Dr. Watson Speaks Out
Dr. Watson Speaks Out is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche written by A. A. Milne published in The Nation & Athenaeum on 17 november 1928.
Dr. Watson Speaks Out
By A. A. MILNE.
The suggestion of the Editor of THE NATION that I should myself review in his paper the collected adventures of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes, (*) which, it will be remembered, I was the first to lay before the public, comes at an opportune moment; for though I am a man of even temperament (save when the weather adversely affects my old wound) I am not one that can sit down under injustice, and in the matter of this book I feel that a grave wrong has been done to me. In order to explain just what this is I must take the public into my confidence in a way that only became necessary in the March of this year, when, as will be remembered, Inspector Lestrade fell off the pier at Southend while the tide was unfortunately out, and suffered a dislocation of the cervical vertebrae which has delayed, if not actually restricted, the memoirs which he had proposed to publish. In those memoirs, as I understand from his widow, he would have done me the justice which a mistaken sense of loyalty to my friend Mr. Holmes has hitherto prevented me doing to myself.
In the course of my different narratives I have had occasion to refer from time to time to a medical practice which I had purchased at Paddington. The real truth about this practice has not yet come to light, for the various small deceptions in regard to it which I played upon my friend Holmes (always an easy man to deceive) have undoubtedly led both him and the public to suppose it other than it actually was. The truth which I am now at liberty to reveal is that the practice when I bought it consisted almost entirely of a Mrs. Withers, and that the surprising death of Mrs. Withers during my prolonged absence at Paisley in connection with the Syncopated Bacon Frauds left me with no means of subsistence other than an inadequate wound pension. In this predicament it was natural that I should. look about for some other source of income.
I had always been fond of writing, and my descriptions of the Afghan Campaign as sent home in weekly letters to my Aunt Hester at Leamington, and by her submitted to the LEAMINGTON COURIER, had received considerable editorial commendation, although, owing to the exigencies of space and an unexpected local interest in some trouble at the gas-works, they had been denied actual publication. In the hope that my pen had not lost its cunning, I now decided to write out in narrative form some of the adventures in which my friend Holmes and I had participated, and submit them to one of the more popular monthly magazines. Of the instantaneous success of my venture into literature I need not now speak, for it is public knowledge. But the means by which this success was achieved has remained obscure until to-day, when, in the regrettable absence of Inspector Lestrade, it has at last fallen to me to reveal it.
One of the most useful arts by which a writer may achieve his effects is the Art of Contrast. I remember that in my letters home during the Afghan Campaign (in which I received my wound) I often employed this art with telling effect; contrasting, for instance, the sublimities of the mountain scenery, by which we were surrounded on all sides, with the occasional inadequacies of the sanitary arrangements; and so forth. So, now, in my stories, I decided to heighten the effect by contrasting as sharply as possible the characters of Holmes and myself. Holmes is in many ways the most remarkable man I have met, but he was human. Humanum est errare, as my old Anatomy Lecturer used to say. Holmes was human enough to make mistakes, and human enough to resent their being found out. It became my habit, therefore, both in my personal relations with him, and in the narratives which I was putting before the public, to cover up, as far as possible, the very natural errors into which he fell, and to heighten the public appreciation of his amazing talent by contrasting it whenever possible with an assumed obtuseness of my own. It amuses me now to think how little he suspected this, just as it fills me with pride to think how greatly he, and through him the country, profited by it. For Holmes was an artist, and, above all, an artist must believe continuously in his own powers.
