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 Two: Distant Lamps in a Dark Forest
These villains draw readers to them, and we find that, even as we approach, there is an air of uncertainty, danger, and almost magical trickery. Nearer though we come, we cannot determine these villains’ true selves till we know them better; their disguised menace hides their charming charismas, and that charm lures us to stay with them awhile.
16. Beddington, The Stock-Broker’s Clerk
Beddington, alias Mr. Pinner, is one of a pair of brothers. The other was captured in a daring, violent, and foiled bank robbery. Beddington is left with a “ghastly smile” and attempts to hang himself. Their brothers’ plan, which appears in the same genus as the one from The Red-Headed League, was solved without interdiction from Holmes, whose main role in the case is to save the suicidal criminal.
15. Mortimer Tregennis, The Devil’s Foot
With “Radix pedis diaboli,” Mortimer Tregennis kills his sister and sends his brothers to the madhouse. His murder method is artful; his motive is clear; his crime is vile. What prevents Tregennis from more careful consideration? In the first place, the “devil’s-foot root” does not exist, and so the means of murder is a bit fanciful. In the second place, Tregennis’ character is overshadowed in the story by that of Dr. Leon Sterndale. Like Dr. Leslie Armstrong in The Missing Three-Quarter, Dr. Sterndale is a powerful presence, a lion who dominates the page. By contrast, Tregennis is a wallflower. He’s a murderer, sure, but, by the end, so is Sterndale. More importantly, Tregennis’ personality is not so robust as Sterndale’s. Tregennis is bland and milquetoast; Sterndale is masculine, independent, and willful. Accordingly, when readers think of the story of the devil’s foot, they think first of madness, of the fantastic plant, and of the commanding doctor. Tregennis, for all his villainy, is the afterthought.
14. Mr. Jephro Rucastle, The Copper Beeches
Mr. Rucastle and his wife have imprisoned their own daughter. Not only that, but the devilish old fellow has enlisted the services of a young, capable woman to ward off the beseeching entreaties of Alice’s suitor. Rucastle’s personality is a mix of the selfish, narrow-minded, and tyrannical, and it makes him quite a frightening specimen of humanity. He seems to care for no one other than himself, and he seems, like Dr. Roylott, to have no limit on his willingness to get his way. We readers are left with an impression of an early Milverton study—the Pickwickian face and deceitful smile—bound up in the body of a bully. To this reader, this particular personality type is reminiscent of tinpot, demagogue dictators, of the species of Mussolinis and McCarthys that wreak havoc.
13. Joseph Harrison, The Naval Treaty
Mr. Joseph Harrison, a patient but rather unlucky criminal, succeeds in slicing Holmes’ knuckles open with a knife and in pilfering the vital naval treaty. He does so at the expense of Percy Phelps, the man who is soon to be Mr. Harrison’s brother-in-law by way of Percy’s sister, Annie. But Joseph’s luck is short-lived. When Percy collapses in a brain fever, Joseph cannot access the papers that he risked his reputation and freedom to get. Still, he shows himself to be a calloused, hard criminal: “I can only say for certain that Mr. Joseph Harrison is a gentleman to whose mercy I should be extremely unwilling to trust,” says Holmes. Harrison has considerable “page-presence” (like unto stage presence), and is dangerous, savvy, and unscrupulous. He’s a worthy Holmes adversary, but, because his crime was motivated mainly by opportunity (and was thus less calculated than some of the other villains’), he cannot enter the highest tier of villains.
12. J.P. and Alec Cunningham, The Reigate Squires
That a justice of the peace and his son could kill the butler and attempt to kill Holmes reminds this reader of the Alex Murdaugh case: a sensational and homicidal affair in which someone who is pledged to uphold the law instead grossly violates it. Motivated by greed, selfishness, and a desperation to get free of blackmail, the two Cunninghams take the law into their own hands. They commit murder, then, once caught, the younger Cunningham, Alec, shows himself to be completely unrepentant.
11. Colonel Lysander Stark, The Engineer’s Thumb
A violent man who is responsible for one of the goriest stories in the canon, Stark chops off an engineer’s thumb with a butcher’s cleaver. Stark’s depiction, like Professor Moriarty’s, is one which we can credit Sidney Paget with stamping irrevocably on our mental retinas. Spare, thin, aquiline, and brimming with menace is the colonel. He is not a man with whom I would be comfortable sharing a meal, nor even sharing a row on any sort of public transportation. He seems to exude ominousness. It is a shame that we hear from Stark only from Hatherley, our engineer, and that Stark (along with the woman and the morose Englishman) escape entirely from Holmes’ clutches. Presumably, Colonel Lysander Stark (what an apt name!) goes on to profit in his criminal ways elsewhere in the world and to make others’ lives miserable in so doing.
