The Adventure of the Empty House

The Adventure of the Empty House, one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as "The Return of Sherlock Holmes".

ynopsis

Context

This is the first Holmes story set after his supposed death at the Reichenbach Falls, as recounted in "The Final Problem". "The Hound of the Baskervilles" had seen the return of a pre-Reichenbach Falls Sherlock Holmes, which only served to whet readers' hunger.

Murder of Ronald Adair

Park Lane Mystery

The story itself begins, typically enough, with a murder—the Park Lane Mystery, the seemingly motiveless killing of Mr. Ronald Adair, son of the Earl of Maynooth, a high colonial official in Australia. The authorities, not to mention the man's family, are perplexed by the case: it seems that the Honourable Ronald Adair hadn't an enemy in the world. He was in his sitting room, with a window open, working on accounts of some kind, as indicated by the papers and money found by police. Ronald liked playing whist and regularly did so at several clubs, but never for great sums of money. It does, however, come out that he won as much as £420 in partnership with a Colonel Moran.

Motive

The motive does not appear to be robbery as nothing has been stolen.

Crime Scene

It seems odd that Ronald's door was locked from the inside. The only other way out was the window, and there was a 20-foot (about 6m) drop below it onto a flower bed, which now shows no sign of being disturbed. How did the murderer get out?

Murder Weapon

Ronald was killed with a soft-nosed revolver bullet to the head. No-one in the neighbourhood heard a shot.

Return of Holmes

The narrator, Doctor Watson, having retained an interest in crime from his previous association with Holmes, visits the crime scene and sees a plainclothes detective there with police, and also runs into an elderly deformed book collector, knocking several of his books to the ground. The encounter ends with the man snarling and going away, but that is not the last that Watson sees of him, for a short time later, the man comes to Watson's study. Once he manages to distract Watson's attention for a few seconds, he transforms himself into Sherlock Holmes, much to Watson's great astonishment when he turns back around.

Holmes' Account of his Supposed 'Death'

Reichenbach Falls Incident

The next part of the story involves Holmes's explanation of how he got out of the bind at Reichenbach Falls. Contrary to what Watson believed, Holmes won against Professor Moriarty, flinging him into the gorge with the help of baritsu, and then climbed up the cliff beside the path to make it appear as though he, too, had fallen to his death. This was a plan that Holmes had just conceived to defend against Moriarty's confederates. However, one at least knew that he was still alive and tried to kill him by dropping rocks down on the ledge where he had taken refuge. Hurriedly climbing back down the cliff — and falling the last short distance to the path — Holmes ran for his life.

Time Spent Travelling

He spent the next few years travelling to various parts of the world. Holmes says that initially, he traveled to Florence. From there, Holmes traveled to Tibet and wandered for two years, even attaining entry to Lhassa and met the "head lama". Afterward, Holmes went incognito as a Norwegian explorer named Sigerson. Then, to Persia, with Holmes entering Mecca and then to a brief stop over to the Khalifa in Khartoum. And finally, before returning, Holmes spent time doing chemical research on coal-tar derivatives in Montpelier, France. But, Holmes was finally brought back to London by news of this Adair murder.

Mycroft's Involvement

During all this time, the only people who knew that Holmes was alive were Moriarty's henchmen and Holmes's brother Mycroft.

Capture of Colonel Moran

etting the Scene

Holmes tells Watson that they are going to do some dangerous work that evening, and after a roundabout trip through the city, Holmes and Watson enter an empty house, and make their way to a front room overlooking — to Watson's great surprise — Baker Street. Holmes's room can be seen across the street, and more surprisingly still, Holmes can be seen silhouetted against the blind. It is a lifelike waxwork bust.

Moran' Appearance

Holmes is expecting an attempt on his life that very night, well aware as he is that Moriarty's men know that he is back in London. The police, unknown to Watson at this time, are nearby, having been told that they will be needed. As usual, Holmes has deduced everything correctly, but with one almost disastrous exception: he fails to anticipate that the would-be murderer might actually use the same empty house for his nefarious deed that he and Watson are now using as their vantage point. In he comes, with his specially designed airgun, utterly unaware that his intended victim is right in the same room, for it is quite dark.

Arrest

Once the ruffian shoots his airgun, scoring a direct hit on Holmes's dummy across the street, Holmes and Watson are on him, and he is soon disarmed and restrained. Holmes summons the police by blowing a whistle. They are led by Inspector Lestrade, who arrests the gunman. It is none other than Colonel Moran, Ronald Adair's whist partner, and the same man who threw rocks down on the ledge at Holmes at Reichenbach Falls. Holmes does not wish the police to press charges of attempted murder in connection with what Moran has just done. Instead, he tells Lestrade to charge him with murder, for Moran is the man who murdered Ronald Adair. The airgun, it turns out, has been specially designed to shoot revolver bullets, and a quick check of the one that "killed" his dummy shows, as Holmes expected, that it is the same kind used to kill Adair.Moran's motive in killing Adair is a matter of speculation even for Holmes. Nonetheless, his theory is that Adair had caught Moran cheating at cards, and threatened to expose his dishonourable behaviour. Moran, thug that he is, therefore got rid of the one man who could rob him of his livelihood, for he earned a living playing cards crookedly, and could ill afford to be barred from all his clubs.

