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With apparently no family to turn to, Watson was left adrift in London. It was at this low point that Stamford, Watson’s old friend from medical school, introduced him to Sherlock Holmes, who was looking for someone to share his lodgings at 221B Baker Street.

Thereafter, much of Watson’s life revolved around Holmes and his escapades. At some point, however, Watson moved out of 221B and became a successful medical practitioner. Holmes has such respect for Watson’s expertise that he keeps him at a distance to stop him from seeing through his feigned illness in “The Adventure of the Dying Detective” (pp.234–35).

Personal relationships

Watson’s marital status is difficult to establish. The reader learns that he marries Mary Morstan, the young woman who seeks Holmes’s help in The Sign of Four (pp.46–55), yet in “The Adventure of the Empty House” (pp.162–67) it seems she has died. However, in some later tales, Watson has a wife, and Holmesians have often speculated on her identity. Fans are also intrigued by Watson’s assertion that he has “an experience of women which extends over many nations and three separate continents,” though given that he is comparing them to Mary when he first meets her, this is probably just the hyperbole of a man in love.

Watson is sometimes portrayed as dull-witted. Even Conan Doyle once called him Holmes’s “rather stupid friend.” However, while he may lag behind in brains, he more than makes up for it in reliability and integrity. Watson is Holmes’s rock and only friend, and Holmes makes very clear in “The Dying Detective” just how much Watson means to him: “You won’t fail me,” he says, “You never did fail me.” ■

HE SITS MOTIONLESS

LIKE A SPIDER IN THE

CENTRE OF ITS WEB

PROFESSOR JAMES MORIARTY

C

onan Doyle created Professor James Moriarty simply to provide a fitting opponent with whom his hero could grapple during his goodbye to the world in “The Final Problem” (pp.142–47). Although Moriarty apparently died after his brief, dramatic encounter with Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, and he only appears directly in one other story, The Valley of Fear (pp.212–21)—set earlier in Holmes’s career—his powerful specter seems to haunt the later tales. The character of Moriarty became established in readers’ minds, and today we can hardly talk of Holmes without mentioning his nemesis—Moriarty is forever linked to the great detective’s legacy.

Holmes’s equal

The professor’s power to terrify may stem from the fact that he is a mirror image of Holmes: the man the great detective might have become had he chosen to follow a sinister path. Moriarty is a spine-chilling version of Holmes: both men have high foreheads and sharp eyes, but in Moriarty’s case everything is more drawn and exaggerated. Tall and thin, with sunken eyes and a protruding chin, his head moves from “side to side in curiously reptilian fashion.” Moriarty came from a privileged background and received an excellent education that set him

Released in 1922, the movie Moriarty (originally titled Sherlock Holmes in the US) starred German actor Gustav von Seyffertitz as the brilliant criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty.

on a path toward respectability. Naturally brilliant at mathematics (a subject Conan Doyle hated), at the age of 21 he wrote a treatise on algebra that achieved recognition throughout Europe. He was also celebrated for his brilliant book on the dynamics of asteroids, which Holmes remarks is so advanced that “no man in the scientific press was capable of criticising it.” On the back of this work, Moriarty became a professor of mathematics at an English university. But then unspecified “dark rumours” began

The greatest schemer of all time, the organiser of every devilry, the controlling brain of the underworld, a brain which might have made or marred the destiny of nations—that’s the man!

Sherlock Holmes

PROFESSOR JAMES MORIARTY 29

to circulate about him, and he relocated to London to begin his criminal career. And what a career it was. Moriarty became the ultimate mastermind, drawing on his prodigious intellect to run a vast crime network, the largest ever seen, and yet remain invisible at its heart, entirely above suspicion, as the Professor Moriarty of mathematical celebrity. “Like a spider,” he sat at the center, pulling the strings of this criminal web—“the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city.” It took the equal genius of Holmes to finally trace the threads back to him.

Brain of the underworld

The brilliance of Moriarty’s schemes means that no one can ever pin down the source of his criminal gains, whether it is burglary, extortion, or forgery. Holmes likens him to Jonathan Wild, who in the 18th century “was a master criminal… the hidden force of the London criminals, to whom he sold his brains and his organization on a fifteen per cent commission.” Wild pretended to be a thief-taker, earning fame and money for the way his network caught criminals—but it

Adam Worth

Sidney Paget’s illustration of Moriarty first appeared in “The Final Problem,” which was published in the December 1893 edition of The Strand Magazine.

was also he who was organizing the crime. Holmes scholars have identified various other candidates who may have provided Conan Doyle with the inspiration for Moriarty, but by far the strongest is the true-life criminal genius Adam Worth. Indeed, the similarity in their methods is so marked that the US detective William Pinkerton, head of the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency, believed that Conan Doyle should pay him royalties, as he had told the author all about Worth during a transatlantic voyage.

