Analysis - The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips by Sir. Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips:

First Publication:

After Conan Doyle had written this story, he was delayed in posting it to The Strand magazine due to an attack of influenza. It was eventually posted on 18/05/1891.The Five Orange Pips was first published in the November 1891 issue of the Strand Magazine. Its first appearance in book form was in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in 1892.

Plot:

Holmes and Watson sit in their Baker Street sitting room during a heavy gale, Watson reading a novel and Holmes cross-referencing his indexes. A young man calls upon them and asks permission to put his case to Holmes having been referred to him by one of his satisfied clients. The young man, John Openshaw, recounts how his Uncle Elias, an Englishman recently returned after living for decades in America, recently received an envelope postmarked Pondicherry in India and inscribed ‘K.K.K’. The envelope contained five dried orange pips, a fact that seemed to horrify his uncle. Immediately, he changed his will so that in the event of his death all would be left to his brother Joseph, John’s father. He then entered into a life of heavy drinking and extreme fear of the outside world. Not long after, he was found dead, face-down in a garden pond. His death was pronounced by a jury to be suicide as there were no signs of violence.

A year after taking over the estate of his brother, Joseph Openshaw received an identical ‘K.K.K.’ envelope of five orange pips from Dundee, this time asking for some ‘papers’ to be left on a sundial. The papers in question were presumeably those that had belonged to Elias which, unknown to the sender of the note, had already been burnt. Five days later, while on the way back from visiting a friend, Mr. Openshaw was found dead in a chalk pit. On this occasion the jury ruled his death to be ‘from accidental causes’. These events took place three years ago. Openshaw reveals that he himself has now received a ‘K.K.K.’ envelope from East London containing five orange pips, again ordering that ‘the papers’ be left on the sundial. He shows them the charred remains of a diary entry which is the only remnant of the burnt documents. Holmes advises Openshaw to leave his uncle’s brass box on the sundial, containing these charred remains and a further note explaining that all the rest are destroyed. Openshaw agrees and leaves Holmes and Watson to speculate on the case, comparing it to previous adventures and gauging the respective dangers involved.

Holmes believes that Elias Openshaw was forced to flee America suddenly and that he lived in fear during his time back in England. He deduces that the different postmarks on the letters represent the port stops of a sailing vessel and reads Watson an encyclopaedia entry relating to the Ku Klux Klan, a secret society formed by former Confederate soldiers. The Klan murdered their political opponents after sending them strange warnings such as fruit seeds. The next morning, the two read in the newspaper that a tragedy has occurred near Waterloo Bridge. John Openshaw has drowned in the Thames with no signs of a struggle or any kind of violence. Holmes compiles a list of the shipping that has docked in Pondicherry, Dundee and East London on the requisite dates and narrows the list down to a ship called the Lone Star commanded by one Captain James Calhoun. He sends Calhoun an envelope of five orange pips inscribed ‘S.H. for J.C’. However, the Lone Star is lost during its Atlantic crossing and along with its crew is never seen again.

Dramatis Personae:

Major Prendergast:

A former client whom Holmes aided during the Tankerville Club Scandal. He recommends the Great Detective’s services to John Openshaw when he hears of his despair.

John Openshaw:

A young man in his early twenties whose father and uncle have both died in recent years in suspicious circumstances. He has received a peculiar warning and believes himself to be next on the hit list. The son of Joseph Openshaw and the nephew of Elias Openshaw.

Elias Openshaw:

An Englishman who immigrated to the USA and spent his life as a planter in Florida before returning to England in his middle age. He is a heavy drinker and secretive about his time abroad. The brother of Joseph Openshaw and the uncle of John Openshaw.

Joseph Openshaw:

A staid, sensible man of temperate habits. He stayed in his native England and buried himself in industry, eventually becoming the owner of a bicycle tyre factory. The brother of Elias Openshaw and the father of John Openshaw.    

Mr. Fordham:

A lawyer with a practice in Horsham. Elias Openshaw is one of his clients.

Major Freebody:

An old friend of Joseph Openshaw who lives in Fareham on the south coast.

Hudson:

A man known to the Ku Klux Klan in late 1860s, either as friend or foe. Political affiliation unknown.

McCauley:

A political enemy of the Ku Klux Klan in late 1860s Florida.

Paramore:

A political enemy of the Ku Klux Klan in late 1860s Florida.

John Swain:

A political enemy of the Ku Klux Klan in late 1860s Florida.

Police Constable Cook:

A Police Constable of ‘H’ Division who patrols near Waterloo Bridge.

Captain James Calhoun:

A former member of the Ku Klux Klan who became went to sea after the group’s break-up, achieving the position of Captain on a ship named the Lone Star. Some speculate that this character was a reference to James Calhoun, the Mayor of Atlanta during the American Civil War who surrendered the city to the Union in 1864, although he died in 1875.

