Sherlock Holmes reread: The Resident Patient

[vivdunstan]

Onto another story, as I get closer to the end of Memoirs.

I didn't remember this story at all, but it's a really intriguing one, featuring a mysterious setup with a young doctor and his wealthy benefactor, which then morphs into a convoluted plot of theft and murder.

Having Holmes's client be offered a strange and unusually beneficial work placement is not unusual. Though for it to be a medic was a fresh take.

I particularly liked the mysterious elderly and younger Russian (or not ...) men who come as patients. And then how things panned out. I did not expect them to return a second time, or the final outcome! It does feel like a well-balanced story.

This story features in Conan Doyle's list of his favourite 19 (?!?!) Sherlock Holmes short stories. It comes in at position 18, which doesn't sound that high a ranking, but out of 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories is pretty good going.

Hopefully I will remember it more by the next time I reread the Holmesian canon. I'm also planning to rewatch the Jeremy Brett version of this story. Visual memory may help record it.

Comments

[a_cubed]

I have no recollection of that one at all. I think I've read the whole canon, but that rings no bells whatsoever. I also think I saw almost all of the Brett ones when broadcast.

[vivdunstan]

I've read through the whole canon three or four times but didn't remember this one at all. It was adapted in the first Jeremy Brett TV series, "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", broadcast in its second season, in September 1985. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0506455/ I started rewatching this episode last night. The opening of the TV version is, erm, creative.