61. The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual (1893)

William H. Hyde illustration for Harper's Weekly

Hello and welcome to Episode 61. Today, we return to Baker Street – or should that be Montague Street? – for another memoir of Sherlock Holmes, ‘The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual’ (1893).

Read the story here: https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/The_Adventure_of_the_Musgrave_Ritual

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Synopsis

Whilst tidying his papers in the Baker Street flat, Sherlock Holmes unearths some relics of one of his earliest cases. His client, an old university associate called Reginald Musgrave, hires the nascent detective to investigate the recent disappearances of Hurlstone’s butler and one of the housemaids. It is quite clear, however, that this is no elopement, and central to the mystery is the old family catechism known as the Musgrave Ritual…

Writing and publication history

by Sidney Paget

‘The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual’ (MUSG) is the sixth of the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, the second series of short stories. ACD began writing the series in June 1892, shortly after completing The Great Shadow (discussed in Episode 48). He wrote three stories before going on holiday to Norway, and three on his return. MUSG was in the second batch of three and was submitted to The Strand Magazine on 22 October 1892.

The story was fleetingly referenced in the original Strand edition of ‘The Adventure of the Yellow Face’ (Feb 1892). Here it was said to be a rare failure, indicating that ACD had the title before the plot. By the time the Memoirs were compiled for book form, ACD changed the reference above to “the affair of the second stain” – another instance where the title proceeded the story.

MUSG first appeared in the Strand in May 1893 and was collected in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, issued in December 1993. It was well received, notably by the Westminster Gazette (15 December 1893) which singled out the mathematical solution in MUSG.

In 1927, ACD ranked MUSG eleventh in his top 12 favourite Sherlock Holmes stories, citing the “historical touch which gives it a little added distinction. It is also a memory from Holmes's early life.” In 1999, a survey by the Baker Street Journal placed it as the sixth most popular short story among readers.

Inspirations

The Gold Bug, illus. by F. O. C. Darley

Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Gold Bug’ (Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper, June 1843) is the most obvious influence on the story. Not only does it provide the treasure hunt element, it also has a cryptic clue, the pacing of distances and compass points. MUSG also draws on another Poe favourite, ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ (Godey's Lady's Book, November 1846), with the death of Brunton.

There are a few more less well-known stories that may have been an influence. A play called ‘The Four-leaved Shamrock’ by C. J. Hamilton, which appeared in Beaton’s Christmas 1887 alongside A Study in Scarlet, has a dishonest butler dying in pursuit of hidden treasure. H. Rider Haggard’s Colonel Quaritch, VC (Dec 1888) concerns hidden Stuart treasures and a code in a family bible. Most significantly there is ‘Sefton’s Servant’ by Stanley Weyman (Cornhill, March 1890) which also concerns a hidden Stuart treasure, discovered by a butler who dies while trying to excavate it. While superficially similar, the stories themselves are quite different and ACD’s version surpasses all.

Baker Street

'The Pistol Shot', illu. in The Strand

The opening scene establishes much of the mythos of Holmes and Watson’s Baker Street lifestyle: cigars in the coal scuttle, letters pinned by jack-knife, “V.R.” bullet pocks in the wall, the commonplace books, etc. The V.R. may be lifted from Alexander Pushkin’s ‘The Pistol Shot’ which features a man prone to indoor shooting and was printed in Strand in February 1891.

We hear of a wonderful selection of missing adventures. “The Tarleton murders” may be a reference to the town of Tarleton, near Preston, where ACD was educated (there is a nearby hamlet called Holmes too…). The case of “Vamberry, the wine merchant” is a nod to Ármin Vámbéry, the Hungarian spy-diplomat, whom Stoker referenced in Dracula (1897). “The adventure of the old Russian woman” is unlikely to be The Golden Pince-Nez, but it has been suggested. “The singular affair of the aluminium crutch” brings thoughts of Colonel Moran’s innovative air rifle. “Ricoletti of the club foot and his abominable wife” fair boggles the mind and may find an echo in ACD’s ‘The Story of the Club-Footed Grocer’ (1898).

Early life

26-29 Montague Street

MUSG provides a fascinating insight into Holmes’s pre-Watson life. We learn that, after university, he set up in a room in Montague Street, adjacent to the British Library. Michael Harrison and David L. Hammer suggested Holmes lived at 26 Montague Street as records show it was owned by a Mrs Holmes in 1875! ACD was familiar with the location, the Conan Doyles having lived in the next street, at 23 Montague Place, in the spring of 1891.

