Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, written by Sir Arthur Essay Example For Students

Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, written by Sir Arthur Essay Conan Doyle, is a collection of Sherlock Holmes short stories. Silver Blaze, The Yellow Face, The Stock-Brokers Clerk, The Gloria Scott, The Musgrave Ritual, The Reigate Puzzle, The Crooked Man, The Resident Patient, The Greek Interpreter, The Naval Treaty, and The Final Problem are included. A lot of information about Holmes and Watson is included in this collection. There is some information which is shocking, and other information which might have been expected. These stories also include some of Holmes most memorable adventures. I suppose this is why they call it Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Silver Blaze actually has two mysteries: the disappearance of a famous horse, Silver Blaze, and the murder of its trainer. When Holmes and Watson hear about this, they go to check it out, with Colonel Ross, the owner of the horse, and Inspector Gregory. The foursome travels to the scene of the crimes: where Silver Blaze had last been seen and the body of the trainer was found, lying on the ground. They find nothing there, and after the colonel and the inspector leave Holmes and Watson at the crime scene, they find footprints a little ways off. The footprints are of a horse. They follow the footprints and find that a little farther they are joined by the footprints of a man. Following these set of tracks, the detective and the doctor are lead to Mapleton stables, which are the only other stables in the area besides the one where the horse lived. Holmes has a talk with the owner in private and finds that he does have Silver Blaze. After some negotiating the owner promises to let the ho rse ride in the races the next day, and then give him back to the owner. Holmes makes Watson promise to not tell anyone about their victory just yet, and he does readily. The next day the colonel, the inspector, Holmes, and Watson are watching the races. However, they do not see Silver Blaze anywhere. When one of the races is done, and there is a short intermission, they go around to the back where all the horses are kept during the day of the race. They find Silver Blaze to have been disguised. Holmes then explains how it was that the horses trainer had been killed. It seems that the trainer had wanted to do some sort of operation on the horse so he would run slower in the race, Lord knows why he wanted to do that. He had taken the horse into the middle of a field with a surgery knife. The trainer had tried to perform the operation, which was to be done on the backside of the horse. However, the horse had felt the knife cut into his body and kicked his trainer right in the head wit h his hind leg. This and the fact that the knife which the trainer had been holding had cut him severely on his leg had killed him. The Yellow Face is one of the rare, unknown cases where Holmes turns out to be wrong. Another interesting truth learned in this case is that Holmes occasionally used cocaine! However, when these stories were written, it wasnt known that cocaine can kill you, so we cant blame Holmes because he didnt know. A man comes to Holmes and Watsons house, asking for advice and an answer. The man explains that some new people had moved into the house next door to his home, where he lived with his wife. When he had knocked on the new neighbors door, he was answered by a woman who was very harsh to him. She wouldnt let him go inside the house, and she shut the door in his face. When he started to walk home, he just happened to glance at one of the upstairs windows of the house. He saw a yellowish, livid-colored, expressionless face staring straight at him. He was very spooked, and hurried home. That night, at about two in the morning, he woke up and noticed his wife getting dressed. Pretending he was still asleep, he watched her walk out of the bedroom door, and he heard the front door open, and then shut. A while later he heard the front door open and shut again, and he saw his wife come through the bedroom door. He sat up and asked her where she had been. Her face turned guilty and frightened, and she lied and said that she had simply needed some fresh air. The next day, the man came home from work and saw that his wife was gone. He had a hunch that she had gone to see the new neighbors. She had gone home by the time he got there, but he stormed in anyway. There was only one room in the entire house which looked like it had been lived in, and no one was in the house at the time. The man finishes his story, and mentions on the way out that he and his wife had never kept secrets from each other before, and that he was his wifes second husband, the first one and the child having died from a severe illness. Holmes figures that the first husband has not died, but is a bad man a nd has come back to haunt his ex-wife. However, when Holmes, Watson and the man invade the house with whoever is living in it still there, a child and the wife are in the only comftorable room in the house. When the child shows her face, it is that same livid-colored face which the man had described earlier. But Holmes just laughs and, putting his hand behind the childs ear, pulls off the mask to reveal her true face. She is black, and, in the time that this story was written, blacks were called negros, and even though the Civil War had just ended, they were still treated as below whites by most people, in England as well as America and Europe. The wife explains that the first husband truly had died, but the child had not. The first husband had been a negro, and the wife described it as a misfortune that our only child took after his people rather than mine. She explained that the child had been living in America with a nanny for the three years that the wife has been married the se cond husband. Finally, the wife could not stand the thought of not seeing her child, and insisted that she move into the cottage next door for about a week or so. The wife is afraid that the second husband will hate the black child, force her to move back to America, and will be furious at the wife for having married a negro. However, the man kisses the child, and says they can discuss it in their own home. Holmes proves himself to be wrong, and takes it to heart. The Stock-Brokers Clerk begins with the interesting fact that Watson has married and has a job as a medical doctor. However, Holmes calls upon him and asks him if he would like to go on another adventure. Watson readily agrees, and, telling his wife, he sets off with Holmes. Their client explains that he had just gotten a job when, one night, a man came to his home and asked him a few questions such as if he kept up with the stock-market, et cetera. The man was delighted with the answers which the client gave, and decided to hire him for the unknown company Franco-Midland Hardware Company, Limited. The client agreed to quit his current job, to join this new one, and noticed that the mans tooth on his left side had gold filling. The next day the client reported to the given office and was assigned some trivial work which took a few weeks. When the client was finished he went back to the office