So, I'm thinking this was the first guy Sherlock Holmes killed.

 Our library book club that only does short stories, and only short stories with Sherlock Holmes in them, and only the ones by Conan Doyle, except sometimes we do those four novels . . . well, anyway, we met tonight. And we talked about "The Boscombe Valley Mystery." And I had this thought.

At the end of the case, Sherlock Holmes says, "I never hear of such a case as this that I do not think of Baxter's words, and say, 'There, but for the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes."

Now, the case he's talking about involved a guy who killed a blackmailer from his past. Sherlock Holmes was hired by the guy's daughter, and the guy is old and supposedly dying anyway, so Sherlock lets him off. But that thing he says . . . "There, but for the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes." It sounds like Sherlock Holmes has just heard old Turner's confession and thought, "Wow, I really relate to that."

But why would he think that? Had he killed a blackmailer who returned from his past to haunt him?

Or maybe helped kill a blackmailer who returned from the past to haunt that friend's family member?

It seemed like such an odd thing for Holmes to say out of context that I immediately theorized tonight that Holmes must have done that very thing. And we know that Holmes's start in the crime business was a triggering incident in the story Watson wrote up as "The Gloria Scott." And, gee, there was that blackmailer Hudson that came out of Trevor Senior's past in that story, just as the events in Boscombe Valley played out. Could Holmes and his college buddy Victor Trevor have killed Hudson, just as old Turner did in Boscombe Valley?

Victor Trevor does flee England to live in southern Nepal or northern India after whatever happened at his family home. Sherlock Holmes returns to London and seeks our a fellow lodger so he has an excuse to fund a landlady named Mrs. Hudson in need of tenants. And eventually we are. told that Holmes paid Mrs. Hudson "princely sums." Was someone trying to ease some guilt with those payments?

It seemed pretty odd as well for Sherlock Holmes, after telling Watson about Hudson in that case write-up to just basically go, "The police think Hudson killed another guy named Beddoes and fled, but I think Beddoes killed him." So if Hudson's body ever did turn up, Holmes has a pre-selected suspect from a case he's have surely solved if it had been just hanging out in his origin story all that time.

It has always seemed a bit coincidental that we never hear of Mr. Hudson or what happened to him, and maybe that was on purpose . . . because we sort of did hear. Was "The Gloria Scott" Watson's way of telling us without telling us, even though Holmes was thought to be dead when he published it?

A number of criminals who passed through Sherlock Holmes's casebooks had mysterious deaths after seeming to escape justice. And Hudson was the first. 

Maybe the first at not escaping justice, thanks to Sherlock Holmes, as well?

The Montague Street Incorrigibles Pub Night 2024

 Here it is, mid-October already, and, well, we'd best think a bit about January, as many an American Sherlockians (and a few of our kin elsewhere) are apt to do in the fall. Does Sherlock Holmes's Birthday actually fall in January? As a dedicated Sherlockian chronologist, I have to answer "Who knows?"  -- but what I do know is that a lot of Sherlockians find that time to be their season for seeing and being seen.

The evening of Friday, January 17 is rather key to that, Baker Street Irregulars annual dinner and all, but there are always those whose awareness of that evening centers around the fact that they can't be in New York for one of the dinners held that night. So what's left for those of us in our scattered abodes that night?

Well, the Montague Street Incorrigibles, of course.

Less strict admittance standards, no need to dress up, and we have our spies.

It's the a six-hour Zoom hangout that's never the same twice. (Except for the arcane membership ritual, which inducts those who undergo its rigors into the society. There's a nifty PDF membership certificate endorsed by an ape!) What will happen this year? Who knows? Possibly more to come on that, but it's mainly a way to spend an evening with some fellow Sherlockians when you can't be with the pilgrims making their way to New York City for the annual rituals there.

Here's the link for registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwof-qgqjsoH9AItYBhp8Rkm4j5x5_s1vpT

There's no other gathering like it, and it's never recorded, since everybody has to miss something that night! So if you already know what your plans aren't going to be on Friday night January 17th between the hours of 6 P.M. to midnight Eastern time, think about joining the motley crew at "the Dangling Prussian," our virtual meeting place where it is always 1895. (And hopefully, the world hasn't exploded by then!)

What Will Happen To Sherlock Holmes's Killer After "The Final Problem?"

 Every day I scroll through a news feed where some algorithm looks through what TV shows I watch, and see endless headlines that ask me easily answerable questions. They are questions that don't require an entire story to answer, questions that are only there to get a click routing to a page full of adds wrapped around one or two paragraphs of non-info.

The original stories of Sherlock Holmes, of course, came out in a different era. 

Media in that time was just newspapers, letters, and word of mouth, and while newspapers were trying to get you to read them with big headlines shouted by newsboys, the ads were only a part of the revenue stream. You still had to pay for the paper. And those headlines were about the biggest stories that affected the most people. The London Times never tried to pull Jane Austen fans into buying papers with speculation about Elizabeth Bennett as the front page leader.

The internet, however, can slice and dice its readership into the slimmest tailored niche headlines. Had "The Final Problem" been published today, two years later, with another eight before "Empty House," we'd be getting constant headlines like "Conan Doyle Reveals Future Of Sherlock Holmes" (He was asked about writing more Holmes for the fiftieth time, he said "No." For the fiftieth time.). Or "What Will Happen To Sherlock Holmes's Killer After 'The Final Problem?'" (Well, we think he fell off that waterfall and died, but nobody saw it or found the body. You actually thought we knew more than you? Silly fan!)

The headline leading to the non-story is but one technique these "news" sites use to draw clicks. Another is picking some other site's actual essay and reporting on that as their own news story. Let's give that a try!

Christopher Plummer Portrays An Odd Preachy Sherlock

Is Christopher Plummer's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in "Murder By Decree" a good representation of the classic detective?

In a recent blog post from Two Tarnished Beeches Christopher Plummer's performance was judged "odd" and "preachy" in a discussion that fans of Christopher Plummer will certainly disagree with. 

Now, a sensible person is going to click on that link to the original post and quit reading the re-hash that was written just to generate a headline, but at that point, the derivative site has already got you to click on their link and shown you their ads. 

Sherlock Holmes having fans means that we will always get clickbait about "Sherlock Holmes 3" or Benedict Cumberbatch or whatever comes next. We don't get quite the YouTube attention of a Disney-owned property, but maybe we just haven't found the right You-Tuber yet. That's a completely different topic . . .

Some weeks later . . . .

When I originally wrote this bit about clickbait headlines, I thought I had see the internet at its worst. Then came today's headlines on Google News, "Walmart to Shut Down All Stores in Illinois: What This Means To You," "Supermarkets Announce 1-day Store Closures -- Official Date Now Available," and on and on and on about stores announcing they're closing, until about fifteen headlines down someone finally gives the game away with "Walmart, Target will be closed for Thanksgiving again this year."  Yep, same as every year. Good lord, the world has gone stupid . . . .