By David Landis
Dr. John Watson tells us Sherlock "Holmes like all great artists, lived for art's sake".(BLAC) Holmes
confirms as much, (J.W.) "What do you gain from it?" "It is Art for Art's sake, Watson."(REDC) As Holmes tells us, "Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest form".(GREE)
Holmes' particular art was that of detection, an art whose twin constituent elements he identifies as, "that mixture of imagination and reality which is the basis of my art".(THOR) He states the formula another way, "I only quote this as a trivial example of observation (i.e. reality) and inference (i.e. imagination). Therein lies my metier ".(BOSC)
Holmes repeatedly gives us glimpses of his use of imagination. He upbraided Lestrade in 1895, "You do not add imagination to your good qualities; but if you could for one moment put yourself in the place of the young man, would you choose the very night after the will had been made to commit your crime?"(NORW) Holmes is even clearer in The Musgrave Ritual, "You know my methods in such cases, Watson. I put myself in the man's place I try to imagine how I should myself have proceeded under the same circumstances." This is the "scientific use of imagination", Holmes speaks of in A Study in Scarlet, a harnessing of the artist's imagination to the practical end of detection. Holmes fairly crows to Inspector MacKinnon, "You'll get results, Inspector, by always putting yourself in the other fellow's place, and thinking what you would do yourself. It takes some imagination, but it pays."(RETI)
Let us apply this methodology, not to a great crime, but to a great mystery - the mystery of the true nature of the unrecorded life of Sherlock Holmes. By doing so we can fill in a significant gap of the unrecorded years 1883 to 1886 in the career of the world's first consulting detective.1 Our Canon is strangely silent on this period since there is no recorded case from The Adventure of the Speckled Band, April 1883, to The Resident Patient, October 1886. Now a part of the lost story can come to light, specifically Holmes' whereabouts from September 1883 to May 1884.
Grant me first that Holmes rigorously pursued all knowledge vital to the art of detection. Watson's inventory of Holmes knowledge in A Study in Scarlet makes this clear. Watson said Holmes "seldom bestirred himself save where there was some professional object to be secured." He "was a man who seldom took exercise for exercises sake."(YELL) Yet he notes "Holmes was always in training."(SOLI) Why did Holmes maintain physical training? Because his profession required it. Why did Holmes maintain intellectual training? Because his profession required it. "Education never ends" says Holmes.(REDC) But what about artistic training, the training of the scientific imagination he earnestly recommends to the police? No record exists. It is unthinkable Holmes would fail to sharpen this aspect of his professional skill. We must observe the record and infer imaginatively to solve our mystery.
Two passages, when juxtaposed, begin our chain of inference. In A Study in Scarlet, Holmes was hoodwinked by the disguise of a young man pretending to be an old woman. They conversed at 221B Baker Street at close range, Holmes followed but lost him -- a humiliating episode all the way round. "Old woman be damned!" said Sherlock Holmes, sharply. "We were the old women to be so taken in. It must have been a young man, and an active one, too, besides being an incomparable actor. The get up was inimitable. He saw that he was followed, no doubt, and used the means of giving me the slip."2 Holmes realized in this 1881 case that a talented actor trained in stage costuming could defeat his powers of observation. Would he let this glaring defect in his detection skills go unremedied? Never! Our second passage, from 1888, shows a big change in Holmes. "My eyes have been trained to examine faces and not their trimmings. It is the first quality of a criminal investigator that he should see through a disguise."(HOUN) Clearly sometime between 1881 and 1888 Holmes received training in make-up and disguise which gave him an ability he did not possess when he first began his career. Training must have predated 1887 for in that year he saw through the disguise of the crippled beggar in The Man with the Twisted Lip and dramatically revealed his true identity with two swipes of a sponge. Again, the case dates after the 1883-1886 hiatus. So too does A Case of Identity, again 1887, a case in which Holmes sees through the disguise of Hosmer Angel without ever laying eyes on him. "So were the tinted spectacles and the curious voice, which both hinted at a disguise, as did the burly whiskers."(IDEN) The Canon reveals Holmes not only improved his ability to see through disguises by 1886, he also used disguises to excellent results after the resumption of his recorded cases in 1886. Here is a list of dates and identities employed by Holmes:
--by 1886 he had faked the disease of catalepsy which he admits in The Resident Patient.
