Chronology part 4

Chronology explanations on the novel The Valley of Fear

• VALL - January 7, 1887

Now this one is definitely complex. This novel has a well known conflict with "The Final Problem" in that Watson knows all about Moriarty in VALL, but in FINA, set a few years later, he's never heard of Moriarty. Holmes also talks about the professor so much to the Scotland Yard that they think he has a bee in his bonnet about Moriarty. The novel also has a chronology problem in its American flashback featuring a Pinkerton investigating the Scowrers 20 years ago, which is not enough time for him to lose his first wife Ettie Shafter, get rich with Cecil Barker in California, and be chased by criminals out of America to England. It's really a shame that Conan Doyle keeps using this long flashback format, because he almost never gets the time periods to mesh well with the main text. Oh, also Doyle based the Vermissa Valley story on the real life Pinkerton John McParland investigating the Molly Maguires in Pennsylvania; it's an example of their union-busting deeds, and Doyle doesn't see the Pinkertons as villains at all. He thinks of them as clever, brave detectives righteously taking down an evil criminal gang, as if the Mollies were equivalent to the KKK. He even features another heroic Pinkerton in "The Red Circle" story.

First, the Moriarty issue: the contradiction arises due to them being published in the wrong order. VALL took place first in the 1880s but Watson did not publish it at that time; as Holmes himself says, if Watson dared to accuse the Professor of being a criminal mastermind, the Professor would sue him for libel and win. So Watson said nothing publicly for years, then Reichenbach happened in 1891 and Watson mourned. He published dozens of cases over 2 years, but he was reluctant to publish anything about Holmes's death. He only changed his mind because Moriarty's brother, Colonel James Moriarty (yes another James) was spreading lies, defending the professor as innocent and persecuted by Holmes. So Watson finally wrote up FINA, but he wanted to explain the professor quickly to an ignorant public who knew nothing of VALL. He didn't want to go through the years of intellectual battle since 1880-something. He just wanted to establish "evil professor wanted to kill Holmes, so we fled London" and then get to Reichenbach. So he feigns ignorance in the FINA story, letting Holmes explain Moriarty as if it was the first time they ever spoke about him. What Holmes actually said in 1891 was probably more like "You have heard me speak of Professor Moriarty? I am finally close to catching him now, but he's close to killing me. Please let's go to Europe until he's arrested on Monday." So Watson gives an edited version of the truth in 1893. Then years later, after Holmes's return, Watson decides he wants to publish the earlier Birlstone mystery, but he doesn't want to feign ignorance again; the public already know about Moriarty now, and nobody will sue him for libel because the words are true. So in VALL he shows himself aware of Moriarty back in 1880-something.

Next chronological problem: many people in the story are aware of Dr. Watson's role as Holmes's biographer. The Sussex detective White Mason not only reserves a room at the inn for Holmes and Watson, he also hopes to appear in Watson's next book. Mason actually says "we" to include the other police officers in this desire. John Douglas even hands over a manuscript to Watson, knowing he's "the historian of this bunch" and will likely publish it, just like Watson published the Mormon section of A Study in Scarlet. It certainly sounds like Watson has published at least STUD and become famous, and that happened in December 1887. So that, along with Holmes saying the date is January 7th in chapter one, leads most chronologists to date the story as January 7, 1888. However, I can't do that, because in my chronology, Watson has married Mary Morstan by late 1887 and should be living with her in 1888. While normally it shouldn't be a problem for Watson to visit Holmes for a case, both SCAN and STOC say that Watson did not visit Holmes for three or so months after marriage because he was busy with his practice. So I can't put VALL in 1888. Maybe I could push it to 1889, but that would still be post-marriage. Still, I believe that a couple of chronologists do pick 1889, while H. W. Bell goes for 1887. I've not read Bell's book, though, so I don't know his reasoning yet. Meanwhile, Gavin Brend's chronology places VALL in January 1900, a definite stretch. He sets it post-Return due to his theory that Colonel Moriarty took over the criminal organization after his brother died in 1891; Brend claims that Watson just disguised the colonel as the professor in the novel to avoid tipping off the colonel until Holmes could defeat him. Brend's theory is actually more convoluted than that, also involving secret messages in the Second Stain story.

