SECRET 7
“I Am Glad of All Details”
I am glad of all details . . . whether they seem to you to be relevant or not.
—“THE ADVENTURE OF THE COPPER BEECHES”
As someone who practiced medicine for several years—including a stint in the slums of Birmingham, England—before turning to writing, Arthur Conan Doyle understood the importance of an accurate diagnosis. He knew that to figure out the problem, he had to get all of the facts from his patients. This meant asking about unpleasant and embarrassing physical details they were sometimes reluctant to reveal. But he was also interested in the seemingly irrelevant particulars—the small rash, the mild cough, the chicken that tasted just a bit off—things patients wouldn’t even think to mention unless prompted. He knew these boring, apparently meaningless facts oftentimes were directly related to the sickness and, in fact, held the key to a proper diagnosis.
It’s no surprise, then, that Sherlock Holmes had a similar attitude toward facts. He wanted all of them, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and regardless of whether his clients thought they were important. Indeed, he would need every scrap of information to solve one of his most perplexing cases, “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches.”
His client, Violet Hunter, is a young woman hired as a governess at a very strange country estate called the Copper Beeches. She is offered an amazing salary, but the owner requires that she cut her hair short, wear a blue dress, and spend her evenings in a sitting room with her back turned to a large window. To make matters worse, the child she cares for is a holy terror who tortures small animals, and she is forbidden to enter an entire wing of the large mysterious house. She comes to Holmes and tells him her story, then stops short, saying that certain parts of her tale probably aren’t relevant. To which Holmes replies, “I am glad of all details . . . whether they seem to you to be relevant or not.”
It’s a great line, something only a professional problem solver would think to say. Conan Doyle (and, by extension, Holmes) knew that to figure out what was really going on, it was important to suspend disbelief and judgment and cast as wide a net as possible. Ask for everything. Who knows? The seemingly irrelevant detail may turn out to be extremely relevant later on.
This is a trick every law enforcement officer learns early on. The first step is to gather the facts—all of them, not just the interesting or sexy ones. An officer doesn’t say, “Just tell me the important facts.” That would require the witnesses to immediately evaluate and second-guess their story; they might censor themselves and leave out an important clue because it didn’t fit their uninformed definition of what was important.
As it turns out, the frightened governess’s attention to detail serves her well. Based on Miss Hunter’s story, Holmes eventually discovers the truth: She was hired because of her physical resemblance to the manor owner’s daughter, who had just come into a large inheritance from her late mother. Her father demanded that she give him the money, and when she refused, he locked her away in one of the wings of the house. Miss Hunter was hired to sit in front of the window so that his daughter’s fiancé would look in from the street and think it was really his betrothed. Because Holmes encouraged her to be completely forthcoming, she had given him everything he needed to solve the case, along with a few irrelevant pieces of information that he easily discarded. Had she left out any one of the odd details—the dress, the hair-cutting, the requirement to sit in front of the window—Holmes might never have solved the case. Separately, each detail made little sense, but together, they formed a mosaic.
If you’re trying to solve a big problem, think quantity, not quality. Dig for every available piece of information, even the boring stuff, and don’t shy away from uncovering the unpleasant reality of the situation, either. Take a deep breath and ask the uncomfortable questions. Once you have everything, then you can—and should—start separating the wheat from the chaff, the useful from the useless. This second step is crucial; it requires time and careful attention. As Holmes noted in another adventure, “The Reigate Puzzle”:
It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognize, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which vital. Otherwise your energy and attention must be dissipated instead of being concentrated.
A problem—any problem—can be viewed as a kind of crime scene, a set of facts and circumstances waiting to be revealed. Approach each one with the same amount of care as Holmes did, and you’ll be surprised at the results.