A Case of Identity
Mary agreed to Hosmer’s demand,
That she accept no one else’s hand.
Though affectionate,
She stayed celibate,
Alone and forever unmanned.
– Don Dillistone April, 2004
On October 10th…
October 10, 1855: Relief of Agra by Col. Greathed. [SIGN]
Well, there’s no use my telling you gentlemen what came of the Indian Mutiny. After Wilson took Delhi and Sir Colin relieved Lucknow the back of the business was broken. Fresh troops came pouring in, and Nana Sahib made himself scarce over the frontier. A flying column under Colonel Greathed came round to Agra and cleared the Pandies away from it. Peace seemed to be settling upon the country, and we four were beginning to hope that the time was at hand when we might safely go off with our share of the plunder. In a moment, however, our hopes were shattered by our being arrested as the murderers of Achmet.
October 10, 1889: Holmes confronted James Windibank AKA Hosmer Angel. [IDEN]
Holmes stuck his feet up on the corner of the mantelpiece, and leaning back with his hands in his pockets, began talking, rather to himself, as it seemed, than to us.
‘The man married a woman very much older than himself for her money,’ said he, ‘and he enjoyed the use of the money of the daughter as long as she lived with them. It was a considerable sum for people in their position, and the loss of it would have made a serious difference. It was worth an effort to preserve it. The daughter was of a good, amiable disposition, but affectionate and warm-hearted in her ways, so that it was evident that with her fair personal advantages, and her little income, she would not be allowed to remain single long. Now her marriage would mean, of course, the loss of a hundred a year, so what does her step-father do to prevent it? He takes the obvious course of keeping her at home, and forbidding her to seek the company of people of her own age. But soon he found that that would not answer for ever. She became restive, insisted upon her rights, and finally announced her positive intention of going to a certain ball. What does her clever step-father do then? He conceives an idea more creditable to his head than to his heart. With the connivance and assistance of his wife he disguised himself, covered those keen eyes with tinted glasses, masked the face with a moustache and a pair of bushy whiskers, sunk that clear voice into an insinuating whisper, and doubly secure on account of the girl’s short sight, he appears as Mr Hosmer Angel, and keeps off other lovers by making love himself.’
On October 9th…
October 9, 1889: Mary Sutherland consulted Holmes about the missing Hosmer Angel. [IDEN]
I came to you, sir because I heard of you from Mrs Etherege, whose husband you found so easy when the police and everyone had given him up for dead. Oh, Mr Holmes, I wish you would do as much for me. I’m not rich, but still I have a hundred a year in my own right, besides the little that I make by the machine, and I would give it all to know what has become of Mr Hosmer Angel.
On October 5th…
October 5, 1901: Holmes used Watson’s revolver to solve the problem of Thor Bridge. [THOR]
‘Do you know, Watson,’ said he, ‘I believe your revolver is going to have a very intimate connection with the mystery which we are investigating.’
‘My dear Holmes, you are joking.’
‘No, Watson, I am very serious. There is a test before us. If the test comes off, all will be clear. And the test will depend upon the conduct of this little weapon. One cartridge out. Now we will replace the other five and put on the safety-catch. So! That increases the weight and makes it a better reproduction.’
I had no glimmer of what was in his mind nor did he enlighten me, but sat lost in thought until we pulled up in the little Hampshire station. We secured a ramshackle trap, and in a quarter of an hour were at the house of our confidential friend, the sergeant.
‘A clue, Mr Holmes? What is it?’
‘It all depends upon the behaviour of Dr Watson’s revolver,’ said my friend.
October 5, 1889: Mary Sutherland advertised for the missing Hosmer Angel. [IDEN]
I held the little printed slip to the light. ‘Missing,’ it said, ‘on the morning of the 14th, a gentleman named Hosmer Angel. About 5 ft 7 in in height; strongly built, sallow complexion, black hair, a little bald in the centre, bushy, black side whiskers and moustache; tinted glasses, slight infirmity of speech. Was dressed, when last seen, in black frock-coat faced with silk, black waistcoat, gold Albert chain, and grey Harris tweed trousers, with brown gaiters over elastic-sided boots. Known to have been employed in an office in Leadenhall Street. Anybody bringing, etc., etc.’
