Sherlock Holmes: The Valley of Fear

Book 0: Sherlock Complete Set

by Arthur Conan Doyle

Genres: General Fiction; Mystery

Synopsis

"Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius." ~ The Valley of Fear

The Valley of Fear is the fourth and final Sherlock Holmes novel by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle. It is loosely based on the Molly Maguires and Pinkerton agent James McParland. The story was first published in Strand Magazine between September 1914 and May 1915. The first book edition was copyrighted in 1914, and it was first published by George H. Doran Company in New York on 27 February 1915, and illustrated by Arthur I. Keller.

Doyle said the iconic book had "two parts and a coda". The novel has a number of major themes, including "problems of ethical ambiguity", and attempts to comment seriously on terrorist activity as profiled by American union struggles. Critics have shown how the American union struggles deal with similar issues in the contemporary political situation in Ireland.

Born in 1859, Arthur Conan Doyle is the author most famous for creating the detective Sherlock Holmes and is renowned as the world's greatest crime fiction writer. Spending his childhood in Scotland, his first career choice was to be a doctor, and indeed he ended up with his own medical practice. It was during the failure of this first business venture that Doyle began writing to pass the time. With the creation of Sherlock Holmes, Doyle embarked on a series of crime stories that brought new levels of realism to a marginalized genre. He also became a real-life detective on occasion, personally investigating two crimes that eventually led to the release of the accused men. His Sherlock Holmes stories have found enduring popularity and have seen countless Television, Stage, and film adaptations over the course of the last century.

Release date: August 4, 2011

Publisher: Page2Page

Print pages: 162

Sample

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Picardy Place in Edinburgh on May 22, 1859, son of Charles Altamount Doyle and Mary (Foley)
Doyle, and one of seven children who survived to adulthood. The Doyles were an artistic family, the most successful being
Arthur’s uncle ‘Dickie’ Doyle, the noted illustrator for Punch, but his father suffered from alcoholism and later epilepsy, and was eventually committed to a mental hospital. Conan Doyle
maintained a distant relationship with him, but it was his mother, whom he affectionately referred to as ‘the Ma’am’, who
encouraged his love of literature, and he remained close to her throughout his life. The young Arthur was educated at the
northern Jesuit school Stonyhurst, going on to study medicine at Edinburgh and was an enthusiastic reader and storyteller
from a young age, as well as being an active sportsman.


Conan Doyle incurred the wrath of his rich relations when he announced he was an agnostic. Rejecting their strict Catholicism
and cut off from their patronage, he decided to set up his own practice in Southsea in 1882. There he met his first wife,
Louise Hawkins or ‘Touie’, and the couple were married in 1885, later having two children, a son and a daughter. But in 1897
Conan Doyle met and instantly fell in love with Jean Leckie. They maintained a platonic relationship for ten years and Conan
Doyle struggled with his feelings of guilt and deep affection for his wife and his passion for Jean. When in 1906 Touie died
of consumption, Conan Doyle genuinely mourned her. He finally married Jean in 1907 and they had two sons and a daughter, living
very happily together on their estate in Sussex, Windlesham, until Conan Doyle’s death in 1930.


It was in the year after his first marriage that Conan Doyle began toying with a character called Sherrinford Holmes. This
was to become the first Sherlock Holmes story, his ‘shilling shocker’, A Study in Scarlet, published in 1887. And so the celebrated detective was born, with the faithful Dr Watson at his side. Conan Doyle consistently
gave credit for the character to Dr Joseph Bell, an old tutor of his from Edinburgh University whose precision and powers
of deduction Conan Doyle greatly admired. On the origins of the name, he commented that ‘I made thirty runs [at cricket] against
a bowler by the name of Sherlock, and I always had a kindly feeling for the name’.


But it was in the new, popular literary magazine the Strand that the phenomenon of Sherlock Holmes really took off, with ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ appearing in 1891. It was an instant
hit. Sidney Paget created the distinctive illustrations of Holmes, based on his younger brother Walter, depicted in a deerstalker
(the pipe would come later). This iconic image became etched in the public’s mind and was more glamorous than Conan Doyle
had envisaged; ‘the handsome Walter took the place of the more powerful, but uglier, Sherlock, and perhaps from the point
of view of my lady readers it was as well.’


By this time Conan Doyle had given up practising medicine entirely to write. He yearned to concentrate on his historical novels
and, despite his success, saw Holmes as ‘taking his mind from better things’. So, after only two years, in 1893 he decided
to kill him off in ‘The Final Problem,’ where Holmes famously met his end alongside his nemesis Professor Moriarty. The public
outcry was instant: women wept, men donned black armbands and subscriptions to the Strand plummeted by over 20,000, yet Conan Doyle was unmoved: ‘I feel towards him as I do towards pâté de foie gras, of which I once ate too much, so that the name of it gives me a sickly feeling to this day.’ It wasn’t until 1901 that Holmes
reappeared in The Hound of the Baskervilles (a story that predated his death) and, with the public clamouring for more, Conan Doyle finally brought him back to life in ‘The Adventure of the Empty House’ (1903). By the beginning of the twentieth
century the fan base for Sherlock Holmes was massive and far-reaching, from a Boston cabby in America to Abdul Hamid II, the
then Sultan of Turkey, and has continued growing to this day. There have been countless stage productions and films, with
Holmes defined by such actors as Basil Rathbone, Jeremy Brett and Michael Caine. And the stories weren’t merely entertainment;
the investigative methods Conan Doyle used are said to have had a huge influence on police processes at the time.


