For Tuesdays in November we return to the Sherlock Holmes canon, as I continue my self-appointed task of revisiting all the stories featuring the character written by his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle.
And so, from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, we have:
‘The Noble Bachelor’ (1892)
The Case
Having waited until his early 40s to get married, and potentially only doing so now on account of dwindling family finances and the attractive dowry his even more attractive wife brings to the table, Lord St. Simon is somewhat vexed when — during the breakfast to celebrate their union — his new wife ups and vanishes from his house. Could a visit from one of his lordship’s ex-lovers be related in some way? Holmes is on the case…
The Characters
Robert Walsingham de Vere St Simon, bachelor; married, but still a bachelor.
Hatty Doran, wife of the above; the lady vanishes.
Flora Millar, ex-lover of our bachelor; smells of fish.
Inspector Lestrade, Scotland Yard; where the bloody hell has he been?
The Timeline
Watson tells us that these events occur “a few weeks before my own marriage, during the days when I was still sharing rooms with Holmes in Baker Street”. Since Watson was married twice, I’m assuming — it being early in the canon — that this is in the days before his first marriage, to Mary Morstan, and as such we’re in the autumn of 1889.
The Tropes
Holmes has been busy with “the little problem of the Grosvenor Square furniture van” which “was obvious from the first” — which probably explains why we never hear of it again.
Watson is troubled by “the jezail bullet which I had brought back in one of my limbs as a relic of my Afghan campaign” — note that we’re not told which limb, giving the impression that Doyle himself doesn’t really care, and so will move it somewhere else later.
Points of Interest
As a story there’s little memorable here, but it’s nice to be reminded just how funny Doyle can be at times:
“I understand that you have already managed several delicate cases of this sort, sir, though I presume that they were hardly from the same class of society.”
“No, I am descending.”
“I beg pardon?”
“My last client of the sort was a king.”
St. Simon does seem like an insufferable prig, so Hatty Doran might well have dodged a bullet, and Holmes does seem to take a particular pleasure in needling him:
“Should you be fortunate enough to solve this problem,” said our client, rising.
“I have solved it.”
“Eh? What was that?”
“I say that I have solved it.”
“Where, then, is my wife?”
“That is a detail which I shall speedily supply.”
The detection here is solid, putting me in mind of the sort of rigour we would see in the Dr. Thorndyke stories of R. Austin Freeman, though Freeman would feel the need to walk you through every step: he’d take you to the hotel where Doyle is content for the mere fact of Holmes’ doing so to be relayed after the fact. That’s not a criticism either way, just an observation of the two different approaches taken by two exceptional authors.
Also, what sort of idiot hides a bride’s very noticeable veil and dress by leaving them in one of the most-visited waterways in central London? Gleeps, man, at least bury them under a tree or burn them in the grate or something. Maybe Hatty Doran has a thing for slightly thick men…
~
The Sherlock Holmes canon by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on The Invisible Event
A Study in Scarlet (1887)
The Sign of Four (1890)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes [ss] (1892):
- ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ (1891)
- ‘A Case of Identity’ (1891)
- ‘The Red-Headed League’ (1891)
- ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’ (1891)
- ‘The Five Orange Pips’ (1891)
- ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’ (1891)
- ‘The Blue Carbuncle’ (1892)
- ‘The Speckled Band’ (1892)
- ‘The Engineer’s Thumb’ (1892)
- ‘The Noble Bachelor’ (1892)
- ‘The Beryl Coronet’ (1892)
- ‘The Copper Beeches’ (1892)
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes [ss] (1894):
- ‘Silver Blaze’ (1892)
- ‘The Yellow Face’ (1893)
- ‘The Stockbroker’s Clerk’ (1893)
- ‘The “Gloria Scott”‘ (1893)
- ‘The Musgrave Ritual’ (1893)
- ‘The Reigate Squires’ (1893)
- ‘The Crooked Man’ (1893)
- ‘The Resident Patient’ (1893)
- ‘The Greek Interpreter’ (1893)
- ‘The Naval Treaty’ (1893)
- ‘The Final Problem’ (1893)
The Invisible Event 
Have you seen the very strange Jeremy Brett telefilm, The Eligible Bachelor?
“Smells of fish.”
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I have not; I think the only TV Holmes I’ve seen is Sherlock, and the only movies the Downey, Jr. ones.
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Brett is the definitive Holmes, and Burke and in particular Hardwicke are great foils as Watson: no bumbling idiots, but shrewd, loyal, and often sarky. It’s a marvellous series. (Bachelor, though, is one of the weaker adaptations.) Maybe you should watch them in tandem with reading the stories.
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It would be interesting to watch them alongside reading the stories, I agree. My problem, as always when it comes to watching stuff, is that there are 470 different streaming services and a) I don’t know where the episodes would be and b) I’m not signed up to any of them, anyway 🙂
But, yeah, I’ve heard great things about Brett. Hopefully one of these days I’ll get the chance to see him in action.
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YouTube. They’re all there.
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Aha — much obliged! That link says that “39 hidden videos are unavailable”, so there’s clearly some “not allowed in your country” shenanigans going on, but it never occurred to me that they might be just freely available — thank-you. I shall look around and see what else is on there and UK-accessible.
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“Have you seen the very strange Jeremy Brett telefilm, The Eligible Bachelor?”
Truly the nadir of the otherwise excellent Brett series. You really have to scratch your head and question who thought it was a good idea to take this story – one of the comparatively minor stories in the Canon – and turn it into a baroque Gothic melodrama. It makes no sense.
Glad to see you tackling Holmes again!
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Whereas, say, The Sussex Vampire (generally) works as a Hammer pastiche, and The Master Blackmailer isn’t bad.
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I do like Peter Hammond as a director, though – he had a very distinctive style: lots of shots through objects in the foreground, reflections. He brought a lot of style to the early Avengers.
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The style of the later episodes is beautiful. Compensates for their many deficiencies. And I agree – The Last Vampyre is decent if not also overblown and needlessly bleak, and I think The Master Blackmailer is actually a really excellent adaptation of Charles Augustus Milverton. It nicely fills in the background of that story which is so short but full of interesting, tantalizing nuggets of information.
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I’ve read the Holmeses many times but I remember nothing about this one. Probably doesn’t say much for it…
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It’s an odd one, but then given the rate at which Doyle was putting these out it’s perhaps not unexpected that the quality goes up and down. I didn’t realise this first tranche came out quite so quickly…clearly it paid well and he was motivated to write as much as possible!
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I read this and thought “Watson was married twice?!” and went off and googled it. But apparently there are many theories, some think only once and some up to six times! Of course. I’d always assumed the backwards and forwards with Watson being married or not, working as a doctor or not, in Baker St or not, were all just Conan Doyle being inconsistent and not really caring, as with the names and bullet wounds and things. But who knows?
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Part of my trying to establish the tineline of these stories us because I reckon Doyle just said whatever the hell he liked about whatever background he wanted to the stories. Nothing will make me believe that he had any of this planned out, or in some cases any idea of the contradictions he was introducing.
And, well, so long as the stories make sense in themselves, I guess it doesn’t really matter. Biography of fictional characters feels like a modern fetish, and I’m sort of hopeful that earlier generations would be somewhat mystified to see the fascination it holds for people these days.
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I do sometimes wonder what Doyle would think if he knew people were mapping out his timelines and “errors” 100 years later.
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I hope he’d find it hilarious. “Academic study of those detective stories…!?”
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