Tilly Briggs ship with Johnlock on it

Wedging the cozy mystery concept into Sherlock Holmes's schedule is inevitably going to be a dicey business. Because Holmes, in Canon—right up until after the events of "His Last Bow," in the collection of the same name—is a really busy man... too busy by far to be doing the cozy thing, be he ever so retired.

We don't know a whole lot about the details of that retirement except for what Watson tells us in the preface to the collection.

The friends of Mr. Sherlock Holmes will be glad to learn that he is still alive and well, though somewhat crippled by occasional attacks of rheumatism. He has, for many years, lived in a small farm upon the Downs five miles from Eastbourne, where his time is divided between philosophy and agriculture. During this period of rest he has refused the most princely offers to take up various cases, having determined that his retirement was a permanent one. The approach of the German war caused him, however, to lay his remarkable combination of intellectual and practical activity at the disposal of the Government, with historical results which are recounted in His Last Bow.

Now, when you start looking into some other details surrounding this retirement, there are some points that immediately start to be troublesome. ...Well, for me, anyway.

First of all: that picture up at the top is of the house to which he's supposed to have retired. Various Holmesians who've looked into the situation over the years seem to have settled on this spot, in East Dean in Sussex. And it has acquired a blue plaque stating that that's where Holmes wound up... which is all very well.

But for the purposes of my own storytelling, I've got concerns.

We know from various comments dropped by Watson in Canon that he and Holmes haven't seen each other for some years, and that Holmes has been living "the life of a hermit" on his farm with his bees.

What I'm not sure about is how you live like a hermit in a house which is (and then was) sited directly on the East Dean village green, with the village pub right across the green from you. It seems like a spot poorly chosen, and maybe chosen in haste. (And how big can that "farm" be, with the village around it? Honestly.)

There's another problem, though, that it astounds me never occurred to Arthur Conan Doyle when he initially chose to retire Holmes to that neck of the woods. The whole area near Eastbourne, sited as it is really close to the south coast of England, is (relatively speaking) an exposed, chilly, damp area frequently exposed to coastal gales. That Doyle could write the word "retired" just one sentence away from the one that describes Holmes as suffering more or less chronically from rheumatoid arthritis gives me all kinds of trouble. Because I sure know what my arthritis does to me in cold damp weather! And the first thought I had on reading that line in the wake of wanting to tell a story realistically based further along in Holmes's retirement period was "Wow, I need to get him the hell out of there."

Yet here, as has happened at other happy writing moments, I find that a kindly Universe has put what I need right into my hands. Because I invite you to take a closer look at that blue plaque on the house in East Dean.

Some Holmesian who was a stickler for accuracy refused to date this retirement any further along than 1917, the date of "His Last Vow." The story itself implies that Holmes (and Watson, now reunited in government service) have much more to do after '17. And then, after 1918, when WWI ends... then what?

Well, soon enough Holmes goes back into official retirement. But he does it somewhere else... because Watson's with him again.

First of all, the location changes because that little house above might have been all right for one "hermit". For two men, though? They'll need a bit more room... and maybe also a little more privacy.* ...It should be noted here in passing that as of LAST, Watson appears to have mislaid the wife mentioned in BLAN ("The Blanched Soldier"). Is it his first wife or his second...if there was a second? Who the hell even knows, at this point? (The jury's apparently still out on the subject, and some investigators suggest there might have been as many as six wives. ...But I digress.)

Anyway, the ensuing scene between Holmes and Watson, as Holmes's Doctor explains to him how things are going to be from now on since they're together again, is so easy to imagine that I'm not sure I need to do anything about it in the cozy mystery proper but allude to it in passing. The laying down of the law. The inevitable "I don't need to be coddled" bullshit. The suggestion that Holmes, for a comfortable retirement, needs a house that's sited in better-protected countryside.

Also, due to the inevitable fallout from Holmes's wartime exploits, they're going to need a house that's sited closer to a decent rail connection to London, with a telegraph office just a mile or two away if Holmes needs it... or if a client needs to come see him. (And there also needs to be a handy telephone exchange, annoying though it'll be that Lestrade's or Dimmock's successors can just ring him up and whinge at him.) Holmes will also need a place where he can at least get a decent wireless signal so he can listen to the concerts from the Continent, and closer. (Because if I wind up positioning this cozy in 1922, as seems likely, this newfangled thing called the BBC has just come online: and canonically speaking, Holmes has always been an early adopter.)

Most importantly, though—so Watson will claim—Holmes needs a rural home that will be better for the bees. The Eastbourne area isn't really great for them, being too exposed and right on the borderline of where bees can locally thrive. Fifteen or twenty miles north or so would be far better, putting less stress on the bees and therefore being less likely to skew Holmes's observational results. With this outcome particularly in mind, the two housemates-to-be can look around for a house sheltered by the Downs' low hills, with nearby fields of arable crops—very likely hops—where the bees can do their work untroubled by excessive salt air. And Holmes can tend to and study his charges in more clement conditions that won't periodically leave him immobile and in anguish due to a less forgiving climate's exacerbation of his arthritis.

Will Holmes buy into this hilariously misdirected argument without realizing (or admitting that he's realized) what Watson's trying to pull? Who can say. Holmes, as per usual, is going to put up every kind of resistance he can to avoid revealing that this outcome is absolutely what he wants more than anything. Watson, of course, will receive Holmes's fake-cranky temporizing with his usual patience... and start writing to estate agents in villages convenient to the main north-south rail line. And on the day Holmes cracks and formally agrees, Watson will telegraph the most likely agent and set up a viewing for a week or so later... of a house something like this.

The frontmost part with the peaked roof is an oast house—a structure originally built for drying hops. They're scattered all around the Surrey countryside, many having been converted over the decades into parts of homes. This one stands in the middle of a small farm where Holmes can rent out the farm's surrounding grazing to other local farmers, while attending to the only part of the farm that really interests him: the hives. And the upstairs windows, in good weather, give onto a view through the surrounding rolling countryside, downhill toward the distant haze-veiled blue of the Channel.

So now I've finally nailed down what was missing before I could really start work: a decent spot where a "a tall, gaunt man of sixty" (well, sixty-five, at this point) and his shorter, slightly stockier chronicler can settle in and get comfortable, and take on the occasional cozy case on which the fate of the free world doesn't depend. ...Insert here the sound of a writer sighing with relief.

And now back to plotting.