Sumner, StephanieStephanieSumner2024-04-152024-04-152024978-3-86309-973-2https://fis.uni-bamberg.de/handle/uniba/94626The First World War with all its unimaginable horrors had an unprecedented impact on British society. Both at home and abroad, during and after the war, (gender) roles had to be redefined, renegotiated, and rediscovered. The negotiation of these changing and often conflicting gender expectations happened quietly, subtly, and away from the public eye to keep the ‘stiff upper lip’ the British were so famous for. Nevertheless, popular literature such as detective fiction – which is already walking the tightrope between what is right and what is wrong, what is normative and what is deviant – gave these negotiations room and agency, if only at a second, deeper glance. In this chapter, two short stories, “His Last Bow” (1917) by Arthur Conan Doyle and “The Secret of Headlam Height” (1925) by Ernest Bramah, are examined with regard to these negotiations and how they could be represented to the readership. The focus here lies particularly on the sidekick characters, an aspect of detective fiction largely neglected in scholarly research so far, and the two female aides in the stories. The characters of John Watson and Parkinson, as well as housekeeper Martha and “professional lady cryptologer” Clifton Baker, manage to show through their actions and absences, as well as their words and silences, the multi-faceted and contradictory gender identities and expectations which resulted from the societal discourse at the time, and provided members of both sexes with extraordinary challenges in these tumultuous times. In particular, the sidekick character showcases these contradictions and how they were dealt with in a fascinating way – despite the predefined role(s) and audience expectations, it needed to adhere to while also having to fit the mould the generic conventions had shaped for it.engSidekickMax CarradoSherlock HolmesmasculinityFirst World War820conferenceobject