The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes (1954)
Blurb:
My review:
The Adventure of the Seven Clocks [4/5]
Quite a good story, to which both Carr & Doyle contributed: Holmes is consulted by Celia Forsythe, companion to Lady Mayo, who has fallen in love with Charles (known for some reason as ‘Alec’) Hendon, a man she met in Switzerland and who cannot pass by a clock without smashing it to pieces, burying it in the snow, or hiding it in the cupboard of his hotel room. The reason for this peculiar behaviour is ingenious, the clueing classic Carr, and the ending exciting.
The Adventure of the Gold Hunter [5/5]
An excellent story, and again one to which both writers contributed. The Rev. James Appley asks Holmes to look into the death of John Trelawney, squire of Combewell, Somerset; a man who disinherited his niece in favour of Appley’s nephew Dr. Griffin—and a man who has seemingly died by the visitation of God, for murder seems impossible. However, Appley feels that the police suspect Dr. Griffin, and asks Holmes to investigate and clear his nephew of suspicion. From the clues of a ticking gold hunter watch and a pot of vaseline, Holmes is able to work out the brilliant method, which completely fools any reader who has read The Reader is Warned.
The Adventure of the Wax Gamblers [5/5]
In contrast to the earlier, more serious stories, The Wax Gamblers—written by Carr alone—is almost a comedy. There is no murder, instead the problem lies in the possibility that the wax figures in the Chamber of Horrors at Mme. Taupin’s Waxworks are actually playing a game of cards during the night. The solution, relying on a substitution code, is both ingenious and amusing; and the villain an enjoyable rogue.
The Adventure of the Highgate Miracle [4/5]
This story is very obviously written by Carr, as it features one of his trademarks: an impossible disappearance. Although the story bears a strong resemblance to Agatha Christie’s “The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim” (in Poirot Investigates, 1924), which was also based on the disappearance of Mr. James Phillimore “who, stepping back into his own house to get his umbrella, was never more seen in this world”, this tale of a man who “cherishes, worships, idolises that pestilent shabby umbrella, and will never allow it away from his presence even at night” (we can all guess what spin Julian Symons or Ruth Rendell would put on this umbrella fetishism) and possible diamond thief married to one of Carr’s masterful women is very good indeed. The problem of how he vanished from a house guarded on all sides by the police (c.f. The Peacock Feather Murders, among others) is well-sustained, keeping the reader’s attention at all times, and even offering that famous Carrian trick of the reader thinking up the same solution as that offered by Watson, only to be surprised by something even more ingenious.
The Adventure of the Black Baronet [4/5]
An interesting story, although the plot is slightly simple. The milieu is aristocratic, the setting the stately home of Lavington Court, “a moated manor-house, almost stifled amid yew trees, from which a sense of oppresiveness had seemed to weigh upon me”, where Sir Reginald Lavington of Lavington Court is accused of having stabbed Colonel Jocelyn Dalcy, a guest of his, in the throat. The Luck of Lavington, a cup belonging to the Lavingtons since the days of yore, seems to play a part—“yet what connection can there be between the murder of a profligate gambler and the violence that followed on a battle 400 years ago?” Holmes, who commits a felony, demonstrates excellent logic from scratches on a table and spilt wine, before unmasking the murderer and method—I wonder whether Doyle had been reading Carr’s “As Drink the Dead”?
The Adventure of the Sealed Room [5/5]
Although the Publisher’s Note states that this story was “almost entirely written by Adrian Conan Doyle”, it is almost pure Carr: a murder in a locked room, even boasting the passage that crops up in most 1930s Carrs: “‘The door of that room was locked on the inside. Each of the French windows was double-bolted on the inside, though the curtains remained undrawn. No other person was there or hidden there; nor was there any other access to the room… There had been no tampering with any bolt or fastening; the room was locked like a fortress. These things, Mr. Holmes, you may accept as facts.’ And, as I am now able to testify, Miss Murray spoke the literal truth.” Indeed, Douglas G. Greene points out that the story was planned by Carr but written by Doyle. The story itself is excellent: Cora Murray, a friend of Mrs. Watson’s, lives with the Warburtons in Cambridge Terrace, and, with Major Earnshaw and Captain Lasher, finds the Colonel dead and Mrs. Warburton wounded—apparently shot in a fit of madness by the Colonel. Seeking to clear his name, Cora asks Holmes for his assistance. Holmes is in excellent form here, visibly the character from the original stories, making enigmatic and oracular pronouncements about oysters (as in “The Dying Detective”) and making brilliant deductions from the cigars smoked by Colonel Warburton and the broken glass from the windows. Throughout, the story-telling is gripping and mystifying; and the solution excellent, every piece neatly dove-tailing.
