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Authors: June Thomson
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A Study in Scarlet
Faced by the choice, Watson decided to find somewhere cheaper to live rather than move out of London. By a lucky coincidence, it was on the very same day he came to this conclusion that circumstances contrived to bring about a meeting which was to become as famous in its own way as that between Stanley and Livingstone.
Although we know exactly what Holmes and Watson were doing on that day, Watson has failed to record the date when the introduction took place. The suggestionthat it occurred on 1st January and was the result of a New Year’s resolution on Watson’s part to opt for less expensive accommodation seems plausible. This date is accepted by many students of the canon.
Holmes had set off from his rooms in Montague Street for the chemistry laboratory at St Bartholomew’s Hospital to continue his experiments into finding a more effective test for haemoglobin, research which has already been referred to in Chapter Two. During the morning, he spoke to Stamford, Watson’s former dresser at Bart’s, * and in course of the conversation happened to mention that he was looking for someone with whom he could share lodgings he had found.
That same morning, Watson left his hotel off the Strand and, no doubt feeling at a loose end as usual, found his way to the bar of the Criterion Hotel in Piccadilly Circus, then called Regent Circus, much smaller than it is today and lacking the central statue of Eros which was not erected until 1890.
It was a large hotel, built in 1873, and was well-known for its restaurant but most particularly for its American or Long Bar. Sumptuously decorated with marble-clad walls and a ceiling inlaid with gold mosaic and semi-precious stones, it was a popular meeting-place, although its priceswere not cheap. It is still standing on the south side of Piccadilly, its ornamental white stone façade recently cleaned. Part of it houses the Criterion Restaurant, the original American Bar, its interior restored to the magnificence that Watson would have known. *
By great good fortune, Stamford also chose to call at the ‘Cri’ that same morning on his way home from Bart’s and recognised the figure standing at the bar as Dr Watson, although much thinner and browner than in the days when they had walked the hospital wards together. Going up to him, Stamford clapped him on the shoulder.
For his part, Watson was pleased to meet him again for, although they had never been close, he was delighted to see one friendly and familiar face among the teeming multitude of four million strangers which then made up London’s population.
He promptly invited him to lunch at the Holborn Restaurant † in Little Queen Street, since widened and now forming part of Kingsway, regaling Stamford on the journey there by cab with an account of his adventures since they had last met. One has the impression that Watson was grateful for the opportunity to talk to someone, another measure of his loneliness.
Holborn is greatly changed since that lunch-time over a hundred years ago, when the two of them rattled through it in their hansom, and it is doubtful if Watson would recognise parts of it. In 1881 Little Queen Street was still lined with old houses, some of which dated to before the Great Fire of London of 1666. It led into Clare Market, a slum area of narrow streets and historic buildings, all of which were demolished in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when Aldwych and Kingsway were developed, proving that urban vandalism is not confined to our own times.
Like the Criterion, the Holborn Restaurant was not cheap. Luncheon cost 3s 6d (about 33 pence) per person and presumably, as Watson had issued the invitation, he paid for Stamford as well. Wine was drunk with the meal and taking this into account, together with the hansom fare and a tip for the waiter, the total bill probably cost Watson more than a day’s pension, as Michael Harrison has pointed out in In the Footsteps of Sherlock
Faced by the choice, Watson decided to find somewhere cheaper to live rather than move out of London. By a lucky coincidence, it was on the very same day he came to this conclusion that circumstances contrived to bring about a meeting which was to become as famous in its own way as that between Stanley and Livingstone.
Although we know exactly what Holmes and Watson were doing on that day, Watson has failed to record the date when the introduction took place. The suggestionthat it occurred on 1st January and was the result of a New Year’s resolution on Watson’s part to opt for less expensive accommodation seems plausible. This date is accepted by many students of the canon.
Holmes had set off from his rooms in Montague Street for the chemistry laboratory at St Bartholomew’s Hospital to continue his experiments into finding a more effective test for haemoglobin, research which has already been referred to in Chapter Two. During the morning, he spoke to Stamford, Watson’s former dresser at Bart’s, * and in course of the conversation happened to mention that he was looking for someone with whom he could share lodgings he had found.
That same morning, Watson left his hotel off the Strand and, no doubt feeling at a loose end as usual, found his way to the bar of the Criterion Hotel in Piccadilly Circus, then called Regent Circus, much smaller than it is today and lacking the central statue of Eros which was not erected until 1890.
It was a large hotel, built in 1873, and was well-known for its restaurant but most particularly for its American or Long Bar. Sumptuously decorated with marble-clad walls and a ceiling inlaid with gold mosaic and semi-precious stones, it was a popular meeting-place, although its priceswere not cheap. It is still standing on the south side of Piccadilly, its ornamental white stone façade recently cleaned. Part of it houses the Criterion Restaurant, the original American Bar, its interior restored to the magnificence that Watson would have known. *
By great good fortune, Stamford also chose to call at the ‘Cri’ that same morning on his way home from Bart’s and recognised the figure standing at the bar as Dr Watson, although much thinner and browner than in the days when they had walked the hospital wards together. Going up to him, Stamford clapped him on the shoulder.
For his part, Watson was pleased to meet him again for, although they had never been close, he was delighted to see one friendly and familiar face among the teeming multitude of four million strangers which then made up London’s population.
He promptly invited him to lunch at the Holborn Restaurant † in Little Queen Street, since widened and now forming part of Kingsway, regaling Stamford on the journey there by cab with an account of his adventures since they had last met. One has the impression that Watson was grateful for the opportunity to talk to someone, another measure of his loneliness.
Holborn is greatly changed since that lunch-time over a hundred years ago, when the two of them rattled through it in their hansom, and it is doubtful if Watson would recognise parts of it. In 1881 Little Queen Street was still lined with old houses, some of which dated to before the Great Fire of London of 1666. It led into Clare Market, a slum area of narrow streets and historic buildings, all of which were demolished in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when Aldwych and Kingsway were developed, proving that urban vandalism is not confined to our own times.
Like the Criterion, the Holborn Restaurant was not cheap. Luncheon cost 3s 6d (about 33 pence) per person and presumably, as Watson had issued the invitation, he paid for Stamford as well. Wine was drunk with the meal and taking this into account, together with the hansom fare and a tip for the waiter, the total bill probably cost Watson more than a day’s pension, as Michael Harrison has pointed out in In the Footsteps of Sherlock
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