#Inspector Bradstreet

[randomnessoffiction]

[amypihcs]

Ah Bradstreet, my man. You know Holmes, don't you?

Well, if you think he can't say you're all wrong even if yoh named all of the cardinal points, you don't know him enough.

This exchange is PURE GOLD

[no-side-us]

Letters From Watson Liveblog - May 21

The Engineer's Thumb, Part 3 of 3

Holmes' archive of criminal cases is probably his most important instrument in crime-solving, next to his own mind of course. Knowing a similar incident happened a year ago tells Holmes that the Colonel's operations have been going on for some time now, and the fact this other engineer never reappeared suggests Victor's survival would probably put them in high alert.

Now that's a good Holmesian observation right there. Simple, logical, not too fancy or outlandish, but you'd never consider it unless you were looking for it, or considered every possibility.

My assumption upon reading the house was on fire was that the Colonel or his compatriot did it themselves to cover their tracks, since presumably they knew Victor was alive and would alert the authorities. Maybe that's why Victor was still alive, because they were too busy trying to stop a fire from burning down their operations.

Well that's a bit disappointing that they escaped, and without us ever really learning anything about them. The Englishman, Dr. Becher, was obviously the Colonel's partner in crime, but I would at least have liked to known who Elise was in relation to the other two. She didn't seem too keen on the operation, so how did she end up with them? She's German, so was she the Colonel's sister, wife, daughter, niece, cousin, etc.

If you got your thumb cut off, would you keep it? If you got any part of your body cut off, would you keep it? I think I would, and I hope Victor did too.

So they did find Victor, and somehow Elise was able to convince the Englishman to help her carry him away from the house. I'm guessing the Colonel was too busy trying to save his illegal coins from the fire to stop them.

That's certainly one way Victor could brand himself after all that happened. He could set himself up as a hero who stopped an illegal coin pressing operation and lost his thumb in the process. If he kept his burnt, severed thumb (like I would), he could even use it as a prop when telling the story. I'm not totally sure how much actual hydraulic engineering work he'll be getting hired for however.

I remember the title, and not much else. Maybe I'll remember more after the first letter.

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

[whats-in-a-sentence]

"A house on fire?" asked Bradstreet, as the train steamed off again on its way.

"The Illustrated Sherlock Holmes Treasury" - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

[tenth-sentence]

"Well, I don't know why not," said the inspector.

"The Illustrated Sherlock Holmes Treasury" - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

[bakerstreetbabble]

Granada TV Series Review: "The Bruce Partington Plans"

At long last, I'm resuming my series of reviews of the Granada TV adaptation of Sherlock Holmes adventures, starring Jeremy Brett as Holmes and Edward Hardwicke as Watson. It's been a while!

"The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans," a case from the collection of stories entitled His Last Bow, is popular with some Sherlock Holmes fans, as it contains one of the appearances of the great detective's brother, Mycroft Holmes. It is a fun tale of accidental murder, international intrigue, and traitorous behavior, all over submarine plans (the Bruce-Partington Plans of the title). I found the Granada adaptation to be an enjoyable, and quite faithful, adaptation of the source material.

Jeremy Brett seemed to me to be in great form in this episode, as he harnessed the humor and sudden bursts of energy that Holmes is prone to exhibit when he's working a case that he enjoys. Charles Gray, appearing again as Mycroft, is perfect in the role. Inspector Lestrade, who is the Scotland Yard detective who appears in the original story, is replaced in this episode by Inspector Bradstreet, played very capably by Dennis Lill.

The pacing is certainly not very quick by today's TV standards, but I quite enjoyed the leisurely way in which the mystery played out. Even the end of the case was played with less action than one might have expected, but something about the tone of the ending really worked for me. (I found Dennis Lill as Bradstreet most effective in this final scene.)

There aren't a whole lot of bells and whistles in the episode, to be sure (no murderous hounds foaming at the mouth, or venomous snakes creeping in the night), but I found "The Bruce Partington Plans" to be a very solid entry in the Granada series lineup (despite the loss of the hyphen in the title). I don't have a star rating system for these reviews, but if I did, I think I'd give this one a 4/5. Just good, solid storytelling.

[mariana-oconnor]

The Engineer's Thumb pt 3

Last we left off, Mr Victor Hatherley, hydraulic engineer and secret giant panda, was accounting how he had ignored very clear and present warnings, almost been crushed to death, had his thumb hacked off by a cleaver and very likely contracted sepsis in a ghost house.

