11. The Adventure of the Devil's Foot

‘The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot,’ the third story in the Sherlock Holmes collection His Last Bow, was first published by The Strand Magazine in 1910. A tale of death and diablerie in Cornwall, it harks back to some of Conan Doyle’s earlier works.

You can read the short story here: https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=The_Adventure_of_the_Devil%27s_Foot

The episode can be heard here: http://doingsofdoyle.podbean.com/.

Synopsis

It is spring 1897 and Sherlock Holmes has been ordered by Harley Street specialist Dr Moore Agar to take some time away from his workload or suffer the inevitable medical consequences. Grudgingly, Holmes takes a rest cure in Cornwall, accompanied by Dr Watson. His recovery, however, is interrupted by a mysterious and unsettling tragedy in a nearby property occupied by the Tregennis family. Brenda Tregennis has been found dead, and two of her brothers, Owen and George, have gone mad overnight. The faces of all three are marked by a look of horror. The third brother, Mortimer, who lodges with the local vicar, left the house before the terrifying visitation, but he too is later found dead under similar circumstances to his sister. Holmes’s only lead in these singular events are provided by a strange powder, and the presence in the neighbourhood of the celebrated Explorer and lion-hunter, Dr Leon Sterndale…

Writing and publication history

• Written in April/May 1910, shortly after Conan Doyle had returned from holiday in Cornwall.
• First published in the UK in The Strand Magazine (Dec 1910) and in the US in The Strand Magazine, New York (Jan-Feb 1911).

Cornwall

• 'The Captain of the Pole-Star' (1883), see episode 3, https://doingsofdoyle.podbean.com/e/the-captain-of-the-pole-star/
• Owen Dudley Edwards (ed.), His Last Bow (Oxford Sherlock Holmes, 1993)
• Poldhu, Cornwall - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poldhu
• Through the Magic Door (1907), https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=Through_the_Magic_Door 
• For more on Henry Irving, see Episode 10, https://doingsofdoyle.podbean.com/e/a-straggler-of-15-and-waterloo/
• The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901-2), https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=The_Hound_of_the_Baskervilles

John Donne

• 
  John Donne (1572-1632), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Donne
• Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/48772/48772-h/48772-h.htm
• Mark Jones, ‘Invoking the Devil: John Donne, radix pedis diaboli and truth of the Cornish Horror,’ The Passengers’ Log (Sydney Passengers), Forthcoming 2021.

The Devil’s Foot root, radix pedis diaboli

• Sir Robert Christison, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Christison
• Conan Doyle’s article, ‘Gelseminum as a Poison’ (British Medical Journal, 20 September 1879), https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=Gelseminum_as_a_Poison
• Mandrake Root, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandrake

Edgar Allen Poe

• E. A. Poe, ‘The Imp of the Perverse,’ (1845), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Imp_of_the_Perverse_(short_story)

Dr Leon Sterndale

• 
  Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-90), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Francis_Burton
• Robert Lander (1804-1834), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lander
• President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt  
• E. D. Morel (1873-1923), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._D._Morel
• Roger Casement (1864-1916), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Casement

Public campaigns

• 
  The Crime of the Congo (First published 1909), https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=The_Crime_of_the_Congo 
• The Divorce Law Reform Union (President from 1906).
• Mary Seaton-Tiedeman (1862-1948), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Seaton-Tiedeman 

Next time on the Doings of Doyle…

A trip to the court of Louis XIV then over the Atlantic to North America in Conan Doyle’s 1893 novel, The Refugees. Read it here: https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=The_Refugees 

Acknowledgements

Thanks to our sponsor, Belanger Books: www.belangerbooks.com, and to our patrons on Patreon.

Image credits: Thanks to Alexis Barquin at The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia for permission to reproduce these images. Please support the encyclopaedia at www.arthur-conan-doyle.com.

Music credit: Sneaky Snitch Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons:  By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/