Reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper

All reviews copyright 1984-2025 Evelyn C. Leeper.

THE EXPLOITS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES by Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 12/27/2002]

In regard to my comments about MORE HOLMES FOR THE HOLIDAYS, long-time reader Ian Gahan writes: "Did you ever read the book THE EXPLOITS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES written by Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr? ... It consists of 12 tales that are based on the unsolved cases that Dr Watson refers to in the original tales. Adrian was the son of Arthur. To a non-Sherlock expert they seem to be well up to the standard of the originals. Some of the titles are 'The Highgate Miracle', 'The Abbas Ruby' and 'The Deptford Horror'."

Yes, indeed, I have read that. In fact, when I started reading Sherlock Holmes stories, those were the only non-Canonical stories available. Now I have an entire bookshelf of pastiches, and I by no means have all of them. THE EXPLOITS are still among the best, however. Among the newer ones, I find the novels add a lot of extra baggage to Holmes (romantic entanglements, political axe-grinding, etc.) while the short stories are often too light-weight and insubstantial.

THE ADVENTURES OF BRIGADIER GERARD by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 12/26/2003]

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's THE ADVENTURES OF BRIGADIER GERARD is a humorous picaresque novel of a French soldier of the Napoleonic Wars, who is a first-person narrator who doesn't realize he's a rascal and a bit inept, but manages to let us know. Doyle is, of course, better known for creating Sherlock Holmes. Though he said he expected to be remembered for his historical novels, I'm not sure this was one of the ones he was thinking of.

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES by Arthur Conan Doyle:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 05/21/21]

People love Sherlock Holmes. He's such a great detective. He solves cases that baffle Scotland Yard. But while this is true, if you look at the total result of his cases, his score is not that great.

Let's look at just the cases in the first collection (THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES). In most of these Holmes does figure out what has happened and who the perpetrator is, but as for bringing the perpetrator to justice ... well, let's see.

A Scandal in Bohemia: Holmes fails to get the photograph but the perpetrator agrees not to cause Holmes's client embarrassment.

The Red-Headed League: One of Holmes's few successes, mostly because he calls Scotland Yard in to help.

A Case of Identity: Holmes discovers the perpetrator but cannot bring him to justice.

The Boscombe Valley Mystery: Holmes covers up the crime to save the feelings and reputations of the innocent--but then Watson writes it up and publishes it, which would seem to negate Holmes's efforts in that direction!

The Five Orange Pips: The criminals get away. However, their ship is apparently sunk in a storm, and the implication is that this brings some level of justice, ignoring all the innocent passengers and crew who also died. (I am reminded of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", where the criminal in each story must be punished, so after he often got away with it, Hitchcock would tag on a line or two explaining how the criminal was caught after all.)

The Man with the Twisted Lip: Holmes gets Neville St. Clair to agree to stop begging, but it is not clear that St. Clair can find a real job to replace it as a source of income.

The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle: Holmes lets the criminal escape because he thinks the criminal has learned his lesson.

The Adventure of the Speckled Band: Holmes basically kills the criminal, or at least causes his death, and explicitly expresses no remorse.

The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb: The criminals escape, and the engineer is given the consolation of being able to tell his story at dinner parties.

The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor: The truth is revealed, but Holmes's client is not satisfied with the result.

The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet: The criminal escapes, and is unlikely to suffer any consequences, but Holmes seems to gloat that the criminal's accomplice will be punished, even though she was deceived into it.

The Adventure of the Copper Beeches: The victim is rescued by someone other than Holmes and with no help from Holmes. The perpetrator is mauled by a dog, but apparently not otherwise punished.

So in a dozen stories, the perpetrator is brought to justice once. In two ("A Scandal in Bohemia" and "A Case of Identity"), the crime was specific enough that the criminal is unlikely to repeat their crime. In three ("The Boscombe Valley Mystery", "The Five Orange Pips", and "The Adventure of the Speckled Band"), the criminals end up dead. In two ("The Man with the Twisted Lip" and "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle"), Holmes intentionally lets the criminal escape, and in three ("The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb", "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet", and "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches"), the criminals escape on their own. And in one ("The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor"), there is basically no crime.

This is an interesting contrast to Hercule Poirot, who only once or twice lets the criminals escape, and that is under very rigid circumstances. All other times he is strict about bringing the criminals to justice, even when he believes it detrimental to society as a whole. (He does allow several criminals the option of suicide when they are caught, as does Miss Marple, and for that matter, Philip Marlowe. I guess it's a tradition.)

THE ANNOTATED LOST WORLD by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, with annotations by Roy Pilot and Alvin Rodin:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 04/07/2006]

THE ANNOTATED LOST WORLD by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, with annotations by Roy Pilot and Alvin Rodin (ISBN 0-938-50123-2) is notable as much for its illustrations as for its annotations. Frequently one page will have the illustration from the Strand publication, and the next will have an illustration from a scientific journal which clearly served as the model for it. Reading it while reading Theodore Roosevelt's THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS does point out that Doyle did a very good job of writing the journal of an expedition to the South American wilderness.

"The Greek Interpreter" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 02/12/2016]

Not all of these are original, although I have tried to add enough that I am not just repeating other people's previous observations. There are also comparisons with the Granada version of the story (with Jeremy Brett as Holmes).

[Spoilers ahead.]

