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| Watson is thus an unreliable witness for the simple reason that he was not always present. He is most unreliable as a witness of the late stages of the career of Holmes. As he notes himself - / have seldom drawn my cases from the later phases of my friend's career [THE ILLUSTRIOUS CLIENT]. He claims that Holmes moved to the Sussex Downs to raise bees and that he published a book entitled Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with Some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen [HIS LAST BOW]. I would modestly suggest that there was more afoot than Watson knew. It seems highly unlikely that someone with the mind of Holmes would retire quietly to the country in his early 50s and raise bees. On a number of occasions, Holmes gave us insight into his mind: My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and / am in my most proper atmosphere. / can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. / crave for mental exultation [THE SIGN OF FOUR]. Watson himself recognized that his companion's brain was so abnormally active that it was dangerous to leave it without material upon which to work [THE MISSING THREE-QUARTER] Does this sound like a mind content to retire to a little farm of my dreams and raise bees? [THE CREEPING MAN]. Watson claimed that Holmes disliked the country: --- neither the country nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to him. He loved to lie in the very centre of five millions of people, with his filaments stretching out and running through them, responsive to every little rumour or suspicion of unsolved crime [THE CARDBOARD BOX]. |
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