Two Years on the Beat

I've been on the Baker Street beat for two years this month.

That's how long I've writing this blog as a kind of continuation of the book of the same name. Most weeks I post here on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Sometimes I throw in an extra. On that schedule I have produced 366 blog posts.

I'll keep at it as long as I can, sharing book reviews, accounts of my own Sherlockian adventures, and thoughts about the Canon. But I'm not sure I can continue doing it at the same pace. I've already depleted 40 years worth of files that I have collected on Mr. Sherlock Holmes, going back to that particular well again and again for blog material.

And besides the blog, I have this little side business of writing mystery novels. I've published four in the past two years, with the fifth scheduled for publication next month and a collection of shorter mystery fiction already completed.

So expect to find new material here at Baker Street Beat with some frequency, but possibly not always three times a week. We'll see. I do expect to keep writing at least once a day at www.facebook.com/DanAndriaccoMysteries, however. If you're on Facebook, be sure you've "Liked" that page. 

Meanwhile, I'm anxiously awaying the end of always 1895's spring break. The wonderful blog went on temporary hiatus at the beginning of April and has not yet returned. Through the energies of Matt Laffey, the proprietor, it was a kind of news aggregator for all things Sherlockian. It was one of the ways I kept up with what's new in the world of Sherlock Holmes. I miss it very much!

Coming Soon! A Very Special Short Story

"The Adventure of the Vatican Cameos" is one of those intriguing cases to which Dr. Watson alluded but never wrote about. It's been the subject of many Sherlock Holmes pastiches. Very soon my publisher will be offering my short story of that title as an e-book. It also will be included as a bonus in my next novel. It's not a pastiche and it's set in modern-day Rome. More details as the publication date gets closer!

Sherlock Holmes's Mother

Mother's Day has me thinking about Sherlock Holmes's mother. What do we know about her?

According to William S. Baring-Gould, in Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street, her maiden name was Violet Sherrinford and her mother was a sister of the French artist Emile Jean Horace Vernet. But, of course, he made that up, or he adopted the theories of other writers who made it up.

It's true that Violet is an uncommonly common name among Holmes clients, and perhaps there's a reason for that. But when I was young I peeked into the "little black book" of an older relative and found that an amazing number of his girlfriends -- let's say a third or so -- had the same first name. But it wasn't his mother's name.

It's also true that Holmes tells us in "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter" that "my grandmother . . . was the sister of Vernet, the French artist." But we don't know which grandmother, paternal or maternal, and we don't know which member of the talented Vernet family.

This should raise no eyebrows. Aside from the Hardy Boys and other juvenile sleuths, the mothers of detectives seldom appear in mystery fiction. (The 1895 Murder is somewhat unusual in that Jeff Cody's mother and mother-in-law both make surprise appearances.) Nero Wolfe's mother was still alive in the early stories, but far off stage in Montenegro.

The only thing we can say for sure is that Sherlock Holmes did have a mother, and that she had to have been an extraordinary woman indeed. After all, presuming that Sherlock and Mycroft were full brothers, she gave birth to two amazing men.    

The Tankerville Club

Scion societies of the Baker Street Irregulars have some great names. The Illustrious Clients of Indianapolis, the Speckled Band of Boston, and the Hounds of the Bakerville (sic) of Chicago spring quickly to mind. The Canonical origins of all those names is obvious.

Not so clear in that regard, perhaps, is the Tankerville Club of Cincinnati. I have mentioned this scion frequently on this blog because I have been a proud member since 1981. That what's the connection between that name and Sherlock Holmes?

Club founder Paul Herbert, BSI, often notes that the Tankerville Club is the only club mentioned twice in the Canon -- in "The Five Orange Pips" and in "The Adventure of the Empty House."

In the first of those stories, John Openshaw mentions it in this memorable exchange:

"I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes. I heard from Major Prendergast how you saved him in the Tankerville Club scandal."
"Ah, of course. He was wrongfully accused of cheating at cards."
"He said that you could solve anything."
"He said too much."
"That you are never beaten."
"I have been beaten four times -- three times by men, and once by a woman."
"But what is that compared with the number of  your successes?"
"It is true that I have been generally successful."
"Then you may be so with me."

Unfortunately, Holmes was not successful in saving Mr. Openshaw's life.

In "The Adventure of the Empty House," the Tankerville Club is listed as one of the clubs to which Colonel Sebastian Moran belonged, along with the Anglo-Indian and the Bagatelle Card Club.