1) The fact that Mycroft is as skilled in deduction as Sherlock does not prove that it is hereditary. The training or environment may have started when they were children with the same tutor (or whatever).

2) It has been noted by many that Mycroft and his "reasoning from an armchair" is clearly the inspiration for Nero Wolfe. The description of Mycroft as "absolutely corpulent" is the clincher. (That "Nero Wolfe" has almost all its letters in common with "Sherlock Holmes" is probably no accident either.)

3) Sherlock and Mycroft must have astonishingly good eyesight to be able--from a second-story window across the street--to see chalk marks on a jacket, to determine the type of footwear, to tell that the skin is lighter on one side of the forehead than the other, and to determine that he is carrying a rattle and a picture book (rather than some other book or magazine).

4) The reference to "wealthy Orientals" does not imply that Melas spoke any east Asian languages. In Doyle's time, "Oriental" referred to any place from the eastern Mediterranean to Pacific Ocean, Greece being on the western edge of that vast area. Greece's designation as "Oriental" is no doubt due to its previous condition as part of the Ottoman Empire, even though it had won its independence in 1830.

5) Even the fact that Melas says, "I interpret all languages--or nearly all..." does not indicate proficiency in what we would now consider "Oriental" languages. If he were proficient in (say) Japanese, he would be in demand for that as much as for Greek, if not more, due to the dearth of Japanese interpreters. In fact, it would be even more so, since ancient Greek was taught in the more highly regarded schools, and while ancient and modern Greek differ, they differ less than Old and Modern English (for example).

6) I'm not sure I would call an hour and forty minutes "almost two hours."

7) The combination of a slate and a pencil seems odd--the Granada version has chalk.

8) There is a question of whether in the following exchange it would be clear to someone unfamiliar with the language that the second part had been added. It is clear that Melas would have to speak his part as a single sentence, with no pause between what he was told to say and what he added. Kratides merely needs to leave out the punctuation. Also, Greek does not require separate words for subject pronouns, nor does it use the word "do" or other "helping verbs". If one examines the exchange it is clear that the additions are only one or two words. Whether Melas could think fast enough to pull off the "sentence combinations" is the real question.

  Q: You can do no good by this obstinacy. Who are you?
  A: I care not. I am a stranger in London.
  Q: Your fate will be on your own head. How long have you been 
     here?
  A: Let it be so. Three weeks.
  Q: The property can never be yours. What ails you?
  A: It shall not go to villains. They are starving me.
  Q: You shall go free if you sign. What house is this?
  A: I will never sign. I do not know.
  Q: You are not doing her any service. What is your name?
  A: Let me hear her say so. Kratides.
  Q: You shall see her if you sign. Where are you from?
  A: Then I shall never see her. Athens.

9) When Melas says, "My very next question might have cleared the matter up," one wonders what it could have been that would have cleared it up, especially given the constraints in length for questions and answers.

10) Mycroft places an ad in the newspapers, the sole effect of which is to alert the villains. They do get a positive response, which they then decide not to follow up on because "the brother's life is more valuable than the sister's story."

11) In this early Holmes story, Doyle is careful to have Holmes follow all legal procedures, e.g. obtain a warrant. In later stories, Holmes has no qualms about breaking into houses when he deems it necessary, nor does Watson do more than mildly remonstrate him. Even in this, and with a warrant, Holmes "bends" the law by forcing a window to gain entry.

12) How does Holmes know that the carriage left within the last hour?

13) The story has a charcoal lamp generating the poisonous fumes, but what are these fumes? Carbon monoxide is odorless. The Garanda version has it as sulfur fumes.

14) If one cannot strike a match in the atmosphere, then why would a candle remain burning? The implication is a lack of oxygen, rather than added poisonous fumes.

15) "Blue-lipped and insensible, with swollen, congested faces and protruding eyes" implies carbon monoxide poisoning.

16) In the story the delay in obtaining the warrant is what kills Kratides, who dies just after they arrive. In the Granada version, Watson says that Kratides has been dead at least four hours, letting the police off the hook.

17) Brandy is frequently used as a restorative in Holmes stories, but in fact it is almost always a bad idea in such cases.

18) In the story Kratides never signs the papers. In the Granada version, he signs when the villains say that if he does not sign Sophy is of no use to them and they will kill her.

19) Why don't the villains kill Melas and Kratides outright instead of just leaving him in a room with a charcoal lamp? (In the Granada version, they may actually have killed Melas.)

20) The story ends with a report of the death of two men traveling with a woman, but it is several months later. Why would Sophy have waited so long? In the Granada version, Sophy has been told that Kratides will be joining them, but also seems to be under the spell of Latimer to the extent that she does not seek revenge when she learns Kratides is dead. (However, Latimer gets his punishment much sooner, and without anyone having to directly kill him.)

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES by Arthur Conan Doyle:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 07/12/24 and 07/19/24]

I recently watched many (but not all) of the film and television adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle's THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, and here are my random comments:

MURDER AT THE BASKERVILLES (1937) is a bit of a mess. It's not the first of the adaptations--in fact, it's not an adaptation of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES at all. There were two English-language adaptations before this: 1921 with Ellie Norwood, and 1931 with Carlyle Blackwood. (There were also several German-language ones.) But this is basically an adaptation of "The Adventure of Silver Blaze" (and in fact, its original title was SILVER BLAZE). When it was released in the United States in 1941, it was retitled MURDER AT THE BASKERVILLES to capitalize on the success of the 1939 Basil Rathbone version of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES.

