January Meeting Recap and an Announcement

Our January meeting yesterday continued The Parallel Case's streak of great meetings!  Regulars Rob, Randy, Nellie, Joe, Ed, Paul, Peter and Stacey were joined by new members Adam and Cathy as well as a visit from one of St. Charles friends, Andrew.  Our meeting room was at max capacity!

Before we started our discussion of The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, we started with Sherlockian news as usual.  And this month, we had a big announcement!

The Parallel Case of St. Louis is proud to announce our new Sherlockian conference, Holmes in the Heartland!  Mark your calendars for the weekend of August 10-12 and plan on spending a weekend in St. Louis to enjoy everything from blues, BBQ, tea and history all while learning about Sherlock Holmes from local and visiting speakers!

Registration for our conference will open in May, and more news will be released soon.  But mark your calendars, and come at once if convenient!

Other news items were discussed after we had our usual giveaways that included bookmarks, books and comics this month.  Joe filled everyone in on the events of the BSI Birthday weekend in New York last weekend and all of the Sherlockian activities there.

New media interpretations of Sherlock Holmes were discussed, including Sherlock Gnomes, opening on March 23 and the Burger King toys available with the movie,

the announcement of the Enola Holmes movie series starring Millie Bobby Brown from Stranger Things,

HBO Asia's new take on the classic stories with Miss Sherlock,

and Elementary's return on April 30.

Randy discussed the upcoming Noble Bachelors of St. Louis event at the St. Louis Public Library next month.  If you are interested in attending, please contact him this week.

Andrew gave a quick recap of the previous night's Harpooners of the Sea Unicorn meeting, and announced that their next meeting will be on February 16.

Rob promoted his blog, Interesting Though Elementary, and encouraged everyone to join him in reading as much of the Canon as they can in 2018.

We closed out the news section announcing the next meeting date for March, and found out that half of the people in the room couldn't make it!  So, our next meeting has been moved to March 3 at 1:00. 

Please note the change and plan to join us then!

It was then time to get into the story!  COPP starts off with Holmes lamenting there's nothing to do and how bored he is, muttering the famous line, "Crime is common.  Logic is rare."  We noted it was nice that he didn't mention cocaine with this bout of boredom, though.  The story also gives us call backs to SCAN, IDEN, TWIS, NOBL, and BLUE. 

Violet Hunter shows up to ask Holmes' advice and his crabbiness has completely disappeared by the end of her introduction.  Violet's story led to an insightful discussion on the importance of long hair to women in Victorian times.  Long, luscious hair was seen as a sign of status and good health, and although hairstyles are more diverse today, women with short hair were generally considered to have something wrong with them in Holmes' day.

Violet's story also leads Holmes to muse twice that a sister of his would never accepted such a situation, a line that would launch thousands of speculations about the great detectives, family tree.  And as he frets over Violet's predicament, we get another famous line, "Data! Data! Data! I can't make bricks without clay!"

Once Holmes and Watson are summoned to visit Miss Hunter at the Copper Beeches, we are treated to Doyle's masterful scene setting as our two heroes travel by train.  Doyle paints a beautiful countryside that Watson enjoys, only to have Holmes bring him back to earth by stating that the country is worse that even the most vile alleys in London. 

This led to a good discussion about how Holmes views the world.  He has seen too many crimes and behavior to appreciate a plaintive scene.  His demeanor is one that can see many hidden aspects that the average person wouldn't pick up on.  We discussed how all of us have our own form of that.  Former firefighters look at houses as possible dangers, IRS agents view money and numbers differently than most folks, and teachers see kids as the type of students they would be in a classroom.

Doyle's use of imagery was also compared to Charlotte Bronte's and other Victorian writers.  Nature is used to set the scene that everything is great, when behind the walls of manor houses, drama and intrigue unfold.  This method is often employed in Gothic novels.

Once Holmes and Watson meet up with Miss Hunter, we noted how her characterization of the master of the house, Rucastle, and the married servants, the Tollers, were a great ploy to lull the reader into suspecting something other than the truth.  Rucastle is the classic con artist, asking for one thing, and then one more thing, and just one more thing, until he has pecked away and gotten the whole situation that he could never ask for up front. 

Although Violet spends a lot of time talking about Rucastle and the Tollers, Holmes has solved the case by paying close attention to what Violet says about their son, and announcing that someone has been imprisoned in the house.  This led us to appreciated Holmes' early use of psychology in his detection and we noted how Doyle was always on the cutting edge of detection methods, whether it was psychology, fingerprints, or microscopes.

