The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
Encyclopedia
"The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes
short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
. It is one of eight stories in the cycle collected as His Last Bow
. Doyle ranked "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" fourteenth in a list of his nineteen favourite Sherlock Holmes stories.
The monotony of pea-soup-fog
-shrouded London
is broken by a sudden visit from Holmes’s brother Mycroft
. He has come about some missing, secret submarine
plans. Seven of the ten pages — three are still missing — were found with Arthur Cadogan West’s body. He was a young clerk in a government office at Royal Arsenal
, Woolwich
, whose body was found next to the Underground
tracks near the Aldgate tube station
, his head crushed. He had little money with him (although there appears to have been no robbery
), theatre
tickets, and curiously, no Underground ticket. The three missing pages by themselves could enable one of Britain’s
enemies to build a Bruce-Partington submarine.
Inspector Lestrade
tells Holmes that a passenger has seen fit to report hearing a thud at about the location in question, as though a body had fallen on the track. He could not see anything, however, owing to the thick fog
.
After an examination of the track near Aldgate, Holmes reaches an astonishing and unusual conclusion: Cadogan West had been killed elsewhere, was deposited on the roof of an Underground train, and fell off when the jarring action of going over the points
at Aldgate shook the coach.
Holmes decides to visit Sir James Walter, who was in charge of the papers. He has, however, died, apparently of a broken heart from the loss of his honour when the papers were stolen, according to his brother Colonel Valentine.
Cadogan West’s fiancée is a bit more informative. There was something on his mind for the last week or so of his life. He commented to her on how easily a traitor could get hold of “the secret” and how much a foreign agent would pay for it. Then, on the night in question, as the two of them were walking to the theatre, near his office, he dashed off, never to be seen again.
Holmes next goes to the office from which the plans were stolen. Sidney Johnson, the senior clerk, tells Holmes that as always, he was the last man out of the office that night, and that he had put the papers in the safe
himself. Anyone coming in afterwards to steal them would have needed three keys (for the building, the office, and the safe), but no duplicates were found on Cadogan West’s body, and only the late Sir James had all three keys. Johnson also mentions that one of the seven recovered pages might also be indispensable to a foreign agent. This will prove important later. Holmes also discovers that it is possible to see what is happening inside the office from outside even when the iron shutters are closed.
After leaving, Holmes finds that the clerk at the nearby Underground station remembers seeing Cadogan West on the evening in question. He was most shaken by something, and took a train to London Bridge
.
Acting on information from Mycroft, and on what he has learnt thus far, Holmes identifies a person of interest, Hugo Oberstein, a known agent who left town shortly after Cadogan West’s murder
. Some small reconnaissance shows Holmes that Oberstein’s house backs onto an above-ground Underground line, and that, owing to traffic at a nearby junction
, trains often stop right under his windows. It seems clear now that Cadogan West’s body was laid on the train roof — the evidence shows that he was not dropped from a height — just there. The only remaining questions are about who killed him and why.
Holmes and Dr. Watson break into Oberstein’s empty house and examine the windows, finding that the grime has been smudged, and there is a bloodstain. An Underground train stops right under the window. It would be easy to lift a dead man onto a train roof, as was apparently done. Some messages from the Daily Telegraph agony column, all seeming to allude to a business deal, are also found, posted by “Pierrot”, and this gives Holmes an idea. He posts a similarly cryptic message in the Times demanding a meeting, signing it Pierrot, in the hopes that the thief — assuming it is not Cadogan West — might show up at Oberstein’s house.
It works. Colonel Valentine shows up and is stunned to find Holmes, Watson, Lestrade, and Mycroft all waiting for him. He confesses to the theft of the plans, but swears that it was Oberstein who killed Cadogan West. Cadogan had followed the Colonel to Oberstein’s and then, injudiciously, intervened. Oberstein beat his head in. Oberstein then decided, over the Colonel’s objections, that he had to keep three of the papers, because they could not be copied in a short time. He then got the idea of putting the other seven in Cadogan West’s pockets and then putting him on a train roof outside his window, reasoning that he would be blamed for the theft when his body were found, when actually, he had only seen the theft in progress and followed the thief.