--1887 he used vaseline, belladonna and beeswax to appear as a dying, deranged man in The Case of the Dying Detective.
--1887 an old man in an opium den, The Man with the Twisted Lip.
--1888 a wheezing, old seafarer with bowed back, shaky knees, asthmatic breathing and a lower class accent. Holmes reveals himself, "Here is the old man - wig, whiskers, eyebrows and all." "Ah you rogue," cried Inspector Jones, "You would have made an actor and a rare one." The Sign of Four.
--1890 as a common loafer. The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet.
--1891 a decrepit Italian Roman Catholic priest. The Final Problem.
--1894 an elderly deformed bookseller. The Adventure of the Empty House.
--1899 a rakish young plumber in goatee with romantic swagger sufficient to win the affection and betrothal of a housemaid in seven days. The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton.
--1903 Holmes was an old sporting man one day, an elderly woman another. Holmes quotes an old nemesis, "old Baron Dowson said the night before he was hanged that in my case what the law had gained the stage had lost."(MAZA)
Here we interrupt our list momentarily to point out the range and quality of these portrayals: young to decrepit, dashing and romantic to crumudgeonly, Italian, French, Irish-American, all classes of English life, Roman Catholic and Non-Conformist, in full health and on the brink of death, five foot tall to six feet, burly to thin, drunken to beatific. And all, undetected and fully convincing. This is beyond mere disguise. This is skillful, persuasive, compelling acting. The law gained what the stage lost, indeed. Could it be that Sherlock Holmes during this hiatus learned, in furtherance of the scientific imagination, the art of the actor? It cannot be doubted.
Three final masterpieces of disguise and characterization complete the picture.
--1890 Holmes disguises the horse Silver Blaze so well the owner could not recognize his own steed as it won the Wessex Cup. "You only have to wash his face and legs in spirits of wine and you will find that he is the same Silver Blaze as ever," Holmes nearly hoots.(SILV)
--1912 to 1914 Holmes portrayed the Irish-American subversive Altamont on two continents to trap the master German spy Von Bork in His Last Bow.
--1887 the crowning achievement of our detective actor. Holmes played a drunken groom to keep Irene Adler under surveillance. First he took in the horsemen of her household. Then he was asked by Ms. Adler to witness her marriage to Godfrey Norton. This leading stage personality did not see through the groom disguise. She was also taken in by his Non-Conformist cleric. Her final letter holds the most important clue in all our search. "My Dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes," she wrote, " Even after I became suspicious, I found it hard to think evil of such a kind, old clergyman. But, you may know, I have trained as an actress myself."(SCAN) The meaning is clear -- I too have been trained as an actor Mr. Holmes. She recognized in Holmes the skill of, not a gifted amateur but, a trained, professional actor. We cannot doubt the accuracy of her assessment, she was a leading stage performer renown throughout Europe.