Holmes, Watson, and Miss Hunter go to rescue the trapped person, only to find out that she, Rucastle's daughter, has already escaped with the help of the Tollers.  Discussing the ramifications of Rucastle imprisoning his own daughter led to a long discussion about inheritance crimes, the lack of legal protection for women in financial matters, brain fever, and the ability to imprison your own family members for a myriad of reasons until fairly recently.  Although Jephro Rucastle may have been a despicable person, we weren't sure if he would've been able to have been convicted of a crime.

But Rucastle does try to stop Holmes and Watson by letting loose his dog, Carlo, which we said is probably the most abused dog in the entire Canon.  Nellie pointed out that COPP has many similarities to The Hound of the Baskervilles, not just the large dog, and we talked about if Doyle had this story in the back of his mind as he created HOUN.

In the end, everyone except for Rucastle and his wife live happily ever after.  Watson hoped that Holmes would stay interested in Violet Hunter, but to Watson's disappointment, Holmes is back to his focus on crime.

Thanks again to everyone who came out.  There was a lot of great discussion from everyone there and we hope to see you at our next meeting on March 3 to discuss Silver Blaze!

November Meeting Recap

We had a BIG meeting this month!  News of a big event later in the post.  We had seven people in attendance: Rob, Paul, Mary, Stacey, Tassy, Steve and Nellie.

Last weekend was our last meeting of 2017, so it was time to map out next year's meeting schedule.  Please mark your calendars and plan to join us for the following dates:

January 20, The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
March 10, Silver Blaze
May 12, The Adventure of the Cardboard Box
July 21, The Adventure of the Yellow Face
September 8, The Adventure of the Stockbroker's Clerk
November 10, The Adventure of the Gloria Scott

As usual, all meetings are on Saturday afternoons and will be at the Schafly branch of the St. Louis Public Library from 1:00-3:00.

Once that was figured out, Mary brought us up to date on the library collection of Sherlockian materials and asked for feedback on a dedication.  It was decided unanimously that instead of a simple evening for the dedication, we would like to make a whole weekend out of it.

So the planning began.

We spent over half of our meeting throwing around ideas and discussing logistics for a big weekend in St. Louis to celebrate Sherlock Holmes and dedicate the library collection.  Once we are ready to announce our plans, you can bet it will be right here on our blog first!  If you would like to be part of the planning process, please email Rob at robertanunn@gmail.com to be added to the email list discussing the project.

Moving on from there, we discussed a few other items in the news: 

A trailer for the new movie Sherlock Gnomes is out and hopes to introduce kids to the great detective, even if it's not the classic character most of us are used to.

We discussed Insight Theatre Company's performance of Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery.  Everyone that saw the show during it's run really enjoyed it.

Rob's book, The Criminal Mastermind of Baker Street, is now available on Amazon.

The Harpooners of the Sea Unicorn had their monthly meeting the previous night.  Their next meeting will be on December 15.

Speaking of the Harpooners, The Parallel Case and The Harpooners now have bookmarks.  One side for each society.  If you would like your own bookmark, join us at our next meeting!

The Noble Bachelors of St. Louis are in the planning stages of their annual dinner.  Details will be out soon.

After we had our book giveaways, it was finally time to talk about The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet!

Alexander Holder makes quite an entrance to 221B Baker Street.  After his lengthy story is told to Holmes and Watson, we discussed that it probably wouldn't be too hard to discern who his client is.  Everyone seemed to agree that Prince Edward's history made him a prime candidate for this role.

Speaking of the royal client, what person thinks it's okay to use public property as collateral for a private loan?

Watson once again pays close attention to the young lady in the story.  Mary is described in detail, but even Watson's description of the lady couldn't save her from the group's negative opinion of her or her conduct in this story.

And speaking of Mary, as well as her cousin, why would Holder tell these two kids about the precious collateral in his home?  Holder just makes one poor decision after another in this story.  This led to a discussion on who was the less intelligent client: Holder or Jabez Wilson in The Red-Headed League.

We also found it interesting that Holmes can bend a steel fireplace poker back into shape but couldn't twist the coronet into shape.

Once Holmes and Watson return to Baker Street, Holmes "hastened upstairs."  This led to a discussion about the layout of the Baker Street rooms.

After that, Holmes then departs and essentially solves everything outside the purview of the reader.  We found this to be a dissatisfying way of telling the story.