There are two major clues that lend weight to this theory. Firstly, in “The Final Problem” Moriarty is referred to as the “Napoleon of crime”—a moniker that was coined for Adam Worth. Secondly, in The Valley of Fear, Holmes reports that the professor has hanging in his study an incredibly valuable, and famous, painting of a coquettish young woman that he could only

German-born American super-criminal Adam Worth (1848–1902) was dubbed the “Napoleon of crime” by Scotland Yard’s Robert Anderson for his skill in running a major crime network from his home in London. Like Moriarty, Worth was an expert operator, staying at arm’s length from his crimes; unlike Moriarty, however, he was opposed to the use of violence, and treated the men who worked for him as family. Indeed, the only reason he finally served a prison term (for petty crime) was because he got caught while going to the aid of one of his gang.

have acquired through theft. It is easy to believe that this is Conan Doyle’s reference to Worth’s temporary “ownership” of Thomas Gainsborough’s alluring portrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, which he had personally cut from its frame in the gallery in which it was hanging, having reportedly become smitten with it. ■

Worth began his life of crime in the US, as a bank robber, before moving to London to set up as a respectable art collector and the head of a criminal syndicate involved in robbery and forgery.

For years, he outfoxed the world’s police by conducting bloodless, well-executed crimes without leaving a shred of incriminating evidence. For example, there was nothing to link him to his theft of a Thomas Gainsborough artwork, which he carried with him for 25 years before shrewdly negotiating a $25,000 fee for its return.

I

nspector G. Lestrade is the Scotland Yard detective who appears repeatedly throughout the Holmes canon. Many other police detectives make a fleeting appearance, from Inspector Stanley Hopkins in “The Adventure of Black Peter” (pp.184–85) to Inspector Bardle in “The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane” (pp.278–83), but Lestrade is the only persistent presence. First appearing in A Study in Scarlet (pp.36–45) in 1887, Lestrade is still there in “The Adventure of the Three Garridebs” (pp.262–65), which Conan Doyle wrote 37 years later.

Conan Doyle seems to have gotten Lestrade’s name from a fellow medical student at Edinburgh, Joseph Alexandre Lestrade, and the initial “G” may be an echo of the Prefect of Police known only as “G___” in Edgar Allan Poe’s story The Purloined Letter (1845). Watson describes the inspector as “a little sallow rat-faced, dark-eyed fellow” and later as “a lean, ferret-like man, furtive and sly-looking.” Very little

I AM A PRACTICAL MAN MR.

HOLMES AND WHEN I HAVE

GOT MY EVIDENCE I COME

TO MY CONCLUSIONS

INSPECTOR G. LESTRADE

else is known about Lestrade, but he is probably part of the new breed of tenacious professional policemen who made their way up through the ranks from humble beginnings— the kind first depicted in fiction in the form of Inspector Bucket in Charles Dickens’ Bleak House (1853) and Inspector Cuff in Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone (1868).

Fact or fiction?

Both Bucket and Cuff were based on the real-life Detective Inspector Jonathan “Jack” Whicher (1814– 1881), one of the eight original members of the Detective Branch set up at Scotland Yard in 1842. Whicher reached the pinnacle of his fame with the infamous Constance Kent murder mystery in 1860,

Inspector Lestrade arresting Jim Browner in “The Cardboard Box,” first published in the UK in The Strand Magazine (1893).

INSPECTOR G. LESTRADE 31

I really cannot undertake to go about the country looking for a left-handed gentleman with a game leg. I should become the laughing-stock of Scotland Yard.

Inspector Lestrade

recalled in Kate Summerscale’s 2009 book The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher. Readers both of the fictional stories and of the real-life crime reports at the time got a particular frisson from the way such lowly men probed behind the facade of well-to-do respectability to lay bare their corruption. Holmes, of course, has a more aristocratic brilliance, and when he first meets Lestrade, he can barely conceal his low opinion. “[Gregson and] Lestrade are the best of a bad lot. They are both quick and energetic, but conventional—shockingly so…” His ridicule soon becomes so marked it seems almost snobbery. But Conan Doyle may have been drawing inspiration from real life.

