Sources for the Holmes model
These are Conan Doyle’s stories, not a chronology taken from a fan reference. Decision IDs identify the source passages used by the examples; they do not mean the narrator is always right. Interpretations made by the model are identified separately in the casebook.
| Decision | Text | What the passage says |
|---|---|---|
d-0001 | A Study in Scarlet, part I, chapter 1 | The title names John H. Watson. Watson says he was “struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet” at Maiwand. |
d-0002 | The Sign of the Four | Watson is “nursing my wounded leg” and says a Jezail bullet went through it. The text does not establish that this is the same wound as the one at Maiwand. |
d-0003 | The Man with the Twisted Lip | Watson’s wife offers to send “James” to bed in a conversation in which Watson is present. The text does not explicitly say James is his legal first name. |
d-0004 | The Final Problem | Watson concludes that Holmes and Moriarty died at Reichenbach. |
d-0005 | The Empty House | Holmes returns and says of the chasm, “I never was in it.” |
d-0006 | Editorial modelling choice | Records the era ordering, the single-first-name constraint, and the example rule relating a name used by a spouse to a first name. |
d-0007 | A Scandal in Bohemia | Dates Watson’s married visit to Holmes to 20 March 1888. |
d-0008 | Editorial ruling based on The Final Problem | Accept Watson’s conclusion that Holmes died, as an initial ruling. |
d-0009 | Editorial ruling based on The Empty House | Supersede that ruling after Holmes returns. |
The unresolved wound claims use the proposal support labels
h.study-in-scarlet and h.sign-of-four for the first two sources above. These
labels identify the accounts in this example; a proposal support label is not
a decision citation and does not automatically identify a source in another
world.
The model may ask what happens if a single-wound or single-first-name rule is adopted. Those are choices for the exercise, not conclusions established by the passages. Likewise, Watson’s earlier conclusion about Reichenbach is an account later revised, not evidence that Holmes actually died and returned to life.
For chronology, A Scandal in Bohemia places Watson married by 20 March 1888. The Sign of the Four describes a September evening when Watson is with Mary Morstan. She dates an advertisement to 4 May 1882, about six years before her visit; her father disappeared in December 1878, nearly ten years before the visit; and she has received six yearly pearls. Together these point toward September 1888, but the visit’s year and the identification of Watson’s wife are still interpretive choices.
In The Sign of the Four, the wound and Holmes’s monographs appear in chapter 1; Mary’s account is in chapter 2; and the Sholto family account is in chapter 4. Jonathan Small and Tonga appear later in the same story.