On April 8th…

April 8, 1897: Holmes and Watson arrived in Poldu Bay, Cornwall. [DEVI]

“Cove and Point” © Copyright Jonathan Billinger and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

It was, then, in the spring of the year 1897 that Holmes’s iron constitution showed some symptoms of giving way in the face of constant hard work of a most exacting kind, aggravated, perhaps, by occasional indiscretions of his own. In March of that year Dr. Moore Agar, of Harley Street, whose dramatic introduction to Holmes I may some day recount, gave positive injunctions that the famous private agent would lay aside all his cases and surrender himself to complete rest if he wished to avert an absolute breakdown. The state of his health was not a matter in which he himself took the faintest interest, for his mental detachment was absolute, but he was induced at last, on the threat of being permanently disqualified from work, to give himself a complete change of scene and air. Thus it was that in the early spring of that year we found ourselves together in a small cottage near Poldhu Bay, at the farther extremity of the Cornish peninsula.

Date information provided by the volume A Day-by-Day Chronology of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, according to Zeisler and Christ, compiled and edited by William S Dorn.

On April 16th…

April 16, 1888: Holmes, Watson and Mary Morstan went to Pondicherry Lodge. [SIGN]

We had hardly reached the third pillar, which was our rendezvous, before a small, dark, brisk man in the dress of a coachman accosted us.

“Are you the parties who come with Miss Morstan?” he asked.

“I am Miss Morstan, and these two gentlemen are my friends,” said she.

He bent a pair of wonderfully penetrating and questioning eyes upon us.

“You will excuse me, miss,” he said, with a certain dogged manner, “but I was to ask you to give me your word that neither of your companions is a police-officer.”

“I give you my word on that,” she answered.

He gave a shrill whistle, on which a street arab led across a four-wheeler and opened the door. The man who had addressed us mounted to the box, while we took our places inside. We had hardly done so before the driver whipped up his horse, and we plunged away at a furious pace through the foggy streets.

The situation was a curious one. We were driving to an unknown place on an unknown errand.

April 16, 1897: Brenda Tregennis was murdered, and her two brothers lost their sanity. [DEVI]

Source
A Day by Day Chronology of Sherlock Holmes according to Ziesler and Christ by William S Dorn DWNP, BSI.

On March 16… We Travel. Or Do We?

Illustration by Philip Cornell (JHWS “Parkes”)

It was, then, in the spring of the year 1897 that Holmes’s iron constitution showed some symptoms of giving way in the face of constant hard work of a most exacting kind, aggravated, perhaps, by occasional indiscretions of his own. In March of that year Dr. Moore Agar, of Harley Street, whose dramatic introduction to Holmes I may some day recount, gave positive injunctions that the famous private agent would lay aside all his cases and surrender himself to complete rest if he wished to avert an absolute breakdown. The state of his health was not a matter in which he himself took the faintest interest, for his mental detachment was absolute, but he was induced at last, on the threat of being permanently disqualified from work, to give himself a complete change of scene and air. Thus it was that in the early spring of that year we found ourselves together in a small cottage near Poldhu Bay, at the farther extremity of the Cornish peninsula. [DEVI]

According to Guinn and Mahoney in A Curious Collection of Dates, the Adventure of the Devil’s Foot begins on March 16, 1897.

But! In Dorn’s A Day by Day Chronology of Sherlock Holmes, the Adventure of the Devil’s Foot begins on April 8, 1897.

These two listings are contrary to each other as to when this case started. It is an example of one of my favorite controversies in Sherlockian scholarly world: Figuring out when each case occurred, based on clues picked up from the case and our outlandish Sherlockian minds. So, on we go, and we shall see if the chronology of Leah Guinn and Jaime Maloney and their volume disagree in other cases with the chronology of William Dorn and his volume.

Sources:
A Curious Collection of Dates by Leah Guinn (JHWS “Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (JHWS “Tressa”) and A Day by Day Chronology of Sherlock Holmes by William S Dorn DWNP, BSI

Posted by Ron aka “Chips” and Beth aka “Selena Buttons”, proud columnists for the John H Watson Society.

On April 20th…

April 20, 1897: Dr Leon Sterndale confessed to murdering Mortimer Tregennis (DEVI)

April 20, 1897: Holmes decided to allow Dr Leon Sterndale to return to central Africa to complete his work. (DEVI)

April 20, 1890: Carlo the mastiff was last fed (COPP)

On April 18th…

April 18, 1887: Action’s house in Reigate was broken into (REIG)

April 18, 1887: Holmes and Watson arrived home from Lyons (REIG)

April 18, 1888: The Baker Street Irregulars started their search for the launch Aurora (SIGN)

April 18, 1897: Dr. Leon Sterndale murdered Mortimer Tregennis (DEVI)

On April 17th…

April 17, 1897: Dr. Leon Sterndale abandoned his trip to Africa (DEVI)

April 17, 1888: Toby led Holmes and Watson on a creosote trail (SIGN)

April 17, 1888: the launch Aurora disappeared (SIGN)

On April 16th…

April 16, 1888: Holmes, Watson and Mary Morstan went to Pondicherry lodge (SIGN)

April 16, 1897: Brenda Tregennis was murdered and her two brothers lost their sanity (DEVI)

April 16, 1898: Violet Smith was followed by the solitary cyclist for the second time (SOLI)