But, to make up for the lack of investigation the reader gets to see, we were treated with Holmes sharing his maxim, "Once you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

We wrapped up our discussion with talking about the coronet and Holder's loan on it.  The crown would have been valued at $250,000 in 1880, and 6 million dollars today.  You could see why Holder was so upset when it was lost and damaged. 

But some questions were left hanging in the air.  How did the coronet get repaired?  And what was the fallout for Holder and his business after this was all over?  Surely, both parties in the loan transaction were worse for wear after this event!

We also talked about Brad Keefauver's post about Mary Holder and her gentleman friend.  It was a conversation starter for sure!

Thanks to everyone for a great 2017!  We have had some great stories to read and some even better discussions around them!  Our next meeting will be on Saturday, January 20 at 1:00 to discuss The Adventure of the Copper Beeches.  Come at once if convenient!

August Meeting Recap

This past weekend we had our latest meeting to discuss "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor."  It was another great turnout, so much so that we are moving meeting rooms at the library!  Starting next month, our meetings will be held in the Meeting Room instead of the Conference Room we've been using for so long.

Once we had enough chairs for everyone in attendance (Rob, Mary, Steve, Elaine, Pris, Rick, Stacey, Ed, Srini, Paul & Randy), we started off with new topics.  Randy gave us a recap of the Silver Blaze event held at Fairmount Race Track last month, raising over $500 for the Champ assistance dogs foundation.

Mary updated us on the St. Louis Sherlockian Collection being curated in the Rare Books Room at the main library branch.  Legal paperwork is in process while the materials are continuing to be inventoried.  The library and some Sherlockians are compiling a list of materials that would be useful donations.  The current timetable allows for a dedication in January or February of 2018.

Rob gave a quick recap of the Nerve and Knowledge symposium that he and Joe attended earlier in the month, put on by the Illustrious Clients of Indianapolis.

There was an extended discussion about the new Sherlockian history book out, From Holmes to Sherlock by Mattias Bostrom.

The Harpooners of the Sea Unicorn meet this Friday in St. Charles.

The Will Ferrell movie, "Holmes and Watson" will premiere on November 9.

CBS's "Elementary" will return in January of 2018.

St. Louis's Insight Theater Company will be performing "Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery" October 12-29.  Tickets are on sale now for performances.

Rob announced that his book, "The Criminal Mastermind of Baker Street" was available and gave a synopsis of the book.

The giveaways this month were some great ones!  They were "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes," "The Best Horror Stories of Arthur Conan Doyle," "The Seven Per-Cent Solution," and "The Sherlock Holmes Encyclopedia."

The history of Sherlockian society pins was discussed and the possibility of new pins for The Parallel Case or a commemorative coin featuring all four St. Louis societies was discussed.  Would anyone be interested in such items?  Please let us know.

Since this month's story was The Noble Bachelor, Mary gave us a brief history of our sister society, The Noble Bachelors of St. Louis.  Randy Getz is the current head, and Parallel Case members Joe Eckrich and Mary Schroeder have served in that role in the past.

To start off our discussion of the story, Randy had a paper prepared that covered many points.  His first point was an interesting one: this story was published in the St. Louis Post Dispatch in 1892 under the title "The Adventure of a Nobleman."  Randy also touched on the church in question, the role of America in the story, Lord Backwater and Lord Balmoral's other appearances in the canon, Lord St. Simon's heritage and ties to the War of the Roses, and the dinner laid out for Holmes' guests at the end of the story.

It was noted that Doyle would place NOBL at "about the bottom of the list."  And for a story that the author ranked so low, we came up with plenty to discuss!

We talked about Watson's laziness and Holmes' social life.  The overall use of humor in this story was also a big topic.  Watson's remark about a bride disappearing being out of the ordinary, the portrayal of Lord St. Simon, Holmes' response to his manner, and Holmes laughing and toying with Lestrade all make this a rather humorous tale.

The location of Watson's wound was bandied about.  The epidemic of American women marrying into British peerage, Doyle's use of gold mining as a shorthand for riches, Holmes being able to solve the case without leaving his chair (except for the small detail of finding the missing bride), and the coincidence that the red herring and the true mystery person both had the same initials were all discussed.

We spent some time covering the food laid out for Holmes' dinner and debated if it would be enough or too much for those in attendance, as well as what exactly fois gras pie is.  Some members were also concerned that Holmes and Watson didn't have enough vegetables in their diet.