Timeline:

The story takes place during September 1887. Other dates mentioned in the story are:

4^th March 1869:

An entry in Elias Openshaw’s papers for this date reads ‘Hudson came. Same old platform.’

7^th March 1869:

The Ku Klux Klan send a set of orange pips each to three of their political enemies; McCauley, Paramore and Swain, all of whom live in St. Augustine.

9^th March 1869:

The Klan establishes that McCauley has fled.

10^th March 1869:

The Klan establishes that Swain has fled.

12^th March 1869:

Agents of the Klan visit Paramore at his home and kill him.

1869:

The Ku Klux Klan collapses suddenly.

1869-1870:

Elias Openshaw returns to Europe during this period and makes Horsham, Sussex his home.

1878:

Elias Openshaw begs Joseph Openshaw to let his son, John, live with him.

1882-1890:

Watson reflects on the amount of cases he has on record for this period during which Holmes was faced with ‘many strange and interesting features’.

January-February 1983:

The Lone Star docks in Pondicherry and the letter to Elias Openshaw is dispatched.

10^th March 1883:

Elias Openshaw receives his letter from Pondicherry marked ‘K.K.K.’ and containing the orange pips.

2^nd May 1883:

Elias Openshaw is found dead.

1884:

Joseph Openshaw comes to live in Horsham during the latter part of this year.

January 1885:

The Lone Star docks at Dundee. Joseph Openshaw receives his letter from Dundee marked ‘K.K.K.’ and containing the orange pips. His body is found in a chalk pit in Fareham later that month and he never regains consciousness.

1887:

This adventure and all of the ‘lost’ adventures detailed below took place during this year with the exception of the Adventure of the Tankerville Club Scandal.

September 1887:

The main story takes place during the latter days of this month.

Cuttings:

The Unburnt Diary Entry:

“4th. Hudson came. Same old platform.

7th. Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, and John Swain, of St. Augustine.

9th. McCauley cleared.

1Oth. John Swain cleared.

12th. Visited Paramore. All well.”

The Ku Klux Clan Encyclopedia Entry:

"Ku Klux Klan. A name derived from the fanciful resemblance to the sound produced by cocking a rifle. This terrible secret society was formed by some ex-Confederate soldiers in the Southern states after the Civil War, and it rapidly formed local branches in different parts of the country, notably in Tennessee, Louisiana, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. Its power was used for political purposes, principally for the terrorizing of the negro voters and the murdering and driving from the country of those who were opposed to its views. Its outrages were usually preceded by a warning sent to the marked man in some fantastic but generally recognized shape -- a sprig of oak-leaves in some parts, melon seeds or orange pips in others. On receiving this, the victim might either openly abjure his former ways, or might fly from the country. If he braved the matter out, death would unfailingly come upon him, and usually in some strange and unforeseen manner. So perfect was the organization of the society, and so systematic its methods, that there is hardly a case upon record where any man succeeded in braving it with impunity, or in which any of its outrages were traced home to the perpetrators. For some years the organization flourished in spite of the efforts of the United States government and of the better classes of the community in the South. Eventually, in the year 1869, the movement rather suddenly collapsed, although there have been sporadic outbreaks of the same sort since that date.”

The Newspaper Report:

"Between nine and ten last night Police-Constable Cook, of the H Division, on duty near Waterloo Bridge, heard a cry for help and a splash in the water. The night, however, was extremely dark and stormy, so that, in spite of the help of several passers-by, it was quite impossible to effect a rescue. The alarm, however, was given, and, by the aid of the water-police, the body was eventually recovered. It proved to be that of a young gentleman whose name, as it appears from an envelope which was found in his pocket, was John Openshaw, and whose residence is near Horsham. It is conjectured that he may have been hurrying down to catch the last train from Waterloo Station, and that in his haste and the extreme darkness he missed his path and walked over the edge of one of the small landing-places for river steamboats. The body exhibited no traces of violence, and there can be no doubt that the deceased had been the victim of an unfortunate accident, which should have the effect of calling the attention of the authorities to the condition of the riverside landing-stages."

Body Count:

Elias Openshaw is found face down in a pool at the bottom of his garden after having been drowned by agents of the Ku Klux Klan. Joseph Openshaw is thrown to his death down a deep chalk pit by the same agents. Paramore was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in Florida. John Openshaw is thrown from Waterloo Bridge by the Klan and drowns. Captain James Calhoun presumably drowns in the Atlantic Ocean along with his two accomplices and all others aboard the Lone Star.

Secret Societies:

The Ku Klux Klan – an American secret society formed by former soldiers of the Confederate Army in the Southern States in the American Reconstruction era, named after the sound made by the cocking of a rifle. They quickly developed branches of their organisation in many states including Tennessee, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Acts of terrorism were committed against black voters and many who opposed their views were murdered or driven out of the country. Strange warnings were sent to victims in advance such as a sprig of oak leaves, melon seeds or orange pips. The Klan existed in real life.

