"The Dancing Man"

I was listening to a new remix of an old Men Without Hats tune the other night, and I thought of Sherlock Holmes. "You can dance if you want to ..." the lyric went, and I started wondering if the world's greatest consulting detective ever danced.

Sure, he wasn't the most romantic soul alive. He wouldn't have done it just to court a woman. He wouldn't have done it because he was at some dull party, and something like a waltz was expected out of him. He wouldn't have danced for anyone but himself. And given the truth of that last statement, I don't think it's that much of a stretch to say, yes, Sherlock Holmes was a dancer.

Considering that only dancers we seem to see in the Holmes Canon are pygmies and stick figures, that may seem like a bold statement. There was Flora Millar, the danseuse, of course, but she was retired. And we're not counting old Farquhar and his St. Vitus's dance, since nobody came to it and St. Vitus himself didn't actually dance in the story in question. Even the gypsies didn't dance in Watson's writings. One could begin to suspect foul play ....

But let's get back to Holmes.

Sherlock Holmes liked to go to concerts. Watson speaks of "his addiction to music at strange hours.

And he was one of the first on his block to rush out and buy the latest technology for playing recorded music. In a lot of ways, he was a lot like your average teenager.

Check out Holmes in the audience for Sarasate at St. James Hall:

"All the afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect happiness, gently waving his long, thin fingers in time to the music, while his gently smiling face and his languid, dreamy eyes were as unlike those of Holmes, the sleuth-hound, Holmes the relentless, keen-witted, ready-handed criminal agent, as it was possible to conceive."

This is a man who is into his music. He doesn't care what the people sitting next to him think of his finger waving. And he's reacting to the music physically, even if he is limited by being seated. Who knows what would happen if he were standing?

Looking at his violin-playing habits gives us no clues in that direction. Counter to the many drawings you see of Holmes standing while he plays his violin, Holmes never stood to play. Most of the time he sat, and sometimes went so far as to play while lying down. To top it off, he was consistently asking Watson to get his violin for him, because he was too lazy to even get out of his chair to pick it up. Unlike more energetic fiddlers, Sherlock Holmes definitely didn't dance while he played.

He just played.

In order to find the Holmes who danced we have to look further afield than 221B Baker Street. We even have to leave London and its concert halls behind, travelling far out to the Devon countryside. Out to the misty moors of west England we go, waiting for the sun to set and the moon to rise, waiting for the local demon-hound to chase Sir Henry Baskerville over a cliff and to his death. Except it's not Sir Henry after all, but an escaped murderer wearing Sir Henry's clothes.

Sherlock Holmes is delighted. The man he was there to protect isn't dead after all, and he still has a chance to unravel the evil plot that lies hidden on the moors. It's a joyous moment, and, as Watson writes:

"Now he was dancing...."

Only two people actually dance in the Canon of Holmes, Sherlock Holmes and Tonga. Tonga dances because it's his job. Sherlock Holmes dances thanks to his job.

"Could this be my stern, self-contained friend?" Watson writes upon seeing the dancing Holmes. "These were hidden fires, indeed!"

Were they that hidden? Looking back at Holmes's concert behavior, I really don't think so.

Whether Holmes was doing a jig, a sailor's hornpipe, or some more elaborate step he'd seen in a music hall isn't really important. The basic truth of the matter was that he was actually a very physically expressive person when he wanted to be.

"You can dance if you want to..." went the lyrics of "Safety Dance," the Men Without Hats song I referred to at the start of the column. Even if you're Sherlock Holmes.

(Printed in Plugs & Dottles, April 1996)