by Peter Bevelin
Peter Bevelin's methods of Sherlock Holmes, one to a plate, drawn after Sidney Paget for the Strand: seventeen steps, a hard-felt hat, a dog that did nothing, a hole in the roof, the shadow of an elm, three pipes, a little attic, and Norbury.
tags: sherlock holmes, peter bevelin, thinking, observation, hypothesis, judgment
TheSTRANDMagazine
An Illustrated Monthly
In this number:A Few Lessons from Sherlock HolmesBy Peter BevelinIllustrated after Sidney Paget
Peter Bevelin did not write another biography of Sherlock Holmes. He made a small schoolbook out of Holmes’s habits, and the habits are a method: ten of them, one to a plate, each taught by the case Bevelin learned it from. A method that never touches particulars is only admiration, so every plate has something to do.
Plate I.A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA.
See, and Observe
Seeing a thing a hundred times is not the same as observing it once. Observation is a decision: to count.
“You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear.”
A Scandal in Bohemia
Climb the stair as Watson does: tap the drawing. Holmes will ask you a question.
The hall door shuts behind you; the stair goes up to the sitting-room.
Seeing is free. Observing costs attention, and then it costs honesty: saying no more than the evidence allows.
Plate II.THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLUE CARBUNCLE.
Keep the Fact apart from the Inference
Write what you see in ink and what you infer in pencil. Then you can afford Holmes’s boldness: a wrong guess rubs out, and the facts stay.
“On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however, to reason from what you see. You are too timid in drawing your inferences.”
The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
Drag the lens over the hat (or tap where to look). Each particular it finds gives two slips: file each in ink or in pencil.
In ink what is on the hat
In pencil what Holmes made of it
Particulars found 0 of 6 · slips in the wrong column 0
Watson’s notebook is open, two columns ruled. Nothing goes in until the glass has found it.
One clue never requires one explanation. Seven is not mysticism; it is protection from falling in love with the first story that arrives.
Plate III.SILVER BLAZE.
Hold Several Explanations, and Weigh what is Missing
Keep rival explanations alive until a fact chooses between them; a thing that did not happen can be that fact.
“See the value of imagination … We imagined what might have happened, acted upon the supposition, and find ourselves justified.”
Silver Blaze
Take down any explanation you doubt. Keep the rest pinned up. Then ask the stable dog what it heard.
On the wall 6 · struck by the silence 0 · still standing 6
Six explanations on the stable wall, and none of them yet married.
The moral danger begins when a hypothesis becomes mine. Friendly facts stay memorable; hostile ones acquire explanations.
Plate IV.A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA.
Do not Theorise before Data
Gather the facts before you choose a story. Once a theory is standing, every new fact is quietly bent to fit it.
“I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data.”
A Scandal in Bohemia
Examine the five particulars of the note, in any order. Announce a theory whenever you like: before, between, or after.
Facts kept straight: 0 · facts twisted to fit: 0
“I have no data yet.” Examine the note; or, like Watson, venture a theory at once.
“Impossible” does not mean unlikely, expensive or embarrassing. It means a hard constraint will not allow it. Used strictly, the maxim clears the bench.
Plate V.THE SIGN OF FOUR.
Eliminate the Impossible
Strike out a possibility only on a fact that forbids it, never because it seems unlikely. Whatever survives the pencil, however absurd, is your answer.
“When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
The Sign of Four
Struck out: 0 of 4 ways in.
Imagination comes before verification, and then submits to it. Holmes gauges the other mind and walks where it would have walked.
Plate VI.THE MUSGRAVE RITUAL.
Put Yourself in his Place
Gauge the other man's intelligence, then ask how you yourself would have proceeded. His footsteps become your map.
“I put myself in the man’s place and, having first gauged his intelligence, I try to imagine how I should myself have proceeded under the same circumstances.”
The Musgrave Ritual
Do what the butler did before Holmes: plant the rod, wait for the sun, measure the shadow, then step the Ritual on the plan.
- North by ten and by ten,
- east by five and by five,
- south by two and by two,
- west by one and by one,
- and so under.
A. Stump of the elm. B. End of its shadow. C. The old door. D. The flagstone.
Some problems need time, and Holmes refuses the superstition that intelligence is visible speed. When thought turns to repetition, distance is the next operation.
Plate VII.THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE.
Give it Time, then Distance
A hard problem is not improved by pretending it is an easy one. Give it unbroken time to gather the pieces; then go somewhere else and let them join.
“It is quite a three pipe problem, and I beg that you won’t speak to me for fifty minutes.”
The Red-Headed League
Light his pipes, one at a time, and keep quiet while the clock runs. Then send him out.
Pipes 0 of 3·Minutes 0 of 50·Pieces 0 of 4
He has curled himself up in the chair, eyes closed. Do not speak to him. Light the first pipe.
Observation depends on what is already there to recognise. Holmes calls the mind a little attic and makes himself its severe housekeeper.
Plate VIII.A STUDY IN SCARLET.
Choose what you Keep
The mind is a small room. Keep near at hand only the tools of your work; let the library hold the rest.
“I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.”
A Study in Scarlet
Each fact comes up the stair in Holmes’s hand. Keep it on the near shelf, or send it down to the library. The shelf has seven places.
Fact 1 of 12
The Solar System
“If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.” A Study in Scarlet
On the shelf 0 of 7 · tools 0 · lumber 0 · elbowed out 0 · in the library 0
The attic is empty. Nothing is in it yet but dust and daylight.
The greatest investigator is not the one who never errs. Bevelin’s better standard is the one who can recognise and repair an error, and Holmes asked to be reminded of his.
Plate IX.THE YELLOW FACE.
Reckon with your Mistakes
Holmes’s theory covered every fact and was wrong. Keep the mistake where you can find it, and ask to be reminded of it the next time you feel sure.
“I shall be surprised if it does not turn out to be correct.”
The Yellow Face
Pin Holmes’s theory up piece by piece (or tap the face at the window) and watch his confidence climb. Then open the cottage door.
- No theory yet.
Pinned 0 of six · confidence 12 in a hundred · “Norbury” whispered 0
Observe before interpreting; hypothesise without commitment; test with hostile evidence; eliminate only by hard constraint; update without bargaining; apply what remains.
Plate X.THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES.
Apply Them
Knowing the method is nothing; doing it is everything. Look, commit to an inference, then put it where the facts can correct it.
“Do none suggest themselves? You know my methods. Apply them!”
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The visitor left his stick. Tap each mark on it, say what you make of it as Watson did, then let Holmes, and the facts, correct you.
The band. Just under the head, a broad silver band, engraved: “To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the C.C.H.”
Who gave it him, and on what occasion?
Marks read: 0 of 4
Holmes has his back to you. The stick is all there is: no card, no letter, no visitor.
- Joseph Bell
Cultivate accuracy in seeing and truthfulness in reporting.
the eye - Charles Darwin
Write down the fact opposed to the beloved hypothesis before it escapes.
the correction - Claude Bernard
When fact and theory conflict, abandon the theory, however distinguished its sponsors.
the experiment - Montaigne
Judgment can do without knowledge; knowledge cannot do without judgment.
the limit - John Watson
Make the chain speakable. A listener supplies the resistance that private thought lacks.
the sounding-board
This page follows Peter Bevelin’s A Few Lessons from Sherlock Holmes (MX Publishing, 2013). Its sequence and exercises are adaptations made for this page. The Holmes quotations are Conan Doyle’s, checked against the Project Gutenberg texts; the plates are drawn after Sidney Paget, who illustrated the stories for the Strand Magazine from 1891.