"The Empty House"
Before I begin this review: I was curious about the martial art "baritsu" that Sherlock Holmes mentions in this story. Almost certainly Doyle meant either jujitsu or Bartitsu, which was an English martial art inspired by jujitsu. But this introduced a wrinkle: the story takes place in 1894, when the martial art was only introduced in 1898 at the earliest. The fact the martial art would have died in 1902 if not for Doyle's work is interesting, and the fact it came from misunderstanding and mixing up the names is funny to me. Ah, Doyle, you very white Englishman.
But beyond that: as a justification for Sherlock Holmes not being quite as dead as we had believed, it's actually quite good. We get a little retcon about the ledge he disappeared over, and the sheer cliff he climbed to avoid detection, but this story also uses an offhand comment Sherlock made as foreshadowing for the denouement at the end, which is a clever bit of writing.
The mystery in the story is not really as interesting as the circumstances under which it happens. The central context of the story is that because a man is murdered, Sherlock Holmes has what he needs to restore his old life to himself. It is a little disappointing to make an easy guess for how the card player was murdered.
But even still the story is fun to read. Even though Sebastian Moran is easily captured by Sherlock's plan, he has an aura of menace to him that stands out quite strongly. And even though Sherlock Holmes doesn't explain who this villain is until the end of the story, so much of what happens is based around avoiding Moran's evil eye. I can see why he's stuck around for so many years, not least because he's an evil version of Watson.
Again, not one of my favorites, but it brought Sherlock Holmes back to us, so if not all my fondness, the story at least has my respect.