In these early days, Holmes consumed his “too ample leisure time” studying at the British Library – and presumably Barts Hospital. At the British Library, he may have rubbed shoulders with the likes of Karl Marx, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Havelock Ellis and Mahatma Ghandi, who all used the reading room. Bram Stoker was believed to have used it for his research into European folklore, but it is now thought this was conducted in the London Library.

Class

MUSG has a great deal of commentary on the British class system, as has been noted by David Leal and Mary Alcaro among others. Reginald Musgrave is the essence of the landed gentry, whose visage brings to mind “all the venerable wreckage of a feudal keep.” In the 1870s, the aristocracy hit its peak, before pressures from foreign agriculture led to a decline in fortunes. While Musgrave has a job as n MP, this would not supplement his lost income from his landed estates.

Holmes lies in contrast to Musgrave, being also of the squirarchy but having chosen to “live by [his] wits.” Brunton, too, is an example of the professional class on the rise. Both perhaps show the potential of a meritocracy: the indolent, incurious Musgraves have seen nothing of significance in the ritual for generations.

The Ritual and T. S. Eliot

T. S. Eliot in 1944

The ritual has the touch of the Catholic catechism, with which ACD would have been familiar from his upbringing and his time at Stonyhurst. It also has something of the Masonic ritual. While never an ardent Mason, ACD was a member of the Portsmouth Lodge between 1887-89 and would be a Freemason again from 1902-11.

In The Memoirs, ACD changed the ritual to include a new couplet – ‘What was the month? / The sixth from the first’ – in realisation that, without the time of the year, you can’t solve the puzzle. Some Sherlockians, notably H. W. Bell, have got into a tangle over this and the change in the English calendar in the 17thC.

T. S. Eliot paid homage to the ritual in his play Murder in the Cathedral (1935), which concerns the death of Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170 at the hands of Henry II’s overzealous knights. Eliot was a Sherlock Holmes fan and, in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939), based Macavity the Mystery Cat on Moriarty. He also wrote several articles on crime fiction, praising Collins, Dickens, Christie and ACD among others. In one article he criticises the use of “elaborate and bizarre machinery” such as “codes, runes and rituals” but this does not seem to have put him off MUSG.

Another who may have been influenced by the ritual is M. R. James, the celebrated ghost story writer. Two of his stories – ‘The Tractate Middoth’ (1911) and ‘A Warning to the Curious’ (1925) – share elements with MUSG.

Holmes’s method, Brunton and Rachel Howells

One of the appealing features of MUSG is that, as a story recounted to Watson, we hear Holmes explain his “method” first hand. This involves imagining the intelligence of one of the actors, putting himself in their position, and imagining what he would do in their place. This demonstrates both the importance of imagination in Holmes’s method (the lack of imagination being something for which he criticises Scotland Yarders) and the esteem in which he holds Brunton, for whom he makes no allowances, believing his intellect to be (nearly) equal to his own.

The fate of Rachel Howells is left unresolved in the story. While this is not unusual, it is suggestive here. Holmes can get into the mind of Brunton, but he cannot do so for Rachel and can only surmise her fate based on her fiery Welsh temperament! If Rachel Howells did kill Brunton by kicking away the prop, it was almost certainly done in anger and not planned.

The ancient crown of England

Charles I and the Tudor Crown

The crown is ultimately a non-specific crown. ACD would have been aware, through his research for Micah Clarke (1887), that the Tudor Crown and the St. Edward’s Crown were both auctioned off and melted down during the Commonwealth.

Another option is that it is a crown intended for the future Charles II. After the disaster of the Battle of Worcester (1651), Charles went on the run for six-weeks, posing as servants and adopting regional accents, until he caught a boat from Shoreham, Kent, bound for France. On his way, he would have passed through West Sussex, which makes a visit to Hurlstone very possible!

Adaptations

Granada’s version (1986) with Brett and Hardwicke is a celebrated episode of the much-loved series. Although they wrestled with how to adapt the tale, the final production is powerfully done and they nicely resolve both how the treasure came to Hurlstone and the fate of Rachel Howells. Scriptwriter Jeremy Paul won an Edgar Award for the episode.

Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943)

Rather less faithful (!) is the Universal Pictures Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943) starring Rathbone and Bruce. Musgrave Manor (or Hurlstone Towers…) is relocated to Northumberland and the ritual becomes clues to a chess game. It’s nevertheless great fun!

We will be guesting on an episode of Mean Streets – the Film Noir Podcast with Luke Deckard and Matthew Booth to talk about another Universal picture, The Woman in Green, towards the end of April.

Next time on Doings of Doyle…

We hope to be joined by journalist and author Andrew Finkel to discuss his novel The Adventure of the Second Wife…