People do enjoy joking about how dull Sherlockian chronology must be. Sooooo boring!
But what nobody realizes is the wild, often scandalous revelations that chronology's second layer brings to the fore. For example, here's a bit from "The Literary Agent's Ten Percent" segment from last week's Watsonian Weekly.
Holmes and Watson's last recorded case from the Baker Street days is "The Creeping Man," which a chronologist can date as starting on Sunday, September 6, 1903. Sometime after that, Sherlock Holmes must have retired to Sussex and left London. In October of 1903, The Strand Magazine publishes "The Adventure of the Empty House," announcing to his fans that Sherlock Holmes is still alive and living at 221B, so he had every reason to get out of town and head for Sussex ASAP. Then, on December 17, 1903, Watson's literary agent goes to see Madame Tussaud's, the big tourist attraction in the neighborhood of 221B Baker Street.
Now, Conan Doyle knew how popular Holmes was at that point. He probably also knew enough about America to know his fellow writer Mark Twain had seen Tom Sawyer's cave from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer making money as a tourist attraction since 1886. So if the famous Sherlock Holmes's rooms were both vacant and in the neighborhood of another prominent London tourist attraction, might Watson's literary agent have thought of stopping in to see Mrs. Hudson and work out some sort of deal.
Of course, what he should have remembered was that Mrs. Hudson and Mycroft Holmes had previously had a deal for keeping the Baker Street rooms intact and unvisited while Sherlock was not in residence, so there's one reason that wouldn't happen.
But let's look at another example.
Chronology tells us that in late June 1902, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson find themselves in the apartment of Mr. Nathan Garrideb confronting a certain Killer Evans. Watson gets shot in the leg. Holmes gets very worried Watson is hurt -- powers of observation plainly not working well enough to assess the bullet's passing through Watson's leg. Of course he's hurt, Sherlock!
But Watson's internal reaction, "It was worth a wound -- it was worth many wounds -- to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask." This line is purest sugar to those who see Holmes and Watson as lovers, equating it with the moment in a romantic comedy where someone finally professes their love after a long "will they, won't they." It's that moment when someone in the audience is definitely chanting "Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!" The happy ending.
But, as with all the Canon, it's Watson's perception of the moment, however you want to translate that text's emotions. And a Sherlockian chronologist will want to give you another date to ponder now. Back to "The Adventure of the Creeping Man" in September of 1903, a year later.
"The relations between us in those later days were peculiar . . . His remarks could hardly be said to be made to me -- many of them would have been as appropriately addressed to his bedstead . . . If I irritated him by a certain methodical slowness in my mentality . . . such was my humble role in our alliance."
Yes, Watson isn't feeling real great about things and he's not living at Baker Street. It that moment in September of 1902 was the happy movie ending some take it to be, that happy didn't last. Watson deserted Holmes for a wife in January of 1903, only six months after he thought he saw how much Holmes loved him. (Again, a date the chronologists would give us from "Blanched Soldier.")
Such a soap opera there to be explored, and all because Sherlockian chronology brings a chain of events to light. Boring, you say? Well, if you just stop at the dates. But if you look at what was going on behind those dates, whoa, mama! So much more to explore.
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