How to Think Like Sherlock (12 page)

Different sides of the brain deal with different functions. In simplistic terms, the right side deals with emotions and creativity and the left with facts and memories. If you ask someone a question and they look to the right, this may be an indication that they are fabricating or guessing. Looking to the left is indicative of fact retrieval.

Direct eye contact implies honesty, interest and even attraction. Dilated pupils and widened eyes may also be a signal of attraction, while excessive blinking is suggestive of nervousness or excitement. Making ‘doe eyes’ by looking up and sideways (especially when done by a female) suggests both vulnerability and interest in a subject. Holding eye contact for an extended moment then looking away can be another signal of attraction.

A full-bodied, genuine laugh is indicative of a relaxed subject, but a tight-lipped smile is more likely to mean they are keeping something back.

Male posturing such as standing with chest out and shoulders back can be a sign of aggression or an attempt to capture female attention.

Nervous ticks include nail-biting, trembling hands and activities such as fiddling with a pen.

A raised chin is indicative of confidence and sometimes defiance (hence admonitions to ‘keep your chin up’ when the chips are down).

Crossed arms suggest defensiveness, as does the use of a prop such as a bag as a barrier between two subjects.

Touching or scratching the nose while speaking is sometimes suggestive that the subject is lying. Touching an ear while speaking might indicate indecisiveness.

Playing with hair can be a sign of flirtation or, conversely, a symptom of exasperation.

Handshakes can tell you much. A handshake in which both of a subject’s hands are used implies they want to be trusted by the recipient of the handshake. A palm-up handshake suggests an element of submission, while a palm-down shake is a sign of wishing to dominate.

Leg direction while sitting. The feet and legs tend to point toward a subject of interest and away from one that is uninteresting or unwanted.

The mirroring of body language between two subjects is indicative of empathy, while non-synchronisation suggests the opposite. But mirroring should not be consciously forced, as it can appear as mockery.

Remember that while you are watching someone else’s body language, they will be picking up signals from you too. Body language is a dialogue.

Laying Your Cards on the Table

‘He had played nearly every day at one club or other, but he was a cautious player, and usually rose a winner.’

‘THE ADVENTURE OF THE EMPTY HOUSE’

It is unclear how much of body language is inborn in us and how much is learned. Charles Darwin highlighted certain facial expressions (happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise and anger) that are recognised across cultures, suggesting they at least are genetically inherited. But much else is learned socially.

The card table is one of the prime battlefields of body language. Every serious card player aims to mask their own body language, while attempting to discern the ‘innate’ body language of their opponents (i.e. that which cannot be masked). In this context, signals that indicate the hand of a player are known as ‘tells’. The aim of a great player is to perfect the ‘poker face’, that serene look which gives nothing away to the onlooker.

There are plenty of characters in the Holmes stories who would have benefitted from this talent. Several men found themselves in all types of trouble (including virtual ruination) as a result of their lack of success at the gambling table (whist was seemingly the most common route to downfall in Sherlock’s England). Watson himself had a tendency to gamble dangerously, to the extent that Holmes kept the good doctor’s cheque book locked up for him. Here are a few tips regarding ‘tells’ that those players never learned:

Watch the face

This is where a trained eye can spot ‘micro gestures’ that are hard to control. If the eyes smile, they probably have a good hand. Many pros wear hats and glasses to hide these micro signals.

Check out how a player stacks their chips

As a very broad rule, a player who keeps an untidy stack is likely to play a loose game. A neat stack suggests a more conservative player. Surreptitious glancing at their chips suggests an opponent is preparing an attack.

Posture

Leaning back into a chair in a relaxed but upright manner can indicate relief or confidence. Conversely, hunching forward can indicate nervousness. Some card players claim that a rapidly jiggling knee beneath the table is the surest sign that someone thinks they have a winning hand.

Beware!

It is an integral part of the game that many players will consciously reverse their natural body language to confuse you. They will try to ‘play it cool’ if they have a good hand or appear super confident if they want to bluff with a weak hand. The trick is to work out exactly who is bluffing who.

Quiz 15 – Elementary, dear reader … Part II

A smart London gent, Sir Sidney Welloff, has been set upon by a footpad, who violently relieved him of his purse containing a crisp five-pound note. Inspector Sniffemout of the Yard tracks down a band of four rogues, all drinking together at a tavern near Seven Dials. Sniffemout is sure one of them is guilty and, fortunately, knows there is not much honour among these thieves. He thinks they’ll drop the guilty party in it if he only asks them the right question.

‘So which one of you rogues robbed the gent, then?’ asks the Inspector. They reply as follows:

Tom Dipper: It was Jack Hands.

Jack Hands: It was Joe Stealth, more like.

Billy Goldfingers: Well, it definitely weren’t me, guv.

Joe Stealth: Jack Hands is telling you porkies, Inspector.

One of this likely lot is telling the truth, but only one. So who robbed Sir Sidney Welloff?

Mastering Disguise

‘Accustomed as I was to my friend’s amazing powers in the use of disguises...’

‘A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA’

There were times when Holmes recognised that his best chance of garnering crucial information was to go undercover. This was no hardship for the Great Detective. As he admitted in
The Valley of Fear
: ‘Some touch of the artist wells up within me, and calls insistently for a well-staged performance.’ Over the course of his literary life, Sherlock was disguised as an old seadog, an opium addict (a disguise so successful that much of the world associates him with that particular drug rather than his cocaine of choice), two men of the cloth, a groom, a bookseller and a plumber.

Perhaps his most successful ruse was when he managed to travel his way around large parts of the world over a period of months or possibly years in the guise of a Norwegian explorer named Sigerson. The quasi-Scandinavian’s exploits even found their way into the press. So what made Holmes such a master of disguise? The answer is surely his utter commitment to assuming a role. Watson said as much in ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’: ‘It was not merely that Holmes changed his costume. His expression, his manner, his very soul seemed to vary with every fresh part that he assumed. The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when he became a specialist in crime.’

Sherlock was a man who embraced method acting long before Brando, De Niro and the like. So how can you ‘become’ a character like Holmes?

Get the look.

When Holmes took on a disguise, he was preparing to enter the battlefield. To be discovered was to be at serious personal risk. As such, ‘fancy dress’ was never on the agenda and nor should it be for you. In particular, a badly chosen fright wig or an overambitious set of false teeth are sure to lead to your unmasking. Less can often be more, so avoid overplaying your hand. Avoid passing yourself off as somebody much older or younger than you actually are, or of a vastly different body shape or even gender.

Work on expressions

Holmes used artificial aids such as make-up to adapt his look (on one occasion he even rubbed his eyes with nightshade to make himself appear seriously ill) but equally important was his ability to adopt seemingly authentic expressions. Thus, in ‘The Empty House’, we have a bookseller sporting a ‘snarl of contempt’ so effective that Watson entirely fails to recognise his old friend. Similarly, in ‘The Final Problem’ he convincingly adopts a protruding lower lip and a habit of mumbling. Here Holmes’s grasp of body language proved a useful skill.