Colonel Valentine Walter had been deep in debt
and had acted out of a need for money. He redeems himself somewhat by agreeing to write to Oberstein, whose address on the Continent
he knows, inviting him to come back to England
for the fourth, vital page. This ruse also works, and Oberstein gets 15 years
while the missing pages of the Bruce-Partington plans are recovered from his trunk. Colonel Valentine dies in prison, not long after starting his sentence. Holmes is given an emerald
tie pin by Queen Victoria
(she is not actually identified by name, but there is little doubt considering the dropped hints and given that the story is set in the year 1895, while she still reigned) for his efforts.
This Sherlock Holmes
story is one of four in which Holmes's brother Mycroft
is mentioned. Mycroft appears as a major character in "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter
" and in this story. He also appears as a minor character in "The Final Problem", (as Watson's cab driver), and is only referred to in "The Adventure of the Empty House
". In this story, the reader learns that Mycroft's government job is considerably more important than Holmes earlier let on in "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter
". Holmes even says that his brother sometimes is the British Government.
Holmes is mentioned as writing "a monograph
upon the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus", which is, in the story, "said by experts to be the last word upon the subject". Conan Doyle
introduced this detail, quite irrelevant to the main story line, in an apparent effort to make his protagonist a multifaceted intellectual - contrary to the image of the single-minded detective, interested in nothing which is not directly relevant to his profession, which was how Holmes was presented at the inception of the series in A Study in Scarlet
. Doyle had, of course, begun to introduce such elements as early as the second Holmes narrative, "The Sign of Four
." These introspections served to make Holmes more of a Victorian gentleman, with the wide ranging interests which were appropriate to an upper class amateur, and less of a middle class professional specialist. In the first scene of "The Sign of Four
", Holmes is described, after having injected cocaine, as reading "an old black letter volume". At the conclusion of "A Case of Identity
", Holmes quotes Persian (Iranian) poetry. In "Silver Blaze
", Holmes unbends so far as to wager for sport on a horse race. In "The Naval Treaty", Holmes falls into a reverie over a moss rose, during which he endorses the concept of intelligent design, though as a moral and not a scientific principle. In the same story, he lectures Watson on the social value of board schools. And in the opening scene of "The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez
", Holmes is described as deciphering the original text of a palimpsest.
Hugo Oberstein is one of the few minor characters in the Holmes stories who is brought back and used for more important reasons in a second story. He first appears in The Adventure of the Second Stain
as one of three possible spies that a missing foreign office document may have ended up with.
Watson finishes the story by mentioning that Oberstein was sentenced to 15 years of prison. Both murder and treason
/espionage
were capital crimes in the Victorian Era
. The lenient treatment suggests - though it is not explicitly stated - that Oberstein bought his life by revealing some secrets in his possession, which prefigures the treatment of actual German agents in the World War II
Double Cross System
.
The story can be considered as an eerie precursor of the spy thriller, not yet developed into a genre in its own right. The theme of theft of military secrets by a hostile power was a prominent element of the Dreyfus affair
, at the time of writing convulsing neighboring France and a major subject of news all over the world.
The reference to "the Bruce-Partington submarine", in whose "radius of operation" naval warfare becomes impossible, foreshadows the critical importance which submarine warfare would assume in the coming World Wars. The submarine's means of attacking surface craft is never made clear, being a closely guarded military secret.
were stolen from Dublin Castle the day before King Edward VII was to give a state visit requiring the regalia. It too was a crime that was never solved - and which resulted in the dismissal of Conan Doyle's cousin, Arthur Vicars
.
