I’ll be uploading rankings of Sherlock Holmes villains from my new book, Wherever Fact May Lead Me: A Ranking of the Sherlock Holmes Stories, every day till we reach the greatest villain. You can find the rankings on my website, and you can buy a copy of the book on Amazon.
Ranking the Sherlock Holmes Villains
Tier Six: Culpable Yet Sympathetic
In this tier we have a number of people who have indeed committed a crime, but, for one reason or another, they deserve the readers’ support—or at least some mercy.
65. Gilchrist, The Three Students
Gilchrist is guilty of cheating on an exam, but he is voluntarily repentant. In fact he has already elected, in view of his lapse, to immediately exile himself to Rhodesia. And while I am not a fan of cheaters, Gilchrist’s sentence upon himself seems to me to be unnecessarily harsh: a case of more punishment than crime.
64. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, Perpetual Recidivists
Throughout the canon, when acting in clients’ interests, Sherlock and Watson see fit to bend the law when needing to meet their own ethical code. I find such action perfectly acceptable, for I find that the law cannot and should not be considered a moral code. Besides that, laws are made by people, who are fallible, and thus there is truth to the idea that there are “good laws” and “bad laws.” It is also necessary, in the interest of succoring others, to break the law from time to time, when the spirit of doing so is just and proper. And, since Holmes’ profession puts him in equivocal positions more often than most people’s do, he breaks the law more frequently than others. For instance, he and Watson break into Milverton’s house; they set Captain Croker free; they, quite technically, are on very tenuous legal ground when they act at the Copper Beeches. On each occasion that Holmes and Watson break the law, I find myself sympathetic to their cause, and, in fact, find myself judging them more harshly at times when they don’t act energetically enough, such as when Holmes sends John Openshaw away after hearing his story of the five orange pips, and when Holmes fails to better protect Miss Sutherland from her wicked stepfather, Mr. Windibank, aka Hosmer Angel.
63. Anna, The Golden Pince-Nez
When they were still youthful Russian revolutionaries, Anna and others in the Order were betrayed by Anna’s husband. One victim of that betrayal, a pacificist named Alexis, was sentenced to hard labor in a Siberian mine, and Anna’s husband, Sergius, will not lift a finger to save him. Anna decides to help Alexis. In the course of undertaking her errand of mercy, Anna breaks into the professor’s house, is caught, reacts in fear, and accidentally delivers a blow which kills an otherwise uninvolved secretary. That such wretchedness is a part of humanity lends a poignant pathos to both our collective tragedy and our dark comedy.
62. Lady Hilda Trelawny Hope, The Second Stain
A victim of blackmail, Lady Hilda compounds the painfulness of her position by stealing a letter that the spy Eduardo Lucas has asked her to take. In so doing, she sets off a minor national crisis. Lady Hilda knows better than to steal her husband’s documents, but she was leveraged into doing so, and rather than confiding in her husband, she made the wrong choice.
61. Irene Adler, A Scandal in Bohemia
Indeed, Irene does threaten von Ormstein, Grand Duke and hereditary King of Bohemia, and, in so doing, her threat is tantamount to blackmail. However, once Irene finds another man, she withdraws her threats, and she retains the photograph only as a means of safeguarding herself against the king, whom she accuses of “cruelly” wronging her. Matters as they stand, I find it difficult to censure this clever woman too greatly.
60. Sir Robert Norberton, Shoscombe Old Place
When Sir Robert Norberton’s sister dies, he realizes that, thanks to the family’s financial dynamics, his creditors may seize the opportunity to swoop in and ruin him. In an argument against usury, Norberton takes the low road, hides his sister’s death, and pretends she’s still alive. As Holmes says, Sir Robert’s conduct is inexcusable. But while inexcusable, it is understandable, and we cannot but shake our heads in displeasure at Sir Robert’s actions while hoping that, after the lucky break he’s given, he improves his life choices.
59. Milverton’s Murderer, Charles Augustus Milverton
After Milverton ruins a mysterious noblewoman’s life, she returns to exact her revenge upon him. “Take that, you hound!” she exclaims. “And that! And that!” With those words, she blasts the marble heart of this fiend to bits and ensures the irreversible exchange of his soft astrakhan for that of a wooden overcoat.
58. Dr. Leon Sterndale, The Devil’s Foot
Dr. Sterndale revenges himself upon Mortimer Tregennis, a man who killed his own sister to inherit family valuables. Dr. Sterndale, in the vein of other Holmesian “villains” before him, acts extrajudicially in a laudable way. Holmes acknowledges that he knows that Dr. Sterndale is Tregennis’ murderer, and he asks what Sterndale’s plans are. Sterndale answers that he hopes to bury himself in his work in central Africa, and Holmes gives him leave to go.
57. Captain Croker, Abbey Grange
It was a fair fight, says Captain Croker, and Sir Eustace hit first. Then Croker smashed Sir Eustace’s head in. Sir Eustace was a blackguard who got what he deserved and, in my opinion, ought to be held no more liable for Sir Eustace’s death than Holmes should be for Dr. Grimesby Roylott’s.
56. Leonardo, The Veiled Lodger
Leonardo cudgels Ronder, the circus master, with a spiked club, and he kills him. Like Captain Croker in Abbey Grange, Leonardo is guilty of helping to kill a domestic abuser whose wife he has designs upon. Unlike Captain Croker, Leonardo was actually having an affair with the victim’s wife. Just like when Croker put Sir Eustace down, Leonardo made the world a better place when he beat Ronder’s brains out. Ronder was a torturer and an animal abuser, and it is my considered opinion that there are quite enough problems in this crazy world even without such people, so we can save our mourning for the faithfully departed who were good.
55. Gennaro Lucca, The Red Circle
Gennaro has killed Black Gorgiano, and the American police believe that, for Gennaro’s services, Gennaro ought to receive “a pretty general vote of thanks.” Indeed, he has saved the American taxpayer the cost of extraditing and trying Gorgiano, and he’s upheld his own family’s honor.
54. Brunton, The Musgrave Ritual
Indeed, Brunton has wronged Rachel, the “excitable” Welsh girl, and he’s not been forthcoming with his master, Reginald Musgrave. But Brunton is a victim here of more punishment than crime. The passionate woman whose heart this “Don Juan” has broken shuts him up, either accidentally or otherwise we do not know, beneath the heavy stone flooring of the cellar. There, he dies what may only be described as an agonizing death. Brunton must have experienced awful emotions. First, of fury that his partner has betrayed him and stolen the crown that he had discovered. Second, of paralyzing fear of the horror of his situation, and of the slow death that awaited him. This reader cannot help but feel a little sympathy for the lost Lothario, for his circumstances seemed to give him an ending far worse than what he deserved.
