It was a curious coincidence that I was on the treadmill at my local gym, training for this summer's John H. Watson Society Annual Treasure Hunt -- among other things in life that require complete exertion -- when I started up the latest episode of the podcast This Tangled Skein.
Early on in the 'cast, intrepid reporter Beth/Selena/@plexippa reported that the Treasure Hunt's quizmistress, Margie Deck, suggested she bolster her weakness on the seventh question by joining Team Nunn/Keefauver for this year's event. Beth also mentioned that Ashley Polasek had put forth a name for the team "Two Guys, a Girl, and a Doubleday." Since Ashley is, as far as I know, unaware of my weakness for Ryan Reynolds vehicles, this was a second curious coincidence.
HOLY SOUTH AMERICAN NITRATES!! RYAN REYNOLDS AS SHERLOCK HOLMES!!! WHY IS THIS NOT A THING!!!
Sorry. Lost my train of thought for a moment. OH!! ANNA FERRIS AS MARY MORSTAN! NO! WATSON! THE BIG SCREEN REBOOT OF ELEMENTARY! YES!! (This is one of those places where people think I'm being tongue-in-cheek. But, no, this is true Keefauverian train of thought.)
Okay, back to that John H. Watson Society Treasure Hunt, which doesn't start until August.
Last August, I had just lost two co-workers, was being called out of town to help with a consuming crisis, and unable to devote my full attention to the problems involved for weeks at a stretch. Rob had his own distractions, as well, and we lost our third team member early in the competition. This year, we're definitely hungry to show our full powers of Sherlockian trivial deduction and rise above our Order of Valiant Effort from this year. Adding a librarian of remarkable energy to the team could be our "bringing Apollo Creed in to train Rocky" moment -- the extra angle that puts us over.
And . . . wait a second . . . if Beth joins us, we would still have two potentially open slots for an Aquaman and a Green Lantern. (Oops, slipped into "forming the Justice League" mode. I was Flash, by the way.)
This is why I'm training, of course: Focus. Stay on Sherlock Holmes trivia. Stay off movies and comics. Stay on Sherlock Holmes trivia. Only a few more months . . .
The ongoing investigation of Sherlock Holmes, reported from the Peoria, Illinois outpost of Baker Street's dirtiest half a dozen.
Saturday, April 30, 2016
Someone else's time with Sherlock Holmes.
Making yet another attempt to clean the Sherlock room this week, I came across an an old box made of sturdy brown cardboard that I hadn't really looked at before. Finding something in your own house that you don't know a lot about may seem strange, but it comes from a part of the Sherlockian life that you never expect, nor ever want to happen, really.
There are the collectables that you search the internet and old bookshops for, and delight in finding . . . those are your collection, a gathering of happy moments in solid form. Even if you just had a link pop up on someone's Twitter feed, went "Wow, I want that!" and followed the link to Amazon for a one-click purchase, there was a discovery and an acquisition that were completely your own.
And then there are things like the sturdy brown box . . .
There are the collectables that you search the internet and old bookshops for, and delight in finding . . . those are your collection, a gathering of happy moments in solid form. Even if you just had a link pop up on someone's Twitter feed, went "Wow, I want that!" and followed the link to Amazon for a one-click purchase, there was a discovery and an acquisition that were completely your own.
And then there are things like the sturdy brown box . . .
It's not my sturdy brown box, you see. It's Bob Burr's sturdy brown box.
Even though it resides in my home, it will never be mine. I'm just the caretaker of the box at this point. What's in the box?
Another Sherlockian's time.
I've known friends over the years who have come into another Sherlockian's time with Sherlock Holmes, one such notable case was Newt William's re-annotated Baring-Gould Annotated, which I saw after it passed into Bill Cochran's hands. William S. Baring-Gould's book The Annotated Sherlock Holmes has a lot of white space in its margins, and Newt had filled that white space with additional footnotes from his own readings about Holmes. A lifetime of learning went into those margins, and it was a wonder to see. The Annotated, still being a two volume set of books, of course, still fits inconspicuously and neatly on a shelf with other books. But it was still a container for another Sherlockian's time.
This sturdy brown box is interesting in that it doesn't represent a lifetime of my old friend Bob's time with Sherlock Holmes, just an early period of it.