Conan Doyle, when he combined real-life events, entangled them into a new version. One of the lead suspects in the theft of the Irish Crown Jewels was Frank Shackleton, a shady individual who was the brother of the prominent Polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton
, who had come within ninety miles of the South Pole
the previous year. It has been noted that Frank Shackleton is the model for Colonel Valentine Walters, the man who helps the spies steal the plans in "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans". His brother is a public servant of great probity, Sir James Walters (who dies of shame when he realizes what Valentine has done). But there is more than this odd connection. In 1875, the career of a major British army hero (and friend of the Prince of Wales) ended in disgrace. Colonel Valentine Baker
, brother of the noted hunter and African Explorer, Sir Samuel Baker
, the first white man to find Lake Albert, was convicted of an indecent assault on a woman, and was cashiered from the British army (subsequently he served in the Egyptian Army). The assault was in a railway car (shades of the fate of Mary Money), and Col. Baker's relationship with the Prince of Wales - later King Edward VII - tied his fall from grace with that of the King who was victimized in the theft of the Irish Crown Jewels. The result seems effortless to the reader who is unaware of it, but it shows how complex Conan Doyle can be in his literary constructions.
The story was adapted for a 1988 episode of the television series The Return of Sherlock Holmes starring Jeremy Brett
as Holmes and Edward Hardwicke
as Watson. It differs in showing that the death of West was manslaughter, as well as that, after the capture of Oberstein, Colonel Walter is allowed to "disappear" so that Special Branch can use him to trap other spies.
A series of four TV movies produced in the early 2000s starred Matt Frewer
as Sherlock Holmes and Kenneth Welsh
as Dr. Watson. One of these films, The Royal Scandal
, adapted "A Scandal in Bohemia
" and combined its story with "The Bruce-Partington Plans."
"The Great Game
," the third episode of the 2010 television series Sherlock, uses several of Doyle's stories as inspiration, among them "The Bruce-Partington Plans." The story borrows many elements of the original story and is updated to the modern era. The victim here is an MI6 clerk named Andrew West, nodding to the original victim's name. Many of the other clues, like an unused train ticket and blood traces on a windowsill, are also used.
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
. It is one of eight stories in the cycle collected as His Last Bow
His Last Bow
His Last Bow is a collection of seven Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as the title of the last story in that collection...
. Doyle ranked "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" fourteenth in a list of his nineteen favourite Sherlock Holmes stories.
Plot summary
Smog
Smog is a type of air pollution; the word "smog" is a portmanteau of smoke and fog. Modern smog is a type of air pollution derived from vehicular emission from internal combustion engines and industrial fumes that react in the atmosphere with sunlight to form secondary pollutants that also combine...
-shrouded London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
is broken by a sudden visit from Holmes’s brother Mycroft
Mycroft Holmes
Mycroft Holmes is a fictional character in the stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. He is the elder brother of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes.- Profile :...
. He has come about some missing, secret submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
plans. Seven of the ten pages — three are still missing — were found with Arthur Cadogan West’s body. He was a young clerk in a government office at Royal Arsenal
Royal Arsenal
The Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, originally known as the Woolwich Warren, carried out armaments manufacture, ammunition proofing and explosives research for the British armed forces. It was sited on the south bank of the River Thames in Woolwich in south-east London, England.-Early history:The Warren...
, Woolwich
Woolwich
Woolwich is a district in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.Woolwich formed part of Kent until 1889 when the County of London was created...
, whose body was found next to the Underground
London Underground
The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
tracks near the Aldgate tube station
Aldgate tube station
Aldgate tube station is a London Underground station located at Aldgate in the City of London.The station is on the Circle Line between Tower Hill and Liverpool Street. It is also the eastern terminus of the Metropolitan Line...
, his head crushed. He had little money with him (although there appears to have been no robbery
Robbery
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....
), theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
tickets, and curiously, no Underground ticket. The three missing pages by themselves could enable one of Britain’s
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
enemies to build a Bruce-Partington submarine.
Railway scene
It seems clear that Cadogan West fell from a train and that he stole the plans meaning to sell them, but the mystery is truly complex:- How did Cadogan West meet his end?
