The Real Mystery

Why do today's writers try to associate Sherlock Holmes and Jackthe Ripper with Masonry?
 by C. DeForrest Trexler

"I say, Holmes, what is this mumbo jumbo?"

This line spoken by an incredulous Dr. John Watson (played by the
actor James Mason) as Sherlock Holmes (Christopher Plummer) gives
Masonic signs and proceeds to engage London's Police Commissioner
(Anthony Quayle) in a mysterious hand grip, which Holmes explains
to be the secret mode of recognition among Masons of the 33 degree.

The scene, even more startling to real life Masons than to the play
actor Dr. Watson, appears in the 1978 motion picture Murder by
Decree.

It piques curiosity. What connection did the world's most famous,
albeit fictional, detective have with Freemasonry?

In a later scene the question is answered for us, at least insofar
as the screen drama is concerned. Holmes admits that he is not a
member of the Society of Freemasons, but that he has made a study
of its secret rituals as he has of many other arcane subjects,
ranging from varieties of poisons to blends of tobacco.

The film progresses to a climatic scene in London's Freemason's
Hall, where Holmes confronts three leading figures of the British
government, who also are identified as prominent Freemasons. (The
spokesman for the three, the Prime Minster, played by John Gielgud,
in real life never was a Mason.) Holmes accuses the three of
conspiracy in obstruction of justice. The case in point is the
grisly murder of five prostitutes, crimes which actually were
committed in London's ghetto-like East End during the autumn o f
1888 by an assailant known to contemporaries and posterity only by
the ghoulish sobriquet "Jack the Ripper."

The theory advanced by Holmes on the cinema scene is that the
infamous Jack was not simply a psychotic, as generally supposed at
the time and since. He charges that the notorious killer was a
confident of the Royal Family whose motive was to prevent
disclosure of a scandal which he believed would endanger the
British monarchy. More to the point, the killer was a Freemason.
Therefore, his fellow Masons among the police and the highest
levels of government "were sworn to protect him in his criminal
intent." M asonic affiliation is the explanation given in Murder by
Decree as to why the killer, called "Jack the Ripper," never was
apprehended and why his identity has remained a mystery for more
than a century.

A possible Masonic connection was one of many theories explored in
a six-part series, The Ripper File, which aired on BBC television
in 1974. The BBC script was published in book form under the same
title and is listed among the credits of Murder by Decree. As the
television producer has pointed out, however, the series gave
little more than a passing mention to the possibility of a Masonic
conspiracy and discounted the theory for lack of evidence.

There are three purported bases for the Masonic connection theory,
all of them circumstantial and all of them contrived.

First, it is alleged that the Ripper's victims were killed and
mutilated in such a way as to imitate the ancient penalties of the
symbolic degrees. True, the throats of the victims had been cut.
But this is a common and expedient method for murder, slaughter, or
ritual sacrifice. Beyond that, the indescribable butchery inflicted
upon the Ripper's victims reflects a bestially having no
resemblance to the symbolic penalties of Masonic ritual.

Moreover, the purpose of the penalties in Masonic ritual is to bind
the initiate to his obligation. The initiate affirms the
seriousness of his fraternal commitments by invoking a symbolic
penalty upon his own head should he betray his trust. Nowhere does
the ritual of Freemasonry suggest the infliction of penalties or
retribution upon non-Masons, whatever their offenses might be.
Thus, the study which the Sherlock Holmes of the film claimed to
have made of Masonic ritual seems to have been as superficial a s
his supposition of the Prime Minister's Masonic affliction was
erroneous.

Secondly, a cryptic message concerning the "Juwes" was found
scrawled in chalk on a wall near the scene of one of the Ripper's
murders. Proponents of a Masonic connection argue that this was not
an antisemitic slogan as commonly supposed, but a reference to the
three assassins of the Hiramic legend. On the other hand, if a
Mason committed the crimes, why would he leave such a clue
incriminating the fraternity and why at the scene of only one of
the five murders?

Thirdly, the police officials responsible for the inconclusive
investigation of the Ripper murders were known to be active
Freemasons. Can it be inferred from the mere fact of their Masonic
association that they were unsuccessful in apprehending the
murderer because they were shielding one of their own? Can a
criminal conspiracy be inferred simply from a common interest and
association? These questions should be rhetorical. Unfortunately,
controversy in recent years over the extent of Masonic influence
amon g the Masonic influence among the British police has led some
to give credence to the possibility.


