You were the first person to point out to me that "A Scandal in Bohemia" is the first of the SH short stories, and that what Watson says about Holmes's attitudes toward women, throughout the canon, is more often than not totally unreliable. *g* Having just finished The Case-Book and thus read all the stories for the first time, I've been paying particular attention to Holmes's treatment of the fairer sex. I've concluded that what baffles Watson is that Holmes really doesn't treat women any differently than he treats men. He recognizes that they have weaknesses, risks, possible dangers that men aren't subject to, but on the whole he evaluates their characters on the same basis as he evaluates a man's. Is a woman resourceful on her own behalf? Does she use whatever intelligence she's got? Then she has his respect.