What's your favorite name for a Sherlock Holmes society? 

G.K. Chesterton's Sherlock Holmes

Someone with a bent for genealogy should chart all the relationships anong Arthur Conan Doyle's literary descendants and admirers.So many writers who adored ACD also liked each other.

For example, Dorothy L. Sayers, who is well known in Sherlockian and Holmesian circles as a scholar of Sherlock Holmes and player of The Game, also greatly admired the Christian writings of G.K. Chesterton. Delighted to hear him lecture when she was at Oxford, she later became his fellow member of the Detection Club of London and succeeded him as president.

Chesterton, creator of the immortal Father Brown, isn't quite so closely linked to Holmes and Doyle to most of us, but perhaps he should be. Pick up a copy of G.K. Chesterton's Sherlock Holmes and see what I mean.

This isn't a new book, but it deserves new attention. Edited by Steven Doyle a decade ago, it's a part of the invaluable Baker Street Irregulars Manuscript Series. In it, Doyle collected 19 Chesterton drawings illustrating Sherlock Holmes stories for a book that was never produced. They don't look like any drawings of Holmes I've ever seen, but they do look like the man Watson described. I find them fascinating. 

To these sketches Doyle added a wonderful introduction, three essays about Chesterton, and four essays by Chesterton -- not all about Holmes, but in the same ballpark (mystery fiction).

"And have no doubt," Doyle writes, "G.K. Chesterton was a fan of the Great Detective. Virtually every genre of his writing -- literary criticism, theology and philosophy, social commentary -- is littered with references to Sherlock Holmes."

In the final essay in the book, "Sherlock the God," Chesterton notes the emergence of the Higher Criticism in books by then (1935) already beginning to appear.  

The real inference is that Sherlock Holmes really existed and that Conan Doyle never existed. If posterity only reads these latter books, it will certainly suppose them to be serious. It will imagine that Sherlock Holmes as a man. But he was not; he was only a god.

How brilliant that observation is -- and how Chestertonian in its paradox!

Unfortunately, G.K. Chesterton's Sherlock Holmes is out of print. Perhaps a new edition is in order?

Memories of Meiringen

Dr. Dan in Meiringen with the John Doubleday statue of the Master

If you're a Sherlockian, you may not need to be told that May 4 is the anniversary of that fateful day when the Great Detective and the Napoleon of Crime engaged in mortal combat at the Reichenbach Falls. I had the good fortune to visit the Falls and the charming down of Meiringen in 2008, which I wrote about in my book Baker Street Beat. As my Reichenbach Day present to you, here's the entire chapter:

Following the footsteps of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson is not always easy, especially when it takes you off the printed page, out of the easy chair, and up the side of a mountain in Switzerland.

            My Sherlockian friend Steve Winter and I, along with our supportive spouses, crossed the Atlantic to visit the Reichenbach Falls (after a six-day pizza and pasta prelude in Italy) on October 12 and 13, 2008. In booking our hotel and train reservations months before, we didn’t realize that the Falls and the funicular taking visitors up the mountain would be shut down for the season starting on October 5. Not least for that reason, our pilgrimage to the site of Holmes’s fatal encounter with Professor Moriarty was an unforgettable adventure.

We arrived in early afternoon at Meiringen, the Swiss town at the foot of the Falls where Holmes and Watson had stayed. The clerk at our hotel, the beautiful and ultra-modern Victorian, assured us that the funicular and the Falls were both still running. Our excitement mounted. This was not what we had been told in an e-mail two weeks before by Rudolf Soltermann of EWR Energie AG / Reichenbachfall-Bahn. He had informed us, to our disappointment, “The cable car is closed from October 5^th till spring and from mid October the Reichenbachfalls have no water.” He did add the hopeful note, “In autumn, when it’s not raining, it’s still good for hiking.” 

Immediately after lunch at our hotel (our first order of business in town – hamburgers for four) we realized that we were right across the street from both the bronze statue of Sherlock Holmes smoking meditatively in a seated position and the Sherlock Holmes Museum. The statue was created by John Doubleday and erected in 1988. A plaque next to it, proclaiming SHERLOCK HOLMES HONORARY CITIZEN OF MEIRINGEN, informed us that the artwork included clues to all sixty Sherlock Holmes stories. Among the four of us, we identified . . .  none. We couldn’t even find the clues.

Barb Winter popped into the Sherlock Holmes Museum and came back with a report. “I have the news, and it’s not good,” she said. In fact, the Falls and the funicular were not running. Oddly, it had turned out that the man in charge of the funicular knew more about it than the clerk at our hotel.