At the beginning, Holmes and Watson are invited to Baskerville Hall ten years after the events in THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (so clearly there was a plan to tie it to the more famous story even before the Rathbone film). There is also a subplot with Professor, who did not originally appear in either story. This is not unlike more recent filmmakers adding Hercule Poirot or Ariadne Oliver or Miss Marple to stories that did not originally have them. Moriarty shows up in the opening sequence, then disappears for over two-thirds of the film. He is the brains behind the plot, rather than Straker, and the film even incorporates the air gun from "The Adventure of the Empty House". The film also reveals at least part of the secret halfway through the film.

The film also stars Ian Fleming as Doctor Watson, but this is not the same Ian Fleming who wrote the James Bond novels. Wotner starred as Sherlock Holmes in four other films: one of which is a lost film. Fleming played Watson in four of these; Ian Hunter played Watson in THE SIGN OF FOUR (1932).

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1939) was the first of Basil Rathbone's portrayals of Sherlock Holmes,, which explains why he received only second billing after Richard Greene (as Sir Henry Baskerville). It also sticks moderately closely to the book, although in the film Beryl really is Stapleton's sister.

The film histories of Lionel Atwill and John Carradine would make their characters played appear suspicious even without the shots of them with shifty eyes and their delivery of lines in an ambiguous or heavy-handed manner.

Nigel Bruce's Dr. Watson is not totally incompetent in this film, but often seems out of his depth, with expressions of confusion or surprise. I think these characteristics were built up in future Rathbone-Bruce films.

Due to the Production Code, Sir Hugo's companions speak of him as chasing the girl to wed her, rather than to rape her. And probably due to the prominence of the Barrymore family in Hollywood, the butler's name has been changed from Barrymore to Barryman.

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1959), twenty years after Rathbone's portrayal, was the first color version. The opening sequence with Sir Hugo probably inspired the opening sequence of CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF two years later. (Having Sir Hugo kill the girl rather than have her die of fright is a Hammer touch not in the original, as was the spider.)

Andre Morrell as Watson is (to me, anyway) a vast improvement over Nigel Bruce's rather bumbling portrayal. Peter Cushing (as Holmes) is always a delight to watch. Christopher Lee as Sir Henry Baskerville, however, is often quite annoying.

Barrymore is once again named Barrymore, whether because the acting family was not as well known twenty years later in England, or because Hammer saw no reason to stray from Doyle in this area. This didn't stop Hammer from straying in many other ways: the Stapletons' relationship, history, and motivation; Selden's role vis-a-vis Holmes; etc,

Holmes is very preemptory with Watson, basically ordering him to Baskerville Hall, and at the end directing Watson to write to Sir Henry thanking him for the check (which was sent to Holmes) and the invitation (ditto).

In the 1968 BBC two-part television version of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, Cushing reprises his role as Holmes, with Nigel Stock as Watson. Holmes is less abrupt with Watson here, but Watson is a bit blander than in the Hammer version. In both, however, Watson has shed the buffoonery of Nigel Bruce's portrayal, and a good thing it is too.

The story itself sticks reasonably close to the original, as do most BBC adaptations (at least those I have seen). Perhaps this is because the BBC was not concerned with luring people into theaters the way Hammer Films was.

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1982) has Tom Baker as Holmes. His facial structure seems wrong for Holmes, and his long stint as The Doctor in "Doctor Who" makes it difficult to see him as anyone else. (This was Basil Rathbone's problem in reverse.) I also thought Nicholas Woodeson was miscast as Sir Henry Baskerville--not that his performance was bad, but I had envisioned Baskerville as being a tall man, and Woodeson, at 5'4" is considerably shorter than Holmes and even than Watson. Maybe I have been spoiled by Christopher Lee as Baskerville.

The back story of the hound is told with short nighttime scenes, with no sound other than Mortimer telling the story. This certainly helped the production save money.

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1988) has Jeremy Brett as Holmes, and is part of the Granada Television series of 41 episodes encompassing 43 stories (two of the episodes merged two stories in each of them). The first twenty episodes of the series are considered some of the definitive portrayals of Holmes on screen. But Brett's health problems had him start taking lithium pills, which caused both fluid retention and lethargy. The unfortunate result is that in the remaining episodes (this one was number 26), his face is puffy, and his performance a bit less energetic. He also had heart troubles and difficulty breathing. He insisted on continuing, saying, "The show must go on," but it must be acknowledged that the later performances are not up to the earlier ones.

This version is fairly faithful to the original, given the necessary condensation to fit a 100-minute slot. Mortimer gets bit more time than in the book, there is a bit of justification in saying Selden is no longer a danger, and so on. The problem is that the whole production is not very exciting.

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (2001) has Matt Frewer as a truly annoying Holmes--even more annoying then Doyle made him. The credits claim it is based on the "novella" by Doyle--when did it become a novella rather than a novel? And something not revealed in the novel until a ways in (the circumstances of Sir Charles's death) is shown even before the credits. Also, the discussion about Selden occurs almost immediately after the discovery of Barrymore's signaling, and the film also makes Selden (apparently) innocent but tricked into a false confession. To top it off, the ending is totally changed.

Label this Hallmark Channel version a revisionist version, and feel free to skip it.

