Death Cloud

“Mycroft patted Sherlock on the shoulder. ‘If there was an alternative I would take it, believe me. Now, do you need to say goodbye to any friends?’ Sherlock looked around. There were boys he knew, but were any of them really friends? ‘No,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’”

As in the preceding quote, this statement establishes Sherlock as a “loner” and an outsider. He is surrounded by boys his own age but shows no inclination to befriend any of them. This stance will change once Matty comes into his life. At this early stage, he doesn’t see any value in friendship.

“The sound of the ground beneath the horses’ hoofs changed from stone to hard-packed earth. He screwed his eyes more tightly shut, trying to put off the moment when he would have to accept what was happening.”

Sherlock and Mycroft are about to arrive at Holmes Manor. The boy expresses his denial by shutting his eyes. This suggests that observation is key to his understanding of reality. If he can remove sensory evidence, then he can trick his logical mind into believing that a particular set of conditions isn’t so.

“‘I was thinking that we could get hold of some bicycles,’ Sherlock pressed. ‘Get out and about. See some of the villages and the towns around here.’ Matty glanced over at him, frowning. ‘Why would we want to do that?’ ‘Curiosity?’ Sherlock asked. ‘Don’t you ever wonder what things are like before you see them?’ ‘Towns look like towns and villages look like villages.’”

Sherlock wants a bicycle so he can add to the fund of information he is collecting about the Farnham area. This mindset presents a striking contrast to Matty’s attitude. Matty is a pragmatist whose greatest concern is finding his next meal. He doesn’t have the luxury of indulging his own curiosity. He processes reality in a different way from Sherlock’s methods.

“Sometimes, Sherlock thought, the only options open to you were all unfair, and you just had to choose the one that minimized the bad consequences rather than the one that maximized the good ones. It felt like a peculiarly adult thing to think, and he didn’t like the implication that this was what adult life was like.”

This statement makes Sherlock’s adolescent status abundantly clear. As readers, we are used to seeing the idealistic detective who will fight the good fight for its own sake. In this quote, Sherlock seems primarily concerned about his personal comfort. He still has some growing up to do.

“You can deduce all you like, but it’s pointless without knowledge [...]. Information is the foundation of all rational thought. Seek it out. Collect it assiduously. Stock the lumber room of your mind with as many facts as you can fit in there. Don’t attempt to distinguish between important facts and trivial facts: they’re all potentially important.”

The adult Holmes will eventually be known for the plethora of unrelated facts that he has accumulated in his “lumber room.” In various stories, he trots out these obscure references just at the moment when they are needed to deduce a solution to a problem. This advice from Crowe will play out in all aspects of the future detective’s career.

“Something was drawing him deeper into the woods, something primal that he didn’t understand [...]. Whatever it was, it had seen the death of the farmworker and it didn’t care, just as it hadn’t cared about any of the hundreds, thousands, millions of animal and human deaths it had witnessed over the millennia.”

Sherlock is going back to the woods to investigate the place where the second victim died. His aversion to such locales will continue in later life. In “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches,” the adult Holmes expresses his horror of the countryside because so much evil can occur there beyond the easy reach of the law.

“Sherlock’s efforts were just pushing it further and further into the dirt and stopping the cart from moving. Logic. Use logic. If he couldn’t pull the cart, perhaps he could push it.”

Sherlock is locked inside a burning barn with no way out. He contrives to use a wagon to break a hole in the barn wall but begins by pulling instead of pushing it. This is the first instance in the book when he must find his way out of a tight spot by using his brain more than brawn. In later life, he will always resort to logic first to solve a problem.

“Sherlock found that he kept going back and telling bits of the story again, going off at a tangent to explain other things and generally not getting to the point. He wasn’t a natural storyteller, and for a moment wished that he had someone who could take the facts in his head and set them out in a way that made sense.”

This is an indirect and somewhat wry reference to Dr. Watson. Sherlock is attempting to tell Matty about his escape from the warehouse fire. However, his mind leaps about, which makes it hard for his listener to follow the natural progression of the facts. One day, Sherlock will get his wish, but he will occasionally criticize Watson for sentimentalizing his exploits, even though this is what natural storytellers do.