- If he was thrown off a train, what was he doing at Aldgate, well past the stop where he presumably would have gone?
- If he had made an appointment with a foreign agent to sell the plans, would he not have kept his evening free instead of buying theatre tickets for himself and his fiancée?
- How did he get into the Underground without a ticket, or did someone take it?
- Why can no evidence of violenceViolenceViolence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
be found in any Underground coach? - How is it that Cadogan’s head was crushed and yet there was very little bleeding by the track where he was found?
Inspector Lestrade
Inspector Lestrade
Inspector G. Lestrade is a fictional character, a Scotland Yard detective appearing in several of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle used the name of a friend from his days at the University of Edinburgh, a Saint Lucian medical student by the name of Joseph Alexandre Lestrade....
tells Holmes that a passenger has seen fit to report hearing a thud at about the location in question, as though a body had fallen on the track. He could not see anything, however, owing to the thick fog
Fog
Fog is a collection of water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. While fog is a type of stratus cloud, the term "fog" is typically distinguished from the more generic term "cloud" in that fog is low-lying, and the moisture in the fog is often generated...
.
After an examination of the track near Aldgate, Holmes reaches an astonishing and unusual conclusion: Cadogan West had been killed elsewhere, was deposited on the roof of an Underground train, and fell off when the jarring action of going over the points
Railroad switch
A railroad switch, turnout or [set of] points is a mechanical installation enabling railway trains to be guided from one track to another at a railway junction....
at Aldgate shook the coach.
Holmes decides to visit Sir James Walter, who was in charge of the papers. He has, however, died, apparently of a broken heart from the loss of his honour when the papers were stolen, according to his brother Colonel Valentine.
Cadogan West’s fiancée is a bit more informative. There was something on his mind for the last week or so of his life. He commented to her on how easily a traitor could get hold of “the secret” and how much a foreign agent would pay for it. Then, on the night in question, as the two of them were walking to the theatre, near his office, he dashed off, never to be seen again.
Safe
A safe is a secure lockable box used for securing valuable objects against theft or damage. A safe is usually a hollow cuboid or cylinder, with one face removable or hinged to form a door. The body and door may be cast from metal or formed out of plastic through blow molding...
himself. Anyone coming in afterwards to steal them would have needed three keys (for the building, the office, and the safe), but no duplicates were found on Cadogan West’s body, and only the late Sir James had all three keys. Johnson also mentions that one of the seven recovered pages might also be indispensable to a foreign agent. This will prove important later. Holmes also discovers that it is possible to see what is happening inside the office from outside even when the iron shutters are closed.
After leaving, Holmes finds that the clerk at the nearby Underground station remembers seeing Cadogan West on the evening in question. He was most shaken by something, and took a train to London Bridge
London Bridge station
London Bridge railway station is a central London railway terminus and London Underground complex in the London Borough of Southwark, occupying a large area on two levels immediately south-east of London Bridge and 1.6 miles east of Charing Cross. It is one of the oldest railway stations in the...
.
Acting on information from Mycroft, and on what he has learnt thus far, Holmes identifies a person of interest, Hugo Oberstein, a known agent who left town shortly after Cadogan West’s murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
. Some small reconnaissance shows Holmes that Oberstein’s house backs onto an above-ground Underground line, and that, owing to traffic at a nearby junction
Junction (rail)
A junction, in the context of rail transport, is a place at which two or more rail routes converge or diverge.This implies a physical connection between the tracks of the two routes , 'points' and signalling.one or two tracks each meet at a junction, a fairly simple layout of tracks suffices to...
, trains often stop right under his windows. It seems clear now that Cadogan West’s body was laid on the train roof — the evidence shows that he was not dropped from a height — just there. The only remaining questions are about who killed him and why.
