12 April 2024

By Göran R Buckhorn*

No, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never had Sherlock Holmes saying to his side-kick “Elementary, my dear Watson” in any of the four novels and 56 short stories he wrote about his great detective and investigating sleuth in 1887-1893, 1901-1902 and 1903-1927. But after Dr. Aaron I. Jackson was invited to edit a never-before-seen Doyle manuscript, The Mystery of the Cambridge Bow, from the late 1880s/beginning of 1890s, Holmes might have said: “Elementary, my dear ‘Muttle’”.

I enjoy reading “detective stories” and there are some stories where the sport of rowing plays a significant role. This being said, I’m afraid not all of these rowing stories are well-written and “good”. Among the latter are Kerry Greenwood’s Murder on the Ballarat Train (1991) and Carola Dunn’s Dead in the Water (1998). So, if you intend to start reading detective stories with rowing and want to save some time, you can easily skip these two novels.

Among the better ones are Merry Jones’s The River Killings (2006), Laura Lippman’s Baltimore Blues (1997) and Dan Boyne’s Body of Water (2023). In the aftermath of the 2024 Boat Races between Oxford’s and Cambridge’s men and women, it might interest HTBS readers that a few novels and short stories are dealing with murders and mayhem among Oxbridge Blue oarsmen – but not yet among Blue women.

Crimes are committed against and by Blues in Jeffrey Archer’s “Dougie Mortimer’s Right Arm” in his collection of short stories Twelve Red Herrings (1994) and Victoria Blake’s novel Cutting Blades (2005); Cutting Blades starts out promising but at the end it goes off the rails. Two stories stand out as they were written by two Old Blues: the novel The Boat Race Murder (1933) by the 1930 Cambridge cox R. E. (Robert Egerton) Swartwout, and my personal favourite, “The Boat Race Murder” (1940), a short story written by Oxford oarsman in the 1935-1937 Boat Races, David Winser. I am grateful that Annie Newark and David Thompson, relatives of Winser and executors of his estate, allowed me to include Winser’s story in the anthology The Greatest Rowing Stories Ever Told (2023).

There was another story involving rowing Blues which was published in 2023, The Mystery of the Cambridge Bow, a short story – or novella, if you like – in which, miraculously, the world’s most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, is solving a mystery in Cambridge. “Miraculously”? Yes. This is how Dr. Aaron I. Jackson, editor of the story, writes in his Foreword:

The original handwritten manuscript of The Mystery of the Cambridge Bow was found tucked away in an old tea-chest following a house clearance during the first Covid lockdown of 2020.

Being invited to study the manuscript, Dr. Jackson, who is a specialist in British late-imperial history and culture – and for us rowers mostly known as “the Northern One” of the brilliant Broken Oars Podcast – did a close textual analysis which indicated that the manuscript was written between the late 1880s and beginning of the 1890s by none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [wink-wink!].

This is how the story goes: It is the first week of March 1886. After a hard winter, the flood of cases for Sherlock Holmes has “dried to a trickle” and he complains to his friend Dr. Watson. The good doctor is afraid that Holmes, driven by boredom, would turn to other methods of stimulation – cocaine and morphine – to fill his time. But while Holmes is prowling around the flat that they are sharing in 221B Baker Street, feverously smoking his pipe, a telegram arrives for the detective. It is from Detective Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard. It is short and reads:

Kings College. Stop. Young Gent. Stop. Suicide. Stop. Come at Once. Stop. Tell no-one. Stop.

Dr. Watson finds it odd that Lestrade would call for Holmes for a suicide, but the case intrigues Holmes, so off the two friends go in a hast to Liverpool Street Station to catch the next train to Cambridge. At Cambridge railway station, Inspector Lestrade is waiting for them telling Holmes that “it’s a straight suicide”. However, the Provost of King’s College wants all angles to be covered.

The young student, George Martin, was found by the Porter, Mr. Potter, who had come to Martin’s rooms to investigate why Martin had not attended chapel and not responded to a message sent to him by the President of Cambridge Boat Club, Freddie Pitman. When Martin does not answer the knocks on his door, Mr. Potter breaks down both the inner and outer doors to get into Martin’s rooms. The doors were locked from the inside and so were the windows. Martin, who is found hunched over his desk with a revolver by his left hand and a pool of blood, had died from a single gunshot to his head. And there we have it, a classic “locked-room mystery”. (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote two other locked-room mysteries: “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” [1892] and “The Adventure of the Empty House” [1903].)

Well, it sure looks like, in the words of Lestrade, a “straight suicide”. However, after having talked to Martin’s tutors and friends, who all agree that Martin was well-liked, attended chapel, worked hard, was not a gambler, did not indulge in “loose living” – and on top of that, was a fine oar, Holmes suspects that there is foul play with Martin’s death. Holmes and Watson walk down to the boathouse to talk to Pitman. He is not alone. With him is a tall and broad oarsman, who introduces himself as Stanley Muttlebury. Or as Pitman explains, “most of us call him Muttle.”

Watson writes:

Where Mr. Pitman gave an impression of contained energy, Mr. Muttlebury gave off a sense of latent power and athleticism. Both had the honest, lively faces of those who are regularly out and about outdoors.

