第 19 页

UK: February 1893 US: February 1893

COLLECTION

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, 1894

CHARACTERS Grant Munro (“Jack”) Hop merchant living in Norbury.

Effie Munro Grant Munro’s wife, who previously lived and was married in Atlanta, Georgia.

John Hebron Effie’s late husband, an American lawyer.

Lucy Hebron Effie’s daughter.

THE YELLOW FACE (1893)

T

his tale opens with a lull in business for Sherlock Holmes, and a remark from Dr Watson on the detective’s habit of turning to cocaine during slow periods. He refers to Holmes’s casual drug use as “a protest against the monotony of existence when cases were scanty.” Yet it has now become more of an affectation than a true habit, and Conan Doyle’s previous depictions of Holmes as a misanthropic decadent, influenced by Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), are giving way to a more well-adjusted persona.

Interracial marriage

In the United States in the 19th century, interracial marriage and miscegenation (breeding between races) were highly taboo. The Hebron family would certainly have had to leave their home in Atlanta, Georgia, where laws against miscegenation still applied until 1967.

Munro’s acceptance of his mixed-race stepdaughter reflects the softer attitudes in Britain at the time: interracial marriage might have been frowned upon by society, but

Evasion and lies

Holmes and Watson return from a stroll to find they have just missed a caller—Grant Munro. When he returns, Munro explains his situation: his wife, Effie, has been deceiving him, causing a rift in their otherwise perfect marriage, and he wants Holmes’s advice.

Six weeks earlier, Effie had asked Munro to give her £100, insisting he not ask about its purpose. Then, last week, he was returning to their home in Norbury when he saw that a nearby cottage had new occupants; he caught a

it was not illegal. Interestingly, in the British edition of the story there are two minutes of silence before Munro’s heart-warming declaration of acceptance; in the American version it was adjusted to 10 minutes.

In 1882, Conan Doyle met the American minister and black anti-slavery leader Henry Highland Garnet. Conan Doyle’s sympathies as set out in “The Yellow Face” may have resulted from what he came to learn as a result of their friendship.

THE YELLOW FACE 113

glimpse of an eerily inhuman “yellow livid face” peering out of an upstairs window. That night, he awoke to discover his wife slipping out of the house at 3 am, and when she returned, she was vague about where she had been.

The following day, Munro saw Effie coming out of the cottage and asked her what business she had with its occupants. Again she would not tell him, but implored him never to enter the house, saying that their marriage would be over were he to do so. She swore she would not go there again, but three days later she did, so Munro rushed over there. The cottage was empty, but in the upstairs room he found a photograph of his wife.

For Holmes, the case hinges on Effie’s past. Munro reveals she had emigrated to the United States, but returned after the death of both her first husband and her child from yellow fever. When she married Munro, she signed her ex-husband’s income over to him. Munro says he has seen the first husband’s death certificate, but Holmes suspects foul play. He is sure this is a case of blackmail, and that Effie’s first husband must be alive and has tracked her down to extort money: the face at the window is his. Then Munro summons Holmes and Watson to Norbury because the cottage’s residents have returned.

Love conquers prejudice

Holmes and Watson help Munro enter the cottage, where they discover that the “yellow face” is a mask being worn by a young black girl named Lucy—Effie’s daughter. The first husband, an African American lawyer, did die, but the child survived and lived with a nurse

Many serious outbreaks of yellow fever occurred in southern states of the US in the 19th century. In severe cases, patients developed jaundice, which turned their skin yellow, and often died.

until her mother arranged their passage to England, using the money Munro had given her. Fearing Munro would no longer love her, Effie tried to keep her daughter’s existence a secret from him and made Lucy stay inside the cottage, wearing a mask to disguise the color of her face.

After hearing this pitiable tale, Munro declares, “I am not a very good man... but I think that I am a better one than you have given me credit for being.” He lifts up little Lucy and kisses her, a noble gesture given social conventions of the time, then goes to his wife.

This case is unusual both in that no crime has been committed, and also in that it is one of only a handful where Holmes’s deductions are proved wrong. But most striking is Conan Doyle’s progressive anti-racism message, which would have been at odds with attitudes of many 19th-century readers. ■

Watson... if it should ever strike you that I am getting a little overconfident in my powers... kindly whisper ‘Norbury’ in my ear, and I shall be infinitely obliged to you.