Much in the Canon substantiates Ms. Adler's testimony. Besides the previously quoted encomiums of Baron Dowson and Inspector Athleney Jones, the text has several relevant passages. Watson says Holmes enjoyed cases that "possessed those strange and dramatic qualities which appealed to his imagination."(BLAC) In 1901 Watson says, "We have had some dramatic entrances and exits upon our small stage at Baker Street."(PRIO) My personal favorite dramatic moment at Baker Street is the appearance of the missing Naval Treaty under a breakfast dish. Unsuspecting Percy Phelps, thinking he is dishing up curried fowl and eggs, lifts the dish lid and discovers Holmes had, yet again, saved the British Empire. Holmes says, "I can never resist a touch of the dramatic."(NAVA) But the most sublime moment dates from 1900. Smashing the last of the Napoleon busts, Holmes says, "Gentlemen let me introduce you to the famous black pearl of the Borgias!" "Lestrade and I sat silent for a moment, and then, with a spontaneous impulse, we both broke out clapping as at the well-wrought crisis of a play. A flush of colour sprang to Holmes' pale cheeks and he bowed to us like the master dramatist who receives the homage of his audience."(SIXN) Dating this growth of the actor's skill and the artist's sensibilities is critical. Holmes never used a disguise before 1883. His most noted failure to recognize a disguise occurred before 1883. All his recorded skill as an actor dates after 1886, the end of the hiatus. In 1888, Holmes applauds his own acting skill in his performance as a deranged and dying man, "That pretense I have carried out with the thoroughness of the true artist."(DYIN) What is the source of this powerful pretense? "A certain selection and discretion must be used in creating a realistic effect," says Holmes in 1887.(IDEN) "You must assert that in such words as will carry conviction with them" he counsels Watson.(FIVE) Is there any more pithy encapsulation of the actor's secret - conviction in the words so as to be realistic and, hence, convincing? The final textual evidence is from Holmes himself, "Watson insists that I am the dramatist in real life. Some touch of the artist wells up within me and calls insistently for a well-staged performance."(VALL)
The acquisition of this training was done without Watson's comment or, we may suspect, knowledge; further reinforcing the window of opportunity from 1883 to 1886. So, what happened? A school? No such school existed. Actors learned their skill by apprenticeship and performance, not academic training. Holmes must have been the member of a theatrical company with a broad repertoire; a top-flight, professional company judging by Irene Adler's assessment of the quality of his skill. But what such company had reason to use an unknown amateur in this period? Only a professional company that was specifically in need of an unknown actor would entrust a broad range of characters to an untested amateur. The answer can be deduced from applying these conditions to English theater history.
Sir Henry Irving brought 100 actors and technicians of the Lyceum Theater to America on a tour of seven plays from September 1883 to May 1884.3 He had promised America the services of William Terriss, a leading romantic and character actor in major supporting roles in all seven shows. History records that upon their return from the tour, Terriss broke with Irving and performed Romeo and Juliet in an independent production out from under Irving's shadow in 1884.4 Suppose the break had occurred in 1883 when Irving found out Terriss's plans to go off on his own. Suppose Irving could not stomach a perceived ingratitude, nay, a betrayal. Would he not replace Terriss? But having released the tour publicity would Irving not feel compelled to produce the promised Terriss to expectant American audiences? The solution would be: pay off Terriss, leave him in England under promise not to reveal the arrangement and then secure a replacement. But the replacement could not have a theatrical following or independent fame so as to be recognizable. Further, the actor would have to impersonate Terriss off stage, in real life, as well as assay the required roles. Worse, the actor could have no further ambitions beyond the tour or he would be tempted to reveal the game once back in England and reap the publicity and career advancement of the tour's success. Worse still were the requirements of the various Terriss roles, Laertes in Hamlet, Bassanio in Merchant of Venice and the Duke of Nemours in Louis XI among them. Teriss's impersonator would have to perform sword play, do acrobatic feats of athleticism, have a romantic energy and an ability to learn lines quickly. This would be a tall order for an open professional casting call, even more improbable from an unknown amateur who would not wish to continue once this learning experience was exhausted. And yet how perfectly Sherlock Holmes fits this daunting list of requirements.
We know from The Gloria Scott, 1874, a case predating the tour, that Holmes was a skilled fencer for Watson so attests. As late as 1897 Holmes could climb onto a mantle to inspect a bell rope, an act upon which he remarked, "No one but an acrobat or a sailor could have got up to the bell rope "(ABBE) So Holmes would be in prime, athletic shape in 1883, at the age of 29, when called upon to impersonate Terriss, a man of 36.
As for the romantic swagger, consider that Holmes was persuasive enough to win the hand of a housemaid in seven days.(CHAS) Such a man could be an ardent Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice. And as for the ability to memorize lines, no specific proof need be given, Holmes' memory is to be assumed.