“Here is an advertisement which will interest you,” said he. “It appeared in all the papers about a year ago. Listen to this: “‘Lost, on the 9th inst., Mr. Jeremiah Hayling, aged twenty-six, a hydraulic engineer. Left his lodgings at ten o'clock at night, and has not been heard of since.'"

RIP Mr Hayling. I hope you died quickly and not in the squishing chamber.

"It is quite clear that the colonel was a cool and desperate man,"

But is he actually a colonel? That's the real question.

There were Sherlock Holmes, the hydraulic engineer, Inspector Bradstreet, of Scotland Yard, a plain-clothes man, and myself.

Ah yes, my dear companions: Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Bradstreet, and *checks hands*... a hydraulic engineer.

How come Victor doesn't get a name here? Hey, ACD, did you forget a character's name in the middle of a story and just couldn't be bothered to look a few paragraphs upwards? I get that Ctrl+F wasn't possible back then, but these short stories aren't that long.

“And you think that they brought you back all that way when you were unconscious?”

I am 90% sure they did not touch him while he was unconscious, they just took him on the carriage in one big circle until they were right back near the station again, and he just woke up where he fell.

“Oh, we shall soon clear up all that,” said Bradstreet. “Well, I have drawn my circle, and I only wish I knew at what point upon it the folk that we are in search of are to be found.”

Right in the middle. Bet you. I mean, you're a fictional character and even if you weren't this was over a century ago. But I bet you metaphysically.

“Oh, yes, you can. This is my point.” He placed his finger in the centre of the circle. “This is where we shall find them.” “But the twelve-mile drive?” gasped Hatherley.

Knew it! Also, ACD remembered Victor's surname, excellent. Very proud of you! He's been really carefully ignoring it for the last few paragraphs, just not using dialogue tags or saying 'my patient'. Took a minute, but he got there.

“None at all,” said Holmes. “They are coiners on a large scale, and have used the machine to form the amalgam which has taken the place of silver.”

Hey, and I was right about what they were doing. Boom.

Interesting thought... did Hatherley realise this when he was poking around in the press and found the metallic deposits? Because his whole 'I'd like to talk to you about your Fuller's Earth' thing, if he knew about the forgery, sounds a little like 'Hey, how about you cut me in on this', or maybe the opening stages of some blackmailing.

But I'm maligning his character with no evidence. I just wish I knew how he thought that was going to play out. Was he dumb enough to think that nothing illegal was going on? But if he knew something illegal was going on, why call them out on it like that.

But the inspector was mistaken, for those criminals were not destined to fall into the hands of justice.

Again? Holmes has to be the least successful literary detective of all time when it comes to actually catching criminals. Was there not even a convenient shipwreck this time? Although it makes sense they wouldn't stick around when Hatherley's run off with enough information and evidence to get them caught.

As we rolled into Eyford Station we saw a gigantic column of smoke which streamed up from behind a small clump of trees in the neighbourhood and hung like an immense ostrich feather over the landscape.

So, either they're burning the evidence, or they've accidentally burnt themselves to death and that's why they didn't come after Victor - because they were too busy being on fire.

“Dr. Becher's.” “Tell me,” broke in the engineer, “is Dr. Becher a German, very thin, with a long, sharp nose?” The station-master laughed heartily. “No, sir, Dr. Becher is an Englishman..."

Becher certainly looks more like a Germanic name than an English name. Also, is this guy really a doctor? And if he's a medical doctor and he lives right next door, then why didn't the station guard last night see Hatherley's bleeding thumbless hand and say 'oh, there's a doctor just 'round the corner. You should have him take a look at that!'

I'm a little confused on the timeline, too. This is all the same day, right. They leave for Berkshire 3 hours after Mr Hatherley finishes his tale, which he tells on the same day he arrives on the train after having lost his thumb. So last night, when the building was on fire, was the night when he was first unconscious, and then sitting at the station waiting for a train. The fire should have been visible from the station if it's that close, and Hatherley didn't get on a train until the morning, so... did no one notice the fire right next door, or did they just not care?

Maybe the fire just wasn't big enough to be seen during the night, so no one outside noticed it until after Victor had left in the morning. Doesn't explain why the guard didn't suggest Victor take his missing thumb to the nearby medical professional, though.

