“filled with photographs” [CHAS]
Quick — name two canonical villains who claimed photography was a hobby of theirs.
We'll hazard a guess that one came to you quite easily, but you may have had to struggle to think of the other.
If you answered Vincent Spaulding, who kept darting into the basement of Jabez Wilson's pawnshop to develop his photos (why didn't Wilson ever ask to see those photos?) in "The Red-Headed League," you were correct.
And if you also answered Jephro Rucastle, who in "The Copper Beeches," told Violent Hunter that the locked turret contained his dark room, you were also right.
Two villains. One handy excuse to cover up activity they wanted well hidden.
Photography was handy to Sherlock Holmes as well. In "The Second Stain," the identity of Eduardo Lucas and M. Henri Fournaye were determined to be one and the same through "a comparison of photographs."
It was in this same story too that Watson discovered that Lady Hilda Trelawney Hope was much more impressive than her photographs:
“I had often heard of the beauty of the youngest daughter of the Duke of Belminster, but no description of it, and no contemplation of colourless photographs, had prepared me for the subtle, delicate charm and the beautiful colouring of that exquisite head.”
Let's not forget that it was Baron Gruner's "beastly book" that contained photographic evidence against him:
“He had it all in that book. Snapshot photographs, names, details, everything about them.”
For Sherlock Holmes, photography was much more useful than as a hobby. Let's hope they remember to smile at Baker Street Elementary...
Baker Street Elementary follows the original adventures of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, as they and their friends work through the issues of elementary school in Victorian London. An archive of all previous episodes can be viewed at the Baker Street Elementary website.
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