No matter. Steve Winter, a man who habitually travels with a backpack and a Swiss army knife, wanted to hike the mountain up to the site of the non-running Falls immediately. It wasn’t raining, and apparently Steve’s energy levels were undiminished by an adventurous morning that had included the theft of a purse in Italy and the loss and recovery of a carry-on bag in Switzerland.

Barb further learned, however, that the Sherlock Holmes Museum would be closed the next day, a Monday. Since we were only going to be in Meiringen slightly more than 24 hours, we decided we would have to put off hiking for a day in order to visit the Museum.

No true Sherlockian would find it coincidental, still less inappropriate, that the museum is located in a former English church. This was, after all, a kind of shrine. The upstairs of the building is given over to art exhibitions, the bottom to Sherlockiana. The museum is delightful but rather small, highlighted by a painstaking reconstruction of the hallowed sitting room at 221 B Baker Street. It is behind glass, like the one at the Sherlock Holmes Pub in London, but claims to be the most authentic reproduction of the Baker Street lair in that everything is authentically Victorian, no reproductions. We bought a few Sherlockian souvenirs, but I was surprised how few were available. Barb suspected this was a factor of being at the end of the season.

The museum is owned by the adjacent Park du Sauvage Hotel, widely recognized – and proudly proclaimed by the hotel itself – to be the original of the Englischer Hof where Holmes and Watson stayed in “The Final Problem.” In fact, the Park du Sauvage proclaims in English right in front:

IN THIS HOTEL, CALLED BY SIR ARTHUR

CONAN DOYLE THE

ENGLISCHER HOF

MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES AND DR. WATSON

SPENT THE NIGHT OF 3^RD/ 4^TH MAY 1891.

IT WAS FROM HERE THAT MR. HOLMES LEFT

FOR THE FATAL ENCOUNTER AT THE

REICHENBACH FALLS WITH PROFESSOR

MORIARTY, THE NAPOLEON OF CRIME.

Clearly, Meiringen makes no mystery of the Holmes connection. This is a town where one can also buy Sherlock Holmes fondue and drink at a pub (or perhaps it’s a private club) called simply “Sherlock” in bright red letters with a London street sign on the side of the building. Our attempt to dine at the Park du Sauvage, however, was stymied by a policy that their dining room is open for guests only, although there is a separate restaurant on the grounds. We had dinner that night instead at Das Hotel Sherlock Holmes, marked on all sides by a wonderful silhouette of the great man’s head and an artistic lettering in which the “l” of “Hotel” is also the “l” of “Sherlock” in the line below. The meals, and the Swiss beer, were quite good. For dessert there was meringue, topped by whipped cream and ice cream. Meringue was invented at Meiringen, and they do it very well. 

After dinner, we strolled and window shopped our way back toward our hotel. Swiss army knives apparently are widely available in Switzerland. Who knew? I also spotted some German-language Sherlock Holmes books in the window of a bookstore, one of which I was able to buy the next day at the last minute before boarding our train. We wound up inside the Park du Savauge, intending just to gawk. Instead, we bought more souvenirs, mostly for friends. The very nice clerk asked where we were from. “Cincinnati!” he exclaimed. “Every year I am going to Cincinnati!” He explained that he had a friend there who formerly lived on Clifton Avenue – the very street on which reside our friends the Senters, for whom we were buying a Sherlockian keychain! The world gets smaller all the time.

“Anybody can go to the Falls when it’s running,” Barb said the next day at breakfast. I took her point. It would be quite a distinction to travel several thousand miles to see where the Falls weren’t. We were bracing ourselves for the task with a hearty breakfast. We had an impressive array of choices in whatever quantity we chose – cereals, yogurts, pastries, Nutella, cheese, salami, juice and varieties of coffee.

The plan after breakfast was for Steve and me to hike to the site of the Falls, with Barb and Ann accompanying us part of the way before they peeled off to concentrate on the arduous task of shopping. This was a prospect I faced with some misgivings – the hiking, I mean, although I had misgiving about the shopping, too. My concern was based in part on reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s autobiography, Memories and Adventures. In one of the most well known passages of that book, Sir Arthur wrote of determining to end the life of his hero in order to devote more time to what he mistakenly considered his more serious work:

The idea was in my mind when I went with my wife for a short holiday in Switzerland, in the course of which we saw there the wonderful falls of Reichenbach, a terrible place and one that I thought would make a worthy tomb for poor Sherlock, even if I buried my banking account along with him. So there I laid him, fully determined that he should stay there – as indeed for some years he did.