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (2002) was shown on PBS's "Masterpiece Theatre" and its introduction credited Bertram Fletcher Robinson as a major contributor to the story, something other films did not. (In fact, Robinson received a third of the royalties from the Strand publication of the novel.) Richard Roxburgh stars as Holmes, Ian Hart as Watson, and Richard E. Grant as Stapleton. Unfortunately, for me Grant tends to exude a sly, menacing aspect, possibly due to my knowing him in his role in THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON, and that somewhat gives away one of the surprises in the story. (Then again, it was made for the hundredth anniversary of the book, so it may be assumed most viewers knew the story anyway.) And Roxburgh does not look like Holmes at all.

There are a lot of changes to the story: a seance and a Christmas ball are added, as well as a different backstory for Selden and an encounter between him and Sir Henry. (It seems everyone wants to tweak the Selden plotline.) A lot of the explanation of final sequence is changed or left out entirely as well.

I am not including SHERLOCK: THE HOUNDS OF BASKERVILLE (2011) in this article because while it is inspired by the novel THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, it is not an adaptation of it.

THE LAST OF THE LEGIONS AND OTHER STORIES by Arthur Conan Doyle:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 03/01/24]

THE LAST OF THE LEGIONS AND OTHER STORIES by Arthur Conan Doyle (Project Gutenberg, no ISBN) is the sort of thing Doyle expected to be remembered for.

It wasn't.

I actually like this book, and recommend it, but one has to observe that it has not achieved the fame of Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" stories, or of his "Professor Challenger" novels. His historical novels such as MICAH CLARKe or THE WHITE COMPANY are read somewhat, but almost entirely by readers familiar with Holmes and Challenger, and curious to see what else Doyle wrote. (Does anyone read Mary Shelley's THE LAST MAN who has not read already read FRANKENSTEIN?)

Which is a pity, because as stories of the ancient world, they are quite atmospheric. "The Last of the Legions" is about the departure of the last Romans from Britain in 410. "The Last Galley" tells of the return of the last Carthaginian galley to Carthage after its defeat in the Third Punic War in 146 B.C.E. In "The Coming of the Huns" a hermit on the eastern outskirts of the Roman Empire first sees the Huns come over the horizon. A shepherd unknowingly competes with the Emperor Nero in a singing contest in "The Contest" in 66 C.E. "Giant Maximin" is the story of one of the least likely emperors of Rome, not surprisingly during the Crisis of the Third Century. "The Red Star" is a "first encounter" story; more would be a spoiler. "The Home-Coming" is based on an account (considered unreliable) in Procopius's SECRET HISTORY. "A Point of Contact" is what *is* called a secret history, about an imagined meeting between two well-known ancient figures. The other stories are mostly not set in ancient times, or are more atmosphere than event.

For those interested in ancient Rome (and according to a recent meme, that includes pretty much all men and probably a lot of women), these provide a more poetic look at how various events may have seemed to the participants and observers.

(I am reminded of the observation--I'm pretty sure by Stephen Baxter--that when the Romans left Britain to support troops in Gaul and Italy, the Britons did not realize they were leaving permanently, nor did they think, "This is the start of England.")

THE LOST WORLD by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 07/15/22]

Our book-and-film did THE LOST WORLD by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle this month; the film was the 1925 silent version with the Robert Israel score. (There have been several film adaptations, and the silent version is available with two different scores.)

The book has a lot that did not make it to the film. In the book, there are two sub-species of humans, a more advanced one and a more primitive one. To the characters in the book, the less advanced are considered animals and suitable only for extermination or slavery. In the film, there is only two humanoids shown on the plateau, and they are basically also shown as animals, but at least there is no attempt at extermination. There is also no subplot of someone out for revenge against Challenger.

It is not clear how old the various characters are, but the actor playing Roxton was 46, and the actress playing Paula White was 27. He somehow looked older, she looked younger, and the result was that the way he was looking at her seemed very creepy. Of course, it might not have been back when the film was made; I think the age difference was not considered as important then.

In the film, when they get to the base of the plateau, Challenger says they chopped down one of the two trees on the "pillar" to make a bridge to the main part of the plateau, and the stump was still visible. So they climb up and chop down the second tree to make a bridge, but it apparently never occurs to anyone to ask what happened to the first bridge.

Challenger and Summerlee have an article about whether something fired from a catapault follows a parabola or a curve, completely overlooking that a parabola is a curve.

How incredibly convenient that when xyzzy and Paula think they will be trapped on the plateau permanently, Paula mentions that Summerlee used to be a minister, so he can marry them. This was actually pre-Code, but I guess they were concerned about local censors.

And it is also convenient that the ladder that the two men at the base construct is exactly the right length to reach from the cave to the ground.

Willis O'Brien did an amazing job of putting ten or twelve dinosaurs in a single scene, though without major interaction among them. It wasn't until CGI that you could have, e.g., the gallimimus herd in JURASSIC PARK, or the dinosaur stampede in KING KONG (2005).

I love how all the cast were given their honorifics ("Mr.", "Miss", etc.). Was it a more formal time, or were they trying to make acting seem more respectable?

The introduction to the film has the following quote by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:

    "I have wrought my simple plan
    If I give one hour of joy
    To the boy who's half a man,
    Or the man who's half a boy."

I guess I wasn't in his target audience.

"The Musgrave Ritual" by Arthur Conan Doyle:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 09/01/23]

"The Musgrave Ritual" by Arthur Conan Doyle is considered one of the best Holmes stories, but it is actually seriously technically flawed, and the ritual itself is the problem.

