Episode 3: The Naval Treaty
In the third episode of season one, Holmes and Watson investigate the theft of The Naval Treaty. Gus and Luke examine brain-fevers, shadow-boxing, and alternate theories to the solution of this classic entry to the Granada series.
As mentioned in the podcast, you can find the only existing audio recording of the The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, the stage play written by Jeremy Paul and starring Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke, here: https://jgkeegan.com/sh/secsh.htm
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Great to find a podcast devoted to the greatest portrayal of Sherlock Holmes. As a Brit I was surprised and pleased to find that it is by Americans. Just a note on Bohemia which was talked about in the first episode, Wikipedia explains it well. It’s history was complicated, certainly never part of the British Empire, until 1948 an administrative unit of Czechoslovakia.
Thanks David! Somehow, we missed this comment until now…! Sorry about that. But yes, great info. Thanks for setting us straight. Will make note of that on the next episode. 🙂
I love what you are doing, but would you please please please bring in some Brett loving Sherlockians for the discussion part of your podcasts. This is the weakest part. It needs people who know the subject and also know Doyle, inside and out.
For me “The Naval Treaty” works as a story partially because the thief is so stupid and incompetent, no one suspects him, as it’s assumed it must be a practiced dealer in stolen documents because of the gravity of the secret. Ringing the bell, then stealing the document, and storing it in his own room are so amateurish, only Holmes is able to look beyond all of these assumptions of how a professional thief would behave.
If Joseph was on social media, he’s the kind of guy who who would post on Facebook “going to stop by and see Percy” and then forget to delete it.
I can’t tell you how enjoyable I am finding this podcast. I was 12 years old when I first discovered this series…and I watched mainly these early episodes on a constant basis (to the point of being able to recite along with them!).
I agree that there were some oddities in this one. I always wondered for instance, why when Holmes returned to Baker Street, they showed him get out of the carriage and stop to cough/wheeze? Was he being cheeky, acting like he was more wounded than he really was?
I love David Burke’s big toothy grins, I think that’s just supposed to be the interpretation of this Watson, he wears his heart on his sleeve, it’s maybe a little childlike in how his every emotion is just plainly on his face. Nice contrast to the more subtle Holmes.
I’m really not quite sure what you all mean by the episode being a bit “weird”. Maybe I’ve not seen it often enough, but it seems just fine to me. Yes, the rose speech is a little out of place, but not more than the “my mind rebels at stagnation” speech in S1E01.
The plot is maybe a little confusing and it’s not quite well explained how Holmes just figured out that since no one knew about the treaty, someone must have walked in randomly, and that the brother in law was in town and supposed to return together on the same train, so might likely have dropped by the office. Since I already knew the story before watching it I probably filled in the missing explanations automatically, and I wasn’t as baffled as I might have been as a child watching the episode first.
The “putting too much stock in dates” thing, is more of a Sherlockian habit… all the clubs and societies which spent their time analyzing the canon for fun, and needed something new to put on their monthly newsletters. Yes, every word was gone over with a fine-toothed comb, but it’s all part of the Great Game, isn’t it, of pretending Holmes and Watson really existed and Doyle was his literary agent, and to see how one can explain any inconsistencies in that context. Discussing things like “where was Watson’s war injury, the arm or the leg?” it’s not nitpicking, it’s having fun coming up with theories because “it’s just a story” is boring.
My eternal question from the stories is, why did Holmes soliloquize about a rose in Naval Treaty? I suspect the real answer is that Conan Doyle was in a meditative mood when he wrote that story, and wanted to express some of his own philosophy, but I am always hoping for someone to come up with a reason that makes sense for the character speaking. Sherlock Holmes always speaks with a purpose, so something must have triggered his thoughts in that direction.