Sherlock Holmes as Method Expert - Essay Example

Introduction Thesis ment Body Early Experiences Basic Concepts of Forensic science Scandal in Bohemia Summary Evidence of scientific method More detailed criminal investigation methods revealed in story Undercover Investigation Psychological profiling Five Orange Pips Summary Evidence of scientific method More detailed criminal investigation methods revealed in story Paper trail Conclusion Introduced importance of scientific method in solving crimes Summary of evidence of scientific method in stories Innovative approach to discovering answers Sherlock Holmes as Method Expert Student name Instructor name Course name Date One of the most well-known detectives of all time is a man who never existed. In bringing to life the character of Sherlock Holmes through 60 original stories, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle introduced the scientific process to the process of solving crime. According to an article published in 1951, Doyle did not believe the contemporary process of solving crime through such processes as intuition or circumstantial evidence was sufficient for determining guilt or innocence (“Baker Street Reflections”, 1951). Trained as a physician himself, Doyle was intimately aware of the importance of the scientific process in deducing the causes of illness or the nature of injury as a means of helping his patients. However, with a great deal of time on his hands thanks to a lackluster practice and a keen interest in real-life mystery, it was perhaps inevitable that he would make these connections. According to his wife, “he was able, through his remarkable powers of deduction and inference, to locate missing people whose relatives had given them up as lost or murdered” (Lady Conan Doyle 1934, 29). This application of scientific method as a means of solving crimes was not Doyle’s only contribution to detective work, though. He also pioneered the use of fingerprint analysis, serology and weapons analysis in criminal investigation. His knowledge of geology also contributed to his genius in creating his character and in revolutionizing the way in which the world investigated crime scenes. What was perhaps most remarkable was that Doyle did not accomplish these feats by lecturing the police departments or establishing a private detective firm that consistently put the police to shame. Instead, Doyle instructed the world as to how forensic science could be used as a means of correctly deducing the nature of the crime and identity of the criminal through his entertaining short stories and novels featuring the now famous fictional Sherlock Holmes. Understanding some of the personal history of the author and his interests helps to illuminate some of the methods employed by his character in stories such as “A Scandal in Bohemia” and “The Five Orange Pips.” Some of Arthur Conan Doyle’s earliest memories were necessarily shaped by his experience of his father’s occupations and his mother’s influence. Although Charles Doyle worked primarily as a civil servant throughout his life, he was also an artist who took positions illustrating high-profile criminal trials and news articles (Booth 2000). His younger son, bitterly disappointed by the alcoholic wreck of a man his father had become might have looked upon this aspect of his father’s past as an example of what might have been, using this as a stepping stone into his own future. However, a great deal of his thought and upbringing can be attributed to his mother and the boarding schools she sent him to as a means of separating him from the negative influences of a father lost to alcoholism and a home life limited by poverty (Booth 2000). By 1876, he was studying medicine and became a student of Dr. Joseph Bell, a surgeon and forensic expert. “Doyle studied his mentor intently, noting Bell’s outstanding ability to deduce large amounts of information simply from looking at a patient. Bell told his pupils: ‘The student must be taught to observe … he can discover in ordinary matter information such as the previous history, nationality and occupation’” (Cooper 2002). This became the model upon which Sherlock Holmes was built. However, before elements of forensic method can be traced within the stories featuring this legendary and influential fictional character, some basic concepts must first be made clear. The first is in recognizing the basic elements of the scientific method as it is discussed here and introduced by Doyle within his fiction. This is, roughly speaking, an empirical method employing analysis, comparison and evaluation (Nickell & Fischer 1998). This implies that the method is based upon knowledge gained through direct observation rather than ‘feelings’, ‘intuitions’ or simple suspicion. “It [the knowledge] is amenable to being amplified or to having its errors corrected in the light of new evidence” (Nickell & Fischer 1998, 1). Analysis involves careful scrutiny of the unknown issue as a means of understanding its essential characteristics. This stage is followed by comparison, which helps reveal similarities and anomalies between the issue and other known items. Finally, evaluation assesses the significance of these similarities and differences for a conclusion. In making this a ‘forensic’ science, one is practicing science that can be used in a court of law. With these conceptions in mind, it is possible to begin tracing these elements as well as the more specific methods of observation and investigation that were so influential upon forensic science practice through stories such as “A Scandal in Bohemia” and “The Five Orange Pips.” The first of these stories was written in 1851 and was the first of Doyle’s short stories to appear in the Strand magazine (Redmond 2007). In this story, the detective is hired by the king of another nation