Change in Holmes' Character

Three years of travelling have not changed Holmes very much. For instance, he still does not hold Scotland Yard detectives in general, or Lestrade in particular, in very high esteem. Upon meeting Lestrade at the "takedown", Holmes offers him a backhanded compliment:

:"Three undetected murders in one year won't do, Lestrade. But you handled the Molesey Mystery with less than your usual — that's to say, you handled it fairly well."

Criticism

tory

The story is generally well-crafted and it contains very memorable scenes such as Watson's shock at Holmes's reappearance, as well as the introduction of the famous wax bust. However, the plot contains a major inconsistency which betrays it to be an afterthought and a somewhat desperate attempt by Arthur Conan Doyle to find a device to resurrect Holmes. The inconsistency is as follows.

Plot Inconsistency

The entire justification for Holmes's plan to fake his death seems to be to fool the confederates of Moriarty who were still at large after the gang's roundup (which itself contradicts the telegraph that Holmes received from the London police in The Final Problem stating that "They have secured the whole gang with the exception of him"). But Colonel Moran is the principal confederate, and Colonel Moran saw Holmes survive the confrontation at the Reichenbach Falls, and he unsuccessfully tried to kill Holmes by throwing stones at him. Therefore the rationale for playing dead becomes unclear. Presumably, Moran who knew that Holmes was alive would have informed the other confederates of this. Therefore Holmes's statement that "it was all-important that it should be thought I was dead" makes very little sense.

In all fairness though, it should be noted that not everyone agrees that this inconsistency actually exists.It may have less to do with escaping the henchmen by pretending to be dead, and more to do with keeping Watson safe.Holmes makes an effort to keep Watson out of trouble already in 'The Final Problem' by allowing him to be tricked to leave, to face Moriarty alone.Realising that there where at least one more member in the gang left already in that episode, (the one tricking Watson to go back) Holmes saved Watson from any further involvement, since he thought Holmes had died.This would make it pointless for Moran to try to force the location of Holmes from Watson and with Holmes gone, kidnapping Watson to force Holmes to return would also be fruitless, since nobody could bring the kidnapping to Holmes attention, not knowing his whereabouts.(Watson shows clearly in his writing how convinced he is of Holmes death, as Holmes later points out.)Holmes turning to Mycroft for help and not to Watson, and then being very sketchy about why he didn't turn to Watson for aid, supports that assumption.Watson is a friend of high value, and Holmes natural reaction is to try to keep him out of this very dangerous game that he is playing, but as a gentleman, he can't outright tell Watson this, since it could be perceived as a possible insult.Only when Holmes feels certain that he can bring an end to the proceedings, he again utilizes Watson for the endgame.

Russian TV Adaptation

This difficulty was recognized by the creators of the famous Soviet TV series starring Vasily Livanov, and they fixed it rather easily. In the installment of the series based on The Empty House, Holmes pretends to fall into the Reichenbach abyss "after" he is shot at from over the cliff by Colonel Moran. Only then does Holmes decide to disappear, and thus, Moran too believes that Holmes is dead until the "resurrected" detective is sighted by Moran's henchmen in London during the events of The Empty House.

Miscellania

*The Granada TV adaption with Jeremy Brett was rather faithful to the original story-except it had Moran trying to shoot Holmes in Switzerland-instead of dropping boulders on him and has Watson-not Holmes-deduce the reason Moran had for killing Ronald Adair.
* The The Empty House installment of the Soviet TV series starring Vasily Livanov was very close to the source (as was typical of the entire series). Apart from the ingenious resolution of the resurrection inconsistency, notable departures included: Ronald Adair still being alive at the start of the episode and Watson unsuccessfully trying to protect him as instructed by Holmes in the farewell note left at the Reichenbach Falls; Watson briefly becoming a prime suspect in Ronald Adair's death after he incriminates himself by ineptly attempting to follow Holmes' investigative methods; both Watson and Mrs Hudson fainting to a comedic effect when the "resurrected" Holmes makes his appearance on Baker Street.
* Harry Paget Flashman witnesses the events of this story in the novelette "Flashman and the Tiger" by George MacDonald Fraser.
* The Tankerville Club which Colonel Moran is a member of is also mentioned in the short story "The Five Orange Pips" in which John Openshaw says that Holmes saved club member Major Prendergast from public scandal.
* The Bartitsu martial art was mentioned in the story, mis-spelled as baritsu. This is a clear anachronism, since it was developed in the late 1890s, after the events in the story are supposed to have occurred.
*The 1943 movie Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon has Holmes as a phoney German secret agent disguised as a bookseller in Switzerland.
*The 1945 movie The Woman in Green has parts of both The Final Problem and The Adventure of the Empty House incorporated in the movie-although in reverse:in the beginning is Holmes confrontation with Moriarty and an attempt on Holmes Life by a hypnotized ex-soldier; at the end Moriarty attempts to escape from the police by leaping onto a building ledge-and falls to his doom.

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