An Elementary rerun: A Study in Not Getting Sued.

After yesterday's trip through five seasons of two Sherlock Holmes TV adaptations and one procedural that uses the name, it seemed time for a new visit back to one of those Sherlock Holmes productions that makes you wish the "How Did This Get Made?" podcast did TV shows. Yes, I'm going to return to that old favorite topic of Sherlock Peoria readers . . . at least if you go by number of comments . . . CBS's Elementary. And specifically, Elementary's own version of A Study in Scarlet, the first meeting of "Sherlock Holmes" and "Dr. Watson."

As the DVD case implies with the headline "NEW HOLMES. NEW WATSON. NEW YORK." Elementary takes its own road for bringing a Holmes and Watson together, which seemed to be made necessary by the fact that CBS originally tried to get rights to do an American Sherlock, the BBC show which had used the original Doyle version as its base. Abandoning that thought, CBS was left with coming up with something so completely different that there would be no room for accusations of copying the British show with their own adaptation of Holmes in the modern day. And that point is where things start to get interesting when you compare Elementary to the original Doyle novel.

John H. Watson, M.D., was a recovering war veteran when we first meet him, weak and wounded. Joan Watson, M.D., was a healthy jogger who gets up at 7 A.M. for a run in the morning and is mildly psychic enough to stop jogging just before her cell phone rings. While one might be distracted by the gender swap, there is more than one contrast at work here.

John H. Watson was killing time in a bar when he runs into an old acquaintance. Joan Watson is called by a rehab center who tells her the patient she was hired as sober companion to has escaped. Like the illness/health contrast, the morning drink versus addiction treatment aspect adds another layer of difference.

While their morning contacts take both Watsons to meet Sherlock Holmes for the first time, the Sherlocks they meet are opposing elements as well. John gets some warning as to the person is is about to encounter, Joan does not. John is introduced to a man who has been hard at work in the lab on a ground-breaking discovery in forensic science. Joan must introduce herself to a man who just finished a paid sexual liaison and is stimulating himself with multiple television channels at once.

Interestingly, both Sherlocks start their conversation with a non sequitur that requires later explanation. John's Sherlock is a reasoned observation about his Watson's past. Joan's Sherlock is a misleading re-enactment of a soap opera romantic monologue. (Joan's Sherlock's first "deduction" comes much later, as he observes she doesn't use drugs or alcohol without saying why.)

John's Sherlock finishes explaining the experiment he's been working on and then starts telling John what the downsides to having him for a room-mate might be, to see if John finds them objectionable. Joan's Sherlock tells her to not get comfortable and leads her off into the city, explaining why he must accept Joan's presence and complains of his boredom, even though he's fresh off of dominatrix sex and watching at least six TV channels at once.

John's Sherlock sets up an appointment with him to look at the Baker Street rooms they'll share rent on the next day. Joan's Sherlock explains that the brownstone she has met him in is "the shoddiest and least renovated" of the five residences his father owns in New York, that he can only live in if he accepts Joan's company.

John's Sherlock lets John wonder about his profession for a week or so before telling him what it is, and lets John accompany him on a case that very day. Joan was told of her Sherlock's previous avocation by his father, and then finds herself at the police department learning from her Sherlock that he has resumed that past-time in New York.

John's Sherlock doesn't introduce John to Gregson when they arrive for their first case, as Gregson is eager to have Holmes on the case and just seems to accept anyone Holmes brought with him isn't a problem. Joan's Sherlock introduces Joan to Gregson as his "valet" and Gregson doesn't want to allow Joan on to the crime scene. (Perhaps a modern necessity, like the latex gloves that the later pair put on.)

John's Sherlock had "established a considerable, though not very lucrative, connection" with Scotland Yard when John first met him. Joan's Sherlock worked with Gregson alongside Scotland Yard ten years before in London, taking no pay.

The crime scene and crimes investigated differ quite a bit. We already saw bits of Joan's first crime being committed at the start of the show, as is the procedural's typical format, and know it involved a woman in something flimsy being chased about her apartment. John's first case with Sherlock is the original-original Canon of Sherlock Holmes, of course. Joan's first case with her Sherlock is a complete pastiche. Both Watsons find some horror in observing their first corpse, John with the comment that death was never more fearsome, even with his war experience, than what he saw at the crime scene, and Joan with a gasp and turning away when the blood-pooled corpse is revealed.

