She describes it thus:
Sherlock Holmes’ house was a typical ageless Sussex cottage, flint walls and red tile roof. This main room, on the ground floor, had once been two rooms, but was now a large square with a huge stone fireplace at one end, dark, high beams, an oak floor that gave way to slate through the kitchen door, and a surprising expanse of windows on the south side where the downs rolled on to the sea. A sofa, two wing chairs, and a frayed basket chair gathered around the fireplace, a round table and four chairs occupied the sunny south bay window (where I sat), and a work desk piled high with papers and objects stood beneath a leaded, diamond-paned window in the west: a room of many purposes. The walls were solid with bookshelves and cupboards.
She adds:
Outside the French doors lay an expanse of flagstones, sheltered from the wind by a glass conservatory that grew off the kitchen wall and by an old stone wall with herbaceous border that curved around the remaining two sides. The terrace gathered in the heat until its air danced, and I was relieved when he continued down to a group of comfortable-looking wooden chairs in the shade of an enormous copper beech. I chose a chair that looked down towards the Channel, over the head of a small orchard that lay in a hollow below us. There were tidy hive boxes arranged among the trees and bees working the early flowers of the border.
As one might imagine, the location of Holmes’ Home (as it were) is one of the most hotly debated in all of Sherlockiana.
Three candidates come most clearly to mind: Birling Farm just below the hamlet of East Dean; Hodcombe Farm on the secondary road around Beachy Head, and a small cottage marked by a square two hundred yards southwest of the “Hotel” on Beachy Head. This last, once a signal-keeper’s cottage and now a natural history centre, is popular among Sherlockians. However, the internal evidence of the Memoirs suggests its inadequacy, if for no other reason that the residents would surely have complained at some point about their close neighbours.
Hodcombe Farm and Birling Farm are both reasonable candidates for the home of Sherlock Holmes and, later, Mary Russell. Both are of the road, both near hills that might provide views of the Channel. In neither case are their current configurations of much import, since houses change—and certainly, extensions were made to the original building, first when Holmes and Mrs Hudson became residents, then when Russell moved in. Certainly, the house she describes later on bears little resemblance to a cottage.
References to the Villa occur throughout the Memoirs, to the extent that we can put together a tentative architectural plan of the place.
Interview I
Mary Russell interviews Laurie R. King
In 2004, before the publication of The Game, Laurie King’s publishers requested that she participate in an interview. But this was no ordinary interview, because the one asking the questions was none other than Miss Mary Russell—Oxford theologian, sleuth extraordinaire, partner and wife of Sherlock Holmes.
It should be mentioned that Russell’s revelations about how she came to send her memoirs to King did not come about until 2009—see “My Story” and “A Case in Correspondence”. However, despite how she presents herself in the questions below, Russell knew all about King before she sent the manuscripts in 1992.
MR: Good morning, my dear. Care for some tea? No? Suit yourself. Now, I’m not quite certain I grasp the point of this exercise. They wish me to put questions to you?
LRK: Right. You ask, I answer.
MR: And people find interest in this informal viva voce? Extraordinary. I should have thought my answers would prove more absorbing than yours, all things considered. My life, after all, has been a full one, whereas yours…
LRK: I’m sorry, Miss Russell, but I did not choose the format.
MR: As you wish. I hardly need ask about The Beekeeper’s Apprentice and its sequels: I did, after all, write them: meeting Holmes in 1915 and becoming his student, partner, and finally wife, all our little adventures in England and Palestine and—
LRK: Little adventures? You nearly died, Holmes was abducted, international incidents were narrowly averted, lives saved. The Conan Doyle stories pale in comparison.
MR: True; as a partner, I stimulated Holmes mind rather more than Dr Watson did. It was even, at times, something of a challenge for Holmes to keep up with me. But to return to this interview: I understand you write novels as well as edit my manuscripts.
LRK: I do, yes. Mysteries, for the most part—I do a series about a San Francisco cop, as well as three stand-alone suspense novels.
