A Study in Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes Read online

  A Study in Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes

  Edited by Joseph R.G. DeMarco

  Lethe Press

  Maple Shade, New Jersey

  Copyright © 2011 Joseph R. G. DeMarco

  Individual stories copyright © 2011 their authors. all rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm, and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in 2011 by Lethe Press, Inc.

  118 Heritage Avenue • Maple Shade, NJ 08052-3018

  www.lethepressbooks.com • [email protected]

  isbn: 1-59021-038-7

  isbn-13: 978-1-59021-038-3

  These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.

  Cover design: Alex Jeffers.

  Cover art: Dakota Bardy.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  A study in lavender : queering Sherlock Holmes / edited by Joseph R.G. DeMarco.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-59021-038-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  ISBN-10: 1-59021-038-7

  1. Gay men--Fiction. 2. Holmes, Sherlock (Fictitious character)--Fiction. 3. Watson, John H. (Fictitious character)--Fiction. 4. Private investigators--England--Fiction. 5. Erotic stories, American. I. DeMarco, Joseph R. G.

  PS648.H57S78 2011

  813’.01083538’08664--dc22

  2011018763

  Introduction

  by Joseph R.G. DeMarco

  Is Sherlock Holmes homosexual? Is Watson? Should we even be asking these questions?

  Casual readers have wondered. So have scholars. Graham Robb, in his engaging and informative study of gay history, Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century, does not fail to consider the queerness of the Great Detective. Robb seems to believe that anyone thinking Holmes and Watson are not lovers is obtuse if not daft.

  Ever since the Great Detective made his first appearance in A Study in Scarlet in Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887, fans have been speculating about Holmes and his life. His popularity with the general public grew with the publication of stories in The Strand starting in 1891 and it was that series of stories that really got the guessing game going. Pastiches and parodies began to appear and the world of Holmes expanded beyond Arthur Conan Doyle’s writings.

  In a way, the stories lent themselves to speculation through the trail of clues Doyle embedded in them. A trail that a discerning, well-informed reader could immediately follow. The material is clearly there in the Holmes canon, if a reader looks carefully enough. Someone with knowledge of nineteenth-century British history will catch references others might miss. A more detailed knowledge of the sexual habits and scandals of that era will allow a reader to find even more clues woven into the text. With those facts in hand, other, less obtrusive, more seemingly innocent passages will jump out at you. Perhaps some things will even make sense for the first time. The oblique nature of some of the references almost forces a reader to think that Doyle had either placed these hints so that only those in the know would understand, or that he was setting out clues for inveterate readers to collect and decipher.

  For example, in Victorian London, the Embankment was a notorious homosexual cruising area near the Thames. In “Five Orange Pips,” one of Holmes’s clients is killed walking on the Embankment and Holmes admits to knowledge of the area, its denizens, and how it is used, though he is never explicit and never explains how he knows of this secret cruising ground.

  Other, similar casually inserted references litter the Holmes tales. In “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” his adopting a young “telegraph boy” to help him certainly recalls the Cleveland Street scandals. A brothel located in Cleveland Street, which served aristocratic men and in which boys who worked as telegraph messengers were also prostitutes, came to the attention of the police. The ensuing scandal threatened to out many of England’s aristocrats, including, it is said, Prince Albert Victor, son of the Prince of Wales and second in line to the throne. Needless to say, the scandal was covered up, the aristocrats receiving no penalty, the boys getting off with light sentences (the world never changes).

  But the fact that Doyle places a telegraph boy in the service of Holmes, and depicts their relationship as a very strong bond, serves as more than just a stray reference from the times.

  Holmes and Watson also have a relationship that Doyle does little to disguise. They not only share rooms on Baker Street, they find their lives intertwined in such a way that one cannot function perfectly without the other. Even when Watson marries (twice and both times without children), he continues visiting and staying with Holmes. Though his second wife is a bit more possessive of his time, he manages weekend visits with Holmes until she’s out of the picture and he is “single” once again.

  Holmes and Watson often exchange intimate looks and words, or profess the depth of their feelings or need for each other.

  There are other clues. In “The Final Problem,” Holmes, after a particularly nasty incident, asks Watson to go with him to “the continent” where they can avoid certain matters. As anyone familiar with the era knows, the rich and the lucky were able to evade prosecution in England for the crime of homosexuality by fleeing to the continent. After certain arrests, waves of aristocrats and others were found, by whatever means they could secure, leaving England for Italy or France. That’s quite a large clue which Doyle hides in plain sight.

  Of course, there are the obvious things about Holmes: he never marries or shows interest in the opposite sex and he and Watson live together in close quarters. But read more carefully and you find that the regard which Holmes and Watson have for each other goes beyond mere friendship. A good example is in “The Adventure of the Three Garridebs.”