Such a scenario explains why Holmes quotes Shakespeare three times in the Canon, all after the return of the tour. Two of the three occasions are misquotings of a line from Twelfth Night. "Journeys end in lovers meeting" is the line. Holmes mistakenly makes the meeting plural.(EMPT, REDC) How to explain the lapse? Holmes didn't perform Twelfth Night, rather it was the first performance for Irving and the Lyceum company after the tour was over.5 As a favor, Holmes coached Henry Irving in his lines on the boat home not bothering to commit them to perfect memory since he would not need them.
Such a scenario explains Holmes' knowledge of the First Folio editions of Shakespeare.(3GAB) Actors preparing Shakespearean roles commonly consult the First Folios because they record actor performances, not editor choices.
Such a scenario explains Holmes' knowledge of America, its slang, dress, politics and culture. His knowledge of Boston, Chicago, and New York make perfect sense since they were stops on the tour.6
Such a scenario explains why five years after the tour, Holmes could hold forth on the subject of 'miracle plays' -- a subject Watson says, "that Holmes handled as though he had made a study of it I have never known him so brilliant."(SIGN)
The most valuable aspect of the tour for Holmes was not the dramatic performances on stage, but the challenge of a constant impersonation off stage. This was the real test of his scientific imagination: to put himself in another's shoes and then be realistic and convincing. The tour was a veritable graduate course in sorely lacking detection skills Holmes needed to improve. No other scenario can explain the many changes in Holmes' detection methods which date from the watershed period of this hiatus.
We can take one last piece of evidence from the short life of the American tour 'version' of William Terriss. While in America the Lyceum Company visited Niagara Falls. Irving records that day in his autobiography, "William Terriss and some of the others were exploring the region below the falls. The ice had made his descent slippery. Terriss fell and only saved himself from being swept away by clutching a jagged rock. He had to play with his arm in a sling for several weeks."7 Now hear Holmes retelling his Reichenbach Falls adventure, "I scrambled down onto the path. I don't think I could have done it in cold blood. It was a hundred times more difficult than getting up. But I had no time to think about the danger as I hung by my hands from the edge of the ledge."(FINA) Holmes pulled himself to safety at both Niagara and the Reichenbach Falls. Lightening does strike twice, although half a world apart.
In The Hound of the Baskervilles Dr. Mortimer says, "We are coming now rather into the region of guesswork." Holmes corrects him, "Say, rather, into the region where we balance probabilities and choose the most likely." My balancing produces this conclusion: to expand his skill as a detective, Sherlock Holmes accepted the offer of Henry Irving to replace William Terriss on the Lyceum Company tour of America from September 1883 to May 1884 playing seven supporting roles. He did so because it taught him make-up, costume, movement, accents, disguise, and impersonation, and gave him continuous exercise and training in the scientific imagination process that closely parallels acting. Here he learned the skills immediately in evidence when his recorded cases begin again in 1886 and are sorely lacking in all recorded cases before 1883. For myself I can only whisper a prayer of gratitude Holmes was able to "rehearse" the Reichenbach Falls scene once in America on the shore of the Niagara River. Without it perhaps he would not have survived his titanic clash with Dr. Moriarty. I do not know if you agree with me. Instead, I rest comfortable in this balancing of the probabilities -- and as Henry David Thoreau said, "a single man of conviction is a majority."
1All dating in this paper follows the Baring-Gould chronology.
2A Study in Scarlet 1881. This quotation is the only specific curse of the Master recorded in the Canon. Clearly the episode affected him deeply.
3A Pictorial History of the American Theater 1860-1985, Blum, Daniel, Crown Publishing, New York.
4William Terriss and Richard Prince: Two Players in an Adelphi Melodrama, Crowell, Richard, Society for Theater Research, Bath Press, Aron, 1987.
5Henry Irving and the Victorian Theater, Bringham, Madeleine, George Allen & Unwin, Boston 1978.
6Bringham, infra.
7As quoted in Bringham, infra.