Sherlock Holmes was a worldly man and kept his tobacco in the toe of his Persian slippers. He "kept his cigars in the coal shuttle" is a statement of the amazing fact that the author suggests that this is where to find Holmes' biggest secret. This is because a man smokes his cigars in victory over some major achievement and Holmes keeps his cigars buried in the coal shuttle where they are in the dark {also for moisture, but I will not get into this here}.
Also the fact that he transfixed his unanswered correspondence by a jack-knife into his wooden mantle is another reference to Christianity and Christ's Transfixion and is the Main evidence that Holmes felt that there are too many religions and too many unanswered prayers in a multi-religioned world. The fact that he used Boxer cartridges to shoot a patriotic V. R. {Queen Victoria who was called Victoria Regina} into a wall with bullet-pocks is a distinctive reference to the Boxer Uprising in Buddhist China begun by a dowager Empress similar to Queen Victoria who wanted all foreigners to be removed from China, most particularly Christians. Holmes most probably favored the Buddhist religion in China where it still belongs to the Christian Conquesting {I come to bring the sword; not peace.} Religion Of Queen Victoria because he shoots Queen Victoria symbolically with the Boxer cartridges and a hair-trigger. Watson has always been hiding these facts as the front man to a simple story easily told and suggests that the V. R. is patriotic in his simple analysis whereas in Holmes silent mood at the time and his extremely methodical thinking he is doing exactly the opposite in which "'neither the atmosphere or the appearance of our room was improved..."
Even Watson, the author's story teller {the author himself}, is a multi-cultured man in this rough and tumble work of art, Bohemianism being a far better religion than perhaps Queen Victoria's religion. The reference to the medical man is only the story tellers way of saying that he does not represent Sherlock Holmes, but represents himself here. And with the shooting of Queen Victoria and the crucifixion of Christ, which is variously and many times adversely interpreted by multi-religions, author Conan Doyle, who wrote these books from his healing position as a real-life Doctor, is having a spasm of compassion for both of Sherlock Holmes' victims.
Many ordinary critics have missed these extraordinary facts and this extraordinary interpretation because they perceived that most probably the story teller was not the author, but the private investigator. This interpretation is untrue. Witness the facts. Not only was Conan Doyle not authentically a Christian as Holmes here was represented, but Holmes, I believe in Doyle's mind, was Doyle's representation of the real living God and the real ethical vocation for anyone of moral stature who had any mind at all. Holmes has both the qualities of preserving order in a violent and unethical world and the qualities of compassion by selecting the most compassionate Watson as his assistant.
Here I speak for myself as far as my own pointed idiosyncrasies and the puerile form of the expected formal writing of something as devastating as this paper is to the reputation of Conan Doyle. Students and all human beings should be taught, not form, but creative and strictly logical thought. See you in class {the old gentleman in the front row}. Sorry I missed you Tuesday.