The Adventure of Foulkes Rath [2/5]
From this point hence, all the stories are written by Adrian Conan Doyle without Carr’s help—and the dramatic drop in quality shows. Without any doubt, this is the weakest story in this collection, being a retread of The Boscombe Valley Mystery in almost every respect—the main difference being that the villain doesn’t appear (or is even mentioned) until the very end. Col. Matthias Addleton of Foulkes Rath is murdered, apparently by his nephew Percy Longton—Addleton’s dying words of “Long Tom” seemingly accusing Longton. Very dull, and certainly not for the connoisseur.
The Adventure of the Abbas Ruby [3/5]
Slightly better than its predecessor, as the plot isn't so obviously cribbed from one particular story; instead, it fits into the Fabulous Jewel category, with “The Blue Carbuncle” and “The Mazarin Stone” representing the best and worst of this category. The opening is taken from “The Beryl Coronet” and “The Priory School”: Holmes’ client—a butler and old lag—faints dramatically on the hearth-rug, and recovers enough to tell Holmes that the Abbas Ruby has been stolen from Sir John Doverton, along with all of Doverton’s prized red camellias. Holmes’ detection takes him to the Nonpareil Club, and the story finishes rather weakly with a retread of “The Naval Treaty” and “The Mazarin Stone”.
The Adventure of the Two Women [3/5]
Here, the story is based on “Charles Augustus Milverton” and “A Scandal in Bohemia”, with bits of “The Three Gables” thrown in: Mme. Edith von Lammerain, a Russian spy, is in the process of blackmailing the Duchess of Carringford, widow of the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, into giving her State Papers—otherwise, Mme. Von Lammerain shall reveal the Duke’s possible bigamy, ruining her daughter’s prospective marriage. “This unhappy lady is faced with the choice of an act of treason to her country as a price for this marriage certificate or a public exposure followed by the ruination of one of the most revered names in England and the destruction of two innocent women, one of them on the eve of her marriage.” Undeterred by a threat from the villain’s oafish accomplice (“The Three Gables”), Holmes burgles Mme. von Lammerain’s house, his chivalry leading him to risk prison for the honour of a woman (“Charles Augustus Milverton”) in order to seize the marriage certificate and defeat this woman in possession of papers with international ramifications (“A Scandal in Bohemia”). The rather obvious solution relies on a knowledge of ink.
Isn't the title awful, by the way?
The Adventure of the Dark Angels [4/5]
Having done The Avenger from the Past, The Fabulous Jewel, and The Incriminating Document, Adrian Conan Doyle now turns his attention to that staple of the Sherlock Holmes stories: the Criminal Gang. Daphne Ferrers seeks help from Holmes for her father Joshua Ferrers, living at Abbotstanding since his return from Sicily (ears prick up… “The Red Circle”, mayhaps?), and now “living under the shadow of a nameless shapeless dread”, as various Mysterious And Sinister Messages (“The Five Orange Pips”) have been arriving. Eventually, Ferrers is murdered by an agent of the Mala Vita, whose (remarkably obvious) identity is deduced by Holmes, much to Watson’s amazement.
The Adventure of the Deptford Horror [5/5]
Although the story is essentially a reworking of “The Speckled Band”, “the dreadful affair of the canaries and the soot-marks on the ceiling” is intriguing and thoroughly enjoyable to read, with a strong atmosphere due to the deaths of all but two of the Wilson family, the survivors being the daughter Janet, and the brother Theobald—whose face “was seamed with countless wrinkles and of that dull parchment-yellow that comes from years under a tropic sun”, and who consults Holmes about Janet’s fears—his motive in so doing being identical to that of “The Retired Colourman”. The slum setting, “that labyrinth of tidal basins and dark evil-smelling lanes that were once the ancient cradle of England’s sea-trade and of an empire’s wealth”, is a splendidly gloomy background for the bizarre crimes. The ending shows great strength, and is genuinely horrifying.
The Adventure of the Red Widow [4/5]
Dr. Watson is feeling rather bored and elderly, so jumps at the offer to draw cards to see who shall spend the night in the deadly room belonging to Lord Tairlaine. An inoffensive psycho-analyst named Bender is put into the room, and… Sorry, wrong story. The book opens with Holmes reading Watson’s thoughts, a scene borrowed from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, and interrupted by a visit from Insp. Gregson, who wishes to consult him about the horrible case at Arnsworth Castle, where the “head of the house” has just been guillotined in his own machine. The solution—even down to the method of smoking out the culprit—is borrowed from “The Norwood Builder”, but the story is still enjoyable to read.