Seven hundred miles for a secret.

June is still a long way off, especially with the snow thick on the ground here in Peoria at the moment. And there are a lot of big events before Summer Fun 2014, part of which will be the Scintillation of Scions on June 6-7. And yet, among the Yuletide, the impending and current Cumbercraze, and a dozen other joys of the season, a little bit of June's magic has already started . . . for me at least.

As question was asked and answered, and I now know what purpose I'll be going to the Scintillation of Scions for. After all, one can't just go all the way to Maryland without a purpose.

And that purpose is currently going under the name "The Secret of Watson's Six Wives."

It's the next step in an exploration that began back on the Hounds of the Internet in September of 2000, with something called "Chronology Corner." Given the task of sparking the Hounds' weekly discussion of the Canon of Holmes, I started working my way through the details of dating the sixty stories. And unlike certain other chronologers who seem to like to twist facts to fit theories, I let Dr. Watson be my guide, come what may.

One of the after-shocks of that little trip was a revelation about John H. Watson having six wives.

Sound a little ridiculous? Watson getting away with that many wives in a time when divorce was hard to come by and being that many times a widower would be a very nasty bit. But John Watson's six wives, it turns out, had a secret. A secret that makes all the pieces fit.

What's the secret? Well, it wouldn't be a secret if I told you (he said annoyingly), would it?

And I've got six months to enjoy that secret, explore that secret, and generally have some fun before the cat comes out of the proverbial bag. I won't be teasing it here too much after this, but I did want to give you a little bit of a heads up.

Because I'll be traveling well over seven hundred miles to reveal that secret come June, so it must be something. And you might just want to be there to hear it.