Sherlock Holmes

HUMAN NATURE IS

A STRANGE MIXTURE

WATSON

THE STOCKBROKER’S CLERK (1893)

IN CONTEXT

TYPE

Short story

FIRST PUBLICATION

UK: March 1893 US: March 1893

COLLECTION

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, 1894

CHARACTERS Hall Pycroft Young stockbroker’s clerk.

Arthur Pinner Financial agent based in London.

Harry Pinner Owner of a newly established hardware distribution company, based in Birmingham.

Beddington Criminal who has just been released from a five-year prison sentence.

W

hen Conan Doyle wrote “The Stockbroker’s Clerk,” his earnings from the Sherlock Holmes stories were reaching a level at which he had money of his own to invest. He began to deal with the brokerage of Pim, Vaughan and bought shares in ventures such as the Portsmouth Tram Company and Australian mines. Doubtless, therefore, he was well aware that fraud was rife in the financial world at the time. In this story, he displays a knowledge of how businesses worked, using a plot that turns, plausibly, on the

Financial felons

The financial world of the late 19th century was highly corrupt. At least one in six company launches on the stock market was fraudulent, with swindlers taking investors’ money and then vanishing. Banking was just as corrupt as the stock market, with 242 out of the 291 private banks formed between 1844 and 1868 failing, often because of fraud. When the giant City of Glasgow Bank failed in 1878, it transpired that the directors had lent millions

pitfalls inherent in the way London firms like the fictional Mawson & Williams hired their staff.

A dream job turns sour

The stockbroker’s clerk in the title is young Hall Pycroft, and he is traveling to Birmingham by train with Holmes, whose services he has engaged, and Watson. During the journey, he tells them about the case. He was let go from his clerk’s job a while ago, and after a long and desperate search for a new job he finally landed a post at major London stockbrokers Mawson &

to friends and family with no collateral, and cooked the books to cover it up. However, the police almost never investigated what is known today as white-collar crime, concentrating instead on the working-class felon. Such was the level of theft and corruption in the business world that Beddington, posing as a clerk, would hardly have needed to murder the security guard and carry the bonds off in a bag. Huge sums of money were hemorrhaging each day through the slippery hands of “legitimate” employees.

THE STOCKBROKER’S CLERK 115

Williams. However, shortly before Pycroft was due to take up the position, he was offered a better-paying job by a man named Arthur Pinner, who instructed him to travel to Birmingham to meet his brother Harry, the “promoter” of the Franco-Midland Hardware Company, at their offices. Flattered by the offer, Pycroft accepted the job, signing a declaration stating his willingness to join the company, and agreeing to not officially resign his post at Mawson & Williams.

In Birmingham, Harry took Pycroft to the company’s office, which turned out to be a couple of small, dusty, and sparsely furnished rooms. Pycroft began to work, but soon felt a vague sense of unease. He then observed that Harry had a gold filling on the same tooth as his brother, and suspected that they must be the same man. His suspicions aroused, Pycroft consulted Holmes, who agreed to probe his mysterious new employer.

When the trio arrive at Pycroft’s Birmingham office, with Holmes and Watson posing as job-seekers, they find Pinner reading a newspaper and looking highly distraught; he asks them to leave him alone for a moment. Hearing strange sounds,

In a dramatic scene, illustrated here in The Strand Magazine, Holmes, Watson, and Pycroft force their way into Pinner’s office and find him attempting to commit suicide.

they burst back into the room and find him hanging from a hook on the door. After cutting him down and reviving him, Holmes deduces that Pinner has devised a fictitious post for Pycroft in Birmingham, to get him out of the way so a crime could be committed at Mawson & Williams in London.

A murderous thief

The newspaper Pinner was reading reveals both the details of the crime and the reason for Pinner’s despair. His real brother, a notorious forger and safe-breaker called Beddington, had taken up Pycroft’s position at Mawson & Williams; it was easy to impersonate the young clerk, since no one in the company had actually met him. Then, the previous Saturday, Beddington had dallied in the office, murdered the guard, and tried to make off with a bag stuffed with almost £100,000 in bonds. But an astute policeman, surprised to see a man leaving the office so late with a bag, arrested him, and the crime was discovered. All that remains, the paper reports, is to catch Beddington’s brother, who usually works with him. “We may save the police some little trouble in that direction,” remarks Holmes.

