Freemasons

A fraternity glimpsed in one of Holmes's deductions and behind a gang's front.

Freemasonry appears only in passing in the Sherlock Holmes stories. In "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder", Holmes observes at a glance that his visitor John Hector McFarlane is "a bachelor, a solicitor, a Freemason, and an asthmatic". In The Valley of Fear, a corrupt coal miners' masonic lodge in Vermissa Valley is secretly a cover for a murderous gang of protection racketeers known as the Scowrers.

Lore & Background

Birdy Edwards, working undercover for the Pinkertons, travels to Vermissa Valley under the name Jack McMurdo to infiltrate that lodge. Arthur Conan Doyle was himself initiated as a Freemason on 26 January 1887 and belonged to the fraternity for two separate periods.

More in Criminals & Organizations

The Red Circle The Baker Street Irregulars (as a group of informants)John Clay The Sign of Four Thugs The Priory School Runaways Foreign Office London Underworld Scotland Yard Moriarty's Criminal Syndicate British Army Indian Army Royal Family of Bohemia

Elsewhere in Sherlock Holmes

James Moriarty · Characters William Gillette · Characters The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes · Characters Jeremy Brett · People & Notable Figures The Five Orange Pips · Story & Timeline The Adventure of the Six Napoleons · Story & Timeline

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