"IT'S A VERY PRETTY DIVERSITY OF OPINION."
 |
| Bradstreet had spread an ordnance map of the county out upon the seat. |
'Well, I have drawn my circle, and I only wish I knew at what point upon it the folk that we are in search of are to be found.'
'I think I could lay my finger on it,' said Holmes quietly.
'Really, now!' cried the inspector, 'you have formed your opinion! Come now, we shall see who agrees with you. I say south, for the country is more deserted there.'
'And I say east,' said my patient.
'I am for west,' remarked the plain-clothes man. 'There are several quiet little villages up there.'
'And I am for north,' said I; 'because there are no hills there, and our friend says that he did not notice the carriage go up any.'
'Come,' said the inspector, laughing; 'it's a very pretty diversity of opinion. We have boxed the compass among us. Who do you give your casting vote to?
'You are all wrong.'
'But we can't all be.'
'Oh, yes, you can. This is my point,' he placed his finger on the centre of the circle.
I've always loved the part of "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb" when those involved in the
search for the scene of the crime proposes a different direction to
travel. Each one of these good people have the same goal but they want
to go a different way to reach it--what a perfect depiction of the world
of Sherlockians.
Sherlockiana is made up of some very good people with a common goal (to enjoy and spread the love for Sherlock Holmes & Co.) but as we all know, the how to reach the goal is varied and sometimes hotly contested. I don't get into arguments with people about their ways of celebrating Holmes. If it makes you happy, go for it. I will be here in my little corner quietly going about it in my own way.
I have a short list of my unpopular opinions but I seldom mention them to anyone else. In the course of my Sherlockian interactions this week, I was reminded of two of them:
Unpopular opinion #1-- If talking about the Canonical Holmes and Watson of the latter part of the long 19th century, they should be referred to as Holmes and Watson.
The 19th century fellows being called Sherlock and John grates on my ears like the proverbial fingernails on a chalkboard. It is especially hard on my soul when I read fiction set in that era having Holmes and Watson calling one another by their given names. The 19th century fellows simply didn't do it.
In an essay I read this week the author switched from Holmes to Sherlock half way through the text. I'm sure the author didn't see anything wrong with it (obviously, it was distributed that way) but I would not be able write it. I enjoyed the Enola Holmes 2 movie recently and plan to watch it again but I actually yelled at the screen when Lord Tewkesbury called Holmes "Sherlock." In the era where the film is set, I don't believe it would have happened.
I listened to two very nice programs recently via Zoom meetings and in each program, the presenter always called Holmes "Sherlock" but always referred to Watson as "Watson." Why?
Maybe it is because "Sherlock Holmes" is used so many times in the Canon that we are comfortable using his first name, although if I remember correctly only two people call Holmes only by his first name in the Canon: Mycroft and Mr. Sherman from SIGN ("A friend of Mr. Sherlock is always welcome," said he.) Note that even here, Mr. precedes the Sherlock. In the other instances, it is always "Mr. Sherlock Holmes." Sometimes I think the reason the use of Sherlock rather than Holmes has become so common is because of the BBC series. Maybe.
Why doesn't really matter, just as it doesn't matter that I don't like it.
Unpopular opinion #2--A good Holmes and Watson story does not have to include what I think of as the *Five Golden Rings: Moriarty, Mycroft, Adler, Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson.
[*As in you sing the same line over and over in a slower and exaggerated voice, On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me five golden rings...]
Twice in the last week, I heard a writer say, "I had to get Adler in there somewhere, so I..." Why? Why did they have to get Adler in there somewhere? I know these are beloved characters but I'm kind of weary of them being in almost every single story. Sometimes it feels like product placement rather than a character necessary to move the story along in an entertaining way.
I do not write the Golden Five (beyond perhaps referring to one of them in an abstract way) as my own little push back against the practice. Of course I laugh at myself when I do it because nobody cares if I do it or I don't do it. Well, nobody except me. I've written only six Sherlockian pastiches. I plan to do four more. I may stop there. As much fun as they are to write, I may be ready to move on. (As I've gone on about way too often of late, I've become quite enamored with Gothic horror.)
