The Man with the Twisted Lip

Like birds to a lighthouse: Well, that’s nice. People in grief flock to see Watson’s wife. But I began to think about this simile. Do birds flock to lighthouses? Indeed, they do, attracted by the light, and they hit the buildings and die. Hmm. Is there something dangerous about Watson’s wife? Or at least boring? The story opens with Watson yawning in her presence. It’s a tender domestic scene in the Watsons’ sitting room, Watson in his armchair, his wife at her needlework, and yet where is the exciting repartee we get when Watson is with Holmes, or for that matter when Hugh Boone is plying his trade as a beggar?

Hugh Boone is good at being a beggar: There’s the witty repartee and the professionally done make-up, making him quite a character on…