Although Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s name will always be synonymous with Sherlock Holmes, his volume of works was huge and wide-ranging,
including historical fiction such as Micah Clarke and The White Company, histories of the Boer War and World War One, as well as the Professor Challenger stories, The Lost World (seen as the inspiration for Michael Crichton’s hugely popular Jurassic Park) and The Poison Belt. Conan Doyle’s fascination with spiritualism very much governed his outlook later on in life and he wrote The Coming of the Fairies in response to the case of the Cottingley fairies. Many fans found it hard to associate the creator of a detective so wedded
to cool logic and fact with this ardent champion of the supernatural, but he never swayed in his beliefs.


Conan Doyle died in 1930 at the age of seventy-one, with his beloved Jean by his side and was buried in the grounds of Windlesham,
with the headstone inscribed, at his request, ‘Steel True, Blade Straight’. Sir Winston Churchill said, ‘I had a great admiration
for him. Of course I read every Sherlock Holmes story … [they] have certainly found a permanent place in English literature.’


‘I am inclined to think—’ said I.


‘I should do so,’ Sherlock Holmes remarked impatiently.

‘I believe that I am one of the most long-suffering of mortals; but I’ll admit that I was annoyed at the sardonic interruption.
“Really, Holmes,” said I severely, you are a little trying at times.’


He was too much absorbed with his own thoughts to give any immediate answer to my remonstrance. He leaned upon his hand, with
his untasted breakfast before him, and he stared at the slip of paper which he had just drawn from its envelope. Then he took
the envelope itself, held it up to the light, and very carefully studied both the exterior and the flap.


‘It is Porlock’s writing,’ said he thoughtfully. ‘I can hardly doubt that it is Porlock’s writing, though I have seen it only
twice before. The Greek e with the peculiar top flourish is distinctive. But if it is Porlock, then it must be something of the very first importance.’


He was speaking to himself rather than to me; but my vexation disappeared in the interest which the words awakened.

‘Who then is Porlock?’ I asked.

‘Porlock, Watson, is a nom-de-plume, a mere identification mark; but behind it lies a shifty and evasive personality. In a former letter he frankly informed
me that the name was not his own, and defied me ever to trace him among the teeming millions of this great city. Porlock is
important, not for himself, but for the great man with whom he is in touch. Picture to yourself the pilot fish with the shark,
the jackal with the lion – anything that is insignificant in companionship with what is formidable: not only formidable, Watson,
but sinister – in the highest degree sinister. That is where he comes within my purview. You have heard me speak of Professor
Moriarty?’


‘The famous scientific criminal, as famous among crooks as—’

‘My blushes, Watson!’ Holmes murmured in a deprecating voice.

‘I was about to say “as he is unknown to the public”.’

‘A touch! A distinct touch!’ cried Holmes. ‘You are developing a certain unexpected vein of pawky humour, Watson, against
which I must learn to guard myself. But in calling Moriarty a criminal, you are uttering libel in the eyes of the law – and
there lie the glory and the wonder of it! The greatest schemer of all time, the organizer of every deviltry, the controlling
brain of the underworld, a brain which might have made or marred the destiny of nations, – that’s the man! But so aloof is
he from general suspicion, so immune from criticism, so admirable in his management and self-effacement, that for those very
words that you have uttered he could hale you to a court and emerge with your year’s pension as a solatium for his wounded
character. Is he not the celebrated author of The Dynamics of an Asteroid, a book which ascends to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that it is said that there was no man in the scientific press capable of criticizing it? Is this a man to traduce?
Foul-mouthed doctor and slandered professor – such would be your respective rôles! That’s genius, Watson. But if I am spared
by lesser men, our day will surely come.’


‘May I be there to see!’ I exclaimed devoutly. ‘But you were speaking of this man Porlock.’

‘Ah, yes – the so-called Porlock is a link in the chain some little way from its great attachment. Porlock is not quite a
sound link – between ourselves. He is the only flaw in that chain so far as I have been able to test it.’


‘But no chain is stronger than its weakest link.’

‘Exactly, my dear Watson! Hence the extreme importance of Porlock. Led on by some rudimentary aspirations towards right, and
encouraged by the judicious stimulation of an occasional ten-pound note sent to him by devious methods, he has once or twice
given me advance information which has been of value – that highest value which anticipates and prevents rather than avenges
crime. I cannot doubt that, if we had the cipher, we should find that this communication is of the nature that I indicate.’


Again Holmes flattened out the paper upon his unused plate. I rose and, leaning over him, stared down at the curious inscription,
which ran as follows:




‘What do you make of it, Holmes?’

‘It is obviously an attempt to convey secret information.’

‘But what is the use of a cipher message without the cipher?’

‘In this instance, none at all.’

‘Why do you say “in this instance”?’

