![]() (Recall, for example, that in “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” the dying victim’s mention of “a rat” proved to be a reference to Ballarat in Australia.) Perhaps it was not even the creature itself, but instead some other element in the case, for which the world was supposedly unprepared.Īnother unchronicled case that suggests the paranormal is described by Dr. Or there may have been still some other solution. Or it may only have somewhat resembled a giant rat and have actually been, say, a Sumatran tapir. On the other hand, the gargantuan rodent may have been an imported animal like the typical “Giant Rat” of carnival sideshows: The South American capybara. In one (mentioned in “The Sussex Vampire”) Holmes refers to “the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.” This suggests a matter for cryptozoologists (those who study alleged, unknown creatures, like the Yeti and the Loch Ness Monster). ![]() In addition to these six cases, at least two of Holmes’s unchronicled cases also evoke the paranormal. ![]() And the strange behavior of Professor Presbury in “The Creeping Man” was due to his injections of Langur monkey serum, taken for “rejuvenescence” in anticipation of marrying a much younger woman. The first two (“Devil’s Foot” and “Speckled Band”) were murders caused by, respectively, a poisonous Devil’s foot root and the bite of a swamp adder, “the deadliest snake in India.” The attacks on the beach in “The Lion’s Mane” proved not to be homicidal but rather from the deadly stings of Cyanea capillata, a type of Atlantic jellyfish. Yet Holmes discovers that each of these cases has a real-world, naturalistic explanation. A third, “The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane,” features as “strange” a problem, said Holmes, “as had ever confronted me.” And “The Adventure of the Creeping Man” presents distinct overtones of a Jekyll/Hyde transformation. In two, “The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot” and “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” victims seem to have confronted something so inexplicably horrible that they were frightened to death. Similarly, apparently paranormal phenomena are suggested in four other stories. After being given the intended victim’s scent, it was loosed upon the night. Taking advantage of an old legend and local superstitions, he simulated the ghastly beast with a massive killer hound smeared with phosphorous. Entomologist Jack Stapleton proves to be a black-sheep Baskerville who hopes to inherit the family fortune. ![]() The “vampire” claim is vanquished.Īgain, in The Hound of the Baskervilles, Holmes confronts a family “curse,” involving a seemingly demonic beast, when the current tenant of Baskerville Hall is found dead nearby are “the footprints of a gigantic hound!” Yet the detective chides the local physician for having “quite gone over to the supernaturalists,” and in time he uncovers a very real plot. But Holmes pronounces at the onset: “Rubbish, Watson, rubbish! What have we to do with walking corpses who can only be held in the grave by stakes driven through their hearts? It’s pure lunacy.” Indeed, he soon uncovers the truth, seeing in the partially paralyzed family dog a clue to the mother’s sucking of her child’s wound: the older stepbrother had pricked the object of his jealousy with a poisoned arrow from his father’s collection. Yet the case of the Sussex “vampire” at first seems to cross the threshold into the supernatural: Robert Ferguson’s Peruvian wife acts strangely and is even caught sucking blood from a wound in her infant boy’s neck. In “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire,” the detective announced: “This agency stands flat-footed upon the ground, and there it must remain. ![]() (“Paranormal” is a broad term that includes not only supernatural claims but others beyond the normal range of nature and human experience-Bigfoot for example.) As such, he was a rationalist and advocate of naturalism (a philosophy which denies the supernatural). Significantly, in light of today’s fascination with “unexplained phenomena,” Holmes was also a pioneer paranormal investigator. Ahead of his time, Sherlock Holmes was not just (in his own words) the world’s “only unofficial consulting detective” ( The Sign of Four), but also a pioneer serologist ( A Study in Scarlet), questioned-document examiner (e.g., “The Reigate Puzzle”), cryptanalyst (“The Adventure of the Dancing Men”), crime-scene technician (as in “The Resident Patient”), author of true-crime stories (“The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier” and “The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane”) and paleographer (“The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez”), among others. ![]()
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