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Vincent Starrett reminds us of all the abnormal happenings with Mrs. Hudson's curious upstairs tenants-unusual clients coming and going, the Irregulars running up and down the stairs, police officers coming at all hours of the day, furniture being overturned, and criminals being captured. At this level, Holmes's firearm practice would cause permanent hearing loss for anyone in the room. W.H.B. Smith, Book of Pistols & Revolvers, updated by Joseph E. Smith, Harrisburg: Stackpole Books, 1968, ?.
A FAMILIAR YET UNDER-EXPLORED topic regarding the Baker Street scene is the V.R. bullet-pocks in the wall at 2218. How strange that Watson would point out this detail of Holmes's strange habits. In "The Musgrave Ritual," Watson famously opines
that pistol practice should be distinctly an open-air pastime; and when Holmes, in one of his queer humours, would sit in an armchair with his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V.R. done in bullet-pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved by it.
Watson further mentions Holmes's "occasional revolver practice within doors" in "The Dying Detective."
The idea of Holmes engaging in target practice in his lodgings raises questions: Which wall did he shoot at? Was it a solid masonry load-bearing wall covered with a plaster coat and wallpaper, or a lathe and plaster wall for dividing rooms?
If it was a load-bearing wall, the impact of the rounds would chip the plaster and tear the wallpaper to pieces. If the sitting room was between 15 and 20 feet wide, a 265-grain bullet would have such an impact as to destroy the wall and not leave nice bullet-pocks. This type of grain bullet was manufactured to produce such force as to knock a man to the ground. Indoors, bullets would hit the masonry surface and bullet fragments would ricochet around the room.
James Edward Holroyd points out that "American research comes cranking in with the information that had the Master indeed used such ammunition in such quantity he would have brought down half the walls of the apartment."!
If Holmes shot at lathe-and-plaster walls, it was either toward the wall between the bedrooms and sitting room of 221B or toward the wall that has the hallway on the other side. Mrs. Hudson and visitors would have quite the surprise in the hallway, or Watson in his bed! These two choices would produce nice bullet-pocks, but there would be nothing to stop the rounds from continuing to the next wall.
Baker Street is located in an urban area with hundreds of people living nearby. Even with the daily street noise, the neighbors would surely sit up and take notice of gunfire. This practice would also draw inquiries from local law enforcement, even though they are used to strange goings-on at 221B over the years.
Vincent Starrett reminds us of all the abnormal happenings with Mrs. Hudson's curious upstairs tenants-unusual clients coming and going, the Irregulars running up and down the stairs, police officers coming at all hours of the day, furniture being overturned, and criminals being captured.
Yet with all these things happening, Starrett points out that
some time was to elapse, one thinks, before [Holmes] actually ventured upon revolver practice in his living-room-decorating the wall with a patriotic V.R. done in bullet-pocks-and it is probable that this diversion was not too frequent. A certain rapport would seem to be indicated, as between [Holmes and Mrs. Hudson], before such queerish pastimes could be tolerated-an understanding based on faith and works; at least a feeling of certainty on the part of Martha Hudson that her curious lodger was able and willing to pay for a new wall, if necessary...but shooting is always a little dangerous and startling.?
In fact, firing a large-caliber weapon indoors would be deafening.
Remember that Watson says Holmes used Boxer cartridges (also mentioned in "The Dying Detective"). "Boxer" describes the type of primer used to ignite the powder in a cartridge once it is hit by the firing pin of the pistol. It was developed by Colonel Edward Mounier Boxer of the Royal Artillery in 1866. He served as the Superintendent at the Royal Armory in Woolwich, yet Boxer primers were used very little in British ammunition and were more common in American-made ammunition.
A Boxer primer is used only on center-fired ammunition, such as with the Webley .42 caliber Bulldog, the Webley's RIC (Royal Irish Constabulary of 1867 & 1868) 3 the Tranter & Bland .577 caliber, and the Webley .455 caliber.·
The .455 Webley round had a 265-grain bullet and a muzzle velocity of boo feet per second." This round would be equivalent to the United States .45 A.C.P. pistol round which has a 230-grain bullet and a muzzle velocity of 860 feet per second. At 15 feet this round can penetrate six 7/8th-inch pine boards." Shooting a Webley .455 would produce a sound of around 165 decibels, which is the same level as a fighter jet launching. At this level, Holmes's firearm practice would cause permanent hearing loss for anyone in the room.
I tried making the patriotic V. R. bullet-pocks with a Webley revolver at the pistol range while sitting at a shooting bench. The paper target was 15 feet from the bench. Unless you have a steady hand, this is not an easy feat. One misplaced round and you are going to screw up the letters. It took me at least 20 rounds to make a decent V.R. with bullet- pocks on a paper backstop. Holmes fired a pistol only twice in the Canon-when he and Watson shot Tonga during the river chase on the Thames and when they shot the Baskerville hound. This is not a lot of pistol practice. A firearms instructor once told me to be proficient at shooting a pistol a person would need to fire no less than 5,000 rounds in their lifetime. I think that Mr. Holmes is 4,900 rounds short. And as Robert Keith Leavitt observed, "Holmes's skill with the handgun was of a regrettably low order. The idea of lounging as a marksman is a useless practice."
And then there's the matter of the hair-trigger, as Watson described the weapon. A hair-trigger is a firearm that has a secondary trigger with a delicate adjustment. The very slightest pressure upon this trigger would release the main trigger and fire the weapon. This type of trigger setup is used for target and trick shooting on single-shot pistols. But according to W.H.B. Smith, no pistol manufactured in the late 1800's featured a hair-trigger. This feature would not appear on single-shot pistols until sometime after 1900, whereas "The Musgrave Ritual" was first published in 1893.
Once again, Dr. Watson has proved to be an unreliable narrator. Maybe he just didn't want the facts to get in the way of a good story opening.
NOTES
1. James Edward Holroyd, Baker Street By-Ways: A Book About Sherlock Holmes, London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1959, ?. 99.
2. Vincent Starrett, "The Singular Adventures of Martha Hudson," BakerStreet Studies, ed. HW. Bell, London: Constable & Co Ltd., 1934, pp. 9192.
3. W.H.B. Smith, Book of Pistols & Revolvers, updated by Joseph E. Smith, Harrisburg: Stackpole Books, 1968, ?. 456.
4. Ibid, ?. 534.
5. Ibid, ?. 534.
6. Ibid, ?. 492.
7. Robert Keith Leavitt, "Annie Oakley in Baker Street," Profile by Gaslight: An Irregular Reader About the Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, ed. Edgar W. Smith, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1944, pp. 230-242.
8. Smith, op. cit., p. 31.
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