LANTERN
Before the common use of ‘portable’ electricity or batteries, the law enforcement community used a somewhat compact device known as a dark lantern to illumine a path in the nocturnal hours, and Sherlock Holmes used this clever device on many occasions. Watson mentions it by name in six stories: ‘The Red-Headed League,’ ‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band,’ ‘The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton,’ ‘The Adventure of the Six Napoleons,’ ‘The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans,’ and ‘The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place.’ In ‘The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge,’ Watson mentions a pocket lantern. In ‘The Valley of Fear,’ Inspector MacDonald mentions that professor Moriarty used a reflector lantern to help explain an eclipse. The police use a lantern in four other tales, but we can only speculate on the type of lantern employed on those occasions. Also, in six further occurrences, private citizens carried a lantern, but the reader must conjecture on whether these were the bulky kind though sometimes the descriptions lead one to believe they are the larger variety. All of these lamps used some form of liquid fuel directed into a lit wick to operate.

DARK LANTERN
Dark Lantern image from US Handcuffs

POCKET LANTERN
Pocket lantern image from Prices4Antiques

REFLECTOR LANTERN
By Athanasius Kircher [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

BELL-ROPE or BELL-PULL
The bell-rope or bell-pull featured prominently in ‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band,’ but you may not know its normal use. The bell-rope was typically a decorative rope attached to a mechanical rope network ending with bells located in the servants’ quarters, which called them to a specific room based upon which bell was ringing. In ‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band’, Sherlock Holmes says, “and to the rope – for so we may call it, since it was clearly never meant for a bell-pull” for it ended at the ceiling! This summoning tool is also mentioned in ‘A Scandal in Bohemia,’ ‘The Naval Treaty,’ and ‘The Adventure of the Abbey Grange.’

BELL-PULL
James Gillray [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I hope you enjoyed this little adventure into the world of Sherlock Holmes.

NEXT WEEK: Sherlock Holmes’ Drug Use