It's full of large file cards that look to me like some artifacts of my own creation, the results of a single pass through the sixty stories where one notes everything of particular interest one finds along the way. "Booze," "Food," and "Concerts" were some of Bob's favorites, I know, due to articles and scion meeting presentations that came after these cards.
The cards represent a time before Sherlockians with names like Harrington, Goodrich, and Clarkson published their own more massive labors of this sort in concordances keyed to the Doubleday Complete, and definitely before searchable texts like the much beloved Mr. Moon's Moonfind Search Engine. Since these cards were hand-written, many a Sherlockian has also published monographs or books containing such collections of data. (Many of which are hard-to-find collectables now, of course.) It was also a time before personal computers and digital files . . . which now seems like it might as well be Abraham-Lincoln-reading-by-candlelight times, since we've had that tech so long.
But even though the times change, even though other Sherlockians' work on such things have been published and collected, I'm sure some Sherlockians will still re-read the Canon and make their own notes in years to come. Conan Doyle's reluctance to spend all his time writing about Sherlock Holmes blessed us with a manageable-sized Canon, that one can read all the way through in less than a year, even taking time to make notes along the way. It's a marvelous source for original research. And some of those Sherlockians are probably still going to make notes on legal pads and other solid media.
That sort of paper media, and the scribblings upon it, may someday look like Sherlockian minor historical artifacts to some cool, objective pairs of eyes, but to me such things will always be monuments to those Sherlockians' time, happily spent with Sherlock Holmes. Countless hours in the company of Dr. Watson, with his steady narrating voice filling their mental ears. And the love and caring of a fan who took the time to write down their notes of that time.
Such remnants are magical things -- they can even make you feel a little less alone in the universe on a cold and rainy day. But like all magical things, however, their caretaker then has to figure out what to do with them . . . after getting lost in the nostalgia for a while.
Another Sherlockian's time can time up some of your own.
Thursday, April 28, 2016
Because Sherlock Holmes will always disappoint you . . .
I've been contemplating those poor souls whose faith in the BBC Sherlock tells them that eventually Sherlock and John are going to have that Big Moment Kiss and finally admit their feelings toward each other. They, like all of the rest of us, are . . . and I really do hate to say this . . . doomed to disappointment.
I mean, suppose they're not much different from those happy souls who, in July of 1891, discovered a brand new short story character called Sherlock Holmes in The Strand Magazine. A couple happy years and "AYEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" -- off Sherlock goes over Reichenbach Falls. Killed off by his incredibly mean author, never to return. You want to talk disappointment? They had it.
"Oh," you may say, "but they got him back ten years later?"
But did they? Many's the Sherlockian who has theorized Holmes wasn't the same after that return, and have you read "The Mazarin Stone?" And eventually comes "The Retired Colourman," and, most assuredly, there comes old friend disappointment again, even if you were enjoying that last crop, which was not without its issues.
Come 1939, Basil Rathbone stars in a pair of lovely Victorian Sherlock Holmes movies. Eventually, he's driving around America, hunting Nazis with a curly hair-do. Fans might have been a little disappointed there.
The year 1949 rolls around, and someone discovers a brand new Sherlock Holmes story from the original author titled "The Man Who Was Wanted." Sherlock Holmes was actually the man who was really wanted, wanted enough for everyone involved to overlook a few problematic details for long enough to publish the thing, then eventually . . . eventually . . . the disappointment came in learning it was pure fanfic.
Conan Doyle's son writes some stories with and without a popular mystery writer of the day in 1954 . . . hopes rise for a bit. And fall. Halfway through the volume, if they stuck around that long.
Going to a theater in 1970, you might have gotten to see a wonderful Billy Wilder film called "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" and thoroughly enjoyed it. No disappointment there, right? None whatsoever . . . well, until you find out that there was at least an hour more of content that got cut under studio demands, much of which was lost forever. A little disappointing, that.
A 1974 Sherlock Holmes novel hits the best-seller list . . . HOORAH! You go to read it and find a pretty drug-addled Sherlock in need of celebrity intervention. Boooo . . .
In 1984, Jeremy Brett took the Sherlockian world by stormy petrel in a almost Canon-faithful series of hour-long adaptations. Until they became two-hour, somewhat less faithful tales and Mycroft Holmes developed X-ray vision.
