We were greeted by a great collage of the Sydney Paget illustrations for this month's story provided by Margie and Karl Kindt. An undeniable touch!
Before we started with the usual news and giveaways, our group had a healthy discussion about Holmes in the Heartland. We recapped the weekend's events, talked about ideas for the future, and even recruited some new folks to help planning future events. We ended the conversation with listing off some of our favorite things from the weekend. Specific things mentioned, in no particular order were the speaker presentations, with Tim Johnson and Tassy Hayden's getting specific accolades, camaraderie among the attendees, afternoon tea, Saturday's game night, Mark Twain's performance, meeting our out of town visitors, and the tour of the Becker Medical Library rare book room. Quite a list, indeed!
And then it was on to the news items of the month:
First things first, we had a new member with us! Heather knew some of the Parallel Case members from Twitter and joined us at Holmes in the Heartland. We didn't scare her off, so she came back out for an actual meeting. It's always great to have more Sherlockians join us!
Ed Weiss made a visit to the St. Louis Sherlockian Research Collection and gave it a glowing review! He was able to spend a few hours poring through the collection. Being housed in the rare books and manuscript room, Ed said that he had plenty of space and had books and journals scattered all over the tables when he was done.
You can nominate the William Gillette Sherlock Holmes film to be added to the National Film Registry in the Library of Congress here. Nominations end on September 15.
The next Harpooners of the Sea Unicorn meeting will be at Pio's restaurant in St. Charles on September 28.
The first poster for Holmes and Watson was released on the internet last month. Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly play Holmes and Watson, respectively. Ralph Fiennes will play Moriarty and Hugh Laurie will be Mycroft Holmes in this rendition.
From Gillette to Brett will happen on October 5-7 in Bloomington, Indiana. Blocks of rooms keep selling out, so if you are interested reserve yours now!
Miss Sherlock is now available to watch on HBO Go. No more illegal streaming necessary to see the widely praised new show.
Michael Waxenberg reported that The Great Alkali Plainsmen of Greater Kansas City scion is back up and running! Their inaugural meeting was held last month with enthusiastic attendance. Their next meeting will be on October 21, and their guest will be author Darlene Cysper.
Jim Hawkins of Nashville, TN has created a Facebook page for fans of John Bennett Shaw.
Not new, but worth noting are some great Sherlockian podcasts out there. Scott Monty and Burt Wolder host not one, but TWO different shows: I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, a long-form interview show with notable Sherlockians, and Trifles, a weekly show that spends 15-20 minutes discussing the finer points of the canonical tales. Two member of The Toronto Bootmakers, Mike Ranieri and Geordie Telfer, host a monthly podcast, I Grok Sherlock, where they talk about canonical tales and their media representations.
And one last note, if you haven't already done so, like our Facebook page to get updates and Sherlockian news in your Facebook feed. If you haven't seen anything from us in your feed lately, Facebook has probably weeded us out of your algorithm, so pop back over to the page and like one of our posts. We will show back up in your news feed. We promise not to flood your feed, only posting about once a week, and we might be the only place left on Facebook where you can escape posts about politics!
And now, it's story time!
Our story starts off with Watson telling readers about the medical connection he bought after his marriage to Mary Morstan. He has been at work for three months now when Holmes comes to visit him. Holmes quickly deduces that Watson has had a cold and that he has a better business than his partner. Because every Sherlock Holmes story has to start off with Holmes showing off how good he is at observing things.
We had quite a talk about the opening. Mary opined that it was done rather sloppily. Stacey pointed out that this is one story where we get to see Watson as just "Dr. John Watson" and not "Sherlock Holmes' roommate." Heather wondered if Watson and his neighbor's covering for each other was an early for of group practice that we see in many medical offices now.
It was also asked what Holmes' purpose for recruiting Watson was for this case. He wasn't really needed, and the fact that Holmes went out of his way to get him was curious. Mary thought it was to see if Watson was still willing to join his old friend on adventures now that he was a married man. Stacey thought that Holmes simply missed his old partner. Kristen said that no matter the motive, she would gladly have ditched her daily responsibilities and jumped in the cab with Holmes, just like Watson!
