October 12, 1886 (per Baring-Gould): Lord Bellinger and the Right Honorable Trelawney Hope consulted Holmes at Baker Street, and “The Adventure of the Second Stain” began.
Illustration by Sidney Paget for The Strand Magazine (December, 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.
(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)
(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.”
(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.
(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
(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.”
(Source:A Day by Day Chronology of Mr. Sherlock Holmes according to Zeisler and Christ, compiled by William S Dorn.)
July 10, 1888: At about 2 am, Silver Blaze killed John Straker. [SILV]
Another one of my favorite stories in the Canon. I never had heard of a horse as a weapon and innocent of murder by reason of self-defense. At age 12, I did not care about racing laws, rules, and such. Now as an adult? I still don’t care about them. It’s a great story. –Chips
Illustration by WH Hyde for Harper’s Weekly (1893)
Once in the hollow he had got behind the horse, and had struck a light, but the creature, frightened at the sudden glare, and with the strange instinct of animals feeling that some mischief was intended, had lashed out, and the steel shoe had struck Straker full on the forehead. He had already, in spite of the rain, taken off his overcoat in order to do his delicate task, and so, as he fell, his knife gashed his thigh. Do I make it clear?
July 10, 1889: A letter from a foreign potentate was received in the foreign office. [SECO]
Illustration by Sidney Paget for The Strand Magazine (1904)
“I understand. Now, Mr. Trelawney Hope, I should be much obliged if you would tell me exactly the circumstances under which this document disappeared.”
“That can be done in a very few words, Mr. Holmes. The letter – for it was a letter from a foreign potentate – was received six days ago. It was of such importance that I have never left it in my safe, but I have taken it across each evening to my house in Whitehall Terrace, and kept it in my bedroom in a locked despatch-box. It was there last night. Of that I am certain. I actually opened the box while I was dressing for dinner, and saw the document inside. This morning it was gone. The despatch-box had stood beside the glass upon my dressing-table all night. I am a light sleeper, and so is my wife. We are both prepared to swear that no one could have entered the room during the night. And yet I repeat that the paper is gone.”
July 10, 1895: Holmes visited the scene of Peter Carey’s murder. [BLAC]
Cover illustration by Frederic Dorr Steele for Collier’s (1904)
“[…] Meanwhile, let me see the inside of the cabin.”
The traces of the tragedy had been removed, but the furniture of the little room still stood as it had been on the night of the crime. For two hours, with the most intense concentration, Holmes examined every object in turn, but his face showed that his quest was not a successful one. Once only he paused in his patient investigation.
I always wanted to use this illustration from Fredric Dorr Steele. I hope you enjoy it. –Chips
July 10, 1888: About 2 a.m., Silver Blaze killed John Straker. [SILV]
Another one of my favorite stories in the Canon. I never had heard of a horse as a weapon and innocence of murder by reason of self-defense. At age 12, I did not care about racing laws, rules and such. Now, as an adult? I don’t care about them. It’s a great story.
July 10, 1889: —A letter from a foreign potentate was received in the Foreign Office. [SECO]
July 10, 1895: Holmes visited the scene of Peter Carey’s murder. [BLAC]
July 10, 1895: Holmes visited the scene of Peter Carey’s murder. (BLAC)
July 10, 1888: At about 2 AM, Silver Blaze killed John Straker. (SILV) Another one of my favorite stories in the Canon. I never had heard of a horse as a weapon and innocent of murder by reason of self-defense. At age 12, I did not care about racing laws, rules, and such. Now as an adult? I still don’t care about them. It’s a great story.
July 10, 1889: A letter from a foreign potentate was received in the foreign office. (SECO)
