At the onset of “The Adventure of the Reigate Squire,” Sherlock Holmes is ill, and badly in need of rest. One of Doctor Watson’s friends, a Colonel Hayter, offers his country house near Reigate, in Surrey, for a week of relaxation. The invitation was made to Watson, but was extended to Holmes as well. The two accept the Colonel’s hospitality. In so doing, Watson makes an enigmatic statement about Holmes. He writes, “A little diplomacy was needed, but when Holmes understood that the establishment was a bachelor one [italics added], and that he would be allowed the fullest freedom, he fell in with my plans and … we were under the Colonel’s roof.” What makes Holmes’s demand so intriguing is that the Reigate Squire case occurred in 1887.[1] Apparently, his attitude did not improve over time. A year later, in The Sign of Four, Holmes goes on to say, “Women are never to be entirely trusted—not the best of them.”

Nine published cases took place prior to the Reigate Squire affair in which Holmes first displays a negative attitude toward females. In those nine tales, there is nothing to indicate that Holmes had anything but positive or neutral interactions with the fair sex. So, what prompted his insistence that no women be present at Colonel Hayter’s home before accepting the invitation?

Sherlock Holmes and his relationships with and attitudes toward women have been studied by Sherlockians and Holmesians[2] for many decades. Interest has not waned. It continues into the twenty-first century.[3] One of the first, SC Roberts, came to Holmes’s defense in 1934.[4] “Among the early adventures none stands out more clearly than ‘The Speckled Band.’ At the outset Holmes greets Miss [Helen] Stoner with a cheerfulness which betokens his satisfaction at the initiation of a new problem.”[5] In this memorable case, Holmes goes on to save Helen Stoner’s life from her murderous stepfather, the evil Dr. Grimesby Roylott.  Roberts goes further. He discounts evidence that Holmes was a misogynist, insisting that Holmes, “… like any specialist … approached his clients in the first instance from a purely professional angle, but again and again we have evidence that this professional interest was supplemented and intensified by a quick and intuitive sympathy evoked, more often than not, by the tale of a woman’s distress.”[6]

 Let’s examine the nine cases prior to the Reigate Squire. They are, in order:

“The ‘Gloria Scott’ ” (1874) – Holmes’s first case, while he was still a college student, and years prior to meeting Dr. Watson. No female characters appear in the case. One is mentioned, the unnamed daughter of Trevor Senior (aka James Armitage). Unfortunately, she died of diphtheria prior to Holmes’s involvement. Interestingly, the young Holmes never balks or asks questions about the presence of women before accepting the invitation by his college friend Victor Trevor to spend time at his country house in Norfolk. Something happened to sour Holmes with females between 1874–1887.

“The Musgrave Ritual” (1878) – The second case in which Holmes became involved, again in pre-Watson days. Here Holmes becomes aware of housemaid and femme fatale, Rachel Howells. She becomes involved with the butler Brunton, but he leaves her for Janet Tregellis, daughter of the head gamekeeper. Ms. Howells, described as, “… a very good girl, but of an excitable Welsh temperament … [with] a sharp touch of brain-fever.” Howells evened the score with Brunton, by trapping him underground while he searched for buried treasure. It is Holmes’s first published encounter with a murderess. However, there is no evidence that Holmes was turned off to women because of Rachel Howells. The story ends with Holmes saying, “Of the woman nothing was ever heard, and the probability is that she got away out of England and carried herself and the memory of her crime to some land beyond the seas.”