"There can be no question that it was your oil-lamp which, when it was crushed in the press, set fire to the wooden walls, though no doubt they were too excited in the chase after you to observe it at the time."

I forgot about the oil lamp. It's doing a pretty good job of getting rid of the evidence, though.

Early that morning a peasant had met a cart containing several people and some very bulky boxes driving rapidly in the direction of Reading.

Was the word 'peasant' still used in the 1890s? Really? It's a very medieval/dark ages kind of word.

It should at least take them a while to set up again. They're going to need to build another person-squishing machine, and given that they're clearly not very good at hydraulics, I assume they have to kidnap someone to do that for them. Or maybe they just have a diagram that they can follow, but they don't know how it works. And they've left behind all the raw materials, so they'll have to get their hands on that again.

The firemen had been much perturbed at the strange arrangements which they had found within, and still more so by discovering a newly severed human thumb upon a window-sill of the second floor.

The firemen are very sensible people. Although I find it weird that the thumb survived on the windowsill, given that fire was billowing out of the windows in the description earlier.

How our hydraulic engineer had been conveyed from the garden to the spot where he recovered his senses might have remained forever a mystery were it not for the soft mould, which told us a very plain tale. He had evidently been carried down by two persons, one of whom had remarkably small feet and the other unusually large ones. On the whole, it was most probable that the silent Englishman, being less bold or less murderous than his companion, had assisted the woman to bear the unconscious man out of the way of danger.

OK, so they did move him. I was pretty sure that they just didn't find him and he was too out of it on blood loss and adrenaline to know where he'd ended up. Mainly this seems like a really stupid thing for them to do, though. Clearly they've already killed one hydraulics engineer, leaving Victor alive to run away and tell people seems kind of dumb at this point. Obviously not murdering people is the right thing to do, but in this situation it's also a dumb move. No one worked out you killed the last one... eh, what's one more?

“Well,” said our engineer ruefully as we took our seats to return once more to London, “it has been a pretty business for me! I have lost my thumb and I have lost a fifty-guinea fee, and what have I gained?” “Experience,” said Holmes, laughing. “Indirectly it may be of value, you know; you have only to put it into words to gain the reputation of being excellent company for the remainder of your existence.”

#LifeLessons #LearningExperience

Such a fun story of how he was almost crushed to death and had his thumb chopped off by violent criminals who are still at large!

Yeah, that'll get people to buy you drinks, for sure. Although as previously discussed, you probably won't be alive to enjoy them. And you're going to have to relearn how to do things with only one opposable thumb if you don't die of sepsis. But maybe next time someone tries to warn you three times to not do something, you'll actually listen. Or you can get enough XP to increase your wisdom score and not end up in a situation like this again.

I wonder how many other hydraulic engineers Fritz went on to murder. It was probably fine.

[skyriderwednesday]

So it seems like Inspector Bradstreet was a favourite incidental character of Doyle's for a couple of stories at least, because he's mentioned briefly in Blue Carbuncle as well as Twisted Lip.

I like him, he seems like fun.

[quill-of-thoth]

Letters from Watson: The Man with the Twisted Lip

Part 3: The Fun Bits

Holmes, who has already come to conclusions only to have them overturned, makes a pillow fort. Looking at my workspace while writing this.... uh, no comment.

Once again Holmes is waking Watson up early but at least this time he didn't loom, okay?

I believe Bradstreet is a recurring inspector. Not so much as Lestrade, but if I recall correctly he turns up again.

Nowadays we use "Tinker" to refer to the act of messing about with machinery, and I was aware that it referred to a tin-smith as well, but here it is probably being used as a slur against Irish Travelers or Romani people. (The two groups were both discriminated against heavily at the time.)

Red hair also had weird associations. In addition to today's stereotypes about redheads having a temper, or having a lot of sex, there's historically been associations with witchcraft, with Judaism whenever antisemitism reached a fever pitch, and also with the Irish. Poor and non-protestant Irish people were also discriminated against at this time.

As for facial scarring, I hardly need to go into why someone with a large facial scar would have social and financial trouble in Victorian England, where your health and beauty were socially considered to be a reflection of your inner virtue, or lack thereof.

Holmes can get heavy duty, presumably realistic stage makeup off with just water and a sponge? Why the heck did I ever use makeup wipes or cold cream to get my stage makeup off?

"You would have done better to have trusted your wife" is the moral of a decent chunk of these stories.

