First publication in The Strand Magazine June 1892. It was apparently around this time, which was still relatively early going, that Doyle wanted to abandon Holmes. But his (Doyle’s) mother came to him with the germ for this story so the great detective’s (false) demise was postponed. I mean, how can you turn down writing a story for your mom?

I don’t think it’s a great story, as it seems to borrow a number of basic elements from previous cases without adding much. And once again there is the business of removing obstacles blocking a pair of young lovers uniting. Solving a crime, or unwrapping a mystery, is of course fundamental to the way detective fiction works, but Doyle seems to have had an atavistic attachment to an even more basic plot. That the lovers in this case manage well enough on their own, leaving Holmes to clean things up with an explanation of what’s been going on, is only a slight wrinkle in the fabric.

If you’re a collector of Holmes’s words of wisdom though you get fair service. Beginning with the opening utterance:

“To the man who loves art for its own sake,” remarked Sherlock Holmes, tossing aside the advertisement sheet of the Daily Telegraph, “it is frequently in its least important and lowest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived.”

That’s an observation that I think can be extended far beyond where Holmes immediately takes it, which is to commend Watson for writing up his more “trivial” adventures rather than the “many causes célèbres and sensational trials” in which Holmes has taken part. By “low” Holmes means something intellectual, involving the processes (or art) of “logical synthesis.” I like the idea of the man who loves art for its own sake being a connoisseur of the “lowest manifestations” of entertainment the newspapers have to offer, but I realize that’s the opposite of what is meant. Unfortunately, Holmes’s lecture on high and low is mixed up quite a bit here, as he concludes that “Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell. You have degraded what should have been a course of lectures into a series of tales.” The pleasure of the story is here lower than the operations of logic, which is more what you’d expect him to say.

Another interesting topic of discussion comes up on the train ride to Winchester. Watson admires the green and pleasant countryside they pass through but it fills Holmes with horror.

“It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”

“You horrify me!”

“But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.”

I think in the 1890s this would have been seen as a perverse take, which is how Watson immediately responds to it. One can see Holmes’s reasoning, but even in Victorian England I’m not sure how persuasive it is. Rural isolation does leave people more vulnerable to crime. I’ve had experience of that myself. Call the cops and you may have someone come by later that afternoon. But urban living is in many ways more anonymous, which helps conceal a lot. As far as the psychological effects are concerned, again isolation may not be conducive to robust mental health, but then nothing degrades one’s love for humanity than being stuck in traffic or packed in a subway for hours every day, or living crammed into a tiny apartment alongside people who smell bad or make a lot of noise. I don’t think we can be as certain about these matters as Holmes is.

Things wrap up quickly. Holmes sees the solution as obvious, but it’s only obvious when seeing the events as a dramatic story, not as a logical system. Which sort of undercuts what he kicks things off by saying. Then Miss Violet Hunter is dismissed to head a private school, as Holmes “manifested no further interest in her when once she had ceased to be the center of one of his problems.” The young couple are hitched and sent to Mauritius. What I find most interesting is the fate of Mr. Rucastle, who survives “a broken man, kept alive through the care of his devoted wife.” And his “old servants.” And (though this isn’t mentioned) their demonic, cockroach-killing kid. I would have thought everyone would have abandoned the old miser after all he’d done. But I guess they had fewer options back in those days. People had to stick together.

Holmes index