HOLMES IN NUMBERS
THE GOLDEN PINCE-NEZ
CHERRYWOOD : VERY GOOD
Smoking is an integral part of Holmes ' thinking process in the books and he refers to particularly thorny puzzles as a ' three pipe problem ' such as in The Red Headed League . In A Case of Identity we learn from Watson that Sherlock , musing a problem , ' took down from the rack the old and oily clay pipe , which was to him as a counsellor , and , having lit it , he leaned back in his chair , with the thick blue cloud-wreaths spinning up from him , and a look of infinite languor in his face .' These smoky scenes are vivid and intimate and some of my favourites in the stories . Here we see Holmes doing what he does best : thinking . And it is impossible to separate that from smoking .
Smoking is not only an aid to Holmes ' lateral crime-solving abilities but sometimes the solution to the problem itself , and in The Boscombe Valley Mystery we learn of Holmes ' encyclopaedic knowledge of tobaccos and their ashes : '" I found the ash of a cigar , which my special knowledge of tobacco ashes enables me to pronounce as an Indian cigar . I have , as you know , devoted some attention to this , and written a little monograph on the ashes of 140 different varieties of pipe , cigar , and cigarette tobacco . Having found the ash , I then looked round and discovered the stump among the moss where he had tossed it . It was an Indian cigar , of the variety which are rolled in Rotterdam .”'
There is also the sheer joy of describing smoking . In The Five Orange Pips ' he lit his pipe , and leaning back into his chair he watched the blue smoke- rings as they chased each other up to the ceiling .' Smoking is not only shorthand for the pensive Holmes but it is also a valuable writer ' s tool to add visual interest
HOLMES IN NUMBERS
There are 4 novels and 56 short stories in the Sherlock Holmes series
The word ' cigarette ' is used a total of 53 times
He is mentioned smoking his clay pipe 6 times
THE GOLDEN PINCE-NEZ
Sherlock ' s chain-smoking of Alexadrian cigarettes proves crucial to solving this case
CHERRYWOOD : VERY GOOD
Holmes ' cherrywood pipe is mentioned only once , in The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
to scenes that essentially comprise people sitting and and thinking or sitting and talking . The languid appearance of the life of the mind lacks visual interest but , as a natural bedfellow of smoking which has aesthetic appeal in spades , it is logical that Doyle made Holmes a compulsive smoker .
However , smoking is not only associated with the thinking Holmes . When Holmes is in need of mental ' refreshment ', as he calls it , he smokes a pipe . When he is agitated he smokes cigarettes . By the end of the 1880s cigarette production was happening on a massive scale in England and cigarette smoking was a common and popular pastime , replacing the ubiquitous disposable clay pipes that are regularly found washed up from the Thames . Even doctors would recommend smoking for the treatment of asthma and bronchitis . As a doctor himself , Arthur Conan Doyle had no qualms about giving Holmes ' smoking many indulgent words , and cigarettes are just as useful to Doyle ' s writing as the pipe as a signal to the reader . When Holmes is about to explain to Watson the importance of ' observing as well as seeing ' in A Scandal in Bohemia he is shown ' lighting a cigarette , and throwing himself down into an armchair '. Holmes ' inward frustration is captured by the ' throwing ' of himself into the armchair - surely no model of patience - an by the smoking of a cigar- rette which , through repeated association , comes to be read as a manic tic . A few paragraphs later , when Holmes has a breakthrough , ' His eyes sparkled , and he sent up a great blue triumphant cloud from his cigarette .' It is a scene of energy , a far cry from the smokers ' manifesto 06