Let me refer my readers to the story known as "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax." In this story, it will be remembered, I record how Holmes deduced from the appearance of my boots that I had just come back from a Turkish bath. It was a matter of habit with me by this time to admiringly admit the correctness of all his inductions, and to ask for the explanations which he was longing to give. The explanation in this case was that my boots were tied with an elaborate bow, such as only a bootmaker or a bath attendant would use; undoubtedly a keen piece of observation and an intelligent deduction. But he went on to say, "It is unlikely that it is the bootmaker, since your boots are nearly new. Well, what remains? The bath." Why, because one has a newish pair of boots, one should not buy a pair of slippers (as in fact I had been doing, having received a substantial cheque that morning from the Editor), why one should not even buy a second pair of boots, I do not know; but it was without difficulty, almost without conscious thought, that I replied, "Holmes, you are wonderful." It was on this same occasion that he deduced from the splashes on my left sleeve that I had sat on the left side of my hansom (which was true), and that therefore I must have had a companion (which was not true); for, like most men, I prefer to lean against the side of a cab rather than sit upright in the middle. But to have told Holmes so would have destroyed his confidence in himself, and to have told the public so would undoubtedly have detracted from the financial value of the stories. "Holmes," I said, again, "you are marvellous," and he never suspected otherwise.
Undoubtedly his arrogance grew under my flattery, and sometimes this arrogance was hard to bear. It will be remembered that, in our inquiry into the curious experience of "The Retired Colourman," it fell to me to undertake the preliminary investigations. I was giving Holmes some account of these, and describing with the minute particularity on which he insisted the state of a certain wall, "mottled with lichens and topped with moss," as I put it, when he broke in rudely, "Cut out the poetry, Watson. I note that it was a high brick wall." Now it so happened that in an earlier inquiry into the extraordinary mystery of "The Decentralized Tomato " — one of the cases which I have not recorded, as being only notable for the reason that Holmes was searching Newcastle for a tall left-handed man with a red beard and long finger-nails at the very moment when Lestrade was arresting the actual murderess at Brighton-in the course of that inquiry Holmes himself had said to me, speaking of the high brick wall behind the tomato-house," Tut-tut, Watson, the lichen. Does it suggest nothing to you?" And when I had made some such obvious answer as that the wall seemed to have been there a long time, he went on muttering to himself, Fool! The lichen! Why wasn't I told about the lichen?" It will be seen, then, that my deliberate policy of humouring Holmes was not without its undeserved humiliations.
My readers may ask why I should be taking the public into my confidence now when I have put up with these humiliations in silence for so long. The answer lies in this final collection of all the stories into one volume. If my readers will turn to the last section of the volume, entitled "The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes," they will read there two stories, inferior stories if I may say so without prejudice, written by Holmes himself. As a writer who has taken himself seriously, even from those early Afghan days, I do not object to belittling myself if by so doing I can increase the artistic value of my narrative. But I can reasonably protest when another belittles me. More over, these two stories were inserted into "The Case-Book" without my permission, and by collusion, I must suppose, between Holmes and the publishers. I protested strongly at the time of the book's separate publication; I protest again strongly now. I have written both to the Incorporated Society of Authors and to the British Medical Council. I have also called the attention of Messrs. Murray to a demonstrably false statement in one of the stories, which says with all the circumstance of apparent truth, "It was in January, 1908. ... The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife." I married, as my readers know, in 1887, and my poor wife died in the early nineties. For reasons into which I need not go now I did not marry again. Already, as the result of this false publication, I have had an inquiry from the Income Tax Commissioners as to my second wife's independent means, and a circular addressed to Mrs. Watson calling attention to an alleged infallible method, obtained from an unregistered and unqualified Indian sepoy, for removing superfluous hair. Is it any wonder that I am indignant?
I therefore solemnly call upon the publishers to withdraw the volume from circulation, even though I myself shall be the first to suffer financially by it. Fortunately I have enough now for my simple needs. With the proceeds of previous sales I have purchased another small practice (an elderly gentleman of arthritic tendencies called Ferguson), and with this and my wound pension (a relic of the Afghan Campaign) I am content. But if that con- tent is to be disturbed by the continued circulation of false statements, then let me warn all concerned that I shall not take it lying down. There are other revelations which I could make. ...
(*) "Sherlock Holmes: Short Stories." By Arthur Conan Doyle. (Murray. 7s. 6d.)