St Clair's income from begging is ludicrous, but I'll save that for the wrap-up.

[ask-the-reaper-conspiracy]

(psyche locks) Enoch Drebber, I wonder if you could tell me anything about a certain Inspector Bradstreet?

"....Tch. It's you again." "Hmm..." "Bradstreet---my most persistent pursuer, I remember him. He was fun." "I had to get creative on some occasions to prevent him catching me in the act on a... job." "I was awfully sorry to hear the good inspector had died." "It was no fault of mine, you understand, if that is your suspicion." "Rather, I hypothesize that he made the wrong acquaintance."

—————–

Relevant ask

Check this page for credits

[detectives-out-of-context]

Can't do these things on the force, Mr Holmes, no wonder you sometimes get results that are beyond us.

Inspector Bradstreet,  Sherlock Holmes (1984)

[personinthepalace]

Inspector Lestrade or Inspector Bradstreet?

Inspector Lestrade (both in canon and Granada) mainly bc I always forget about Inspector Bradstreet for some reason 😆. Also I love Lestrade’s speech to Holmes at the end of The Six Napoleons

Who would you pick?

[reds-self-ships]

🔎 The Adventure of the Detection Club

Chapter 2: Reason for Attendance

Table of Contents & Trigger Warnings

The young man sat down on the settee in Sholmes’s living room, which had been commandeered for use by the attorney and his judicial assistant. Susato had a pen primed and ready for note-taking, whilst Ryunosuke was sat, ready to listen.

Sholmes had also joined in on the action too, seeing as he considered the thoughts of a so-called “great detective” would be considered worthwhile on the matter, especially where the police were to be concerned.

“I should probably begin by introducing myself,” said the young man. “My name is Redford Ninate, and I’m a student and a crime fiction writer, notably the head of our crime fiction writing group in the English Literature department known as ‘The Detection Club’.

“Yesterday, we were due to initiate a new member, Dexter Collins, to our group, after an unexpected vacancy cropped up.”

“Unexpected? In what way?” asked Sholmes.

“In that one of our members recently stopped paying his dues on-time. Which would be Harris Thomas, and that’s the man I currently am accused of killing. But I’ll get to that part shortly. We pay dues because we rent out a suite on High Window Avenue which acts as our club headquarters and meeting room.

“I attended the room that morning in order to meet with Harris after I invited him to formally notify him that his membership was being withdrawn due to unpaid dues. I remained there all morning preparing for our initiation ceremony for Collins but otherwise he never showed up. I remained there from nine o’clock yesterday ‘til twelve o’clock—if I remember rightly—and never left once, so it’s not like I had a chance to miss him or anything.”

“Was there anyone there who could testify to that?” asked Ryunosuke.

“Nobody. The ritual is always prepared by the club leader. And as I’m club leader, that duty fell to me.”

Ryunosuke stroked his chin. “I see. What happened next?”

“Well, I locked up and went home to prepare for the initiation to begin at three o’clock. I’m the only one who has a key, there’s no authorised copies and it’s Chubb’s latest lock—totally unpickable because the lock is designed to break if anyone even attempts that.”

“Do you think someone could’ve came in from a window in, Mr. Ninate?” asked Susato, making note of this fact.

“Unlikely. The suite’s three floors up from the ground and the windows only open about the width of, say, my hat. Plus the fact that I always lock the windows too, just to be absolutely sure.”

“So what happened then?”

“Well this is where it’s pretty straightforward when you explain it. I travelled back from my apartment to the club and waited on the club to meet up before we went in. From what I remember, all current members, Collins included, did show up.

“When we were all ready, I unlocked the door and we walked in to find Harris’s body lying across the ritual table, blood everywhere and his head bashed in, with Norman sitting beside him.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Who’s this ‘Norman’ person, then?” asked Sholmes with a snap of his fingers.

“Oh, Norman’s our club mascot. He’s a skull that was donated from the pathology department of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, where one of our members is working as an intern at the moment.”

“An actual human skull?” asked Ryunosuke. He’d never seen one in real-life before, but even the drawings and sketches of ones he’d seen in Sholmes’s notes scattered about the room were enough to give him the chills.

“Well that’s what we were told anyway. We swear the oath on him in lieu of any kind of religious books, it’s more inclusive that way. Plus it looks cool as hell.

