I’ll be uploading rankings of Sherlock Holmes stories from my new book, Wherever Fact May Lead Me: A Ranking of the Sherlock Holmes Stories, every day till we reach the best story. After that, I’ll share my ranking of the best villains in the Holmes canon. You can find the rankings on my website, and you can buy a copy of the book on Amazon.
Ranking the Sherlock Holmes Stories
48. The Adventure of the Retired Colourman (January 1927, Case-Book)
A rather transparent revenge story in the style of The Norwood Builder, The Retired Colourman suffers from the same issue that The Red Circle and Wisteria Lodge do, viz.: that of putting the cart before the horse and explaining how Sherlock solved the mystery without showing us what happened. How fascinating it would have been to actually see Josiah Amberley’s house! Many macabre readers would have loved to see the Lewisham estate with its air of overgrown dilapidation, its sense of mismanaged grandeur, and, most of all, its hermetically sealed vault that doubled as a murderous gas chamber! Many of us would have cheerfully followed Holmes and Watson into this place, if only Holmes would have accompanied Watson on Watson’s first visit, and we might have felt intrigued by Holmes’ rising suspicions as he cast his eye over the unsavory place. Instead, there is little doubt, even from the beginning, what has happened. It is the old story: A jilted, miserly husband—Josiah Amberley: whose name, character, and crime echo that of Jonas Oldacre of the Norwood Builder—has been ostensibly left by the lady of the house, along with her putative lover, and she has allegedly stolen Amberley’s things. Really, there being no other suspects and few other hinges on which the plot may turn, the interpretation of events is fairly straightforward, and the reader can easily guess the mystery’s solution. Amberley has killed his wife; he’s killed her lover; and he’s hidden his own valuables to make it appear as though he’s the victim. We may chalk up this gauzy attempt at ambiguity to Conan Doyle’s waning, strained interest in Holmes, as this is the third-to-last of his Holmes stories, and he has already utilized many of his most unique plots.