  Watson is wounded by a miscreant and Holmes is aghast. He rushes to Watson’s side and begs him to say he is not wounded. Then the narrative continues in Watson’s words:

  It was worth a wound – it was worth many wounds – to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.

  “It’s nothing, Holmes. It’s a mere scratch.”

  He had ripped up my trousers with his pocket-knife.

  “You are right,” he cried with an immense sigh of relief. “It is quite superficial.” His face set like flint as he glared at our prisoner, who was sitting up with a dazed face. “By the Lord, it is as well for you. If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive. Now, sir, what have you to say for yourself?”

  This is no mere friendship. There is love here…on both sides. True, it’s also a symbiotic relationship, with Holmes bringing adventure and Watson bringing a kind of domesticity to the pairing, but there is an undeniable love, as well. Other stories rounding out the canon contain plenty of clues, hints, and subtextual references leading to the inescapable conclusion that Holmes and Watson are more than just roommates.

  Writers and fans of Sherlock Holmes have always speculated on every aspect of the Great Detective’s life. His sexual nature was no less a matter of interest than hi
s cocaine use. And, right from the start, writers of every stripe produced parodies of Holmes and Watson. Writers such as Twain, Barrie, and Wodehouse all took their turn at getting in on the fun.

  As far as anyone knows, the idea that Holmes might be gay didn’t work its way into the literature until the late twentieth century. One of the earliest books, from 1971, The Sexual Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Larry Townsend), is an erotic work concentrating heavily on sex scenes, though it exhibits grounding in the Holmes canon.

  Motion pictures took up the pursuit of Holmes’s personal life and sexual tastes in more than a few films, such as The Seven Percent Solution (1976) and The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) (which takes the view that Holmes might be straight, though at one point in the film he does “pretend” to be gay in order to escape from a woman who wants to bed him).

  It is not until Sherlock Holmes (2009), with Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law, that the idea of Holmes and Watson being gay makes it into the mainstream consciousness. Following closely on its heels, the BBC TV production, Sherlock (2010), with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, more or less flat out says Holmes is gay. Watson, who knows?

  That cat has finally left the bag. The idea that Holmes is gay is ready to take centre stage for a while.

  Though some might find the notion a bit much to tolerate, even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had no objections to what might be done with his most famous creation. The American stage actor William Gillette wrote a play about Holmes in the late 1890s with Doyle’s blessing. Called variously: Sherlock Holmes, then The Strange Case of Miss Faulkner, then Sherlock Holmes – A Drama in Four Acts, it was an immensely popular show though not a critically acclaimed piece of theatre.

  During the writing of the play, Gillette, who’d stitched together elements from different Holmes stories, wanted to spice up his work. He cabled Doyle and asked if he could marry off Holmes in the play. Doyle responded, “You may marry him, or murder him, or do whatever you like with him.”

  That seems like the definitive permission slip.

  This brings us to the collection you hold in your hands. A Study in Lavender considers not only the idea that Holmes might be gay, or Watson, or others in the Holmes mythos, but also that the detective might have taken cases which involved gay or lesbian or transgendered clients and handled them with the delicacy, discretion, and intelligence he brought to every other case Watson chronicled.

  Most of the tales in this collection take place in the Holmesian/Victorian setting. Most feature Holmes and Watson. Some use other characters as protagonists and merely mention Holmes. Each story will introduce you to new situations and characters, to cases Watson never before even alluded to, and to a Holmesian world that is similar yet different.

  We hope all of these adventures will bring a smile to your face, give you some hours of reading pleasure, or make you think about Holmes, or Watson, or even Lestrade in a new way. Perhaps you might be moved to watch again one of the Rathbone and Bruce movies, which in themselves take liberties with Holmes and his world.

  A Study in Lavender is meant to entertain and to open the door on a new approach to Holmes and the world in which he lived.

  Enjoy!

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Table of Contents

  The Adventure of the Bloody Coins

  Stephen Osborne

  The Case of the Wounded Heart

  Rajan Khanna

  The Kidnapping of Alice Braddon

  Katie Raynes

  Court of Honour

  J.R. Campbell

  The Well-Educated Young Man

  William P. Coleman

  The Bride and the Bachelors

  Vincent Kovar

  The Adventure of the Hidden Lane

  Lyn C.A. Gardner

  Whom God Destroys

  Ruth Sims

  The Adventure of the Unidentified Flying Object

  Michael G. Cornelius

  The Adventure of the Poesy Ring

  Elka Cloke

  Contributors

  Among the cases of Sherlock Holmes which Watson chose not to publish until now, this one gives us information that sheds a most revealing light on Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s brother, and the Diogenes Club where Mycroft spends quite a lot of time. Mycroft only appears in four of the original Holmes stories but has made a number of appearances in works outside the original canon as well as in movies. This tale allows us a peek at yet another side of Sherlock’s older brother and leads to another tantalizing secret, the details of which…well, read for yourself.