October 5, 1901: Holmes used Watson’s revolver to solve the problem of Thor Bridge. [THOR]
On October 4th…
October 4, 1889: Hosmer Angel disappeared on his scheduled wedding day. [IDEN]
Hosmer came for us in a hansom, but as there were two of us he put us both into it and stepped himself into a four-wheeler, which happened to be the only other cab in the street. We got to the church first, and when the four-wheeler drove up we waited for him to step out, but he never did, and when the cabman got down from the box and looked there was no one there!
The cabman said that he could not imagine what had become of him, for he had seen him get in with his own eyes. That was last Friday, Mr. Holmes, and I have never seen or heard anything since then to throw any light upon what became of him.
October 4, 1901: Neil Gibson visited 221B Baker Street. [THOR]
Sharp at the hour we heard a heavy step upon the stairs, and the famous millionaire was shown into the room. As I looked upon him I understood not only the fears and dislike of his manager but also the execrations which so many business rivals have heaped upon his head. If I were a sculptor and desired to idealise the successful man of affairs, iron of nerve and leathery of conscience, I should choose Mr. Neil Gibson as my model. His tall, gaunt, craggy figure had a suggestion of hunger and rapacity. An Abraham Lincoln keyed to base uses instead of high ones would give some idea of the man. His face might have been chiselled in granite, hard-set, craggy, remorseless, with deep lines upon it, the scars of many a crisis. Cold grey eyes, looking shrewdly out from under bristling brows, surveyed us each in turn. He bowed in perfunctory fashion as Holmes mentioned my name, and then with a masterful air of possession he drew a chair up to my companion and seated himself with his bony knees almost touching him.
On September 30th…
September 30, 1889: Mary Sutherland wrote her stepfather about her impending marriage. [IDEN]
“Mr. Hosmer Angel came to the house again and proposed that we should marry before father came back. He was in dreadful earnest and made me swear, with my hands on the Testament, that whatever happened I would always be true to him. Mother said he was quite right to make me swear, and that it was a sign of his passion. Mother was all in his favour from the first and was even fonder of him than I was. Then, when they talked of marrying within the week, I began to ask about father; but they both said never to mind about father, but just to tell him afterwards, and mother said she would make it all right with him. I didn’t quite like that, Mr. Holmes. It seemed funny that I should ask his leave, as he was only a few years older than me; but I didn’t want to do anything on the sly, so I wrote to father at Bordeaux, where the company has its French offices, but the letter came back to me on the very morning of the wedding.”
September 30, 1900 (according to Zeisler): Watson walked to Grimpen and met both of the Stapletons. [HOUN]
A small fly or moth had fluttered across our path, and in an instant Stapleton was rushing with extraordinary energy and speed in pursuit of it. To my dismay the creature flew straight for the great mire, and my acquaintance never paused for an instant, bounding from tuft to tuft behind it, his green net waving in the air. His grey clothes and jerky, zigzag, irregular progress made him not unlike some huge moth himself. I was standing watching his pursuit with a mixture of admiration for his extraordinary activity and fear lest he should lose his footing in the treacherous mire, when I heard the sound of steps, and turning round found a woman near me upon the path. She had come from the direction in which the plume of smoke indicated the position of Merripit House, but the dip of the moor had hid her until she was quite close.
On September 28th…
September 28, 1879: Brunton did not appear at breakfast. [MUSG]
For two days after this Brunton was most assiduous in his attention to his duties. I made no allusion to what had passed, and waited with some curiosity to see how he would cover his disgrace. On the third morning, however he did not appear, as was his custom, after breakfast to receive my instructions for the day.
September 28, 1889: Hosmer Angel proposed that he and Mary Sutherland should marry within the next week. [IDEN]
“Were you engaged to the gentleman at this time?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Holmes. We were engaged after the first walk that we took. Hosmer—Mr. Angel—was a cashier in an office in Leadenhall Street—and—”
“What office?”