When I first tried writing a Holmes and Watson pastiche I found it to be an excruciating process because I wanted to avoid the things that make me sad when I read them: too much reliance on the Golden Five, too many deerstalkers, too many dressing-gowns, too many street urchins, etc. I like H/W pastiche written in a traditional style (ala Father Knox) but I believe it can be done well without the over-used trappings.
My first attempt at writing a fiction piece inspired by the Holmes Canon wasn't a pastiche at all. It was a **short story for In The Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes. It wasn't as painstakingly difficult to write like the pastiches have been. I start a new pastiche tomorrow. I hope I can find the right balance between tradition and freshness.
I suppose I will have to follow Holmes's lead (again) and get to the center of things without wandering off in too many different directions.
[**I've included that first short story below.]
---------------------------------------------
Spring the
Wiser, A Memoir
"Lighthouses, my boy! Beacons of the future! Capsules, with hundreds of bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wiser, better England of the future."
Sherlock Holmes, "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty"
jacobjeers@blogspub.com
BUSTED
Dad was so mad tonight I thought I
might be writing Dear Diary on paper instead of blogging. I was certain
he would take my laptop away. He was the
kind of mad where he didn’t even say anything.
He just stared. Mom cried a
little and shook her head a lot. They
did that quiet thing where they tell you to go to your room and not come out
until they are ready to talk to you. I
wish they would yell instead. I tried to explain why I left the bike beside the
fence, but they wouldn’t listen. Doesn’t
matter anyway. I know I sounded
lame. Summer vacation started today and I’m
at home, in my room. Bike-less, and probably grounded for forever.
Posted by
Jacob Marsh 8:30 PM May 29, 2019 0 comments
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
So, grounded for two weeks, and my
bike will not be replaced until I’ve saved a fourth of the money to get a new
one. Dad and I have been saving for the
PS5—that money is going to the bike replacement too. I get to keep the laptop for blogging, but I
can’t play any games. Why didn’t I lock the stupid bike up?! I should erase that stupid. If mom reads this, I’ll be in trouble for
that too. I don’t care. This stinks.
Posted by Jacob Marsh 3 PM May 30, 2019 2
comments
NOW IT GETS WORSE
Grandma called tonight. She was like grandma always is, nice but
clueless. She told me to find something
to occupy my mind while I’m grounded; she suggested I read some Sherlock Holmes
short stories. She said she knows I’m
going to write novels when I’m grown (she said my blog proves it) and reading
lots of different kinds of books is good for that kind of work. Ridiculous. We were on FaceTime, so I didn’t
roll my eyes. Mom’s mad enough
already. Did I mention grandma is a
little weird? She is crazy when it comes to Sherlock Holmes. Yes, Sherlock Holmes. Nobody reads Sherlock Holmes.
Posted by
Jacob Marsh 9 PM May 30, 2019 8
comments
WORSE and WEIRDER
Grandma called again. She told me she had a dream I could find my
bike if I apply something called ‘The Musgrave Ritual’ to the problem of where
it is. How is this supposed to get my
stolen bike returned? She told me to use Sherlock Holmes’s methods. What is she
talking about?! I googled ‘The Musgrave Ritual’. The thing reads like this:
Whose was it?
His who is gone.
Who shall have it?
he who will come.
What was the month?
The sixth from the first.
Where was the sun?
Over the oak.
Where was the shadow?
Under the elm.
How was it stepped?
North by
ten and by ten, east by five and by five, south by two and by two, west by one
and by one, and so under.
What shall we give for it?
All that is ours.
Why should we give it?
For the sake of the trust.
What does it mean? I’ll read the story because I need grandma on
my side. She had Amazon deliver the
book. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Oh, yay. Like I couldn’t read it on-line.
Posted by Jacob Marsh 11 PM May 31, 2019 27
comments
RITUAL READING
Mom, who is still upset,
clarified. I’m not on-line except to
blog. I gave myself away with looking up
the ritual. I do need the book. I read
the story, twice, late last night—what else is there to do but read? After a
lot of blah, blah about messy rooms (grandma should note that I am already like
Sherlock Holmes in that respect) the ritual finally mattered. It is an old
riddle no one figured out for centuries which once decoded will supposedly lead
to a treasure. A smart guy figured it out, got himself killed trying to steal
it, and a woman, involved in the plot, went crazy and vanished. In the end, the treasure wasn’t what they
thought it would be, just some old coins and an old rusty crown. Not sure what
I’m supposed to do with it. I doubt Grandma, batty as she is sometimes, wants
me to get myself killed, go crazy, or vanish.
