In 2026 I plan to read all the Conan Doyle “Sherlock Holmes” works – 56 short stories and 4 novels (here’s why and how). If you haven’t already read it, Michael Green’s “undiscovered letter” from John Watson is fricking hilarious.
[In February my target is to read all (or at very least most) of the 12 stories in Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and also the 13 in The Return of Sherlock Holmes.]
I may also read various Holmes homages/pastiches etc. Who knows? (btw I’d recommend the Seven Per Cent Solution, by Nicholas Meyer where Watson has to trick Holmes into going to Vienna to be treated by Sigmund Freud).
Published: November 1903
Wikipedia here
Online here
Review: I would recommend this one, it’s a nice revenge plot. The frantic client, pursued by cops, is a nice touch
Best sentence(s):
With that man in the field one’s morning paper presented infinite possibilities. Often it was only the smallest trace, Watson, the faintest indication, and yet it was enough to tell me that the great malignant brain was there, as the gentlest tremors of the edges of the web remind one of the foul spider which lurks in the centre. Petty thefts, wanton assaults, purposeless outrage—to the man who held the clue all could be worked into one connected whole. To the scientific student of the higher criminal world no capital in Europe offered the advantages which London then possessed. But now—” He shrugged his shoulders in humorous deprecation of the state of things which he had himself done so much to produce
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His cold and proud nature was always averse, however, to anything in the shape of public applause, and he bound me in the most stringent terms to say no further word of himself, his methods, or his successes—a prohibition which, as I have explained, has only now been removed
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“Have a cigarette, Mr. McFarlane,” said he, pushing his case across. “I am sure that with your symptoms my friend Dr. Watson here would prescribe a sedative. The weather has been so very warm these last few days. Now, if you feel a little more composed, I should be glad if you would sit down in that chair and tell us very slowly and quietly who you are and what it is that you want
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For Heaven’s sake don’t abandon me, Mr. Holmes! If they come to arrest me before I have finished my story, make them give me time so that I may tell you the whole truth. I could go to jail happy if I knew that you were working for me outside.
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“Arrest you!” said Holmes. “This is really most grati—most interesting. On what charge do you expect to be arrested?”
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My companion’s expressive face showed a sympathy which was not, I am afraid, entirely unmixed with satisfaction
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“It strikes me, my good Lestrade, as being just a trifle too obvious,” said Holmes. “You do not add imagination to your other great qualities; but if you could for one moment put yourself in the place of this young man, would you choose the very night after the will had been made to commit your crime?
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“… Give me another theory that would fit the facts.”
“I could very easily give you half-a-dozen,” said Holmes. “Here, for example, is a very possible and even probable one. I make you a free present of it.
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“I don’t mean to deny that the evidence is in some ways very strongly in favour of your theory,” said he. “I only wish to point out that there are other theories possible.
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“Because we have in this case one singular incident coming close to the heels of another singular incident. The police are making the mistake of concentrating their attention upon the second, because it happens to be the one which is actually criminal. But it is evident to me that the logical way to approach the case is to begin by trying to throw some light upon the first incident
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All my instincts are one way and all the facts are the other, and I much fear that British juries have not yet attained that pitch of intelligence when they will give the preference to my theories over Lestrade’s facts.
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‘He was more like a malignant and cunning ape than a human being,’ said she, ‘and he always was, ever since he was a young man.’
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I was engaged to him, Mr. Holmes, when I heard a shocking story of how he had turned a cat loose in an aviary, and I was so horrified at his brutal cruelty that I would have nothing more to do with him.’
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There was a sort of sulky defiance in her eyes, which only goes with guilty knowledge
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. After all, important fresh evidence is a two-edged thing, and may possibly cut in a very different direction to that which Lestrade imagines. T
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. An extraordinary change had come over his face. It was writhing with inward merriment. His two eyes were shining like stars. It seemed to me that he was making desperate efforts to restrain a convulsive attack of laughter.
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“There, that’s enough,” said Lestrade. “I am a practical man, Mr. Holmes, and when I have got my evidence I come to my conclusions. If you have anything to say you will find me writing my report in the sitting-room.”
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“I assure you, my good Lestrade, that I have an excellent reason for everything that I do. You may possibly remember that you chaffed me a little some hours ago, when the sun seemed on your side of the hedge, so you must not grudge me a little pomp and ceremony now. M
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And you don’t want your name to appear?” “Not at all. The work is its own reward. Perhaps I shall get the credit also at some distant day when I permit my zealous historian to lay out his foolscap once more—eh, Watson?
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. I pay a good deal of attention to matters of detail, as you may have observed,
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It was amusing to me to see how the detective’s overbearing manner had changed suddenly to that of a child asking questions of its teacher.
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But he had not that supreme gift of the artist, the knowledge of when to stop. He wished to improve that which was already perfect—to draw the rope tighter yet round the neck of his unfortunate victim—and so he ruined all.
Words I didn’t know:
| Staring brick | Hmm- had to use AI – “Staring brick” is a phrase famously used by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the Sherlock Holmes novel The Sign of Four to describe the rapid, soul-less expansion of Victorian London. It describes new, monotonous, and stark brick buildings, often row houses or villas, that appeared as suburban sprawl during the Industrial Revolution. |
| inanition | exhaustion caused by lack of nourishment. |
marchudson.net 
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