First of all, there are two versions of the ritual. The original one in the Strand was:

  'Whose was it?'
  'His who is gone.'
  'Who shall have it?'
  'He who will come.'
  'Where was the sun?'
  'Over the oak.'
  'Where was the shadow?'
  'Under the elm.'
  'How was it stepped?'
  'North by ten and by ten, east by five and by five, south by two 
   and by two, west by one and by one, and so under.'
  'What shall we give for it?'
  'All that is ours.'
  'Why should we give it?'
  'For the sake of the trust.'

  'What was the month?'
  'The sixth from the first.'

Holmes says the starting point must be the end of the elm's shadow. Clearly one needs to know the date to perform the ritual. Stonehenge and other primitive structures are constructed so that the sun shines between two pillars, or down a tunnel, only on a specific date, so it has been known for millennia that the sun rises and sets in different spots every day, and hence is positioned differently every day when it "sets" on the oak (or "rises"--how does Holmes know that he is supposed to use the afternoon sun?). So even specifying the month does not fix the end of the shadow, because there is still some movement of the sun that will have the shadow moving slightly.

And Professor Jay Finlay Christ (in "Musgrave Mathematics") asks how Holmes knew where to stand to see this setting sun over the oak, since he could not stand where the elm was already occupying space. Actually, these are two aspects of the same problem; on different days the viewer can stand in different places to see the sun over the oak, and hence start their pacing from different spots.

But it's even more complicated. At the time of the ritual there were two "first months": the new year officially began on March 25, but January 1 was also considered the start of a new year. And is "the sixth from the first" the sixth or the seventh? (The BBC Clive Merrison version drops the question about the month entirely, re-introducing the ambiguity.)

Again, the ritual dates from the mid-17th century, so by then both the oak and the elm must have stopped growing taller (since that would throw off when the sun is over the oak in the future--one assumes this means it is "touching" the oak--and also affect the length of the elm's shadow)--and somehow the writer of the ritual knew this. (Actually, the writer probably figured the ritual would be performed shortly after its creation, rather than several hundred years later. He was just lucky that the trees had already reached maturity, and that Reginald Musgrave had happened to measure the elm as part of his trigonometry lesson.)

A. D. Galbraith points out as well that at the time the ritual was written, a magnetic compass pointed to true north, but in Holmes's time, it pointed 20 degrees west of north, so the Holmes would be walking in a totally wrong direction.

Sherlock Holmes is over six feet tall, so when he paces off "ten by ten", wouldn't he have paced off a greater length than, say, Charles I, who was only five feet four inches? And why such precision for pacing in the front hall, when in fact they needed to move away from the final spot to find the stairs to go down?

And what about those "three rusty old discs of metal" that are mentioned at the beginning of the story? "'These are coins of Charles the First,' said [Holmes], holding out the few which had been in the box ..." and one presumes that also applied to the discs in Holmes's possession--except the coins would be gold, silver, or copper--none of which rust. Yes, silver tarnishes, but it seems unlikely Watson would mistake tarnished silver for rusted iron. (And it's most likely that a treasure being hidden would be in gold rather than silver or copper.)

THE POISON BELT by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 10/19/2007]

THE POISON BELT by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (ISBN-13 978-0-8032-6634-6, ISBN-10 0-8032-6634-0) is the second of the "Professor Challenger" stories (the first being THE LOST WORLD). On the whole, it is not very good as a story, with quite a few errors in science and a "happy" ending that is only happy in the same sense that the ending of H. G. Wells's THE WAR OF THE WORLDS is a happy ending. The premise--that Earth passes through a belt of poisonous aether--seems unlikely now that aether has been discredited, but it may have inspired Poul Anderson's BRAIN WAVE.

There is one quote that fits in very well with Mark's comments on the scale of the universe in the 08/31/07 issue of the MT VOID. Doyle compares our solar system to a bunch of connected corks floating on the Atlantic, and then says, "A third-rate sun, with its ragtag and bobtail of insignificant satellites, we float under the same daily conditions towards some unknown end, some squalid catastrophe which will overwhelm us at the ultimate confines of space, where we are swept over an etheric Niagara, or dashed upon some unthinkable Labrador."

"The Red-Headed League" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 08/03/2012]

Not all of these are original, although I have tried to add enough that I am not just repeating other people's previous observations.

[Spoilers ahead.]

1) Watson writes, "I had called upon my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, one day in the autumn of last year ..." Later he says of Jabez Wilson's newspaper, "It is The Morning Chronicle of April 27, 1890. Just two months ago," and Wilson himself says, "Spaulding ... came down into the office just this day eight weeks, with this very paper in his hand." This is impossible, for two reasons. First, April 27 was a Sunday and papers were not published on Sundays in London in 1890. But also, two months from April is not autumn. The sign Wilson found before coming to Holmes said, "THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE IS DISSOLVED. October 9, 1890." (A Thursday, by the way.) This definitely places the story in autumn, but eight weeks earlier would be August 14. Yes, both April and August start with "A", but the numeric dates are completely different.

Since Holmes says, "To-day is Saturday," it must be October 11, 1890, and based on what Wilson says, the advertisement would have appeared on August 16. The problem with this is two-fold. First, though Wilson says Spaulding came to him on a Saturday, the ad said to apply on Monday, yet they "put up the shutters for the day" and headed for Pope's Court. Second, it must have been nine weeks between the two dates; see below.

