The game is afoot! There are few phrases in the mystery genre that are so recognizable and so quoted. But what does it really mean?

First, the sources. In perhaps the most exciting start to any Holmes story, Watson is awakened by Holmes in the middle of the night at the beginning of “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange”:

“Come, Watson, come!” he cried. “The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!”

The phrase was first popularized by Shakespeare, most notably as used in the famously rousing St. Crispin’s Day exhortation to the troops in Henry V:

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips.
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’

Clearly this is a hunting metaphor, derived from the fox hunt. The “game” is in fact the fox, that is, the quarry or the prey. This can also be seen in Shakespeare’s other use of the term, in Henry IV Part 1; Act 1, Scene 3. Hotspur and Worcester are trying to convince Northumberland of the brilliance of their plan, but Northumberland points out to Hotspur:

“Before the game is afoot, thou still let’st slip.”

In other words: “But you’ve let the hounds off the leash before the fox is even loose, as you always do, you rash doofus!”

It’s almost certain that Doyle knew of the term from Shakespeare. As a staunch traditionalist, he defended Shakespeare against Johnny-come-lately’s like Shaw, and firmly believed in the beneficence of the British Empire. It’s pure speculation on my part, but it seems likely that the St. Crispin’s Day speech would have been one of his fondest passages.

Did Doyle use the phrase anywhere else? The newest and best canonical reference is Leslie Klinger’s New Annotated Sherlock Holmes. Klinger says that Doyle used the phrase in only one other place, in The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge:

“I could tell by numerous subtle signs, which might have been lost
upon anyone but myself, that Holmes was on a hot scent. As
impassive as ever to the casual observer, there were none the
less a subdued eagerness and suggestion of tension in his
brightened eyes and brisker manner which assured me that the game was afoot.“

This is a direct comparison Holmes to a hound on the hunt, and certainly Doyle did this kind of thing all the time. If we take a further look at Abbey Grange, we see that the hunting references are used throughout, such as this one:

“We will draw the larger cover first.”

Klinger calls this “a shooting metaphor, meaning to draw the fox from his covert or temporary lair. When the animal ‘breaks cover,’ the hunt begins.” (pp 1179). But Klinger doesn’t comment on the meaning of “The game is afoot.”

I think it’s clear that Doyle was also using “The game is afoot” as a hunting metaphor. Nowadays the phrase is often used more generally to invoke excitement and the sense that something thrilling is about to start, and that what is about to start is some sort of game or challenge. Klinger even uses it as his sign-off in his introduction to The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, indicating that the reader can turn the page for the fun to start.

The new meaning has come about largely because of the word ‘game’ and its connotations in the mystery field. For many years when there was more emphasis on the puzzle mystery then there is now, the mystery was described as a game between the writer and the reader. Over time through the process of folk etymology the new meaning has begun to outshine the old.

I don’t imagine I’m the first person to consider the origin and meaning of this phrase. There’s got to be some article in the Baker Street Journal about it, or some essay somewhere by a Holmesian scholar. Does anyone know of one?

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Bonus Bookfling: The Klinger book is a wonderful resource. The annotations are knowledgeable and not intrusive. It’s easy to read the text without tripping over footnote references, and equally easy to find the annotations if you want them. See here for Jon L. Breen’s review in Mystery Scene.

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