Fwd: An Inquiry into GOLD
Max Magee
From: Alex <courageo...@aol.com>
Date: Thu, Jun 6, 2024 at 4:59 PM
Subject: An Inquiry into GOLD
To: <houn...@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk>
An Inquiry into “The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez.”
“The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez” was first published in The Strand Magazine in July 1904. It is part of The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
Except for a few variants on the exact date, all our chronologists agree regarding the year in which this adventure took place. Canon: Late November 1894; Baring-Gould: Wednesday, November 14, 1894; Bell: Late November 1894; Blakeney: November 1894; Brend: November 1894; Christ: Wednesday, November 13, 1894; Dakin: November 1894; Folsom: Late November 1894; Hall: End of November 1894; Keefauver: Friday, November 23, 1894; Klinger: 1894; Zeisler: Saturday, October 27, 1894.
In 1894, Sherlock Holmes was 40 years old and Doctor James H. Watson was 42.
Main Characters:
Stanley Hopkins, a promising young Scotland Yard detective in whose career Holmes has shown an interest; Professor Sergius Coram, elderly invalid academician; Willoughby Smith, young researcher working for Professor Coram; Anna, a former Russian Nihilist; Mrs. Marker, Professor Coram’s housekeeper; Susan Tarlton, Professor Coram’s maid; Mortimer, an Army pensioner and Professor Coram’s gardener.
Notable Quotes
When I look at the three massive manuscript volumes which contain our work for the year 1894 I confess that it is very difficult for me, out of such a wealth of material, to select the cases which are most interesting in themselves and at the same time most conducive to a display of those peculiar powers for which my friend was famous. As I turn over the pages I see my notes upon the repulsive story of the red leech and the terrible death of Crosby the banker. Here also I find an account of the Addleton tragedy and the singular contents of the ancient British barrow. The famous Smith-Mortimer succession case comes also within this period, and so does the tracking and arrest of Huret, the Boulevard assassin—an exploit which won for Holmes an autograph letter of thanks from the French President and the Order of the Legi! on of Hon our.
Outside the wind howled down Baker Street, while the rain beat fiercely against the windows. It was strange there in the very depths of the town, with ten miles of man’s handiwork on every side of us, to feel the iron grip of Nature, and to be conscious that to the huge elemental forces all London was no more than the molehills that dot the fields.
“What did you do, Hopkins, after you had made certain that you had made certain of nothing?”
== Surely You Jest, Doctor! ==
At our story’s beginning, we are offered yet another opportunity to envy Holmes and Watson, well past Mrs. Hudson’s bedtime, cozily ensconced near their fireplace, sitting in companionable silence, each involved in his own interests, hoping to be interrupted by a much-welcomed urgent visit, while a storm rages outside.
Our Biographer once more begins his account of the case tantalizing us by citing yet more unpublished cases solved by Sherlock Holmes: “As I turn over the pages I see my notes upon the repulsive story of the red leech and the terrible death of Crosby the banker [also] an account of the Addleton tragedy and the singular contents of the ancient British barrow. The famous Smith-Mortimer succession case . . . [and] the tracking and arrest of Huret, the Boulevard assassin—an exploit which won for Holmes an autograph letter of thanks from the French President and the Order of the Legion of Honour.”
Any true, diehard Canon student would unhesitatingly exchange his or her first-born for even a glimpse into any of those cases! Then, the Good Doctor seems to further taunt us by adding that, “Each of these would furnish a narrative, but on the whole I am of opinion that none of them unite so many singular points of interest as the episode of Yoxley Old Place, which includes not only the lamentable death of young Willoughby Smith, but also those subsequent developments which threw so curious a light upon the causes of the crime.”
Is that so, Doctor? You really expect us to believe that the story of a traitorous, repulsive chain-smoker and his miserable past deeds does not pale in comparison to “the repulsive story of the red leech” or “the singular contents of the ancient British barrow”?
What makes all this even more intriguing is that although the word “barrow” is a term used only in the names of hills in England, it can also refer to (as seems to be the case here) to a tumulus—a large mound of earth or stones over the remains of the dead, usually a prehistoric monument dating to the early Neolithic period. Barrows are rectangular or trapezoidal and traditionally are interpreted as collective tombs. In Beowulf the hero orders his men to wait on the barrow, which they do until the dragon frightens them away.