Their client, Hall Pycroft, is waiting in the cab and shares his story with Holmes and Watson. He's taken a job at a respected stock firm only to have a man named Arthur Pinner show up and offer him a much higher paying position at the Franco-Midland Hardware Company. In fact, Pinner gives Pycroft 100 pounds right there to take the position. Karl did the math online and figured that amount to equal $30,000 today.
We debated how Pinner even knew how to find Pycroft and offer him the position. It was speculated that Pinner had someone working inside the other firm that alerted him to the new hire. Rob asked if Pycroft quoting the day's stock prices was realistic, and Michael shared some history of stockbroker's clerks, letting us know that they had to know the day's prices to do trades.
Sure, Pycroft has a lot of money in front of him, but this new offer raises lots of red flags. He's told not to tell the other firm that he's quit and when he arrives at his new office, it's hardly more than abandoned room. He's also deduced that Henry Pinner, Arthur's brother that is running this office, is actually the same man that had hired him back in London.
Stacey pointed out that Pinner's con was a cool game, reeling him in. Even though Pycroft had his reservations, Karl pointed out that as far as Pycroft knew, his other job was gone, so he didn't have much choice but to go along with this new scheme.
We all noted the similarities between this scam and The Red-Headed League and The Three Garridebs. The mark needed to be out of a certain spot, so a ruse was constructed to get him away with a mundane task.
Christopher noted that scams were all over the news of that day. If Hall Pycroft was such a bright young man, why wasn't he more aware of these types of scenarios?
Mary also observed that Pycroft's story in the cab is filled with Cockney slang, but as the story went on, it had all but disappeared. Michael accredited that to some quality code switching.
After Pycroft has finished his story, "Then Sherlock Holmes cocked his eye at me, leaning back on the cushions with a pleased and yet critical face, like a connoisseur who has just taken his first sip of a comet vintage." Rob explained what the phrase "comet vintage" meant, a phrase he'd learned from a recent episode of Trifles.
As Holmes, Watson and Pycroft approach the Franco-Midland Hardware Company's office, they see Pinner buy a newspaper and rush inside. When Holmes and Watson enter the office, pretending to be an accountant and clerk looking for positions, Pinner tells them that jobs could become available soon, "And now I beg that you will go. For God's sake leave me to myself!"
Pinner excuses himself and retreats to another room. Knocking and gurgling sounds soon come from the other side of the door, and the men break it down to find Pinner trying to hang himself. Adam pointed out that Holmes said the matter was pretty clear, but had forgotten about the newspaper. Once he did remember the paper, the rest of the story became clear: Pinner was working with a safecracker who had posed a Pycroft and stolen railroad bonds and mine scripts.
Michael wondered why Pinner wasn't in London to help with this robbery. Was it necessary for him to keep Pycroft engaged on Saturday? We also discussed the criticisms of the story that Holmes should have focused his investigation on the brokerage firm, instead of looking into the fake hardware company. Kristen offered that maybe it wasn't a coincidence that a police officer was right outside of the brokerage firm when the robber exited. Maybe Holmes had tipped them off...
Adam and Kristen debated the turn around time for Victorian newspapers, and if it was believable that the foiled robbery could have been in the newspaper that Pinner read. They agreed that it would have been a big stretch for it to have been possible.
At the end, the bad guys were caught and the story ended. We are left without knowing Hall Pycroft's fate. Heather said this stuck out to her as she was reading. Is Hall Pycroft's name associated with the robbery and can he get another financial job? None of us had a very good answer for that.
Ed noted that this story was published fairly soon after the Ripper killings were dominating the headlines. He noted that in About Sixty, Michael Duke theorized that Holmes had the police take all credit for the Pinner arrest to regain some positive image after the Ripper killings. Christopher wondered if the purpose of this story was to warn people against the numerous frauds that were committed in London at that time.
Many of us felt that STOC wasn't a great detective story, but we all agreed that it was an entertaining story. There's a reason we keep coming back to the Canon again and again, and that's because they are darn good tales.
Join us next time for our discussion on Sherlock Holmes' origin story, The Gloria Scott. We will be meeting on November 10. Come at once if convenient!
