"Sherlock Holmes Faces Death"

I have for many years been a great fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories.  I have read all of the original Doyle stories and books, and I have seen many of the movies and dramatizations.  My favorites are the 1940s movies starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes, and Nigel Bruce as Watson (and Mary Gordon as Mrs Hudson, and Dennis Hoey as Inspector Lestrade), and the 2010+ movies starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Watson (and Una Stubbs as Mrs Hudson, and Rupert Graves as Lestrade).  As a side note, Benedict Cumberbatch's biological parents, both of whom are actually actors, also appear in two of those movies, and Una Stubbs is in reality a long time friend of Cumberbatch's mother.

The Cumberbatch series, created and written by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, are very modernized, but actually more closely related to some of the Doyle stories, and the Rathbone series contains some modernized stories (set during WWII, when they were made), and more loosely related to the Doyle stories.  But several of them contain devices from Doyle's stories.  I have watched both series many times.

The screenplay for "Sherlock Holmes Faces Death" was written by Bertram Millhauser, and is loosely adapted from "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual."  In this movie, a family of two brothers and a sister own and occupy Musgrave Manor.  The convention among the Musgraves, going back to the 16th C, is that when the most senior Musgrave dies, the next in line must repeat what amounts to a poem.  It appears mysterious, and no one seems to know what it means.  The Musgrave siblings had decided to allow servicemen to live in their home, and they engaged two doctors to look after these veterans, most of whom had a form of PTSD.  One is a somewhat younger Dr Sexton, and the other is Dr Watson, who has agreed to volunteer to help these veterans.  Of note, one of the servicemen lodging in Musgrave Manor is an American airman there for some R&R.  He's played by Milburn Stone who many years later played "Doc" in the "Gunsmoke" series, and who in "Sherlock Holmes Faces Death" had fallen in love with the Musgraves' younger sister (and vice versa).

Not long into the story, Dr Sexton suddenly enters the room injured from a neck wound reportedly inflicted by some mysterious person who then ran away.  Not long after, the older Musgrave brother is found murdered.  Shortly after that, the younger Musgrave brother is found murdered.  Finally, Brunton, the Musgrave's butler, is discovered murdered, after Holmes figures out what the mysterious poem means, and finds the document to which it refers.

Sally Musgrave is now in line to inherit the Musgrave estate, which is generally thought to be worthless, but which the document Holmes has now seen shows that the Musgraves are multimillionaires, unbeknownst to any of them.  It turns out they have a "crown grant," which means they own 80,000 acres of highly productive land in that part of England.  Sally Musgrave wonders if there aren't people living on that land, and Holmes informs her that there certainly are, not to mention farms and towns.  But it turns out that Dr Sexton had also figured out about the Musgraves' holdings, and it was he who killed Sally's brothers and Brunton, and inflicted a minor injury on himself, to make himself seem like a victim, too.  Dr Sexton imagined that he would marry Sally (and take her away from Milburn Stone's character), and either join her in the inheritance, or perhaps kill her, too, and keep it for himself.  But Holmes tricks him into confessing everything, so the police would hear his confession.

Sally decides she could not possibly throw all these people off the land, and she burns the crown grant.

As Holmes and Watson are driving away, Holmes gives the following speech: "There's a new spirit abroad in the land.  The old days of grab and greed are on their way out.  We're beginning to think of what we owe the other fellow, not just what we're compelled to give him.  The time's coming, Watson, when we shant be willing to fill our bellies in comfort while other folk go hungry, or sleep in warm beds while others shiver in the cold.  When we shant be able to kneel and thank 'god' for blessings before our shining altars, while men anywhere are kneeling in either physical or spiritual subjection."

Watson replies "You may be right, Holmes.  I hope you are."

And Homes concludes, "And 'god' willing, we'll live to see that day, Watson."

I don't know if it was Doyle or Millhauser who wrote those lines, but it was a long time ago, in 1942 or 1943, when most of the world was fighting against fascism, and most countries felt united in the fight.  None of the Allies wanted to be "first," and none of them crowed about how "great" they thought they were.  They just wanted peace, and Millhauser let his audience know that peace for anyone meant peace for everyone.  Of course, it's possible Holmes/Millhauser were just being prematurely optimistic, and that of course there would be legions more "grab and greed" people to come later.