The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 1892

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“The Man with the Twisted Lip”Chapter Summaries & Analyses

“The Man with the Twisted Lip” Summary

One evening in June 1889, while Watson is getting ready for bed, a school friend of his wife’s calls on the family. Her husband is an opium addict and has been gone for several days. She is afraid for him but does not want to go alone to the opium den he frequents. Watson volunteers to go and fetch her husband.

While at the opium den, Watson encounters Holmes in disguise and the detective asks him to help him investigate an unusual case. Watson quickly takes care of his acquaintance and joins the detective in his work.

A gentleman, Neville St. Claire, has been missing, presumed dead, for a week. He was last seen by his wife outside the opium den. When she could not enter the building, she called the police, who then searched the premises and found St. Claire’s clothes as well as some blood next to an open window overlooking the wharf behind the building. They assumed the man was murdered and thrown into the water. The only occupant of the apartment was a beggar who was immediately arrested.

St. Claire’s wife hires Holmes to investigate her husband’s disappearance as she does not believe he is dead. She shows them a letter that was undoubtedly written by her husband telling her he is alive and will return soon. After reading the missive and looking around the couple’s home, Holmes goes to talk to the beggar who was arrested. The detective and Watson find the man asleep in his cell, and Holmes uses this opportunity to scrub his face. The beggar is in fact St. Claire.

The man then tells his story, revealing that while working as a reporter, and preparing a piece on begging, he realized that he could make much more money as a beggar than as a journalist. He used to be an actor and is good at pretending to be someone else and drawing people’s attention. He began renting the small apartment over the opium den as his dressing room. Eventually, he earned enough to move to the countryside and start a family. One day his wife accidentally saw him and called the police. In his panic, unwilling to explain his true occupation, the man quickly put on his disguise and let himself be arrested on suspicion of murder. Holmes makes him promise to stop begging in exchange for secrecy.

“The Man with the Twisted Lip” Analysis

This story is one of the few without truly criminal activity. The case presents an entertaining intellectual puzzle and subverts genre expectations as both the victim and the suspect are revealed to be the same person. As expected, the police are useless in solving the puzzle, and Holmes steps in to discover the truth.

The text also highlights Holmes’s ability to masterfully disguise himself. In this instance, however, the reader observes his appearance alongside Watson, creating a sense of simultaneity. Holmes’s interaction with Watson in the opium den is set up visually almost as magic or something supernatural but is explained logically by Holmes’s ability to use makeup and exert supreme control over his body’s movements. Like in “A Case of Identity,” the crime in this story hinges on a person’s ability to disguise himself. While Holmes uses masks to find out the truth, St. Claire uses makeup to deceive others.

The author draws attention to some of the social injustices defining Victorian London, such as a large working class existing in a state of constant poverty. At the same time, however, the story suggests that some beggars are not destitute workers unable to provide for themselves but liars who are unwilling to work and are secretly living very well. While begging might have been a semi-professional occupation for certain criminal groups, most able-bodied people presumably did not resort to such a way of making a living if they had a choice. It seems unlikely that a single person could make enough money to support an entire household simply by begging. Presumably, St. Claire’s wife did not work, and they employed at least one servant. Regardless of the income he made, though, his behavior suggests a tendency towards dishonesty. Not only did he lie to the people giving him money, but he also did not confide in his wife. In other words, he married her under false pretenses as she presumably believes him to have an honest, steady job.

This story features Watson’s wife most prominently in the collection. She is revealed as compassionate and level-headed and even holds a brief conversation with another woman, even if her name remains a mystery. Moreover, while conversing with St. Claire’s wife, Holmes claims that “I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner” (119). This seems to contradict his usual approach of preferring facts and logic to emotions. However, as a true scientist, Holmes acknowledges that there are things not yet understood by science. Such a stand could explain Conan Doyle’s interest and belief in spiritualism later in life. This story also contains the only instance of Watson’s first name, but here his wife calls him “James,” giving rise to various speculations about the doctor’s first and middle names.