Tag: On This Day

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On September 23rd…

Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett), Kitty Winter (Kim Thomson), and Baron Adelbert Gruner (Anthony Valentine) in “The Illustrious Client” (Granada Television, 1991

September 23, 1902: Kitty Winter threw acid into the face of Baron Gruner. [ILLU]

It was done in an instant, and yet I clearly saw it. An arm —a woman’s arm—shot out from among the leaves. At the same instant the Baron uttered a horrible cry—a yell which will always ring in my memory. He clapped his two hands to his face and rushed round the room, beating his head horribly against the walls. Then he fell upon the carpet, rolling and writhing, while scream after scream resounded through the house.

“Water! For God’s sake, water!” was his cry.

I seized a carafe from a side-table and rushed to his aid. At the same moment the butler and several footmen ran in from the hall. I remember that one of them fainted as I knelt by the injured man and turned that awful face to the light of the lamp. The vitriol was eating into it everywhere and dripping from the ears and the chin. One eye was already white and glazed. The other was red and inflamed. The features which I had admired a few minutes before were now like some beautiful painting over which the artist has passed a wet and foul sponge. They were blurred, discoloured, inhuman, terrible.

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On September 22nd…

Illustration by Howard K. Elcock for The Strand Magazine (February/March, 1925)

September 22, 1902: Holmes had the stitches resulting from the attack on him removed. [ILLU]

For six days the public were under the impression that Holmes was at the door of death. The bulletins were very grave and there were sinister paragraphs in the papers. My continual visits assured me that it was not so bad as that. His wiry constitution and his determined will were working wonders. He was recovering fast, and I had suspicions at times that he was really finding himself faster than he pretended even to me. There was a curious secretive streak in the man which led to many dramatic effects, but left even his closest friend guessing as to what his exact plans might be. He pushed to an extreme the axiom that the only safe plotter was he who plotted alone. I was nearer him than anyone else, and yet I was always conscious of the gap between.

On the seventh day the stitches were taken out, in spite of which there was a report of erysipelas in the evening papers. The same evening papers had an announcement which I was bound, sick or well, to carry to my friend. It was simply that among the passengers on the Cunard boat Ruritania, starting from Liverpool on Friday, was the Baron Adelbert Gruner, who had some important financial business to settle in the States before his impending wedding to Miss Violet de Merville, only daughter of, etc., etc.

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On September 20th…

Illustration by Sidney Paget for The Strand Magazine (September, 1891)

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.”

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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.”

L0059062 Sunglasses with dark blue lenses, England, 1860-1900 Credit: Science Museum, London. Wellcome Images.   Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0
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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.”

Illustration by Howard K. Elcock for The Strand Magazine (February-March, 1925)

 

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.

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On September 14th…

Illustration by Sidney Paget for The Strand Magazine (September, 1891)

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.”

 

 

 

 

Illustration by Howard K. Elcock for The Strand Magazine (February-March, 1925)

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.'”

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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.”

Illustration by Howard K. Elcock for The Strand Magazine (February-March, 1925)

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.

Illustration by Howard K. Elcock for The Strand Magazine (February-March, 1925)

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.

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On September 12th…

Illustration by Howard K. Elcock for The Strand Magazine (February-March, 1925)

September 12, 1902: Sir James Damery wrote to Holmes asking for an appointment. [ILLU]

“Sir James Damery presents his compliments to Mr. Sherlock Holmes and will call upon him at 4:30 to-morrow. Sir James begs to say that the matter upon which he desires to consult Mr. Holmes is very delicate and also very important. He trusts, therefore, that Mr. Holmes will make every effort to grant this interview, and that he will confirm it over the telephone to the Carlton Club.”

Illustration by Howard K. Elcock for The Strand Magazine (1923)

September 12, 1903: Professor Presbury was seriously injured by his wolfhound, Roy. [CREE]

And then in a moment it happened! It was not the chain that broke, but it was the collar that slipped, for it had been made for a thick-necked Newfoundland. We heard the rattle of falling metal, and the next instant dog and man were rolling on the ground together, the one roaring in rage, the other screaming in a strange shrill falsetto of terror. It was a very narrow thing for the professor’s life. The savage creature had him fairly by the throat, its fangs had bitten deep, and he was senseless before we could reach them and drag the two apart.

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On September 11th…

Still from “The Creeping Man” (Granada Television, 1991)

September 11, 1903: Professor Presbury received a ninth packet from Dorak. [CREE]

The marks on the envelopes showed that they were those which had disturbed the routine of the secretary, and each was dated from the Commercial Road and signed “A. Dorak.” They were mere invoices to say that a fresh bottle was being sent to Professor Presbury, or receipt to acknowledge money.