Holmes and Dr. Watson break into Oberstein’s empty house and examine the windows, finding that the grime has been smudged, and there is a bloodstain. An Underground train stops right under the window. It would be easy to lift a dead man onto a train roof, as was apparently done. Some messages from the Daily Telegraph agony column, all seeming to allude to a business deal, are also found, posted by “Pierrot”, and this gives Holmes an idea. He posts a similarly cryptic message in the Times demanding a meeting, signing it Pierrot, in the hopes that the thief — assuming it is not Cadogan West — might show up at Oberstein’s house.
Colonel Valentine Walter had been deep in debt
Debt
A debt is an obligation owed by one party to a second party, the creditor; usually this refers to assets granted by the creditor to the debtor, but the term can also be used metaphorically to cover moral obligations and other interactions not based on economic value.A debt is created when a...
and had acted out of a need for money. He redeems himself somewhat by agreeing to write to Oberstein, whose address on the Continent
Continental Europe
Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....
he knows, inviting him to come back to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
for the fourth, vital page. This ruse also works, and Oberstein gets 15 years
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
while the missing pages of the Bruce-Partington plans are recovered from his trunk. Colonel Valentine dies in prison, not long after starting his sentence. Holmes is given an emerald
Emerald
Emerald is a variety of the mineral beryl colored green by trace amounts of chromium and sometimes vanadium. Beryl has a hardness of 7.5–8 on the 10 point Mohs scale of mineral hardness...
tie pin by Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
(she is not actually identified by name, but there is little doubt considering the dropped hints and given that the story is set in the year 1895, while she still reigned) for his efforts.
Commentary
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
story is one of four in which Holmes's brother Mycroft
Mycroft Holmes
Mycroft Holmes is a fictional character in the stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. He is the elder brother of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes.- Profile :...
is mentioned. Mycroft appears as a major character in "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter
The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter
"The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 12 stories in the cycle collected as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. The story was originally serialised in Strand Magazine in 1893. This story...
" and in this story. He also appears as a minor character in "The Final Problem", (as Watson's cab driver), and is only referred to in "The Adventure of the Empty House
The Adventure of the Empty House
"The Adventure of the Empty House", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Public pressure forced Conan Doyle to bring the sleuth back to life, and explain his...
". In this story, the reader learns that Mycroft's government job is considerably more important than Holmes earlier let on in "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter
The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter
"The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 12 stories in the cycle collected as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. The story was originally serialised in Strand Magazine in 1893. This story...
". Holmes even says that his brother sometimes is the British Government.
Holmes is mentioned as writing "a monograph
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
upon the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus", which is, in the story, "said by experts to be the last word upon the subject". Conan Doyle
Conan Doyle
Conan Doyle is a rugby player. His club is Garryowen. His usual position is inside centre, but he also plays out-half. He has made two appearances for Munster Rugby in the Magners League, but was released by Munster at the end of the 2008/2009 season. While at Munster he was selected for the...
introduced this detail, quite irrelevant to the main story line, in an apparent effort to make his protagonist a multifaceted intellectual - contrary to the image of the single-minded detective, interested in nothing which is not directly relevant to his profession, which was how Holmes was presented at the inception of the series in A Study in Scarlet
A Study in Scarlet
A Study in Scarlet is a detective mystery novel written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, introducing his new character of Sherlock Holmes, who later became one of the most famous literary detective characters. He wrote the story in 1886, and it was published the next year...
. Doyle had, of course, begun to introduce such elements as early as the second Holmes narrative, "The Sign of Four
The Sign of Four
The Sign of the Four , also called The Sign of Four, is the second novel featuring Sherlock Holmes written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle wrote four novels and 56 stories starring the fictional detective.The story is set in 1887...
." These introspections served to make Holmes more of a Victorian gentleman, with the wide ranging interests which were appropriate to an upper class amateur, and less of a middle class professional specialist. In the first scene of "The Sign of Four
The Sign of Four
The Sign of the Four , also called The Sign of Four, is the second novel featuring Sherlock Holmes written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle wrote four novels and 56 stories starring the fictional detective.The story is set in 1887...
", Holmes is described, after having injected cocaine, as reading "an old black letter volume". At the conclusion of "A Case of Identity
A Case of Identity
"A Case of Identity" is one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and is the third story in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.-Plot summary:...