A tarnished reputation

By the 1880s, Scotland Yard’s reputation, so bright in Whicher’s day, had been tarnished by the way in which Inspector John Shore and his fellow detectives were given the runaround by Adam Worth, the real-life criminal mastermind who was one of the inspirations for Conan Doyle’s Moriarty (p.29). Worth made Shore look flat-footed and incompetent, and Shore never caught his man despite years of dogged pursuit. Scotland Yard’s reputation hit another low in 1888, when they failed to make any headway with the appalling Jack the Ripper murders (p.315).

Mutual respect

Over the years, however, Holmes’s contemptuous attitude toward Lestrade seems to mellow. At first, Lestrade doesn’t think much of Holmes either. So, perhaps sensing Holmes’s ridicule, he declares himself to be a practical detective who deals in facts—in contrast to the abstract thinking of amateurs like Holmes. But as he sees Holmes solve case after case, he comes to admire the detective’s methods. Holmes, in turn, begins to respect some of Lestrade’s qualities, and allows the inspector to take the credit for his deductions.

In “The Cardboard Box” (pp.110–11), Holmes admits that Lestrade is “tenacious as a bulldog when he once understands what he has to do, and indeed, it is just this tenacity which has brought him to the top at Scotland Yard.” And when Holmes comes back from the dead in “The Adventure of the Empty House” (pp.162–67), he trusts Lestrade enough to let him in on his secret. Lestrade returns the compliment, saying, “It’s good to see you back in London, sir.” By the time of “The Adventure of the Six Napoleons” (pp.188–89), it turns out that Lestrade regularly drops by at 221B Baker Street with updates and for advice. Lestrade even admits to a genuinely touched Holmes that “... we are very proud of you [down at Scotland Yard], and if you come down to-morrow there’s not a man, from the oldest inspector to the youngest constable, who wouldn’t be glad to shake you by the hand.” ■

The Baker Street Irregulars

Despite appearances, Holmes rarely works entirely alone. In a number of investigations the detective is aided by his invisible army of helpers— the motley crew of street urchins known as the Baker Street Irregulars. In A Study in Scarlet, Watson describes them as “half a dozen of the dirtiest and most ragged street Arabs that ever I clapped eyes on,” but Holmes knows their value, calling them “the Baker Street division of the detective police force.” Shabby they may be, but for the price of a shilling a day, they can “go everywhere and hear everything.” No one but Holmes pays any attention to these dirty little children, led by a boy named Wiggins, but in many stories they provide crucial information. Besides the Irregulars, Holmes picks various other more humble members of society to help him—from the 14-year-old messenger Cartwright, who goes through hotel garbage cans in The Hound of the Baskervilles, to Billy the pageboy in The Valley of Fear.

THE EAR

ADVENT

LY

URES

34 THE EARLY ADVENTURES

Holmes takes rooms Holmes and Watson meet at Holmes solves by himself in London’s St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, his first case Montague Street London. They lodge together Queen Victoria (see “The Gloria (see A Study in at 221B Baker Street (see celebrates her Scott,” pp.116–19). Scarlet, pp.36–45). A Study in Scarlet, pp.36–45). Golden Jubilee.

1874 1877 JAN 1881 JUN 1887 1876–1881 JUL 1880 JUN 1882 DEC 1887

Conan Doyle

Conan Doyle Conan Doyle

studies

moves to Southsea publishes A Study medicine

to set up a medical in Scarlet

Event in

at Edinburgh Watson is shot and wounded at the practice. He also (pp.36–45)

the lives of Holmes University. Battle of Maiwand, Afghanistan renounces his in Beeton’s

and Watson (see A Study in Scarlet, pp.36–45). Catholic faith. Christmas Annual.

IN THIS CHAPTER

NOVELS

A Study in Scarlet, 1887 The Sign of Four, 1890

COLLECTION

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1892

A Scandal in Bohemia The Red-Headed League A Case of Identity The Boscombe Valley Mystery The Five Orange Pips The Man with the Twisted Lip The Blue Carbuncle The Speckled Band The Engineer’s Thumb The Noble Bachelor The Beryl Coronet The Copper Beeches

S

herlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson first entered into the public consciousness in 1887, when the novel A Study in Scarlet was published in England in Beeton’s Christmas Annual. The story also featured two hapless inspectors, Gregson and Lestrade of Scotland Yard, along with Holmes’s gang of informal assistants, the “Baker Street Irregulars.” It was not a great success, but luckily found favor with the editor of Lippincott’s Magazine in the US (who published The Sign of Four three years later).