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On September 8th…

Illustration by Sidney Paget for The Strand Magazine (March, 1892)

September 8, 1889: Victor Hatherley lost his thumb about 2:00 am [ENGR]

‘You are mad, Elise!’ he shouted, struggling to break away from her. ‘You will be the ruin of us. He has seen too much. Let me pass, I say!’ He dashed her to one side, and, rushing to the window, cut at me with his heavy weapon. I had let myself go, and was hanging by my hands to the sill when his blow fell. I was conscious of a dull pain, my grip loosened, and I fell in to the garden below.

I was shaken, but not hurt by the fall; so I picked myself up, and rushed off among the bushes as hard as I could run, for I understood that I was far from being out of danger yet. Suddenly, however, as I ran, a deadly dizziness and sickness came over me. I glanced down at my hand, which was throbbing painfully, and then, for the first time, saw that my thumb had been cut off, and that the blood was pouring from my wound. I endeavoured to tie my handkerchief round it, but there came a sudden buzzing in my ears, and next moment I fell in a dead faint among the rose-bushes.

September 8, 1889: Holmes, Watson, Inspector Bradstreet, an unnamed plain-clothes man, and Victor Hatherley took the train to Eyeford [ENGR]

Some three hours or so afterwards we were all in the train together, bound from Reading to the little Berkshire village. There were Sherlock Holmes, the hydraulic engineer, Inspector Bradstreet of Scotland Yard, a plain-clothes man, and myself. Bradstreet had spread an ordnance map of the county out upon the seat, and was busy with his compasses drawing a circle with Eyford for its centre.

September 8, 1889: Dr. Becher’s house, where Colonel Lysander Stark was counterfeiting half-crowns, burned down [ENGR]

The firemen had been much perturbed at the strange arrangements which they found within, and still more so by discovering a newly-severed human thumb upon a window-sill of the second floor. About sunset, however, their efforts were at last successful, and they subdued the flames, but not before the roof had fallen in, and the whole place reduced to such absolute ruin that, save some twisted cylinders and iron piping, not a trace remained of the machinery which had cost our unfortunate acquaintance so dearly. Large masses of nickel and of tin were discovered stored in an outhouse, but no coins were to be found, which may have explained the presence of those bulky boxes which have been already referred to.

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On September 7th…

Illustration by Sidney Paget for The Strand Magazine (March, 1892)

September 7, 1889: Colonel Lysander Stark visited and hired Victor Hatherley. [ENGR]

Yesterday, however, just as I was thinking of leaving the office, my clerk entered to say there was a gentleman waiting who wished to see me upon business. He brought up a card, too, with the name of `Colonel Lysander Stark’ engraved upon it. Close at his heels came the Colonel himself, a man rather over the middle size but of an exceeding thinness. I do not think that I have ever seen so thin a man. His whole face sharpened away into nose and chin, and the skin of his cheeks was drawn quite tense over his outstanding bones. Yet this emaciation seemed to be his natural habit, and due to no disease, for his eye was bright, his step brisk, and his bearing assured. He was plainly but neatly dressed, and his age, I should judge, would be nearer forty than thirty.

‘Mr. Hatherly?’ said he, with something of a German accent. ‘You have been recommended to me, Mr. Hatherley, as being a man who is not only proficient in his profession, but is also discreet and capable of preserving a secret.’

September 7, 1889: Victor Hatherley took the train from London to Eyford arriving at about 11:15 pm. [ENGR]

[…] I could not think that his explanation of the fuller’s earth was sufficient to explain the necessity for my coming at midnight, and his extreme anxiety lest I should tell anyone of my errand. However, I threw all my fears to the winds, ate a hearty supper, drove to Paddington, and started off, having obeyed to the letter the injunction as to holding my tongue.

At Reading I had to change not only my carriage but my station. However, I was in time for the last train to Eyford, and I reached the little dim lit station after eleven o’clock. I was the only passenger who got out there, and there was no one upon the platform save a single sleepy porter with a lantern. As I passed out through the wicket-gate, however, I found my acquaintance of the morning waiting in the shadow upon the other side. Without a word he grasped my arm and hurried me into a carriage, the door of which was standing open. He drew up the windows on either side, tapped on the woodwork, and away we went as hard as the horse could go.

September 7, 1903: Holmes and Watson first met Professor Presbury. [CREE]

“I think, Watson, that we can catch the professor just before lunch. He lectures at eleven and should have an interval at home.”

