The Greek Interpreter

Watson has always believed Holmes had no family. Then, one summer evening, Holmes mentions a brother who is a better reasoner than he is, and takes Watson to meet him at the strangest club in London, where talking is forbidden. Mycroft has a puzzle: a Greek interpreter driven at night to an unknown house to translate for a starving man whose face is bandaged with sticking-plaster. The interpreter tried to slip in questions of his own. Now the men who hired him know he has talked.

What happens in The Greek Interpreter

One summer evening the talk at Baker Street turns to inherited gifts, and Holmes, who has never mentioned his family, reveals that he has a brother, Mycroft, seven years older and even better at observation. Mycroft lacks all energy, audits books for government departments, and spends his evenings at the Diogenes Club in Pall Mall, a club for unsociable men where no member may speak to another. Watson meets a huge, heavy man with Sherlock’s sharp face, and the brothers take turns deducing the life of a stranger in the street: an old soldier, recently discharged, a noncommissioned officer in the artillery back from India, a widower with children. Mycroft then introduces his upstairs neighbor, Mr. Melas, a Greek interpreter. On Monday night a young man called Latimer hired Melas to interpret, then drove him for two hours in a carriage with papered-over windows, a loaded club on the seat beside him. At a large, dimly lit house a small, giggling older man in glasses told Melas to put questions in Greek to a third man. That man was starved and emaciated, his face criss-crossed with sticking-plaster and his mouth covered. He wrote his answers on a slate. They wanted him to sign some papers, and he refused. Melas began adding questions of his own in Greek, and learned that the prisoner was a stranger in London named Kratides, from Athens, held for three weeks and being starved. Then a tall woman walked in, cried out Paul in Greek, and the prisoner tore the plaster from his lips and called her Sophy before the two men dragged them apart. Melas was paid, threatened, and dumped near midnight on Wandsworth Common. Mycroft has already placed an advertisement in the papers asking for news of Paul Kratides and of a Greek lady called Sophy. Sherlock takes up the case and sends telegrams. Watson guesses that Latimer ran off with the Greek girl and that her brother came to rescue her and was imprisoned to make him sign over her fortune, and Holmes agrees. Back at Baker Street they find Mycroft, who has stirred himself because an answer has come: the lady lives at The Myrtles, in Beckenham. Holmes insists on going straight there with Inspector Gregson, but when they call for Melas, the giggling man has already taken him away. Delays at Scotland Yard mean they reach Beckenham late at night. The house is dark and a heavily loaded carriage has just left. Upstairs they find a locked room full of charcoal fumes. Melas, bound and beaten, is still alive, and Watson revives him. Paul Kratides is dead. The villains, Latimer and Wilson Kemp, have fled with Sophy. Months later a newspaper cutting from Budapest reports two Englishmen found stabbed while traveling with a woman, and Holmes suspects Sophy took her revenge.

Where and when The Greek Interpreter happens

Timeline the story arc, beat by beat

1. The surprise
   A brother named Mycroft

   Holmes reveals he has an older brother with even greater powers and takes Watson to the silent Diogenes Club.

2. The duel
   Two brothers deduce

   Sherlock and Mycroft take turns reading the life of a stranger in the street, down to his dead wife and children.

3. The client
   A blacked-out carriage

   Mr. Melas tells how he was driven blind to a strange house to interpret for a prisoner with a plastered face.

4. The trick
   Questions within questions

   Melas slips his own Greek questions into the interrogation and learns the prisoner’s name before a woman bursts in crying Paul.

5. The lead
   The advertisement answered

   Mycroft’s newspaper advertisement brings word that the Greek lady lives at The Myrtles in Beckenham.

6. The rescue
   Charcoal fumes

   Arriving too late, they find Melas barely alive and Paul Kratides dead in a room filled with poisonous fumes.

7. The end
   News from Budapest

   Months later two Englishmen are found stabbed abroad, and Holmes suspects Sophy avenged her brother.

