“The Adventure of the Copper Beeches” was the last short story published in Conan Doyle’s first book-length collection of short stories, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892). It does not follow the usual pattern of opening with a brief Sherlock Holmes deduction that shows his brilliance, but focuses on Holmes’s tendency toward morose depression. Holmes complains to Watson that his clients are so dull that he is left to advice people on how to find lost lead pencils and ladies on how to secure such positions as governess. He shows Watson that he has really reached “Zero” with the case of Violet Hunter, who seeks advice on whether to become governess to Jephro Rucastle. The case turns out to be more diabolical and potentially deadly than even Holmes can imagine. Violet also turns out to be cut from the Sherlockian cloth as her own deductions and limitless curiosity plunges her into pathbreaking pages of discovery and drama. Watson even suspects that Holmes may fall in love with her. But the autistic detective remains a bachelor, and turns away from her in disinterest once she is no longer “at the center” of one of his cases. As for Holmes and Watson, they open the story criticizing each other like a tired married couple, and only grow united in purpose once Violet Hunter delivers them a mystery that brings the dynamic duo once together once more in pursuit of a game once again “afoot.”
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