"The insidious effect of Freemasonry among the police" was a theme
articulated by Stephen Knight in Jack the Ripper: The Final
Solution, published in 1976. Knight began with the slender strands
of supposition which The Ripper File had unravelled, but then
discarded, weaving them into a conclusion that a Masonic conspiracy
was not just an unsubstantiated theory, but incontrovertible fact.
Fortunately, Knight's credibility is compromised by his rabid
anti-Masonry. Among the "facts" to which Knight alludes gra
tuitously are the Masonic murders of William Morgan and Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart.

Subsequently, the very individual who had proposed the Masonic
connection to BBC researchers confessed that the implication of
Freemasonry in the Ripper murders had been a hoax. That should have
ended the matter. Unfortunately, the story that the television
producers had nibbled upon with a grain of salt, Knight had
swallowed whole. He persisted in the delusion until 1985, when a
brain tumour took him to an early grave, a victim, some said, of
still another Masonic conspiracy.

Very probably the reason why Stephen Knight and others like him
have seized upon the notion of Masonic conspiracy as an explanation
for the crimes of Jack the Ripper is for purpose of effect. What
really concerns them is not the solution of that mystery, not what
may have happen today if the power of government, especially law
enforcement, is concentrated in the hands of men whose personal
allegiance to the bonds of a secret society may take precedence
over their public duty. It was much the same apprehensi on, rather
than the disappearance of William Morgan, which fanned the flames
of anti-Masonry in America during the last century.

But why bring Sherlock Holmes into all of this?

It is perhaps an irresistible temptation to set the most famous
sleuth of all time on the trail of the most infamous criminal to
have eluded justice, especially since both (one in real life, the
other in fiction) frequented the streets of London during the same
space in time. Murder by Decree is not the only medium to have
attempted this. Nevertheless, it is significant that the creator of
Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, never succumbed to this
temptation. In none of Doyle's four novels and 56 shor t stories
which recount the adventures of Sherlock Homes, including
encounters with the likes of the Mafia and the Ku Klux Klan, do we
find the formidable talents of the master detective applied to
solve the Ripper mystery which had baffled Scotland Yard. Although
the Ripper murders coincided with the earliest Holmes stories,
Doyle made no attempt to use the Ripper's notoriety to gain public
acceptance when the success of his venture into detective fict ion
was far from assured.


Moreover, there is no basis in the works of Conan Doyle for
recruiting his immortal character, as did the screenwriters of
Murder by Decree, to provide a vehicle for a baseless expose and
diatribe against Freemasonry. To be sure, many authors,
playwrights, and screenwriters over the years have taken license in
exploiting to their own ends the fame of Doyle's creation, one of
the most universally recognized names in fiction, by placing him in
new and different circumstances which Doyle never intended or cold
have imagined. Consider, for example, the popular film series of
the 1940's starring Basil Rathbone, which saw Sherlock Holmes
combating Nazi spies and saboteurs.

Conan Doyle was born in 1859 into a devoutly Roman Catholic family
and was educated in a Jesuit school. Entering the medical
profession, he turned to writing as a means of supplementing the
uncertain income of his fledgling practice. In 1887 he published A
Study in Scarlet, which introduced Sherlock Holmes and his
inseparable companion, John Watson, like Doyle himself, a
struggling physician. A second Holmes novel appeared in 1890. It
was not until the following year, however, when Doyle began to
write a se ries of Holmes adventures for The Strand magazine,
illustrated by the drawings of Sidney Paget, that his creation
became a success. Indeed, he became a sensation.

Almost overnight, the tall, gaunt figure in the deerstalker cap and
caped overcoat, never without pipe and magnifying glass, became a
household word. (The admiring public appeared to overlook Holmes'
cocaine habit.) Eccentric as Doyle created him, many readers were
convinced that Holmes  was a real person and the storied flat at
221B Baker Street actually existed.

Doyle, however, did not share the enthusiasm of the reading public.
He tired of Holmes, wishing to devote his literary talents to
historical adventures. Thus, at the end of 1893, he rid himself of
Holmes, sending him to his apparent death in the Swiss Alps at the
hands of his arch-enemy, Professor Moriarity. Holmes' demise
brought a public outcry. Readers vented their disapproval by
cancelling subscriptions to The Strand.
 
In time Doyle relented. The best known adventure of Sherlock
Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, appeared in 1901. Then, late
in 1903, Holmes was resurrected in the pages of The Strand.

Despite his Catholic upbringing, or perhaps because of it, Doyle
early in life rejected organized religion. He was repelled by what
he saw as rigid dogmatism and divisiveness. He professed belief in
a universal and beneficent God, who revealed himself to man through
nature rather than through the church. Perhaps it was these beliefs
and a desire to redefine his religious faith which led to Conan
Doyle to become a Freemason. He was initiated in Phoenix Lodge No.
257 at Portsmouth in 1893. The Masonic experie nce does not seem
entirely to have answered the need. Later in life he described
himself as a "respectful agnostic" and experimented with
spiritualism.