2) Wilson is paid four pounds a week, and paid once a week ("on Saturday the manager came in and planked down four golden sovereigns for my week's work. It was the same next week, and the same the week after."). Wilson also later says, "... it cost them two and thirty pounds." Yet Holmes says, "[You] are, as I understand, richer by some 30 pounds." (It could be argued that Holmes was rounding off the number, but that would be unlike him. It could also be, I suppose, that he is deducting the cost of the materials Wilson had to provide.)

But a bigger problem is that if the advertisement appeared eight weeks earlier, and the League was dissolved on Thursday, then Wilson got paid for only seven weeks of work, or twenty-eight pounds. Surely Wilson would not make such a mistake.

3) Wilson brings seven sheets of paper with him for the first day ("I bought a penny bottle of ink, and with a quill-pen, and seven sheets of foolscap paper"). Even given the slowness of writing with a dip pen, wouldn't he run out of paper before his four hours were up? Maybe not, because foolscap paper is about twice the size of our current standard paper size, or of the A4 size in Britain.

4) Is it really likely that the conspirators would dissolve the League too days before the robbery? Nothing was scheduled to happen until late Saturday, so it was not as though they would be busy. As Holmes said, "The 4 pounds a week was a lure which must draw him, and what was it to them, who were playing for thousands?" Given the result was the total collapse of their plans, would saving four pounds really have seemed worth it?

For that matter, isn't making Wilson bring his own paper, pens, and ink a bit stingy?

5) After eight weeks (48 days, since apparently Saturday counted as a work day as well, or 192 hours), is it likely Wilson would be at the end of the A's (which included "Abbots and Archery and Armour and Architecture and Attica")? Even if he is working from the first edition, he has 511 pages to copy for the As--and by the way, it has no entries for Archery or Attica, and only five lines for Armour. (The 511 pages each have about nine words per column-line, sixty lines per column, and two columns per page, or roughly a thousand words per page. 511,000 words in 192 hours is 2662 words per hour, or 44 words per minute. This assumes no pauses, and doing this with a dip pen is pretty unlikely.) All later editions would be longer.

(The first edition was in three volumes, stacked rather heavily towards the beginning of the alphabet. Volume I was "A-B", Volume II was "C-L", and Volume III was "M-Z".)

And does Wilson have to copy the illustrations as well?

Baring-Gould argues it was seven days a week, because Wilson says he went "every day," but I do not find this convincing, as I have seen many stores say they are open "every day" or "daily" 9 to 5, when it turns out they really mean "every day except Sunday" or even "every weekday." In Victorian London, it is most unlikely that Spaulding/Clay would expect Wilson to come on Sundays.

6) Holmes says, "For you, Mr. Merryweather, the stake will be some 30,000 pounds," but Merryweather says, "We ... borrowed for that purpose 30,000 napoleons from the Bank of France." A pound is 0.235420 troy ounces (7.322381g) of 100% gold; a napoleon is 0.1867 troy ounces (5.801g) of gold, but because the coin is only 90% gold, it weights 6.45g total.

So based on gold content, a napoleon is worth only about 0.80 pounds, or 16 shillings. (This is close to what I have found on at least one site as the official exchange rate.) 30,000 napoleons would be only 24,000 pounds; 30,000 pounds would be 37,500 napoleons. If they are in crates, and "each crate has 2,000 packed in lead foil," 30,000 is probably a more accurate number, and there are fifteen crates.

So each crate weighs 2000 * 6.45g, or roughly thirty pounds (not counting the lead foil, or the crate itself). Even adding those, the crates are definitely individually manageable, and there are only fifteen of them, with a total weight of only maybe 750 pounds.

This means that, unlike a lot of heist films, the amount of gold to be transported is an amount that could be transported.

Some commentators think this is more than they could transport, but a pulley system would let them haul each box up into Wilson's basement and the total weight is about that of four or five men. Surely there were wagons or other conveyances that could carry that weight.

A bigger problem is how they thought they would remove the boxes from Wilson's basement without being heard. Maybe there was a coal chute that they would use with a pulley-and-wheel system to haul them up to the street.

7) If Jones had an inspector and two officers waiting at the front door of Wilson's establishment, and there was no other retreat from the bank vault, how did Holmes expect Clay and his conspirator(s) to get in?

8) Holmes says, "I have been at some small expense over this matter, which I shall expect the bank to refund"--but what expenses could he have had?

9) Holmes says, "Then I made inquiries as to this mysterious assistant and found that I had to deal with one of the coolest and most daring criminals in London." Where was he making these inquiries, and on what basis--especially since he apparently knew at the very beginning who "Vincent Spaulding" was: after Wilson's description of him, Holmes replies, "I thought as much. Have you ever observed that his ears are pierced for earrings?" This can hardly be a random question.

10) Holmes says, "Saturday would suit them better than any other day, as it would give them two days for their escape." This, and other references firmly fixes the case as taking place on a Saturday. But if the conspirators wait until almost midnight to start, how does that give them two days (unless Monday is a bank holiday, of which there are none in the autumn)?

11) And as Baring-Gould and others ask, where did all the dirt from the tunnel go, and if Watson could smell the hot metal from the lamp, wouldn't Clay have been able to also?

