Some more reasoning on my Sherlock Holmes chronology.
- SPEC - April 1883
- COPP - early spring 1884
- BERY - Friday in February 1885
- YELL - Saturday in early spring 1886
"The Speckled Band" has long been undisputed by chronologists. Watson says it occurred in early April 1883, and there's nothing to contradict it. It was published in the Strand in February 1892, and Watson opens by discussing "my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes." Chronologists all pounce on a similar opening in "The Veiled Lodger" to calculate the length of Holmes's career, yet they forget that SPEC has this reference to the past 8 years. So, 1892 minus 8 years only gets back to 1884. Is there something else he's not counting? 1881 plus 8 years gets us to 1889.
Oh, I see. He's not counting some months in early 1881 when he didn't go with Holmes on cases, he's not counting some months in early 1887 when Holmes is away in France solving a big case without him (REIG), and he's not counting some months just after his marriage (before SCAN) when he was busy with his new practice and not visiting Holmes. So assuming those months add up to a year, we can get to from 1881 to 1890. Per "The Final Problem," Watson barely saw Holmes for 3 cases in 1890, and then didn't see Holmes early the next year. Watson only saw Holmes because of Moriarty's threat from April to May 1891 and that wasn't a case so much as an escape to continental Europe. That's why he's not counting that year. So those are the years that he considers himself Holmes's biographer. Keep that in mind for when he recalculates for us in VEIL later. Odd how it's always the early months in the year that he misses recording cases.
There are other dates in the SPEC story, as Helen Stoner recounts the ancestral history of her stepfather and some of her family history in India. Roylotts were wealthy landowners in Surrey, but they lost most of their riches and property, until the sole heir Grimesby Roylott became a doctor and moved to India, where he set up a successful practice in Calcutta (now Kolkata). Meanwhile, Helen's unnamed mother (maiden name Westphail) married a Major-General Stoner in India, and had twin daughters with him, but she was soon widowed. She eventually married Roylott when the girls were 2 years old.
I suppose that means that Helen and Julia were born in India, and never sent away to boarding school in England. They stayed there until Helen specifies that Roylott got out of prison and took the whole family to England. At first he attempts to start a practice in London, but then tragedy struck or a sneaky murder happened. "Shortly after our return to England my mother died--she was killed eight years ago in a railway accident near Crewe." So that would mean that Mrs. Roylott's death was in 1875. Incidentally, why were they in Crewe, in Cheshire, nowhere near London? Was there maternal family there? Or was Mrs. Roylott meeting with members of the Stoner family, to bring them mementos of her 1st husband?
Speaking of husbands, I think the New Annotated Sherlock Holmes had a note questioning why Mrs. Roylott's will is so important. Before the various Married Women's Property Acts, didn't husbands automatically get all the money from their wives? Yes, but when a woman gets married, if she (or her family) are able to hire a good lawyer, she can get a marriage settlement contract that not only includes her dowry but also specifies how to bequeath her property on death. See Wilkie Collin's novel The Woman in White for the passage with Mr. Gilmore arguing about the marriage-settlement for Laura Fairlie. So, given that the widow Mrs. Stoner had a considerable inheritance, she certainly would have done a marriage-settlement contract to protect her twin daughters. Thus Dr. Roylott did have to worry about his wife's will.
Anyway, Helen specifies that Julia was 30 when she died 2 years ago in 1881, so that means the twins were born in 1851, and we can now see that Roylott's marriage was in 1853, and that the Major General must have died in 1851 or 1852. The Sepoy Rebelllion or Indian Mutiny happened from 1857-1858, so maybe after that, Roylott became more suspicious of his native servants and that's when he killed the Indian butler while enraged about robberies? Make it 1860 at least, so that the killing can't be disguised as part of the mutiny, and Roylott gets sentenced to 15 years for it. The twins would be 9 years old then.
Helen is a little unclear in how she narrates Roylott's prison time versus his marriage. But to me it reads as though Roylott married the widow, raised the girls for some years, then killed his native butler and went to prison for several years. That way the twins grow up at the same time that he's serving his sentence, so that he's not too elderly when he gets out of prison. When Mrs. Roylott died in 1875, the twins would be 24 years old, a prime age to get married. That must be why Roylott rushed them to Stoke Moran with him, so they wouldn't live with their maiden aunt Honoria Westphail in Harrow where they could meet eligible men and get married. And he got the animals and welcomed the gypsies on his estate to keep people away. Yet finally Julia got engaged in 1881, and that's when he did another murder, being careful not to get caught. Having succeeded once with the snake, he thinks he can do it again in 1883.
Another reason to keep SPEC in 1883 is that there's a big hole between STUD and SIGN, when Holmes and Watson are living as bachelors in Baker Street, before Watson gets engaged and married. That hole is the reason I scatter COPP, BERY, and YELL into it.