MR: This ‘cop’, as you call him—
LRK: Her. The cop in A Grave Talent and the rest is a woman. Kate Martinelli.
MR: You don’t say? We tried women constables during the Great War, but unfortunately their numbers rather diminished once the men returned from the trenches. You find a woman constabulary serviceable, though?
LRK: It’s not a separate force, they’re in with the men. But yes, women are as good as men, whether it’s as a street patrol officer or, as with Martinelli, in investigations.
MR: One might argue that women are rather, er, taken advantage of…
LRK: If you mean by the bad guys, that’s why our cops carry guns—they’re a great equalizer. And if you mean taken advantage of in the relationship sense, well, that doesn’t enter into it as much with Martinelli, because she’s gay and her partner’s a man. Um, you understand the word ‘gay’? as in lesbian?
MR: ‘Gay’—a charming figure of speech. Yes, I can see that might be an advantage, in a man’s world such as the police. What about the other books, your ‘suspense novels’?
LRK: A Darker Place is about a professor of religion—again, a woman—who investigates so-called ‘cults’ for the FBI; Folly concerns a women who retreats to an island in the Pacific Northwest to rebuild a house—one that was originally built by a soldier returned from the First World War, in fact. And most recent was Keeping Watch, in which the veteran of another war, Vietnam, rescues endangered children.
MR: A ‘professor of religion’—do you have an interest in religion, yourself?
LRK: I did an MA in Old Testament theology—storytelling at its most basic—especially its feminine aspects, and was later given an honorary doctorate by my seminary.
MR: And you now write crime novels? An interesting choice. Still, it must add a certain depth to your stories.
LRK: I think so, yes. But then, one joy of mysteries is that you can weave all kinds of interests and abilities into them—house building, child rearing, life in Papua New Guinea, Greek verbs, holy fools, trench warfare, the hills of north India….
MR: My, how…piquant. But this raises a question: How do you keep people from confusing the works that concern Holmes and me with the novels you also write?
LRK: Er, well. I can’t exactly say that I do.
MR: (Her voice going icy.) You ‘can’t say..’? Am I to understand that the manuscripts I sent you—my personal memoirs—have been published as fiction?
LRK: Well, they’re exciting and exotic and tell of little-known events in history—
MR: And this next one, which you have entitled The Game. I suppose readers will imagine you invented it, too? That Holmes and I did not actually race across Europe for the ship to India and join the hunt for the missing spy? That we never became itinerant magicians or encountered the Maharaja of Khanpur or joined forces with a Bolshevik or met Kipling’s Kim or went pig-sticking? That we never—oh, this is simply too outrageous. Young woman, if you wish to claim sole authorship of the books, then you may conduct this so-called interview without me as well. Good day.
LRK: Oh, Miss Russell, watch the—oh, please—don’t! Oh dear. (Sighs.) She’s gone.
Two:
The Russell Memoirs
The child even looked vaguely intelligent—though that last was probably an effect of the spectacles. (“Beekeeping for Beginners”)
*
“Holmes,” I said, startled into speech, “are you going all sentimental on me??
??
“No, you’re right, that would never do.” (Letter of Mary)
*
How jolly: another warrant for our arrest. (Pirate King)
A Russell Chronology
The Russell Memoirs—known to her community of readers as the Kanon (the “Canon” being the Conan Doyle stories)—include at the time of this writing twelve novels, one novella, and five short stories. In order of publication, and showing the acronyms used by many of Russell’s fans, they are:
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (1994) (BEEK)
A Monstrous Regiment of Women (1995) (MREG)
A Letter of Mary (1997) (LETT)
The Moor (1998) (MOOR)
O Jerusalem (1999) (OJER)
Justice Hall (2002) (JUST)
The Game (2004) (GAME)
Locked Rooms (2005) (LOCK)
The Language of Bees (2009) (LANG)
The God of the Hive (2010) (GOTH)
Pirate King (2011) (PIRA)
Garment of Shadows (2012) (GARM)
**
Beekeeping for Beginners, an e-novella (2011) (B4B)
* *
“Mrs Hudson’s Case” (1997) (HUD)
“A Venomous Death” (2009) (VEN)
“My Story” (2009) (MYS)
“Birth of a Green Man” (2010) (BIR)
“A Case in Correspondence” (2010) (CAS)
(The last four stories listed are included in this Companion. “Mrs Hudson’s Case”, “Beekeeping for Beginners,” and the supplemental “Laurie R. King’s Sherlock Holmes” can be found as ebooks through the website.)
