Chronology part 16

Chronology of these short stories.

• ABBE - late January 1897
• MISS - February 1897
• DEVI - March 16, 1897
• REDC - winter

ABBE begins on a "bitterly cold night and frosty morning, towards the end of the winter of '97" when Holmes wakes Watson up, announcing that the game is afoot. He doesn't even let Watson say anything, just urging him to get dressed before dawn. They skip breakfast and take a cab to the train station in silence. Only after they have hot tea on the train does Holmes explain himself by showing him the note from Stanley Hopkins, dated at 3:30 AM that morning. The reason for choosing January rather than February will arise later.

This is the last case featuring Inspector Hopkins. As I said before, Holmes claims that Hopkins has called him in 7 times, and he fancies that Watson has written up all 7 cases. Then he has the nerve to lecture Watson about his writing style again. Poor judgment, unless he deliberately starts the argument in hopes of making them warmer. "Why do you not write them yourself?" Watson bitterly complains. Holmes says he intends to, when he retires. Holmes does publish BLAN and LION as stories, but he never actually writes his planned textbook on "the whole art of detection." I wonder if maybe Watson decides out of spite to only publish 4 of the cases (BLAC, GOLD, MISS, and ABBE) to prove Holmes wrong. Or maybe he stops publishing because Hopkins gets angry about being deceived in ABBE? The case was published in September 1904, only 7 years after 1897, so maybe Hopkins realized that Holmes was hindering him rather than helping him? He was a young guy, and yet he didn't outlast Lestrade in the stories.

Anyway, Holmes speculates on the case based on the expensive letterhead, and he thinks that "the lady" Hopkins mentions releasing was locked in her room, which turns out to be wrong. What happened to not theorizing without data, Holmes? Finally they arrive in Kent, then take a cab a couple miles out to Abbey Grange, a grand country estate. Hopkins greets them warmly but says he shouldn't have bothered them, because once the lady came to, she gave them a simple explanation of the burglary and murder. The Randall gang have apparently killed Sir Eustace Brackenstall last night.

The lady in question is Sir Eustace's wife Lady Brackenstall, nee Mary Fraser. She is from Australia, along with her loyal maid Theresa Wright. Theresa was also her nurse, raising her from a child, so she's fiercely protective. Lady Brackenstall has been married about a year, and Sir Eustace was an abusive drunkard. She rails against England's unfair divorce laws (a frequent theme in the stories featuring love triangles). She says she was checking that the windows and doors were locked for the night, when she discovered 3 burglars in the dining room. They knocked her out, tied her to the chair, and began robbing the place. Sir Eustace interrupted them, and got killed in front of her. She fainted, but witnessed the 3 robbers having some wine before they left. She called out to Theresa, who helped her and called the police. From the description, Hopkins concludes the robbers are the Randall gang, a father and his two sons. Watson sees that Holmes is disappointed in the seemingly simple case.

Then they go to examine the crime scene, which they should have done first. Even worse than what Lady Brackenstall told them, Hopkins mentions that Sir Eustace soaked his wife's dog in petroleum and set it on fire! Fuck that psycho. This scandal got hushed up instead of leading to any arrest or punishment. Holmes examines the knots on the rope and is dissatisfied with the 3 wine glasses. Yet he dismisses his doubts and departs with Watson for the train. But Holmes changes his mind and suddenly pulls Watson off the train. He explains that Lady Brackenstall's story doesn't make sense with the evidence, and they head back to Abbey Grange. Hopkins has left the house, so they return to the dining room. Holmes examines everything and even climbs the fireplace mantel to look at the cut bell-rope. Then they interrogate the maid Theresa Wright again. She says that they first met Sir Eustace 18 months ago in London. They arrived from Australia in June, then they met Sir Eustace in July. The wedding was in January last year (that is, in January 1896). Well 18 months after July 1895 makes today January 1897, confirming what Lady Brackenstall said about it being a year since her marriage. (Hopkins had previously said they've been in England 18 months, apparently rounding off the extra month.) If Theresa herself is rounding off to 18 months, then maybe it could be February, to better fit Watson's description of the end of winter.

