sherlock holmes: the musgrave ritual
5 Jan 2007 11:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimorenewanted: a better first-time holmes/watson story set during or after "the empty house"1. i can't make it anywhere else by film canon. the beginning of "the musgrave ritual" is enough to make me like established relationship.
the episode starts with holmes snuggled up to watson in the back of an open carriage, covered in a mountain of blankets and shawls, pouting and coughing simultaneously while watson blithely talks about how wonderful and fun their vacation will be, and how good the air will be for holmes, in the kind of voice you'd use for a recalcitrant kindergartener.
then holmes, indicating his trunk, says that at least he will get something done on vacation, namely, organising his notes about his Early Cases - the ones of which we have no written record because they were before he met watson!
watson almost trips over himself in his eagerness. he's always dying to know about these cases, and has tried to prise the information out of holmes many times. holmes teases him by airily reciting the names of some of them, culminating in "The Singular Affair of the Aluminium Crutch". watson fumbles for a notebook and tries to scribble them all down. i rather hope holmes is just putting him on.
after this exercise in superiority, holmes feels a bit smug, and goes on to tear down the character of his host (nice, and shy as opposed to prideful, but boring and not very smart, is the gist of it) and giggle a bit about the man's butler, who speaks a bunch of languages and is generally five times as smart as his master.
shortly thereafter they arrive, and when they are settling into their rooms watson goes knocking on holmes's door to ask for something. holmes doesn't answer, but we can hear him warbling in the washroom and see his shadow on the open door as he washes his face; so watson takes this opportunity to tip-toe into the room and take an unauthorised peek at holmes's casenotes.
then he glances around, and his eye falls on the rubber band, the half-empty syringe of 7 percent solution, the open case: the accoutrements of holmes's cocaine habit.
WOE. watson's little face freezes and then crumples in on itself a little. he puts the notes down and tip-toes woefully back out of the room.
after dinner, they're with their host, musgrave, in some sort of parlor room. holmes is as high as a kite, glassy-eyed and bushy-tailed and wrapped again in that crocheted blanket.
watson comes in after him and hovers up behind his shoulder with a tentative look; holmes turns slightly away from him, not exactly a rejection, but certainly a consciousness of the whole Drug Abuse Issue and a refusal to make eye contact and suffer watson's sad face.
musgrave is giving watson a guided tour of family heirlooms and family history, and the butler floats in to correct him on a bit of trivia. holmes roars with laughter and practically bends double, watson maintains a straight face with difficulty, and musgrave gets sad and a little flustered and embarrassed and dismisses the butler.
once the butler is gone, though, watson and then musgrave too join in holmes's hilarity.
the butler, you understand, is quite funny. he has a sort of eeyore-like air in with his jeeves. he prefaced his trivia with "if i may be so bold, sir."
"the last time i was here," holmes gasps between frame-wracking shudders of laughter, "he gave to me in french - a lecture - on the history of the piccolo!" at which point he collapses again, completely incapable of words.
like i said, high as a kite. but the other two are laughing too by that point.
watson ventures that holmes has told him before about how intelligent the butler is and blah blah blah.
there's a lot more of holmes wrapped in blankets in this episode, throughout the drama, but not any more explicit references to the cocaine.
at breakfast the butler is found to have vanished and holmes's investigations begin in the library with the ancient riddle he's going to solve (a catechism, called, of course, the Musgrave Ritual!).
there's also a good deal of dashing around the grounds counting footsteps with a compass.
and holmes has a brilliant idea.
so with the aid of musgrave's memory, and by finding certain specific trees on the grounds, and then...
...the strategic application of twine
and fishing rods,
and much uncomplaining help from watson, he solves the ridde.
and, of course, is rowed across the (lake? moat? mere?) standing up in the boat,
with, for once, someone other than watson (musgrave) doing all the work.
on the other hand, it's clear the cocaine is a wedge driven between them steadily more after holmes's return, with the arc culminating in "the devil's foot" when holmes gives it up. so maybe i could buy it somewhere there or after, with a lot of intense UST (or unresolved emotional tension) in between.
this has always been one of my favourite stories in written canon because the ritual itself is just so, well, peculiar and cute - there aren't that many where holmes solves actual word-puzzles.
