A Scion Society of The Baker Street Irregulars
Numismatists Do Not Fear Change
Seventeen thoughts for further ponderance of the case at hand – The Red-Headed League (REDH) WHO GETS THE SETTEE? As Holmes interviews Jabez Wilson, Dr. Watson wanders in. The courteous pawnbroker, Wilson, half-rises. He looks at somebody with a question in his “fat-encircled eyes.” Next Holmes utters the words, “Try the settee.” In every previous… Continue Reading
Seventeen thoughts for further ponderance of the case at hand – The Beryl Coronet (BERY) THE FINE ART OF PAVEMENT-SCRAPING Watson writes: “Down the centre of Baker Street it had been ploughed into a brown crumbly band by the traffic, but at either side and on the heaped-up edges of the foot-paths it still lay… Continue Reading
Seventeen thoughts for further ponderance of the case at hand – The Crooked Man (CROO) HOLMES STOPS BY FOR AN OVERNIGHT Holmes’s overnight stay is an item that it is almost too easy to breeze over in The Crooked Man. The detective shows up on Watson’s doorstep at 11:45 at night, asks if he can… Continue Reading
Seventeen thoughts for further ponderance of the case at hand – The Retired Colourman (RETI) AND NOW, THE END IS NEAR . . . Sherlock Holmes begins this last tale with a sad soliloquy: “But is not all life pathetic and futile? Is not his story a microcosm of the whole? We reach. We grasp.… Continue Reading
Seventeen thoughts for further ponderance of the case at hand – Silver Blaze (SILV) HIS OWN PERSONAL CNN “Fresh editions of every paper had been sent up by our news agent,” Watson writes. We all know London had a lot of papers in those days, but did everyone have a newsagent to deal with their newsprint… Continue Reading
Seventeen thoughts for further ponderance of the case at hand – The Yellow Face (YELL) THE STORY THAT COMES WITH A DISCLAIMER The bracketed paragraph that introduces this story is an interesting commentary on what Watson thought of this story. The good doctor had published tales of Holmes failing before now (A Scandal in Bohemia… Continue Reading
Seventeen thoughts for further ponderance of the case at hand – A Scandal In Bohemia (SCAN) THE RETURN OF DOCTOR WATSON After two novels worth of nursing his wounds, John H. Watson suddenly has a home, a wife, AND a job, all his own. But the doctor’s exact words are “I had now returned to… Continue Reading
Seventeen thoughts for further ponderance of the case at hand – The Dying Detective THE INVASION OF MRS. HUDSON’S FLAT We are given a few examples of Mrs. Hudson’s long-suffering nature in this tale, the first of which being: “Not only was her first-floor flat invaded at all hours by throngs of singular and often… Continue Reading
Seventeen thoughts for further ponderance of the case at hand – Lady Frances Carfax (LADY) THE WATSON INFLUENCE ON HOLMES “The bath!” Holmes corrects Watson, then asks, “Why the relaxing and expensive Turkish rather than the invigorating home-made article?” Sometimes one has to wonder if Holmes is simply posing these questions so he can impress Watson… Continue Reading
Seventeen thoughts for further ponderance of the case at hand – The Resident Patient (RESI) WATSON BECOMES A BIT JADED “For in those cases in which Holmes has performed some tour de force of analytical reasoning, and has demonstrated the value of his peculiar methods of investigation, the facts themselves have often been so slight… Continue Reading