This is less “Holmes solving a mystery” and more “a guy tells Holmes about a weird thing that happened to him, and then they read the explanation of it in the newspaper.” Watson might have been overselling it sometimes, is all I’m saying. The mystery is good, even if snakes don’t work that way, but this story is absolutely riddled with anti-Romani prejudice and the g-slur, and I can’t sign off on that. The best of the Watsonless stories, if only because Holmes yells “BEHOLD!” and then kills a jellyfish with a rock. Instead, it’s a technically crime-free case of a man disguising himself as a beggar because he can make more money that way (uh, citation needed, ACD). The opium den setting of the opening scenes of this story promises a seedy, fog-shrouded mystery that never materializes. Holmes narrates this one, and he flat-out says that it’s not going to be as good as when Watson does it. This story involves a pet mongoose, but unfortunately that doesn’t really counterbalance all the ableism, so. The series sadly ends on a bit of a down note, with a story that should be fun-drunken impersonations! midnight crypt desecrations!-but is marred by sinister cross-dressing and some good old fashioned antisemitism. The later Holmes stories tend to be extremely implausible and silly but this particular one is not improved by the addition of ethnic stereotypes and the inescapably murderous nature of a *checks notes* disabled child. The weirdest part is when Holmes worries that this will lead to a nation of monkey extract addicts. Not to spoil a 97-year-old story but this one is about a guy who is injecting himself with extract of monkey to woo a much younger woman, which, uh, okay. I just can’t get down with a story about the sinister uncanny valley aura of, um, a little black girl.

I will at least say for this story that it is trying to be antiracist, but it didn’t age well.

The complete works of sherlock holmes