A good amount of time was spent discussing and debating Hattie Doran and her behavior throughout the story.  Not only did she abandon her new husband, but she routinely chose to make cowardly decisions whenever a challenge faced her.  A few members went back and forth discussing if Hattie had an obligation to St. Simon once Frank showed back up in her life.

It was also noted that Watson dates this story a few weeks before his marriage, and keeping that in mind, it made Holmes' statement of "how to while away these bleak autumnal evenings" more melancholy that the author may have intended.

That was it for this month!  There is a slight scheduling change for our next meeting.  We typically meet on the second Saturday of the month, but that falls over Veteran's Day weekend.  So, our next meeting will be on November 18 at 1:00 to discuss "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet."  We will still be meeting in the Schafly branch of the St. Louis Public Library, but we will be in the bigger meeting room this time.  If convenient, come at once!

Movie Night Double Feature

On Saturday night, The Parallel Case of St. Louis revived our irregular movie nights.  As you can see in the picture above, we had quite a turnout.  Over 30 people joined us for a double feature of "Without a Clue" and "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother."

Our own group made up a good number of the attendees, providing many great snacks for all present.  (I wish I had taken a picture of the snack spread that took up two tables!)  Many of the other attendees came from the publicity we received from Cinema St. Louis and the Monday Movie Club.

We should all be very grateful to Nellie, whom orchestrated this whole event.  Nellie scheduled the room at the St. Louis Ethical Society, created the flyer for the event, coordinated publicity with Cinema St. Louis, set up the room and the DVD player and projector, and served as emcee for the evening.  We may never get Nellie's limits!

Many of us had seen one or both of the films on DVD before this weekend, but we all agreed that seeing the movies with an appreciative crowd was a great experience and made for a very fun evening.  Michael Caine's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes was especially enjoyed by the crowd.

Our next meeting is on September 9, at the usual location, the Schafly Branch of the St. Louis Public Library.  We will meet to discuss "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor."  And you can bet discussion of our successful movie night will be at the top of the docket, as well.

After an unofficial poll, it's safe to bet that movie nights will be back again, but our group will have to discuss how often we would like to host them.  Please join us if you'd like a say in the matter, or just for a great and friendly discussion of a great canonical story and current happenings in the world of Sherlockiana!

July Meeting Recap

The Parallel Case met on July 8 to discuss "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb."  We had a great turnout and discussion!

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!

The St. Louis Sherlockian Collection

Unbeknownst to (or forgotten about by) many of the Sherlockians in the St. Louis area, there was once a library collection of scholarly works available to anyone that wished to use it.  In the 1990's, Mary Schroeder was teaching at McKendree University in Lebanon, IL, just 30 minutes from St. Louis.  While teaching there, she started a Sherlockian library collection that included many scholarly works and a beautiful pencil drawing of The Great Detective.

Mary later moved on from McKendree, but the collection stayed at the university's library until recently.  With the help of Michael Waxenberg, Mary found a new home for the collection at the St. Louis Public Library's Rare Books and Special Collections Department at their main branch downtown.  This move will make the collection more accessible to people in the St. Louis area.

Randy Getz and Mary moved the entirety of the collection from Illinois to its new home downtown in April, where the librarians are currently cataloging each item so they will be available to the public.  During a recent Parallel Case meeting when we were discussing the project, Bill Cochran offered to donate a complete run of the Baker Street Journal to the collection, making every piece of BSJ scholarship available to anyone in the St. Louis area.  At our May meeting, Bill showed up with his promised BSJ's as well as three more boxes of Sherlockian.  Mary and I delivered The Cochran Addendum to the Rare Books and Special Collections room last month, almost doubling the size of the collection.

When this collection is cataloged by the librarians, thousands of articles and scores of books will be available for academic research or recreational reading to anyone interested in the Special Collections room.  This is a large undertaking, and as of our visit last month, the librarians had only cataloged a portion of the original McKendree collection.

The current goal is to have the McKendree Collection and the Cochran Addendum cataloged and added to the shelves by this fall, with the library hosting a reception for Sherlockians to see just what a treasure trove we have right here in St. Louis!  Once the St. Louis Sherlockian Collection is ready for unveiling, we will make sure to let everyone know.  And if you see Mary, Bill, Michael or Randy, please make sure to thank them for all their hard work creating a great Sherlockian gem!

May Meeting Recap

The May 13^th meeting of the Parallel Case of St. Louis was another great discussion!  This month found Rob, Pris, Elaine, Bill, Cheryl, Joe, Brad, Stacey and Nellie welcoming new members Tassy and Paul to the group. 