Pitman is saddened to hear of Martin’s demise and very surprised. Martin, Pitman explains to Holmes, had just been told the evening before his passing that he was picked for the bow in the Light Blue boat – the Boat Race only being a month away. Now, Pitman must inform the spare, Lord Denby, that the bow seat is his for the race.

Holmes, being skillful in boxing, fencing and singlestick, but with no knowledge of rowing whatsoever, asks Muttle to explain something about the sport of rowing and its attraction. Muttle says:

‘There’s precious little glory at six am on a February morning when you have to break the ice on the river to get out and your hands freeze to your oars, Mr. Holmes.’

To Holmes question why to do it then, Muttle answers:

‘I rather think rowers are called to the water, Mr. Holmes. I know it sounds fanciful. But if it’s in you, you find your way to the river and once you’re there, why, you’re home. I wouldn’t speak like this, but you need to understand what it means to be a rower, or to row for Cambridge. People think that we’re just big hearties, Mr. Holmes.’

Muttle continues:

‘They don’t see any of the flash or dash of a good three-quarter on the rugby field or the grace of a late cut on a difficult wicket on the cricket pitch. If they see us at all, it slogging up and down the river, mile after mile. Yes, they’ll cheer on the day of the race and wave their scarves, and probably end up in the cells somewhere, some of them, but most people even in Cambridge have never been anywhere near a boat unless it’s a steamer to Margate, let alone moved one themselves, so they don’t understand why it grabs some of us so hard.’

When Holmes asks Muttle to enlighten him further, Muttle says:

‘Well, first of all it’s because they don’t understand what it takes to move a boat on flat water in still air, let alone on the Thames through London for four miles or more, every sinew and muscle screaming. Father Thames might sit in stone at the Port Authority, Mr. Holmes, but he’s not gentle with you when you’re on his river.’

Then Muttle takes a pencil and a piece of paper and sketches eight circles, which represents the oarsmen in the boat and describes the role that each and every rower has in the boat, from the stroke setting the rhythm to the technic of the bow. He also informs Holmes about the rigging of the boat, saying that some oarsmen can row on both strokeside and bowside while others have a preference.

When Holmes and Watson walk back to town late in the evening, the detective talks about Thomas Arnold, Pierre de Coubertin and Tom Brown’s School Days by Thomas Hughes. This and something Muttle told Holmes will eventually help him to solve the “mystery of the Cambridge bow”. Was it suicide or murder? That shall not be revealed in this review.

What HTBS Types will appreciate with The Mystery of the Cambridge Bow, I dare say, is that both Freddie Pitman and Stanley Muttlebury were real persons and rowed in the 1886 Light Blue crew, winning the Boat Race on 3 April. In the Cambridge crew was also Steve Fairbairn, the famous coach to be, though he is not mentioned in The Mystery of the Cambridge Bow. One thing that historically stands out in the 1886 Boat Race is that Cambridge came from behind at Barnes Bridge to claim the victory – a “first”.

As a Sherlock Holmes enthusiast, I also particularly enjoy the language in this story. It is very Doyleish. “Editing” the text – which first appeared in an episode of the Broken Oars Podcast to celebrate the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race – Aaron told me that he was working with the “ideas that the late-Victorians were wrestling with at the time: the rise of sport and leisure time; what it meant in terms of class/country; and the Boat Race as being an event of national importance at the time; and the perennial question of why rowers row.” (See Muttle’s brilliant explanation above, which rings true even today.)

When the episode ran on the podcast, it was an instant success. Therefore, Aaron decided to turn it into an ebook and a paperback. He even contacted the Sherlock Holmes Society to make sure the text was linguistically and stylistically accurate for the time period. He got their blessing. I think he has done a grand job with this. The story is worth many readers.

It must be said, though, that The Mystery of the Cambridge Bow is not the first connection between Sherlock Holmes and the sport of rowing. Already during the time when Arthur Conan Doyle was publishing his Holmes stories in The Strand Magazine, the satirical magazine Punch published what is believed to be the first parodies about the great detective, calling him “Picklock Holes”, in 1893. These stories were written by none other than the authority on rowing at this time, R. C. “Rudie” Lehmann, oarsman and famous rowing coach. Lehmann, who rowed in two Boat Race trial eights for Cambridge but never rowed in a Blue boat, coached Oxford, Cambridge, Brasenose College BC, Leander, Trinity College (Dublin), Berliner RC and Harvard. He was a member of the editorial staff of Punch where he wrote light verse about rowing (and dogs). Lehmann was also a Member of Parliament (Liberal) for a few years. His Picklock Holes stories were collected between covers in The Adventures of Picklock Holes (1901).

Rumour has it that Aaron is now working on a tale where Oxford Blues have a prominent place in the story – one must keep a balance when it comes to the Oxbridge crews.

Personally, I hope that someone will “find” a rowing story with another one of my favourite private sleuths – Lord Peter Wimsey. Fingers crossed…

The Mystery of the Cambridge Bow is available to order as an ebook here, or as a paperback from lulu here. Do it right away!

* According to the reviewer, there is no better Sherlock Holmes than Jeremy Brett.