As usual, we started off with general Sherlockian news.
First off, if you haven't heard yet, we are having a Sherlock Holmes movie night on July 29! RSVP to parallelcasestl@gmail.com if you'd like to join us.
Speaking of film and movies, the group talked about the BBC America Sherlock Holmes marathon that would be airing the day after the meeting. Seasons one and two of BBC's Sherlock Holmes and Robert Downey Jr.'s first Sherlock Holmes movie were on tap. Also, the renewal of CBS's Elementary was discussed and its start date.
The Insight Theater of St. Louis will be performing "Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery" in October. You can order your tickets here.
The Noble Bachelors of St. Louis are sponsoring a Silver Blaze race at Fairmount Park in August.
Rob has a new Sherlockian book, The Criminal Mastermind of Baker Street coming out in November and has started a blog, Interesting Though Elementary with weekly posts.
And then it was time for the story! A quick thank you to Tassy, who took notes on the group discussion this month.
The group wondered about Hatherly. He admits that no one would miss him if he disappeared, goes to a mysterious meeting in the dead of night with a near stranger and when he senses a crime has been committed, brought it up with the presumed criminal! An odd man, indeed.
Proper medical care of a thumb amputation and wound dressing were discussed, as well as the Paget drawing above. After a demonstration for the group on how Hatherly's thumb would have been cut off, it was decided that the illustration did not match up with the hand/thumb position in the story.
The group felt that Holmes wasn't his best in this case and did very little detection or deduction, really only recognizing the significance of the horse being fresh rather than sweaty. And he failed to find the fleeing criminals: an odd-looking German, his wife and his large British friend driving in a carriage with, what we presume, was a big load of coining materials.
The story wasn't a favorite by anyone in the room, and people wondered what the support for it in About Sixty would be. (You'll have to buy your own copy of the book to find out!)
The similarities between this story and The Greek Interpreter were explored.
A thought was brought up that maybe this was an example of moralistic storytelling on Watson's part. Was this a cautionary tale about the sin of greed?
Before ending, the group talked about the high prevalence of counterfeiting rings, especially coining operations in 19th century England.
Our next meeting will be on September 9 at 1:00. Our next story will be The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor. If convenient, come at once!
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