“‘I know where everyone lives, pretty much. It’s part of knowing where I can likely get food at any time of the day. I need to know how a place like this works.’ [...] Observation, Sherlock thought, remembering what Amyus Crowe had told him. It all came down to observation in the end. If you had enough facts, you could work almost anything out.”

Sherlock registers surprise that Matty knows where Crowe lives in Farnham. Understanding the lay of the land is critical to the survival of someone like Matty. Sherlock is beginning to recognize the value of observation in all its various forms. Matty uses it to scrape out a living. Sherlock uses it to solve crimes because he has the luxury of a home and family.

“‘And the upshot is…?’ Sherlock nodded. ‘Don’t let someone else phrase the problem for you because they might be misleading you. Take the facts they provide, then rephrase the problem in a logical way that enables you to solve it.’”

Crowe has just presented Sherlock with an intellectual puzzle. The answer hinges on knowing that the facts may be expressed in a way that leads to the wrong conclusion. As a professional detective, Holmes will frequently parse a client’s words to learn what isn’t being stated and reframe the problem in a way that allows for a logical solution.

“‘So you risked your life based on the fact that you thought everyone else was wrong and you could prove them wrong.’ ‘I suppose so.’ He felt obscurely embarrassed. She was right—getting to the bottom of the mystery had been more important to him than his own safety. He might have been wrong.”

Virginia has just pointed out that Sherlock took a serious risk by collecting the yellow powder and carrying it to Guildford for analysis. It might have been poisonous, but Sherlock was more intent on solving a mystery than in protecting himself. While his behavior in this instance could be attributed to the thoughtlessness of youth, the adult Holmes will continue to expose himself to serious risks to prove himself right.

“He desperately wanted to argue, to point out that what he had done had been right, but he knew enough about the way the adult world worked to realize that arguing would just make things worse. Right didn’t matter. Obeying the rules did.”

Going to Guildford without his uncle’s permission brings punishment. Even though Sherlock pursued the right course of action, he isn’t rewarded for it. He complains, as any teenager might, that the adults in his world want him to demonstrate obedience and not initiative. As an adult, he will also tend to flout the rules when the truth is at stake, even letting criminals go free if he judges that he is in the right.

“Left and right were blocked, as was behind. He could almost hear his brother Mycroft’s voice saying: ‘When all other options are impossible, Sherlock, embrace the one that’s left, however improbable it might be.’ His horse, sensing his intentions, jumped the few steps up to the portico in front of the house and headed unerringly for the wide front doors.”

Sherlock and Matty are attempting to escape the baron’s estate, but all their exits are blocked. It defies logic to ride into a house on horseback, but doing so falls into the category of the improbable. Holmes, the detective, will often make decisions that seem superficially absurd but are justified in the end.

“‘It would be nice if one person could always make a difference,’ Crowe replied without a trace of irritation, ‘but in this complicated world of ours you sometimes need friends, and you sometimes need an organization to back you up.’”

This comment is pivotal in reorienting Sherlock from a “loner” to a member of a team. To this point, he has pursued his investigation alone or with the occasional assistance of Matty. However, he has reached the stage where he must ask Crowe for help and guidance. The approach feels unnatural to the teen who wants to demonstrate his competence by single-handedly solving the mystery. As he will learn multiple times in the pages that follow, having a backup is a more logical approach.

“‘People do things when they lie,’ he replied. ‘Lyin’ is stressful, ‘cause you got to keep two different things straight in your head at the same time—the truth that you’re tryin’ to keep secret and the lie that you’re tryin’ to tell.’”

This is another piece of advice from Crowe that Sherlock will find useful in later life. The tutor is explaining physical traits that a poker player or a liar might exhibit. In this instance, Sherlock is surprised that Crowe believes his story about Maupertuis and his killer bee plan. The story is absurd on the face of it, which is one of the reasons Crowe believes Sherlock’s straightforward narrative is true.

“‘How did you get them to answer your questions?’ Matty added. ‘You’re a stranger around here, and people don’t usually open up to strangers.’ ‘Best thing to do is not be a stranger then,’ he replied. ‘If you just sit there for a while, makin’ conversation with the barman, you become part of the furniture. Then you join in with the conversation.’”

