‘His Last Bow’ (1917) gathers Holmes’ penultimate adventures

Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes output slowed as he built up entries for his second-to-last book, “His Last Bow” (1917), which gathers eight short stories published from 1908-17, plus “The Cardboard Box” from back in 1893.

In these stories – narrated in retrospect by Watson from various points in the chronology — I find the setups are generally better than the resolutions. The detective shows increasing propensity for making his own moral judgements, only handing off culprits to the police if he believes that is the morally correct thing to do. His reputation is so deservedly towering at this point that the official Scotland Yard detectives are happy to let Holmes do his thing, and call them in to do their thing if he chooses to do so.

Serving his country

Doyle – who got into his science fiction writings about Professor Challenger during this time period (most famous is 1912’s “The Lost World”) — is increasingly interested in having Holmes serve his country’s cause, as the British were ramping up for the Great War.

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Agatha Christie would later mildly annoy her hard-core mystery fans by writing international espionage books when readers felt she could’ve given them another Poirot or Marple, but Doyle beat her to the punch with this trait. Most notable is the titular story, “His Last Bow” (subtitled “The War Service of Sherlock Holmes”), one of the most unusually structured stories.

(SPOILERS FOLLOW.)

We start off with two German spies discussing the hand-off of undefined papers stolen from the British government, then one of their allies – an Irish-American who hates England – suddenly is revealed as Holmes, and his chauffeur as Watson.

Until that point, we might feel like a non-Holmes story had been accidentally printed, because Watson is almost always the narrator; here, the story is told in third-person. At the end, Holmes suggests he’ll likely never see Watson again as they have separate destinations as the war looms. It’s one of Doyle’s many vague attempts to end the Holmes canon, but of course there would be one more collection after this, “The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes.”

The theft of military plans also plays into “The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans,” both one of the most violent (a man is seemingly thrown from a train car) and the most fun to figure out, as it turns out the man was killed and later deposited on top of a train. Also in this story, we learn that Sherlock’s equally intelligent brother, Mycroft, is flat-out an employee of the government.

The lengths some people go to

“The Adventure of the Dying Detective” and “The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot” both involve poisons of some kind. The former is the most immediately intriguing of the collection, as Holmes seems to be on his deathbed, even in the estimation of Watson, who is summoned by Holmes’ worried landlady.

The story shows how far Holmes will go to wrap a case, as he purposely fasted for days in order to achieve his sick pallor and trick his enemy. And in “Devil’s Foot” – intriguingly set up with a dead woman and two brothers acting insane around the corpse — he convinces loyal Watson to personally test a poison’s effects along with him.

A solvable entry – at least in regard to the coffin clue – is “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax.” This is a rare story that finishes stronger than it starts; for a missing-person yarn, the buildup is disappointingly more clinical than mysterious.

“The Adventure of the Cardboard Box” is fun and macabre with its deduction that the villain accidentally sent two severed ears to the wrong sister in a family. Because the story controversially deals with infidelity, it wasn’t included in all editions of “The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes” (1894) like it should have been (based on publication date). If readers experience déjà vu, it’s because the story’s opening passage had been moved over to “The Adventure of the Resident Patient” in the publication of “Memoirs.”

Mysterious lodgers

“The Adventure of the Red Circle” has a historically notable opening gambit, as a woman calls on Holmes because her mysterious lodger never seems to leave his room, and communicates his needs only with handwritten notes. The story came out in 1911, the same year as Marie Belloc Lowndes’ Jack the Ripper-inspired novel “The Lodger,” which was adapted to film many times, most famously by Hitchcock in 1927.

The double-length “Adventure of Wisteria Lodge” has a good opening hook: A man is staying at a house overnight as per an invite, and when he awakes in the morning, some fellow lodgers are dead and others gone. Holmes works the case, which extends into international intrigue.

It’s always been the case, but it’s especially true in this collection, that Doyle likes to make his solutions grander than how the story starts. But too often he leaves the reader in the dust, as we’re confronted with more and more elements that we’re supposed to care about – South American governmental intrigue in “Wisteria” – rather than building toward a tidy, clue-based solution.

(END OF SPOILERS.)

The stories in “His Last Bow” aren’t as strong as in past collections, and Holmes’ dichotomy of making his own judgments yet also jumping when the government asks for his help feels more schizophrenic than fascinating.

As always, the thing I like most about these stories is Watson’s first-person narration (where he’s amazed by Holmes’ skill, and sometimes annoyed by his social behavior) and the duo’s teamwork and friendship. Nonetheless, this is a slightly colder book than the others.

Sleuthing Sunday reviews the works of Agatha Christie, along with other new and old classics of the mystery genre.