Characters and how they connect

Character Relationships who connects to whom, and the themes that bind them

Themes in The Greek Interpreter what the story is really about

Symbols & motifs

Conflicts

Literary devices

The deduction duel

The brothers read a stranger from the club window. His bearing, air of authority and sunburned skin mean a soldier above a private, back from India. His army boots mean he has only just left the service. A missing cavalry stride, a hat worn on one side and his weight point to the artillery. Full mourning and doing his own shopping suggest a dead wife, a baby’s rattle suggests a young child, and a picture book suggests another. Each brother adds a link the other left out.

Introduction of a new character

Mycroft appears here for the first time. Doyle gives Holmes a superior in reasoning, which makes Sherlock more human and sets up the brother’s later appearances.

Embedded narrative

Most of the mystery reaches us through Melas’s own account, so we share his blindfolded confusion before Holmes begins to work.

Dramatic irony

Melas’s hidden questions sit inside the villains’ questions, so the reader knows what the captors do not, and feels the danger of every line.

Open ending

Watson calls the case still involved in some mystery. The cutting from Budapest only hints at justice, and Holmes’s belief that Sophy took revenge stays unproved.

Important quotes

The ending of The Greek Interpreter, explained

The ending is a rescue that comes half too late. When Sherlock, Mycroft, Watson and Inspector Gregson reach The Myrtles, the windows are dark, and Holmes reads from deep wheel tracks that a heavily loaded carriage has just left. Inside, they hear moaning upstairs and find a locked room filled with charcoal fumes, with two bound men slumped against the wall. Holmes throws the burner out of the window. Melas, beaten over one eye, is revived by Watson within the hour with ammonia and brandy. Paul Kratides is dead. The explanation that follows confirms Watson’s guess. Sophy came from a wealthy Greek family and was visiting England when Harold Latimer gained a hold over her and persuaded her to run away with him. Her friends wrote to her brother in Athens and washed their hands of her. Paul came to England, fell into the power of Latimer and his partner Wilson Kemp, and was imprisoned in their rented house, starved and tortured to make him sign away his own and his sister’s property. The plaster on his face was meant to stop Sophy recognizing him, and she saw through it at once. When Mycroft’s advertisement showed that Melas had talked, the villains seized him again, used him once more as interpreter, and then left both men to die in the fumes as they fled with Sophy. The final paragraph offers a dark, uncertain justice. Months later a cutting from Budapest reports that two Englishmen travelling with a woman were found stabbed, apparently having killed each other. Holmes believes that if anyone could find the Greek girl, they would learn how she avenged her brother and herself. It is a case Holmes partly fails: his reasoning is right, but the delays cost Paul his life. The story is best remembered for Mycroft, who returns later in the series and whose importance to the government grows with each appearance.

Common misreadings

Test yourself

Holmes surprises Watson by introducing his older brother, Mycroft, who is even smarter but too lazy to be a detective. Mycroft’s neighbor, Mr. Melas, is a Greek interpreter. He was kidnapped and driven in a carriage with covered windows to a strange house, where two men made him question a starving Greek man whose face was taped up. Melas secretly slipped in his own questions and learned the man’s name. Holmes tracks down the house, but they arrive too late. The prisoner has died from poisonous fumes, though they save Melas. Later, the two villains are found stabbed in another country, and Holmes thinks the prisoner’s sister got her revenge.

Flashcards flip, self-grade, and the deck remembers what you know

Compare & connect the story universe

Adaptation. The Greek Interpreter (1985, Television episode).

Discussion & essay prompts for class, or your next paper

Key questions students ask

• Who is Mycroft Holmes
• What is the Diogenes Club
• How did Mr. Melas find out the prisoner’s name
• What happened to Paul Kratides
• Why was the prisoner’s face covered with plaster
• What happened to Latimer and Kemp at the end of The Greek Interpreter