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| [4 am Christmas Day on the corner of Goodge Street & Tottenham Court Road] |
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| [Christmas Morning "Presents" for Sherlock Holmes] |
The detective proceeds to occupy himself throughout Christmas and Boxing Day in deducing what he can of the anonymous owner, ironically in possession of the Countess of Morcar’s stolen Blue Carbuncle without knowing it.
Morning, 27 December, 1889.
By the time Dr. Watson calls on his friend two days after Christmas to wish him the compliments of the season, Holmes has, that morning, already returned the goose to its finder to eat before it goes off. Naturally enough, the hat repays close examination. By contrast, beyond noting a tag reading “For Mrs. Henry Baker”, attached to the bird’s left leg, Holmes gives the bird scant attention. Until Peterson bursts in on the pair with news of his wife’s discovery, the goose has provided only a name, a marital status, and (along with deductions from the hat), the notion of the bird as a peace-offering to a cold wife.
Galvanised into action, now in his element, Holmes is wryly amused to realise what lay undetected within such easy reach. Inviting Watson to dine at 7 pm, he comments “There is a woodcock, I believe, By the way, in view of recent occurrences, perhaps I ought to ask Mrs. Hudson to examine its crop.”
Disjecta Membra.
By the time Watson returns to Baker Street, Henry Baker has seen Holmes’ advert in the evening papers and the pair are shown up together. In the ensuing interview which serves to establish Baker knew nothing of the diamond, this “man of learning and letters” employs the quaint phrase “disjecta membra” to describe “the feathers, legs, crop and so on” Holmes says were retained,after eating the goose. This Latinate allusion is entirely appropriate from the lips of one who spends his days amid old books and manuscripts in the British Museum. It is essentially an academic joke from a man much relieved to know he has a fresh goose to take home that night.
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| [An Absolutely Innocent Man] |
Beyond economically characterising its speaker, this arresting, italicised phrase, aptly relates to the process of deduction and art of detection. Generally, we find it in two contexts: literature and pottery. Deriving from one of Horace’s satires, where he refers to scattered limbs, members, or remains, disjecta membra has come to signify fragments of literary works which may be scattered to far-flung libraries and, with expertise, pieced back together to reconstruct the original manuscript. Much the same approach is applied in the study of (especially) ancient shards of vases and the like.
The phrase would be familiar to the detective who was well versed in the study of Miracle Plays, 15th Century palimpsests, early English charters and medieval pottery, all of which provided practice in his chosen profession. He deduces Henry Baker from the clue-shards on his hat, pieces together the whole history of the Blue Carbuncle’s progress from Countess to crop, and reconstructs, from scattered remains, in every Canon case. And the reward for success? The Blue Carbuncle of Solution hidden amid the disjecta membra he must ever ponder and re-unite.
[The Blue Carbuncle of Solution]
Mr. and Mrs. Baker.
Apart from suggesting Henry Baker as a literary type, the notion of something disintegrating that was once whole and flourishing expands to include the man’s career and marriage. From inspection of his hat, Holmes conjures up an accurate portrait of one who “has fallen upon evil days”, who used to be well-to-do, suffered a “moral retrogression” and “decline in fortunes”, possibly through drink, but has “retained some degree of self respect”, though his wife has ceased to love him. Watson confirms as much describing the Baker he meets as giving “the impression generally of a man of learning and letters who had had ill-usage at the hands of fortune.”
We do not directly meet Mrs. Baker in the story, but Holmes paints a picture extrapolated from knowledge of the husband. Just as Henry has come adrift from his former status, so has a marriage begun to crumble.
Yet, however miserable the couple’s Christmas must have been, there are signs all may not be lost. We doubt she will have sympathised with her husband; perhaps even questioned the veracity of his excuses. But he leaves Baker Street in good humour, and we know there’s still a wife to welcome the belated goose.
In securing the original bird through the Alpha Inn Goose Club, Henry has also tried to do the right thing and succeeded. Though “shillings have not been so plentiful with me as they once were”, he had duly paid his few pence each week to Mr. Windigate, qualifying him for a goose. As the contemporary article below indicates, this was not always a foregone conclusion; some men missed payments and suffered the consequence.
That Henry Baker kept on the straight and narrow, despite his propensity for drink, attests to the man’s residual self-respect and good intentions. The tag on the bird’s left leg may also offer a little more than Holmes reads into it.
At no point does the detective consider who wrote the tag or why it names the wife. Henry had no need to attach it; if he had, not even he would address a present: “for Mrs. Henry Baker”. Good host, Windigate, had every reason to tag each of the 24 destined for customers on the Goose Club list who had paid in full. Most straightforwardly the wife’s name was copied from that list, which implies the bird was ordered either by her or in her name. Either way, Windigate knew, as Henry knew, that a wife’s happiness was at stake.Her name in the book stood as a reminder to both on every visit to the inn that this was money he should not drink away.
A Final ‘Disjectus Membrum’ - A Clipping from the Bristol Mercury.
In 1889, geese were pretty well as expensive as they are now. The prices revealed by Breckinridge of Covent Garden were realistic. He bought (from Mrs. Oakshott) “Twenty-four geese at 7s 6d” and sold them to the Alpha Inn “at 12s”. The day after Holmes concluded his investigation with the Ryder confession, the Bristol Mercury described the usual procedure and risks associated with goose clubs run by London inns. I leave you with that this Christmas Day.
A toast to Henry Bakers everywhere - may they all take home the goose to a happy house!
And a toast to Mrs. Hudsons, here and abroad, who, today, religiously check the crop of their chosen Christmas bird. Just in case.
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| [from the Bristol Mercury for 28 December, 1889] |
Further Reading:
Over Christmas and New Year, 2012/13, I wrote a trio of posts on the artistry of "The Blue Carbuncle", taking (as here) 1889 as the generally accepted date of this case. To read them in sequence, click on each title link below. You'll come across a few outdated references to the film's existence on YouTube. May I redirect you to dailymotion which currently offers the full episode.
1. Follow That Goose! - A Timeline
3. How to Write like Doctor Watson