1989 . . . well, we won't talk about 1989.
Yes, all of these things had their fans who will deny any disappointment in them whatsoever. But each of them did disappoint some lover of Holmes somewhere, and probably much more than one. Because Sherlock Holmes will always disappoint you eventually. The only way not to have that happen is to stop after you read or watched the BEST Sherlock Holmes thing you ever encountered, which would make you a rare human indeed, and truly, not much of a fan. Or to just go totally, absolutely true-believer whacko and live in a state where it all actually pleases you . . . in which case you are even more rare and probably not able to function in society without a caretaker.
Because Sherlock Holmes will always disappoint you . . .
. . . until he doesn't.
Because you know what? If you live long enough, Sherlock Holmes will spring back to his best form all over again. Unlike us, the ravages of age never take him for long, he gets to reincarnate constantly and non-consecutively, and he has all of humanity trying to help him be at his best.
It's we who have to deal with the disappointment, own it as our own, and keep the faith that our friend will be back to visit us again, as true friends do.
I think he got that from Watson. Onward.
I mean, suppose they're not much different from those happy souls who, in July of 1891, discovered a brand new short story character called Sherlock Holmes in The Strand Magazine. A couple happy years and "AYEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" -- off Sherlock goes over Reichenbach Falls. Killed off by his incredibly mean author, never to return. You want to talk disappointment? They had it.
"Oh," you may say, "but they got him back ten years later?"
But did they? Many's the Sherlockian who has theorized Holmes wasn't the same after that return, and have you read "The Mazarin Stone?" And eventually comes "The Retired Colourman," and, most assuredly, there comes old friend disappointment again, even if you were enjoying that last crop, which was not without its issues.
Come 1939, Basil Rathbone stars in a pair of lovely Victorian Sherlock Holmes movies. Eventually, he's driving around America, hunting Nazis with a curly hair-do. Fans might have been a little disappointed there.
The year 1949 rolls around, and someone discovers a brand new Sherlock Holmes story from the original author titled "The Man Who Was Wanted." Sherlock Holmes was actually the man who was really wanted, wanted enough for everyone involved to overlook a few problematic details for long enough to publish the thing, then eventually . . . eventually . . . the disappointment came in learning it was pure fanfic.
Conan Doyle's son writes some stories with and without a popular mystery writer of the day in 1954 . . . hopes rise for a bit. And fall. Halfway through the volume, if they stuck around that long.
Going to a theater in 1970, you might have gotten to see a wonderful Billy Wilder film called "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" and thoroughly enjoyed it. No disappointment there, right? None whatsoever . . . well, until you find out that there was at least an hour more of content that got cut under studio demands, much of which was lost forever. A little disappointing, that.
A 1974 Sherlock Holmes novel hits the best-seller list . . . HOORAH! You go to read it and find a pretty drug-addled Sherlock in need of celebrity intervention. Boooo . . .
In 1984, Jeremy Brett took the Sherlockian world by stormy petrel in a almost Canon-faithful series of hour-long adaptations. Until they became two-hour, somewhat less faithful tales and Mycroft Holmes developed X-ray vision.
1989 . . . well, we won't talk about 1989.
Yes, all of these things had their fans who will deny any disappointment in them whatsoever. But each of them did disappoint some lover of Holmes somewhere, and probably much more than one. Because Sherlock Holmes will always disappoint you eventually. The only way not to have that happen is to stop after you read or watched the BEST Sherlock Holmes thing you ever encountered, which would make you a rare human indeed, and truly, not much of a fan. Or to just go totally, absolutely true-believer whacko and live in a state where it all actually pleases you . . . in which case you are even more rare and probably not able to function in society without a caretaker.
Because Sherlock Holmes will always disappoint you . . .
. . . until he doesn't.
Because you know what? If you live long enough, Sherlock Holmes will spring back to his best form all over again. Unlike us, the ravages of age never take him for long, he gets to reincarnate constantly and non-consecutively, and he has all of humanity trying to help him be at his best.
It's we who have to deal with the disappointment, own it as our own, and keep the faith that our friend will be back to visit us again, as true friends do.
I think he got that from Watson. Onward.
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Setlock, spoiling the party for some more than others.