John's Sherlock won't be keeping bees until his retirement decades later. Joan's Sherlock is already keeping bees on the roof of their brownstone, and the hive somehow drips honey into the hall below.

John's Sherlock immediately takes John from the crime scene to his first witness interview. Joan's Sherlock tells her he has no use for her, takes the batteries out of her alarm clock so she doesn't wake up (ironic, given how many times he will later try to take the place of that alarm clock), and heads off to investigate the case without her.

John's Sherlock makes himself welcomed by their first witness interviewed together by playing with a gold coin the witness hopes to gain. Joan's Sherlock badgers their first witness interviewed together until Joan orders him out of the room, then claims it was a ploy to make the witness more cooperative, which Joan doesn't quite believe (and she's right).

John's Sherlock goes off to a Norman-Neruda violin concert by himself mid-way through the investigation, possibly because Watson is too worn out from the morning's business to attend. Joan purchases opera tickets to celebrate what she thinks is the finish of their case, as her Sherlock's father mentioned he liked opera, but Sherlock refuses to go and Watson goes alone, later to have Sherlock embarassingly barge into the performance to discuss the case.

John's Sherlock, at a later time, will make painful deductions about a death in Watson's life from a watch, the death of his brother who died an alcoholic. Joan's Sherlock, during their first case, will make painful deductions about a death in Watson's life from a parking ticket, the death of her last surgery patient who died at her hands.

A pill container winds up as the key clue in both cases, and a ring and a ring-box parallel each other at one point as well. One would ascribe both more to happenstance coincidence rather than cunning intent, given the lack of more direct parallels.

John and Sherlock meet at a hospital, Joan and Sherlock seem to have a very sudden break-up at a hospital.

John's first murderer crashes through the window at Baker Street. Joan's first murderer has his car crashed into by her Sherlock driving Joan's car.

John's Sherlock has his Baker Street Irregulars do a little work for him. Joan's Sherlock winds up with Joan doing a little work for him while he's in jail.

And the murderer is caught with Gregson present in both cases.

During the Elementary premiere's initial run, I found it repulsive enough to be unable to be completely objective about it, but the passing of the years have dulled that impact. Tonight's analysis, which I think was a little more unemotionally done, reveals part of what struck me so wrong during that initial viewing years ago: Point by point, Elementary seemed to be trying so hard to be different from an adaptation of A Study in Scarlet that it very nearly creates an anti-Canon of Sherlock Holmes.

That said, one can never deal with Sherlock Holmes without looking dead-on at the character of Sherlock Holmes himself. His whole world revolves around him like the sun, as many a pasticheur who has tried to write a non-Holmes story has learned. Sherlock Holmes is a character whose entire being I have enjoyed and was attracted to read more about, every step of the way. On the other hand,  Elementary's "Mr. Elementary" (as I took to calling him way back when, unable to reconcile this person on the screen with the Sherlock Holmes I knew) is an unlikeable, fairly awful human being whom I've wanted to avoid from the start. Even when trying hard not to be a hater, that guy just gets under my skin, especially during his early, pain-in-the-ass-to-Joan days.

But hey, if he's your guy, look at all the parallels above and enjoy the lining up . . . even if there is a touch of anti-Canon there. These days, that's Canon to fans as well.

Just not this one. Enjoy!

Three Sherlocks, four seasons -- quality, quantity, or quagmires?

For a lark this morning, I decided to just run through the later TV series adaptations of the Sherlock Holmes stories (sorry, Ronald Howard) and compare character usage. My little lark was spurred by the fact that CBS's Elementary has been down to using Shinwell Johnson as their major Canonical draw card this season, a minor character pushed up to being a featured player. We all know who the major face cards in dealing Sherlock Holmes stories are, so I was curious to see how TV producers played them.

What follows are the Granada, BBC, and CBS hands that were dealt.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Irene Adler, Mycroft, Moriarty. (690 minutes)
Sherlock, Season One: Mycroft, Moriarty. (266 minutes)
Elementary, Season One: Irene Adler, Moriarty, Milverton. (1038 minutes)

Granada comes strongest out of the gate, but then they were attempting to be somewhat Canonical. Their major move -- pushing Mycroft up into Adventures, when he was a Memoirs guy in the original tales. BBC teased that Mycroft was Moriarty at first but kept both, but CBS flat out made Irene be Moriarty, blowing a second usable character on a trick non-reading viewers wouldn't even get.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes: Mycroft, Moriarty, Mary Morstan, Hound. (450 minutes)
Sherlock, Season Two: Irene Adler, Mycroft, Moriarty, Hound. (265 minutes)
Elementary, Season Two: Mycroft, Moriarty. (1031 minutes)

Both Granada and BBC seem to see that Mycroft is worth keeping around, while CBS brings in a strangely pale in-name-only Mycroft for season two. The Hound of the Baskervilles is also a definite second-season go-to for both British incarnations once Sherlock is established, while CBS decides to hold that card. Moriarty, however, is going strong in second seasons. (Note: I included Moriarty whenever his or her face actually appeared. Video or flashbacks count. Letters don't.)