“What possible excuse have we for calling?”

Holmes glanced at his notebook.

“There was a period of excitement upon August 26th. We will assume that he is a little hazy as to what he does at such times. If we insist that we are there by appointment I think he will hardly venture to contradict us. Have you the effrontery necessary to put it through?”

“We can but try.”

“Excellent, Watson! Compound of the Busy Bee and Excelsior. We can but try —the motto of the firm. A friendly native will surely guide us.”

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On September 6th…

Illustration by Howard K. Elcock for The Strand Magazine (March 1923)

September 6, 1903: Trevor Bennett asked Holmes for his services. [CREE]

It was one Sunday evening early in September of the year 1903 that I received one of Holmes’s laconic messages:

Come at once if convenient—if inconvenient come all the same. S.H.

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On September 5th…

Illustration by Howard K. Elcock for The Strand Magazine (March 1923)

 

September 5, 1903: Edith Presbury saw her father’s face outside her bedroom window. [CREE]

“I was awakened in the night by the dog barking most furiously. Poor Roy, he is chained now near the stable. I may say that I always sleep with my door locked; for, as Jack—as Mr. Bennett—will tell you, we all have a feeling of impending danger. My room is on the second floor. It happened that the blind was up in my window, and there was bright moonlight outside. As I lay with my eyes fixed upon the square of light, listening to the frenzied barkings of the dog, I was amazed to see my father’s face looking in at me.

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On July 24th…

“It is too little to say William Gillette resembled Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes looks exactly like William Gillette.” (Orson Welles, Mercury Theatre on the Air, 25 September 1938)

William Hooker Gillette was born on July 24, 1853, in Hartford, Connecticut. He played Sherlock Holmes on stage for the first time in 1899, and is inextricably linked to the role in the minds of many fans, having performed it more than 1300 times. He appeared in a 1916 film based on the play he wrote – a film thought long-lost until a copy was discovered in the Cinémathèque Française archive in 2014. The restored film was featured at film festivals and released on DVD in 2015.

(Ariana Maher (JHWS “Carla”) recounts her trip to see it at the Seattle International Film Festival in “A Day at the Movies“.)

The four-act play took elements from “A Scandal in Bohemia” and “The Final Problem”, as well as A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, “The Boscombe Valley Mystery”, and “The Greek Interpreter”. Other than Holmes, Watson, and Moriarty, the characters were Gillette’s inventions. Those include Alice Faulkner – Holmes’s client and eventual romantic interest – and Billy the Pageboy, before his appearance in “The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone”.

Cover illustration by Frederic Dorr Steele for Collier’s (1904)

Gillette’s portrayal of Holmes shaped the American image of the Great Detective. The curved pipe (which was better for being understood on stage) and the deerstalker cap (taken from Paget’s illustrations) became permanent accessories. Frederic Dorr Steele’s illustrations of Holmes for Collier’s Weekly seem to take Gillette as a model.

Between 1914 and 1919, Gillette designed and had constructed an elaborate home in East Haddam, CT. Upon his death in 1937, his will instructed that his home should not be allowed to go to  “some blithering saphead who has no conception of where he is or with what surrounded.” The property was purchased by the State of Connecticut in 1943 and is now known as Gillette Castle State Park.

 

Sources: A Curious Collection of Dates: Through the Year with Sherlock Holmes, by Leah Guinn (JHWS “Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (JHWS “Tressa”); The Sherlock Holmes Miscellany, by Roger Johnson (JHWS “Count”) and Jean Upton (JHWS “Countess”); Kevin Noonan, “Lost ‘Sherlock Holmes’ Film Discovered After Almost a Century” (Variety.com); and IMDb.

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On July 21st…

For generations of Sherlockian devotees around the world, Basil Rathbone was known as Sherlock Holmes. He portrayed the detective in two movies produced by Twentieth Century Fox and set in the Victorian era: The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939).

These movies pulled out all the stops; Twentieth Century Fox made what Chips considers one of the top versions of The Hound of the Baskervilles. As usual, they made some puzzling minor changes and one major change in the script to attract audiences, but otherwise it is a great movie. They converted more than one sound stage to make a wonderful moor and the chase of Sir Henry Baskerville by the hound had no music sound track underneath. It was more terrifying because of that.

Rathbone and his Watson from both films, Nigel Bruce, went on to feature in twelve films produced by Universal Studios that brought the characters forward in time to fight Nazis during World War II, among other adventures. With those films, fans of a generation learned of Sherlock Holmes. The films have morphed into a television event that can still be seen today. Thank Goodness for the chance to watch and re-watch these films.

