Date of Meeting: 24th January 2023
Location of Meeting:
The Sherloft, My House, Portsmouth, UK
Attendees:
"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller)
Apologies:
"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) is sorry he ever ever started this obsession.
Motions:
"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) gave a condescending wave of his hand to indicate he was happy to proceed.
Presentation:
"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) presented the following paper on why Holmes is so boring:
What Does It Mean to be a Consulting Detective?
The way Sherlock Holmes conducted the majority of his work seems to have been forgotten by the general public. Even some scholars of The Great Detective seem to ignore his bread-and-butter work. People have asked, for example, how Holmes funded his lifestyle when his investigations seem to take so long and he frequently accepts no payment for his services. Others have asked how Holmes could possibly fit in the many cases which Watson frequently suggests he undertook.
For example: “…I have notes of many hundreds of cases…” (SECO), “…a travel-worn and battered tin dispatch-box… crammed with papers, nearly all of which are records of cases…” (THOR), “…I have a mass of material at my command…” (VEIL).
When cases such as The Hound of the Baskervilles seem to have taken several weeks to solve, it seems unlikely that Watson could amass very much in the way of records during the “seventeen [years Watson] was allowed to cooperate with [Holmes] and to keep notes of his doings” (VEIL).
This, of course, neglects the bread-and-butter work Holmes performed. Indeed, before Watson arrived on the scene, Holmes was far more like his brother Mycroft – a sedentary character, processing data and returning his verdict. Remember those first days in Baker Street when Watson was still trying to figure out what Holmes’s occupation was:
During the first week or so we had no callers, and I had begun to think that my companion was as friendless a man as I was myself. Presently, however, I found that he had many acquaintances, and those in the most different classes of society. There was one little sallow rat-faced, dark-eyed fellow who was introduced to me as Mr. Lestrade, and who came three or four times in a single week. One morning a young girl called, fashionably dressed, and stayed for half an hour or more. The same afternoon brought a grey-headed, seedy visitor, looking like a Jew pedlar, who appeared to me to be much excited, and who was closely followed by a slipshod elderly woman. On another occasion an old white-haired gentleman had an interview with my companion; and on another a railway porter in his velveteen uniform. When any of these nondescript individuals put in an appearance, Sherlock Holmes used to beg for the use of the sitting-room, and I would retire to my bed-room. He always apologized to me for putting me to this inconvenience. "I have to use this room as a place of business," he said, "and these people are my clients." (STUD)
Finally, Holmes confesses that he is “a consulting detective”. And it seems odd to me that, while most Holmesians can state this fact confidently, many seem to forget what it actually means. Policemen, private detectives and the general public DO come to him with their problems and mysteries. However, in most cases he does not run around investigating and solving the cases which are brought to him. He states this very clearly:
"I listen to their story, they listen to my comments, and then I pocket my fee." (STUD)
This is Holmes’s main source of income: short consultations for which he pockets a fee. He could certainly fit in a good many of these consultations per day, and it may well have proved highly profitable for him. Indeed, until Watson arrived on the scene, this was his preferred method of working. This can be seen by his admission that he can’t solve all cases without leaving his room – that occasionally he is forced to get out and seek data himself:
“Now and again a case turns up which is a little more complex. Then I have to bustle about and see things with my own eyes. You see I have a lot of special knowledge which I apply to the problem, and which facilitates matters wonderfully.” (STUD)
It is clear from his wording that these active cases are the exception. Far more frequently, we can infer, he can solve the whole matter from his chair.
Most of our evidence for this early consulting detective work comes from one account – A Study in Scarlet. There is scant information about Holmes’s doings before this case. This is largely due to A Study in Scarlet being the adventure in which Holmes met his biographer – Dr John H. Watson. There are only two cases in The Canon which precede STUD. These are ‘The Gloria Scott’ and ‘The Musgrave Ritual’.
‘The Gloria Scott’ is not tremendously salient to this discussion as it is set before Sherlock Holmes became a detective. Indeed, it isn’t really a “case” at all, Holmes just happened to be at hand when some mysterious events took place and was then summoned back by a friend who needed him. However, his actions in the case are indicative of how he would later conduct himself when he set up in business. All we see him do in terms of detective work is consider the evidence placed before him and give his findings. There is no running about, examining the scene of the crime or setting traps. He is, in essence, merely consulted.