She said to use Sherlock Holmes methods and apply the ritual to the bike
theft. How? What methods? Argh. I’ll
read it again.
Posted by Jacob Marsh 11:30 PM June 1, 2019 45
comments
FOUND IT. NOW WHAT?
This is what Sherlock Holmes said
about his methods in the story: “You know my methods in such cases, Watson: I
put myself in the man's place, and having first gauged his intelligence, I try
to imagine how I should myself have proceeded under the same circumstances.”
This must be what Grandma is talking
about—putting myself in someone else’s place and imagining what to do
next. Imagining someone taking the bike
while it was leaning unlocked against the park fence doesn’t take a lot of brain
power. Without seeing who took it, and
with no way to know who was in the park that day, I don’t think I can find the
thief. I think I need to apply the
ritual to finding the bike, not finding the thief. I need to think like the person who solved
the ritual. In the story, the lines of the ritual were matched to specific
people, and specific places on the grounds of the estate in a certain month. Time
to take it apart line by line. The only
estate I have in this mystery is the park. I need a map.
Posted by Jacob Marsh 12:30 AM June 2, 2019 53
comments
THE BEGINNING—OBVIOUS
Whose was it? His who is gone. Who shall have it? He who will
come. What was the month? The sixth from the first.
No great stretch here. It
was mine. I am ‘gone’ from the
park. I’m grounded, remember? I shall
have it as soon as I can ‘come’ back to the park. The sixth month from the
first is June. Today is June 2. Duh. I guess I’m supposed to go back to the
park in June. I will be ungrounded, precluding any further disturbances, after
June 12. I have ten days to figure out
where in the park to look. I’m not allowed on the net, so I’ll have to draw a
map from memory. I’m not sure how to get
to the park on the 13th without a bike—sort of far to walk. Maybe I can talk mom into driving by then.
Will I ever not be 15 and finally get a driver’s license?!
Posted by Jacob Marsh 4:30
PM June 2, 2019 65
comments
THE MIDDLE, NOT SO OBVIOUS
Where was the sun? Over the oak. Where was the shadow? Under the
elm.
Sun. Oak. Shadow. Elm. There are so many trees in the park. How am I supposed to find this oak and that
elm? I’m only 15 and not a scientist
(yet), but I know the sunshine and any resulting shadows change all the
time. To measure something with the sun
and a shadow, I would need a specific day and a specific time. For a while today I wondered if grandma is
playing a trick on me. (I was mowing,
and it was hot, and I was mad.) Now that
I am cooled off, I know she wouldn’t. I’m missing something. What? The question pounds in my brain like a
hammer. I don’t know what to do now.
Posted by
Jacob Marsh 5 PM June 3, 2019 110
comments
STUCK IN THE MIDDLE
Wow—all the comments. Interesting to read but not much help in
solving my problem. I can roughly sketch
the map I need for marking off the steps in the next part of the ritual, and
then I’ll read the story again. In fact,
I’m going to read the entire book. I
can’t think of anything else to do. Does Sherlock Holmes have more than one
method?
Posted by Jacob Marsh 11 PM June 3, 2019 73
comments
STILL STUCK IN THE MIDDLE
Here followers—look at the map while I
read. Maybe one of you will have a comment that helps. Thanks for the funny and supportive
comments. The rest of you can get lost. By
the way, mom looked it up for me: The
park is 71 acres, has 1.2 miles of walking trails in the interior, and includes
many hundreds of trees in many varieties, including multiple oaks and
elms. Just freakin’ great.
Posted by Jacob Marsh 12:30AM June 4, 2019 80
comments
METHODS IN THE MIDDLE
I’ve read the twelve adventures in the
“Memoirs” and for sure Sherlock Holmes has more than one method. There are many
different references in the stories, but I remember these the most:
“See the value of imagination…we
imagined what might have happened, acted upon the supposition…”
“One true inference invariably
suggests others...”
“It is of the highest importance in
the art of detection to be able to recognise out of a number of facts which are
incidental and which vital.”
