Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #20. Arthur Conan Doyle

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СКАЧАТЬ Sherlock Holmes hung out his shingle as the world’s first consulting detective, his original clients were what he called “government detectives” and private ones who needed his unique help. But over the years he also served crown and country on numerous occasions—although not always both at the same time. This should not be surprising in one whose patriotism was reflected in the V.R. design of the bullet holes on the wall at 221B.

      Leaving aside the sometimes contentious issue of chronology, the first published case in which Holmes’s client is a government official is “The Naval Treaty.” Watson’s old school fellow Percy “Tadpole” Phelps, working at the Foreign Office through the influence of his mother’s brother, appeals to the doctor to get Holmes on the case of a secret naval treaty which had been stolen on his watch.

      This treaty between Italy and Great Britain is of enormous importance, says Percy’s uncle, Lord Holdhurst: “The French or the Russian embassy would pay an immense sum to learn the contents of these papers.” Alfred Hitchcock would have called that a McGuffin, his name for the goal or valuable object that the protagonist pursues in a story. Think “The Purloined Letter” or The Maltese Falcon. The Bruce-Partington Plans, the Mazarin Stone, the Beryl Coronet, Baron Gruner’s diary, and the provocative letter at the heart of “The Adventure of the Second Stain”—all of which Holmes sought for Crown or country—are also McGuffins.

      Watson’s description of Lord Holdhurst, the foreign secretary and “future premier of England,” is quite telling: “Standing on the rug between us, with his slight, tall figure, his sharp features, thoughtful face, and curling hair prematurely tinged with grey, he seemed to represent that not too common type, a nobleman who is in truth noble.” As Watson hints here, not all noblemen—and not all cabinet ministers—are portrayed so positively in the pages of the Canon.

      The dramatic high point of “The Naval Treaty” comes when Holmes has Mrs. Hudson serve up the missing treaty on a breakfast plate. Some commentators have called this cruel, but Watson describes Holmes as having at this point “a mischievous twinkle.” It’s all in good fun for Holmes. But Phelps, just recently recovered from nine weeks of brain fever, is only saved from fainting dead away by having brandy poured down his throat. Fortunately for him, Watson was always equipped with medicinal liquor for just such emergencies.

      When he sufficiently recovers, Phelps kisses Holmes’s hand (surely an odd way to show appreciation) and then blesses the detective for saving his honour. Holmes responds: “Well, my own was at stake, you know. I assure you it is just as hateful to me to fail in a case as it can be to you to blunder over a commission.”

      In other words, Holmes claims self-interest. But I think he doth protest too much. For later on he says that if Scotland Yard finds the bird has flown, “all the better for the government. I fancy that Lord Holdhurst, for one, and Mr. Percy Phelps for another, would very much rather that the affair never got as far as a police-court.” By implication, the patriotic Holmes puts the good of the state over enhancing his professional reputation by notching up another case he solved.

      In the opening paragraph of “The Naval Treaty,” Watson refers to “The Adventure of the Second Stain,” which he said “deals with interests of such importance and implicates so many of the first families in the kingdom that for many years it will be impossible to make it public.”

      And in fact he never did, most scholars agree. “The Adventure of the Second Stain” that Watson wrote later takes place during some autumn while he is still or again living in Baker Street, not the July after his marriage to Mary Morstan as did the one mentioned in “The Naval Treaty.” It is clearly a different case with the same name.

       Watson calls it “the most important international case which he (Holmes) has ever been called upon to handle.” Appropriately, the client is no minor Foreign Office official out of Watson’s past. The Prime Minister himself, to whom Watson assigns the pseudonym of Lord Bellinger, calls on Holmes at Baker Street, along with the Right Honourable Trelawney Hope, Secretary for European Affairs. A saber-rattling letter from a foreign potentate—often identified by commentators as Kaiser Wilhelm II—has disappeared. If the letter becomes public, war almost certainly will result. The Prime Minister appeals to Holmes and Watson’s honour—there’s that word again!—and to their patriotism, “for I could not imagine a greater misfortune for the country than that this affair should come out.”

      Critics have noted the parallels between this affair and that of “The Naval Treaty.” In each case a document of international consequence—the McGuffin—has been lost. And in each case the document was hidden beneath a carpet, although not permanently in “The Adventure of the Second Stain.”

      If Holmes experienced déjà vu, he did not say so. Rather, he emphasized how difficult the case was: “Every man’s hand is against us and yet the interests at stake are colossal. Should I bring it to a successful conclusion, it will certainly represent the crowning glory of my career.” He did, and it did, and yet Holmes attempted to hide the achievement from his client in order to protect the honour of a lady. But Lord Bellinger was no fool, which leads to a marvelous closing scene:

      The Premier looked at Holmes with twinkling eyes.

      “Come, sir,” said he. “There is more in this than meets the eye. How came the letter back in the box?”

      Holmes turned away smiling from the keen scrutiny of those wonderful eyes.

      “We also have our diplomatic secrets,” said he and, picking up his hat, he turned to the door.

      One suspects that Holmes had secrets from Watson as well. Surely—as commentators have speculated—his older brother Mycroft must have sent the Prime Minister to Baker Street on that occasion. But only in “The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans” does the indolent co-founder of the Diogenes Club himself appear at 221B. Sherlock Holmes decides then that it is finally time to tell Watson the truth about Mycroft’s unique role at Whitehall.

      “You told me that he had some small office under the British government.”

      Holmes chuckled.

      “I did not know you quite so well in those days. One has to be discreet when one talks of high matters of state. You are right in thinking that he is under the British government. You would also be right in a sense if you said that occasionally he is the British government.”

      Mycroft arrives in a state of high agitation. His normal bored demeanour gone, he strives to impress upon his sibling the importance of the case: “You must drop everything, Sherlock. Never mind your usual petty puzzles of the police-court. It’s a vital international problem that you have to solve.” Mycroft even tries a carrot, “If you have a fancy to see your name in the next honours list—” But only after he assures Mycroft that “I play the game for the game’s sake” does the great detective agree to look into the matter.

      Mycroft’s last push is an appeal to patriotism: “In all your career you have never had so great a chance of serving your country.” The response? “Well, well!” says Holmes, shrugging his shoulders. Perhaps that was a pose, an attempt to appear blasé before his big brother. As the case nears its end, Holmes strikes a much different note to Watson: “If time hangs heavy, get foolscap and a pen and begin your narrative of how we saved the State.”

      Before they can do that, however, Holmes suborns Watson into burglary. At first the good doctor resists—which he did not do in “A Scandal in Bohemia.”

      “I don’t like it, Holmes.”

      “My dear fellow, you shall keep watch in the street. I’ll do the criminal part. It’s not a time to stick at trifles. Think of Mycroft’s СКАЧАТЬ