‘The Musgrave Ritual’, however, is a different kettle of fish. Holmes is very active in this case. Here, he travels to the site of the mystery where he performs physical investigations to arrive at a solution. However, upon examining the text it can be seen that Musgrave never expected Holmes to take such an active role. After seeing the Musgrave Ritual itself and determining that is was essentially a treasure map, Holmes has to seek Reginald Musgrave’s permission to visit his home: “…with your permission we will take the first train down to Sussex, and go a little more deeply into the matter upon the spot.” Indeed, all that Musgrave ever asked of Holmes was that he try to throw some light upon what he considered to be an inexplicable business. It seems, that even early on in his career, Holmes was aiming for the role of a consulting detective rather than a private investigator, and that his clients were aware of this.
In fact, ‘The Musgrave Ritual’ provides some evidence that by Watson’s time, Holmes was very much established not as a consultant. Near the start of the account, he says to the good doctor: “You see me now when my name has become known far and wide, and when I am generally recognized both by the public and by the official force as being a final court of appeal in doubtful cases.” Note he claims to be recognised as a “court of appeal”. That is, he is well known as someone who considers the facts presented to him and offers his advice, as opposed to someone who actively investigates and brings things to a conclusion.
From what I can see, when I read A Study in Scarlet, the only reason Holmes became more interested in his occasional active cases was because Watson showed him that they could be good fun. His decision to visit the scene of the first murder is preceded by the business regarding ‘The Book of Life’. This was a magazine article which Holmes brought to the attention of Watson. Unaware that Holmes was the author of the piece, Watson pooh-poohed the notion that an observant man could tell a great deal about other people just by looking at them. After some discussion of the topic, the Lauriston Garden Mystery is brought to Holmes’s attention. His first reaction is to say he is unlikely to attend the scene of the crime because he is “…the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather…”. Suddenly he changes his mind and says he will go, but he insists that Watson should accompany him. Although it is not explicitly stated, this has always read to me as if Holmes was only prepared to actively investigate this case in order to prove a point to Watson. He wanted to show his companion the truth of his claims in ‘The Book of Life’. There follows a good deal of investigating, hunting, induction, abduction, deduction, trap setting, and fighting. By the end of all this activity Watson is forced to accept the truth of Holmes’s article. But it goes both ways: Holmes is forced to admit something too. He says that he “would not have missed the investigation for anything. There has been no better case within my recollection. Simple as it was, there were several most instructive points about it.” Or to put it more plainly – he had fun. It was Watson, then, who gave Holmes a reason to conduct the occasional active case.
In The Canon we are mostly being given an insight into the rare cases - those which Holmes embarked upon, not because they were his bread-and-butter work, but because he found them fun. The disguises and tricks of ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’, the trap setting of ‘The Red-Headed League’ and the fisticuffs and gunfire of ‘The Solitary Cyclist’ are all examples of cases Holmes took on so that he and Watson could have fun.
That said, there are parts of The Canon which show Holmes performing his consultancy work. ‘A Case of Identity’, for example, is very much an account of a consulting detective at work. Holmes is given most of the evidence by Mary Sutherland, he sends telegrams to collect the remaining details and then he presents his solution (albeit to the wrong person). There is no activity on his part. He solves the case exactly how he told Watson he solves most crimes: “There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds, and if you have all the details of a thousand at your finger ends, it is odd if you can't unravel the thousand and first,” (STUD). Compare this with what he says of Mary Sutherland’s problem: “…her little problem, which, by the way, is rather a trite one. You will find parallel cases, if you consult my index, in Andover in '77, and there was something of the sort at The Hague last year.” Indeed, Holmes’s work as a consultant is hinted at in many of the other Canonical accounts. Frequently the tales start with Holmes in a very passive role until events force him to take physical action. We see this, for example, in ‘The Five Orange Pips’, ‘The Copper Beeches’, ‘The Greek Interpreter’ and ‘The Dancing Men’. I am sure these are not the only examples.
All this said, it is understandable that people forget what Holmes really did for a living. His consultancy work would generally have made for a very dull narrative: someone comes in, Holmes listens to their problem and then tells them the solution. Even Watson would have a hard time making an exciting read out of them. Indeed, Watson said in ‘Thor Bridge’, regarding the case notes to be found in his tin dispatch box: “Some, and not the least interesting, were complete failures…” In saying that the failures were not “the least interesting” he is also indicating that at least some of the cases were not interesting. In ‘The Veiled Lodger’ he admits to us that when picking which cases he would write up from the many in his notes “the problem has always been not to find but to choose.” Given that he had some amount of choice, it is hardly likely that Watson would choose the dull cases to write up. This is what leads us to an incorrect bias in our picture of Holmes at work. To summarise:
- The majority of Holmes’s work was consultancy work. A small amount of his work was active.