Spoiler alert: I'm going to mention a Canonical detail in reference to the currently filming Sherlock season. And another logical following detail from last season's events. Both were seen in a street scene from said filming. Flee now if two such things violate your pre-season protocols.
Well, I thought I was avoiding all the amateur paparazzi photos from the filming of the upcoming BBC Sherlocks. No such luck. Both Twitter and my random Tumblr follows seemed to be diving at those preview scraps like a drone targeting a top-five terrorist. And in at least one spot, that seemed to be the tone of the person posting the photo.
What did I see?
Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, an infant child, Mary Morstan Watson, and a dog.
Now, to a dedicated believer in the Johnlock Conspiracy, this scene of apparent domestic bliss in the Watson household might seem quite horrific. Mommy, daddy, baby, and dog, all out for a walk with their old bachelor friend. The anti-thesis of the Sherlock/John romance.
But to believers in the Doylock Conspiracy -- that Moffat and Gatiss are intent on infusing Sherlock with as much original Canon while creating new tales as they can -- the dog was a very exciting development.
Because he wasn't just a dog, he was a bloodhound. And a bloodhound in a story with Mary Morstan?
Toby.
While we saw a Sholto and a "The Sign of Three" last season, we never really saw Mary Morstan's tale played out: treasure, wooden-legged ex-convicts, pygmies, river chases . . . or "The Sign of Four."
Or the bloodhound Toby.
If Sherlock, John, and Mary made up "The Sign of Three," it would appear baby makes "Four," a fact many a Sherlockian stumbling across these setlock photos has already deduced.
Which doesn't really make it all that much of a spoiler, for the Sign of the Four fans among us. More like a natural development. But if the tremors that have erupted over that same little detail on Tumblr are any sign, we're in for a very interesting season ahead.
Especially if that infant turns out to be the new little person in the story . . . and Mary Morstan Watson thought "Tonga" would be a cool name for a baby.
Yikes! Get thee behind me, setlock!
Well, I thought I was avoiding all the amateur paparazzi photos from the filming of the upcoming BBC Sherlocks. No such luck. Both Twitter and my random Tumblr follows seemed to be diving at those preview scraps like a drone targeting a top-five terrorist. And in at least one spot, that seemed to be the tone of the person posting the photo.
What did I see?
Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, an infant child, Mary Morstan Watson, and a dog.
Now, to a dedicated believer in the Johnlock Conspiracy, this scene of apparent domestic bliss in the Watson household might seem quite horrific. Mommy, daddy, baby, and dog, all out for a walk with their old bachelor friend. The anti-thesis of the Sherlock/John romance.
But to believers in the Doylock Conspiracy -- that Moffat and Gatiss are intent on infusing Sherlock with as much original Canon while creating new tales as they can -- the dog was a very exciting development.
Because he wasn't just a dog, he was a bloodhound. And a bloodhound in a story with Mary Morstan?
Toby.
While we saw a Sholto and a "The Sign of Three" last season, we never really saw Mary Morstan's tale played out: treasure, wooden-legged ex-convicts, pygmies, river chases . . . or "The Sign of Four."
Or the bloodhound Toby.
If Sherlock, John, and Mary made up "The Sign of Three," it would appear baby makes "Four," a fact many a Sherlockian stumbling across these setlock photos has already deduced.
Which doesn't really make it all that much of a spoiler, for the Sign of the Four fans among us. More like a natural development. But if the tremors that have erupted over that same little detail on Tumblr are any sign, we're in for a very interesting season ahead.
Especially if that infant turns out to be the new little person in the story . . . and Mary Morstan Watson thought "Tonga" would be a cool name for a baby.
Yikes! Get thee behind me, setlock!
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
Canonivore.
Maybe you knew this already, but out there somewhere in our human-proud world, you can actually buy lion meat. Lion stew meat, lion rib eye, lion porterhouse . . . well, when it's in stock.
And as a Sherlockian, I immediately thought of Sahara King.
Not that Sahara King didn't deserve to be eaten, especially by one Eugenia Ronder, but because he was, once all is said and done, a lion. And in the Canon.
We love our Sherlockian Canon. It's just so . . . tasty?
I've met plenty of people who like to sample the wines mentioned within the cases of Sherlock Holmes. And I've met those who sample the tobaccos, as well as, those who dine on meals as served up by Mrs. Hudson, Simpson's, and the odd inn. But the one Sherlockian I have yet to meet is the Canonivore: A Sherlockian who was attempting to eat their way through the entire Canon.