Holmes seems surprisingly sympathetic toward Pinner, who, having been driven to suicide on hearing of his brother’s arrest, is now facing prison for his role in the crime. In fact, Holmes often stands outside the law, and is happy to see natural justice done instead. It is, of course, what puts him in Scotland Yard’s bad books, but it also saves him the trouble of having to build a legal case—once he has explained it, the reader is satisfied that justice has run its course. However, Holmes knows that in this case they must hand Pinner over to the police. The tale is also unusual in that, when he arrives at the solution, Holmes is far from the crime scene, and is only able to apprehend the accomplice. The felony itself took place within London, and it was only the sharp eyes of a policeman that led to the arrest of the perpetrator. ■

Holmes’s deduction of Watson’s health

Watson has new slippers with slightly scorched soles.

The slippers haven’t been wet—the shop’s paper label is still attached.

They weren’t scorched while drying, so he has been sitting by the fire with his feet outstretched.

He would not do this in summer if he was in good health.

“I perceive you have been unwell lately. Summer colds are always a little trying.”

AND THEN IN AN

INSTANT THE KEY

OF THE RIDDLE

WAS IN MY HANDS

IN CONTEXT

TYPE

Short story

FIRST PUBLICATION

UK: February 1893 US: April 1893

COLLECTION

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, 1894

CHARACTERS

Victor Trevor senior

Justice of the Peace in the Norfolk Broads.

Victor Trevor junior Son of Trevor senior, and an old college friend of Holmes.

Beddoes Fellow prisoner, mutineer, and friend of Victor Trevor senior.

Hudson Sailor on the Gloria Scott.

Jack Prendergast Leader of the mutiny on board the Gloria Scott.

THE GLORIA SCOTT (1893)

U

nlike most Holmes stories, “The Gloria Scott” is told by Holmes himself, not Watson, as the two friends sit by the fire one winter’s night in 221B Baker Street. Holmes had many cases before he met Watson in 1881, but of those investigations this was one of only two that Watson recorded in his annals – the other being “The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual” (pp.120–25). Indeed, Holmes declares it to be the very first case he was ever engaged in. It features two of Conan Doyle’s favorite themes:

He was the only friend I made during the two years I was at college. I was never a very sociable fellow, Watson.

Sherlock Holmes

seafaring, and the haunting of a good, respectable citizen by a disreputable past in distant climes.

A hidden past

Holmes recalls how in his student days, during the long summer vacation, he went to stay on the Norfolk Broads at the grand house of Victor Trevor, his only friend at university (probably Oxford or Cambridge, but this is a point of debate). Over a glass of port one evening, young Victor’s father, Victor Trevor senior, asked Holmes to demonstrate his deductive powers, which his son had been extolling. “Come, now, Mr. Holmes,” he said, “I’m an excellent subject, if you can deduce anything from me.”

Trevor senior, a justice of the peace with a reputation for leniency, was taken aback by Holmes’s perception that in recent months he had been going about in fear of attack. Holmes’s remarkable insight was based on a shrewd observation of Trevor’s walking stick: he could tell from the inscription that the stick was less than a year old, and further noted that it had been hollowed out at the top and filled with lead—presumably in order to be used as a weapon.

THE GLORIA SCOTT 117

Holmes also observed from his host’s flattened and thickened ears that he was once a boxer (a shared enthusiasm), while his callused hands suggested digging. Trevor senior explained that he had made his fortune prospecting for gold.

Holmes, who had earlier observed a semi-erased tattoo on the man’s arm, then added, “And you have been most intimately associated with someone whose initials were J.A., and whom you afterwards were eager to entirely forget.” At this, to both Holmes’s and Trevor junior’s astonishment, Trevor senior slowly stood, stared wildly at Holmes, then fainted. When he came to, Trevor senior declared in admiration of Holmes’s

Tea clippers like the Gloria Scott were built for speed, and designed to carry light loads. The only surviving intact example is the Cutty Sark (below), now moored in Greenwich, London.

It seems to me that all the detectives of fact and of fancy would be children in your hands.

Victor Trevor senior

astute, albeit unofficial, detective work, “That’s your line of life, sir, and you may take the word of a man who has seen something of the world.” And that, describes Holmes to the listening Watson, was the moment he realized that he might make a profession out of detective work.