The Case-book of Sherlock Holmes: Milverton, Kitty Winter, Shinwell Johnson. (390 minutes)
Sherlock, Season Three: Mycroft, Moriarty, Mary Morstan, Milver-nussen. (262 minutes)
Elementary, Season Three: Kitty Winter. (1017 minutes.)

Once you've exhausted Moriarty, Milverton is definitely your next play. If you've exhausted Milverton . . . well, player's choice. CBS decided on Gruner, but he was mainly backstory for Kitty Winter being promoted to a major role. BBC was still hanging tightly on to Mycroft and promoting Mary Morstan to a major role, even before her Canonical case comes up.

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: Mycroft, Culverton Smith. (303 minutes?)
Sherlock, Christmas Special: Mycroft, Mary Morstan, Ricoletti's abominable wife. (90 minutes.)

Elementary, Season Four: The Hound of the Baskervilles, Morland. (1032-ish.)

Third seasons definitely seem to be where the wheels come off the Hansom cab. Granada had Mycroft starring in an episode (due to a Sherlock star illness) and pastiched things up a bit to stretch the stories, BBC could only pull a Christmas special fantasy based on a Canonically untold tale, and CBS made up a Moriarty-ish father for Sherlock to make up for losing their Moriarty star to a major HBO series . . . and finally got to the Hound.

The Unmade Episodes of Sherlock Holmes: Nobody. (0 minutes)
Sherlock, Season Four: Mycroft, Moriarty, Mary Morstan, Culverton Smith. (265-ish?)
Elementary, Season Five: Shinwell Johnson. (1032-ish?)

And then comes the fifth season. (And yes, I counted that Christmas special as a season, because a case could well be made.) Fifth seasons are the uncharted country of TV Sherlocks. In the 1950s, Ronald Howard only made it to one season. In the 1980s, Jeremy Brett made it to four. CBS, keeping to their standard procedural format, has now showed that they could keep going indefinitely, if they promote one Canonical character per year as they did with Shinwell Johnson. And BBC looks to make the Sherlock-John-Mycroft-Mary soap opera their driver, with previews featuring Mrs. Hudson calling Mycroft a reptile spelling ominous things for the happy family dog-walking stills we've seen all over the web.

Charting uses of Scotland Yard officers, Mrs. (or Ms.) Hudson, Watson's career path, and drug use in the assorted shows could also be an interesting run -- the fact that we now have three television story cycles to compare makes for available Holmes fan discussion points like never before. And since like inspires like (and I've ignored non-US/UK shows), there's sure to be more on the horizon to add to that discussion. (Even now, I'm dying to find a way to break the Rathbone movies into seasons to see how they line up with the ones above.)

So much entertainment value in Sherlock Holmes, though, no matter how you deal the cards.

"Bacon" my way to Sherlock Holmes.

More than one Sherlockian I know likes to play "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" with Sherlock Holmes, a parlor game where you connect any given actor to an actor that has played Sherlock Holmes via their movie co-stars.

Here's an example from Don Hobbs's yearly attempt to connect Oscar nominees to Holmes from 2006: "Heath Ledger is up for Brokeback Mountain. In the film A Knight's Tale, that also starred Mr. Ledger, James Purefoy portrays Sir Thomas Colville/Edward, the Black Prince of Wales and he was James McCarthy in the Granada series Boscombe Valley Mystery."

This year, however, my love of comic books has taken that little game an entirely different direction, as I found myself connected to Mr. Sherlock Holmes himself in many degrees less than six.

It all starts with a couple of pictures.

Over the course of the past twelve months, I somehow managed to see magicians Penn and Teller on three separate occasions. And since those generous fellows always kindly do a meet-and-greet at the end of every show, I had the chance to get my picture taken with them. Simple enough.