1. than the one i once wrote for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dementor_delta, i mean.
the episode starts with holmes snuggled up to watson in the back of an open carriage, covered in a mountain of blankets and shawls, pouting and coughing simultaneously while watson blithely talks about how wonderful and fun their vacation will be, and how good the air will be for holmes, in the kind of voice you'd use for a recalcitrant kindergartener.
then holmes, indicating his trunk, says that at least he will get something done on vacation, namely, organising his notes about his Early Cases - the ones of which we have no written record because they were before he met watson!
watson almost trips over himself in his eagerness. he's always dying to know about these cases, and has tried to prise the information out of holmes many times. holmes teases him by airily reciting the names of some of them, culminating in "The Singular Affair of the Aluminium Crutch". watson fumbles for a notebook and tries to scribble them all down. i rather hope holmes is just putting him on.
after this exercise in superiority, holmes feels a bit smug, and goes on to tear down the character of his host (nice, and shy as opposed to prideful, but boring and not very smart, is the gist of it) and giggle a bit about the man's butler, who speaks a bunch of languages and is generally five times as smart as his master.
shortly thereafter they arrive, and when they are settling into their rooms watson goes knocking on holmes's door to ask for something. holmes doesn't answer, but we can hear him warbling in the washroom and see his shadow on the open door as he washes his face; so watson takes this opportunity to tip-toe into the room and take an unauthorised peek at holmes's casenotes.
then he glances around, and his eye falls on the rubber band, the half-empty syringe of 7 percent solution, the open case: the accoutrements of holmes's cocaine habit.
WOE. watson's little face freezes and then crumples in on itself a little. he puts the notes down and tip-toes woefully back out of the room.
after dinner, they're with their host, musgrave, in some sort of parlor room. holmes is as high as a kite, glassy-eyed and bushy-tailed and wrapped again in that crocheted blanket.
watson comes in after him and hovers up behind his shoulder with a tentative look; holmes turns slightly away from him, not exactly a rejection, but certainly a consciousness of the whole Drug Abuse Issue and a refusal to make eye contact and suffer watson's sad face.
musgrave is giving watson a guided tour of family heirlooms and family history, and the butler floats in to correct him on a bit of trivia. holmes roars with laughter and practically bends double, watson maintains a straight face with difficulty, and musgrave gets sad and a little flustered and embarrassed and dismisses the butler.
once the butler is gone, though, watson and then musgrave too join in holmes's hilarity.
the butler, you understand, is quite funny. he has a sort of eeyore-like air in with his jeeves. he prefaced his trivia with "if i may be so bold, sir."
"the last time i was here," holmes gasps between frame-wracking shudders of laughter, "he gave to me in french - a lecture - on the history of the piccolo!" at which point he collapses again, completely incapable of words.
like i said, high as a kite. but the other two are laughing too by that point.
watson ventures that holmes has told him before about how intelligent the butler is and blah blah blah.
there's a lot more of holmes wrapped in blankets in this episode, throughout the drama, but not any more explicit references to the cocaine.
at breakfast the butler is found to have vanished and holmes's investigations begin in the library with the ancient riddle he's going to solve (a catechism, called, of course, the Musgrave Ritual!).
there's also a good deal of dashing around the grounds counting footsteps with a compass.
and holmes has a brilliant idea.
so with the aid of musgrave's memory, and by finding certain specific trees on the grounds, and then...
...the strategic application of twine
and fishing rods,
and much uncomplaining help from watson, he solves the ridde.
and, of course, is rowed across the (lake? moat? mere?) standing up in the boat,
with, for once, someone other than watson (musgrave) doing all the work.
on the other hand, it's clear the cocaine is a wedge driven between them steadily more after holmes's return, with the arc culminating in "the devil's foot" when holmes gives it up. so maybe i could buy it somewhere there or after, with a lot of intense UST (or unresolved emotional tension) in between.
this has always been one of my favourite stories in written canon because the ritual itself is just so, well, peculiar and cute - there aren't that many where holmes solves actual word-puzzles.
1. than the one i once wrote for
dementor_delta, i mean.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 5 Jan 2007 10:50 pm (UTC)It's been years since I watched the show, but the other cocaine reference I remember is an episode where he opens the drawer, we see the syringe, and then he shuts it again - either because Watson is there, or because someone is on their way with a case. Man, now I really want to rewatch - I used to have old tapes I made of the show, but I've only gotten around to buying the first dvd set. Clearly, there are things I missed while watching it when I was younger (except for the slash. Years later, I found bits of paper marking slashy places in the books before I even knew what slash WAS).
(no subject)
Date: 6 Jan 2007 02:22 pm (UTC)