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
The Sixth Tier: The Enjoyables
While some satisfaction may be gleaned from reading the stories in the seventh tier, the overall effect of each story is vexing. Beginning here, with The Enjoyables, each story has places of satisfaction, and each is ultimately redeeming. From Wisteria Lodge with its sensational premise of a man waking up to find the occupants of the country house all vanished, to The Yellow Face with its optimistic ending, these eleven imperfect Holmes stories leave me feeling more or less contented.
39. The Adventure of the Wisteria Lodge (September – October 1908, Last Bow)
While perhaps one of the most middling stories in the canon, Wisteria Lodge has an extraordinarily sensational premise: a creditable Englishman is invited for an overnight stay in a country mansion for the purpose of providing an alibi for vengeful Central Americans who wish to murder a tyrannical former dictator. Our Englishman, Eccles, does stay the night, yet when he wakes in the morning, the house is abandoned. Eccles seeks out Holmes, and, in the course of ascertaining Holmes’ advice, Eccles and Holmes learn that Eccles’ host, one Garcia, was murdered in the night. We are introduced to Inspector Baynes of the Surrey Constabulary, far and away the greatest of any of the policemen with whom Holmes works.
Wisteria Lodge is well-written, and its mystery is fairly unique. And though we are afflicted with the burden of reading through the backstory of the deposed tyrant, and though we never see The Tiger of San Pedro (or even his equally fascinating underling Henderson), the story is redeemed by Baynes and the presentation of voodoo. Baynes succeeds in mystifying Holmes with his misleading and intentional arrest of the wrong man. Baynes matches Holmes’ sleuthing skills every step of the way, and, in fact, learns the true identity of the villain before Holmes does. His success is brilliant. It is no wonder that Doyle does not employ Baynes again in any other Holmes story. To have a second star who shines as brightly as Holmes would bedazzle the reader so greatly that they would not know which protagonist to focus upon. Baynes’ luminosity might prove confusing. With regard to the plot, the slaughtered chicken, the zinc bucket of blood, and the burnt animal bones constitute a diverting red herring. I remember, during the first time that I ever read Wisteria Lodge, that I pondered deeply over the significance of these things as I sought to work out the mystery’s solution. On reaching the story’s end, I felt pleasantly surprised that the chicken, blood-bucket, and burnt bones were merely red herrings, for I felt their inclusion was artful. The voodoo element is neither overdone, nor is it unnecessary. It serves its purpose—that of misdirection—perfectly. Still, as with the case of Black Gorgiano, I would have liked to meet The Tiger of San Pedro, and, if Conan Doyle had sent Watson and Holmes to Madrid to capture him there, I would have been delighted to read many pages more about the pursuit in the bizarre adventure of The Wisteria Lodge.