The popularity of the films was a mixed blessing for Rathbone, who felt he had become typecast by the role.

“I was so badly typed,” he once said, “that when I went back to New York I lost my own identity. On the street no one ever said ‘Good morning, Basil,’ or ‘Good morning, Mr. Rathbone.’

“They said ‘Good morning, Sherlock.’”

He continued to work in film, television, and radio in a variety of roles through the 1960s. In 1956, he published an autobiography, In and Out of Character. He passed after an apparent heart attack on July 21, 1967, survived by his wife, Ouida, their daughter, Cynthia, and his son from his previous marriage, Rodion.

Sources: A Curious Collection of Dates: Through the Year with Sherlock Holmes, by Leah Guinn (JHWS “Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (JHWS “Tressa”); Los Angeles Times; and IMDb.

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On July 19th…

(Source: A Day by Day Chronology of Mr. Sherlock Holmes according to Zeisler and Christ, compiled by William S Dorn.)

July 19, 1889: Holmes returned the missing letter to Trelawney Hope’s dispatch box. [SECO]

Patricia Hodge as Lady Hilda Trelawney Hope
(Granada, 1986)

Holmes raised the lady. “I am thankful, madam, that you have come to your senses even at this last moment! There is not an instant to lose. Where is the letter?”

She darted across to a writing-desk, unlocked it, and drew out a long blue envelope.

“Here it is, Mr. Holmes. Would to heaven I had never seen it!”

“How can we return it?’ Holmes muttered. “Quick, quick, we must think of some way! Where is the despatch-box?”

“Still in his bedroom.”

“What a stroke of luck! Quick, madam, bring it here.”

A moment later she had appeared with a red flat box in her hand.

“How did you open it before? You have a duplicate key? Yes, of course you have. Open it!”

From out of her bosom Lady Hilda had drawn a small key. The box flew open. It was stuffed with papers. Holmes thrust the blue envelope deep down into the heart of them, between the leaves of some other document. The box was shut, locked, and returned to his bedroom.

July 19, 1898: The first Dancing Men appeared. [DANC]

Holmes held up the paper so that the sunlight shone full upon it. It was a page torn from a notebook. The markings were done in pencil, and ran in this way: –

Illustration by Sidney Paget for The Strand Magazine (1903)
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On July 18th…

(Source: A Day by Day Chronology of Mr. Sherlock Holmes according to Zeisler and Christ, compiled by William S Dorn.)

July 18, 1889: Lady Hilda retrieved the missing letter from beneath Eduardo Lucas’s floor. [SECO]

Illustration by Sidney Paget for The Strand Magazine (1904)

The lady sprang to her feet, with the colour all dashed in an instant from her beautiful face. Her eyes glazed – she tottered – I thought that she would faint. Then with a grand effort she rallied from the shock, and a supreme astonishment and indignation chased every other expression from her features.

“You – you insult me, Mr. Holmes.”

“Come, come, madam, it is useless. Give up the letter.”

She darted to the bell.

“The butler shall show you out.”

“Do not ring, Lady Hilda. If you do, then all my earnest efforts to avoid a scandal will be frustrated. Give up the letter, and all will be set right. If you will work with me, I can arrange everything. If you work against me, I must expose you.”

She stood grandly defiant, a queenly figure, her eyes fixed upon his as if she would read his very soul. Her hand was on the bell, but she had forborne to ring it.

“You are trying to frighten me. It is not a very manly thing, Mr. Holmes, to come here and browbeat a woman. You say that you know something. What is it that you know?”

“Pray sit down, madam. You will hurt yourself there if you fall. I will not speak until you sit down. Thank you.”

“I give you five minutes, Mr. Holmes.”

“One is enough, Lady Hilda. I know of your visit to Eduardo Lucas, and of your giving him this document, of your ingenious return to the room last night, and of the manner in which you took the letter from the hiding-place under the carpet.”

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On July 17th…

(Source: A Day by Day Chronology of Mr. Sherlock Holmes according to Zeisler and Christ, compiled by William S Dorn.)

Harrington Bird’s “Isinglass Winning the Derby”, from The Encyclopedia of Sport (1897)

July 17, 1888: Silver Blaze won the Wessex Cup. [SILV]

From our drag we had a superb view as they came up the straight. The six horses were so close together that a carpet could have covered them, but half-way up the yellow of the Mapleton stable showed to the front. Before they reached us, however, Desborough’s bolt was shot, and the Colonel’s horse, coming away with a rush, passed the post a good six lengths before its rival, the Duke of Balmoral’s Iris making a bad third.

