The Adventure of The Crooked Man - Commentary

Commentary

“Elementary, my dear Watson” is an often quoted line from Sherlock Holmes. However, Holmes never says this in any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories. In The Adventure of the Crooked Man, though, he comes his closest to it:

“I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson,” said he.

…

“Excellent!” I cried.

“Elementary,” said he.

The Granada Television version reverses the oft-quoted “Elementary, my dear Watson” by ending with Watson deducing that Holmes had looked up a passage in the Bible since they returned home from Aldershot. When Holmes asks Watson how he knew he replies “Elementary, my dear Holmes” after explaining how he reached his conclusion.

The exact date of this story's setting is unknown, but since Nancy has been married for "upward of thirty years" and the Indian Mutiny broke out in 1857, the date would seem to be sometime after 1887. The first few lines by Watson tell this story occurred in the "summer" just after his marriage which was in 1888-thus summer of 1888 would be about right.

The Granada TV version with Jeremy Brett was faithful to the original - except that it has the housekeeper, instead of the coachman, tell Holmes of the clue of the missing key. It also hints that the "Mallows" are a "Lancers" regiment and that Barclay owned most of his rapid rise in ranks from Sergeant to Officer due in part to his marriage to the daughter of the colour sergeant - rather than merit as Murphy was already a young sub-officer at the time Barclay was a Sgt; at the time of the story Murphy is still only a major in "temporary" command of the Regiment.