Holmes confronts Lady Brackenstall with her lies, but she won't confess the truth. Holmes leaves, but sends a message to Hopkins to check the frozen over pond, where there's a hole in the ice. He and Watson return to London, where Holmes does further digging at a shipping office, finding out the ship that Mary Fraser and Theresa Wright took in 1895. There was a first officer Jack Crocker (Croker in some editions) who has since been promoted to Captain of a new ship. Holmes decides not to tell Hopkins about this, and they go home to Baker Street. Holmes worries about his conscience to Watson. Hopkins says he found the stolen loot in the frozen pond, but the Randall gang have been arrested in New York, so they can't have done the murder that night. Holmes hints the truth to him, but Hopkins clings to his burglar theory and leaves. After dinner, Crocker arrives and Holmes gets him to confess that he loved Mary Fraser and killed Sir Eustace during a fight. Jack gave Mary some wine for the shock, while Theresa helped stage the robbery. Jack's sailor knots on the rope gave him away. Holmes and Watson have a mock trial and acquit him, letting him go. Holmes tells him to return to the lady in a year, ever the matchmaker. I wonder if they got married and moved away, so that Watson doesn't have to worry about exposing the truth. But as I said, I think Hopkins would be mad about them letting Crocker go without telling him. 

MISS is about a rugby player who disappears before a match, but Holmes and Watson seem ignorant of rugby. Watson himself played rugby according to SUSS, and Holmes didn't sound puzzled when Big Bob Ferguson referred to their Blackheath vs Richmond match years ago. But here Holmes is quite bewildered by Cyril Overton's telegram and his rugby-laden speech. Watson doesn't try to explain things to Holmes at all. Is he just playing a prank to see how confused Holmes can become, or is he puzzled by Overton as well? He says he blesses Overton "whoever he might be" for bringing a case to Holmes; these have been stagnant days, and Watson fears the return of his drug mania. Watson weaned him off it over the years, but knows a relapse is possible. (This rugby discrepancy is probably due to MISS being published first in August 1904, about 19 and a half years before SUSS; Doyle didn't remember the previous ignorance of rugby.) Anyway, Overton mentions that Inspector Hopkins referred him to Holmes, but Hopkins does not appear or send a note himself.

Watson dates the case to February, "some seven or eight years ago," so 1896 or 1897. However, the rugby game in question is Oxford vs Cambridge, and those games are held in December, leading some Sherlockians to reject February as wrong. Then they try to match Oxford's winning score, but I don't think there's an exact match. I know nothing about rugby, let alone historical games. At the end, Watson refers to the season as "winter" which can apply to either December or February. Maybe due to the "stagnant days" comment, I should put this case in December 1896, before the ABBE case, but it depends on exactly how many weeks have passed. Maybe ABBE was early January and this is late February, up to 8 weeks apart? I don't know how long Sherlock can go without cases.

Anyway, Godfrey Staunton is missing from the Cambridge rugby team, having left the hotel at 10:30 last night after a bearded man sent him a distressing note. The porter saw them leave together, and Staunton has not returned since. Overton wired to Cambridge and to Staunton's uncle, the miserly Lord Mount-James. They question the hotel porter, who vaguely describes the bearded man again, and mentions an earlier telegram that Godfrey received at 6 PM. Holmes examines the blotting paper and finds the final words of Godfrey's reply telegram. He also finds a lot of medical bills among Godrey's papers. Lord Mount-James arrives, insisting that he won't pay for a detective, so Holmes suggests that Godfrey may have been kidnapped to get to the lord's money.

Holmes tricks the telegraph-office lady into showing him the whole telegram that Godfrey sent at 6 PM last night. Do people often send telegrams without signatures? He and Watson then travel to Cambridge to investigate. Sherlockians use this case to prove that Holmes didn't go to Cambridge university because he calls it "this inhospitable town" but that's ignoring that he later calls it "this venerable city." Either remark could have been sarcastic. They reach town by dark and interrogate Dr. Leslie Armstrong about the telegram, but he has a low opinion of private detectives. He also doesn't care about the rugby match and rightfully won't answer prying questions about the medical bills. Dr. Armstrong assumes they work for Lord Mount-James and throws them out of his house. That leads to the "inhospitable town" remark, but Watson is able to get them rooms at an inn easily enough. It's the doctor that's inhospitable, not the whole town. Holmes seems to think he's an evil guy like Moriarty.

