Monday, October 18, 2021

On "The Red-Headed League" from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

lo-fi & lovely

On "The Red-Headed League" [REDH] from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

::: PUBLICATION HISTORY :::

The Strand (UK) August 1891
The Strand (US) September 1891
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Coll.) October 1892

::: NOTES :::

This one has it all. The good (almost completely-so) the bad (a screwy timeline) and ample (ugly) opportunity to retro-fit Moriarty at the head of the criminal underground table (as seen in the Jeremy Brett Granada TV series). That said, The Read-Headed League is an absolute favorite of mine. Although I cannot let pass an opportunity to again say that I feel Brett's Holmes is over-rated. Bonus points are given for not including a murder--just a caper--and I do love capers. Only not on my cream cheese and lox. So where to begin. The beginning? Nope... this isn't a summary. As with other writings of mine within this series*--I have prepared it under the assumption you've read REDH. If you have not, or haven't for a while, take about 45min to do so...

... & thus we continue. "Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. “Well, I never!” said he. “I thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see that there was nothing in it after all.” This is in regards to the trademark opening Holmesian deduction flex, but more-so closely on the heels of its explanation. Jabez Wilson, a broke Fat Cat wannabe whose downfall comes via his own greed of accepting gross over-payment for "nominal work" and willingness to employ cheap labor at half-pay--poor Vincent Spaulding but not really. "Omne ignotum pro Magnifico," replies Holmes to Watson, not Wilson. "Everything unknown is taken as grand." A nice dismissal of a dismissal. 

So Jabez has been duped into distraction to the tune of pennies to the dollar insofar as what the heist itself would have paid but at least he has a deeper understanding of most words beginning with the letter "A" as appears in the Encyclopædia Britannica. We have a building of tension growing from the comedic trivial to culminating in a high-stakes nabbing of a not-before-seen two-time thorn in the side of Holmes... a thought which casts some light into the shadows of Baker Street's underground web of crime. Ah, Victorian seediness. [Feel free to insert Moriarty therein.] Canonically, we have the just-mentioned John Clay and his henchman Archie, the tale's loan cardboard cut-out, sorta. 

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Nevertheless, John Clay... but then again I get ahead of myself. The sign reads “THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE IS DISSOLVED. October 9, 1890." And Holmes is to figure out why exactly and more-so WTF it was all even about. The problem is solved as promised before Monday with a visit paid to 'Spaulding,' or more to his dirty trouser knees. That and a knock on the ground outside of Wilson's shop. But Mr. Clay, a young man of head-of-the-class criminal cunning and perhaps even of Royal birthright. Also, "the murderer, thief, smasher, and forger." Who upon being cuffed to be taken-in instructs: "... Have the goodness, also, when you address me always to say ‘sir’ and ‘please.’" I do-so like the cut of his jib. The jab back at him is good too. Good crisp, distinct dialog throughout.

I also like the character of Mr. Merryweather, the targeted bank's Director and ardent Whist** player. Watson himself is in excellent narrative form, particularly as the white hats lie in darkened wait for the black hats to make their clandestine move out the other end of their dug tunnel. The ambiance of the scene plays a character in this tale at that point; akin to the moor in Baskervilles but obviously lesser-so, condensed. I even have a fondness for Peter Jones of Scotland Yard, the dour-faced thin man of apparently impeccable hygiene. He fits. It all fits, Each link is like Watson's “It is so long a chain, and yet every link rings true.” Oh, crap... the timeline. We'll come to that.

REMINDER to please check out both I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, As well as Interesting Though Elementary. Both are fantastically infotaining spots for Sherlockian Scholarship. (As well as used in some of my own research.)

“You may place considerable confidence in Mr. Holmes, sir,” said the police agent [Jones to Merryweather] loftily. “He has his own little methods, which are, if he won’t mind my saying so, just a little too theoretical and fantastic, but he has the makings of a detective in him." I even admire how it is I'm made to dislike Wilson, for all the right reasons already mentioned. It hurts the plot nor problem nil, that I don't care if he is left as a safe and happy client or dead/sad in a ditch. As Holmes notes and as I've alluded to above--he's made out well compensated and is left just dandy. 

So again, this adventure has it all. The characters, setting, problem, solution. But there is a plot hole... the timeline. The advertisement Wilson responds to is stated as being "Just two months ago" which would make April, and the announcement of a dissolved league is dated as in October. Or some such discrepancy I cannot lay claim to catching in my own readings. I only got wind of it in my research and I understand Dorothy L. Sayers corrects it in "The Dates in The Red-Headed League", reprinted in 17 Steps to 221B Baker Street (George Allen and Unwin, 1967). I don't want to hang around this too long then. Not my collar nor correction. 

What else did I enjoy here? The mini-epilogue. "... in the early hours of the morning as we [Holmes & Watson] sat over a glass of whisky and soda*** in Baker Street..." The consulting detective debriefs the doctor, and no, that is not to be read as dirty. This isn't horny agenda fanfic. He connects the dots. "‘L’homme c’est rien—l’œuvre c’est tout,’ as Gustave Flaubert wrote to George Sand," Holmes says to Watson after receiving his chain-link accolades. "The man is nothing--the work is all." Now that's it in a nutshell, ain't it? Even as Sherlock Holmes breaks it down for you like you were a five-year-old, he manages to make you feel as if you are at the quite least, a well-educated tot. (I used Google Translate for all of this.)

CHARACTERS: 2/2
SETTING: 2/2
PLOT: 1.5/2
PROBLEM: 2/2
SOLUTION: 2/2

FINAL GRADE: 9.5/10

::: very :::