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international                                                                                                          international








                 Conan doyle’s final Sherlock Holmes
                    tally was four novels and 56 short
                 stories, for producing most of which                                                                                 highly unsatisfactory for those who know the
                                                                                                                                      Holmes corpus well – and many do) that there
                Conan doyle became one of the best                                                                                    is no single living person who has ever been

                  paid writers in history. the last one                                                                               able to create in the pubic mind a definitive
                                                                     was  moved  to  what  is  now  the  Sherlock                     face for Sherlock Holmes.
                                    was published in 1927.           Holmes Museum in Lucens, within the village
                                                                     about  mid-way  between  the  railroad  station                  However,  almost  from  the  start,  the  stories
                                                                     and the castle.                                                  were  brilliantly  illustrated  by  Sidney  Paget,
                                                                                                                                      and it is his pen and ink depictions of Holmes
                                                                     The  main  part  of  the  museum  is  a  big                     and Watson that have ever since stood as the
                               “There  is  a  curious  fact  here.  The  reason  rectangular  room  whose  walls  are  covered        “definitive” portrayal of the two. The museum
                               Warson  is  not  present  at  the  Reichenbach  with  William  Morris  wall  paper  and  whose         offers a dozen or more post cards reproducing
                               Falls to assist Holmes is that he has received  center is dominated by a gigantic mahogany             in  high  quality  some  of  these  famous
                               a  message  asking  that  he  come  at  once  to  table from Conan Doyle’s grandfather’s house,        illustrations.
                               the  aid  of  lady  who  has  been  wintering  at  a residence that saw a long parade of some of
                               Davos, and who is hemorrhaging as a result  the most prominent figures of the time. Around             Beyond the main room, a door leads to a dark
                               of consumption.”                      the edge of the table top are 22 small silver                    passage one side of which is covered mostly in
                                                                     plates of about eight by four centimeters with                   glass. The museum attendant sets in motion a
                               This was the unplanned opening Conan Doyle  engraved on them the names of distinguished                visit of the room on the other side of the glass,
                               needed to resurrect Holmes by revealing that  persons who had dined at the table.                      with  spot  lights  coming  on  and  off  focused
                               he  had  actually  not  fallen  into  the  falls  and                                                  on  the  various  points  being  described  by  a
                               been  dashed  to  death  but  had  triumphed  Among them one finds George Bernard Shaw,                recorded voice.
                               over  Moriarty  and  slipped  away  to  track,  Walter  Scott,  Benjamin  Disraeli,  William
                               clandestinely, the remaining members of his  Gilette,  Rudyard  Kipling,  William  Thackery,           The room is a “faithful” rendition of Holmes’s
                               gang.                                 Charles Dickens and Count Gabriel d’Orsay.                       and  Watson’s  digs  at  221B  Baker  Street  in
                                                                                                                                      London,  painstakingly  constituted  from
                               Conan Doyle’s final Sherlock Holmes tally was  The walls are covered by photos from both the           hundreds of details in the stories for the 1951
                               four novels and 56 short stories, for producing  professional and personal life of Conan Doyle         Festival  of  Britain  and  reproduced  here.  It
                               most of which Conan Doyle became one of  along with a vast panoply of artifacts. Among                 is  very  much  representative  of  its  time  and
                               the best paid writers in history. The last one  these, there is a mixture throughout of both           place: Victorian England, when interior decor
                               was published in 1927.                Holmes and Conan Doyle, and at times it is                       seemed to require that one cram as much as
                                                                     easy  to  imagine  Holmes  as  much  a  former                   possible into a room, then cram some more.
                               Upon  his  death,  his  children  inherited  his  living person as his creator.                        The  hundreds  of  objects  therein  are  right
                               substantial  estate,  and  his  youngest  son,                                                         in  line  with  this.  (Today  we  would  call  it
                               Adrian, upon the death of his mother in 1940,  Of  particular  note  is  the  large  portrait  of      “clutter”.)
                               became  Conan  Doyle’s  literary  executor.  He  Joseph  Bell,  a  professor  at  the  University  of                                         be arranged at least 48 hours in advance by
                               used  (apparently  unscrupulously)  money  Edinburgh  Medical  School,  under  whom                    As was common at the time, such “rooms” (the  phoning 076 583-61-33 for which a flat fee of
                               from the estate to buy himself a castle – not  Conan  Doyle  had  studied  medicine.  Bell’s           sitting  room  and  bedrooms)  were  overseen  CHF 40 is charged. Group visits – including
                               in Scotland but in Switzerland in the beautiful  meticulous  approach  to  examination  and            by  a  virtuous  landlady  who  provided  meals  children  –  are  welcome.  No  credit  cards
                               Vaudois  village  of  Lucens.  And  thus  it  was  diagnosis  inspired  Holmes’s  “science  of         and afternoon tea (the tea tray is unavoidably  accepted, but euros bills are. There is a small
                               that  most  of  the  elements  of  his  father’s  deduction and analysis” in pursuing his cases,       visible on the center table). In the stories, the  boutique  with  a  considerable  selection  of
                               multitudinous  collections  ended  up  on  the  and  Conan  Doyle  himself  later  admitted  to        landlady, Mrs Hudson, makes repeated cameo  items,  including  the  post  cards  with  Sidney
                               Continent, far from their English origin.  Bell that he was the person on whom Holmes                  appearances,  adding  an  element  of  both  Paget’s illustrations.
                                                                     was based.                                                       continuity and realism.
                               In 1965, he set up the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle                                                                                                 Musée Sherlock Holmes - Lucens
                               Foundation  in  Switzerland.  Upon  his  death,  There  have  been  so  many  attempts  at             The museum is open on Saturday and Sunday
                               the castle was sold, and in 2001 the collection  translating  Holmes  into  film  (virtually  all      from  2  to  5  p.m.  Visits  on  other  days  may



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