We know that on more than one occasion—including the present case—Holmes was interested in ancient documents; one cannot help but wonder whether our sleuth did not find this scholarly facet of his to be more than simply just a passing practical application in his professional activities.
We unfortunately have no idea of what was the nature of the Addleton tragedy, but it would not be too farfetched to presume that perhaps it was a practical application of Holmes’ scholarship that led to its resolution through the revelation of the barrow’s singular contents.
Alas, alas…
== Holmes & Watson LLC ==
Watson begins his recollections of this case writing, “When I look at the three massive manuscript volumes which contain our work for the year 1894 I confess that it is very difficult for me, out of such a wealth of material, to select the cases which are most interesting in themselves and at the same time most conducive to a display of those peculiar powers for which my friend was famous.”
This opens up an interesting field of speculation. Although the Good Doctor was obviously still interested in medicine—as shown by his attention to surgical developments at the beginning of this case—his reference to “our [italics mine] work for the year 1894” makes it clear that he was no longer practicing his profession but instead was fully devoted to assisting Holmes in the latter’s investigations.
By now, of course, Watson had sold his Kensington medical practice to Dr. Verne, who paid him what was by Watson’s own description “the highest price that I ventured to ask. Some years later, of course, our medico discovered that Verner was a distant relation of Holmes’ and that the Great Detective had furnished the funds for the purchase.
Upon his return from those mysterious three missing years he spent away from England after the incident at Reichenbach Falls, this appears to have been one of the first things he did. It seems obvious that he did not want to get back into the fray without having his stalwart friend and colleague by his side!
It is interesting to consider whether there might have some arrangement as to the fees received. Did Watson have some sort of share in the sometimes high fees received by Holmes? Although by this time he may have been getting a very good income from The Strand and other publications for his chronicles of the Great Detective’s investigations, it would seem that there must have been be some sort of financial agreement between the two; after all, Holmes often forbade Watson from publishing some of his cases, thereby depriving him of that potential income.
== Honors Received and Declined ==
We are told by Watson that Holmes received the Order of the Legion of Honor for capturing Huret, the Boulevard assassin in France. Elsewhere we learn that Holmes declined a knighthood perhaps on more than one occasion. Some Canon scholars have attributed this to many reasons, such as a personal disagreement on our sleuth’s part with some of the policies of the government; others point to his aversion to the limelight.
Personally, I am convinced there is more to this. As the saying goes, “Still waters run deep.” I tend to think that he accepted the one and declined the other based on a personal assessment of his record of triumph and failure. He did capture Huret, someone who we probably today would have referred to as a serial killer. Could there have been a past failure haunting him that precluded him from accepting his grateful nation’s honor?
It is well to recall that Jack the Ripper was never caught.
== Suicide as a Petition for Justice ==
Regretfully, it is still easy for us today, during the first quarter of the 21st century, to understand what Anna meant when she spoke about the concentration and labor camps in the Tsar’s Siberia. We all know the story of the Soviet gulags, which continue doing a flourishing business today, albeit under slightly different management. Accounts of the inhumane camps in the Peoples’ Republic of China and North Korea are so habitual that they hardly merit the news’ attention any longer.
Being fairly well acquainted with the period, I know that only a theologian well-acquainted with matters involving angels, pinheads, and dancing would have been able to find any difference between czarist and Soviet justice. Aside from the system’s fairness or blatant lack of it, if someone plotted against the government his or her guilt would not have been easily—if at all—reconsidered later.
All this being said, although one cannot but sympathize with Anna’s pathetic tale, while simultaneously being repelled by Coram’s treachery, the fact remains that by today’s standards Anna and her group would be considered terrorists. The Nihilists (the capital “N” specifically referring to the 19th century bloody Russian political movement) used terror and assassination to achieve their often hazy purposes. They were revolutionary zealots who were convinced that the only way to improve the condition of the workers was to utterly destroy society and rebuild it in their own image.
