Hidden Threads in Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1

By Ted Stetson and Gail Stetson

Hidden Threads in Sherlock Holmes is a fresh approach to the Sherlock Holmes mysteries.
Arthur Conan Doyle hid scores of topics in the Sherlock Holmes adventures on subjects as diverse as arsenic and gorse wine, laughing gas and depression. Wanting to offer something for everyone, he added a layer of sports, everything from billiards to cricket. Each mystery is a puzzle to be unraveled. Discover the richness concealed in the stories.

"Hidden Threads in Sherlock Holmes, (Vol. 1) is an amazing work."
-- Jayantika Ganguly, BSI, Proceedings of the Pondicherry Lodge, Volume 10, Issue 2, December 2022

"The book is well-written and entertaining, a worthy acquisition for Holmes enthusiasts."
-- Dennis J. Duggan, BR, HONS, Holmes Welshpool

"The book acts as both a good introduction to Sherlockian scholarship and also a new entry in that field for those already familiar with that game."
-- Erin ONeill, Sidney Passengers' Log, October 2022

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ted Stetson
• Release date: Jul 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005651930

Ted Stetson

Ted Stetson is a member of SFWA. He was born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island and went to Seton Hall and Hofstra. He graduated from the University of St. Thomas, Houston, Texas. He was awarded First Place by the Florida Literary Arts Council and First Place in the Lucy B. McIntire contest of the Poetry Society of Georgia. His short fiction has appeared in Twisted Tongue, MysteryAuthors.com, Future Orbits, State Street Review, and the anthologies; One Evening a Year, Mota: Truth, Ruins Extraterrestrial Terra, Ruins Terra and Barren Worlds. His books include: Night Beasts, The Computer Song Book.

Book preview

You may be sure he has them hidden in a safe place.

—His Last Bow

For over a century, readers have enjoyed settling down with a Sherlock Holmes mystery. We know what we will find—a familiar sitting room, then a knock at the door by someone seeking help only a consulting detective might give. Holmes is his brilliant self, though sometimes disguised as who-knows-what, and Watson is reliability personified. The mystery unfolds against the backdrop of a fascinating Victorian world that, if ever given a time machine, would be our very first stop. It does not matter who you are or what you bring to the stories, the experience is the same the world over and we love it.

Imagine our surprise when we began to see hidden threads running through the mysteries. We do not mean contextual themes like the British justice system or class differences. No, we found threads on all manner of things from arsenic and coffin ships to J.M.W. Turner and a healthy dose of sports.

Arthur Conan Doyle repeated contextual themes and reused plot points; the threads, however, differ from story to story. He meant these skeins to be untangled. Discover along with us the mysteries we thought we knew.

Ted and Gail Stetson

June 2022

*****

Introduction

Arthur Conan Doyle had been writing for ten years and was unknown. From time to time, a magazine accepted one of his short stories, but published it anonymously. In 1887, the twenty-eight year old physician decided to write a detective story. His would be different; it would feature a scientific detective who possessed great powers of observation and reasoning. The result was A Study in Scarlet followed in 1890 by a second Sherlock Holmes novel, The Sign of Four.

Then, a literary monthly, the Cornhill Magazine, accepted his historical novel, The White Company, and serialized it in their January–December 1891 issues. Neither the publication of The Sign of Four nor the acceptance of The White Company would turn out to be the most pivotal event in his literary career. Instead, it was a meeting that did not involve him at all, one that took place between two men—George Newnes and Herbert Greenhough Smith.

The Elementary Education Act of 1870 had created a generation of new readers. George Newnes, a furniture salesman, identified the need for an entertaining, easy-to-read magazine. He scraped together some money and, in 1881, he created Tit-Bits, a penny weekly printed on cheap newsprint. Full of simple articles, jokes, puzzles and human-interest stories, it reached a circulation of half a million.

Herbert Greenhough Smith was an editor at the Temple Bar, a literary monthly. He envisioned a magazine featuring the best European articles and stories translated for the British public. The Temple Bar publisher rejected his idea. Greenhough Smith approached Newnes. In August 1890, they agreed to create a popular magazine for the better-educated, one the man of the house might pick up at the train station to read on the way into the city and bring home that night for his family to enjoy. The Strand Magazine was born. The first issue hit the newsstands on December 10, 1890.