The death and resurrection of Sherlock Holmes set a pattern followed in succeeding years by an astonishing number of heroic figures in popular culture. Father Brown, Lord Peter Wimsey, Nero Wolfe, and Superman all in some sense died or disappeared only to return to the living unscathed. In films, such disparate characters as the indestructible James Bond and the incompetent Inspector Clousseau survived their own funerals. The major difference in the case of the greatest of them all is that even his creator was surprised by the return of Sherlock Holmes.

And no wonder. No one who saw the Reichenbach at the peak of its might would readily imagine that a person – even Holmes! – could fall into that and re-emerge alive. Bear in mind, however, that the closest I have come to seeing the Reichenbach at the peak of its might was on DVD. Two weeks before our departure for Europe, I watched again the Jeremy Brett interpretation of “The Final Problem.” I had two strong reactions to watching the fatal encounter of Holmes and Moriarty above the Falls: That looks scary was quickly followed by Are we really going to go there?

We really went there.

But on that fall morning, off in the distance from a point close to our hotel, the Falls looked more like the Reichenbach Trickle than the awesome force of nature described by Watson and showed to us by Granada Television. No matter. We set off with determination on the Fussweg, or footpath, well marked (at least at first) with signs bearing the universally recognized image of Sherlock Holmes. Along the way our wives fell back and Steve and I hiked on past cows, goats, and Swiss chalets with satellite dishes. Without the funicular “Zum Reichenbachfall,” which marked “100 Jahre” in 1999, we had a delightful sense that we were walking more closely in the footsteps of Holmes and Watson than if we had taken the cable car much of the way up. 

About two-thirds toward the top of the mountain, within site of the Falls, we unexpectedly came across yet another plaque. In English, followed by German and then French, it said:

AT THIS FEARFUL PLACE,

SHERLOCK HOLMES

VANQUISHED PROFESSOR

MORIARTY ON 4 MAY 1891

It had been erected in the 1990s by the Bimetallic Question of Montreal and the Reichenbach Irregulars of Switzerland, and not arbitrarily. The spot certainly fit the description of where Holmes and Moriarty tussled, just above a ledge now protected with a metal railing. Heights not being my favorite thing, it was to me indeed a “fearful place.”  Even the intrepid Steve told me later that he could imagine the fear and awe that one would have felt looking down into the chasm when the Falls were cascading over the jutting rocks at full force – especially in the days before funiculars, safety rails and well marked trails.

By this time, it was clear that the view from below had been deceiving. In October, virtually shut off by the diversion of water in order to provide hydroelectric power, the mighty Reichenbach is still a lot more than a trickle. In another context, with lower expectations, it would be considered a respectable waterfall. “The Falls, even now, are quite loud,” I wrote in my travel diary as we stood on a bridge overlooking the great chasm and the cascading water. And their roar was the only sound to be heard in the stillness of nature that fall morning. Steve and I had seen no one else, except for a distant hiker that never came close to us. “This really was a pilgrimage for two,” Steve said as we began our descent about two and a half hours after we had started up.

A pilgrimage it certainly was. For all the major world religions – Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu – the pilgrimage is an ancient and meaningful practice for believers. It’s easy for me to see why. Actually going to a sacred or important place, sometimes in the face of inconvenience or even difficulties, is much different from experiencing it second-hand. That’s why people go to rock concerts, baseball games, political rallies and papal Masses when they could see the event much better on television or streaming video. It’s why we made the somewhat convoluted trip to the Reichenbach Falls. And having been there, I will never read “The Final Problem” quite the same way again.   

The Illustrious Clients

If you've never been to a meeting of a Sherlock Holmes society, here's a virtual way to start: This YouTube video shares a few minutes of a lively discussion of "The Greek Interpreter" at a meeting of the Illustrious Clients.

The Clients, based in Indianapolis, are one of the most storied and most active scion societies of the Baker Street Irregulars. The group is well known for publishing scholarly works and minting BSI's.

Unfortunately, I've only been to one meeting -- at which I was the featured speaker -- but I hope to attend more. But even if I don't, the 16-page monthly newsletter alone is well worth the annual $20 membership fee. Well done, Clients!

Be sure to "Like" their Facebook Fan Page.