", Holmes quotes Persian (Iranian) poetry. In "Silver Blaze
Silver Blaze
"Silver Blaze", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 12 in the cycle collected as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. It was adapted in 1937 to a film starring Arthur Wontner, and an ITV drama starring Christopher Plummer which was...
", Holmes unbends so far as to wager for sport on a horse race. In "The Naval Treaty", Holmes falls into a reverie over a moss rose, during which he endorses the concept of intelligent design, though as a moral and not a scientific principle. In the same story, he lectures Watson on the social value of board schools. And in the opening scene of "The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez
The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez
"The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as The Return of Sherlock Holmes.-Synopsis:...
", Holmes is described as deciphering the original text of a palimpsest.
Hugo Oberstein is one of the few minor characters in the Holmes stories who is brought back and used for more important reasons in a second story. He first appears in The Adventure of the Second Stain
The Adventure of the Second Stain
"The Adventure of the Second Stain", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as The Return of Sherlock Holmes....
as one of three possible spies that a missing foreign office document may have ended up with.
Watson finishes the story by mentioning that Oberstein was sentenced to 15 years of prison. Both murder and treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
/espionage
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
were capital crimes in the Victorian Era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
. The lenient treatment suggests - though it is not explicitly stated - that Oberstein bought his life by revealing some secrets in his possession, which prefigures the treatment of actual German agents in the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Double Cross System
Double Cross System
The Double Cross System, or XX System, was a World War II anti-espionage and deception operation of the British military intelligence arm, MI5. Nazi agents in Britain - real and false - were captured, turned themselves in or simply announced themselves and were then used by the British to broadcast...
.
The story can be considered as an eerie precursor of the spy thriller, not yet developed into a genre in its own right. The theme of theft of military secrets by a hostile power was a prominent element of the Dreyfus affair
Dreyfus Affair
The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent...
, at the time of writing convulsing neighboring France and a major subject of news all over the world.
The reference to "the Bruce-Partington submarine", in whose "radius of operation" naval warfare becomes impossible, foreshadows the critical importance which submarine warfare would assume in the coming World Wars. The submarine's means of attacking surface craft is never made clear, being a closely guarded military secret.
Elements from real life
In the case of "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans", the background includes two different recent crimes to the date of composition (1908). In 1905, a young woman, Mary Money, was found dead on a set of railway tracks in London; she had been the victim of an assault. Her killer was never found. This death is mirrored in the apparent death of Cadogan West by the tracks of an underground line. Then, in 1907, the Irish Crown JewelsIrish Crown Jewels
The Crown Jewels of Ireland were heavily jewelled insignia of the Most Illustrious Order of St Patrick. They were worn by the sovereign at the installation of knights of that order, the Irish equivalent of the English Order of the Garter and the Scottish Order of the Thistle...
were stolen from Dublin Castle the day before King Edward VII was to give a state visit requiring the regalia. It too was a crime that was never solved - and which resulted in the dismissal of Conan Doyle's cousin, Arthur Vicars
Arthur Vicars
Sir Arthur Vicars, KCVO was an English-born genealogist and heraldic expert who spent his adult life in Ireland. He was appointed Ulster King of Arms in 1893, but was removed from the post in 1908 following the theft of the Irish Crown Jewels in the previous year...
.
Conan Doyle, when he combined real-life events, entangled them into a new version. One of the lead suspects in the theft of the Irish Crown Jewels was Frank Shackleton, a shady individual who was the brother of the prominent Polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton
Ernest Shackleton
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO, OBE was a notable explorer from County Kildare, Ireland, who was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration...
