Under the Tree at 221B

(From The Baker Street Chronicle, Volume 2, Number 6, November-December 1982)

By Brad Keefauver

Ah, the season of Christmas, what diverse and many pleasures it brings. Familial warmth, goodwill to all and, as the more child-like (or is it greedy?) among us remember, so do presents! The plunder of the year for the young and the oftimes curse of the hard-to-buy-for adult, presents are a longtime part of the Yuletide season. So much so that one cannot doubt that such good friends as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson exchanged gifts as their years together passed. But what would they have given each other?

For an answer to this, for at least one year, we can turn to “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle,” the Canon’s only Christmas story, for clues.

What manner of present would Watson have given Holmes? The answer is vir- tually thrust upon us in the opening passage of “Blue Carbuncle.” Although Watson tells us he called upon Sherlock Holmes on that second morning after Christmas to wish him “the compliments of the season,” it is hardly the only time the doctor had seen his friend over the holidays. Being with little, if any, family living anywhere near, the Watsons must have surely Invited their good friend for Christmas dinner, at which time they exchanged gifts. Watson’s present to Holmes that year immediately caught his attention when he entered the familiar rooms that second day after Christmas, and naturally it stood out in his mind when he finally recounted the story:

“He was lounging upon the sofa in a purple dressing-gown, a pipe-rack within his reach upon the right, and a pile of crumpled morning papers, evidently newly studied, near at hand.”

A pipe rack! Was there ever anything more out of place? Littering the bed- room mantle, keeping the cigars company in the coal-scuttle, those were the places for Holmes’s pipes! Watson neglects telling us if the rack had any pipes In it yet; chances are that it was simply in the place Holmes had set it upon his arrival home after his Christmas visit. The doctor was a practical, if a bit unimaginative fellow, and such a gift would seem just the thing Holmes needed to him, quite understandably. In other years, Watson’s presents for Holmes probably included such things as a picture to cover up the bullet-pock “V.R.” on the wall and a letter rack for all that unanswered correspondence stuck to the mantlepiece.

While “Blue Carbuncle” quickly gives away Watson’s gift to Holmes, there is no evidence of Holmes’s present for the doctor. To gain evidence for a conjecture on that we must go back to another story, The Sign of the Four, which took place in the autumn prior to “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.” In SIGN, Holmes recommends to Watson the book Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade, as reading while Watson waits on Holmes. The doctor’s fancy has turned to love. however, so he barely begins the book before his mind Is off cavorting with Mary Morstan. Aware of this after some mention of the book at a later date, Holmes could very well have seen to it that the doctor receive his own copy, so he could read it at his leisure. The idea of giving Martyrdom of Man as a Christmas gift no doubt agreed with Holmes’s pawky sense of humour, as the book was an Indictment of Christianity. The “Compliments of the Season” that Watson was coming to give Holmes two days after Christmas may well have been Watson, reaction to reading his present, and it is perhaps fortunate that Holmes had a problem at hand to distract his friend.

But Christmases come and Christmases go, and reactions to one’s gifts pass on almost easily. There would be other years and other exchanges between the two. The most Important gift of all, far above pipe-racks and philosophical books, was the one given to us all by Holmes, Watson, and that talented literary agent named Doyle. Sixty stories, sixty pieces of a legend for any day of the year. They remain a joyous thing to unwrap.