| "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons" | |
|---|---|
| by Arthur Conan Doyle | |
| Released | 1904 |
| Series | The Return of Sherlock Holmes |
| Client(s) | Inspector Lestrade |
| Set in | 1899 |
"The Adventure of the Six Napoleons", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
Contents |
Six Napoleons are cheap plaster busts from a single mould in Gelding's London sculpture works, smashed under lamps by a night burglar. On a usual evening visit, Lestrade reports one at seller Harding, two at Dr Barnicot's home and office, but next morning, telegrams a fourth at journalist Harker, who followed a 3am scream to a man bleeding from slashed throat. Snapshot from corpse's pocket is recognized at Harding's then Gelding's as Italian employee Beppo, jailed after a street knifing. Again at Harding's, they find names of the last two buyers: Mr Josiah Brown, Chiswick, and Mr Sandeford, Reading.
Next day, Lestrade reports dead Naples cut-throat Pietro Venucci probably connected to Mafia. Holmes sends telegrams. All three stake out Chiswick and catch Beppo engrossed in Napoleon shards.
Next evening at Baker Street, they witness Sandeford sell his bust to Holmes and depart. Holmes shatters the head with his riding-crop, and displays the black pearl of the Borgias, stolen from the Prince of Colonna's bedroom, hidden by Beppo the day of his arrest. The maid of the Princess was suspected, Lucretia Venucci, who had a brother in London, but no connection proved until now. Holmes, much moved by Lestrade's effusive praise, softens perceptibly and unusually, then recovers and orders Watson to put the pearl in the safe and take out the next case papers.
Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard brings Holmes a seemingly trivial problem about a man who shatters plaster busts of Napoleon. One was shattered in Morse Hudson’s shop, and two others, sold by Hudson to a Dr. Barnicot, were smashed after the doctor’s house and branch office had been burgled. Nothing else was taken. In the former case, the bust was taken outside before being broken.
Holmes knows that Lestrade’s theory about a Napoleon-hating lunatic must be wrong. The busts in question all came from the same mould. Why is he breaking them?
The next day, Lestrade calls Holmes to a house where there has been yet another bust-shattering, but there has also been a murder. Mr. Horace Harker found the dead man on his doorstep after investigating a noise. His Napoleon bust was also taken by a burglar entering through a window. It, too, was from the same mould. Also, a photograph of a rather apish-looking man is found in the dead man’s pocket.
The fragments of Harker's bust are in the front garden of an empty house up the street. Obviously the burglar wanted to see what he was doing, for there is a streetlamp here, whereas the bust could have been broken at another empty house nearer Harker’s, but it had been dark there.
Holmes tells Lestrade to tell Harker, a journalist for the Central Press Syndicate, that he is convinced that the culprit is a lunatic. Holmes knows that this is not true, but it is expedient to use the press to convince the culprit that this is what the investigators believe.
Holmes interviews the two shopkeepers who sold the busts and finds out whom they were sold to, and where they were made, Gelder & Co. A couple of his informants also recognize the apish man in the picture. They know him as Beppo, an Italian immigrant. He even worked in the shop where the first bust was broken, having left his job there only two days earlier.
Holmes goes to Gelder & Co. and finds out that the busts were part of a batch of six, but other than that, the manager can think of no reason why they should be special, or why anyone would want to destroy them. He recognizes Beppo’s picture, and describes him as a rascal. He was imprisoned for a stabbing a year earlier, but has likely been released now. He once worked at Gelder & Co., but has not been back. His cousin still works there. Holmes begs the manager not to talk to the cousin about Beppo.
That evening, Lestrade brings news that the dead man has been identified as Pietro Venucci, a Mafioso. Lestrade believes that Venucci was sent to kill Beppo, but wound up dead himself. Why is the Mafia after Beppo?
After sending an express message, Holmes invites Dr. Watson and Lestrade to join him outside a house in Chiswick where apparently Holmes is expecting another bust-breaking. Lestrade by now is exasperated with Holmes’s preoccupation with the busts, but comes. They are not disappointed. Beppo shows up, enters the house, and comes back out of the window minutes later with a Napoleon bust, which he proceeds to shatter. He then examines the pieces, quite unaware that Holmes and Lestrade are sneaking up behind him. They pounce, and Beppo is arrested. He will not talk, however.
