Sherlock Sunday: The Final Problem
Jun. 1st, 2025 05:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stonepicnicking_okapiAnd so we come to the end of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes with "The Final Problem" published in November 1893.
Here's the summary:
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson encounter the criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty. Holmes is convinced that Moriarty is the "Napoleon of crime" and is determined to bring him down. After a confrontation with Moriarty, Holmes decides to flee the country with Watson to avoid Moriarty's retaliation. They travel to the Swiss Alps, but are eventually tracked down by Moriarty. In a climactic confrontation at the Reichenbach Falls, Holmes and Moriarty struggle and both fall to their deaths in the raging waters below.
There are many alternate-canon theories about the end of Holmes. They are organized into categories in The Annotated Sherlock Holmes.
1. Moriarty is imaginary. 2. Moriarty is innocent. 3. Moriarty lives. 4. Moriarty lives. 4. Holmes is guilty. 5. Holmes killed the wrong man and 6. Faith of the fundamentalist (Holmes did die and the later resurrected Holmes is an imposter).
A page from ACD's notebook. For December he writes 'Killed Holmes.'
The great thing about canon is that you can re-read them many times and always remember or find something new.
"Did you recognize your coachman?"
"No."
"It was my brother Mycroft. It is an advantage to get about in such a case without taking a mercenary into your confidence."
So I wrote a ficlet for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
vocab_drabbles about Mycroft as brougham coachman.
Title: The Brougham Driver
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (ACD)
Length: 500
Rating: Gen
Character: Mycroft Holmes, original feline character
Prompt: 149: Alterity
Note: set in "The Final Problem"
Summary: Mycroft Holmes after dropping Watson off at the station.
Mycroft Holmes turned up the collar of the heavy black cloak and stewed in the discomfort which he always felt when his routine was disrupted. He didn’t know how he’d been persuaded to accept the role of ‘driver of a small brougham’ in this melodrama of his brother’s arranging.
Lie. He did know. He knew many things, most things, in fact.
Sherlock was threatened. Well, Sherlock was often threatened, by himself as well as by outside agents. This matter looked rather more serious than the norm, and Mycroft, from the perspective of his own sub rosa professional endeavors, wouldn’t mind if the Professor made his exit from the stage of life pursued by a bear. Or not.
The issue was that Mycroft and Sherlock were not like other people. They were different. They were a company of two set apart from the rest of society by the degree of their intellectual faculties as how they chose (and chose not) to apply those faculties.
Sherlock should’ve played a lone hand. Why he’d roped a fellow like Doctor Watson into this enterprise was more than Mycroft knew.
Lie. Mycroft knew. He just didn’t like it.
But if Sherlock insisted on the Doctor’s companionship, well, the least Mycroft could do was play his part, the part of the brougham driver.
Doctor Watson hadn’t recognized him even though to read his narratives in The Strand Mycroft Holmes was the only male over fourteen stone in the whole of the metropolis, so the ‘very massive’ epigram should’ve been a dead giveaway.
Mycroft was headed back to transport hub where he could relinquish his prop and be rid of his costumery when, at a stop, his eye caught something, something small and whiskered sitting patiently on the kerb.
It looked at Mycroft. And Mycroft looked at it.
And there was, fantastic as it seemed later, a recognition.
Another of the company. Extraordinary.
Even more extraordinary was the face that the creature leapt onto the seat beside Mycroft and settled as if it were a paying fare.
Mycroft was, frankly, astounded.
His equanimity in addition to his routine was now rent to shambles! Damn Sherlock and all his tomfoolery! Damn himself for agreeing to this farce! Let the spider have his fly if the fly was daft enough to tread to close to the web.
A cat! No, precision in language was paramount. A kitten!
It was sitting beside Mycroft, looking most complacent. A soot-coloured feline but that of course could have been, well, soot.
He wouldn’t keep it, naturally. God forbid!
Mycroft’s life brokered not the slightest gap for the care of any animal no matter how domesticated or charming. And this tiny specimen looked slightly feral, more than uncanny, definitely misanthropic, and potentially diseased.
One of the company, indeed.
The brougham was forced to stop again. And the kitten chose to leap off the seat and onto the kerb and strode away, its tiny tail in the air.
And Mycroft turned up a collar already-turned.
And I absolutely love the pool scene of BBC Sherlock, especially borrowing of the banter from canon at the confrontation in 221B between Moriarty and Sherlock and the Moriarty reveal. I thought this was really, really well done. Not so much the resolution in Season 2.
So the plan is to post irregularly through June, July, and August, focusing on The Hound of the Baskervilles and pick up with The Return of Sherlock Holmes the first Sunday in September.
