Yep, that’s right – A Study in Scarlet, the first story to feature Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, was published in Beetons Christmas Annual, although you will struggle to find anything remotely Christmassy about it! This is the Holmes and Watson ‘origin story’, explaining how they meet (introduced by a common acquaintance), came to live together (they both needed somewhere slightly cheaper to live, and decide quite casually to share the rent with one another) and all about Dr Watson’s background (military doctor wounded in Afghanistan). Almost nothing on the other hand is revealed about Holmes’s background. He emerges fully formed – the meticulous, brilliant private detective with the ability, almost like magic, to use microscopic or incidental details to discern peoples’ lives, occupations and histories.
The short novel is divided into two very distinct narratives. Part I is entitled “The Reminiscences of Watson” and subtitled “Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, MD, Late of the Army Medical Department.” This gives the story the appearance of a biographical sketch, with the added authority of coming from an army doctor, so surely trusty-worthy. Perhaps this air of authenticity was part of the reason why people went on to conceive of Holmes are being a real life figure?
Watson, having returned to London from service in the Second Anglo-Afghan War, bumps into an old friend, Stamford.
I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air—or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.
Watson explains he has been invalided out of the army and is looking for a more affordable place to live. Stamford mentions an acquaintance who is in a similar position, and might be interested in sharing. This is our first introduction to the great detective:
“…a fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital. He was bemoaning himself this morning because he could not get someone to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he had found, and which were too much for his purse.”
Stamford’ description of Holmes is ambivalent – his recommendation of him as a flat-mate is hardly glowing:
“Oh, I didn’t say there was anything against him. He is a little queer in his ideas—an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as I know he is a decent fellow enough.”
He takes Watson to meet Holmes in a hospital laboratory, where Holmes (although he doesn’t work there, and seems to have set up shop spontaneously) has just developed a test to detect haemoglobin, for use in criminal investigations. Thus Holmes’s credentials as an eccentric, brilliant scientist are established. Without prompting Holmes greets Watson with the comment “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.” This is the first instance of Holmes’s deductive and observational powers, which were to become such a popular feature of the stories.
The two confirmed bachelors set up home together, and quickly become close friends. Holmes is unquestionably eccentric, but Watson is never judgmental, even when he suspects Holmes of drug-taking. It takes Watson some time to work out what Holmes does for a living – Holmes is as usual unnecessarily mysterious about the question. Of Watson himself we really learn little beyond the initial self-portrait – but his role is nevertheless established as the witness of Holmes’ brilliance and as the representative of the reader – always a few steps behind Holmes, struggling to keep up and work out what is apparently so obvious to the great one. Holmes remains enigmatic – there is no mention of any other friends or family, or his previous career.
Holmes is asked to help the Metropolitan Police with a murder investigation. He takes Watson along with him to the scene of the crime, for reasons that are never really established – perhaps he just thought it would be interesting, or an opportunity to get to know one another. Here we first see Holmes’s method in action – a meticulous observation of the house and garden, which appears to reveal much more to Holmes than is apparent to Watson. Another trope is thus established. Inspectors Gregson and Lestrade are introduced (unusual for the Met to allocate two inspectors to a murder; it is interesting to see how Lestrade went on to become a fixed part of the Baker Street universe, whereas Gregson faded into the background, until being spectacularly resurrected in Elementary). Gregson and Lestrade are competitive but largely there to underline even further how astonishingly clever Holmes is by comparison.
The corpse is identified as an American, Enoch Drebber. There is no wound on the body. Documents conveniently left at the scene confirm Drebber is visiting London with his secretary, Joseph Stangerson, an immediate suspect. One a wall, ominously written in blood – apparently not the victim’s – is the word “rache”. This it eventually turns out is the mother of all red herrings. Moving the body, a woman’s gold wedding ring is discovered.
Realising the murderer attempted to return to recover the ring, Holmes sets a trap, advertising its discovery in a newspaper. At the same time he sends telegrams to the US seeking confirmation of his theories about the crime and those involved. A little later Drebber’s secretary is found murdered at his boarding house, again with the word “rache” appearing at the scene. Lestrade also finds a small pillbox containing two pills. Holmes tests the pills on a disposable dog that conveniently just happens to have been in residence at Baker Street. (This is Conan Doyle not trying very hard. Yes, Holmes has to be shown that of the two pills in the box one is lethal, the other harmless. But to have a sick dog on hand just waiting to be put down is pushing the bounds of credibility). The first pill produces no evident effect, but the second kills the hound. Holmes is able to produce and capture the murderer moments later using his trademark ‘sudden reveal’ technique.
