"Somewhere in the vaults of Cox & Company at Charring Cross," wrote Dr. Watson, in "Thor Bridge," "there is a travel-worn and battered tin dispatch-box with my name . . . upon the lid. It is crammed with papers, nearly all of which are records of cases to illustrate the curious problems which Mr. Sherlock Holmes had at various times to examine."
Here is a treasure trove, indeed!
For years the cry of hungry populace has been more tales of Sherlock Holmes--tales which Watson has withheld for reasons of his own. We have listened to his explanations, at one time and another, and fatuously accepted them; but, really, do they explain? With Watson, we may deplore the circumstance that persons of high prominence continue to go on living, apparently to deprive us of revelations that are possibly only after their demise; but surely the rutted modesty of Sherlock Holmes has functioned too often and too conveniently for the doctor.
The truth may be that Watson's ethical considerations mask a certain indolence and disinclination for which Holmes has been made to blame. There is little enough, in the long record of their association, to substantiate the doctor's assertions that Holmes was inflexibly opposed to publicity. At the moment of triumph, to be sure, he habitually waived his right to acclaim, in favour of his friends at Scotland Yard; but after the fact he was usually more than gracious to his biographer. Often he suggested the theme for one of Watson's contributions to the literature of crime; and at one time, save where the thing was morally impossible, can his objection have been more than a fitting depreciation of his own powers.
On the other hand, the truth may be--in part, at any rate--that Holmes's acid humour was responsible for many of the tantalizing references to cases by his Boswell. His intentional mystification of his collaborator if frequently manifest in Watson's pages; what more likely than that the detective, in quizzical temper, whispered hints of extraordinary problems that actually had never come before him? That delicate service which he performed for the reigning family of Holland, perhaps? And the fascinating chapter suggested by the reference to Ricoletti of the ClubFoot and his abominable wife.
Even so, the battered tin dispatch box must contain problems of extraordinary interest--and how many little fingers would be sacrificed for just one more volume of them? What was the service for Holmes refused a knighthood? What were the singular contents of the ancient British barrow? The Conk-Singleton forgery case was certainly in Watson's time and his knowledge. It would be satisfying to know what anxiety agitated the Royal Family of Scandinavia.
There they lie, the materials for a hundred new stories, in the vaults of Cox & Company at Charring Cross.