And then came the eleventh issue of a comic book called Spiderman/Deadpool, in which Penn and Teller switch partners with Spiderman and Deadpool. "AH-HA!" I thought.

Teller teams up with Spiderman, who teamed up with Batman in a 1995 comic book mini-series called Spiderman and Batman: Disordered Minds. Batman and Sherlock Holmes have teamed up a few times in comics, and even had a rap battle on YouTube. So with a few simple comic books, I now could connect myself to Sherlock Holmes himself with only a couple degrees of separation.

That number shrank even further when I then remembered Deadpool Killustrated issue number 4, in which Deadpool tried to kill Sherlock Holmes. Since Penn Jillette teamed up with Deadpool in the same Spiderman/Deadpool issue, and I had met Penn on a couple of occasions now, the Sherlock/Deadpool/Penn/Keefauver chain eliminated on extra link.

With both comic books and magicians about anything is possible, so it shouldn't have surprised me that putting the two together would create a cosmic connection to our old friend Sherlock Holmes. And as great as it is that an actor can be connected to another actor who played Sherlock, I think I'd rather just link up to the real thing.

Black Friday and some easy Sherlock Holmes deals.

"As to money, well, so far as a fiver, or even a tenner, goes, you can always look to me."

-- Godfrey Staunton's skinflint uncle

The topic of money comes up a lot in the Sherlock Holmes stories. While love or vengeance may be much sexier motivations and stir the blood more, the ebb and flow of money motivates more action in the tales than possibly anything else. Even the love stories of the Canon, be it John Watson and Mary Morstan or Mary Sutherland and Hosmer Angel, all have a strong influence of financial status to them. But I don't think we've ever seen the subject of money come up in casual Sherlockian dealings quite so much as we do these days . . . not just to buy the more expensive collectible, but just to take a chunk of your money and give it to someone or something for Sherlockian reasons.

As it's Black Friday, the ridiculous day of consumer money-moving anyway, it seemed like the perfect spot to review where you might pour some cash if you don't feel like spending it on what will inevitably be someone's garage sale items a summer or two down the line.

First, the oldest of Sherlockian spots to donate to, given a GoFundMe makeover this year, the John H. Watson Fund. Established by the Baker Street Irregulars some decades ago to help club members anonymously help fellow Sherlockians whose attendance at the annual Sherlock Holmes birthday dinner in New York was impaired by cash flow issues. Since that time, the fund annually expends itself to help all it can, and needs replenished, as the costs of meeting other Sherlockians in the largest city in America are not cheap. 'Tis a fine sort of blind camaraderie which inspires this one.

Second, and also on GoFundMe, is the newest item on this list -- a benefit to help Sherlock Seattle settle its bills from last year's con. An unexpectedly large drop in attendance for a con that has tried to go all out to make a great weekend for its attendees hit them hard last year, and Sherlock Seattle still has great potential as an ongoing center for annual Sherlock fan fun in the years ahead. There is a measure of both appreciation and hope for the future to this one.

Third, just because it's an old favorite of mine, is the Friends of the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota. The U of M Libraries has created perhaps the finest non-private repository of Sherlock Holmes history and artifacts on Earth, and I am not being hyperbolic in the slightest. If you ever get the chance to attend one of their conferences, or just arrange a visit to the collection, you can encounter Sherlock Holmes in a way you will nowhere else, and the possibilities for research abound. There is no more solid investment in our Sherlockian future than the Friends of the Sherlock Holmes Collections at U of M.

Fourth, since we're on the topic of university collections, is the Baker Street Irregulars Trust. Geared more specifically toward America's oldest Sherlock Holmes fan club's history and the documentation of its historic membership and doings, this Harvard archive has already made a good number of the Baker Street Irregulars' documents available online, and has Irregulars working toward adding to the paper parts with oral histories. The Trust keeps a window open to a very special part of our Sherlockian past, and offers the opportunity to help that cause.

Fifth, there are specific Sherlockian services one can support these days, as in podcasts! "I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere" is on Patreon. The Baker Street Babes take direct PayPal donations. The Three Patch Podcast has a Paypal "Donate" button as well. While you can listen to any number of podcasts for free these days, with hosts happy just to have your listening, microphones and such still cost money and showing artists (because truly, podcasters are recording artists) you appreciate them with a few bucks on a regular basis can be a real "feel good" way of literally giving back to someone who gives you something you enjoy.