July 17, 1888: Holmes told Colonel Ross that Silver Blaze had killed John Straker. [SILV]

Illustration by Sidney Paget for The Strand Magazine (1892)

“My dear sir, you have done wonders. The horse looks very fit and well. It never went better in its life. I owe you a thousand apologies for having doubted your ability. You have done me a great service by recovering my horse. You would do me a greater still if you could lay your hands on the murderer of John Straker.”

“I have done so,” said Holmes, quietly.

The Colonel and I stared at him in amazement. “You have got him! Where is he, then?”

“He is here.”

“Here! Where?”

“In my company at the present moment.”

The Colonel flushed angrily. “I quite recognize that I am under obligations to you, Mr. Holmes,” said he, “but I must regard what you have just said as either a very bad joke or an insult.”

Sherlock Holmes laughed. “I assure you that I have not associated you with the crime, Colonel,” said he; “the real murderer is standing immediately behind you!”

He stepped past and laid his hand upon the glossy neck of the thoroughbred.

“The horse!” cried both the Colonel and myself.

July 17, 1889: An inquest into the death of Eduardo Lucas was held. [SECO]

A Coroner’s Inquest (“Living London”, 1901)

All that day and the next and the next Holmes was in a mood which his friends would call taciturn, and others morose. He ran out and ran in, smoked incessantly, played snatches on his violin, sank into reveries, devoured sandwiches at irregular hours, and hardly answered the casual questions which I put to him. It was evident to me that things were not going well with him or his quest. He would say nothing of the case, and it was from the papers that I learned the particulars of the inquest, and the arrest with the subsequent release of John Mitton, the valet of the deceased. The coroner’s jury brought in the obvious “Wilful murder”, but the parties remained as unknown as ever.

 

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On July 16th…

(Source: A Day by Day Chronology of Mr. Sherlock Holmes according to Zeisler and Christ, compiled by William S Dorn.)

July 16, 1889: Trelawney Hope and Lord Bellinger asked Holmes for help. [SECO]

Illustration by Sidney Paget for The Strand Magazine (1904)

It was, then, in a year, and even in a decade, that shall be nameless, that upon one Tuesday morning in autumn we found two visitors of European fame within the walls of our humble room in Baker Street. The one, austere, high-nosed, eagle-eyed, and dominant, was none other than the illustrious Lord Bellinger, twice Premier of Britain. The other, dark, clear-cut, and elegant, hardly yet of middle age, and endowed with every beauty of body and of mind, was the Right Honourable Trelawney Hope, Secretary for European Affairs, and the most rising statesman in the country. They sat side by side upon our paper-littered settee, and it was easy to see from their worn and anxious faces that it was business of the most pressing importance which had brought them. The Premier’s thin, blue-veined hands were clasped tightly over the ivory head of his umbrella, and his gaunt, ascetic face looked gloomily from Holmes to me. The European Secretary pulled nervously at his moustache and fidgeted with the seals of his watch-chain.

It is amazing to me how Sidney Paget could draw a picture that so closely creates the image. –Chips

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On July 15th…

(Source: A Day by Day Chronology of Mr. Sherlock Holmes according to Zeisler and Christ, compiled by William S Dorn.)

July 15, 1889: Eduardo Lucas was stabbed to death by his wife, Mme. Fournaye. [SECO]

Illustration by Sidney Paget for The Strand Magazine (1904)

My friend has so often astonished me in the course of our adventures that it was with a sense of exultation that I realized how completely I had astonished him. He stared in amazement, and then snatched the paper from my hands. This was the paragraph which I had been engaged in reading when he rose from his chair:

“MURDER IN WESTMINSTER.

“A crime of a mysterious character was committed last night at 16 Godolphin Street, one of the old-fashioned and secluded rows of eighteenth-century houses which lie between the river and the Abbey, almost in the shadow of the great tower of the Houses of Parliament. […] The room was in a state of wild disorder, the furniture being all swept to one side, and one chair lying on its back in the centre. Beside this chair, and still grasping one of its legs, lay the unfortunate tenant of the house. He had been stabbed to the heart, and must have died instantly. The knife with which the crime had been committed was a curved Indian dagger, plucked down from a trophy of Oriental arms which adorned one of the walls. Robbery does not appear to have been the motive of the crime, for there had been no attempt to remove the valuable contents of the room. Mr. Eduardo Lucas was so well known and popular that his violent and mysterious fate will arouse painful interest and intense sympathy in a widespread circle of friends.”