to help prevent a princess from learning of an unwise affair the king had once shared with a young opera singer, a Miss Irene Adler. The singer, in typical female angst at having been judged not of the proper social station to be considered as queen, has threatened to expose the affair to the king’s betrothed as soon as the announcement is made public. Holmes is requested to retrieve the incriminating evidence, a photograph of the King and the singer together, before the public announcement is made. Thus, the greatest crime is potential blackmail, although no money has been requested and has actually been refused. Although it is arguable as to whether or not it can properly be considered a ‘detective’ story because it does not deal specifically with hard crime, this story already begins to introduce such ideas as undercover observation and psychological profiling as a means of detecting criminals through the scientific application of analysis, comparison and evaluation. Holmes demonstrates his tendency to think in a continuous cycle of analysis, comparison and evaluation from the first moments he begins talking with Watson. Within his first few statements to Watson, Holmes reveals that he is aware his friend had gained some weight following his marriage, he had taken up his medical practice again, he had been walking about in wet places and he had a relatively untalented serving girl. When Watson expresses his astonishment, Holmes explains that the shoes had been “very carelessly scraped round the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud from it” (Doyle 241) demonstrating both the slovenly habits of the serving girl and the walking habits of the shoes’ owner. Evidence such as “smelling of iodoform,” “a black mark of nitrate of silver” and “a bulge on the right side of his top-hat to show where he has secreted his stethoscope” revealed to Holmes his friend’s return to medicine (Doyle 241). In this sequence, Holmes’ thought process can be seen as first he analyzes what he sees before him, compares it to his own experiences and knowledge and evaluates the significance of these observations within a very quick sequence. However, this same sequence is then repeated as Holmes determines whom he should expect after receiving his letter and deduces a means of discovering the hiding place of the incriminating photograph. When these same processes are used as a means of thwarting his final scheme, which would recover the photograph for the king, Holmes is sufficiently impressed to request an image of the woman, as he would forever after refer to Irene. Common criminal science techniques today were not so common when Doyle was writing his short stories and novels so techniques such as undercover operations and psychological profiling were relatively revolutionary concepts for many of his readers. However, these elements are unmistakable in this story, each playing a major role in the solution of the ‘crime’. The words of Watson make it clear that Holmes is accustomed to using disguises as a means of accomplishing the necessary observations required to collect the necessary information required to solve the puzzle. “Accustomed as I was to my friend’s amazing powers in the use of disguises, I had to look three times before I was certain that it was indeed he” (Doyle 249) Watson says of Holmes, who had just entered the room disguised as a poor groom. Holmes appears in yet another disguise in this story, dressing as an “amiable and simple-minded Nonconformist clergyman” (Doyle 254), yet this disguise is penetrated by the discerning eyes of the actress/songstress, who uses her own disguise to confirm her suspicions. Perhaps falling under most reader’s radar regarding this story is Holmes’ elementary use of psychological profiling as a means of discovering the secrets of his ‘criminal’. The first example of this is when Holmes explains to Watson “Women are naturally secretive and they like to do their own secreting” (Doyle 255). While this conclusion has been reached before, causing the king to hire individuals to search the house when she wasn’t home, Holmes realizes that the best way to discover the hiding place is through the natural human inclination to preserve what is valuable. “When a woman thinks that her house is on fire, her instinct is at once to rush to the thing which she values most. It is a perfectly overpowering impulse and I have more than once taken advantage of it” (Doyle 258). In rescuing the picture, Holmes also factors in the psychological element as he invites the king to come along with them so that he might secure the picture himself. While things don’t work out quite as Holmes planned, Doyle is careful to emphasize the psychological element even as it strikes Holmes, who has been outsmarted by the woman. “The Five Orange Pips” is another short story in which Holmes is unable to bring about justice through his intellect despite using his scientific methods and innovative crime solving techniques. Also published during the first year of the syndicated original short stories, in this story, the ultimate crime solver is appealed to by a young man evidently in fear for his life. As the young man tells his story, it becomes clear to a modern audience that his uncle Elias was somehow involved relatively heavily with the Klu Klux Klan at its founding levels. The only time Holmes interrupts the young man’s narrative is to ascertain the date the first letter with five pips enclosed arrived and the date of the uncle’s death. As the young man recounts the subsequent receipt by his father of a similar envelop containing five pips and then his death soon following and finally reveals his own letter with five pips, Holmes begins to question him regarding the actions that have already been taken, as if he already has a specific timeline in mind. As