Crown Jewels

My latest Sherlock Holmes read was The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet. Compared to some Holmes adventures, this one is rather long on set up and short on resolution. It's one of Arthur Conan Doyle's more intriguing setups, however, so it mostly works.

A wealthy banker has agreed to accept unusual collateral in exchange for making an exorbitant, short term loan: a priceless, bejeweled crown. Worried to let the thing out of his sight for the few days in which he must keep it, he brings it home one night to lock in his home safe... where it apparently stolen by his own son. Although the crown is recovered, some of its jewels have gone missing, and the son maintains his innocence of any wrongdoing. Holmes must locate the missing gems and either prove or exonerate the son as the guilty party.

The resolution of the mystery itself isn't a very exciting element of the tale. It's readily apparent that the son is not in fact guilty, and Doyle doesn't set up enough alternative suspects to make much of a mystery of things. But nevertheless, the way that Holmes goes about solving the mystery is well written. It has to do with reading footprints in freshly fallen small, a detail which clever readers can apprehend (making themselves feel as brilliant as Holmes in the process), but that is layered into the narrative without calling undue attention. In fact, the very first paragraph of the story references the fresh snow in London, before the mystery is even introduced.

Perhaps it's the construction of the story that I found more interesting than the story itself. More complex back story, simpler resolution. Fewer suspect characters, more interesting development of the few characters the story does have. There's an intriguing ebb and flow here in Doyle's writing, as though he were experimenting a bit with his format. I enjoyed the change. I give the story a B.