Is that a gun in your bathrobe or are you just happy to see me? jk, I know it’s a gun. That’s dangerous.

I'm going to be blunt. I wasn't expecting a dick joke in this reading. And I used to read Holmes stories all the time when I was in middle school. Maybe “it is a dangerous habit to finger loaded firearms in the pocket of one’s dressing-gown’” (218) wasn't a dick joke at the time, but it definitely is now. I’m disappointed in my younger self for not remembering this. I wasn’t a very careful reader at the time, so maybe the whole thing escaped my notice (although I don't know how a middle schooler can fail to recognize a dick joke).

Seriously though, I think the fact that Moriarty’s comment comes before Sherlock even told John, and therefore the reader, that he “had slipped the revolver from the drawer into [his] pocket and was covering [Moriarty] through the cloth” (218) is an important aspect of the story’s narrative and character development. Moriarty knows what Sherlock has done before the reader does, and because he is the one to tell us instead of Sherlock, we are unsettled by Moriarty and more acutely aware of his powers of perception. Dick jokes are just an unexpected bonus.

Holmes’ size had also escaped my memory, so it was a shock to read that “he was rather over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller” (24). Plus, I had forgotten Holmes’ brute strength! I remembered he was a skilled pugilist (thank you RDJ movies for jogging that memory), but I hadn’t realized he was strong enough to bend a steel poker back into place (162)! I guess we tend to associate very intelligent characters with physical weakness. Nerds are wimps, jocks are dumb, etc. Clearly, Conan Doyle would’ve disapproved of these beliefs.

Actual irl footage of Holmes, apparently.

Another unexpected finding in the Holmes stories was Holmes’ moments of compassion. From the first time he’s introduced in A Study in Scarlet, and throughout the other stories, the reader is told that one would “not care for him as a constant companion” (19) because he is so “very desultory and eccentric” (19). Even if he is  “a decent fellow enough” (19), Holmes’ “cold-bloodedness” (20) can be off-putting and offensive. Since we are so often told things like “all emotions… were abhorrent to his cold, precise, but admirably balanced mind” (32) and are tolerated about as well as “grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-powered lenses” (32), I did not expect him to be so kind towards Helen Stoner. I’m not shocked that Sherlock perceived that she was “cruelly used” (159); however, I was surprised that he soothed her and “[bent] forward and [patted] her forearm” (153), promising he and Watson will “soon set matters right” (153) and even offered to help her escape from the abuse by taking her “away to [her] aunt’s at Harrow” (164). As an abuse survivor, it means a lot to me that this character recognizes signs of abuse and is compassionate towards the victim, especially considering the Victorian society’s general views of and treatment towards women.