The mystery is at last laid bare after Holmes offers £10 to the owner of the last existing bust, making him sign a document transferring all rights and ownership of the bust to Holmes. After the seller has left, Holmes smashes the bust and among the plaster shards is a gem, the black pearl of the Borgias. Holmes was aware of the case of its disappearance from the beginning. Suspicion fell on the owner’s maid, whose name was Lucretia Venucci — the dead man’s sister. Beppo then somehow got the pearl from Pietro Venucci, and hid it inside a still-soft plaster bust at the factory where he worked, moments before he was arrested for the stabbing.
After his release, when the six busts had been sold, he found out from his cousin who bought the busts, and through his own efforts and confederates’, even found out who the end buyers were. He then proceeded to seek the busts out, smashing them one by one to find the pearl.
The setting date is inferred from the reference in the story to May 20 as a payday “last year”. If one assumes that this was a Friday, then it is likely that it was May 20, 1898, and therefore the story is set in 1899.
This story was dramatized in the popular Granada Television series starring Jeremy Brett. This version is faithful to the original story — although there is a twist. In the original story Beppo is captured after killing Venucci and his punishment is left unsaid for the audience to conjecture; in the TV drama, Beppo had gone to prison for a year after wounding Venucci in a brawl; at the end Beppo is hanged.
The Pearl of Death is a 1944 Sherlock Holmes film that is loosely based on "The Six Napoleons".
The basic plot element of "The Six Napoleons" is similar to that in "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle", whose mystery proceeds from a thief having hid a precious stone in the belly of a one of several similar-looking geese.
SIXN, as it is abbreviated in the canon is one of the most popular Sherlock Holmes stories Doyle wrote. It is also one of the most popular episodes of the Granada Television series, in part because Lestrade is able to demonstrate his ultimate respect for Holmes, as described in the Inspector Lestrade page.
Lestrade does better as a detective in this story than he does in most of his appearances, as his identifying the murdered man is what makes Holmes realize why Beppo is after the busts. A more subtle point holds in Lestrade's favor: he recognizes a "Catholic emblem" on the murdered man, and uses it to divine his identity despite his ignorance of saint's medallions.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle skillfully and subtly draws comparisons between the methods of conventional crime solving (using Inspector Lestrade) with the police and Scotland Yard and how he believes a case should be approached, using Sherlock Holmes to represent his ideal methodology. Between the two stands Doctor Watson, observing and commenting when the case demands. Lestrade, for example, cannot allow himself to get interested in what seems to be a trivial matter with a madman, and yet something about it bothers him. Sherlock Holmes, who claims to understand the limitations of Lestrade's thinking, knows at once something is amiss and draws it out of him. Throughout the adventure, neither man works against the other, but they are each seeking the truth according to their own methods. Lestrade's focus turns to what he sees is the crux of the case, which is murder. Holmes has a better idea of that the crux truly is, and does not get himself distracted by the trifle of Venucci's death in light of the missing pearl.
Sherlock Holmes leads the law to the truth by bringing Lestrade to Beppo's criminal actions. Lestrade has the power and authority to arrest him on the spot, which Holmes cannot do. Both men are needed to come to this conclusion.
Throughout the Sherlock Holmes canon, Watson records Holmes' ongoing criticisms of the police, but when Lestrade praises Holmes for his work, calling it "workmanlike" as if it is the highest compliment he can think of, Holmes is "visibly moved". This is one of the rare instances when another person can conjure an emotional reaction from the stoic Holmes. When Lestrade assures him that Scotland Yard was proud, not jealous of him, his composure genuinely wavers.
Although he appears in later published works, this is one of Lestrade's last appearances within the canon. After this he is only mentioned by Holmes or Watson, in "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax" and "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs" as a working member of the Yard.
The Adventures of Superman TV show, episode #4, "The Mystery of the Broken Statues" (1952) is based on the story.
Works related to The Adventure of the Six Napoleons at Wikisource
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