#last acd

[acdhw]

His Last Bow

This story is told in third person, but the style is unmistakably Watson’s: the poetic language, a sense of duty and patriotism, and those peculiar descriptions of affection between Holmes and Watson. Why tell it this way then? Because it’s crucial for the build-up of mystery. Had the story been told in Watson’s usual first-person narration, Holmes’s appearance wouldn’t have produced such a dramatic effect. 

There are some curious details about Holmes’s assumed persona. His name is Altamont, and he is Irish-American. As we remember, ACD’s father’s name was Charles Altamont, and the Doyle family is of Irish descent. Also, ACD killed off Holmes in 1893, the year Charles Doyle died. 

In this story we learn that Holmes came out of retirement to do some work for intelligence. Actually, I think that’s what he had been doing since his moving to Sussex in 1903. Because for a man like him to retire at 49? Considering that his mind “rebelled at stagnation”? Wasn’t it a bit too early?

In the story called Danger!, ACD wrote of an intelligence worker who operated from “a little whitewashed villa of a retired confectioner” which no one thought to suspect as his base. So why “a retired beekeeper” couldn’t be Holmes’s cover? (Until he really retired and continued to keep bees).

Holmes hunted down foreign spies one by one. Having eliminated the net they had comprised, he finally approached the last agent. Such an undercover mission isn’t something new for him. In 1891-1894 he was presumed dead, and destroying a criminal syndicate which Moriarty left behind would be a far more convincing reason for Holmes to stay away from home and the person dearest to him. Holmes’s travels which Watson writes about in EMPT are just too implausible. It’s far more believable that Holmes tracked down all Moriarty’s accomplices and finally returned to London to catch the last one—Colonel Moran. Some two decades later, the last one is Von Bork.

However, were Holmes and Watson apart this time? Having disappeared in America for two years, how could Holmes know that Watson would be available at a given moment to help him? Would Holmes wish to endanger Watson if Watson had nothing to do with intelligence? Would Holmes even bear to be apart from Watson for that long again?

We know next to nothing of Watson’s life during those years, apart from his resuming “his old service” upon the outbreak of the Great War. So before that, he could easily travel in America with lectures, just as ACD did at one point. 

And of course, it’s impossible to pass by “the same blithe boy”, “the horrible goatee”, and Holmes’s “nice taste in wines”. These two are ridiculously in love as ever. War or no war, Holmes will find a moment to treat his Watson to delicious wine.

Mentioning Holmes’s retirement on the South Downs, Watson acts as a stand-in for the audience. “We heard”—that’s about the readers, unless Watson uses the royal “we”. Holmes’s reason for taking on this mission (which the narrator wants us to believe to be a singular instance rather than one of many) is also quite unconvincing. Holmes agreed because the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister asked him? In The Second Stain, Holmes had no problem with turning down them both. On the other hand, if Holmes worked in intelligence for more than a decade to protect his country, that would be more like him.

And just a quick note on the margin: for a seasoned spy Von Bork is rather too talkative. Eagerly describing how his safe works and even telling Altamont the password? Really?

[travelingwithoutthedoctor]

Sherlock wants to see John in the light.

And John feels 20 years younger by seeing Holmes.

[astudyincanon]

And so we come now to the end...

For the week of  November 28th - December 4th, we will be tackling

His Last Bow (#LAST ACD)

We have reached Holmes and Watson’s final adventure, His Last Bow. This story was first published in The Strand in September 1917. The second canon story told in third person, it comes in at just over 6000 words.

Feel free to read at your own pace throughout the week. We will be tracking the tags for the story and posting what we find as the week goes on. (Reminder because tumblr is tumblr: if you’re going to tag us or the story, make sure it’s in the first five tags, or we won’t see it.)

[gralto]

[gralto]

“He was a tall, gaunt man of sixty, with clear-cut features and a small goatee beard which gave him a general resemblance to the caricatures of Uncle Sam.” (Though I think he loooks more like Abraham Lincoln)

“But you, Holmes –you have changed very little–save for that horrible goatee.”

You are right, Watson. It is horrible!

From “His Last Bow”

(BTW, there are so many unpublished Adventures mentioned in this story: “When I say that I started my pilgrimage at Chicago, graduated in an Irish secret society at Buffalo, gave serious trouble to the constabulary at Skibbareen (...).” Holmes saving some German count from murder ... why has nobody written about these?)

And one last thing: Holmes calling Watson “blithe boy” .... :)

[gralto]

[sarahthecoat]

His Last Bow

for @astudyincanon I found an audiobook of His Last Bow, sadly not Sir Christopher Lee this time, but adequate. :)

I can believe that this time Holmes and Watson may actually have been separated for at least a time, because they do seem so happy to see each other again. They still work together like a well oiled machine, though.

The story is bookended by the scenes of two men standing and chatting companionably together, at the beginning it’s the two German spies, at the end it’s our heroes.

I was struck by how similarly von Bork here, and Magnussen in HLV, speak of the English. And like Milverton, von Bork keeps his papers in a safe, which Holmes finds a way to get into. “Altamont” has an appointment to bring sensitive documents, but essentially ends von Bork instead.