- The consultancy work tended to be unexciting.
- Watson only wrote about Holmes’s exciting work.
- Therefore, Watson only wrote about the uncharacteristically active or exciting cases.
- Watson was Holmes’s sole biographer.
- Therefore, the student of Holmesiana only has Watson’s account to judge Holmes by.
- Therefore, the student of Holmesiana only has the uncharacteristically active or exciting cases as evidence of Holmes’s methods.
- Therefore, the student of Holmesiana comes to regard Holmes as a much more active detective than the passive consulting detective he really was.
It is Holmes running across the moor to save a man from a demon dog that we are familiar with, not the unrecorded consultant charging a healthy fee for a brief conversation. But by neglecting his boring day-to-day work, we are remembering a fraction of the man as he really was. This is what leads us to forget exactly what Holmes meant when he called himself “a consulting detective”.
The alert Holmesian will no doubt take issue with my claim above that Watson was Holmes’s sole biographer. Rightly so. ‘The Blanched Soldier’ and ‘The Lion’s Mane’ are, of course, auto-biographical accounts of Holmes’s adventures. ‘The Lion’s Mane’ could be discounted if one were so inclined – this is a story about Holmes in retirement. He was no longer a consulting detective when these events took place. However, in it we still see elements of Holmes operating as a consultant would. Most of his mystery solving is performed in this story by him being presented with evidence by other people and then weighing up what it means. True, he examines the body of McPherson and the scene of the mystery. But this is merely due to McPherson dying right in front of him – Holmes was already on scene; he didn’t travel there. He also travels to the Bellamy household, but when he gets there, he plays a passive role, simply listening to their testimony. To be fair, once the problem is solved, Holmes does become active again – he travels to the bathing pool and kills the Lion’s Mane jellyfish – but it is to be remembered that this menace had killed one of his friends, so a little more than usual personal involvement is understandable.
‘Blanched Soldier’ too, contains a great deal of consulting detective work. Holmes explains his method at the end of his account and admits that he had come to his conclusions before he ever set foot outside 221b. The only reason he travelled to the Emsworth residence was because Colonel Emsworth proved such a barrier to everyone else. Holmes was compelled to deal with the man directly.
Two other cases bear mention, as it is unclear who wrote them. ‘His Last Bow’ and ‘The Mazarin Stone’ are unusual in that they are written in the third person. My personal belief is that they were written by Watson, but he wrote them in this manner in order to make it clear that he was not present for many of the events and was forced to rely on Holmes and others filling in the gaps in his knowledge. ‘His Last Bow’ may be dismissed from consideration. Holmes was not working as a consulting detective during this adventure – he was called out of his retirement to work as a secret agent on behalf of his country. ‘Mazarin Stone’ is of more interest. We learn that Holmes was very active indeed in this case. He had been tailing his suspect in a variety of disguises for several days. As with other cases which Watson wrote up, this was one of the exceptions. In fact, if my theory that Watson is the author of this account is correct, it goes someway to demonstrating how boring most of Holmes’s other cases were. That is, he chose to write up a case which he had little direct involvement in, as opposed to the many dull cases he had witnessed at first hand.
Of course, one then begins to wonder exactly why Watson kept so many notes about the dull cases. His tin dispatch-box was crammed with jottings about Holmes’s consultations – most of which, as we have seen, would have been utterly tedious. At some point he must have realised he would never use them. You might expect him to stop taking notes the moment he realised a client was bringing Holmes another quick-chat sort of a problem. But those in the Sherlockian community who have been bitten by the collector bug know how these things go. It can be difficult to let any piece of Sherlockiana escape you, no matter how low it is in quality. Watson was the first Sherlockian, and he seems to have been no different to the rest of us in his collecting mania.
(Addendum: The interested reader may wish to supplement this paper by listening to this episode of Trifles: https://www.sherlockholmespodcast.com/2023/01/episode-317-detective-by-any-other-name.html which coincidentally contradicts many of the claims I made here by highlighting other salient parts of The Canon.)
Any other business:
No one was left awake to raise any other business.
