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
41. The Five Orange Pips (November 1891, Adventures)
A well-written but unconscionable story, The Five Orange Pips is the Holmes tale that leaves me most at odds with Conan Doyle. Conan Doyle ranked it as one of his best twelve stories, saying that it has a “certain dramatic quality of its own.” And indeed, the story is dramatic in its own way. The descriptions of weather when John Openshaw enters 221B Baker Street, the picturesque madness with which Openshaw describes his uncle tearing around the garden with a revolver, and the petite menace of the dried orange pips themselves are all dramatic. However, Holmes’ advice is remarkably opaque, and that opacity probably costs Openshaw his life.
After hearing Openshaw’s account, Holmes advises Openshaw to return home and to place the pips in the box at the sun dial. This advice, if not for the omission of Holmes’ conjectures, would be sound. But because Holmes leaves so many of his deductions unarticulated and unelucidated, a fair-minded reader cannot help but wonder whether Holmes was inexcusably unforthcoming. Holmes understood that there was immediate peril for Openshaw, because he remonstrated Openshaw (who’d only received the pips the day before) for the delay in consulting him. Nevertheless, Holmes sends Openshaw away, then, after sitting “for some time in silence” with his pipe, deduces that there is “deadly urgency” and proceeds to outline to Watson nearly the entirety of the circumstances which surround this lethal matter. He begins to play the violin, and one cannot help but think of the quote that paraphrases 17th century playwright George Daniel: “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.”
Had Holmes, who felt a great measure of the pips’ gravity, instead asked Openshaw to remain a little longer while he mulled over the case’s features (and not sent Openshaw out into the storm), then Holmes would have been able to detail to Openshaw the same conclusions that he shared with Watson. Such information could have saved Openshaw’s life, and there is every reason to suppose that Holmes ought to have requested that his visitor stay awhile, and to allow him to fully cogitate on the mystery of the pips.
This is an instance where I believe that Conan Doyle would have been better served by making Openshaw into a character who, like his father, was rash and headstrong. If Openshaw were reckless, then Holmes could have advised Openshaw to wait awhile, but Openshaw would have refused, saying that he would not be intimidated. Openshaw would have gone into the storm against Holmes’ advice, and so met his death. Such an ending for Openshaw would have cast Holmes in a blameless light. As it stands, Holmes’ undue reticence and failure to urge greater restraint are reprehensible, and they leave me far from agreement with Conan Doyle in regard to the sentiment that The Five Orange Pips is one of his best.