the answers are provided, Holmes reveals that this is, indeed, the case: “It is really two days since you had the letter. We should have acted before this” (Doyle 340). Although it is believed Holmes has cracked the case by the end of the story, it is also anticlimactic in that the client has been murdered by this point and the suspected criminals have disappeared into the Atlantic, presumably drowned in a shipwreck. This story is similar to the Bohemian tale in more ways than an ‘unsolved’ crime as it follows the same pattern of allowing the detective to first demonstrate his amazing powers of deduction on something small, something larger and then applying them to the case at hand more specifically. When the young man enters Holmes’ study, Holmes takes his coat and umbrella making the comment, “You have come up from the south-west I see” (Doyle 333). While the young man simply confirms this by naming his specific town, Holmes provides the unasked for explanation that “that clay and chalk mixture which I see upon your toe-caps is quite distinctive” (Doyle 333). Like his first example of reasoning in the other story with Watson’s activities, Holmes goes through the three-step process of analysis, comparison and evaluation. He first notices that there is mud on the man’s shoes, then compares this sort of mud with his base knowledge of the various soils in the region and evaluates this comparison to determine where this young man is from. As the man tells Holmes about his problem, Holmes listens carefully and attentively, analyzing the information he’s being given and making comparisons as it is being said. For example, he is aware that the time it took for the letter to arrive in Elias’ hands and the day of Elias’ death was approximately the length of time it takes for a sailing vessel to travel from the location on the postmark to the location of Elias’ home. This information, coupled with the other information Holmes is able to gather about the letters, enables him to discover what he is seeking when he goes into his more in-depth investigation, employing yet another innovative approach to crime solving, tracing through the paper trail. It is beyond obvious to Holmes that Elias and Joseph were killed for their failure to return the papers that had been requested. Although Joseph had no idea what they were and Elias had burned them, neither of these facts made any difference to those exacting their own brand of justice. To try to discover the Openshaw murderers, Holmes traces the paper trail that has been left to him, beginning with the three capital letter Ks written on the inside flap of the envelop and the postmarks on these same envelopes. He is already generally aware of the KKK as an organization, reading a bibliographic entry on the organization aloud to Watson as a means of beginning to explain the significance of the pips and the letters. This explanation includes the suggestion that a good deal of what is known already begins to explain what is unknown. “You will observe … that the sudden breakup of the society was coincident with the disappearance of Openshaw from America with their papers. It may well have been cause and effect” (Doyle 346). Although he is given no further evidence and his client is now dead, Holmes manages to confirm his suspicions regarding their identity by tracing through the old shipping records to discover a sailing ship that was in the proper ports at the proper times and with a name, Lone Star, that coincides with the concepts of the South in the United States. Through these two stories, Doyle emphasized first the importance of applying the scientific method to the business of solving crimes and then revealed the many innovative approaches that might be found as a means of solving the unanswerable questions of his time. Through all of his stories, it can be seen how he quickly analyzes, compares and evaluates the information he is provided, using this ability to identify not only what is known, but also what is unknown and has yet to be discovered. Understanding where the gaps are enables him to discover innovative means of discovering the hiding place of a secret lover or the identity of an unknown and unseen entity through disguise or through sifting papers or some other means. While today’s methods may look somewhat different in that our disguises have become perhaps more believable and our means of tracing papers more automated, this same process of empirical scientific method continues to be the fundamental building block upon which modern crimes continue to be solved. Works Cited “Baker Street Reflections.” Justice of the Peach and Local Government Review. (September 1, 1951). Reprinted in Sherlock Holmes Scrapbook. Peter Haining (ed.). New York: Crescent Books, 1986. Booth, Martin. The Doctor and the Detective: A Biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. New York: St. Martins Minotaur, 2000. Cooper, Nigel. “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Legendary Crime Writer.” Life Stories. (December 2002). July 22, 2008 Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. “A Scandal in Bohemia.” Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories. Vol. 1. New York: Bantam Dell, 1986: 239-262. Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. “The Five Orange Pips.” Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories. Vol. 2. New York: Bantam Dell, 1986: 331-350. Doyle, Lady Conan. “Conan Doyle was Sherlock Holmes.” Pearsons Magazine. (December, 1934). Reprinted in Sherlock Holmes Scrapbook. Peter Haining (ed.). New York: Crescent Books, 1986. Nickell, Joe & John F. Fischer. Crime Scene: Methods of Forensic Detection. Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1998. Redmond, Chris. “The Original Sherlock Holmes Stories.” Sherlockian. (2007). July 22, 2008 Read More