A Chronology of the Russell Memoirs
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice opens in April 1915 and covers the four years of Russell’s apprenticeship, ending in August, 1919.
Beekeeping for Beginners begins at that same April, 1915 meeting, telling the story largely from Sherlock Holmes’ point of view. It ends shortly after the first Zeppelin bombardment of London, May 31, 1915.
Mrs Hudson’s Case is set in October, 1918.
O Jerusalem covers a segment of the time spanned by BEEK, although it was published out of sequence so as to tie in with JUST. Its dates are December 1918 to early February, 1919.
A Monstrous Regiment of Women starts on Boxing Day, December 26, 1920, when Russell is about to turn 21, and ends in early February, 1921 (with after-notes that reach forward some months).
(The long gap in the Memoirs, the thirty months from February, 1921 to August, 1923, is a time that clearly contains much of private concern to Miss Russell. She has, as yet, not chosen to share this time with her reading public—apart from, possibly, the case described in “Venomous Death”.)
A Letter of Mary begins the more compact pace of the Memoirs, with its action taking place in weeks rather than months or years: from mid-August to early September, 1923.
The Moor starts towards the end of September, 1923, and ends in early November.
Justice Hall covers from Guy Fawkes Day (November 5) until December 21, 1923, with an epilogue five days later.
The Game begins January 1, 1924 and ends in early March 1924.
[Russell and Holmes are then in Japan for three weeks, although those events are not described until Dreaming Spies]
Locked Rooms is set from May to early June, 1924.
[The Art of Detection, a novel not generally included in the Russell Memoirs, includes a June, 1924 case Holmes had in San Francisco, while Russell was seeing to family business in Southern California. Her own experiences during this time may see future publication.]
The Language of Bees covers a scant three weeks, from August 10 to August 30, 1924.
God of the Hive, being a continuation of LANG, picks up in August 30 and finishes the case on September 9, 1924 (with an epilogue dated Oct. 31, 1924).
Pirate King takes place in November 1924, roughly the 6th through the 30th.
Garment of Shadows covers the closing weeks of 1924, and sees January dawn in 1925.
Birth of a Green Man and Venomous Death are undated, although the first would appear to be some time in the early 1920s, and the second may take place during the summer of 1923.
* *
The actual events of My Story and A Case in Correspondence are from the spring of 1992, although they rest upon the 1924 episode called God of the Hive.
Russell’s Fellow Actors:
The characters of the Russell Memoirs
Characters known to Conan Doyle
Sherlock Holmes is known first and foremost through the sixty stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was either A) the author of the 56 fictional short stories and four novels concerning Holmes, Watson, Mycroft, etc, or B) the literary agent of Dr Watson, the means by which Holmes and Watson became known to the reading public. The Russell Memoirs are firmly based upon the latter assumption: that the Conan Doyle stories are true accounts of an extraordinary man. And just as clearly, that the man had a life long after Conan Doyle’s stories left him at the dawn of the Great War, in August 1914 (His Last Bow).
Unlike the main subject of his tales, Watson (or perhaps Conan Doyle) is not terribly interested in complete detail or strict accuracy. Holmes’ precise age, birthplace, or family history are never given, although the Memoirs say that he is 54 when he and Russell meet in 1915. Both accounts agree in Holmes’ fascination with beekeeping, although Conan Doyle has the detective retired to the Sussex Downs, apart from the German spy case of 1912-1914, while the Memoirs make it clear that the retirement is more apparent than actual. Certainly, he has maintained his contacts with the London underworld, and the bolt-holes he established in the great city appear to be kept well stocked.
