Jon H., concerning Ruth Sheehan’s firing-in-retreat column on the cab driver, her attitude toward bloggers’ “methods” are like Inspector Lestrade’s toward Sherlock Holmes’. Q.v., this exchange halfway through “The Adventure of the Norwood Builder”:
[The telegram read:] “important fresh evidence to hand. Mcfarlane’s guilt definitely Established. Advise you to abandon case. — Lestrade.”
“This sounds serious,” said I.
“It is Lestrade’s little cock-a-doodle of victory,” Holmes answered, with a bitter smile. “And yet it may be premature to abandon the case. After all, important fresh evidence is a two-edged thing, and may possibly cut in a very different direction to that which Lestrade imagines.” …
Within the gates Lestrade met us, his face flushed with victory, his manner grossly triumphant.
“Well, Mr. Holmes, have you proved us to be wrong yet? Have you found your tramp?” he cried.
“I have formed no conclusion whatever,” my companion answered.
“But we formed ours yesterday, and now it proves to be correct; so you must acknowledge that we have been a little in front of you this time, Mr. Holmes.”
But after Holmes had solved the case, Lestrade’s attitude was quite different. He told Holmes, “this is the brightest thing that you have done yet, though it is a mystery to me how you did it. You have saved an innocent man’s life, and you have prevented a very grave scandal, which would have ruined my reputation in the Force.”
He didn’t say,
this is the brightest thing that you have done yet, though it is a mystery to me how you did it, you suspicious paranoiac with your kooky methods. You and your dark-hansom-cab-infested streets worldview have saved an innocent man’s life, and you have prevented a very grave scandal.
But that’s because Lestrade had only a “cock-a-doodle of victory.” He apparently was circumspect enough in being proven wrong not also to have a cock-a-doodle of mea culpa.