Five of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes works contain Masonic references.
In no instance, however, is the fraternity a subject of the plot.

A Scandal in Bohemia, the first of the Holes stories to be
published in The Strand, is reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe's The
Purloined Letter, just as Poe's detective hero, Dupin, often has
been considered the literary precursor of Doyle's character.
(Holmes typically, referred to Dupin as a "very inferior fellow.")
Disguising himself as a groom to obtain information, Holmes
explains to Watson that there is a "freemasonry among horsy men."
The reference is not to Masonry as an organization, but employs the
name as a common noun meaning fellowship, a recognized
characteristic of the fraternity.

There are four occasions on which Holmes takes notice of an item of
jewellery which identifies the wearer as a Freemason. Once noted,
no further mention is made of the fact. This does not mean,
however, that the Masonic reference is trivial and of no account.
Doyle invariably devoted much attention to Holmes' initial
observations of a person's physical appearance, the detective is
able to make an assessment of background, character, motivation,
and veracity, which carries him a long way toward solution of t he
mystery before he stirs from 221B Baker Street.

Enoch Drebber, the murder victim in A Study in Scarlet, is
described as having a "low forehead, blunt nose, and prognathous
jaw...a singularly sinuous and ape-like appearance." He also is
wearing a ring with a Masonic device. As the story unfolds, we find
that Drebber was killed in revenge, meeting his just deserts for
past misdeeds which matched his sinister appearance. Much of A
Study in Scarlet consists of a narrative of events during the early
days of the Mormon settlement of Utah. Doyle obviously was u sing
the excesses of Mormon theocracy to paint a melodramatic indictment
of religious dogmatism. Writing six years before he became a Mason,
was Doyle equating Freemasonry with the evils he perceived to exist
in organized religion or with Drebber's clandestine villainies?

In The Red-Headed League, the second Holmes story to appear in The
Strand, Jabez Wilson has been duped by a transparent scheme to
leave his pawnshop each day so that criminals are free to use the
premises to stage a robbery of a nearby bank. Wilson is described
as being "obese, pompous, and slow," his clothing as frayed,
ill-fitting, and "not over clean." He also is identified as a
Freemason by a gaudy square and compasses pin. Again writing before
his initiation into the craft, Doyle does not leave us with a very
high opinion of the fraternity.

Quite a different image of Freemasonry is projected in The
Adventure of the Norwood Builder. A young lawyer of modest
circumstances, John Hector McFarlane, is charged with the murder of
a wealthy client. Holmes finds his deductive powers taxed to the
limit.

Ultimately, however, he discloses an ingenious scheme whereby the
supposed victim has staged his own death and implicated McFarlane
as an act of revenge against the lawyer's mother, who many years
before had rejected him as a suitor. What made Holmes so convinced
of McFarlane's innocence when the evidence seemed to convict him?
Could it have been the fact that at their first meeting Holmes had
noticed the young man's Masonic watch fob?

Lastly, in The Adventure of the Retired Colourman Holmes pays rare,
if not unique, tribute to another detective by the name of Barker,
going so far as to acknowledge him as a rival. Just incidentally,
Barker's tie pin identifies him as a Freemason.

Doyle never tells the reader whether his detective hero is a
Freemason. Nor are we told whether Holmes has made a study of
Masonic ritual as is alleged somewhat unconvincingly in Murder by
Decree. A Mason himself, Doyle may have been reluctant to reveal
secrets of the Order or use his knowledge of Masonry for personal
pecuniary gain. Nevertheless, by application of Holmes' own
technique of deductive reasoning we can be reasonably certain that
the master detective was not a member of the Masonic fraternity.
Doyle did not intend for his creation to be the admirable image
which most people associate with Sherlock Holmes. He thought
Paget's drawings were too idealized. The public reaction always
perplexed him. Holmes' life-style was reclusive, his habits
eccentric, his manner brusque and often patronizing, his attitude
haughty and conceited, if not supercilious, and his interests
obsessively preoccupied with but one field of endeavour-criminal
inves tigation. No, it is unlikely that a man who shuns society,
the da y-to-day concerns of his fellows, and the wider interests of
mankind will be found upon the rolls of a Masonic lodge.

When, in the predawn hours, the timeless and tireless Sherlock
Holmes routs the hapless Watson from his sleep and on to the
fogbound streets of London with the familiar cry "The game's
afoot," every widow's son can remain at heart's rest with the
assurance that there is no Masonic connection.