Crowe has just emerged from a tavern with some valuable information about the baron and his operation. He did so by affecting a lower-class British accent and making small talk with the clientele. He blended into the atmosphere to such a degree that the locals accepted his presence among them. The adult Holmes will use this same tactic multiple times when he disguises himself to infiltrate unfriendly territory.

“He crossed it wearily, ignoring the cries of the various vendors who tried to sell him everything from a whole ox to a loaded pistol. London appeared to him to be a place of almost infinite possibilities, if you were prepared to pay for them.”

Sherlock has just escaped the tunnels below the river and is struck by the activity at dockside above ground. His reaction emphasizes the degree to which he has been raised away from the city. This quote shows that he sees the myriad possibilities it contains and the temptation it represents to criminals. One day, Holmes will know every corner of London from high to low and exploit that knowledge for the benefit of his clients.

“Once I find something I like [...] I see no reason to suffer anything else. The layout and furnishings of a house, a system of government…once I discover something that works, I want it replicated so that things are the same wherever I go. I find it…comforting.”

Maupertuis is explaining why he has two mansions that are identical in separate countries. This quote reveals something of greater importance than his architectural preferences. He is dropping a casual statement about his choice of a particular type of government. Presumably, he favors authoritarian regimes that allow him unlimited power.

“Your pathetic little country has delusions of grandeur that have led it to conquer half the world [...] You have the arrogance, the temerity, the sheer self-delusion to believe that the world was set out for your benevolent rule. And the world has just rolled over and let you do it! Astounding.”

While Maupertuis is right in his critique of Britain’s desire to build a global empire, this isn’t necessarily because he advocates democratic ideals. He is annoyed that Britain has cut out his own faction in the Paradol Chamber. It has the same colonial ambitions as the British crown but is less successful in achieving those aims.

“Even if there are deaths it’ll be treated just like an outbreak of smallpox or cholera. Don’t you understand? They will ignore it. That’s what the British do. That’s why the British Empire is so widespread and so strong. We just ignore the things we don’t like.”

Sherlock is defending his country and its people by suggesting that their stoicism is a virtue. Because his father is a member of the military, such values would have been instilled in him from an early age. On the other hand, ignoring what one doesn’t like can be seen as a form of denial. The British government during the Victorian age typically sought to deny situations and circumstances that reflected badly on the country.

“I lay there in a tent in the stinking heat and the frozen cold of the Crimea for a year. A whole year. And for every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, and every month that I was there, I cursed the British and their stupidity in just following orders no matter how stupid those orders were.”

The reader is given a clear sense of the grievance that Maupertuis nurtures against the British. He can’t be entirely faulted for feeling this way. The Crimean War might easily have been avoided if hubris on the part of its military leaders wasn’t involved. Likewise, the Charge of the Light Brigade was a botched attack based on flawed orders. In consequence, Maupertuis became a victim of soldiers unquestioningly following orders.

“Despair washed over him. Sherlock was no match for the Baron. He couldn’t last against this kind of punishment for more than a few moments [...]. If Sherlock couldn’t beat Maupertuis with his skill as a swordsman, he would beat him with the power of his brain.”

Sherlock is engaged in a duel with the baron, who is surprisingly quick on his feet for a puppet. Of course, he has a small army of puppeteers to move him about, while Sherlock is only a single boy who isn’t an experienced swordsman. As he has done at so many points in the novel, when he finds himself outmatched, Sherlock relies on his wits to solve problems that can’t be overcome through muscle power or skill with weapons. This is perhaps the single most useful lesson he learns in Death Cloud.

“‘What are you doing, boy?’ Surd asked. ‘You think there’s anything there that will save you? You’re wrong. Wrong.’ ‘The only thing that will save me is my brain,’ Sherlock said.”

As in the preceding quote, Sherlock is once again confronted by a formidable foe. This time, Surd’s bulk and skill with a whip are likely to defeat the teen. However, the budding detective has learned his lesson well. He doesn’t meet physical force with physical force. He thinks before he acts. In consequence, he wins the day.