“Anyway—naturally, we sent for a constable who in turn sent for a detective, and we ended up locked out of our club for the last twenty-four hours whilst we waited for the investigation to be carried out. Next thing I know, I was woken up by the detective and a prosecutor banging down my door looking to arrest me for the crime, saying that I was the only one that could’ve done it.”

“And you thought the best action to take was to run away and come in search of an attorney?”

“Yes. Well knowing the detective’s reputation from Dr. Wilson’s stories, I figured that it’d be for the best, given that he’d likely have a watertight case against me.”

“Which detective’s that?”

“Athelney Jones.”

Both Sholmes and Dr. Wilson tutted and rolled their eyes. “Oh, him?”

“Yeah.”

“Who’s Athelney Jones?” asked Ryunosuke. He’d encountered Gregson before, and was regaled with the antics that the late Detective Inspectors Bradstreet and Genshin Asogi had gotten up to with Sholmes and Professor Mikotoba before in the past, but never had he been informed about Athelney Jones.

“Oh he’s a detective with Scotland Yard,” explained Sholmes. “The type you know about when you see and hear him coming.”

Suddenly, and before anyone could comment on anything further, the door to 221B was broken off of its hinges, with a small army of police constables charging in afterwards.

“Alright now folks, stick ‘em up and come quietly!” called Detective Athelney Jones, a fat cigar hanging out of the corner of his mouth. “I’m taking you all into custody! You’re all under arrest!”

[siscosfavoritecomics]

Today’s Public Library Trade Paperback entry is Scotland Yard by French author Dobbs and French artist/illustrator Stéphane Perger. The graphic novel is translated and published by Dark Horse Comics and collects Scotland Yard issues 1 and 2. The graphic novel is described as follows:

When Inspector Gregson is found responsible for the escape of two psychopathic criminals during a botched prisoner transfer, he’s given the opportunity to redeem himself by leading the manhunt to recapture the dangerous felons. But to do so, he may need to forge deadly new alliances on the other side of the law.

There are a couple of things that stand out here. First the art. Perger’s art is simply amazing. The pages look painted rather than drawn on the page. The art style is perfect when rendering the grittiness of Victorian era London, in which this graphic novel is based in.

The story itself involves a blend of fictional characters from British literature and real life people. Some are part of the story and some are mentioned in reference to other characters. Here is a list of some of the characters I was able to identify:

Mary Pearcey: Murdered lovers wife and hung December 1890. Was considered to be a potential Ripper candidate (Real) 

Inspector Tobias Gregson: Sherlock Holmes character (Fictional)

Inspector Frederick Abbeline: Chief Inspector for the London Metropolitan Police durng the Jack the Ripper investigator (Real)

Commissioner Fix: Created by author Dobbs? (Fictional)

Bram Stoker: Irish author of the novel Dracula (real)

Phileas Fogg: Main character from Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days (fictional)

Professor James Moriarty: Main antagonist of Sherlock Holmes (fictional)

Colonel Sebastian Moran: Villain from Sir Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories (fictional)

Murdstone Jr:: Possible son to Charles Dickens character Edward Murdstone from the novel David Copperfield? (fictional)

Inspector Bradstreet: Character from Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories (fictional)

Faustine Clerval: character by comic author Hobbs found in some of his other works such as Mister Hyde vs. Frankenstein (fictional)

The Black Museum: Scotland Yard Crime Museum (real)

Carfax: Unsure if related to Holmes story The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax or to Carfax House/ Abbey from Dracula (fictional?)

R. M. Renfield: from Bram Stoker’s Dracula (fictional)

Dr. John Seward: from Bram Stoker’s Dracula (fictional)

Wiggins: from Sherlock Holmes (fictional)

Adolf Verloc: spy/anarchist in The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad (fictional)

Inspector G. Lestrade: From Sherlock Holmes (fictional)

Dr. Frederick Treves: Doctor who treated and befriended Joseph Merrick, better known as The Elephant Man (real)

Joseph Merrick: Known as The Elephant Man (real)

Henry Irving: actor and business partner of Bram Stoker (real)

If you’re a fan of British literature from the late 19th century such as the kind created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, Bram Stoker and their contemporaries, give this graphic novel a try. I think you might like it as I did.

For Further Reading:

Perger, Stéphane from the Magus of the Library website

Stéphane Perger from the Lambiek Comiclopedia

[skyriderwednesday]

Inspector Bradstreet, hi!! You really were Doyle's favourite for a little while, weren't you?