Chronology part 8

Chronology explanations of these stories

• GREE - June 20, 1888
• NAVA - late July, 1888
• CROO - summer 1888, maybe August
• SECO - Autumn, 1888. A weird case with 3 different descriptions

Watson first meets Sherlock's brother Mycroft in GREE, after many years of not knowing that he had any family at all. Watson only describes it as a summer evening after tea, and later Mr. Melas says today is Wednesday. (Odd that we don't get a first name for Melas.) I would set the case pre-marriage, except that Brad Keefauver makes a convincing argument for 1888 based on their astronomical conversation about the obliquity of the ecliptic. He does say that 1887 would be an option too, but that interferes with Watson claiming that 3 months before SIGN was devoid of any cases, while Holmes injected cocaine and morphine 3 times a day. I guess Watson could have come to visit Holmes for an evening, then get caught up in the case.

In NAVA, Watson is married but receives a letter from his old schoolmate Percy Phelps. I wouldn't call him a school chum, for Watson confesses to bullying the fellow and nicknaming him Tadpole Phelps. Nevertheless, Percy reaches out to Watson due to his famous friend, to help him solve his mystery.

Confusingly, Watson links the Naval Treaty case to two other cases:

The July which immediately succeeded my marriage was made memorable by three cases of interest, in which I had the privilege of being associated with Sherlock Holmes and of studying his methods. I find them recorded in my notes under the headings of "The Adventure of the Second Stain," "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty," and "The Adventure of the Tired Captain."

This is the actually the 2nd mention of the Second Stain case. In YELL, published 8 months before NAVA, Watson calls SECO an example of one of Holmes's failures. But here in NAVA, it's described as Holmes's triumph in an international case involving two other European detectives. When Watson finally publishes the full SECO case in 1904, it doesn't match either previous description. Plus, the story is dated to autumn, whereas here, it's dated to July, post-marriage. These contradictions lead people to wonder if there are 3 separate cases that have the same name. In his 1951 chronology My Dear Holmes, Gavin Brend theorizes that Mycroft told Watson to publish these weird, wrong descriptions because they were a special code he was using to communicate to Sherlock about Moriarty.

But back to the Naval Treaty itself. Watson reads Percy's letter at breakfast, his wife agrees that this is urgent, then he immediately goes to see Holmes. Holmes is interested in the letter, at least in Annie Harrison's handwriting from the dictated letter, and they soon catch a train to Woking. Percy describes the theft of the treaty "nearly ten weeks ago" on May 23rd. (That was a Wednesday in 1888, so today is somewhere between July 25th and July 31st, between 9 and 10 weeks after May 23rd. So that's where I'm getting late July from.) The treaty was stolen at around 9:45 PM after some confusion about getting coffee from the commisionaire's office. Percy came down with "brain fever" aka had a nervous breakdown, then was taken home and placed in a sickroom for all these weeks. The sickroom used to be Joseph's guest bedroom. He's Annie's brother and was chaperoning her visit to her fiance. Apparently Percy's family have allowed both Annie and Joseph to stay at the house all these weeks.

After the moss-rose speech and all that, Holmes and Watson take a train back to London, and he claims that he's somehow investigated Annie and Joseph Harrison, despite just getting the case today. "I’ve been making a few independent inquiries, you see." When Holmes? Did you stop to talk to Percy's family, and Watson forgot to tell us? Holmes still seems in an optimistic mood, talking about the boarding schools as lighthouses. Watson tells Holmes that his medical practice is slack and he'd love to continue investigating with him for a day or two. Arriving at 3:20 PM, they have a buffet lunch, visit Scotland Yard, and see Percy's uncle Lord Holdhurst. Finally Holmes lets Watson go home for the day, but asks him to meet him next morning on the train. When they return to Woking, Percy tells them about an attempted burglary at 2 AM last night. Holmes gives weird instructions to Annie Harrison, and declares that Percy must come to London tonight. At the last minute, Holmes says he's staying in Woking, and Watson needs to take Percy to Baker Street, and stay with him all night. Just no warning at all, not giving Watson a chance to return to Paddington, not even explaining what he means by "the spare room" at 221B. Watson obeys, though presumably he sent a message to his wife that night. Holmes arrives the next morning, injured, and pranks Percy Phelps with the naval treaty, not caring that he might trigger brain fever again.

Moving on to CROO, Watson says this begins on a summer night, some months after his marriage. As Watson has already claimed only 3 cases in July 1888, this one should be in June or August. I favor August because I think it feels important that Holmes decided to spend the night at Watson's house, rather than just dropping by for a moment in STOC, or having Watson come back to Baker Street. It feels like he's finally accepting that Watson is married and isn't at his beck and call. Given how he behaved in NAVA, I imagine that Watson must have had a talk with him about tricking him and presuming on his time. So in CROO Holmes has learned to make requests rather than give surprise orders. He even sits smoking in silence with Watson for awhile, just enjoying his company before bringing up the case.

Holmes already investigated the case alone, but he drops in at Paddington at 11:45 PM and asks to use the "bachelor quarters" to stay the night. Even though Holmes could wait until tomorrow to tell Watson the story on the train, he instead keeps Watson up telling the story to him. Colonel James Barclay has died suddenly and his widow Nancy Barclay is suspected of killing him due to a furious argument they had where she kept shouting David. There was a club in the room and the tracks of an animal, suggesting a third person was present. Holmes got Nancy's friend Miss Morrison to confess what happened, and Holmes already found out the man's name. So it's mostly solved, yet Holmes still wants Watson along. He basically asks Watson to be a witness to the confession of Henry Wood. It's another of those flashback stories involving the Indian Mutiny. I wish Doyle had given us more information on what happened to Nancy and Henry afterward.

Finally we get to SECO as published in 1904. I discussed the 3 different versions above, but the Doings of Doyle podcast has more info about SECO, and the fact that part of the manuscript was written by Jean Leckie, even though Doyle's first wife Louisa aka Touie was still alive in 1904. The introduction of this story also reveals that Holmes is retired to Sussex now and keeping bees. He only agreed to let Watson publish SECO since Watson had promised to publish it since NAVA (published in 1893).

Watson says this story begins on a Tuesday morning in autumn, "in a year, and even in a decade, that shall be nameless," forgetting that he already said the case happened in July near NAVA. I'm going to keep it in autumn because there's too many summer cases anyway. Plus it seems strange that Holmes should solve both NAVA and SECO in the same month. Technically the naval treaty was lost in May, but it still seems odd that Trelawney Hope lost another top secret document so soon, and he wasn't threatened with losing his job like Percy Phelps was. Is it just because he's higher ranking? The only other thing that matters chronologically speaking is that Hugo Oberstein is mentioned as a spy in this story, and he later shows up in BRUC, so SECO must take place before BRUC; Oberstein will get arrested there for his espionage and spend 15 years in prison.