Sixth, and not to be forgotten, is the Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection who support the Toronto Public Library. If I wasn't ballyhooing the University of Minnesota collection as I did above, I'd be writing about this one first. The Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at the Toronto Public Library is just as much a North American pilgrimage site for a diehard Sherlockian as the Minneapolis one. You never know what amazing thing you'll see there, and their years of solid Sherlockian work makes them a solid investment in the future of Sherlockiana, as I said about their American cousin.

There are so many places one can be a Sherlockian angel to that I'm sure to be missing some very important ones here, and new ones spring up all the time. Support your favorite journals, writers, artists, etc. by picking up their output, of course, but when you want to just put some goodwill out there for Sherlockian culture itself with no personal return, we have some great places to do just that.

In fact, when you're making out your list of Christmas gifts to give this year, putting a few (or all) of the above on that list, if you've got the free cash to donate, is some giving that is about as stress-free as you can make it. 

Pilgrims of the Canon . . . the choice!

One of the best things about the American art of Thanksgiving is that the requirements are very few. Cook a meal, eat a meal. Some overly sentimental sort might ask for everyone to state something they're thankful for to put some kind of seriousness to the event, but therein lies a dangerous path to the fact we're celebrating a kindly act from indigenous peoples who later got seriously screwed over. Better to just cook the food and eat the food.

But if you want to go with pilgrims and are truly Sherlockian, you've got one of two ways to go . . .

"Pale-faced, meek-looking women; strong, laughing chidren; and anxious, earnest-eyed men" -- the great Mormon pilgrimage that crossed John Ferrier's path in his time of need, shouting "Forward! On, on to Zion!"

Or . . .

"A cargo of Malay pilgrims . . . a rum crowd" who Jonathan Small and Tonga settled in with on the way to Jiddah, a Saudi Arabian port on the red sea. "They had one very good quality; they let you alone and asked no questions."

So as you gather with family and friends this Thanksgiving, you can go one of two ways as a devout Sherlockian who lives their life by Canonical example: Religious fervor on the topic of your choice or just leave everyone alone and ask no questions.

Two completely opposite approaches, but you'll note in those passages from the first two Holmes novels, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, both groups of pilgrims are inclusive and take in a pair of mismatched travelers for the journey ahead. And that is the best lesson to take away. No matter what the eventual outcome of your relationship with those you make your passage of the holiday with today, being a true pilgrim is accepting the travelers who are with you on your journey.

Because a happy (?) Black Friday awaits us all tomorrow in any case. Sales on Black Peter. Black Giorgiano, a Blackheath rugby player, the Black Swan Hotel . . . or maybe those just start later this afternoon. But for now, as wacky ol' John Wayne would say, have a good day, pilgrims.

Two winter's nights with a story from Sherlock Holmes.

It's the 1880s. Nothing is on television, because television doesn't exist. No smartphone, no laptop, no endless internet of divertissement.

On a cold winter's night, you sit beside the fireplace with the rest of the household, doing whatever small task the lighting and your skillset allows.

If you're Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, such a night could mean one thing: story time.

There are two little biographical sketches in Watson's writings about Sherlock Holmes that have nothing at all to do with a case at hand, and we find them in the opening paragraphs of "The Gloria Scott" and "The Musgrave Ritual." Both are set on a winter's night at Baker Street, and one can easily surmise that the scene in "Musgrave Ritual" comes first.

Sherlock Holmes has finished pasting clippings into his commonplace book of compiled data for future reference on cases, and John has suggested that Sherlock start cleaning up all the loose papers that are stacked about the room. Holmes then drags out a large tin box to start putting the documents into and discovers the souvenirs that lead him to a reminiscence about the Musgraves and their ritual.

It is easy to see this clean-up going into a second evening, when Sherlock Holmes stops to tell John H. Watson about a second set of papers he has come across, going to a drawer to pull out a souvenir whose importance is special enough that it's not kept in the tin box with the Musgrave trinkets. And thus begins the tale of the secret survivors of the sinking of the Gloria Scott.

When did this evenings take place?

Before Holmes goes missing in 1891, to be sure. Before Watson moved out in 1889, also a pretty definite deduction. Watson has already made a start to collecting his own write-ups of Holmes's cases, as evidenced by Holmes's wrap-up of "Gloria Scott" with the words "Those are the facts of the case, Doctor, and if they are of any use to your collection, I am sure that they are very heartily at your service," as well as Watson's reference to "these incoherent memoirs" in "Musgrave."