12) Saxe-Coburg Square does not exist, nor does Pope's Court (neither number 7 nor number 4, both of which are given as the address of the Red-Headed League), but there is a 17 King Edward Street, near St. Paul's.

"A Scandal in Bohemia" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 06/05/2015]

Not all of these are original, although I have tried to add enough that I am not just repeating other people's previous observations.

[Spoilers ahead.]

1) No one really knows whether it is "I-ree-nee" or "I-reen" Adler, though the consensus seems to be "I-ree-nee". My own feeling is that when she was born in New Jersey, it was "I-reen" but when she became a European opera star, she changed the pronunciation to "I-ree-nee".

2) You can tell this is an early story, because Watson writes that Sherlock Holmes "was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen"--the "I take it" indicating either uncertainty, or some strange acknowledgement of a better authority than himself.

3) At times Holmes claimed he never took credit for his detection efforts, yet Watson reads about him in the newspapers in conjunction with three international cases. That he would actually have read anything about something the Holmes "accomplished so delicately" for the royal family of Holland seems doubly unlikely. (This is similar to the problem in "The Boscombe Valley Mystery--> the mere fact of its publication would reveal all those details that Holmes wished to keep from the main participants in the case.)

4) The date, as is frequently the case, is disputed--it seems that Doyle was often sloppy with his dates. In this case, the starting date given (20 March 1888) is a Tuesday. But "we have three days left" until the next Monday makes this impossible, unless Holmes is excluding both Saturday and Sunday. There is no reason to exclude either in this situation, and in any case, Saturday was a working day (or half-day) for the majority of the population.

5) In this story, Holmes "threw across his case of cigars" and later "sent up a great blue triumphant cloud from his cigarette." In other stories, there are references to pipes, but so far as I recall Holmes did not go so far as to take snuff or chew tobacco.

6) Holmes makes all sorts of deductions based on the King of Bohemia's physiognomy that no longer have any credence--with no longer think that "a thick, hanging lip, and a long, straight chin" are " suggestive of resolution pushed to the length of obstinacy."

7) Why can the details be revealed after two years? True, the King would be married by then, but it seems very callous of him to say that just because Clothilde would be trapped, he would not mind embarrassing her with these revelations. Then again, he does seem a bit uncaring of other people's feelings.

8) There is also no explanation of why Irene Adler wants to ruin the King's marriage. One could presume the King might be reticent to say, but the explanation than "rather than I should marry another woman, there are no lengths to which she would not go" seems mere wishful thinking on the King's part. (In at least some of the dramatizations, there is reference to the fact that the King had promised to marry her, but that is not in the original text.)

9) Unlike in the movies, and indeed in later stories, here when Holmes appears at Baker Street in disguise as "a drunken-looking groom, ill-kempt and side-whiskered, with an inflamed face and disreputable clothes," Watson does not attempt to chase him out as an interloper, but merely notes he "had to look three times before [he] was certain it was indeed he," implying that he suspected that from the first and was merely verifying it.

10) Godfrey Norton seems singularly unprepared if, when time is apparently of the essence, he has to stop on the way to the church to buy the ring.

11) In several of the dramatizations, Holmes shows the cabman a handful of gold coins, which seems much more convincing than merely jumping in looking like a shabby drunk and calling out. "The Church of St. Monica, and half a sovereign if you reach it in twenty minutes."

12) The less said about the errors that Doyle in the marriage ceremony the better. One must ask, though, why after the ceremony the bride and groom go their separate ways. (This is reminiscent of Hatty Doran and Francis Hay Moulton's marriage in San Francisco in "The Noble Bachelor".)

13) Holmes asks Watson if he is willing to break the law or run a chance of arrest. Watson says, "Not in a good cause," and Holmes replies, "Oh, the cause is excellent." Really? I suppose that even though Doyle makes clear he thinks the King is arrogant, he believes protecting the King's reputation (and in the process deceiving Clothilde) is more important than Irene getting her revenge.

14) Holmes's character as a clergyman reminded me of Peter Cushing's portrayal of the clergyman in DOCTOR SYN.

15) If Irene's marriage "as averse to its being seen by Mr. Godfrey Norton, as our client is to its coming to the eyes of his princess," one has to ask why she would not have been this averse two weeks earlier, or indeed whenever she threatened the King. And for that matter, if she is "a well-known adventuress" (a euphemism of the time for a loose woman), why would Norton had been surprised or shocked by the photograph?

16) For all his intelligence, why it did not occur to Holmes that Irene might realize it was a trick and not stay around until he (or someone else) showed up to take the photograph?

17) And why does Irene think she needed to keep the photograph to safeguard herself from him? Why would he consider her a threat without the photograph? Especially if he says, "I know that her word is inviolate." And if he does decide she is a threat, what is to stop him from finding and seizing the photograph then?

A STUDY IN SCARLET by Arthur Conan Doyle:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 05/06/22]

I've written comments on several Sherlock Holmes stories, but today I will tackle the first, A STUDY IN SCARLET by Arthur Conan Doyle. It is also one of the four novels (as opposed to being a short story). As I think will be clear, Doyle had not firmed up the back story for either of his characters. Watson's famously "wandering wound" doesn't wander in this story, but is not consistent across all the stories. I will note other changes as well.