and handed the work to the man. This man was different from the one which had come to his ho use. However, the client noticed that he had the same exact tooth had gold filling as the first man. This confused the client, which brought him to Holmes. So Watson, Holmes, and the client go back to the office to find the man reading a newspaper. When he looks up from it his face is chalk white, and he generally looks really terrible. He wishes that everyone would just let him be, even though he has no idea that he is in the presence of the great Sherlock Holmes and his assistant, Dr. Watson. The client reminds the man that he is here on appointment, and the man excuses himself for a minute. He goes into a back room. The three men are left waiting for some time, until they hear a few banging noises, and then a gurgling sound. They rush into the back room to find that the man has hung himself. The detective, his client, and the doctor immediately take the rope from around his neck, and taking him into the office, lay him down on the sofa. Dr. Watson saves him from death. While they are waiting for the man to completely recover, they read the article which the man had been reading aloud, only to find that it supports Holmes guess. The man does have a partner, but he has been working at the clients original job. He tried to steal all of the money from that job the night before, but he was caught. Holmes announces that human nature is a strange mixture, Watson. You see that even a villain and a murderer can inspire such affection that his brother turns to suicide when he learns that his neck is forfeited. The Gloria Scott is very interesting, being that it was Holmes first case. It is strange to read about a case without Watson being the narrator. In this case, we also learn that, after Holmes got out of college, he had his amazing powers, but he only imagined them as the merest hobby. It is also learned that Holmes only went to college for two years. He was not very sociable, either. He had only one friend during those years, named Victor Trevor. During a long vacation in the college years Trevor invited Holmes to his fathers house. They have a good time there and the old Trevor is amazed at Holmess powers, fainting when Holmes mentions that the old Trevor used to be intimately aquatinted with someone whos initials were J.A., and afterwards he desperately wanted to forget about them. A day before Holmes is about to leave, a strange man walks in the door, who the old Trevor recognizes as Hudson. He is still there when Holmes leaves, and he is glad he did, because this Hudson character isnt the most pleasant of fellows. Near the end of the long vacation Victor sent Holmes a wire asking him to come down to the old Trevors house immediately. Victor meets Holmes at the train station and explains as they are riding to the house that his father received a wire which, after reading it, drove him into a stroke, where he fell into a coma. The only thing is that the wire makes absolutely no sense at all. By the time they get to the house the old Trevor has died. Victor goes into the room where he lies dead, privately with the doctor. Meanwhile Holmes tries to make sense of this confusing mess. Finally Victor returns from the room, with a few papers and a small piece of paper. The small paper was apparently the wire which the old Trevor had received when he was driven into the stroke. It read The supply of game for London is going steadily up. Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen-pheasants li fe. Holmes was sure that it was a message written in code. After a few tries, he figures out that every third word reads The game is up. Hudson has told all. Fly for your life. The papers are a lengthy letter from the old Trevor to Victor, apparently to be read after he died. It said that he was not born Trevor, but James Armitage. He had committed some very bad crimes in his youth, and so was forced to work rowing on a ship with other inmates (remember, this was probably around the 1840s, so they were aloud to have slaves). However, the inmate who sat next to him, Jack Prendergast, had almost a quarter of a million pounds with him. He also had a lot of friends on the crew. He planned to get the rest of the inmates to team up with him and take over the ship. His friends on the crew brought everyone weapons every day, and so everyone had plenty of weapons in a short amount of time. They attacked soon after they received the weapons, and within a few hours or so, had killed almost eve ry enemy on the ship except for a few, who were being held captive. About half of the inmates, the half which had Jack Prendergast, and their friends wanted to kill them, but the other half, the half which had the old Trevor/James Artimage, was tired of blood and didnt want to kill them. The half which had Prendergast won the argument, but they agreed to let whoever didnt want to see blood onto one of the smaller life boats attached to the ship, and they could stay in the boat until another ship came to rescue them. Trevor/Armitage and a few others went onto the boat. About an hour after they left the ship, they heard a giant booming sound. They rowed back to the ship, only to find a cloud of smoke and some pieces of wood from it. It had apparently been blown up somehow. They looked for survivors, but only found one, a man named Hudson. When they were rescued and returned to the shore, Trevor/Armitage and a few others changed their name and started their life over again. When Hudson came, apparently he got mad at Trevor/Armitage for some reason, and told the police everything which had happened. My dear Watson:I write these few lines through the courtesy of Mr. Moriarty, who awaits my convenience for the final discussion of those questions which lie between us. He has been giving me a sketch of the methods by which he avoided the English police and kept himself informed of our movements. They certainly confirm the very high opinion which I had formed of his abilities. I am pleased to think that I shall be able to free society from any further effects of his presence, though I fear that it is at a cost which will give pain to my friends, and especially, my dear Watson, to you. I have already explained to you, however, that my career had in any case reached its crisis, and that no possible conclusion to it could be more congenial to me than this. Indeed, if I may make a full confession to you, I was quite convinced that the letter from Meiringen the hotelkeeper was a hoax, and I allowed you to depart on that errand under the persuasion that some development of this sort would follow. Tell Inspector Patterson that the papers which he needs to convict the gang Moriartys agents are in pigeonhole M., done up in a blue envelope and inscribed Moriarty. I made every disposition of my property before leaving England and handed it to my brother Mycroft. Pray give my greetings to Mrs. Watson, and believe me to be, my dear fellow,Very sincerely yours,Sherlock HolmesAnd so ends the career of the great Sherlock Holmes, forever. I dont think there can be a theme for a collection of short stories, but I would say that, for all the Sherlock Holmes books, the theme would be something like keep trying, no matter what happens.