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 Four: The Flotsam and Jetsam
In this tier are villains whom Doyle’s readers meet in the story. But these villains are each in some way deficient. Either their characterization is weak, as in the case of Isadora Klein, or, perhaps, they are too vulgar, as in the case of Williamson and Woodley. These villains lack the texture and subtlety which could lift their role as antagonists to a level on par with that of a superlative protagonist like Holmes.
38. Isadora Klein, The Three Gables
Watson inflates Klein’s menace, saying that she’s “the criminal whom Holmes would find it hardest to face.” But thanks to Watson’s wonky appraisal and to Klein’s rather artificial characterization, Klein cannot rise to expectations. While the tiers above this are stocked with either sympathetic people who have committed heinous acts, or with cold-blooded criminals whom we never see, we now find ourselves in a territory with criminals who are motivated by self-interest and who also appear in the stories. Of these, Isadora Klein seems in possession of the weakest backbone and of the most superficial demeanor. So to me Klein is—precisely contrary to what Watson would have us believe—the criminal whom Holmes finds it easiest to face.
37. Jack Ferguson, The Sussex Vampire
I could not abide myself if I treated Jack, a fifteen year old boy, more stringently on this list. Despite attempting to poison a baby on multiple occasions, modern science has taught us that Jack’s brain is not yet developed, so he cannot be held accountable in the way that an adult can. That said, the boy’s actions make him very much open to close scrutiny till his adult years, and I would not be surprised if this child turned out to be one very bad egg. Jack seems to be of that type of spore that grows into a fungus like Francis Dolorhyde or Francis Cauldhame, and the Sussex community might rightfully be more shocked if Jack turned into a healthy, cheerful, helpful specimen of humanity rather than developing into the opposite.
36. Count Negretto Sylvius, The Mazarin Stone
Like Isadora Klein in The Three Gables, Count Sylvius is hamstrung by the story’s poor rendering of their characters. It is, for this reader, hard to trudge through Count Sylvius’ hackneyed and clichéd lines and harder still to do so once poor Sam Merton is introduced to the scene. Readers are never in doubt that Holmes will obtain the Mazarin Stone, nor are we ever in doubt that Count Sylvius will be caught. Still, I am always relieved when Holmes arrives to snatch the stone from the count, for it signals that the end of this tedious story is near.
35. Mr. Culverton Smith, The Dying Detective
Having used (and made a “special study of”) the poison once before, readers may suppose that Culverton Smith knows the effects that it will bring about as well as anyone else, and that he is able to distinguish between Holmes’ act and the true symptoms caused by this “out-of-the-way Asiatic disease.” Instead, Smith is fooled by a superficial bit of Vaseline and beeswax, and the fact that he is deceived represents a failing mark against the so-called specialist. Further against Smith is the fact that he lingers over Holmes, crowing and confessing. A real pro, a cold-blooded assassin, would spare hardly a glance at his victim—except to ensure that he was dying or dead. He would quietly gather any evidence at the scene which could incriminate him, then swiftly and silently depart. But a specialist who fails to see past Holmes’ ruse and who confesses indiscreetly to his own crimes deserves to be arrested at once by Inspector Morton, as Smith is, and he also deserves exclusion from the highest pantheon of villains.
34. Sergius, The Golden Pince-Nez
The traitor who informs on his peers and so gets Alexis sent to the Siberian salt-mines, Sergius is, like Colonel Barclay, a man who never truly gets what he deserves. Readers may not need to see sordid Russian tales of treachery in a Holmes story, and Doyle is right to omit them, but here one can certainly sympathize with Anna, who shows great courage in attempting to right past wrongs. That Sergius allows a man to toil in forced labor while he sits in his bed every day smoking cigarettes and dictating to a secretary is an abominable, if realistic, representation of the caprices of the unjust and unfair world that we inhabit.
33. Jim Browner, The Cardboard Box
Through Lestrade, we get a physical description of Mr. Browner, and through Mr. Browner’s statement, we get an idea of his voice. Such participation in the story is sufficient to qualify him to rank in this tier. Flooded with emotion, the jealous man acts, in his own words, “like a wild beast” and he murders his lover, and her lover too. Browner is a drinker, and he does not act responsibly, for even after he is arrested, he chooses to blame his murder victim instead of himself. “It was Sarah’s fault!” Browner cries after renting a rowboat and rowing out upon the water to pursue her and her lover, then beating aside the man’s attempt at self-defense, and clubbing the unarmed woman to death. On Holmes’ advice, Lestrade takes Browner into custody, where the envious, undisciplined, and emotional man shall face his reckoning.
32. Williamson and Woodley, The Solitary Cyclist
The unfrocked parson and the scheming South African who intend to marry a young woman have all the subtlety of raging elephants. The South African, Woodley, earns “the right” to marry Ralph Smith’s heir during a voyage, and he proceeds to undertake the wooing task with the hand of a boozer and the heart of a rattlesnake. It’s no wonder that she doesn’t fall head over heels for him; it seems that every rational person salivates at the idea of thrashing this pestilent bully. The former parson is no more artful. Line after line of his dialogue must be censored as “curses,” and Watson, who served in the Army, says that, “The old man, still clad in his surplice, burst into such a string of foul oaths as I have never heard.” One must suppose that such bestial behavior from Woodley and such low language from Williamson can bring no honor upon most men, and that is the case here.
31. Sutton, aka Blessington, The Resident Patient
One of these maddening people who makes himself out to be the victim without telling the whole story, Sutton is a bank robber who has ratted out his confederate, Cartwright. Cartwright was hanged on Sutton’s evidence, and the other gang members went to jail. Sutton then assumed the identity of Blessington, and he settled down to live a quiet life. Perhaps most reminiscent of the major crime figure Whitey Bulger, a man who (like Blessington, played both the criminal and police ends against the middle) vanished from the public eye for many years, Blessington ultimately gets the comeuppance that he deserves. He fails to follow Holmes’ advice to be forthright, and, we readers may be glad, is hanged after an extrajudicial trial conducted by his fellow thieves. These desperados smoked cigars at their kangaroo court and probably needed no brandy, for, likely, revenge was sweet enough.
