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Colin Dexter, known for writing the Inspector Morse novels, wrote a short story based on this called "A Case of Mis-Identity", in which Holmes's brother Mycroft is involved in the case's deduction; in this story, Holmes's theory about the 'Hosmer Angel' character is the same, while Mycroft deduces that 'Hosmer Angel' is a fiction created by the mother and daughter to eliminate the step-father, only for Watson to reveal that 'Hosmer Angel' is actually a real person who was attacked and robbed on the way to his wedding, hospitalized, and eventually treated by Watson, who used his own detective skills to verify the man's identity.[15]

For all the preposterous hat and the vacuous face, therewas something noble in the simple faith of our visitor which compelled our respect. Shelaid her little bundle of papers upon the table and went her way, with a promise to comeagain whenever she might be summoned.

Sherlock Holmes sat silent for a few minutes with hisfinger-tips still pressed together, his legs stretched out in front of him, and his gazedirected upward to the ceiling. Then he took down from the rack the old and oily claypipe, which was to him as a counsellor, and, having lit it, he leaned back in his chair,with the thick blue cloud-wreaths spinning up from him, and a look of infinite languor inhis face.

Quite an interesting study, that maiden, heobserved. I found her more interesting than her little problem, which, by the way,is rather a trite one. You will find parallel cases, if you consult my index, in Andoverin 77, and there was something of the sort at The Hague last year. Old as is theidea, however, there were one or two details which were new to me. But the maiden herselfwas most instructive.

You appeared to read a good deal upon her which wasquite invisible to me, I remarked.

Not invisible but unnoticed, Watson. You did not knowwhere to look, and so you missed all that was important. I can never bring you to realizethe importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb-nails, or the great issues that mayhang from a boot-lace. Now, what did you gather from that womans appearance?Describe it.

Well, she had a slate-coloured, broad-brimmed straw hat,with a feather of a brickish red. Her jacket was black, with black beads sewn upon it, anda fringe of little black jet ornaments. Her dress was brown, rather darker than coffeecolour, with a little purple plush at the neck and sleeves. Her gloves were grayish andwere worn through at the right forefinger. Her boots I didnt observe. She had [197] small round, hanging goldearrings, and a general air of being fairly well-to-do in a vulgar, comfortable,easy-going way.

Sherlock Holmes clapped his hands softly together andchuckled.

Pon my word, Watson, you are coming alongwonderfully. You have really done very well indeed. It is true that you have missedeverything of importance, but you have hit upon the method, and you have a quick eye forcolour. Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details.My first glance is always at a womans sleeve. In a man it is perhaps better first totake the knee of the trouser. As you observe, this woman had plush upon her sleeves, whichis a most useful material for showing traces. The double line a little above the wrist,where the typewritist presses against the table, was beautifully defined. Thesewing-machine, of the hand type, leaves a similar mark, but only on the left arm, and onthe side of it farthest from the thumb, instead of being right across the broadest part,as this was. I then glanced at her face, and, observing the dint of a pince-nez at eitherside of her nose, I ventured a remark upon short sight and typewriting, which seemed tosurprise her.

It surprised me.

But, surely, it was obvious. I was then much surprisedand interested on glancing down to observe that, though the boots which she was wearingwere not unlike each other, they were really odd ones; the one having a slightly decoratedtoe-cap, and the other a plain one. One was buttoned only in the two lower buttons out offive, and the other at the first, third, and fifth. Now, when you see that a young lady,otherwise neatly dressed, has come away from home with odd boots, half-buttoned, it is nogreat deduction to say that she came away in a hurry.

And what else? I asked, keenly interested, as Ialways was, by my friends incisive reasoning.

I noted, in passing, that she had written a note beforeleaving home but after being fully dressed. You observed that her right glove was torn atthe forefinger, but you did not apparently see that both glove and finger were stainedwith violet ink. She had written in a hurry and dipped her pen too deep. It must have beenthis morning, or the mark would not remain clear upon the finger. All this is amusing,though rather elementary, but I must go back to business, Watson. Would you mind readingme the advertised description of Mr. Hosmer Angel?

