The Devil's Foot
This is the penultimate Canonical tale, if you go by the order in which the stories were published. Watson is drawing his records to a close, and he offers us this bizarre and frightening tale by explaining that this story is told at the request of Holmes himself! A remarkable turn of events, given the low opinion Holmes typically holds of Watson’s writings.
The good doctor tells us that the actual events took place thirteen years earlier, and that “the Cornish Horror” was the talk of West England at the time.
And no wonder. What must people have thought of this tiny coastal town suddenly stricken with such a nightmarish event? A lady suddenly and inexplicably dead, her brothers raving mad ... and all without any obvious sign of human intervention. If Tredannick Wollas received few vacationing visitors before this event, their annual tourist count must have plunged to zero.
We cannot be surprised by Holmes’ response to all of this – only delighted to see him champing at the bit, suddenly his old self. And when first hearing the account of how the dead and the insane were discovered, Holmes gives one of the most beautifully laconic lines of the entire Canon: “On the face of it, it would appear to be a case of a very exceptional nature.” Something of an understatement!
Two images from this story always jump to mind whenever the title is spoken. To me they are among the most vivid and powerful of all moments in the Sixty Stories. The first is when Holmes and Watson arrive at the scene of the incident just as the poor mad brothers are being trundled away in a black carriage. Our heroes glimpse the awful faces of the deranged men, a sight which makes their brother Mortimer “white to his lips.”
“Those staring eyes and gnashing teeth,” Watson intones, “flashed past us like a dreadful vision.”
The other powerful image in this story is indeed one of my favorite moments in all of English literature (and I am not exaggerating!): Holmes and Watson, taking the burden of experimentation on themselves, begin to fall under the influence of the real killer – and Watson heroically wrests Holmes from its grasp. Holmes recovers his senses and instantly turns his concern toward Watson’s well-being. And for what may be the only time in the entire Canon, Holmes actually apologizes for taking advantage of Watson’s fearless loyalty.
“I had never seen so much of Holmes’ heart before,” Watson observes.
We can only imagine that Watson returned from this botched vacation feeling oddly refreshed ...