious mind to bother getting right. (That whole business with Isa and Kate Whitney never happened. It was just a subconscious explanation for both personas for why Watson would suddenly appear in an opium den).

The issue of Watson’s knowledge of Moriarty now begins to make some sense. Most Sherlockians will already be aware of this problem: in The Final Problem (set in 1891) Watson clearly states he had never heard of Moriarty before but in The Valley of Fear (set in 1887) he clearly states he knows all about Moriarty. This means that four years after knowing a great deal about Holmes’s nemesis, Watson has never heard of him before. In terms of Split Watsonality Theory this may be explained as the Watson persona always knowing (or not knowing) what the Holmes persona needs it to know (or not know). In 1887 Holmes persona found it useful for Watson to already know all the facts he knew. In 1891, in preparation for his big assault on the Moriarty empire, Holmes persona found it useful to go over all the facts again and so Watson persona knew nothing. Neither persona ever questioned this because the subconscious split mind quietly orchestrating all this did not want them too – it was in neither of their interests.

Also, it seems there is now an explanation for why Holmes resented Watson’s 1903 wife more than any other. At the beginning of The Blanched Soldier Holmes persona complains that “The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action which I can recall in our association. I was alone.” As I have previously stated, Holmes persona had already been abandoned for a wife by Watson persona at least five other times. He had never reacted so badly to it before. What was different this time? 1903 seems to be the year that Holmes persona is winding down. It is the same year he took on the business of The Creeping Man, a story in which he was forced to confront the effects of aging, and which lead him to complain of himself “…what a fool I have been!... It's surely time that I disappeared into that little farm of my dreams.” Here the Holmes persona is admitting that his abilities were fading. We may assume then, that his mind’s ability to create more than one persona was also fading. And that was fine, as the slowing of the Holmes mind meant that Watson was no longer required. So, in 1903 when the Holmes mind imagined Watson persona leaving to be elsewhere, it knew that this time it would be a more permanent arrangement. Holmes did retire to the Sussex coast and kept bees in solitude. Now that his racing engine mind had calmed down to a chugging-along-quietly engine, he was able to function healthily this way. Watson persona faded due a lessening of need and a lessening of ability. Perhaps Holmes’s distress was a bit uncalled for - Watson persona had not entirely disappeared. In Lion’s Mane Holmes says that the Watson persona still paid Holmes persona “occasional week-end visit”. But this was rare. Indeed, Holmes states that “the good Watson had passed almost beyond my ken”.

Still, his country retreat must have done Holmes some good. When circumstances required it, in 1912 he was able to step up to active life again. For two years he became an entirely different person – Altamont, a bitter Irish-American spy working for the Germans. In light of Split Watsonality Theory, this incredible ability to become a totally different person for protracted periods of time does not seem so remarkable.

Now all those moments in The Canon when Watson is sat around bored waiting for Holmes to return can be seen for what they are – Holmes persona taking dominance and Watson persona taking a back seat. Equally, all that time in The Hound of the Baskervilles when Watson is alone on Dartmoor are simply moments when Holmes persona was resting and letting Watson persona take over. While I don’t believe either persona ever realised that they were the same person, there are moments when one or other of them seem uncomfortable about both simultaneously being around other people. For example, at the beginning of one of their early case, A Scandal in Bohemia, Watson is very keen to leave the room before the King of Bohemia arrives:

“I think that I had better go, Holmes.”

“Not a bit, Doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell. And this promises to be interesting. It would be a pity to miss it.”

“But your client—”

Bearing Split Watsonality Theory in mind, this comes across as if the Holmes mind is battling with itself about how to proceed. On some level Watson persona knows it cannot be in the room at the same time as Holmes persona and a real person. However, Holmes persona wants its security blanket.

So how did they resolve this issue. The Canon is littered with moments where both personas are interacting with real people. This is surely the biggest problem that Split Watsonality Theory faces. I think there may have been a mixture of explanations.

No doubt Mycroft Holmes realised what was going on (i.e., Sherlock had a split personality), but never said anything to his brother to dissuade him of his delusion. Mycroft was even more intelligent than Sherlock. He would have been able to understand not only what was going on, but why it was happening. To keep his brother functioning, he played along with the dual existence of Holmes and Watson. He might have even explained the situation to a select few of Sherlock’s closest allies – Mrs Hudson and Lestrade seem likely to have been taken into Mycroft’s confidence. Perhaps even the irregulars were informed.

It is also possible that the subconscious Holmes mind kept the two personas safe by conducting an awful lot of events in imagination rather than reality. Conversations with clients might not have happened in reality quite the same way that the two personas were perceiving them. As an example, let us consider the famous closing scenes of The Three Garridebs. Killer Evans emerged from a trapdoor to find he had been caught in the act. Watson was shot by Killer Evans. Killer Evans was knocked out by Holmes. Holmes rushed to assist Watson while shouting at Killer Evans about the fate of his friend. Clearly things couldn’t have truly happened this way if Holmes and Watson shared one body. That body could not be lying on the floor shot at the same time as knocking out a villain.

However, I propose that what really happened is the following. Killer Evans emerged from the trapdoor to see that Holmes was waiting for him. In a panic he fired off a shot that went massively wide. The bullet hit nothing, but Holmes persona imagined it hitting Watson persona. Imaginary Watson persona fell to the floor while Holmes persona – in control of the body – incapacitated Killer Evans. Holmes persona then started talking to someone Killer Evans couldn’t see and shouting about Killer Evans shooting someone Killer Evans couldn’t see. When Killer Evans later tried to tell people that Sherlock Holmes was stark staring mad, no one was interested. I suspect there are similar explanations available for many other such moments in The Canon.

Other such moments may have happened entirely in the imaginations of the two personas. It is possible that some people they interacted with were completely imagined. It is also possible that Holmes’s odd behaviour was also just thought to be that of an eccentric genius by many of his clients. Certainly, the many moments in The Canon when Holmes and Watson were both interacting with someone at the same time do not have to mean they could not be the same person. All it has to mean is that Watson and Holmes probably perceived those events differently to everyone else.

In conclusion, I believe Holmes and Watson were the same person. I believe that neither Holmes nor Watson were aware that they were the same person. And I believe that Split Watsonality Theory solves more problems in The Canon than it creates. In which case, I propose we all close our eyes and recite the new rules of Sherlockiana:

Rule One – You do not talk about Baker Street.

Rule Two – You do NOT talk about Baker Street…

 

Any Other Business:

"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) asked whether there was any beer. There was no beer.