“…make a point of never having any
prejudices and of following docilely wherever fact may lead me…”
“…for nothing clears up a case so much
as stating it to another person…”
“To the logician all things should be
seen exactly as they are, and to under-estimate oneself is as much a departure
from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers.”
My favorite line from these twelve
stories is not exactly a method but I like the idea: “Art in the blood is
liable to take the strangest forms.”
Sherlock Holmes also said, “You know
my methods.” I do know some of
them. Now—I need to think, and then, I
need to state my case to another person.
I know dad will be up late tonight.
We may have some art in our blood.
Posted by Jacob Marsh 9 PM June 6, 2019 83
comments
LIGHT IN THE MIDDLE
Talked a long time with dad last
night. We decided I need to keep two
things in mind in order to solve the problem of the too many trees —
1-Holmes solves the mysteries because
he takes the time to look at little things and does not assume something is
exactly whatever someone else thinks it is.
In the story about the missing racehorse he is the only one who knew the
actual famous horse was standing right there unseen because someone put
some paint on the horse to make him look different.
2—The one time he followed an
assumption without thinking though other possibilities besides the most obvious,
he ended up with the wrong answer. (Really odd story about a mask in a window and
some confused people. I probably won’t
reread that one.)
I keep coming back to the horse. It
was still the horse, but it looked different, so no one noticed. What if the
oak and the elm look different than I expect them to look? I don’t think I need
to look at a hundred trees. What else in
the park is an oak and an elm?
Posted by Jacob Marsh 10 AM June 7, 2019 103
comments
ART IN THE BOOK
Hey—all of you in the comments asking
me about the guy who found the treasure, and the horse, check these out:
Mom looked
online to read about the origin of the book, and she found the original art!
Here is Bruton, the first man to solve The Musgrave Ritual, and Silver Blaze,
the famous racehorse.
And I have
one clue, maybe, about the oak. After
Mom read my last post, she suggested I call the Parks Department and ask about
the possibility of oak used in the park for projects or something special. Yes, call. On the phone. I was horrified but
I did it. The parks person seemed
surprised anyone my age was calling but she was very helpful. I recorded exactly what she said:
“A $1.5 million renovation project
transformed the former 4H building at Washington Park into a rustic lodge. The
renovation was completed using the wood from a stand of old oaks forced to come
down due to disease; the use of the ancient wood was very important in
establishing a link to local history within the final structure. Frontier Lodge was dedicated on September 10,
2000.”
BOOM. I have specific oak, not some
random tree among hundreds. Now, I need the sun, a shadow, and an elm. I shouldn’t say the sun because as I
still don’t have a date and time to measure a shadow, I am probably looking for
something else representing the sun. I
need to get into the park. As Sherlock
Holmes said at the beginning of ‘Silver Blaze’: “I am afraid, Watson, that I
shall have to go.”
Posted by
Jacob Marsh 9:48 PM June 8, 2019 186
comments
“THAT WAS THE CURIOUS INCIDENT”—Sherlock Holmes, Silver Blaze
It is Sunday, and although I’m still
grounded until Thursday, mom took me to the park today. She gave me a half hour to look around. I went directly to the Frontier building
where I saw a sign about the renovation and the oak. Certain I was in the right place, I spent all
my time trying to find anything that might relate to the sun, shadow, and
elm. I found nothing. Nothing. I went back to the car and told mom to go.
Mom backed the car out of the Frontier
parking lot and instead of returning south to the main gate, she turned west to
make the circular drive through the park.
We made the curve by the activity building and went south towards the
horse arena. I gritted my teeth a little
when I saw the horse arena ahead—I was so annoyed. Why did I let myself get carried
away because of some silly story about a horse?
I turned to look out the passenger window so I wouldn’t see any
horses.
And then I saw it. Yes, it. I saw the sun.
The large metal windchimes, featuring
a cascade of heavenly bodies, dangled off the overhang of the building I named
shed on my map. A larger gold metal orb,
clearly intended as the sun, served as the anchor above a smaller earth orb of
cobalt-tinted glass surrounded by silver metal stars. I yelled at mom to stop and I jumped out of
the car before she had it fully in park.
