June 20, 1858: Sepoy mutiny ended at Gwalior (CROO)
June 20, 1890: James McCarthy went to Bristol to visit his wife (BOSC)
On June 19th…
June 19, 1889: Isa Whitney went to the Bar of Gold (TWIS)
On June 17th…
June 17, 1889: Mrs. Neville St Clair saw her husband in the Bar of Gold (TWIS)
Cocoa’s C’animals
Can you guess which canonical story that this refers to?
Mixing it up for the 4th JHWS Treasure Hunt warm up
Hi Watsonians–
Here we are a mere six weeks until the treasure hunt begins on August 1. Since the posting of the first warm up question, I’ve heard from The Sherlock Holmes Society of India. The society will have a team in the competition. I’m so glad SHSI is joining in the fun.
As to the first warm up question, we had a few comments about it. I’m guessing most of you solved it rather quickly; the answer is January 7th (VALL). If you have your 1930 Doubleday Single Volume with the Christopher Morley introduction (Buttons’ beloved ‘W’), the quote is found on page 773.
As noted before, the theme this year is ”that mixture of imagination and reality which is the basis of my art” (Holmes,THOR). With the first question, we talked about reality. For the second warm up question, we have a mixture:
Kitty+Porky+Birdy=common 4 letter location–where?
I look forward to your answers,
Margie
JHWS ‘Gwen’
2016 Treasure Hunt Master
On June 15th…
June 15, 1889: Holmes and Watson accompanied Hall Pycroft to Birmingham to see Arthur Harry Pinner (STOC)
June 15, 1889: Arthur Pinner attempted suicide (STOC)
On June 14th…
June 14, 1889: Hall Pycroft finished marking off all of the hardware sellers in Paris (STOC)
On June 13th…
June 13, 1900: Holmes recovered the Black Pearl of the Borgias from the sixth bust of Napoleon (SIXN)
On June 12th…
June 12, 1900: Beppo murdered Pietro Venucci (SIXN)
June 12, 1900: Beppo destroyed the fifth bust of Napoleon (SIXN)
On June 11th…
June 11, 1900: Lestrade consulted Holmes about the theft of busts of Napoleon (SIXN)
On June 10th…
June 10, 1889: Hall Pycroft was supposed to start work with Mawson & Williams (STOC)
June 10, 1900: Beppo destroyed two more busts of Napoleon (SIXN)
On June 9th…
June 9, 1888: Jeremiah Hayling was killed by Colonel Lysander Stark (ENGI)
June 9, 1889: Hall Pycroft began marking off all of the hardware sellers in Paris (STOC)
“No Great Harm Was Done” [FINA]
Brad at Sherlock Peoria posted recently about the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reference to the fire at 221B Baker Street in “The Final Problem”.
“They set fire to our rooms last night. No great harm was done.”
So says Sherlock Holmes to Doctor Watson. It does indeed seem to have caused very little harm, since three years later, in “The Empty House”, Holmes says that “Mycroft preserved my rooms and my papers exactly as they had always been.” An impressive feat, considering how quickly paper burns.
That fire came up in a quiz a couple of years ago, and there was a discussion in the comments in which Ariana (“Carla”) suggested that Holmes set the fire himself.
What do you think? Did Moriarty (or his agents) set the fire? Did Holmes set it himself? Or perhaps Holmes fibbed, and there was no fire at all?
(Click on Russell Stutler’s illustration of the Baker Street rooms to see an enlarged version. Be sure to visit his site for his annotations!)
On June 8th…
June 8, 1889: Hall Pycroft took a train to Birmingham to meet Harry Pinner (STOC)
On June 7th…
June 7, 1889: Arthur Pinner offered Hall Pycroft a job with Franco-Midland Hardware Company (STOC)
June 7, 1900: Beppo destroyed the first bust of Napoleon (SIXN)
On June 6th…
June 6, 1889: Hall Pycroft received a letter offering him a berth with Mawson & Williams (STOC)
June 6, 1890: Napoleon busts were sold to Morse Hudson and the Harding Brothers (SIXN)
On June 4th…
June 4, 1902: Holmes confronted Isadora Klein (3GAB)
On June 3rd…
June 3, 1902: Holmes visited Mrs Maberly at Three Gables (3GAB)
On June 2nd…
June 2, 1902: The house agent presented Mrs Maberly terms of sale for Three Gables (3GAB)
June 1: Buster has the goods and things are warming up
Hello Watsonians!
It is now June 1, warm weather is upon us, and it is only some sixty days until the 4th Annual John H Watson Society Treasure Hunt begins. I’ve been hearing inklings of previous competitors returning, and I’m hoping some new teams might be in the works. Over the next two weeks I will be writing to many Sherlockian groups to invite new competitors. Thanks to the hard work of Chris Redmond (JHWS ‘Buster’), a treasure trove of contact information is readily available at sherlockian.net. I can’t thank him enough for this amazing resource.
Speaking of warming up and returning competitors, I encourage you to head over to Brad Keefauver’s always entertaining Sherlock Peoria to read the April 30, 2016 blog post titled ‘Team Building’ to see how one of our Down in Illinois team members is warming up for the competition. You will laugh, and perhaps be inspired to compete.
The 2016 edition of the Treasure Hunt will celebrate “that mixture of imagination and reality” which is the basis of our shared fun where it is always1895. To help get you into the spirit of things, you will find below our first warm up question for this year: Give it a go and let us know how you fare.
The recent BBC Sherlock Special The Abominable Bride explored the possibility of Holmes and Watson being men ahead of their time. In reality, Holmes noted once to his dismay that he and Watson were before their time. On what day of the year were they too up to date?
Margie
2016 Treasure Hunt Master
JHWS ‘Gwen’