The Serial Killer and the Guy Who Wanted More Than Credit

 If if haven't written this a dozen times already, I love my local library discussion group.

They inspire me with their wide range of opinions and call-outs on Sherlock Holmes stories. This month we got back to a story that they don't even especially care for, and they still inspired me to look at "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box" in a different light. 

"Cardboard Box" is famously the suppressed story of the Canon. Originally published in January of 1893, it quickly was yanked from any book collections of the Memoirs stories and did not appear again until His Last Bow in 1917. We're not entirely sure why . . . the adultery maybe? But I have a new theory.

First, consider when the Cushing case took place.

Watson is hanging out at Baker Street on a hot August day, complaining that everyone is out of town and his financial situation has kept him in London. Sherlock Holmes makes a comment about Watson having chronicled A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four, so we know it's happening post-Mary-Morstan. Personally, I have placed this case as beginning on Friday, August 30, 1889, the day Watson's literary agent signed the contract to publish The Sign of the Four. We know Doyle was in London, so apparently he wasn't included in the "everyone" that was out of town. Surely, "everyone" was Mary, who was the whole world to Watson. (Okay, I'm going with her being his wife for this essay. Don't hold me to it.)

But it's a big time for author Watson. Second book. Same league as Oscar Wilde. Great hopes at these Sherlock Holmes books really taking off!

But maybe someone else had some hopes as well . . .

The end of "Cardboard Box" is a little different from most. Sherlock Holmes tells Lestrade who did it, Lestrade goes out and arrests them, gets a willing confession from the killer, and then?

"... he asked leave to make a statement, which was, of course, taken down, just as he made it, by our shorthand man. We had three copies typewritten, of which I enclose."

G. Lestrade is sending Holmes and Watson (Lestrade addresses Watson direction in an aside in his cover letter to Holmes, so it was to both!) the full verbiage of the killer's confession, and we assume that it's just a friendly "just so you know" sort of thing. But we know from other cases that Lestrade would often come by Baker Street to tell things in person -- so why that third typewritten copy just for Holmes and Watson?

Well, Watson did just have The Sign of the Four sold. And Lestrade, who had been in A Study in Scarlet surely wanted back in print after not being a player in Watson's second published case.

And since Lestrade actually supplied Watson with part of the text that Watson got published in The Strand Magazine, perhaps there was some fuss about Lestrade getting a percent of the profits off of that particular tale. And between Watson, his literary agent, and Lestrade they were unable to agree on a deal to make that happen in 1893, before Sherlock Holmes returned from the dead to act as a go-between between the doctor and the Scotland Yard man.

And, thus, to my way of thinking, Inspector G. (for Greedy) Lestrade was the real reason that "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box" was suppressed until 1917. (The year Lestrade passed?)

Oh, yes, I did title this blog post "The Serial Killer and the Guy Who Wanted More Than Credit." You still need to hear about the serial killer. So here's the quick and dirty on that.

Do you think a guy who cuts off people's ears and sends them to someone else is a guy who hasn't done that before? We don't know where Jim Browner's been or what he's done prior to this. Killing in a fit of jealous rage is one thing. But that ear-mail business just sounds so suspiciously serial killer-y. 

And if Browner wasn't caught until August 1889, could he have been responsible for only getting one ear from a victim that escaped in December of 1888? A victim who just went "I cut my own ear!" rather than attract more attention of the sailing serial killer who wanted both. A victim named Vincent van Gogh?

No wonder Lestrade wanted more credit and more of "Cardboard Box" in print!

Like I said, I love my local library discussion group. Because they haven't kicked me out yet.