“That’s the worst of it, Mr. Holmes, I don’t know.”
On September 27th…
September 27, 1879: Brunton found the treasure box. [MUSG]
You know my methods in such cases, Watson. I put myself in the man’s place and, having first gauged his intelligence, I try to imagine how I should myself have proceeded under the same circumstances. In this case the matter was simplified by Brunton’s intelligence being quite first-rate, so that it was unnecessary to make any allowance for the personal equation, as the astronomers have dubbed it. He know that something valuable was concealed. He had spotted the place. He found that the stone which covered it was just too heavy for a man to move unaided. What would he do next? He could not get help from outside, even if he had some one whom he could trust, without the unbarring of doors and considerable risk of detection. It was better, if he could, to have his helpmate inside the house. But whom could he ask? This girl had been devoted to him. A man always finds it hard to realise that he may have finally lost a woman’s love, however badly he may have treated her. He would try by a few attentions to make his peace with the girl Howells, and then would engage her as his accomplice. Together they would come at night to the cellar, and their united force would suffice to raise the stone.
September 27, 1889: James Windibank left for his second trip to France. [IDEN]”But how about Mr. Hosmer Angel? Did he make no attempt to see you?”
Well, father was going off to France again in a week, and Hosmer wrote and said that it would be safer and better not to see each other until he had gone. We could write in the meantime, and he used to write every day. I took the letters in in the morning, so there was no need for father to know.
On September 20th…
September 20, 1889: James Windibank returned from his first trip to France. [IDEN]
“But how about Mr. Hosmer Angel? Did he make no attempt to see you?”
“Well, father was going off to France again in a week, and Hosmer wrote and said that it would be safer and better not to see each other until he had gone. We could write in the meantime, and he used to write every day. I took the letters in in the morning, so there was no need for father to know.”
On September 18th…
September 18, 1889: Mary Sutherland and Hosmer Angel went for their second walk. [IDEN]
“He was a very shy man, Mr. Holmes. He would rather walk with me in the evening than in the daylight, for he said that he hated to be conspicuous. Very retiring and gentlemanly he was. Even his voice was gentle. He’d had the quinsy and swollen glands when he was young, he told me, and it had left him with a weak throat, and a hesitating, whispering fashion of speech. He was always well dressed, very neat and plain, but his eyes were weak, just as mine are, and he wore tinted glasses against the glare.”
On September 16th…
September 16, 1889: Mary Sutherland and Hosmer Angel went for their first walk. [IDEN]
“It was most suggestive,” said Holmes. “It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important. Can you remember any other little things about Mr. Hosmer Angel?”
“He was a very shy man, Mr. Holmes. He would rather walk with me in the evening than in the daylight, for he said that he hated to be conspicuous. Very retiring and gentlemanly he was. Even his voice was gentle. He’d had the quinsy and swollen glands when he was young, he told me, and it had left him with a weak throat, and a hesitating, whispering fashion of speech. He was always well dressed, very neat and plain, but his eyes were weak, just as mine are, and he wore tinted glasses against the glare.”
September 16, 1902: Holmes was attacked outside the Café Royal. [ILLU]
We learn with regret that Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the well-known private detective, was the victim this morning of a murderous assault which has left him in a precarious position. There are no exact details to hand, but the event seems to have occurred about twelve o’clock in Regent Street, outside the Café Royal. The attack was made by two men armed with sticks, and Mr. Holmes was beaten about the head and body, receiving injuries which the doctors describe as most serious. He was carried to Charing Cross Hospital and afterwards insisted upon being taken to his rooms in Baker Street. The miscreants who attacked him appear to have been respectably dressed men, who escaped from the bystanders by passing through the Cafe Royal and out into Glasshouse Street behind it.
No doubt they belonged to that criminal fraternity which has so often had occasion to bewail the activity and ingenuity of the injured man.
Limerick Corner: IDEN and ILLU
In honor of the ongoing Canonical events this week, two more limericks from Sandy Kozinn (JHWS “Roxie”):
On the sidewalk poor Mary did dither,
As her thoughts flew hither and thither,
Why did Angel disappear?