I could just reach the tin stars with my fingertips. I looked carefully at the shed (actually Park
Maintenance Storage according to the sign on the narrow door) and ran
my hands over its wooded edge. The shed is clad with the same oak as the
Frontier Building.
“I don’t believe it!” I heard mom say as she
came up behind me, reaching to touch the stars too. “Where is the shadow and
elm then?”
After several minutes of futile
looking, I stopped, pulled out my phone, and read the ritual again.
Where was the sun? Over the oak. Where was the shadow? Under the
elm.
“Mom!” I called as I watched her walk around the east picnic shelter
near the shed. “We have to think. The
Musgrave Ritual does not say the shadow and the elm are in the same place as
the sun over the oak. I’ve assumed we
were looking for the shadow of the oak landing under the elm. What if it isn’t? What if it is a shadow in a
different sense of the word? What if it
means to shadow, as in to follow something?”
“We were brought to this point for a reason,” she said. “The counting
steps follow finding the shadow and the elm, right? We must know where to begin
counting the steps. The spot to start counting must be near the sun and oak, or
there would be no reason to look for the sun and oak. The shadow and the elm
must be here somewhere. We can look for
a few more minutes and then it will be too dark. We’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
We looked a half hour more as the sunlight faded. Mom sat on a bench under the shelter and
called for me to join her. We were in
the dark.
Posted by Jacob Marsh 11 PM
June 9, 2019 203
comments
“ANY TRUTH IS BETTER THAN INFINITE
DOUBT.”—Sherlock Holmes, The Yellow Face
Mom and dad had to work today, so we
couldn’t get to the park until 5:30. Dad
brought us some sandwiches for dinner.
We ate under the picnic shelter near the shed, planning how we would
split up to look for anything that might hold the key. I gathered up our dinner trash and carried it
to the bin near the north east corner of the shelter. I dropped the trash, and,
as I turned, I saw something that stopped me in my tracks. A sign attached to the south side of the
Activity Building listed the names of the businesses and people who donated to
construct the facility. Number one on
the list, the Angel donor of $10,000 presented in larger letters than the
others, was none other than Elmhurst Electric. Shadow Box Art landed at number three on the
list with a donation of $1,000. Here,
then: the shadow under the elm. I
checked my phone—6:30 PM. Three hours until pitch dark. Time to start counting steps.
How was it stepped?
North by ten and by ten, east by five and by five, south by two
and by two, west by one and by one, and so under.
Should have been straight forward.
Simple, even.
10x10=100 north, 5x5=25 east, 2x2=4
south, 1x1=1 west.
Except it didn’t work. We tried it over and over. The 100 steps north put us at the northwest
end of the kiosk by the ballfield gate, 25 steps east put us at the northeast
edge of the kiosk, four steps south took us to the middle of the east side of
the kiosk, and one step west put our feet up against the side of the kiosk. There
was nothing there. Certainly, there was
no bike. The ground had not been disturbed.
Shaded by the massive trees, the ground was bare except for some
scattered branches and dead leaves. How
would we go “and so under?”
We gave up at 9:45. It was too dark to
see anything anyway. It is near midnight now and I see 200 comments on
yesterday’s post. I’m too tired to read
any comments tonight, and too frustrated to think about what to do
tomorrow. I’m going to sleep.
Posted by Jacob Marsh 11:47 PM
June 10, 2019 217 comments
“Because I made a blunder, my dear...”—Sherlock
Holmes, Silver Blaze
I said I was going to sleep at
midnight but instead I read the book again.
I discovered I had forgotten one of the methods I found the most interesting,
and posted here, only four days ago:
“It is of the highest importance in
the art of detection to be able to recognise out of a number of facts which are
incidental and which vital.” I missed a vital part of the steps, the “and by”,
as in “North by ten and by ten”.
Do you see it?
I read it as ten by ten as in multiplication. I did not consider the
“and”; it must mean addition. North for
ten steps plus north for ten steps. Our
new math:
10+10=20 north, 5+5=10 east, 2+2=4
south, 1+1=2 west.
I dug my badly sketched map out from
under my bed and penciled the 36 steps. Only a tiny portion of the map seems to matter
now.