Cold Reading:

Holmes recognises a ‘distinctive’ mixture of clay and chalk on Openshaw’s toecaps, deducing that he has come up from the south-west.

Holmes’ Methods:

Holmes interrupts Openshaw’s narrative to carefully establish the dates on which the various incidents took place.

He later explains to Watson that although it is not possible even in the age of encyclopaedias to know everything, a reasoner should seek to know everything that is likely to be useful to him in his work if he is to carry the art to its ‘highest pitch’.

How the Case was Solved:

Holmes deduces that the writer of the letters was onboard a ship as the postmarks (Pondicherry, Dundee and East London) are all seaports. He also notes the time that elapsed between each of the first two letters and the deaths that resulted from them. Seven weeks passed between the receipt of the letter postmarked Pondicherry and the death of Elias Openshaw whereas only three or four days went by between the receipt of the letter postmarked Dundee and the death of Joseph Openshaw. Holmes decides the culprits are aboard a sailing ship and that they post their warning just before setting sail from each port. The time differences represent the difference in speed between their vessel and the medium by which the letter is carried. The implication is that John Openshaw is in immediate danger as his letter came only from East London. Holmes also realises that the antagonist is a society rather than an individual as a single man could not have committed the murders in such a way that made them look like a suicide and an accident so convincingly as to fool a coroner’s jury.   

Holmes notices that the breaking up of the Ku Klux Klan happening simultaneously with the departure of Elias Openshaw from America with their papers. He describes this as possible cause and effect, believing that the diary and a register amongst the papers may incriminate prominent people in the American South.

The Zeal of Official Forces:

After receiving his own ‘K.K.K.’ letter, Openshaw seeks the help of an unnamed police inspector, who listens to the story with amusement and gives the impression that he believes the sending of the orange pips to be a practical joke unconnected with the two previous deaths. However, he does allocate one policeman to stay in the house with Openshaw.

A police constable named Cook hears the sound of John Openshaw screaming and hitting the water. However, due to the thunderstorm he is unable to perform a rescue and all the water police can do is recover his body.

Holmes later sends a telegram to the Savannah Police requesting that they detain the three Klan members on charges of murder.

Who Gets the Credit?

Holmes refuses to communicate with the police until he has already captured the gang. ‘When I have spun the web they may take the flies, but not before’, he declares.

Law into Their Own Hands:

Holmes goes beyond the call of duty by sending a threatening communication to the Captain Calhoun in the form of the orange pips, having already wired to Savannah ensuring that the three members of the gang are detained.

Bohemian Soul:

Holmes returns starving from his days work having eaten nothing since breakfast. He claims it simply escaped his memory.

The Seven-Percent Solution:

Watson misremembers his list of Holmes’ limits, believing it to include a description of the Great Detective as a ‘self-poisoner by cocaine’.

The Indexes:

At the beginning of the story, Holmes is cross-referencing his indexes. When looking up the Ku Klux Klan, Holmes bypasses them and goes straight for an encyclopaedia.

Holmes and Watson:

When Watson wonders aloud whether their evening caller is a friend of Holmes, the detective replies that aside from the Doctor he has none. The two recall with amusement Watson’s initial written assessment of Holmes’ intellect, showing that any embarrassment over this has long since passed. When Watson breaks to Holmes the news of his client’s death, Watson can tell that he is deeply affected despite his calm facade. After hearing the article, Holmes looks more depressed and shaken than Watson has ever seen him. Holmes declares that his pride has been hurt and the matter is now a personal one to him.

The Good Doctor:

On seeing Openshaw for the first time, Watson notices that his face is pale and his eyes heavy, ‘like a man who is weighed down with some great anxiety’.

Watson’s Women:

Watson’s wife is away visiting her Aunt during this story and he is staying in his old Baker Street rooms.

The Long-Suffering Mrs. Hudson:

Mrs. Hudson is not yet mentioned by name but Holmes presumes the ringer of the Baker Street bell to be ‘some crony of the landlady’s’.

Telegrams:

John Openshaw receives a telegram from Major Freebody informing him of his father’s death. Holmes wires to Gravesend to find out if the Lone Star has already passed through. He also sends a telegram to Savannah asking the police to detain Captain Calhoun and his accomplices. 

 Consult a Bradshaw:

John Openshaw plans to take the train back to Horsham from Waterloo after consulting Holmes but of course never makes it.

Food Glorious Food:

Watson rings down for coffee just before he reads of John Openshaw’s death. Holmes devours simple bread and water on returning from poring over the Lloyd’s Register.

Quotables:

Doyle brilliantly builds a tumultuous atmosphere in the opening scenes:

“All day the wind had screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that even here in the heart of great, hand-made London we were forced to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of life, and to recognize the presence of those great elemental forces which shriek at mankind through the bars of his civilization, like untamed beasts in a cage.”

