Sherlockian Ruminations from a Stormy Petrel , livre ebook

Andrews UK - Brenda Rossini

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15 pages

English

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Here are a few essays about puzzlers in and about Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories: The Devil's Foot and the author's cautious inserts of the Christian sacraments he learnt as a boy; A liturgical opposite - the Hebrew rabbi in Scandal in Bohemia; The Boscombe Valley murder re-emerging in a contemporary divining of a murder at Pemberley; The definitive solution and identification of Jack the Ripper - search no further; AND The Salvation Army and Suffragettes picked-on and prodded in the Red-Headed League.

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Publié par	Andrews UK
Date de parution	25 novembre 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781780927084
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0050€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Title Page
SHERLOCKIAN RUMINATIONS FROM A STORMY PETREL
Brenda Rossini

Publisher Information
First edition published in 2014 by
MX Publishing
335 Princess Park Manor
Royal Drive,
London, N11 3GX
www.mxpublishing.com
Digital edition converted and distributed in 2014 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
© Copyright 2014 Brenda Rossini
The right of Brenda Rossini to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and not of MX Publishing.
Cover design by www.staunch.com

Part 1
Christian Sacraments and “The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot”
Christianisacramentumrubor - There are a welter of sacramental alternatives to this puzzle and the devil is in the details: “Each is suggestive, and together they are almost conclusive. ” Arthur Conan Doyle, educated in a Jesuit school, was attracted to the mystical, spiritual, and sacramental. He dabbled perversely and symbolically with these not-so-subtle motifs in The Devil’s Foot : “Neither of us is prepared to admit diabolical intrusions into the affairs of men...” Yet so it is, and the other-worldly excursion brings murder to a peaceful, card-playing community.
Baptism begins Christian life, cleansing the new life of its original sin, and becomes the gateway towards receipts of the rest of the sacraments. Devil’s advocate Dr. Sterndale, who lived “beyond the law” and Christianity in Africa, returned to civilization with a devil’s ritual, the Radix pedisdiaboli, which uncorked the whole diabolical intrigue. But he brought it along only as a curiosity. He was but a pilgrim. It was the perfidious Mortimer Tregennis who found a use for it in Cornwall.
A baptism by fire takes place at the Tregennis house, nearby a stone cross which does not save the acolytes. The Tregennis’ are consumed by an airborne devil’s root, burning like incense, from which effects one is dead and the others driven mad. The baptism accoutrements include fire, guttered candles, ashes, and a lamp, presumably containing oil, but not from the vicarage’s holy font where Holmes acquired his portion.
There are no water immersions with Radix pedisdiaboli but water symbolism abounds:
- Mounts Bay, to which waters, like Lourdes, Holmes has gone for his health; it will be a life-affirming respite, and one where guilt and crime will be identified and confronted.
- Holmes’ clumsy stumbling over water pots - “So absorbed was he in his thoughts, I remember, that he stumbled over the watering-pot, upset its contents, and deluged both our feet and the garden path”. Alas, foot washing is not a sacrament but a Christian ritual amongst disciples. The wetting of the feet is a creative deviation from Christian dogma. In baptism, water is poured on the head. Here, Holmes’ “baptism” occurs when the contents of the water pots are spilled and poured upon his feet.
- When Dr. Sterndale stood outside the Tregennis house, a morose figure looking in at Brenda, the rain may appear as baptismal, though the reader must assume that Sterndale had been baptized.
Holy Orders: The word “priest” is the Latin derivation of the Greek “presbyteros” meaning an “elder.” Priests through the ages were authoritarian hierarchies over a credulous public, whether the Druids of neolithic man, Chaldeans, a colonial explorer, or African medicine men who used devil’s root to seal ordinations.
Vicar Roundhay was elderly and “intrusive,” enlisting unworthies as his priests to solve the devil’s crimes. To invest with Holy Orders, there is a laying of the hands. When Roundhay was with Tregennis in Holmes’ room, Watson observed a “twitching of his thin hands.” Tregennis and Roundhay shared a “common emotion.” Tregennis dressed formally for the occasion, entrusted to solve a crime which he committed. But he had his own agenda; he was a rogue priest with the devil’s root as his “special Providence.”
Another priest in the thicket was Sterndale. He lived an ascetic, monk-like existence “amid his books and maps.