A Professor Reflects on Sherlock Holmes by Marino Alvarez

Author:Marino Alvarez
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes, mystery, crime, british, english, arthur conan doyle, professor moriarty, scholar, three pipe problem, trinity college, oxford, gryphon club, travelogue, reichenbach falls, writings, essays, art, magic squares, cinquain
ISBN: 9781780921211
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2012
Published: 2012-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Stock-Broker’s Clerk: Parallels and Parodies

After all, it is a question of money with these fellows, and I have the British Treasury behind me. If it’s on the market I’ll buy it - if it means another penny on the income tax. It is conceivable that the fellow might hold it back to see what bids come from this side before he tries his luck on the other.

(The Adventure of the Second Stain )

The canon is replete with incidents that repeat character traits, plot structures, and story resolutions that are similar in nature lending themselves to parallel events and parodies of comedic circumstances. Such is the case of The Stock-Brokers Clerk as it parallels the events depicted in The Red-Headed League and The Adventure of the Three Garridebs. [97] This essay addresses several parallels and includes some parodies using The Stock-Broker’s Clerk as its core with strands linking to The Red-Headed League and The Adventure of the Three Garridebs as they relate to clients and their antagonists.

Synopsis - The Stock-Broker’s Clerk

Sherlock Holmes is visited by Hall Pycroft who is somewhat perplexed at the events that have transpired over the course of a week. First, he is unemployed whereupon he receives a letter of acceptance from the Mawson & Williams brokerage firm hiring him without ever meeting him. Next, he is visited at his flat by Arthur Pinner, a financial agent, and offered the position of a business manager at Franco-Midland Hardware Company, which he has never heard of and to which he is to leave immediately for another city, Birmingham, without any notice to Mawson & Williams. Upon arrival he is met by a person whom he believes to be Arthur’s brother, Harry, but in reality is Arthur himself no longer disguised wearing a beard and dark hair, but is now clean-shaven with light hair. He is taken to depressed office surroundings and dismayed at the lack of office features and sparse furniture. His first task is to copy the names of hardware firms from a Paris directory list. After a week of continuous activity, he begins to question its value while noticing that both Arthur and Harry have a gold tooth in the same location thereby surmising that this is indeed the same man. After listening to his story Holmes takes Pycroft with him and visits Dr. Watson.

Holmes, Watson, and Pycroft go to Birmingham to meet with Arthur/Harry Pinner. As they approach the office they see Pinner buying a newspaper and scurrying to the office. Upon entry, they find Pinner in an agitated state. He excuses himself, goes to another room where he attempts to hang himself. He is saved when Holmes and Watson break down the door and free him from hanging by his braces. The newspaper reports that Arthur/Harry’s brother, Beddington #2 has replaced Pycroft at Mawson & Williams, murdered a man in an attempt to rob a “hundred thousand pounds worth of American railway bonds with a large amount of scrip in mines and other companies” and that he is under arrest.

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