Holmes is not impressed by the police response to Openshaw’s concerns:

“’Incredible imbecility!’ he cried.”

Holmes loses a little of his faith in humanity after hearing Openshaw’s story:

“There is nothing more to be said or to be done to-night, so hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for half an hour the miserable weather, and the still more miserable ways of our fellow-men.’”

Holmes decides to hoist the Klan with its own petard:

“’Why Watson, let us put their own devilish trade-mark upon them’.”

Bravo, Watson:

“It was nearly ten o'clock before he entered, looking pale and worn. He walked up to the sideboard, and tearing a piece from the loaf he devoured it voraciously, washing it down with a long draught of water.

‘You are hungry’, I remarked. “

Holmes points out the advantage the Klan has over them:

“’we have our web to weave, while theirs is already woven.’”

Doyle-Speak:

The opening scene takes place during an ‘equinoctial’ gale (of or near the autumn equinox of September 22^nd). Elias Openshaw makes drunken ‘sallies’ (outbursts or flights of passion). The Klan tries to compel its opponents to ‘abjure’ their former ways (renounce or retract with formal solemnity). Holmes obtains information from a ‘stevedore’ (a dockworker who loads or unloads cargo).

Places in the Cases:

Openshaw lives in Horsham, a market town in the County of Sussex (now West Sussex).

Pondicherry (now known as Puducherry) from whence the Klan’s first letter arrives is a Union Territory of India which in those days was allowed by the British Empire to remain a French trading post. In The Sign of Four Major Sholto lives in a house named Pondicherry Lodge, possibly a reference to where he was stationed in India.

Joseph Openshaw visits his friend Major Freebody at Portsdown Hill in Fareham, a market town in Hampshire between Southampton and Portsmouth. Portsdown Hill is a long, chalk hill upon which a series of forts were built to protect the city of Portsmouth and its dockyards from attack from inland. 

Openshaw and the Klan appear to have participated in the murder of three opponents in the city of St. Augustine in Florida. St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied European-established city and port in the continental United States.

John Openshaw dies at Waterloo Bridge which crosses the River Thames between Blackfriars Bridge and Hungerford Bridge. It was named in commemoration of the British victory at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

He appears to have been decoyed towards the Thames Embankment. This was designed by Joseph Bazalgette and was a major feat of civil engineering in the Victorian period.

The Lone Star embarks on its voyage from Savannah, the one-time state capital and largest city of Georgia supplanted on both counts by Atlanta by 1880.

Holmes visits the Albert Dock enquiring after his quarry, the Lone Star. The Royal Albert Dock first opened in 1880, having been constructed by the St. Katharine Docks and London Docks Companies.

Holmes sends a telegram to Gravesend to track the progress of the Lone Star. It was the first port of entry in the mouth of the River Thames until the completion of the Tilbury Docks on the other side of the river in 1886, a year prior to the setting of this story.

In speculating on the position of the Lone Star, Holmes also mentions ‘the Goodwins’. This refers to Goodwin Sands, a sand bank stretching for 10 miles in the English Channel six miles east of Deal on the Kent coast.

Historical Connections:

Paradol is a spicy substance found in the seeds of the guinea pepper.

A barque is a sailing vessel that has at least three masts.

Watson enjoys a maritime novel by William Clark Russell, a popular American writer who specialised in nautical and horror stories.

Openshaw wears a golden pair of pince-nez, a type of spectacles commonplace in the 1800s which pinch the bridge of the nose rather than resting on the ears.

Although Openshaw Sr.’s patent of the Openshaw unbreakable tyre is fictitious, John Boyd Dunlop did invent the first practical pneumatic tyre in 1887, the year in which this story takes place.

Elias Openshaw first served under General Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. Jackson was a schoolteacher from Virginia who historians now consider to be one of the foremost military tacticians in American history.

He later rose to the rank of colonel while serving under General John Bell Hood, who survived the war and later set up an insurance business.

General Robert E. Lee is also mentioned, the most well-known of all Confederate soldiers whose surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia signalled the beginning of the end of the American Civil War.

Elias Openshaw disliked the Republican policy in extending voting rights to black people.

Elias Openshaw opposed the carpetbag politicians who came down from the North of America. This was a pejorative term given by the Southerners to Northerners who moved down during the reconstruction era which came from a common item of luggage which they used. 

While describing what makes an ideal reasoner, Holmes cites the example of Georges Cuvier, the eminent French naturalist and zoologist of the 18^th and 19^th centuries. According to Holmes, Cuvier could describe the entire bone structure of an animal by viewing just a single bone. Conan Doyle was an admirer of Oliver Wendell Holmes. In 1858, Holmes had written, in his Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, “Tell me about Cuvier’s getting up a megatherium from a tooth…so all a man’s antecedents and possibilities are summed up in a single utterance….” This recalls what Schopenhauer had written in 1851, “Just as a botanist recognises the whole plant from one leaf and Cuvier constructed the entire animal from one bone, so from one characteristic action of a man we can arrive at a correct knowledge of his character.” (Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. II, §118) These assertions are echoed in "The Five Orange Pips", in which Sherlock Holmes declared, “As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to state all the other ones, before and after.”  