It doesn't mean they're not out there, of course.
Perhaps there is a truly obsessed fan who has tasted the likes of a Sahara King. Or one who found the restaurant that prepares cyanea capillata. A fan who long ago finished with trout, yams, pate de foie gras, carbuncle-stuffed goose, and all the other normal exotic foods of the Canon . . . who has moved on to everything else at all edible found within the pages of the sixty stories. One can easily envision them creating an "Eat the Canon!" checklist, looking something like:
___ Aniseed
___ Bird
___ Cinnamon
___ Coconut
___ Cow
___ Deer
___ Duck
. . . etc.
And if there aren't any active Canonivores out there currently, this is the perfect niche for that aspiring Sherlockian blogger or podcaster looking to carve out a niche for themselves, documenting their experiences in tracking and eating the entire Canon.
We're used to consuming literature through our eyes and even our ears, so why not take that next step?
Eat the Canon. Even the vegan version of that would be an accomplishment.
And as a Sherlockian, I immediately thought of Sahara King.
Not that Sahara King didn't deserve to be eaten, especially by one Eugenia Ronder, but because he was, once all is said and done, a lion. And in the Canon.
We love our Sherlockian Canon. It's just so . . . tasty?
I've met plenty of people who like to sample the wines mentioned within the cases of Sherlock Holmes. And I've met those who sample the tobaccos, as well as, those who dine on meals as served up by Mrs. Hudson, Simpson's, and the odd inn. But the one Sherlockian I have yet to meet is the Canonivore: A Sherlockian who was attempting to eat their way through the entire Canon.
It doesn't mean they're not out there, of course.
Perhaps there is a truly obsessed fan who has tasted the likes of a Sahara King. Or one who found the restaurant that prepares cyanea capillata. A fan who long ago finished with trout, yams, pate de foie gras, carbuncle-stuffed goose, and all the other normal exotic foods of the Canon . . . who has moved on to everything else at all edible found within the pages of the sixty stories. One can easily envision them creating an "Eat the Canon!" checklist, looking something like:
___ Aniseed
___ Bird
___ Cinnamon
___ Coconut
___ Cow
___ Deer
___ Duck
. . . etc.
And if there aren't any active Canonivores out there currently, this is the perfect niche for that aspiring Sherlockian blogger or podcaster looking to carve out a niche for themselves, documenting their experiences in tracking and eating the entire Canon.
We're used to consuming literature through our eyes and even our ears, so why not take that next step?
Eat the Canon. Even the vegan version of that would be an accomplishment.
Monday, April 25, 2016
"Setlock feels" exist. Cool.
One of my favorite things is to roll back the clock, reach back in time, and pull myself from the past forward to feel his wonderment at the world in which I now find myself.
I have a lovely time with that little trick of the mind. And tonight, after a long evening next to a bonfire, looking up at the stars and clouds together in a perfect spring sky, I came home feeling very good about the world. And then I saw the phrase "setlock feels."
And it got a little better.
The me from ten years ago would have been baffled by those words -- "setlock feels." He was busy trying to tie a local WWE Smackdown taping to something Sherlockian just for his weekly blog content. In his late forties, that version of me was still one of the younger people at many a Sherlockian event, which was a tad worrisome. And there were no "setlock feels."
Why? You know why.
There was no set. No Sherlockian productions of major note were being filmed in 2006, much less one exciting enough to get a Sherlock Holmes fan to track down where they were filming.
We had Porlock, yes, but that was just another Canonical character. Nobody was mashing up other words with "Sherlock" yet. No Johnlock, no Tunalock, and, again, no setlock.
And we definitely didn't have "feels" back in 2006. "Feels" is that kind of slang that evokes Clockwork Orange or street urchins or those kids from the classic Star Trek episode "Miri." That kind of slang that young people come up with. Young people. Because in 2006, we didn't have enough of those to rub two together and get slang.
Not a big fan of following setlock myself, as I'd rather wait and be surprised. (Though I'm sure playing the "puzzle out what's coming from visual clues" thing is some fun detectivework, and I kind of wish I had a separate brain to partake.) But, you know what?