‘Because there are many ciphers which I would read as easily as I do the apocrypha of the agony column: such crude devices
amuse the intelligence without fatiguing it. But this is different. It is clearly a reference to the words in a page of some
book. Until I am told which page and which book I am powerless.’


‘But why “Douglas” and “Birlstone”?’

‘Clearly because those are words which were not contained in the page in question.’

‘Then why has he not indicated the book?’

‘Your native shrewdness, my dear Watson, that innate cunning which is the delight of your friends, would surely prevent you
from enclosing cipher and message in the same envelope. Should it miscarry, you are undone. As it is, both have to go wrong
before any harm comes from it. Our second post is now overdue, and I shall be surprised if it does not bring us either a further
letter of explanation, or, as is more probable, the very volume to which these figures refer.’


Holmes’s calculation was fulfilled within a very few minutes by the appearance of Billy, the page, with the very letter which
we were expecting.


‘The same writing,’ remarked Holmes, as he opened the envelope, ‘and actually signed,’ he added in an exultant voice as he
unfolded the epistle. ‘Come, we are getting on, Watson.’ His brow clouded, however, as he glanced over the contents.


‘Dear me, this is very disappointing! I fear, Watson, that all our expectations come to nothing. I trust that the man Porlock
will come to no harm.’


‘“Dear Mr Holmes,” he says, “I will go no further in this manner. It is too dangerous – he suspects me. I can see that he
suspects me. He came to me quite unexpectedly after I had actually addressed this envelope with the intention of sending you
the key to the cipher. I was able to cover it up. If he had seen it, it would have gone hard with me. But I read suspicion
in his eyes. Please burn the cipher message, which can now be of no use to you.


FRED PORLOCK.”’


Holmes sat for some little time twisting this letter between his fingers, and frowning, as he stared into the fire.

‘After all,’ he said at last, ‘there may be nothing in it. It may be only his guilty conscience. Knowing himself to be a traitor,
he may have read the accusation in the other’s eyes.’


‘The other being, I presume, Professor Moriarty.’

‘No less! When any of that party talk about “he”, you know whom they mean. There is one predominant “he” for all of them.’

‘But what can he do?’

‘Hum! That’s a large question. When you have one of the first brains of Europe up against you, and all the powers of darkness
at his back, there are infinite possibilities. Anyhow, Friend Porlock is evidently scared out of his senses – kindly compare
the writing in the note to that upon its envelope; which was done, he tells us, before this ill-omened visit. The one is clear
and firm. The other hardly legible.’


‘Why did he write at all? Why did he not simply drop it?’

‘Because he feared I would make some inquiry after him in that case, and possibly bring trouble on him.’

‘No doubt,’ said I. ‘Of course.’ I had picked up the original cipher message and was bending my brows over it. ‘It’s pretty maddening to think that an important secret may lie
here on this slip of paper, and that it is beyond human power to penetrate it.’


Sherlock Holmes had pushed away his untasted breakfast and lit the unsavoury pipe which was the companion of his deepest meditations.
‘I wonder!’ said he, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. ‘Perhaps there are points which have escaped your Machiavellian
intellect. Let us consider the problem in the light of pure reason. This man’s reference is to a book. That is our point of
departure.’


‘A somewhat vague one.’

‘Let us see, then, if we can narrow it down. As I focus my mind upon it, it seems rather less impenetrable. What indications
have we as to this book?’


‘None.’

‘Well, well, it is surely not quite so bad as that. The cipher message begins with a large 534, does it not? We may take it
as a working hypothesis that 534 is the particular page to which the cipher refers. So our book has already become a large book, which is surely something gained. What other indications have we as to the nature of this large book? The next sign
is C2. What do you make of that, Watson?’


‘Chapter the second, no doubt.’

‘Hardly that, Watson. You will, I am sure, agree with me that if the page be given, the number of the chapter is immaterial.
Also that if page 534 finds us only in the second chapter, the length of the first one must have been really intolerable.’


‘Column!’ I cried.

‘Brilliant, Watson. You are scintillating this morning. If it is not column, then I am very much deceived. So now, you see, we begin to visualize a large book printed in double columns, which are each of a considerable length, since one of the
words is numbered in the document as the two hundred and ninety-third. Have we reached the limits of what reason can supply?’


‘I fear that we have.’

‘Surely you do yourself an injustice. One more coruscation, my dear Watson – yet another brain-wave! Had the volume been an
unusual one, he would have sent it to me. Instead of that, he had intended, before his plans were nipped, to send me the clue
in this envelope. He says so in his note. This would seem to indicate that the book is one which he thought I would have no
difficulty in finding for myself. He had it – and he imagined that I would have it, too. In short, Watson, it is a very common
book.’


‘What you say certainly sounds plausible.’

‘So we have contracted our field of search to a large book, printed in double columns and in common use.’

‘The Bible!’ I cried triumphantly.

‘Good, Watson, good! But not, if I may say so, quite good enough! Even if I accepted the compliment for myself, I could hardly
name any volume which would be less likely to lie at the elbow of one of Moriarty’s associates. Besides, the editions of Holy
Writ are so numerous that . . .