The American Encyclopaedia Holmes consults regarding the Ku Klux Klan may not refer to a specific real-life volume. If it does, it is most likely to be the American Cyclopaedia which was published from 1873-1876. It restricted itself to American-centric subjects and would likely have included the Klan whose first incarnation was founded in 1865 and lasted until 1874.

The notorious Ku Klux Klan really existed of course. There is no evidence that they ever sent pips or seeds as warnings however. Rather than an onomatopoeic representation of a rifle being cocked, the first two words of the name are actually a corruption of the Greek word ‘kyklos’ meaning ‘circle’ and the Scottish word ‘clan’.

The Metropolitan Police’s H Division in 1887 covered the Whitechapel area and famously investigated the Whitechapel Murders committed by Jack the Ripper. It may have been a factual error on the part of Arthur Conan Doyle to suggest that a Constable from H Division should be on duty near Waterloo Bridge which crossed the Thames linking the areas of E Division and L Division.

The water police, or the Thames Division as it was then officially known, was absorbed into the Metropolitan Police Force in 1839, having previously existed independently as the Marine Police Force.

Lloyd's Register was, and is, an annual record published by the Lloyd’s Register Group pertaining to all self-propelled, sea-going merchant ships weighing 100 grosse tonnes or greater (by the present-day convention).

Holmes correctly identifies the name of the barque Lone Star as a reference to Texas’ state nickname of the Lone Star State. Texas was originally given this nickname to signify its independence as a Republic and to commemorate its struggle for separation from Mexico.

Plot Holes and Continuity Errors:

Watson writes that his "wife was on a visit to her mother's". However, Mary Morstan said that her mother was deceased during The Sign of the Four and since this case occurs later than that, it must be a different woman altogether. As discussed below, the reference to The Sign of Four may be phoney anyway, but no matter which case came first, the wife mentioned here can not be Mary.

Holmes appears to mention being beaten by Irene Adler, although the story of A Scandal in Bohemia is clearly stated as taking place in 1888. Perhaps Holmes encounters Irene before this case. When Holmes is asked by the King in that story if he is aware of her, he simply asks Watson to look her up in his index. Sherlockians have long debated whether the woman referred to in The Five Orange Pips is Irene or another woman, with Eric Monahan and Leslie Klinger putting forward the case for the former and the latter respectively.

Having been a member of the Klan himself and participated in the sending of the pips and the subsequent murders on at least one occasion himself, would Elias Openshaw have been so terrified out of his wits when he received them himself? Surely, he would have known the methods of the Klan intimately and the threat he faced would have been palpable but measureable. He acted as though he knew the pips were a portent of death and thought of them as almost supernatural.

No explanation is given as to how the Klan managed to trace Elias? Surely, this would have been a difficult task for even the Great Detective himself given that Elias stayed in his house for weeks on end and did not socialise, even with his own brother.

Presumeably Uncle Elias’ papers detail the ins and outs of all Klan-related membership and activity. Elias claims that he will ‘checkmate them still’ before burning these documents. What on earth did he hope to achieve by doing this? The papers were the only real weapon he had against the Klan and would have proved their guilt with or without Elias there to testify. By destroying them and not informing his persecutors he is gaining neither absolution in their eyes for his betrayal nor convincing them that he is no threat to their liberty.

Why did the Klan kill Elias and Joseph Openshaw without enquiring as to where the papers were on each occasion? Or if they did, why did their victims not tell them that they were burnt or use them to bargain for their lives? Why do the Klan not appear to have broken into the house to search for the papers? During the residence of each of the three Openshaws the number of people in such a large house was small.

Suicide by drowning without attaching oneself to a heavy object is an extremely difficult and unreliable way to kill oneself. Elias owned a revolver and generally took it with him on his enebriated skirmishes. If he was going to end his own life it would surely have been through the use of this firearm? The coroner’s court jury verdict of suicide seems farcical in this light. A verdict of ‘accidental death’ would surely have been the likely outcome given Elias’ know history of drunkenness.

The advice given to Openshaw by Holmes is obvious to say the least – simply put a letter on the sundial explaining that the papers have been disposed of and leave the remains of the last-surviving page. Despite this advice, for which it was scarcely worth travelling to London, Openshaw thanks Holmes for giving him ‘fresh life and hope’.

Holmes and Watson discuss the case of The Sign of Four, yet all the dates mentioned in that story point to its having taken place in 1888, the year after this case. Is Watson’s memory fading him is he simply inserting a subtle plug for his previous volume?