Still a big fan of the fact that setlock is out there, and "setlock feels" is a thing. Even if it also makes me feel slightly like an old geezer who'll never fully get these kids today and their rappin' Hamilton. (Though I do get that -- the bits I've heard are pretty good.) Old geezers still get to be proud of the grandkids and happy to see them playing, even if they can't keep up any more.
And boy, is it hard to keep up these days!
I have a lovely time with that little trick of the mind. And tonight, after a long evening next to a bonfire, looking up at the stars and clouds together in a perfect spring sky, I came home feeling very good about the world. And then I saw the phrase "setlock feels."
And it got a little better.
The me from ten years ago would have been baffled by those words -- "setlock feels." He was busy trying to tie a local WWE Smackdown taping to something Sherlockian just for his weekly blog content. In his late forties, that version of me was still one of the younger people at many a Sherlockian event, which was a tad worrisome. And there were no "setlock feels."
Why? You know why.
There was no set. No Sherlockian productions of major note were being filmed in 2006, much less one exciting enough to get a Sherlock Holmes fan to track down where they were filming.
We had Porlock, yes, but that was just another Canonical character. Nobody was mashing up other words with "Sherlock" yet. No Johnlock, no Tunalock, and, again, no setlock.
And we definitely didn't have "feels" back in 2006. "Feels" is that kind of slang that evokes Clockwork Orange or street urchins or those kids from the classic Star Trek episode "Miri." That kind of slang that young people come up with. Young people. Because in 2006, we didn't have enough of those to rub two together and get slang.
Not a big fan of following setlock myself, as I'd rather wait and be surprised. (Though I'm sure playing the "puzzle out what's coming from visual clues" thing is some fun detectivework, and I kind of wish I had a separate brain to partake.) But, you know what?
Still a big fan of the fact that setlock is out there, and "setlock feels" is a thing. Even if it also makes me feel slightly like an old geezer who'll never fully get these kids today and their rappin' Hamilton. (Though I do get that -- the bits I've heard are pretty good.) Old geezers still get to be proud of the grandkids and happy to see them playing, even if they can't keep up any more.
And boy, is it hard to keep up these days!
Sunday, April 24, 2016
Okay, internet, here's your prince stuff.
Apparently there is a requirement on the web this week to write about things princely, and as I have gotten my official notification from the Web Authors Total Sherlockian Obligation Network that I must comply or lose my blogging license. So let's get this over with.
There was this time when Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were following a barrel down Prince's Street in The Sign of the Four. Watson got engaged after that. I don't know what kind of neighborhood Prince's Street was in, but Princetown? A whole town? Well, murderer's seem to escape from there, as Selden did in The Hound of the Baskervilles. Barrel's will lead you into bad places. Don't follow barrels.
There was a Crown Prince in "A Scandal in Bohemia," and he wore a mask and a deep blue cloak like a superhero, looking for a woman who had a picture of what was apparently his secret identity. One has to wonder if Crown Prince ever battled Prince of Calonna, or Shoscombe Prince whose super power seemed to be to turn into a horse, but maybe Prince's Skating Club was a place where they could all come together, skate, and work out their issues with women who had pictures of their secret identities since even Sherlock Holmes couldn't really help with that.
Anyway, they must have paid Sherlock Holmes well even though he couldn't help, because he often refers to getting "princely" money later on.
Don't follow barrels.
There was this time when Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were following a barrel down Prince's Street in The Sign of the Four. Watson got engaged after that. I don't know what kind of neighborhood Prince's Street was in, but Princetown? A whole town? Well, murderer's seem to escape from there, as Selden did in The Hound of the Baskervilles. Barrel's will lead you into bad places. Don't follow barrels.
There was a Crown Prince in "A Scandal in Bohemia," and he wore a mask and a deep blue cloak like a superhero, looking for a woman who had a picture of what was apparently his secret identity. One has to wonder if Crown Prince ever battled Prince of Calonna, or Shoscombe Prince whose super power seemed to be to turn into a horse, but maybe Prince's Skating Club was a place where they could all come together, skate, and work out their issues with women who had pictures of their secret identities since even Sherlock Holmes couldn't really help with that.
Anyway, they must have paid Sherlock Holmes well even though he couldn't help, because he often refers to getting "princely" money later on.
Don't follow barrels.
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