Twenty-Five
The period of Watson’s narrative is long before the coming of daily deliveries of bottled milk. In well-served areas (as Burriwell obviously was) there would be two deliveries, in the morning and the early evening, partly because the lack of refrigeration and processing techniques made the keeping of milk difficult. A cart carrying churns of milk would call, and the housewife or a servant would take a jug or a tin milk can to the cart and have it filled with whatever quantity she required.
Twenty-Six
Watson’s authenticated records reveal that, in early 1897, Holmes had overtaxed his great strength and was recommended by Watson and by Dr Moore Agar to take a holiday, at the threat of losing his intellectual powers. He travelled to Cornwall, where he pursued his researches into what he conceived to be the ancient Chaldean roots of the Cornish language, until the matter which Watson chronicled as The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot occurred.
Since this is a rare occasion when Holmes’ client can be definitely identified, it may interest readers to know what became of some of the characters in the story. Holmes himself was, of course, completely uninterested in the later history of his clients, who existed entirely to provide him with intellectual puzzles.
Anna Leonowens returned to Canada, where she died early in the Great War, her funeral being an enormous one. There is an art gallery named after her and she remains a heroine of Canadian feminists.
Her book, The English Governess and the Siamese Court, was rediscovered in the 1940s, and Margaret Landon’s Anna and the King of Siam was published. When singing star Gertrude Lawrence saw the film of Landon’s book, she wanted to play Anna in a musical version and nagged at Rodgers and Hammerstein to write her one. When they did, it was a huge success on stage and was Lawrence’s last part. It became an enormously successful film with Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner. In 1998 Jodie Foster played Anna in Anna and the King, a film which purported to tell the true story and didn’t. All the films and Anna’s book and Landon’s book are banned in modern Thailand (formerly Siam).
King Rama V of Siam, Anna’s former pupil Chulalongkorn, reigned until 23rd October 1910, when he died. His death is commemorated annually on that date and he is revered as one of Thailand’s most loved and admired monarchs.
None of the points discussed above will prove conclusively whether this narrative is an authentic Watson record or a forgery. I can only argue that the manuscript came to me in the same way as other alleged Watson manuscripts which I have edited. Some of those contain clearer evidence of their authenticity and it seems to me that, if they are authentic, so is the present story. In the end readers must reach their own conclusions.
Barrie Roberts