Part two of the novel, The County of the Saints, consists almost entirely of a flashback devoid of Holmes or anything Baker Street related. The narrator recounts the story of two people, John Ferrier and a little girl named Lucy, the only survivors of a party of settlers in early nineteenth USA. They are close to death from dehydration and hunger when they are discovered by a large party of Mormons on their way to Salt Lake City. (Warning – one can easily fall down an internet rabbit hole looking into the early history of the Mormons. They were viciously persecuted, which given the founding principles of the USA is a bit ironic). Ferrier and Lucy are rescued on the condition that they become Mormons, and with few choices open to them, they agree. Ferrier prospers, and adopts Lucy as his daughter. Years later Lucy falls in love with a man named Jefferson Hope. Hope is not a Mormon, and a relationship with him is not allowed by her community. Ferrier is given one month to change her mind or face what it is suggested are fatal consequences. Lucy must marry either Joseph Stangerson or Enoch Drebber, sons of members of the church’s Council of Four (and, you will have spotted, the men murdered in part one).
Lucy, Hope and Ferrier try to escape, but are hunted down. Ferrier is killed, and Lucy is dragged back to Salt Lake City and an enforced marriage, with only Jefferson escaping through sheer luck. Lucy pines away and dies, and Hope vows to seek revenge on her and her father’s killers. He hunts them for decades, chasing them across Europe until finally tracking them down in London, where he exacts his revenge by forcing Drebber to choose between a fatal pill and a harmless one. Stangerson is then despatched before the pill choice can be offered. Once captured Hope freely confesses all, knowing he has a conveniently weak heart and is close to death – indeed, he expires the next day, a smile on his face. Holmes then leisurely reveals how he had worked out the identity of the murderer and how he had used his Baker Street Irregulars, his “street Arabs,” to help with the case. Watson is outraged that Gregson and Lestrade are given credit in the newspapers for solving the case, and decides to document the investigation himself. Surprisingly, Holmes does not object.
To what extent does Holmes emerge in this novel fully formed? Almost completely is the short answer. All the features of a traditional Holmes story appear in the summary above. Admittedly, the portrait of Holmes’s weaknesses is over-done. Early in the novel Watson lists the subjects in which Holmes is an expert, and those in which he has little or no knowledge, including astronomy, and the astounding fact that he did not realise that the earth travels round the sun, a fact that is, according to Holmes, of no interest of value whatsoever.
“His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it….
You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”
The idea that Holmes was ignorant of simple facts that a schoolchild would know, simply because he needs the space in his memory for more important facts, was quietly discarded by Conan Doyle, and rightly so. But the wider picture, of Holmes being an expert in a wide range of subjects, and having a vast brain ‘attic’ where facts can be stored and retrieved, is a core part of the character.
One other common feature of the Holmes stories is his frustrating refusal to tell Watson and any detectives involved in the case about his deductions until the case comes to fruition. Sometimes this is more a case of neglect that a conscious decision to be obtuse, but here the refusal to share is clearly deliberate:
I’m not going to tell you much more of the case, Doctor. You know a conjuror gets no credit when once he has explained his trick, and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all.
Watson is deferential as always:
I shall never do that,” I answered; “you have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.
Mrs Hudson has yet to be introduced – here the gentlemen are looked after by an anonymous servant – and of course Moriarty, Mycroft and Irene Adler were all to come, but the Study in Scarlet is otherwise the template which all future Holmes stories were to scrupulously follow.
Is it an enjoyable story, or just a curiosity piece? Certainly the second part of the novel, largely devoid as it is of anything Holmes related, comes in for a lot of criticism from readers (see Goodreads, for example). I actually found the scenes in America more interesting than those in London – the part one murders are pretty pedestrian, solved by Holmes with the minimum of effort. Origin stories are always interesting, offering insights into the way the novelist originally conceived of the characters, but here the interest is actually how incredibly consistent Conan Doyle was with his characterisation of Holmes and his detection techniques.