Nihilism originated in Russia in the 1860s, a creation of those who detested the established social order, basing much of their outrage on a genuine claim that life in Russia was backwards compared to that in Western countries. They believed that the serfs emancipated by Tsar Alexander II were not free, but were merely transitioned from land slave to factory slavery. Eventually the Nihilist movement’s activities led to Tsar Alexander II calling an assembly to consider new reforms (an unprecedented move by the Romanovs); however, nothing was sufficient for the nihilists and they assassinated him with a bomb. They continued their bloody attacks against government officials and facilities without caring if during these activities innocent bystanders were mauled or killed alongside those they were attempting to slaughter.!
Unsurprisingly, this turmoil soon caused the government to veer away from reform, determined to exterminate them or put them away somewhere where they could do no further harm. Meanwhile, Nicholas II, who succeeded his assassinated father, was continuously goaded to extremes by the tsarina’s belief in Divine Right of kings, becoming even more of an autocrat.
In short time, nihilists became internationally notorious for their use of indiscriminate violence in their quest for political change. In Russia the movement reached its height in the 1870s and by 1905 had practically ended.
This brings us to poor Alexis, who Anna protested was “noble, unselfish, loving.” Her argument that while she and the rest of her “brotherhood” were guilty of deadly violence, Alexis had not only hated violence, but “wrote forever dissuading us from such a course,” would not have done little to change the Russian government’s perspective.
To put this into modern context, it would have been as if Alexis had been a member of the Gestapo, yet despaired of Hitler’s treatment of the Jews, apparently doing his best to save a few. When the Nuremberg Trials finally rolled along, it is highly unlikely that he would have escaped Allied justice unscathed. One can picture the judges scratching their collective puzzled heads, “A good Nazi? Really?”
Let us assume, however, that Anna was right and that the contents of her diary and Alexis’ letters supported his innocence and his appeals for the use of non-violent means. Even if through some miracle the Russian authorities had been inclined to consider the material, back then there existed no forensic means of determining whether it was authentic—i.e., that had been written at the alleged times—which would put its genuineness in doubt, and Alexis’ release beyond reach. Anna’s suicide would not have proven their authenticity, just her sincerity. Her pitiful optimism ignored the fact that regardless of his supposed aversion to violence, Alexis had been a member of Anna and Coram’s Nihilist organization; that alone would have been sufficient to keep him employed mining salt for the rest o! f his day s.
As a native-born Russian of the period, Anna should have known better.
Considering all this, it was irrational for her to commit suicide, thereby ruining what would have been her best chance to possibly effect some change in Alexis’ condition. Aside from the fact that women—even murderesses—were rarely executed in England and most of Europe those days, she had already heard Holmes say (and Inspector Hopkins probably concur), that the killing of Coram’s assistant probably had been unintended.
A very public, high-profile murder trial, with embarrassing testimony from the great Sherlock Holmes, Scotland Yard Inspector Stanley Hopkins, and the abominable Professor Sergius Coram would have called far too much embarrassing world attention to Moscow, stirring unwanted negative public opinion both in Europe and the New World.
It is almost a given that such a very public hullaballoo in favor of Alexis would have had far more impact upon the Tsar and his government than a simple official request, regardless of how well-documented it was.
Therefore I find it highly unlikely that our friends were too successful with the Russian ambassador.
== An Aside About the Nicotine Addict ==
Whenever we study this case, I never cease being astonished by Professor Coram’s physiology. He told Holmes that he ordered one thousand cigarettes from Ionides of Alexandria every fortnight; i.e., two weeks.
Assuming that he slept the traditional eight hours, he then had 16-hour long days which, if one makes a long arm and reaches for the calculator, leads one to conclude that the man smoked some four-and-a-half cigarettes per hour, or slightly more than 71 cigarettes a day.
In the United States, a pack of cigarettes contains 20 coffin nails. This would have made Professor Coram an almost four-pack-a-day man. Having known smokers who easily surpassed this level, one cannot but wonder at the incredible resilience and tolerance of the human body.
Next week’s case: MISS.
Respectfully submitted,
Murray, the Courageous Orderly
(a.k.a. Alexander E. Braun)
of the murderous Ghazis had it not
been for the devotion and courage
shown by Murray, my orderly..."
Email: Courageo...@aol.com