The Best Collectible of All

At a recent meeting of the Tankerville Club, our local Baker Street Irregulars scion society, Official Secretary Paul Herbert, BSI, had asked one of our number to bring in something to talk about -- any sort of artifact or collectible related to Sherlock Holmes. And so he did.

My fellow member began by pulling out a pipe tool with a head shaped like Sherlock Holmes. But that wasn't what he wanted to show us. He held up a pipe lighter with the shadow of the deerstalkered detective emblazoned on it, but that wasn't it either. He mentioned several items that he had considered and rejected.

Then he held up his Show and Tell: A somewhat battered copy of The Complete Sherlock Holmes. When was it printed? He didn't know. Did it have the Christopher Morley introduction? He had to check. (It did.) The only thing my friend new about this particular edition was the only thing that counted to him:

This was the book that introduced him to Holmes.

Until then he had read and enjoyed the Hardy Boys mysteries. But when he opened The Complete Sherlock Holmes, that was a doorway into a whole new world. He used to read at night before he went to bed. When he read "The Final Problem," he was terrified until he realized that he was only halfway through the book! He immediately read "The Adventure of the Empty House" and slept well that night.

My friend was really saying that the text -- the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories -- is the most important thing. I heartily agree. If I had to, I would trade every valuable volume in my library for one dogeared copy The Complete -- just as long as it was still readable. 

What's your favorite Sherlock Holmes item?

Dr. Watson, Dog-Killer

Not Carlo but close enough -- the Hound of the Baskervilles

Last Friday's meeting of The Tankerville Club, the Cincinnati scion society of the Baker Street Irregulars, featured a stimulating discussion of "The Adventure of the Copper Beaches." Topics ranged from whether Violet Hunter was trying to seduce Sherlock Holmes to how a dress can be both blue and beige.

But I'm fascinated by the mastiff Carlo, one of two dogs in the Canon by that name. Or, more precisely, I'm interested in how Dr. Watson dispatched the brute. As I've noted in my talk, "Sherlock Holmes Gone to the Dogs," Canonical canines tend to have a short life span. Consider what happens to this Carlo. Was it his fault that he was fed only once a day "and not too much then, so that he is always keen as mustard"? No, it was not. But that didn't save his doggish life.

When Holmes and Watson confront Rucastle, the villain turns and clatters down the stairs as fast as he can. "He's gone for the dog!" cries Violet Hunter. And what is Watson's immediate response before considering any other possible course of action? "I have my revolver."

Rucastle manages to to set the dog free, bu the beast turns on his master in an ironic turn reminiscent of Dr. Grimesby Roylott's demise in "The Adventure of the Speckled Band." Here is how it's described:

There was the huge famished brute, its black muzzle buried in Rucastle’s throat, while he writhed and screamed upon the ground. Running up, I blew its brains out, and it fell over with its keen white teeth still meeting in the great creases of his neck.

Delicately put, Dr. Watson!

As many commentators have noted, whatever his other shortcomings may have been, Watson was certainly a better shot than Holmes. It took Holmes five bullets to put down the Hound of the Baskervilles.

Which is your favorite dog in the Canon?

Sherlock Holmes in America

Of all the disguises in the canon, one that Sherlock Holmes never adopted is that of a cowboy. Dicky Neely remedies that lack in his novella, Sherlock Holmes and the Texas Adventure. In it, Holmes and Watson are hired by an impressive south Texas ranch owner to find her missing son.

The short book is illustrated throughout by delightful Dicky Neely cartoons. My favorite shows Holmes and Watson in their cowboy duds.

The idea of Holmes in America is far from far-fetched, of course. He did live in the United States during the two years that he adopted the identity of the Irish-American Altamont during his spy service in the Great War. But that's not enough for pastiche writers. A look through the shelves of my modest library finds quite a few tales set on these shores. Here's a quick rundown:

• Sherlock Holmes in Dallas, later published as The Case of the Murdered President, by Edumund Aubrey. Holmes investigates the Kennedy assassination.
• The Adventure of the Stalwart Companions by H. Paul Jeffers. Holmes joins forces with New York City Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt. 
• Anomalous by Samuel Williams Jr. In his Altamont guise, Holmes mixes it up with Jack Johnson and Al Capone on both sides of the Atlantic.
• Sherlock Holmes and the Red Dragon and Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Alliance by Larry Millett. These are just two books out of a larger series on Sherlock Holmes in Minnesota.   

It's only fair, I suppose, that pastiche writers should bring Sherlock Holmes to America. Holmes expressed a fondness for Americans, and American have always been among his greatest admirers.