It is not necessary here to describe the detective, his personality, or his techniques, since (as his brother Mycroft says) “I hear of Sherlock everywhere.” However, it should be noted that Mary Russell finds the widespread belief that Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character very troubling, giving her the occasional sensation of being somewhat fictional herself.
(Holmes’ age and more are addressed in the essay collection Laurie R. King’s Sherlock Holmes, available as an ebook.)
Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes at breakfast
Dr Watson is the narrator of most of the Conan Doyle Holmes accounts. He and Holmes meet in 1881 (A Study in Scarlet) when Watson comes back wounded after serving as a medic with the British Army in Afghanistan, desperate for cheap housing. A mutual acquaintance brings the two men together, and the world is changed.
A large part of the success of the Conan Doyle tales is due to Watson’s Everyman character, providing access to the at times incomprehensible workings of Holmes’ mind—and even more so his heart. Later film versions of Dr Watson chose to depict the Afghan Army veteran as a bumbling ignoramus, but in the originals, Watson is Holmes’ right-hand man, essential for his medical knowledge, his unflagging courage, and his loaded revolver.
The Russell memoirs do not see a lot of Dr Watson, although Russell is clearly fond of him. He does have occasional appearances, but the mentions of him are more of his absence, and when he is called upon, it is as a kind of distant Irregular. The good Doctor seems to travel a great deal in his older age, spending considerable time in German spas.
Mrs Beeton’s Labour-Saving Apparatus (1923)
Mrs. Hudson is the landlady of 221 Baker Street, renting the two men a suite of rooms in central London (a sub-let that gives the “B” to the famous address). Sherlockians argue over whether or not she has some connection with the villainous Hudson of “The Gloria Scott”, and if she is the “Martha” who appears in “His Last Bow”. In the Russell Memoirs, her name is given as Clara (Locked Rooms) and the husband’s criminality is what has brought her to Holmes’ attention in the first place. All would agree, however, that Mrs. Hudson is the most patient landlady in all of London, fond of her tenant despite his endless demands and bohemian existence:
Mrs. Hudson, the landlady of Sherlock Holmes, was a long-suffering woman. Not only was her first-floor
flat invaded at all hours by throngs of singular and often undesirable characters but her remarkable lodger showed an eccentricity and irregularity in his life which must have sorely tried her patience. His incredible untidiness, his addiction to music at strange hours, his occasional revolver practice within doors, his weird and often malodorous scientific experiments, and the atmosphere of violence and danger which hung around him made him the very worst tenant in London. On the other hand, his payments were princely. I have no doubt that the house might have been purchased at the price which Holmes paid for his rooms during the years that I was with him. (The Dying Detective)
In the Memoirs, Mrs Hudson takes young Russell under her wing, tutoring her in the womanly arts and providing an affectionate warmth at the center of the cerebral Holmes household. In Sussex as in Baker Street, Mrs Hudson is no mere housekeeper: in “Mrs Hudson’s Case”, after Holmes flatly refuses to believe her suspicions, the doughty lady takes matters into her own hands and solves the case on her own, thank you very much.
Interestingly enough, Mrs Hudson’s image does not appear in the early illustrations for the Strand.
Mycroft
Mycroft Holmes is Sherlock Holmes’ brother, seven years the elder. Fat where Sherlock is thin, slow where the younger is nervous and quick, he is even more misanthropic and possibly more brilliant (both brothers would agree). Mycroft appears in just four of the Conan Doyle stories, first of all in The Greek Interpreter, where Holmes surprises Watson with the revelation of this hitherto unsuspected sibling, describing him as having:
...no ambition and no energy. He will not even go out of his way to verify his own solutions, and would rather be considered wrong than take the trouble to prove himself right. Again and again I have taken a problem to him, and have received an explanation which has afterwards proved to be the correct one. And yet he was absolutely incapable of working out the practical points...