The Strand Magazine accepted Conan Doyle’s short humorous romance, The Voice of Science and published it in the March 1891 issue. It was sandwiched between two stories translated from the French, The Piece of Gold by François Coppée and Camille by Alfred de Musset. The same issue included a story translated from the Russian, Alexander Pushkin’s The Snowstorm. These stories satisfied both Greenhough Smith and Newnes. Written by well-known foreign writers, they were the stuff of popular fiction, exciting and emotional.

The Strand Magazine printed The Voice of Science, without a by-line, but Conan Doyle had broken the ice. He understood George Newnes’ philosophy of journalism. In Newnes’ words, it required giving wholesome and harmless entertainment to crowds of hard-working people, craving for a little fun and amusement. Rather than styling itself on the cover as a literary magazine, the Strand Magazine cover announced it was An• Illustrated• Monthly and illustrated, it was. While the Cornhill Magazine published The White Company month after month as text-only chapters, the Strand Magazine enhanced his The Voice of Science with five illustrations.

Conan Doyle would have preferred to write historical novels, but mystery was the most popular genre at the time. He believed the public would welcome short stories featuring his consulting detective and decided to write them. He submitted Scandal in Bohemia and The Red-Headed League to the Strand Magazine. Greenhough Smith loved them.

Thus began an almost four-decade association between Arthur Conan Doyle and the Strand Magazine. There is no conversation regarding one without the other. The Strand Magazine strived to appeal to everyone and so did he. The crimes featured in these stories had broad appeal and layered beneath them were topics of the day and often a sports thread. Like the magazine, Arthur Conan Doyle, an everyman himself in many ways, included something for everyone.

Among the many reasons why the Holmes stories endure is their richness. There is discovery in every reading. Fortunately, there are also clues hidden in each mystery to guide us.

*****

Chapter 1. A Scandal in Bohemia

"You see, but you do not observe."

Figure 2: The Woman.

The first Sherlock Holmes short story, A Scandal in Bohemia, appeared in the July 1891 issue of the Strand Magazine. A masked man calls at 221B, introducing himself as Count Von Kramm, a representative of the royal house of Bohemia. Holmes knows he is really Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Feister and heir to the Bohemian throne. Conan Doyle had fun creating the name of this aristocrat; it means ‘fat, rich, rotten liar.’

The grand duke tells Holmes about a love affair he began five years ago with an adventuress named Irene Adler. At that time, adventuress was a euphemism for courtesan. Watson looks her up in Holmes’ all-encompassing index. She is a noted opera singer who had performed not only at La Scala, but also as prima donna of the Imperial Opera in Warsaw. Now, she lives in London.

The grand duke states he never married Adler, but had sent letters proclaiming his love and worse, she has a picture of them together. He is engaged to the second daughter of the King of Scandinavia and he tells Holmes that Irene has threatened to ruin his plans. If he announces his betrothal, she will send the picture to his intended.

There was no shortage of scandals in Conan Doyle’s time. Gossip sheets had been popular since the early 1700s and royal watching was as pervasive a pastime as it is today. Immediately, the story sparked speculation regarding the real identities of the grand duke and Irene Adler. Scandal in Bohemia was a hit.

The story may refer to the Madame X scandal in Paris, the epicenter of the Bohemian movement in late 19th-century France. Portrait of Madame X was the title of John Singer Sargent’s large painting of Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, the New Orleans-born wife of a banker. She was a socialite known for her pale skin that she enhanced with powdered lavender. She engaged in love affairs so openly, they were splashed all over the tabloids.

Sargent painted her in a low-cut black evening gown, one strap seductively slipped off her shoulder. He displayed the painting in the Paris Salon in 1884. The wantonness implied in the portrait appalled the French in spite of the fact that the Salon had displayed nudes. The reaction was so negative, Sargent fled to England. Conan Doyle knew Sargent; they were both friends of Henry James.

A more likely scandal was the 1889 renunciation of a throne and elopement of Archduke Johann Salvator of Austria with Ludmilla Stubel, a dancer in the Vienna Court Opera. Johann Salvator bore the title Prince of Hungary, Bohemia and Tuscany. Conan Doyle devoted a stanza to this event in The Blind Archer, a poem about Cupid’s capriciousness:

The king sought a bride, and the nation had hoped

For a queen without rival and peer.

But the little boy shot and the king has eloped

With Miss No-one on Nothing a year.

Conan Doyle incorporated some details from the Prince of Bohemia’s scandal. However, A Scandal in Bohemia, concerns neither geopolitical Bohemia, nor Paris. Watson refers to Holmes as one who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul… That is the dictionary definition of a Bohemian—a person who has informal or unconventional social habits.

