The Adventure of the Copper Beeches; was it all a charade?
7. I suggest that this entire ridiculous story is a put-up job, an attempt by Watson to find a wife for his best friend. Consider the evidence:
- Miss Hunter’s flirtation
- The inconsistencies in the story, including Holmes absurd suggestion of Rucastle on the ladder and the hair in the drawer
- The fact that Holmes and Watson never see Miss Rucastle or Mr. Fowler
- Watson’s very telling remark in the last paragraph of the story: “As to Miss Violet Hunter, my friend Holmes, rather to my disappointment, manifested no further interest in her when once she had ceased to be the centre of one of his problems.”
I believe that Watson hoped Holmes would fall for Miss Hunter in the same way that Watson fell for his own governess, the former Miss Mary Morstan. In fact I think it was a plot hatched mainly by Mrs. Watson, who perhaps knew Miss Hunter because they had both found their positions through Westaway’s, the “well-known agency for governesses in the West End.” I think Mrs. Watson tired of her husband constantly abandoning her and his practice to join his friend on their adventures. She hoped that a married Holmes might put a stop or at least reduce the incidences of their mutual escapades.
As further evidence, I offer the puzzling comment Holmes makes when Miss Hunter asks whether she should take the position: “I confess that it is not the situation which I should like to see a sister of mine apply for.” Some have speculated this is evidence that Holmes had a sister or even that Miss Hunter is his half sister, but I think Holmes is trying to emphasize his lack of romantic feeling for her. At best, he is saying, his concern for Miss Hunter is sisterly, and Watson writes that Holmes repeats this at least twice.
To summarize, I think Miss Hunter was chosen by Mrs. Watson as a suitable mate for Holmes and that the whole ludicrous story was conceived as a lure. The Rucastles were complicit in the scheme and it all went horribly wrong when Mr. Rucastle deviated from the script by letting out the dog. So many of the inconsistencies in the story are resolved if we accept this.
Two final thoughts
If Rucastle had taken his daughter, as Holmes suggests, how was she released? It’s very curious that information was never conveyed. If Fowler had freed her, then this detail is not needed, but if Rucastle had taken her, then the reader expects to know where he had taken her, for what purpose (had he guessed Miss Hunter had enlisted Holmes) and how was she recovered.
A final cause for speculation comes if we step outside the boundaries of the Great Game and consider Conan Doyle’s motivation for writing the story. My Baring-Gould mentions that Doyle had already been considering killing off Holmes when his mother, Mary Doyle, suggested the idea of a story that became The Copper Beeches. Doyle obeyed his Ma’am, but I wonder if he thought to come up with another way to kill off his character. After all, nothing kills off a series like marrying off the main character.
1 Quotes from Silver Blaze, The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Adventure of the Three Garridebs.
2 I am about to either contradict or confirm some of my hypotheses when I mention the curious fact that the fat and burly Rucastle somehow outpaces Holmes and Watson down the stairs to let out the dog. If Rucastle is that fast, perhaps he could have managed taking his daughter down the ladder. Or perhaps Holmes was too amused by the outlandish story to feel any need for hurry. The Granada version wisely has Rucastle lock them in the room where Miss Rucastle had been held, giving him enough time to let out the dog.