Published in June 1892, "The Copper Beeches" opens with Holmes expounding again on Watson publishing cases; he mentions SCAN, IDEN, TWIS, and NOBL, and I think Watson mentions BLUE too. However, as I said, I don't count those references in the Adventures. That's self-promotion and artistic license. Holmes may have read and remarked when Watson formally wrote up a case as a story, rather than just taking notes during the solving of the mystery, but Holmes did NOT comment on the publications, because the short stories were all published after he "died" in May 1891. Watson is just advertising his stories for sale to his readers. Chronologists who rely on these useless clues will try to force these cases to later dates, but that just creates a problem of explaining why Watson isn't married and living with his wife during them. Don't invite new problems in!
Apart from those references to other cases, the only clue about the date is Watson saying it's "a cold morning of the early spring." They're at breakfast and a thick fog rolls down the street outside. Holmes complains of the lack of great criminals, apparently unaware of Professor Moriarty yet. So this is probably before VALL. "Man, or at least criminal man, has lost all enterprise and originality." Holmes feels that his practice has degenerated because a young lady wishes to consult him for advice on a job. Then he finally shows Watson last night's telegram from Violet Hunter, making an appointment for 10:30 AM.
Watson reminds him that interesting cases can have trivial beginnings, so don't prejudge the situation. When the governess does arrive and explains her problem, Holmes is much more kind and welcoming. He even respects her enough to ask her opinion and to not argue with her decision to take the job. Mr. Jephro Rucastle and his weird demands that Violet cut her hair and indulge his wife's fancies in dress, is just bizarre and sinister enough that Holmes is uneasy. He says he doesn't have enough data yet to define the danger. But he doesn't think the job suitable for "a sister of mine," a refrain that he keeps muttering for days afterward.
Incidentally, Violet Hunter had a morning appointment with Holmes, yet she wishes them "good-night" when she leaves. Where did the day go? What happened to lunch, or at least clearing away the breakfast dishes? This problem also occurs in DYIN, when Mrs. Hudson urgently brings Watson to Baker Street in the morning, yet suddenly it's 4 PM after only a little conversation. Grrr, Doyle and his continuity errors!
Anyway, she sends a telegram a fortnight after consulting Holmes, and Watson is still living in Baker Street, so it must be before his marriage. The next day at 11 AM, Holmes and Watson go down to meet her at the Black Swan in Winchester. On the train, Watson enjoys the lovely scenery but Holmes remarks about the danger of the smiling country-side, as opposed to London, where victims can get help from the community. Apparently he's wrong, though, if you read BLAC.
They arrive at the inn at noon, and over lunch in the sitting-room, they listen to her detailed report of the sinister household at the Copper Beeches. The 6-year-old boy Edward is malicious, and the guard dog is kept constantly starved. The servant Mr. Toller is often drunk, and Mrs. Toller is silent and sour; Violet thinks they are both unpleasant. Also she finds duplicate hair and a secret locked room in the house. After the repeated ritual with the electric blue dress, she realises that something is going on in the street outside, so the next time she uses a mirror to look behind her. (Mrs. Rucastle also is smart enough to figure out that Violet has that mirror. So she's not such a passive "nonentity" after all. She colludes in her husband's villainous scheme.)
Holmes draws the obvious conclusion that Mr. Rucastle is using Violet Hunter to impersonate his daughter Alice, who must resemble her. Clearly Alice is not away in Philadelphia, but is a prisoner in the secret room of the house. But other than this conclusion, Sherlock Holmes didn't solve this mystery. It was really Violet Hunter who investigated this case herself, and Holmes acknowledges that she is an exceptional woman. (Even when she was afraid, she didn't try to escape the house, because she was still consumed with curiosity.) All Holmes does is suggest a plan to free Alice when the Rucastles go out visiting tonight.
Violet Hunter agrees to lock Mrs. Toller in the wine cellar, and she soon leaves, for she had promised to return to the Copper Beeches by 3 PM. Holmes promises that he and Watson will join her at 7 PM, but now they have 4 hours to kill in Winchester. I wonder what they did. Did they check into the inn for the night, so Watson could sit and write up notes on Miss Hunter's long narration? Or did they go walking outside to enjoy the weather, with Holmes saying "I told you so" about crime in the countryside? Did Holmes somehow investigate Alice's fiancé and find out that he's a seaman? There is no explanation for how he knows Mr. Fowler's profession later. But surely if he investigated, he should hear rumours of the Tollers being in league with Fowler? The way Watson immediately skips to 7 PM is puzzling. You'd think he could have spared a scene where Holmes asks him to bring his gun.