Although she would be mentioned again in the canon, Irene Adler is featured only in this story. Holmes refers to her as beautiful and accomplished, but what he admires most is her brilliance. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. Irene Adler may have been outstanding in Holmes’ fictional world, but in Conan Doyle’s world, it was Lillie Langtry.

It is difficult to describe the impact Lillie Langtry had on London. There is no one today like her. She burst upon the London social scene in 1876 like nothing they had seen before. Lillie believed a woman should dress to please herself. She attended a party wearing a simple black dress with a simple hairstyle and stood out against the other, overdressed women, outshining them all. Artists at the party sketched her. Soon postcards of her image appeared in shop windows. In Lillie’s words, They saw me, those restless seekers of beauty, and in a night I was famous.

She was the topic of conversation in every London household, one of the most famous women of the time, second only to Queen Victoria. Langtry hailed from the Bailiwick of Jersey, a Channel Island, not Adler’s New Jersey. They called her The Jersey Lily.

In 1877, she became the mistress of King Edward VII who was married to Scandinavian royal, Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Famous painters begged her to sit for them. The following year, two portraits stood side-by-side at the Royal Academy. Everyone went to see them. John Millais’ portrait displayed her in the clothes she favored, a simple black dress. Edward Poynter portrayed her dressed in rich gold brocade, leaning back holding a yellow rose to her heart and a white rose to the side. The yellow rose symbolized infidelity and the rejected white, her marriage.

In the spring of 1879, she had a brief affair with Lord Battenberg, and another starting January 1880 with the Earl of Shrewsbury as well as with Arthur Jones. Her two and one-half year affair with Prince Edward ended in June 1880.

Then, Lillie discovered she was pregnant. The only candidate ruled out as father was Mr. Langtry. Edward gave her money and Arthur Jones took her to Paris. After the birth of her daughter, Jeanne Marie, on March 8, 1881, she needed money. Oscar Wilde encouraged her to go on the stage and introduced her to Henrietta Hodson, an actress who mentored her. That same year, she starred in a production of Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer.

Like Irene Adler, Lillie was independent. In 1882, she formed her own production company and toured England. Then she visited North America where she was an instant success. Mark Twain said, She is good company with her friends, but it would be hell to be married to her. She’s too damn bright.

She dominated the London scene for more than a decade and was the inspiration for Irene Adler and in case we are unsure, Conan Doyle furnishes us with another clue. He began his stories with a mystery. Then, he added an underlying theme, in this case, Edward’s dalliance with Lillie Langtry. Next, he incorporated a third layer, often a hidden sport. The sport in A Scandal in Bohemia is horseracing.

In America, Lillie met William Gebhard and became interested in horseracing. She returned to England and caught the eye of the very rich Squire Abingdon who gave her a horse. The wealthy men who dabbled in horses were eager to share their knowledge with her. She invested the money she earned on the stage in more horses. Eventually, she owned twenty thoroughbreds. One of her string, an Australian horse named Merman, was very successful, winning many races including the Ascot Gold Cup and the Goodwood Cup.

The sports riff begins with Holmes gesturing toward the spirits and gasogene. Gasogene was a machine used to make sparkling water. It had two globes, one above the other. The bottom globe held water and the top a mixture of tartaric acid (cream of tartar) and sodium bicarbonate. The chemical reaction of the two powders and the water produced carbon dioxide to make sparkling water. Bicarbonate of soda, a natural performance-enhancing drug, was a common doping method. It increased a horse’s carbon dioxide level, counteracting the lactic acid build-up in the horse’s muscles. This boosted the horse’s strength and stamina, helped it run faster.

Watson undergoes a weigh-in of sorts. "Wedlock suits you," he (Holmes) remarked, "I think, Watson, that you have put on seven and a half pounds since I saw you." He follows this with, "You did not tell me you intended to go into harness." Then, Holmes explains he deduced Watson’s return to medical practice from the odor of iodoform and the silver nitrate on his right forefinger. Physicians used iodine and silver nitrate to treat their patients. Horse owners used them too, iodoform for hoof fungal infections, especially thrush, and silver nitrate as an antibiotic on wounds.

Watson says he came home in a dreadful mess, painting a picture of a mudder driving for the finish and Holmes points out the poor job the maid had done cleaning the crusted mud off his shoes. A polite term for horse droppings, mud was an unpleasant fact in London. The hundreds of thousands working horses produced up to two million pounds of dung a day.

Next, Holmes throws Watson a sheaf of paper, tinted racing form pink. The Gt on the paper stands for Company, another name for the field of horses in a race. We hear the sharp sound of horses’ hooves then the sound of a bell.