If we begin at the donor’s sign, we go
forward the 20 steps, use 10 steps to cross the circular drive, go four steps turning
south, and then two steps back west towards the street. We should end in the
space between the west picnic shelter and barn. Across the street from the sun
chimes. I know there are some trees of various size
and kinds there, some large slate-looking squared-off rocks people often use as
benches, and some traffic barrier boulders in a line along the drive. We still must go “and so under.” How?
Nothing to do now but wait for mom and
dad to get home.
Posted by Jacob Marsh 1 PM June 11, 2019 240
comments
FOR THE SAKE OF THE TRUST
We found the spot immediately, but we
walked it off anyway. The steps led us
to the exact spot I sketched on the map.
No bicycle miraculously appeared for us to find. Our step count dead
ended into the middle of one of the slate benches. The ground around it had
obviously been recently disturbed. The
soil, mounded up in several places, loose in others, showed traces of raking
motions and footprints.
The heavy bench, easily 2’ x 4’,
required two people to move—just like the trap door in the cellar where Brunton
lost his life trying to find the Musgrave treasure. As dad and I lifted it up a few inches, mom
ran her hands underneath, scooping out a muslin drawstring bag from beneath it.
We eased the bench down and mom passed the
dull white bag, dirty and damp, to me. I
turned it over, astonished to find words calligraphed on it in a strong black
ink—
Jacob Marsh~For the Sake of the Trust
No treasure in the bag, of
course. In some way, I would have been disappointed
if there had been. The bag contained
only a letter to me—from grandma. The
letter said she trusted all along I would solve the ritual she created for me
because I have curiosity and intelligence, but it was not all for fun. She said
I needed to learn a few things. She said to call her and explain three things I
learned from our game. I handed the
letter to mom, who then passed it to dad.
“Well?” he said. “What are three things?”
I felt like it was one of those cheesy
teaching moments adults go on about, but I knew I had to do it. Our conversation, on speaker so mom and dad
could hear, was surprisingly short:
“Grandma, I learned three things. One: I need to pay attention to details
because little things can really matter, especially a little thing like putting
the lock on my bike. Two: Mom and dad
are on my side even when I mess up because they were with me on this even
though I had lost my bike. Three: I
shouldn’t discount something I’ve not tried, because Sherlock Holmes stories are
amazing.”
“Excellent. Now go home and have a naval treaty
moment,” she replied and then cut off the call.
I told mom and dad The Naval Treaty
is a story in the book about a stolen document.
Mom asked me what it could mean. “I
don’t know.” I said. “But I can hardly
wait to get home to find out.” Mom
laughed and reminded me I needed to go home anyway because I am still grounded
until the day after tomorrow.
Posted by Jacob Marsh 10:40 PM
June 11, 2019 267 comments
I TAKE UP MY PEN TO WRITE THESE LAST
WORDS—John Watson, The Final Problem
So many comments wanting to know what
I found at home. I’m leaving two clues here
and you can sort it out.
Clue one—a clipping from The Naval
Treaty wherein Holmes meets his client, Mr. Phelps, and Watson for
breakfast after Holmes has worked all night trying to retrieve the stolen
document:
“'Good! What are you going to take,
Mr. Phelps: curried fowl, eggs, or will you help yourself?' 'Thank you, I can
eat nothing,' said Phelps. 'Oh, come! Try the dish before you.' 'Thank you, I
would really rather not.' 'Well, then,' said Holmes, with a mischievous
twinkle, 'I suppose that you have no objection to helping me?' Phelps raised
the cover, and as he did so he uttered a scream, and sat there staring with a
face as white as the plate upon which he looked. Across the centre of it was
lying a little cylinder of blue-grey paper. He caught it up, devoured it with
his eyes, and then danced madly about the room, pressing it to his bosom and
shrieking out in his delight. Then he fell back into an arm-chair, so limp and
exhausted with his own emotions that we had to pour brandy down his throat to
keep him from fainting. 'There! there!' said Holmes, soothingly, patting him
upon the shoulder. 'It was too bad to spring it on you like this; but Watson
here will tell you that I never can resist a touch of the dramatic.'”
Clue two—grandma:
Grandma can never resist a touch of
the dramatic either and who knew she took Tai Chi classes in the park?
Posted by Jacob Marsh 8:40 AM
June 12, 2019 302 comments
