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In Arthur Conan Doyle’s story Charles Augustus Milverton, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, equipped with a ‘first-class, up-to-date burgling kit’, are doing a spot of house-breaking. They are looking for documents which will incriminate the building’s owner, the blackmailer Charles Augustus Milverton.
The pair are in disguise, wearing silken masks specially made by Watson for the occasion.
For better or worse, masks transform people – as the students of Harbour School’s Key Stage 3 Group discovered while creating their own fanciful masks and costumes. Like those of Holmes and Watson, their disguises are designed to entrap criminals.
Each disguise comes with a different story.
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A thousand-year-old mummy, swathed in bandages (with stitches in his head and one red eye) is hoping to catch a tomb robber.
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A nuclear scientist, who has ‘a heavy Russian accent’, wants to stop a gang who are trafficking atomic weapons.
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A glamorous Las Vegas showgirl is intent on catching a casino embezzler.
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A curly-haired dancer in a pink feather boa is trying to discover the killer of her fellow-dancer, Lucy.
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A long-haired girl with a ‘cute stutter’ is after yet another murderer.
Hats and disguises in Sherlock Holmes
From The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
In The Adventures of the Blue Carbuncle a very seedy and disreputable hard felt hat, much the worse for wear and cracked in several places’ provides the vital clue to the solving of the mystery.
In The Man with the Twisted Lip a man discovers that he can earn a better living as a matchseller than as a business man. His disguise is described in detail:
'His appearance, you see, is so remarkable that no one can pass him without observing him. A shock of orange hair, a pale face disfigured by a horrible scar, which, by its contraction, has turned up the outer edge of his upper lip, a bulldog chin, and a pair of very penetrating dark eyes, which present a contrast to the colour of his hair…'
Holmes also appears in disguise in this story as an elderly man in an opium den.
In A Case of Identity, a man weds an older woman for her money. If her daughter marries, he will lose some of this money. So he disguises himself as the daughter’s suitor to delay any prospect of marriage.
From His Last Bow In The Dying Detective’ Holmes pretends to be terminally ill (and fools Watson) so that he can trap the villainous Culverton Smith.
From The Return of Sherlock Holmes
In Charles Augustus Milverton, Holmes disguises himself as a plumber, and becomes engaged to a housemaid, during his investigations.
From The Hound of the Baskervilles
In Chapter 14 the hound is described as it appears terrifyingly on the moor. The dead animal is examined shortly afterwards, and found to be painted with phosphorus.
Images from the To Catch a Thief workshops
To see more images and find out more about The Conan Doyle Collection, please email: sherlock.holmes@portsmouthcc.gov.uk
Inspiration
Online exhibitions featuring items from The Conan Doyle Collection and celebrating Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's connection with Portsmouth.- You are here: Exhibitions > Arthur and George 123 Arthur and George A joint exhibition from The Arthur Conan Doyle Collection, at Portsmouth City Council, and the ITV production which starred Martin Clunes as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle which first aired in March 2015.
- As part of the Sharing Sherlock project Portsmouth MIND group designed, built and painted their own personal version of this most famous of imaginary places, the study of Sherlock Holmes and his fellow detective
- Not only did sport feature in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fiction, he was also an active sportsman himself.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote his first two Sherlock Holmes stories while living in Portsmouth where he had arrived in 1882 to set up a doctor’s practice at 1 Bush Villas, Elm Grove, Southsea
- Due to his success as a writer, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had the opportunity to travel widely and often took his family. From Canada and America, to Australia, Ceylon and Egypt,
- Best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle also wrote science fiction and had a surprising belief in fairies at the bottom of the garden.
- Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about 60 stories starring his most famous creation, the detective Sherlock Holmes.
- Arthur Conan Doyle’s science fiction novel The Lost World is an exploration of a dangerous and exotic place, where prehistoric creatures still thrive
- When Arthur Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes, he had no idea of how popular his hero was to become. Soon famous as a man of many disguises,
- Since Sherlock Holmes was introduced to the public in The Study in Scarlet, first published in 1887 thousands of people have taken part in a Sherlock Holmes ‘fan’ culture.
- In Arthur Conan Doyle’s story The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, a resourceful young woman seeks help from Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson
- In the summer of 1917, in leafy Cottingley Glen near Shipley in West Yorkshire, Elsie Wright aged 16, and her cousin Frances Griffiths aged 9, claimed to have taken photographs of fairies.
- Learn all about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's celebrated 'consulting detective' Sherlock Holmes, in this free exhibit at Portsmouth Museum.
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