Was he dead? Oh, the fear!
Holmes knew Windibank’s? Love was just blither.
With china the man was an ace,
That Baron, he took the first place,
But with femmes he was mean,
The worst to be seen,
So revenge got him right in the face.
On September 14th…
September 14, 1889: The Gasfitters’ Ball was held. [IDEN]
“I see. Then at the gasfitters’ ball you met, as I understand, a gentleman called Mr. Hosmer Angel.”
“Yes, sir. I met him that night, and he called next day to ask if we had got home all safe, and after that we met him—that is to say, Mr. Holmes, I met him twice for walks, but after that father came back again, and Mr. Hosmer Angel could not come to the house any more.”
September 14, 1902: Holmes and Kitty Winter pleaded with Violet de Merville. [ILLU]
“I was about to answer when the girl broke in like a whirlwind. If ever you saw flame and ice face to face, it was those two women.
“‘I’ll tell you who I am,’ she cried, springing out of her chair, her mouth all twisted with passion—’I am his last mistress. I am one of a hundred that he has tempted and used and ruined and thrown into the refuse heap, as he will you also. Your refuse heap is more likely to be a grave, and maybe that’s the best. I tell you, you foolish woman, if you marry this man he’ll be the death of you. It may be a broken heart or it may be a broken neck, but he’ll have you one way or the other. It’s not out of love for you I’m speaking. I don’t care a tinker’s curse whether you live or die. It’s out of hate for him and to spite him and to get back on him for what he did to me. But it’s all the same, and you needn’t look at me like that, my fine lady, for you may be lower than I am before you are through with it.'”
On September 13th…
September 13, 1889: James Windibank left for his first trip to France. [IDEN]
“[…] At last, when nothing else would do, he went off to France upon the business of the firm, but we went, mother and I, with Mr. Hardy, who used to be our foreman, and it was there I met Mr. Hosmer Angel.”
September 13, 1902: Sir James Damery consulted Holmes. [ILLU]
Sharp to the half-hour, Colonel Sir James Damery was announced. It is hardly necessary to describe him, for many will remember that large, bluff, honest personality, that broad, clean-shaven face, and, above all, that pleasant, mellow voice. Frankness shone from his grey Irish eyes, and good humour played round his mobile, smiling lips. His lucent top-hat, his dark frock-coat, indeed, every detail, from the pearl pin in the black satin cravat to the lavender spats over the varnished shoes, spoke of the meticulous care in dress for which he was famous. The big, masterful aristocrat dominated the little room.
September 13, 1902: Holmes visited Baron Adelbert Gruner. [ILLU]
He is an excellent antagonist, cool as ice, silky voiced and soothing as one of your fashionable consultants, and poisonous as a cobra. He has breeding in him—a real aristocrat of crime with a superficial suggestion of afternoon tea and all the cruelty of the grave behind it. Yes, I am glad to have had my attention called to Baron Adelbert Gruner.
On October 10th…
October 10, 1855: Relief of Agra by Col. Greathed. [SIGN]
October 10, 1889: Holmes confronted James Windibank AKA Hosmer Angel. [IDEN]
On October 9th…
October 9, 1889: Mary Sutherland consulted Holmes about the missing Hosmer Angel. [IDEN]
On October 5th…
October 5, 1889: Mary Sutherland advertised for the missing Hosmer Angel. [IDEN]
October 5, 1901: Holmes used Watson’s revolver to solve the problem of Thor Bridge. [THOR]
On October 4th…
October 4, 1889: Hosmer Angel disappeared on his scheduled wedding day. [IDEN]
October 4, 1901: Neil Gibson visited 221B Baker Street. [THOR]
On September 30th…
September 30, 1889: Mary Sutherland wrote her stepfather about her impending marriage. [IDEN]
September 30, 1900: Watson walked to Grimpen and met both of the Stapletons. [HOUN]
On September 28th…
September 28, 1879: Brunton did not appear at breakfast. [MUSG]
September 28, 1889: Hosmer Angel proposed that he and Mary Sutherland should marry within the next week. [IDEN]