Watson’s recollection of his document Sherlock Holmes - His Limits from A Study in Scarlet is a little hazy. He says in this story that he gauged Holmes’ knowledge of politics to be ‘nil’, his knowledge of geology ‘profound’, his knowledge of chemistry ‘eccentric’, his knowledge of sensational literature ‘unique’ and that he made mention of Holmes consumption of cocaine and tobacco. In fact his assessment was:

“Politics – Feeble

Geology – Practical but limited

Chemistry – Profound

Sensational Literature – Immense”

...and made no mention of tobacco or cocaine.

For what reason did Holmes wish to go to Horesham after he discovered the whereabouts and identity of Calhoun and his men? Openshaw was no longer in danger and a telegram could have reached him if necessary (or so Holmes would have thought).

When Watson comes down in the morning to find Holmes breakfasting, is it really plausible that Holmes would not have opened that day’s paper and at least scanned the headlines before going out?

By what method did the Klan kill John Openshaw? Constable Cook heard a cry of help just before the splash, suggesting that he was still alive when he hit the water. If so, how did the gang then kill him in such a way as to leave no signs of violence or criminal intent and disappear from site all in the short time there must have been between the scream and the Constable reaching the water’s edge? Perhaps the appearance of the ‘passers-by’ was not as fortuitous as it first appears, particularly if there were three of them...

Contentious Points:

Elias Openshaw’s ‘aversion to the negroes’ and his disapproval of the Republican policy of allowing them to vote are put forward as neutral and unremarkable character traits and not challenged by the author in perhaps the way they would be today.

The word ‘negro’ as used on more than one occasion in this story became obsolete as a polite term at some point around the Civil Rights Movement between 1955 and 1968.

The Game:

Many suspect that there is something about this story that does not quite ring true. Holmes essentially fails to bring home an extremely simple case through sheer carelessness. Did a third party write this to account to embarrass Holmes and somehow endeavour to get it published as a genuine Watsonian piece of work? Perhaps it is merely a dream. The eerie presence of the of symbolic storm-child in the chimney certainly imbues the story with a dream-like atmosphere. Or maybe Holmes was not around to tackle this one, and that Watson tried his own insubstantial skills at detection.

Recycled Ideas:

The murderers of Mr. Blessington in the Resident Patient also die at sea before they can be apprehended.

A principal character in the case is suffering the consequences of having betrayed a secret society in the past just like in The Valley of Fear, The Golden Pince-Nez, The Dancing Men and The Red Circle.

Cross-References:

When discussing his career with John Openshaw, Holmes states that he has been beaten three times by men and once by a woman. Seemingly a clear tribute to Irene Adler from A Scandal in Bohemia were it not for problems with the timeline (see above).

While reflecting on the case, Holmes and Watson compare Openshaw’s plight to that of the Sholtos in The Sign of Four with Holmes concluding that the danger faced by Openshaw is the greater.

They also discuss affectionately the list of Holmes’ intellectual limits that Watson drew up in A Study in Scarlet.

In Wisteria Lodge, Holmes lists this case as one that he would characterise as ‘grotesque’.

Is the ‘Amateur Mendicant Society’ could potentially be seen as a reference to Hugh Boone from the Man with the Twisted Lip, although he was clearly no amateur...

Reception:

Isaac Asimov

In his autobiography, Isaac Asimov states:

‘A couple of years ago, I wrote (by request) a critique of the Sherlock Holmes story "The Five Orange Pips" and pointed out the gaping holes in its logic, which led me to think Conan Doyle had written it while asleep’.

The article referred to was one of a series of essays that writers were asked to do on Holmes stories for a collection named The Baker Street Dozen.

Agatha Christie:

This was one of Agatha Christie’s two favourite Holmes stories along with The Red-Headed League.

Ronald Knox:

The four Knox brothers (Edmund, Dillwyn, Wilfred and Ronald) detected a number of inaccuracies, even downright contradictions, in the Sherlock Holmes stories, and sent a list of them to Conan Doyle in an envelope with four dried orange pips. Conan Doyle, to their dismay, did not respond. But years later, after Ronald published Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes (1911), which began the Sherlockian study of the Holmes stories, he did write:

“I cannot help writing to tell you of the amusement--and also the amazement with which I read your article on Sherlock Holmes. That anyone should spend such pains on such material was what surprised me. Certainly you know a great deal more about it than I do, for the stories have been written in a disconnected (and careless) way, without referring back to what had gone before. I am only pleased that you have not found more discrepancies, especially as to dates. Of course as you seem to have observed, Holmes changed entirely as the stories went on. In the first one, the "Study in Scarlet," he was a mere calculating machine, but I had to make him more of an educated human being as I went on with him. He never shows heart save in the play--which one of your learned commentators condemned truly as a false note.”