If Watson still considers his memoirs "incoherent," he plainly hasn't had the validation of a literary agent or publication yet, which puts the winter in question prior to 1887. And yet both Watson and Holmes seem to be pretty invested in the idea of Watson as biographer, like he's been taking a lot of notes. And Watson's mention that Holmes files his documents "only once in every year or two," if taken similarly as a thought of that period, means he had been with Holmes a few years.

Thus the winter of 1886 seems, perhaps, the most likely time for both "The Gloria Scott" and "The Musgrave Ritual" to be an evening's entertainment for Holmes to occupy Watson with. They are fascinating stories in that neither of them is actually told by Watson . . . he just writes the stories of Sherlock Holmes telling him the stories. One could almost imagine Watson intending to do an entire volume of tales Sherlock Holmes related to him over several winter nights in Baker Street, only to have real investigations come along that were much more engaging.

But it is those two stories that really give The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes its title, and give us a window into a completely different sort of Canon that might have been. For as much as we talk about finding Watson's tin dispatch box for entertainment value, that larger tin box that Sherlock Holmes drags out of his bedroom in the opening of "Musgrave Ritual" would be the true treasure trove for the Sherlockian scholar.

And if you also had Sherlock Holmes to narrate the tales of what was in it, as Watson did on cold winter nights by the fire . . . what Sherlockian could ask for anything more?

Seventeen years, just like the seventeen steps to 221B Baker Street.

Revisiting the entire Canon of Sherlock Holmes, as one does reading the appreciative essays of About Sixty, one gets reminded of some pretty wonderful passages of the Watsonian narrative. And one key piece lies at the beginning of the little tale called "The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger":

"When one considers that Mr. Sherlock Holmes was in active practice for twenty-three years, and that during seventeen of these I was allowed to co-operate with him and keep notes of his doings . . ."

A very interesting passage in many ways.

First, seventeen years of Holmes and Watson working together.

Of January 1903, Holmes writes in "Blanched Soldier" that, "The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife . . . " which follows Watson's statement that "Creeping Man" in September of 1902 was "one of the very last cases handled by Holmes before his retirement from practice."

So we know from Holmes's return in "Empty House" and the following tales that 1894 through 1902 were eight of the years that Holmes and Watson worked together. The nine that remain?

Well, we know the first run definitely came to a close in May of 1891. And we've got nine years left to play with. A straight calculation would put May of 1882 as the time the Holmes started allowing Watson to keep notes of his cases. And that fits in with the bulk of Watson's case writings, that, for the most part, are dated 1887 forward, with one set in 1883.

That one, which is definitely included in "my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes," as Watson writes in its opening, is "The Adventure of the Speckled Band." He also writes that it occurred "early in April in the year '83."

So we are left with an eight year span between 1883 and 1891, where Watson took notes of seventy-odd cases . . . leaving us to assume there was one year when Watson was not allowed to "keep notes of his doings" as mentioned in "Veiled Lodger," but still "studied the methods," as stated in "Speckled Band."

But just because Watson wasn't specifically keeping notes of Holmes's doings during that period does not meant that notes weren't being kept. Recall the subtitle of A Study in Scarlet which reads "Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D." Pre-1893, Watson was just keeping notes for his own auto-biography.

June of 1889 through May of 1891 could be the two missing years. as Watson is married and in private practice, and the one case that definitely takes place in that period is "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League," in which Watson is only stopping by Baker Street and actually tells Holmes he'll wait in the next room until Holmes is done with the client.

So the seventeen years of prime Holmes and Watson partnership roughly 1882 to 1891 and 1894 to 1902 . . . and then four years of Holmes operating solo before that, indicating an 1878 start on Montague Street.

It's a fun little mental exercise to work through, stumbling through a few bad calculations and the occasional little side-jaunt into other bits of Watson's writings. So many Sherlockians have worked through the above since the 1930s, but it doesn't take away from the fun of doing it yourself, if you're of that sort of mind. Hope I didn't spoil it for you with this little walk-through, but this, of course, is just the start . . . as anyone with a true mind for chronology knows.

And anyone with that sort of mind, well, they're already picking this essay apart in any case. The only problem is, once you start focusing on the numbers, you start skipping the rest of it -- I was actually intending to write this blog about that weird phrase "allowed to co-operate" and what it said about the relationship between Holmes and Watson. What about the years Watson wasn't allowed to cooperate? What was going on there?

Well, since I wasted all this time on numbers . . . whoops.