Anyway, they drive to the house and join Miss Hunter inside. Breaking into the secret room, they find it empty and the prisoner gone. There's now a ladder at the skylight. Holmes guesses wrongly that Rucastle took Alice away, but why would he need to use a skylight if he has keys? Then Rucastle arrives, having returned because he suspected that the governess was plotting something tonight. He accuses them of stealing his daughter Alice, and he rushes outside to sic the dog Carlo on them. Once freed, the dog attacks Rucastle, and the drunk Toller sobers up enough to help, saying that Carlo hasn't been fed for 2 days. Running up, Watson shoots the poor dog dead to rescue Rucastle. (So sad how often Doyle has a dog killed, when it's the fault of the abusive owner.) Then they carry the man inside, and Watson has to treat his horrible injuries. Toller goes to tell Mrs. Rucastle, while Mrs. Toller reveals that Rucastle let her out earlier.
Mrs. Toller says that Violet should have confided her plans, for Alice's fiancé already had a plan to rescue her. Seeing that she knows something, Holmes questions her. She tells Violet, "If there’s police-court business over this, you’ll remember that I was the one that stood your friend, and that I was Miss Alice's friend too." Mrs. Toller reveals the family history of Alice disliking her stepmother and getting engaged to a Mr. Fowler. Her father Jephro didn't want to lose her money, and he kept trying to make her sign over the money to him. He hounded her so much that she got sick, and they had to cut off her hair. (Victorians often did that with brain fever.) When Alice recovered after 6 weeks, her father imprisoned her and devised his plan to hire a substitute to fool Fowler into leaving.
Holmes apologises to Mrs. Toller and suggests they leave with Violet Hunter. I believe there's a radio adaptation where Violet instead offers to stay and help, since Mrs. Rucastle will be busy taking care of her injured husband, but I can't remember if that was the Bert Coules BBC version. In any case, I think that's unwise, given how villainous the Rucastles are. In the actual story, Watson reveals that Alice and her beau got married, while Miss Hunter became the head of a private school. Hooray for happy endings, though Watson is disappointed that Holmes had no romantic interest in her, though he commented so much on her being brave and sensible.
Onto "The Beryl Coronet" which is only specified as taking place during a crisp, snowy February. I can't check any weather conditions myself, and the story only speaks of a Monday when the exalted royal expects to be able to pay back the bank loan. I've no idea what he'll say about the damaged coronet, but maybe he could be shamed into just getting it quietly repaired and not getting Alexander Holder fired. Don't make a fuss, since after all HE was the one using the country's prized assets as collateral for a stupid loan. What, were you gambling at cards, Bertie? I don't have any real reason for 1885 over another year. I was just picking a year in the great big hole of their bachelor days.
"The Yellow Face" is another case taking place in early spring, and they have another long walk, like in RESI. Watson says they are silent, "as befits two men who know each other intimately," suggesting that they have lived together for years now. (There's also a reference to The Second Stain case, which I'll describe when we get to SECO later. In some editions, the reference is to Musgrave Ritual instead.)
YELL must take place after the 1882 Married Women's Property Act, because Effie Munro makes a show of giving Grant/Jack control of her money. Before 1882 he would get it automatically as her husband, excepting anything specified in a marriage settlement. But here she's making a grand gesture of "I trust you and love you. I don't need the money." But she DOES need the money to take care of her daughter Lucy. It's stupid of her to do this, especially when she confesses that she was afraid Grant would not accept his stepdaughter if he knew. No woman should voluntarily give up her power and money like that, especially when she married him after only knowing him a few weeks. No matter how much you love Grant/Jack, don't give him your money, Effie. (By the way, does she call him Jack because her first husband was John Hebron, and Effie called him Jack too?)
There aren't clear dates in the story, though Grant says they've been married for three years, and he met her 6 months after she moved back to England. Effie also claims that there was a fire in Atlanta and she has no photos of John Hebron, but that's a lie, because she has a locket photo. The whole Atlanta history is difficult, as mixed race marriages would not have been legal there, yet Effie inherited money from John Hebron. So did they marry in a Northern state instead and then move to Atlanta to live in a Black neighborhood? And this was tolerated in the big city as opposed to a rural town?
Georgia apparently did not issue death certificates until 1914 according to puzzling notes in Klinger's Annotated Sherlock Holmes. So not even the doctor witnessing the death can issue a certificate if you need one? Was the death certificate fake, and the yellow fever part of her lies? But John Hebron has to be dead because Effie did legally inherit, and they do have a surviving child. It's all so muddled. Anyway, 1882 plus 3 years makes it at least 1885. Holmes says he's "badly in need of a case" implying that it's been a while. I already had BERY in 1885, though I guess they could have coexisted. I just wanted to fill another year in the hole between STUD and SIGN. An extra year also gives time for the 1882 law to go in effect.
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