A Nobler Man Never Walked the Earth

One of the most problematic characters in any Holmes story is Steve Dixie, the black gangster who bursts into Holmes’s room at the beginning of ‘The Three Gables’. He is a man of contradictions, simultaneously ridiculed and full of menace. His size and apparent physical aggression – ‘his sullen dark eyes’ have ‘a smouldering gleam of malice in them’ (Case-Book, 133) – are in counterpoint to his comic appearance: Watson remarks on his ‘very loud grey check suit with a flowing salmon-coloured tie’ (133). Instructed by his superior to warn Holmes that his life is at threat ‘if he go down Harrow way’ (134), he enters like ‘a mad bull’ and twice threatens Holmes with physical violence: ‘It won’t be so damn fi ne if I have to trim you up a bit’ (133); ‘you’ll get put through it for sure if you give me any lip’ (134).