Bells ring five times in this story; they summoned horses and jockeys to the track, signified the closing of the betting windows, signaled the start of a race and warned spectators at Ascot that the horses were rounding the turn into the finishing straightaway. In the sixteenth century, bells served as winning prizes at Carlisle Racecourse in Cumbria.

Holmes disguises himself as a groom and chats up the horsy men to find out about Miss Adler. She is the daintiest thing under a bonnet on this planet, the groom says. A bonnet is a Scottish word for a man’s cap. He learns Miss Adler is staying at Briony Lodge. Black bryony, a vine, was used to make horse liniment.

Next, there is a race. Holmes watches Godfrey Norton pay a cabman to drive him to Gross and Hankey’s then onto St. Monica’s church, shouting, drive like the devil. Then Irene’s driver pulls up, obviously having dressed hurriedly, his tie under his ear the way jockeys fastened their caps. Irene pays him to race to the church. Sherlock follows, but comes in third.

Over thirty racing terms appear in this story including horse (4 x), action (2 x)-the way a horse moves, bit, engaged- jockey’s pledge to ride, call (12 x)-announcer commentary, weight, flame-colored silk, post (3 x), company-field of horses, position (2 x), crack, nod- horse lowers head to win, refuse (2 x), jumped, away they went, run (5 x), pursued, drive, driving (6 x), stick (2 x)-jockey’s whip, lead, length, home (4 x), finish, head (3 x), inquiry (2 x), results, placed, show (2 x), draw, purse.

Conan Doyle uses ‘hand’ twenty-one times, the unit of measure for a horse’s height from ground to withers (one hand= four inches). In addition, betting was an important aspect of horseracing. Bookmakers took in the lion’s share of the wagering, but he inserts the less-obvious gambling reference, ‘window,’ a dozen times.

Today, Lillie Langtry’s success as a racehorse owner is acknowledged by the Lillie Langtry Stakes at Goodwood racecourse, a mile-and-six-furlong annual event for fillies and mares three years old or more. The Jersey connection, their shared intelligence and the extensive horseracing thread confirm that Lillie Langtry provided the inspiration for the woman in the Sherlock Holmes canon. Conan Doyle really gives us a run for our money in this, the first Holmes short adventure.

*****

Chapter 2. The Red-Headed League

"My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to do so."

The Red-Headed League appeared in the August 1891 issue of the Strand Magazine. In 1927, the Strand Magazine held a contest. It invited readers to list the dozen best Sherlock Holmes short stories, in order. The entry closest to Conan Doyle’s own list would win £100 and an autographed copy of his autobiography. The Red-Headed League placed second on Conan Doyle’s list, directly behind The Adventure of the Speckled Band. The winner, matching ten out of twelve, was R.T. Norman of Spring Hill.

Jabez Wilson, a pawnshop owner, visits 221B Baker Street to consult Sherlock Holmes. It all began two months ago, he explained, with an advertisement in the Morning Chronicle. An organization called the Red-Headed League hired him at the rate of £4 per week to sit in an office for four hours per day copying the encyclopedia. Suddenly, after only eight weeks, his job ended. Holmes discovers that in Wilson’s absence, the villains dug a tunnel from Wilson’s shop to the City and Suburban Bank.

Watson notes Wilson’s fiery red hair, shabby top hat and frock coat and concludes that he is an average, commonplace British tradesman, obese, pompous and slow. Holmes sees much more, deducing that:

Wilson has done manual labor

takes snuff

is a Freemason and

has been to China.

Holmes explains his deduction and Wilson adds that he has been a ship’s carpenter and does indeed wear an arc-and-compass Freemason’s pin. After being reminded he has a Chinese fish tattoo and Chinese coin on his watch chain, he says, I thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see that there was nothing in it after all.

These observations provide the first clues to threads in the story, but Wilson’s account of his trip to apply for the Red-Headed League position is the most revealing:

"I never hope to see such a sight as that again, Mr. Holmes. From north, south, east, and west every man who had a shade of red in his hair had tramped into the City to answer the advertisement. Fleet Street was choked with red-headed folk, and Pope’s Court looked like a coster’s orange barrow. I should not have thought there were so many in the whole country as were brought together by that single advertisement. Every shade of colour they were—straw, lemon, orange, brick, Irish-setter, liver, clay; but as Spaulding said, there were not many who had the real vivid flame-coloured tint." Then, "There was a double stream upon the stair,