We started the meeting with recaps of current events: 

The McKendree collection has been transferred to the St. Louis Public Library, and they are in the process of cataloging the contents of the collection.  Bill and Cheryl brought along four more boxes to donate to the collection as well.  As soon as we know a timetable for the dedication, we will pass it along to everyone.

Nellie took the lead on coordinating a movie night.  It will be a double feature of “The Adventure of SherlockHolmes’ Smarter Brother” and “Without a Clue” and we are asking for $10 per person to cover the cost of renting a room.  There is not a definite date set as of yet, but we are looking for an afternoon in late June or July.  A survey will be sent out to anyone that might be interested in attending.  If you are interested, please email Rob at parallelcasestl@gmail.com

The Noble Bachelors of St. Louis are sponsoring a Silver Blaze race at Fairmount Racetrack on August 19.

This meeting was dedicated to “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” and if you know much about Sherlock Holmes, you know this is a favorite of many Sherlockians.  Rob pointed out that the podcast Trifles has done a nice episode discussing some of the finer points of the story.

Our discussion of the story started off by discussing the sad fact that Watson implies that Helen Stoner had died by the time he published the story, only leaving her a few years of life after her adventure with Sherlock Holmes.

Much of the discussion centered around the larger-than-life villain of Grimsby Roylott.  Some people questioned if Helen Stoner’s mother actually died in a train accident, or if Roylott had a hand in her demise, similar to the ‘accident’ that met Baron Gruner’s former wife, and why she would marry the man in the first place.  This led to an interesting discussion about the role of women in this society, and especially widows and women with money. 

Keeping the focus on Roylott, we analyzed Holmes’ cool demeanor when facing the man.  Tassy pointed out Doyle’s masterful use of “show, don’t tell” when telling this story.  Roylott is another in a long line of doctors in the canon, and we wondered how Watson would have felt about chronicling all of these evil men of his own profession.  Stacey pointed out that doctors were commonly feared by the public during this time, so Doyle was playing to his audience with this villain.

Before we could get to the actual investigation, we all wanted to talk about Roylott’s menagerie of exotic animals.  The Stoner girls knew of Roylott’s baboon and cheetah, so we bantered why anyone would want those types of pets.  Joe pointed out that cheetahs could be trained to be fairly friendly and were seen as a sign of power, and the cheetah and baboon would certainly discourage any unannounced visitors to Stoke Moran.

Along with the animals, Roylott had the band of gypsies that stayed on his property, and we talked about how gypsies were treated in Victorian society and today.  Brad presented his theory on the gypsies that you can read on his blog.  We all agreed that Doyle’s use of gypsies in the story made for a great red herring.

Rob also pointed out that Watson started off the story by saying that he wanted to address the widespread rumors of Roylott’s death, and Holmes and Watson were seen by at least one townsperson asking about and heading to Stoke Moran on the day that Roylott died.  Are these the rumors that Watson needed to address?

And then it was time to talk about the snake.

It’s impossible to talk about the “The Speckled Band” without addressing that there is no such snake as a swamp adder, a snake kept in a safe would suffocate, that snakes die if they drink milk, snakes can’t hear whistling, and they can’t climb a rope. 

Once we got all of that out of the way, Nellie taught us about the differences in hemotoxins that would be found in most adders, and neurotoxins found in cobras, and how each would affect their victims.  We also discussed the logistics of Roylott keeping the murderous snakes.  Did he have it on hand just waiting to use?  Did he order it once Julia Stoner announced her engagement?  Was a second snake procured when Helen announced her engagement or was it the same snake from two years prior?  If a snake can’t climb a rope or drink milk, did Roylott train a mongoose to retrieve the snake each night?  What if there was a second snake in the room with Roylott and that’s what actually killed him?

Once we had exhausted all of our conversations about the murderous snake, we went back to Roylott.  We all agreed that the man was a fantastic villain, but was he the best?  This led to an extended discussion if Roylott was a better villain than Moriarty.  Lots of opinions were shared during this discussion, and it’s safe to say that we didn’t come to a consensus on that question!

Before we wrapped up, Joe shared with us a dark lantern that he had and explained just how it worked, Bill told us about Doyle's play based off of "The Speckled Band," Tassy told us about her new blog, FreeRange Sherlockian, Elaine showed off her copy of Dining with Sherlock Holmes, Stacy recommended The Art of the English Murder, and Rob recommended Arthur and Sherlock.

Our next meeting will be on July 8 to discuss “The Engineer’s Thumb.”  If convenient, come at once!