2. The Three Gables
Another poor entry from The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, whose only notable aspects are also its most unflattering The Three Gables has the misfortune of dusting off Doyle's earlier, delicate liberalism from The Yellow Face by being bafflingly, unashamedly racist in its execution. The story opens with the arrival of Steve Dixie, in Dr. Watson's words a "huge negro" who bumbles about 221b like a brute and refers to Holmes as "Masser" in one of Doyle's most embarrassingly dated ethnic caricatures. Watson later refers to the man as a "savage" and a "comic figure", and not even Holmes himself is above the sorry racism on show, callously remarking "I won't ask you to sit down, for I don't like the smell of you." Watson continues to eschew referring to Dixie by name, instead calling him "the negro" throughout their encounter (the uglier, more offensive 'N' word is also used by one character). It's difficult to read with anything less than a grimace, and totally jarring as it comes so late in the canon, it's like learning that a good friend was secretly racist all along. It has even been suggested that Doyle didn't write it, such is its glaring, uncharacteristic free use of ill-advised racial caricature. Predictably, the story itself is of no consequence a forgettable case of gang-oriented murder and extortion in a remote house. BBC's Sherlock has done similar stories better already, and if the risk of repeating themselves wasn't enough to keep away from this story, the certainty that few would stand for Sherlock and John's sudden u-turn toward po-faced racial prejudice most definitely is.