Holmes tries following Dr. Armstrong for 3 hours, but fails and returns to the inn at 9 PM. He tells Watson that Armstrong's coachman was unfriendly too, and when Holmes tried following the carriage on bicycle, Armstrong spotted him due to the lack of cover. Holmes's lack of knowledge of the Cambridge scenery seems more convincing evidence that Holmes doesn't know this university town. The next day, Dr. Armstrong even sends them a note at breakfast, to warn Holmes to stop following him. Watson offers to try the bicycle himself, but Holmes tells him not to bother. He goes out investigating all the local towns, in a totally illogical order, apparently not having a map yet. In the evening, Overton responds to Holmes's telegram about a local dog he can borrow. The newspaper reports the bad results of the rugby match. Holmes says they should go to bed early tonight. The next morning, Watson finds Holmes with a syringe and fears the worst, but Holmes laughs and assures him it's for the case. He tells Watson to eat breakfast, but we don't know if he ate already or not. Holmes used the syringe to spray aniseed over Armstrong's carriage wheels. (Racing dogs are trained to follow the scent of aniseed.) Holmes has fetched the dog Pompey, and they are going to follow the carriage after he is long out of sight. That way they won't be seen, and Armstrong won't change his path. So Holmes and Watson follow Pompey's nose much like they did with Toby in SIGN. They finally find Godfrey Staunton at a remote house mourning his now dead wife. Later, they make up with Dr Armstrong, who explains that Godfrey kept the marriage secret from his miserly uncle to avoid disinheritance, but the lady grew seriously ill, explaining his absence from the rugby match. So a sad story, but no crime, and Holmes merely imagined Armstrong as a villain because he's missing Moriarty again.

DEVI was published in December of 1910, and Watson tells us that Holmes recently sent him a telegram on Tuesday suggesting that he write up this case. So it's a vague glimpse of their life in 1910, when Holmes is presumably still in Sussex. The case itself takes place in the spring of 1897 when Holmes's health is failing again, like in REIG in 1887. Watson alludes to some "dramatic" way that Holmes met Dr. Moore Agar of Harley Street, but gives no details; it may have been a case, but I wonder why Holmes would then become Agar's patient. Was it Watson's suggestion? In March 1897, Dr. Agar prescribed rest, so Holmes and Watson go on holiday in Cornwall. Watson also tells us that Holmes got the case on Tuesday March 16th, and that matches the real calendar, so this one's easy at least. Holmes solves the case, but almost kills them with Devil's Foot Root too. Idiot. But we get another tender moment between Holmes and Watson at least. They would so die for each other. Holmes also lets another killer go free, sympathizing with Dr. Leon Sterndale's motive. Once again Holmes speculates on what he would have done if he loved someone like that and saw her killed like that.

With regard to dates, REDC has even less information than LADY. All we know is "winter" and there's a Wagner concert that Holmes wants to see at Covent Garden afterward. Oh, also the landlady says that Holmes solved a case for her lodger last year, so this year can't be 1894. Mrs. Warren is one of few landladies featured in the stories, like Mrs. Merrilow in VEIL, and Madame Charpentier in STUD. Doyle often gives them personalities and concerns about a strange lodger. Yet with how terrible a lodger Holmes is, one would think that Mrs. Hudson would be complaining constantly to her own cronies (mentioned in FIVE) about his bizarre behavior. But maybe with affection too.

Gregson also shows up in this story, introducing Holmes to a Pinkerton detective Leverton from New York. Some Sherlockians argue that, unlike Lestrade, Gregson did not feature in a lot of stories, so he must have retired early. I've decided to just place this case here in a blank area of my chronology, but it could be shifted somewhere else if I get better information later.