The Shocking Sercret of the
Sixth Bust of Napoleon

Tuesday last, I think it was, when I found myself -- quite by accident, you understand -- smoking my old cherrywood. Call me Canonically suggestible, if you will, but my cherrywood pipe infallibly puts me in a disputatious mood. Watson tells us that Holmes smoked his cherrywood when in a disputatious mood, but from my own experience I can't help but wonder ifi the opposite weren't true. The pipe, by whatever combination of oils and wood grain, put Holmes in that mood, no matter what his previous attitude. Holmes did not smoke his cherrywood when in disputatious mood; Holmes was just in a disputatious mood when he smoked his cherrywood. Make sense? Well, suffice it to say that last Tuesday I was feeling feisty.

As my mind roamed the countryside of memory, looking to pic a fight, I stumbled across a paper by Bill Cochran that was read at a meeting of the Occupants of the Empty House last fall -- something Bill had entitled "The Ragged Napoleons." In this paper, the good Cochran deduced that the six busts of Napoleon in SIXN represented Watson's three wives -- two busts for each wife Aha, I thought, here is something I can dispute.

A bust, as I have always understood it, usually comes one per woman. A quick check of my trusty World Famous Chambers Etymological English Dictionary backs me up on this point, defining "bust ' as "the upper part ot a human body, esp. a woman's." Unless Watson married three sets of Siamese twins, this means the six busts meant six wives. And why do they have to be Watson's wives, anyway?

Six busts of Napoleon -- doesn't that suggest something to you? Six women belonging to Napoleon. If Watson is using some sort code name here, let us look to where he's used the name "Napoleon" before. And that brings us to "The Napoleon of Crime," Professor James Moriarty. The Napoleon of Crime would be a man certain to have six women, if not for his own personal harem, at least as a stable of prostitutes in some branch of his operations.

Suddenly, the active mind can see dark parallels arising from the simple phrase "six busts of Napoleon."

Think about the story SIXN for a moment. Six plaster figures, one of which had had the Borgia pearl inserted into it. One by one, five of the six figures were destroyed by a desperate knife-wielding criminal, searching for the pearl. Scotland Yard was baffled by this criminal, whose sole drive seemed to be a hatred of busts of Napoleon. "Busts of Napoleon," or prostitutes in the service of Moriarty? You will remember, of course, that Scotland Yard was baffled in the late 1880s by a criminal whose sole motive seemed to be a hatred of prostitutes -- Jack the Ripper.

He destroyed five Prostitutes (and destroyed is the perfect word for what he did to them) before the end of his killing. Looking for the Borgia pearl, perhaps? The details of SIXN/Jack the Ripper parallel are a bit too sordid to go into in a family publication, as this most certainly is, but those readers already familiar with the Ripper killings can reach the necessary conclusions on their own.

The only point that still needs to be made, however, is the classic: "If Holmes caught Jack the Ripper, why didn't Watson or he newspapers write it up? Why were the facts kept secret?" A SIXN/Jack parallel readily gives us the answer to that question if we follow the story to its finish: Five busts of Napoleon ere stolen and destroyed in the search for the pearl. Following he criminal's capture, the final bust of Napoleon and the rights to seek any pearl secreted within it were purchased by Sherlock Holmes, who then retrieved the pearl.

Sure, it was the crime of the century. Sure, it was the greatest triumph of Sherlock Holmes's career. But do you think for instant that either event would be enough to cause a stalwart Victorian and loyal friend like Dr. Watson to write about how Sherlock Holmes came to hire a prostitute one night and the business that followed?

Of course not, but then, Watson also wouldn't have written up the business which followed his marriage to three sets of Siamese twins. He just wrote SIXN. Make of it what you will.

(Printed in Plugs & Dottles, January 1990 )