I held the little printed slip to the light.Missing [it said] on the morning of the fourteenth, agentleman named Hosmer Angel. About five feet seven inches in height; strongly built,sallow complexion, black hair, a little bald in the centre, bushy, black side-whiskers andmoustache; tinted glasses, slight infirmity of speech. Was dressed, when last seen, inblack frock-coat faced with silk, black waistcoat, gold Albert chain, and gray Harristweed trousers, with brown gaiters over elastic-sided boots. Known to have been employedin an office in Leadenhall Street. Anybody bringingThat will do, said Holmes. As to theletters, he continued, glancing over them, they are very commonplace.Absolutely no clue in them to Mr. Angel, save that he quotes Balzac once. There is oneremarkable point, however, which will no doubt strike you.

They are typewritten, I remarked.

Not only that, but the signature is typewritten. Look atthe neat little [198] HosmerAngel at the bottom. There is a date, you see, but no superscription exceptLeadenhall Street, which is rather vague. The point about the signature is verysuggestivein fact, we may call it conclusive.

Of what?

My dear fellow, is it possible you do not see howstrongly it bears upon the case?

I cannot say that I do unless it were that he wished tobe able to deny his signature if an action for breach of promise were instituted.

No, that was not the point. However, I shall write twoletters, which should settle the matter. One is to a firm in the City, the other is to theyoung ladys stepfather, Mr. Windibank, asking him whether he could meet us here atsix oclock to-morrow evening. It is just as well that we should do business with themale relatives. And now, Doctor, we can do nothing until the answers to those letterscome, so we may put our little problem upon the shelf for the interim.

I had had so many reasons to believe in my friendssubtle powers of reasoning and extraordinary energy in action that I felt that he musthave some solid grounds for the assured and easy demeanour with which he treated thesingular mystery which he had been called upon to fathom. Once only had I known him tofail, in the case of the King of Bohemia and of the Irene Adler photograph; but when Ilooked back to the weird business of The Sign of Four, and the extraordinarycircumstances connected with A Study in Scarlet, I felt that it would be astrange tangle indeed which he could not unravel.

I left him then, still puffing at his black clay pipe, withthe conviction that when I came again on the next evening I would find that he held in hishands all the clues which would lead up to the identity of the disappearing bridegroom ofMiss Mary Sutherland.

A professional case of great gravity was engaging my ownattention at the time, and the whole of next day I was busy at the bedside of thesufferer. It was not until close upon six oclock that I found myself free and wasable to spring into a hansom and drive to Baker Street, half afraid that I might be toolate to assist at the denouement of the little mystery. I found Sherlock Holmes alone,however, half asleep, with his long, thin form curled up in the recesses of his armchair.A formidable array of bottles and test-tubes, with the pungent cleanly smell ofhydrochloric acid, told me that he had spent his day in the chemical work which was sodear to him.

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It is this strangely uniform "family resemblance" of experience that led Freud to first conceive of the force of fantasy in psychic lives and to conclude that identity was far from being a straight forward issue of elementary simplicity. While Holmes's genius in A Case of Identity lies in his deducing that the identity of the young girl's seducer is her father in disguise, Freud believed that desire itself is disguised, resulting in the unrecognisability of the father, and thus problematising identity. Freud would have deduced from this case that to be seduced was the daughter's incestuous fantasy:

Freud's case histories demonstrated that the key moments in the construction of sexuality and desire are caught in the irrational pains and pleasures of the primal scene, fetishism and castration, all of which displace the subject from the centre of his own world, while fantasies of exclusion and absence accompany interpretations of origin. The child can fantasize his own conception in the primal scene while fetishism strikes up an identification between a desired sight and its displacement or disguise (underwear for female genitalia) so that the original sight is masked. Castration is the deadly view that results in the fetishistic look. The child in these scenes learns more than he knows from observing, but what is seen is seen through a vision that exposes sight as at once partial, driven, psychically invested and potentially annihilating. While Freud was demonstrating that the power of the look both defined and untied identity in a single interpretive moment, rendering masculinity and femininity both disguises, Holmes was reconstructing the gaze as a confirmatory act that resolves disguise and ambiguity to confirm the status quo.