Here's the summary:
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson encounter the criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty. Holmes is convinced that Moriarty is the "Napoleon of crime" and is determined to bring him down. After a confrontation with Moriarty, Holmes decides to flee the country with Watson to avoid Moriarty's retaliation. They travel to the Swiss Alps, but are eventually tracked down by Moriarty. In a climactic confrontation at the Reichenbach Falls, Holmes and Moriarty struggle and both fall to their deaths in the raging waters below.
There are many alternate-canon theories about the end of Holmes. They are organized into categories in The Annotated Sherlock Holmes.
1. Moriarty is imaginary. 2. Moriarty is innocent. 3. Moriarty lives. 4. Moriarty lives. 4. Holmes is guilty. 5. Holmes killed the wrong man and 6. Faith of the fundamentalist (Holmes did die and the later resurrected Holmes is an imposter).
A page from ACD's notebook. For December he writes 'Killed Holmes.'
The great thing about canon is that you can re-read them many times and always remember or find something new.
"Did you recognize your coachman?"
"No."
"It was my brother Mycroft. It is an advantage to get about in such a case without taking a mercenary into your confidence."
So I wrote a ficlet for
vocab_drabbles about Mycroft as brougham coachman. Title: The Brougham Driver
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (ACD)
Length: 500
Rating: Gen
Character: Mycroft Holmes, original feline character
Prompt: 149: Alterity
Note: set in "The Final Problem"
Summary: Mycroft Holmes after dropping Watson off at the station.
Mycroft Holmes turned up the collar of the heavy black cloak and stewed in the discomfort which he always felt when his routine was disrupted. He didn’t know how he’d been persuaded to accept the role of ‘driver of a small brougham’ in this melodrama of his brother’s arranging.
Lie. He did know. He knew many things, most things, in fact.
Sherlock was threatened. Well, Sherlock was often threatened, by himself as well as by outside agents. This matter looked rather more serious than the norm, and Mycroft, from the perspective of his own sub rosa professional endeavors, wouldn’t mind if the Professor made his exit from the stage of life pursued by a bear. Or not.
The issue was that Mycroft and Sherlock were not like other people. They were different. They were a company of two set apart from the rest of society by the degree of their intellectual faculties as how they chose (and chose not) to apply those faculties.
Sherlock should’ve played a lone hand. Why he’d roped a fellow like Doctor Watson into this enterprise was more than Mycroft knew.
Lie. Mycroft knew. He just didn’t like it.
But if Sherlock insisted on the Doctor’s companionship, well, the least Mycroft could do was play his part, the part of the brougham driver.
Doctor Watson hadn’t recognized him even though to read his narratives in The Strand Mycroft Holmes was the only male over fourteen stone in the whole of the metropolis, so the ‘very massive’ epigram should’ve been a dead giveaway.
Mycroft was headed back to transport hub where he could relinquish his prop and be rid of his costumery when, at a stop, his eye caught something, something small and whiskered sitting patiently on the kerb.
It looked at Mycroft. And Mycroft looked at it.
And there was, fantastic as it seemed later, a recognition.
Another of the company. Extraordinary.
Even more extraordinary was the face that the creature leapt onto the seat beside Mycroft and settled as if it were a paying fare.
Mycroft was, frankly, astounded.
His equanimity in addition to his routine was now rent to shambles! Damn Sherlock and all his tomfoolery! Damn himself for agreeing to this farce! Let the spider have his fly if the fly was daft enough to tread to close to the web.
A cat! No, precision in language was paramount. A kitten!
It was sitting beside Mycroft, looking most complacent. A soot-coloured feline but that of course could have been, well, soot.
He wouldn’t keep it, naturally. God forbid!
Mycroft’s life brokered not the slightest gap for the care of any animal no matter how domesticated or charming. And this tiny specimen looked slightly feral, more than uncanny, definitely misanthropic, and potentially diseased.
One of the company, indeed.
The brougham was forced to stop again. And the kitten chose to leap off the seat and onto the kerb and strode away, its tiny tail in the air.
And Mycroft turned up a collar already-turned.
And I absolutely love the pool scene of BBC Sherlock, especially borrowing of the banter from canon at the confrontation in 221B between Moriarty and Sherlock and the Moriarty reveal. I thought this was really, really well done. Not so much the resolution in Season 2.
So the plan is to post irregularly through June, July, and August, focusing on The Hound of the Baskervilles and pick up with The Return of Sherlock Holmes the first Sunday in September.
no subject
Date: 2025-06-02 04:23 pm (UTC)XD I love the straightforwardness there.
no subject
Date: 2025-06-02 07:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-02 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-02 07:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-03 08:41 am (UTC)I read Return before Memoirs, which did rather reduce the tension of The Final Problem :-)
no subject
Date: 2025-06-03 07:11 pm (UTC)Oh, that would've changed things definitely.