Verdict:

The Five Orange Pips, one of the most imaginative and romantic stories in the canon is simultaneously one of those that stands up the least well to analysis. The sheer list of plot blunders to long even for these pages. Conan Doyle himself regularly admitted his cavalier attitude to continuity particularly as to this story, considering his Sherlock Holmes stories to be mere sensationlist busking compared to his more serious literary work. Seeing Holmes fail his client is uncharacteristic in the stories but something that ultimately reminds the reader that he is human and gives an opportunity to see a side to him not previously revealed – his vulnerability. The device of the orange pips is classic Doylean obliquity and reinforces an overall theme in the canon – of everyday, seemingly unremarkable objects revealing sinister importance when examined closely.

Adaptations:

Sherlock Holmes and the House of Fear (1945 Film):

Directed by Roy William Neill

Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes

Nigel Bruce as Doctor Watson

Dennis Hoey as Inspector Lestrade

The plot is very different from the original story. It is similar to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – The Five Orange Pips (1952 Radio Episode):

Carlton Hobbs as Sherlock Holmes

Norman Shelley as Doctor Watson

Sherlock Holmes in the 22^nd Century – The Five Orange Pips (2000 TV Episode):

Directed by Robert Brousseau

Jason Gray-Stanford as Sherlock Holmes

John Payne as Doctor Watson

The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – The Five Orange Pips (2008 Radio Episode):

Written by MJ Elliott

Also:

In The Great Game, the 2010 episode of Sherlock, Holmes receives a voicemail message on a mobile phone left at a crime scene by his adversary. It contains the sound of five electronic pips (recognisable to British viewers as the ‘pips’ of the Greenwich Time Signal), an innovative new twist on an old idea.

The Lost Cases:

Watson describes five other cases that Holmes handled during 1887:

The Adventure of the Paradol Chamber:

As mentioned above, paradol is a spicy substance. Quite what the chamber is and how it functions, Dr. Watson does not divulge. Several authors have put pen to paper and given us their own interpretation of this curious title:

Pastiches:

The Paradol Chamber by Anthony Boucher (1945):

An episode of the New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes radio show starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Holmes and Watson respectively.

The Paradol Chamber is a small room made of what Dr. Parades claims is a new metal alloy named ‘Paradol’. She claims to be able to teleport objects to any location from inside the chamber. However, it is nothing more than a trap laid for Holmes by Moriarty who has Holmes laid under siege at Baker Street and must introduce an intriguing ‘mystery’ to tempt him out of his fortress. The chamber is an ordinary airtight metal container within which Moriarty traps Holmes and Watson. The ‘teleportations’ were performed with the aid of a secret panel and passage-way.

The original draft of the script had Holmes accepting a commission from none other than Moriarty. Boucher’s fellow writer for the series, Denis Green, was unimpressed with this version, writing in 1945:

“Oops! We’re not too happy with Paradol. The main objections are these: it’s a very talky story – the action is almost nil. We feel the assumption that Holmes would accept Moriarty as a client to be illogical, and also feel that not much real sleuthing is done. Dr Paradol cracks at the end very conveniently, but rather unconvincingly for such a smart woman. Again, the scene within the chamber itself would be effective for sound effects – but nothing really happens inside of it.”

The Adventure of the Paradol Chamber by John Dickson Carr (1949):

A short theatrical parody from the pen of the celebrated American detective author first published in the Unicorn Mystery Book Club Newsletter (Volume 2, Issue 3). Monsieur de Marquis de Paradol is the new French Ambassador in London and his ‘chamber’ is a secret compartment in his trousers in which he keeps the documents of a treaty between France and Great Britain. The humour of the piece largely revolves around the theft of various characters’ trousers and the unmasking of the character hitherto believed by the audience to be Watson, who was in fact Colonel Sebastian Moran in disguise all along.

The Adventure of the Paradol Chamber by Russell McLaughlin (1965):

A short story published in the Baker Street Journal (Volume 3, Issue 9).

A Key to the Paradol Chamber by Klas Lithner (1984):

A short story published in Issue 39 of Baker Street Magazine. The author ties the Paradol reference to a real-life historical event – the suicide of Lucien-Anatole Prévost-Paradol in 1870. Paradol was a liberal French journalist and essayist who accepted the post of American envoy to promote the idea of am international liberal empire. His suicide was a response to the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. Lithner gives the name ‘Paradol Chamber’ to the room in Washington where he died.

Histoires Secrètes de 1887 by René Réouven (1993):

French language short story first published within a collection entitled Histoires Secrètes de Sherlock Holmes. This story of the Paradol Chamber is combined into one story with that of the Amateur Mendicant Society.

The Case of the Paradol Chamber by June Thomson (1994):

One of Thomson’s seven stories included in The Secret Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes.

The Paradol Paradox by Michael Kurland (2001):

A novel which has Professor Moriarty as its hero. The Professor investigates the death of a man in a bedroom (or chamber if you will) at the Paradol Club, an establishment used by the upper classes for illicit encounters. The story features a guest appearance by the real-life Marquess of Salisbury, who was thrice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

The Adventure of the Other Detective by Bradley H. Sinor (2001):

A short story with science fiction leanings first published in 2001 as part of the collection Dark and Stormy Nights. Finding himself in an alternate reality, Watson has to work with Moriarty to prevent Holmes and Moran from freeing the Ripper from the asylum where he has been imprisoned.

