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
31. The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax (December 1911, Last Bow)
A story with a good deal of inventiveness, and one that depends more heavily than most on its outcome, The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax is one of those exceedingly lovable stories, like The Abbey Grange and The Man with the Twisted Lip, where Holmes is temporarily flummoxed. Holmes sends Watson to Switzerland to track down the wealthy and vulnerable Lady Frances Carfax, and Watson does yeoman’s work, which Holmes, upon his sudden arrival, immediately outclasses. The situation is nearly singular, however, for rarely is Watson sent to do his master’s bidding (Watson is also sent as a proxy in The Solitary Cyclist, but he bungles the assignment so badly that it’s worth disregarding), and the reader is treated to a scenario in which the seemingly most reasonable conclusion that can be drawn is in fact drawn by the good doctor, viz.: that a tropically tanned, densely bearded fellow, one Honorable Philip Green, is on the trail of a fleeing Lady Carfax. Holmes, of course, suspects something different, and we readers may recollect the sagacity of Holmes’ advice in Boscombe when he counsels us on how circumstantial evidence can seemingly point very clearly in one direction, but, when looked at it from a slightly different angle, may just as certainly seem to point in another. In this case, the fact that a fraudulent missionary’s ear was torn tells Holmes that he’s on the trail of a degenerate Australian, a country which, despite its youth, “has turned out some very finished types.” Thus the first part of this idiosyncratic story transitions to the second, and readers, as we transition along, find that the tale changes from a Whodunnit (for now we know who the miscreants are that have abducted Lady Frances Carfax), to a Howdunnit (we are treated to the pleasure of following Holmes as he discovers what has become of the poor wealthy woman).
And, at first (and not for the last time in this story), Holmes is stumped. He feels strongly that Carfax is in London in the captivity of her malefactors. However, he can’t find her, and all his fishing expeditions into her whereabouts lead to empty-handed returns. Not till Peters, or Dr. Shlessinger, or whatever the con man is calling himself at the moment, pawns some of Carfax’s jewelry does Holmes get a lead. Holmes sends Green to wait at the same pawn shop, and the second time that a piece of jewelry is pawned, it’s done so by Peters’ partner in crime, who then toodles off to the undertaker’s where the clue to Carfax’s fate is left. Holmes and Watson, in hot pursuit of the lead, fly to Peters’ house, where they force admittance, and they search the coffin, only to discover that the corpse is not Carfax. Stymied but unbeaten, Holmes returns to Baker Street to lick his wounds and mull the case over, feeling that he’s missed some significant detail. Indeed he has, and, early next morning, just before the funeral, he and Watson rush to the funeral and are just in time to save the Lady Frances Carfax from a horrendous burial alive.
Lady Frances’ story is remarkable for its clinically professional narration, its employment of Watson as an irregular, and its double mystery (whodunnit and howdunnit). The wily cunning of Peters fools Holmes, and, not only that, when Peters is first confronted by Holmes, Peters plays his role as suavely as can be, insisting not only that he’s clueless as to the whereabouts of Carfax, but going so far as to have the gall to insist that she owes him money, and that she’s paid him a fraction of what she owes him with her nearly worthless jewels. The likeness of Peters to some of society’s most unrepentant fraudsters is admirable. One has only to think of the snake-brained, selfish, and odious behavior of such fiends as H.H. Holmes, Elizabeth Holmes, Naasón Joaquín García, Peter Popoff, and Keith Raniere to know that Doyle’s Dr. Shlessinger is less a figment of Doyle’s imagination than a representative of our environment. Yet, despite all the narrative grace that blesses the story, it is Holmes’ role as savior of Carfax’s life that gives this story the miracle treatment that it needs to ultimately succeed. If Holmes had arrived too late, the entire story would have fallen down, for this tale was never set up to be a tragedy. However, Holmes does arrive in time to save the diamonded damsel, and all’s well that ends well in The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax.