Watson begins by saying his health was "irretrievably ruined." He later adds "I am not strong enough yet to stand much noise or excitement," and says, "My health forbade me from venturing out unless the weather was exceptionally genial." Doyle seems to hold to this in this book, but even just one book later (THE SIGN OF FOUR) Watson is involved in quite a bit of excitement, and in future stories he is climbing walls, running across moors, and constantly being told to bring his service revolver on trips, which sounds pretty exciting to me.

Stamford says that Holmes had found some nice rooms "which were too much for his purse." That may have been true then, but from the start Holmes is spending money right and left, and not always being reimbursed. For example, he pays the six Baker Street Irregulars a shilling each the first time they show up and presumably at least one more each when they find the Aurora.

Anyway, Watson's pension is eleven shillings and sixpence a day, or a little over four pounds a week. Stangerson and Drebber were paying a pound a day each for rooms at the Charpentiers', or fourteen pounds a week. Even if one thinks of the Charpentiers as running a hotel, while 221B is a long-term rental, it doesn't seem as if Watson could afford half the rental. (We are never told what the rental is, but we do know that what Holmes paid in rent would have paid for the building several times over.)

Jefferson Hope sends someone to 221B Baker Street to get the wedding ring. Yet he is not the least bit suspicious when Wiggins asks him to bring his cab to that same address at the end of the story.

It is beyond coincidence that just when Holmes needs to check if a pill contains poison, there happens to be a sick dog that needs to be put out of its misery. (And given the expression on Stangerson's face, it does not seem like this was a particularly painless death.) On the other hand, it may explain what happened to the bull pup Watson mentioned keeping; was it given away because it couldn't get along with the terrier? (Though how Watson managed to have a bull pup when he was fresh out of the Army and living in a hotel on limited funds is never explained either.)

Watson writes, "I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion." By the start of THE SIGN OF FOUR, Holmes is explicitly a cocaine user, but it is not clear whether Doyle intended this when he wrote A STUDY IN SCARLET.

Holmes describes himself as the only consulting detective in the world. "Here in London we have lots of government detectives and lots of private ones. When these fellows are at fault, they come to me, and I manage to put them on the right scent." But this also does not last long. Although he claims the non-Scotland-Yard cases are "mostly sent on by private inquiry agencies," it is clear that he quickly developed a reputation and people would come on their own. This is especially true when it is not obvious at the start that there has been a crime. I don't feel like checking every story, but it appears that almost all the stories in the first collection, THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES--are brought to him by private individuals acting in their own behalf.)

Holmes complains that Scotland Yard "will pocket all the credit," but he certainly manages to become well enough known to get a lot of future cases on his reputation alone, and in later stories tells various police detectives that he does not want any credit or publicity (although it may not take much for him to gain a good reputation).

Though the relationship between the Mormons and the Masons has been rocky at times, it is certainly possible that Stangerson would have a "gold ring with a Masonic device."

The idea that you can judge a person's height by the length of their stride assumes that the ratio of leg length to overall height is a constant. It isn't. For example, at one point I wore a pants leg an inch longer than Mark, yet he was three inches taller than I was.

Does lightness and transparency of pills really indicate solubility in water?

Jefferson Hope is also suffering from ill health, yet manages to engage in a struggle described as a "furious resistance" with at least three men. His aneurism conveniently waits until he has told his story and then, apparently, bursts when he is sleeping peacefully.

Hope said, "I had grown my beard and there was no chance of their recognising me." Then he says then Enoch Drebber, even drunk, was able to recognize him.

And keeping the wedding ring as a memento of Lucy seems strange, since it would be something she hated, not something she treasured.

These obviously are just a few of the items worth noting in the book. For a more complete annotation, see either William Baring-Gould's or Leslie Klinger's annotated versions. (There is also an Oxford annotated version but it is nowhere near as complete as Baring-Gould or Klinger.)

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 01/03/25]

I don't have as many things to say about A STUDY IN SCARLET by Arthur Conan Doyle as I did about (for example) "The League of Red-Headed Gentlemen", but I did notice a few things.

In the beginning, [Doyle as] Watson writes, "[At the fatal battle of Maiwand] I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. [In the base hospital at Peshawar] I was struck down by enteric fever... [After I recovered] I was despatched accordingly, in the troopship Orontes, and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined... "

Although we occasionally see Watson complain about the shoulder wound (or sometimes a mysterious leg wound), when he's climbing over fences to help Holmes burgle a house, or tackling a criminal, his health hardly seems "irretrievably ruined."

Watson tells Holmes, "I keep a bull pup."

How on earth can Watson have been keeping a bull pup through all the battles and wounds and enteric fever, not to mention ending up in a hotel with no permanent place of residence?

Holmes describes himself thusly, "The theories which I have expressed there, and which appear to you to be so chimerical, are really extremely practical -- so practical that I depend upon them for my bread and cheese. ... I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one in the world. I'm a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is. Here in London we have lots of government detectives and lots of private ones. When these fellows are at fault, they come to me, and I manage to put them on the right scent."

Holmes claims he is making a living at his consulting detective. He claims that the government and private detectives bring him cases they can't solve. But we never see any private detectives bring him cases, and surely Lestrade, Gregson, Jones, and Mycroft aren't paying him out of government funds when they ask for his help. Yes, he gets the occasional payment (such as in "A Scandal in Bohemia" or "The Adventure of the Priory School"), but that is a rarity. And a lot of cases seem to come to him directly, making him basically just another private detective. Well, the best of them, but still not a new category.