, who had come within ninety miles of the South Pole
South Pole
The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole or Terrestrial South Pole, is one of the two points where the Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on the surface of the Earth and lies on the opposite side of the Earth from the North Pole...
the previous year. It has been noted that Frank Shackleton is the model for Colonel Valentine Walters, the man who helps the spies steal the plans in "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans". His brother is a public servant of great probity, Sir James Walters (who dies of shame when he realizes what Valentine has done). But there is more than this odd connection. In 1875, the career of a major British army hero (and friend of the Prince of Wales) ended in disgrace. Colonel Valentine Baker
Valentine Baker
Valentine Baker , British soldier, was a younger brother of Sir Samuel Baker.-Biography:...
, brother of the noted hunter and African Explorer, Sir Samuel Baker
Samuel Baker
Sir Samuel White Baker, KCB, FRS, FRGS was a British explorer, officer, naturalist, big game hunter, engineer, writer and abolitionist. He also held the titles of Pasha and Major-General in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt. He served as the Governor-General of the Equatorial Nile Basin between Apr....
, the first white man to find Lake Albert, was convicted of an indecent assault on a woman, and was cashiered from the British army (subsequently he served in the Egyptian Army). The assault was in a railway car (shades of the fate of Mary Money), and Col. Baker's relationship with the Prince of Wales - later King Edward VII - tied his fall from grace with that of the King who was victimized in the theft of the Irish Crown Jewels. The result seems effortless to the reader who is unaware of it, but it shows how complex Conan Doyle can be in his literary constructions.
Other media
The 1986 film The Twentieth Century Approaches, the fifth part of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, features the story.The story was adapted for a 1988 episode of the television series The Return of Sherlock Holmes starring Jeremy Brett
Jeremy Brett
Jeremy Brett , born Peter Jeremy William Huggins, was an English actor, most famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in four Granada TV series.-Early life:...
as Holmes and Edward Hardwicke
Edward Hardwicke
Edward Hardwicke , sometimes credited as Edward Hardwick, was an English actor.-Early life and career:...
as Watson. It differs in showing that the death of West was manslaughter, as well as that, after the capture of Oberstein, Colonel Walter is allowed to "disappear" so that Special Branch can use him to trap other spies.
A series of four TV movies produced in the early 2000s starred Matt Frewer
Matt Frewer
Matthew "Matt" Frewer is a Canadian American stage, TV and film actor. Acting since 1983, he is known for portraying the 1980s icon Max Headroom and the retired villain Moloch in the film adaptation of Watchmen.-Life and career:...
as Sherlock Holmes and Kenneth Welsh
Kenneth Welsh
Kenneth Welsh, CM is a Canadian film and television actor . He is known to Twin Peaks fans as the multi-faceted villain Windom Earle, and has more recently played the father of Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator.In 1984 he was nominated for a Genie Award as Best Actor for his...
as Dr. Watson. One of these films, The Royal Scandal
The Royal Scandal
The Royal Scandal is a non-canonical Sherlock Holmes film which is an amalgam of "A Scandal in Bohemia" and "The Bruce-Partington Plans". The film was produced in 2001 for The Hallmark Channel as part of an on-going series of Hallmark Sherlock Holmes films....
, adapted "A Scandal in Bohemia
A Scandal in Bohemia
"A Scandal in Bohemia" was the first of Arthur Conan Doyle's 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories to be published in The Strand Magazine and the first Sherlock Holmes story illustrated by Sidney Paget....
" and combined its story with "The Bruce-Partington Plans."
"The Great Game
The Great Game (Sherlock)
"The Great Game" is the third episode of the television series Sherlock. It was first broadcast on BBC One and BBC HD on 8 August 2010.-Plot:...
," the third episode of the 2010 television series Sherlock, uses several of Doyle's stories as inspiration, among them "The Bruce-Partington Plans." The story borrows many elements of the original story and is updated to the modern era. The victim here is an MI6 clerk named Andrew West, nodding to the original victim's name. Many of the other clues, like an unused train ticket and blood traces on a windowsill, are also used.
Sources
- Francis Bamford & Viola Bankes Vicious Circle: The Case of The Missing Irish Crown Jewels (New York: Horizon Press, 1907), 212p. illus.