I always liked the Sherlock Holmes stories growing up. My dad introduced me to the old Basil Rathbone films at a young age, so Sherlock Holmes was to me a source of casual entertainment and interest.
Everything changed two summers ago when I got a job as a tour guide at Gillette Castle State Park in East Haddam, CT. Gillette Castle is the retirement home built by William Gillette, the first actor to portray Sherlock Holmes. He adapted Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories into a play for the stage (with some interesting interpretations, such as having a man who supposedly never fall in love declare his love in the middle of a chase scene), and he also designed the signature costume that we think of today (deerstalker cap, Inverness cape, curved pipe and magnifying glass).
I fell in love with the place immediately. The design, architecture and intricacies (such as a surveillance system in the entrance hall constructed of somewhat obscured mirrors, a passage connecting Gillette’s study to the outside so he could slip away quickly, stairs to nowhere in the study that cover up a mistake made in the design of the workshop stairs a floor below, and a trick bar with a hidden lock that was used purely for tricking guests) were absolutely amazing and they reflected the eccentric (in a good way) man who had developed the history of the home.
Then I started rereading the Holmes stories again and became utterly fascinated, finding connections between them and castle everywhere! For example, in A Study in Scarlet Holmes asks Watson what he can tell him about the stairs in the entrance way. He describes them perfectly. However, when Holmes then asks him how many there are, he cannot tell him. “You see, but you do not observe,” says Holmes. He then lets Watson know that there are seventeen of them. There are seventeen steps in the entrance way to Gillette Castle. This is a fun tidbit to use when leading school tours. Soon I began keeping a journal of my literary investigations. In general, being able to relate pieces in the house and parts of Gillette’s history to Holmes canon entertained and appeased super inquisitive tourists.
Throughout this entire process, I was in acquaintance of a couple of volunteers that appeared at the castle every Sunday afternoon, and in my opinion are some of the coolest people on earth. Their names are Mr. and Mrs. Niver and they are Sherlockians! They can practically recite Sherlock Holmes stories, act out scenes from Gillette’s Sherlock Holmes play, they own a plethora of Holmes paraphernalia and they call their estate Baskerville Hall. They were at the castle every weekend as Mr. William Gillette and his wife Helen (who never actually lived in that house, but that’s ok), in costume as Sherlock Holmes and an actress of the late 1800s. They entertained guests and always had time for us tour guides and acted as magnificent teachers. Their genius on the subject was astounding and from there, the Sherlockian world opened up to me. Basically, I want to be them when I grow up.
Sherlockian scholarship took on a whole new importance in my life – I began to really learn the stories, especially the ones for which Gillette had a special affinity. I read and analyzed Gillette’s play with its ingenious intersection of some of the best stories (in particular A Scandal in Bohemia, The Mystery of the Copper Beeches, and The Final Problem, with ideas from several others).
It was a great day when my boss suddenly realized that he’d hired people who were not just lackey tour guides for the summer when he overheard a group of us in a lively debate with a couple of literary buffs about Gillette’s characterization of Professor Moriarty, and how Holmes was juxtaposed with the heroine in the play.
My love of all things Sherlockian has continually increased to the point that everyone close to me knows it and is helping me to expand it. For Christmas I received a copy of the Complete Sherlock Holmes stories, my very own boxed set of all of the Basil Rathbone films and one of the BBC Miniseries (with Peter Cushing), a mystery solver puzzle and even a stuffed Sherlock Holmes (in Gillette’s iconic costume) who lives on top of my bookshelf. I have recently added to my collection a copy of Gillette’s play, which was surprisingly hard to track down. I’m still on the hunt for first editions and first run promotional posters of the play starring Gillette. J
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