The question of Sherlock Holmes' university, on which no clear
light has yet been shed, is manifestly a matter of the first importance, and when the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge—who I see is the President of a new Sherlock Holmes Society of London—sets himself (as he does in an Introduction to a World's Classics edition of selected Sherlock Holmes stories, published this week) to disprove the suggestion that Holmes was at Cam- bridge, then one of two conclusions must be reached—either that Cambridge would wish to disclaim Holmes, which is incredible, or that the Vice-Chancellor is (as all who know him would expect) being scrupulously honest. He points out that no Cam- bridge man would talk, as Holmes does in one story, of running down to Cambridge. I am not so sure ; an old Cambridge man, talking to a non-Cambridge man, might quite well fall into railway parlance, in which everything is down from, or up to, London. • The Vice-Chancellor seems to accept Miss Dorothy Sayers' contention (though not her conclusions based on it) that since Holmes lived out of college his first year, and that was a distinctive Cambridge custom in those days, Holmes must have been at Cambridge. But was it a distinctively Cambridge custom? I should say it was a college, not a university, custom. Plenty of Cambridge colleges had many first-year men living in, and many second- and third-year men living out. Evidence that Holmes was at Cambridge may be inconclusive, but the evidence that he was not is at least as much so. A Fellowship thesis on the whole subject is plainly needed.
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