The Paradol Chamber by H. Paul Jeffers (2005):

A written adaptation of Anthony Boucher’s original screenplay for the 1945 episode of the New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (see above) and one of thirteen in the series written up by Jeffers in his volume The Forgotten Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

The Adventure of the Amateur Mendicant Society:

...that held a luxurious club in the lower vault of a furniture warehouse.

Pastiches:

The Amateur Mendicant Society by Anthony Boucher (1945):

An episode of the New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes radio show starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Holmes and Watson respectively.

The Case of the Amateur Mendicants by Ken Greenwald (1989):

A written adaptation of Anthony Boucher’s original screenplay for the 1945 episode of the New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (see above) and one of thirteen in the series written up by Greenwald in his volume The Lost Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Choosy Beggars: The Amateur Mendicant Society by Donald A. Redmond (1983):

A short story first published in Issue 33 of Baker Street Magazine. The Society in this story is known as the Society for the Suppression of Mendicity, or Mendicity Society. It’s goals are to stamp out vagrancy and the sending of begging letters.

Histoire Secretes de 1887 by René Réouven (1993):

See above.

The Adventure of the Amateur Mendicant Society by John Gregory Betancourt (1997):

Holmes and Watson investigate spies and amateur beggars in this short story published in the massive 200,000 compendium The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures.

The Adventure of the Mendicant’s Face by MJ Elliot (2002):

A short story which appeared in Issue 24 of The Detective magazine.

The Case of the Eccentric Testatrix by Martin Edwards (2008):

One of many pastiches written by Edwards, this one appeared in Issue 24 of the new Strand Magazine. ‘Testatrix’ is a legal term for a woman who has written and executed a last will and testament; the female equivalent of ‘testator’.

The Adventure of the Prospective Business by JA Roberts

The Case of the Amateur Mendicants by June Thomson

The Adventure of the Sophy Anderson:

The disappearance of a sailing vessel named Sophy Anderson.

Pastiches:

Holmes and the Loss of the British Barque Sophy Anderson by Peter Cannon

The Loss of the British Bark Sophy Anderson by Gary Lovisi

The Singular Adventure of the Grice Patersons in the Island of Uffa and the Loss of the British Barque `Sophy Anderson' by Edmond T. Price

The Case of the Vanishing Barque by June Thomson

The Siren of Sonnen Cove by Peter Tremayne

Sherlock Holmes, the British Bark Sophy Anderson by Ralph E. Vaughan 

The Adventure of the Grice Pattersons:

This occurred in the fictional Island of Uffa.

Pastiches:

In the Island of Uffa by Poul Anderson

In Uffish Thought by Rolfe Boswell (1946)

The Adventure of the Grice-Patterson Curse by August Derleth

Too Good to Refuse by David Galerstein

The Singular Adventures of the Grice Pattersons in the Island of Uffa by David L. Hammer

In the Island of Uffa by Christopher Morley

The Singular Adventure of the Grice Patersons in the Island of Uffa and the Loss of the British Barque `Sophy Anderson' by Edmond T. Price

A Charter for Uffa's Ritual by Donald A. Redmond

Bestiare de Sherlock Holmes by René Réouven

Sherlock Holmes, Dragon Slayer by Darrell Schweitzer

The Adventure of the Silver Buckle by Denis O. Smith

The Adventure of the Camberwell Poisoning:

During the Camberwell Poisoning Case, Holmes apparently proved that victim had gone to bed within a particular timeframe by proving that he had wound up his watch two hours earlier. Adrian Conan Doyle later wrote this up as The Adventure of the Gold Hunter. The ‘Gold Hunter’ in question is the type of watch involved. Strangely, the story is Somerset and no mention is made of any connection with Camberwell.

Pastiches:

The Camberwell Poisoners by Anthony Boucher

The Adventure of the Camberwell Beauty by August Derleth

The Adventure of the Gold Hunter by Adrian Conan Doyle

The Camberwell Poisoning Case by Stillman Drake

Murder on the Half-Shell, or, What "A Woman" by Kevin J.J. Gallivan

The Case of the Camberwell Poisoners by Ken Greenwald

The Case of the Camberwell Poisoning by June Thomson

The Case of the Camberwell Deception by June Thomson

The Adventure of the Tankerville Club Scandal:

Openshaw has been referred to Holmes by a Major Prendergast whom Holmes saved during this case. The fictional Tankerville Club is also mentioned in The Adventure of the Empty House where it is revealed that no less a personage than Colonel Sebastian Moran is a member.

Pastiches:

The Tankerville Club by Anthony Boucher

The Tankerville Club Scandal by David L. Hammer