Steele wrote essays about his association with Sherlock Holmes and corresponded with many people who were fans of his work. This letter describes his first meeting with Sherlock Holmes. It is Steele’s reply to a letter he received, asking about a handprint he had drawn for a Collier’s cover thirty-seven years before, in October 1903.

My First Meeting with Sherlock Holmes

March 3, 1940

Dear Mr. Robertson:

I’ll try to answer your question, tho’ I fear the “solution” is a commonplace one, not to say elementary. I am hampered by the fact that the only Sherlock book I own is the one-volume Complete Edition. So I don’t know what you mean by the “sketch of six clues” in your copy of the Return. I can guess, however, that the publisher may have cooked up a display ad and used the handprint as one of the “clues.” My handprint was drawn in the background of the Collier’s cover, Oct. 31, ‘03, accompanying “The Adventure of the Norwood Builder” which was No. 2 of the Return series. The print had nothing to do with McFarlane’s thumb, or with that story, or any other, as I remember it: I put it in merely as a suggestion of what might be seen on the walls of the Baker Street rooms.

As a Sherlockian, you may be interested in the fact that this drawing was sent down to Collier’s as a rough sketch, from Deerfield, Mass., after I had made it before breakfast, to catch the morning mail. After a few days they wrote me that they were reproducing the sketch as it was, since they thought I couldn’t do better if I worked a month on it. This was the first instance in which I used a Gillette photo. (The first cover — the one for “The Adventure of the Empty House” — was the “Exit, Moriarty,” reproduced in the program.) …

Does this answer your questions? In any event, there can be no question of “effrontery” between Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts. I like to include myself among these, altho I have frankly confessed that I am most un-erudite and most forgetful even about stories I myself illustrated. The fourth dinner of the Baker Street Irregulars took place on the evening of January 30th (at the old Murray Hill Hotel, the perfect spot). It was the best one since the December ‘36 dinner which I described in The New Yorker (and in 221B). Chris Morley was once more the Gasogene, and I made for him a little sketch for the menu card: Sherlock examining the food and analyzing the wines, and taking no chances. Under this was the caption “We cannot be too careful, Watson.” The seriousness of these devotees is shown by the fact that five different men came up to my chair and asked me practically the same question — ”Pardon me, Mr. Steele, I can’t seem to identify this quotation: will you tell me what story it was taken from?”

I first met Sherlock Holmes in Brooklyn in 1891 or 1892, at the home of a boyhood friend, Alfred E. Heinrichs (a lawyer, now retired.) He asked if I ever read detective stories, and I said no. But he said there was a new collection of them called The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and he’d like to try them on me. He read aloud “The Red Headed League” and two others — that was enough to attach me to Sherlock and the good Doctor for life.

Very sincerely yours,

FREDERIC DORR STEELE

From The Baker Street Journal, Old Series, Volume 4, no. 1, January 1949