In VALL itself, Watson only vaguely tells us that it's the "end of the '80s" before Inspector Alec MacDonald became nationally famous. That doesn't help, since we don't have another case with this Scottish inspector. Billy the page is there to deliver letters and to show visitors in, but it's unclear if that's just a general name they give to all pageboys. Plus, Holmes talks of "we" and "us" when talking about them having the new Whitaker's Almanac in the flat. Watson also writes that "a long series of sterile weeks lay behind us", implying he's been at Baker Street during this dearth of cases. Either he's still living there with Holmes, or this is a long extended visit like HOUN where he just casually heads to Dartmoor for weeks as if he's got no wife or job. For VALL, it's simpler if they're still bachelors living together in 1887, but I can't resolve the issue of Watson's fame. Is this exaggeration or self-promotion, like all the references betwen the "Adventures" stories? But Watson doesn't name a specific novel that was published, and he's usually pretty humble about his own reputation. I'm still unhappy about this 1887 date.

Finally, the issue of John Douglas's backstory. VALL was first published serially from September 1914 to May 1915. In Chapter 7, just before the long American flashback, Watson asks his long-suffering readers "to journey back some twenty years in time." If he meant 1894 or 1895, that would be way too late for the Scowrers story, let alone the Birlstone case. Some people say, "no, Watson must have written the story in 1895, and he meant 1875 was 20 years ago. He just didn't update the text when he actually published it." Okay, so John Douglas aka Birdy Edwards aka John McMurdo lived in Vermissa Valley in 1875 and investigated there for 3 months. He got the Scowrers arrested, then left to get married in Chicago. So far, so good. But then we need to account for the rest of his life in 20 years. The Scowrers get sentenced to 10 years, and when they get out, Birdy Edwards changes his name to John Douglas and flees to California in 1885. Then his first wife Ettie dies, then Douglas meets Cecil Barker a year later, then they work together for 5 years, so it's 1891. Then Douglas abruptly leaves for England, still fleeing the Scowrers. Then he meets his 2nd wife Ivy and they move to Birlstone. Then five years passes and Ted Baldwin attempts to kill him in 1896. See the problem there? We've shot past the 1880s and past Moriarty's death. Some Sherlockians try to fix the issue to say that only some of the Scowrers stayed in jail for 10 years. Others stayed out and were able to chase Douglas out of Chicago and California much earlier. But you'd think that Douglas would have said so in his manuscript. Unless Watson flubbed the dates when editing the story to third person. But his main VALL text, not the flashback, also keeps referring to events in America, talking about five years this, seven years that. It still adds up to too much time. We need 1875 to be pushed back several years, but I don't know what event to tie them to. The real Molly Maguires story takes place in 1876-1878. What if we assume it's not the Mollies? That it's some other union-busting case in a different place, and Watson has only disguised events to make it resemble the Mollies? When and where could it take place? I'll have to think on this some more. Can we assume that the real Scowrers were less evil, and only painted black, like how STUD makes it seem like all Mormons were evil?

More about the real life Pinkertons. Allan Pinkerton is a hypocritical ass who used to have sympathies with working-class men in his youth, but he took the side of vicious corporations with his Pinkerton Detective Agency. And yet Pinkerton was an abolitionist and had his agency do espionage for the Union during the Civil War. He hired Kate Warne as a detective in the 1850s and wrote admiringly of her in a few books that are otherwise poor and tedious. He even created a whole women's department that she was in charge of, but his sons disbanded this department when they took charge (I don't know what year). Kate Warne was part of the operation that foiled the Baltimore Plot, an attempt to assassinate Abraham Lincoln before his inauguration. There's good and bad in the Pinkertons, and they are woven into our history. That's why I have a pet theory that Sherlock Holmes himself in his youth must have gone to America and joined the Pinkertons briefly, before he grew tired of their non-scientific methods. It explains his admiration for America and knowledge of American police, whom he telegrams for information in a few stories. His continued admiration of the Pinkertons is a moral blindness and a flaw that he shares with other people of that time, who preferred strong businesses and hated any kind of socialism. Capitalists seemed to think that unions would cause anarchy or a violent Russian Revolution. Doyle was very much on the side of Empire despite its atrocities. It's sad that all our social progress since the Victorian age is being undone and destroyed in this terrible second Gilded Age.