Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽'s Reviews > A Case of Identity

We open "A Case of Identity" with Sherlock Holmes' and Dr. Watson's typical banter, and then they look out the window to see Sherlock's next client. I love this description and Sherlock's comments:

Looking over his shoulder, I saw that on the pavement opposite there stood a large woman with a heavy fur boa round her neck, and a large curling red feather in a broad-brimmed hat which was tilted in a coquettish Duchess of Devonshire fashion over her ear. From under this great panoply she peeped up in a nervous, hesitating fashion at our windows, while her body oscillated backward and forward, and her fingers fidgeted with her glove buttons. Suddenly, with a plunge, as of the swimmer who leaves the bank, she hurried across the road, and we heard the sharp clang of the bell.

“I have seen those symptoms before,” said Holmes, throwing his cigarette into the fire. “Oscillation upon the pavement always means an affaire de coeur. She would like advice, but is not sure that the matter is not too delicate for communication. And yet even here we may discriminate. When a woman has been seriously wronged by a man she no longer oscillates, and the usual symptom is a broken bell wire. Here we may take it that there is a love matter, but that the maiden is not so much angry as perplexed, or grieved.”

Miss Mary Sutherland's problem is a fiancé who mysteriously disappeared from his carriage on the way to the church, after asking her, that very morning, to remember that she was pledged to him, even if something unforeseen happened to separate them. Suspicious, much?

So this Sherlock Holmes short story didn't work for me. The slightness and predictability of the tale, mixed with an unfortunate Victorian view of women -- that they are noble and of delicate sensibilities and are not to have their illusions shattered, even when it would be in their best interest, gah! SO MUCH -- combined to leave a bad taste in my mouth. But it was nice to see a brief glimpse of the softer side of Sherlock Holmes.