  The Adventure of the Bloody Coins

  by Stephen Osborne

  I have in my notebooks records of many cases which, for one reason or another, should never see the light of day. Some cannot be printed due to national security while a few pertain to personages of such importance that knowledge of their actions could bring shame and disgrace to some of the loftiest houses of England. As I put pen to paper to record the following events, I have to wonder if the facts in the murder of Pierre Jean-Claude Villiar should ever see the light of day. Indeed, I intend to leave this record among my personal papers, only to be read many years after my death. By that time, perhaps, these events will seem less shocking.

  I recall it was a brisk morning in November when I was roused from my slumbers by Holmes. I could see by the candle held high in his hand that his face was grave. “I’m sorry to have disturbed your rest, my friend,” said he, “but I would appreciate it if you would dress yourself and join me in the sitting room.”

  I raised my head from the pillows and tried to shake the cobwebs from my brain. “What is it?” I asked, my voice still blurred from sleep. “What’s going on?”

  “Lestrade is waiting for us, Watson, along with a man from the Foreign Office. Rouse yourself, my friend! Best not to keep them waiting.” He turned to leave, but paused at the door. In a quiet voice, he continued. “Mycroft, it seems, has disappeared.”

  “Your brother?” I asked. Holmes, however, was already in motion. If he heard my query he didn’t bother to answer.

  I dressed in haste, my mind in a whirl. I recalled Holmes telling me, at the time of the affair of the Greek interpreter, that Mycroft rarely deviated from his set pattern. It took events of the gravest import to shift the man from his usual pattern, which included his lodging, his office at Whitehall, and the Diogenes Club. What, I wondered, could have happened to the man?

  Upon entering the sitting room I found Holmes standing by the mantel engaged in lighting his pipe. Seated on our sofa were Inspector Lestrade and a man who introduced himself as Sir Miles Danvers of the Foreign Office. Holmes glanced my way when I came in, but then immediately lowered his eyes. I could only imagine how the news of his brother’s disappearance was distressing him.

  “Good of you to join us, Watson,” said he. “Lestrade and Sir Miles have come with grave news.”

  Lestrade, nodding, said, “There’s been a murder at the Diogenes Club, Doctor. Early this morning one of the porters went into one of the upstairs rooms to find the body of a young man. The victim appears to have been killed by the poker from the fireplace. There were several blows to the back of his skull. The poker was next to the body.” Lestrade spoke slowly, as if revealing the facts were painful to him.

  Confused, I asked, “What has this to do with Mycroft? Holmes tells me he’s missing.”

  Sir Miles shifted uncomfortably. “The porter has stated that the murdered man was last seen with Mr Holmes. We enquired, but could find no trace of Mycroft Holmes. He’s not been to his lodgings, nor to Whitehall.”

  I scoffed. “Surely you can’t think that Mycroft Holmes is mixed up in this affair?”

  Lestrade shook his head. “At this point we merely want to question Mr Holmes. Given the nature of the young man’s state of undress, and the purpose of the room in which the murder took place…”

  “What do you mean? What about the man’s state of undress?”

  S
ir Miles cleared his throat, giving Holmes a brief, apologetic look. “The young man was naked, Dr Watson. The room itself was a special bedchamber, used by members to indulge in…” Here the man stopped, clearly unsure of what words to use.

  Lestrade, his lip curling slightly, finished the sentence. “Unnatural desires.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. “Are you suggesting,” I said, “that an old and respectable club like the Diogenes would allow such a despicable…”

  Holmes, with a wry smile, interrupted me. “My dear fellow, you must calm your indignations. Rooms such as the one Sir Miles speaks of have been a mainstay in several of the more fashionable clubs of London for years. It is handled with the greatest of discretion, and the members can choose the sex and even the age of their partner. I’ve known for quite some time that the secretary of the Diogenes, Marshall Owen, has provided this service.”

  “But,” I cried, aghast, “your own brother is a member of the club! Surely he wouldn’t associate with a place that would allow such atrocities to occur!”

  My friend’s brow furrowed. “There is little that escapes my brother’s attention, my dear Watson, as you must have gathered. But we must leave these matters for the moment. A murder has taken place, and time is wasting. I trust, Lestrade, that nothing has been touched?”

  “Knowing your methods,” said he, “I instructed my men to leave the murder scene as it was until you had a chance to examine it.”