"The Three Gables"

The Three Gables.

This case begins on Wednesday, March 15, 1893.

Why?

WATSON’S CONTACT WITH HOLMES:
"I had not seen Holmes for some days and had no idea of the new channel into which his activities had been directed."
"I saw no more of Holmes during the day . . ."

REFERENCE TO AN OLD, OLD CASE:
"I believe that my late husband, Mortimer Maberley, was one of your early clients."
"I remember your husband well, madam, though it is some years since he used my services in some trifling matter."

STATE OF HOLMES’S CASELOAD:
"He is one of the Spencer John gang and has taken part in some dirty work of late which I may clear up when I have time."

THE DECLINE OF DOUGLAS MABERLY:
"In a single month I seemed to see my gallant boy turn into a worn-out cynical man."

THE DEATH OF DOUGLAS MABERLY:
"He was attache at Rome, and he died there of pneumonia last month."

ARRIVAL OF DOUGLAS’S THINGS:
"‘Milano.’ ‘Lucerne.’ These are from Italy."
"They are poor Douglas’s things."
"You have not unpacked them? How long have you had them?"
"They arrived last week."

THE DETAILS OF THE MABERLY HOUSE:
"I have been in this house more than a year now, and as I wished to lead a retired life I have seen little of my neighbours. Three days ago I had a call from a man who said that he was a house agent."
"Yesterday the man arrived with the agreement all drawn out."
"You have been in this house a year."
"Nearly two."

THE QUICK WORK OF THE STOCKDALE BUNCH:
"Your letter to me had the 10 P. M. postmark. And yet Susan passes the word to Barney. Barney has time to go to his employer and get instructions; he or she — I incline to the latter from Susan’s grin when she thought I had blundered — forms a plan. Black Steve is called in, and I am warned off by eleven o’clock next morning."

THE BUSTLING, RUBICUND INSPECTOR’S TIME ON THE FORCE:
"In twenty-five years’ experience I have learned my lesson."

WHAT THE BARING-GOULD ANNOTATED SAYS:
May 26, 1903. 

WHAT ZEISLER, THE KING OF CHRONOLOGY, SAYS:
Near June 1, 1896.

THE BIRLSTONE RAILWAY TIMETABLE:
Sherlock Holmes isn’t acting very much like Sherlock Holmes in this case. He lets Mrs. Maberly search for clues for him. He goes to Langdale Pike for what amounts to the solution to the case. A prize-fighter is involved, but Holmes’s own boxing connections are never brought up. Holmes seems something of a sociality in the way he knows of young Maberly without consulting his commonplace book. Baker Street is never specifically mentioned. There’s just something very wrong about it all, and it should be fairly apparent what that something is:

Sherlock Holmes is not actually involved in this case. 

In an earlier Chronology Corner, we saw how Watson was hallucinating Holmes’s presence in March of 1892 during "Wisteria Lodge," and in "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs," he’s taken it a step further. No mere hallucination could account for Holmes’s bizarre behaviour in this case. I would propose that in his attempts to come to grips with Holmes’s loss, Dr. Watson used the royalties from his now successful writing career to set up shop with a new detective as a partner, a pseudo-Sherlock. 

"I remember your husband well, madam," the faux-Sherlock lies to Mrs. Maberly at one point, "though it is some years since he used my services in some trifling matter." Luckily for "Sherlock," she had not met Holmes before, as her husband had been one of his early clients.
Mrs. Maberly’s son has died of pneumonia a month earlier in Rome, which isn’t exactly a cold city. The average minimum temperature there in January doesn’t even hit the freezing mark. Sure, one can die of pneumonia any time of the year, but a vital young man like Maberly, even a beaten, heartbroken one probably could use the extra encouragement of winter to die in such a way in Rome.
Christmas is a time for marriage proposals, and an especially tragic time for a rejection. Maberly persists after the object of his affection, insisting that she be his and his alone. A week later, on New Year’s Eve, Douglas Maberly is beaten outside of his former love’s window, winding up lying on that cold London street long enough to catch a chill that will start him on his downward trend. His mother accompanies him to Rome, getting her first taste of travel but seeing her "gallant boy turn into a worn-out cynical man." Once in Rome, all the son does is decline and write, sending the book off to Isadora the moment his pen leaves the last page. Without his vengeful purpose of writing left to sustain him further, Douglas Maberly dies. 

His mother returns to London, hires fresh servants (at which time the spy, Susan, enters her household), and a month later, consults "Sherlock Holmes" on Wednesday, March 15, 1893.
Why March 15? You surely didn’t think the prophecy "Beware the ides of March!" was about a mere Roman emperor, did you? It was a warning that future generations would have to endure "The Adventure of the Three Gables."