Streaming Sherlock Holmes by Nellie Brown

In the past year I acquired a Starlink internet connection and have been able to finally indulge in the joys of high-speed streaming in my rural home (one of the few things Elon got right!) While nearly everyone else of my acquaintance has been able to enjoy entertainment this way for more than a decade, it is a new experience for someone as persistently behind the times like me. To my joy, the streaming options include a far wider range of Sherlock Holmes media than I had ever anticipated. 

Of course, I was delighted to find the Jeremy Brett Granada episodes, in addition to the less well-known Sherlock Hound, by the famed animation artist Hayao Miyazaki. Up until recently, Roku was showing the notable Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, written and produced by Billy Wilder and starring Robert Stevens. Rarely seen, this version shows an unusually sensitive Holmes, more discernably along the queer spectrum than any others to that date.

But a deeper dive into the Kanopy app yielded an even greater treasure, or so I thought at the time. I was able to use some of my library subscription credits to watch the 1916 silent film Sherlock Holmes, starring William Gillette and based off the play he wrote of the same name. In 2015, a mislabeled silver nitrate copy of the previously lost film was found in a French archive and restored the following year. Gillette has long held the reputation of providing the best portrayal of our iconic detective ever, so I was quite interested in watching this sole representation of his acting skills. 

Many Sherlockians today have seen a version of this play Gillette wrote based off Doyle’s stories. Incriminating letters, Professor Moriarty teaming up with the Larrabees, the denouement in the Gasworks, and of course the love interest Alice Faulkner: the only thing this play lacks other than Irene Adler is adherence to the aromantic aspect of our detective. We have all been there and restrained ourselves from rolling our eyes with varying degrees of success. 

And then there was Gillette himself. Deerstalker, calabash pipe, the works. He was masterful. I can easily understand why Doyle considered him the best actor to play him. Gillette inhabited Sherlock Holmes as good as any other actor I have seen.

What I failed to consider before viewing this movie, though, was the age disparity between Gillette and his leading lady/love interest. In 1899, when he wrote and starred in his play, he was forty-six years old. Mature, yes, but perhaps plausible as the potential love interest for a young woman for that day and age. (Shades of Laurie King, anyone?) But by the time of the film in 1915 he was sixty-three years old, and the wrinkles could not be hidden by the stage makeup. During the final revival of the play Gillette participated in, he was seventy-six years old. Seventy-six! To be played as the love interest of a very young woman of approximately twenty years of age. 

In a post-Harvey Weinstein period, this was just . . . no. No, no, no. A big helping of NOPE.

So, my effort to conduct as fair a fan girl review of William Gillette as I could come up with was forever tainted. Please accept my apologies. May I direct you instead to the marvelous Collier’s illustrations of the same actor done by Frederick Dorr Steele? They are stunning, dramatic and beautiful enough to cleanse your palette of that sour aftertaste of patriarchy.

Or, maybe there is another, more modern streaming version of Sherlock Holmes I could share with you? Have you ever tasted Bitter Karella? No, not the melon. The award-winning gothic horror writer, with twitter, tumblr, and substack feeds, creates a regular satire called “Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Pals.” This imagined late night club parody of horror writers meet periodically to share scary stories around a late-night campfire, with scorching fun poked at the regulars as well as guests. The regulars include Stephen King, Dean Koontz, HP Lovecraft, Clive Barker, Edgar Allen Poe and of course my favorite, Mary Shelley.

The Midnight Pals have just recently been produced as an audio podcast, streaming on a variety of apps near you, including Spotify. Last month on November 21st, the guest was Arthur Conan Doyle, and after much arm twisting, he shared his Tale of Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Midnight Society.  No one wanted to hear about Professor Challenger, and Doyle was coerced once again into telling a story about the character he was just so tired of writing about.

It is ribald and rude. The actors lean into their roles with gusto, and the quick-witted writing flirts and dances (possibly even twerks) with so many of the Sherlockian tropes we all know so well. The Midnight Pals stories, including this one, are fully conversant in the not so adjacent queer aspects of literature both past and present. The audience of the 1899 Sherlock Holmes play probably would have been absolutely horrified by this podcast.

And I loved it.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked William Gillette as Sherlock Holmes. But his storyline did not hold up to the interior logic of Doyle’s stories. When he told Gillette “You may marry him or murder him or do what you like with him” generations of fans suffered the consequences.  And then there was the age difference between the actors. It was just too much to swallow.

And while raunchy, I have to say that I prefer Bitter Karella’s writing to Gillette’s. It logically follows the style and more of the intent of the writer being parodied. It leans into the humor instead of manufacturing romance where none would fit. Audiences change along with the times, and so do the pastiches and parodies.

Besides, who doesn’t want to imagine Mary Shelley with a switch blade?

A Great Heart, Revisited by Madeline Quiñones

Let’s start with this: I fully expect this blog post to be greeted with torches and pitchforks. I expected it when I first broached my ideas at the virtual October meeting of the Parallel Case, and I still expect it now. 

One does not simply utter heresies in this fandom, after all.

The story up for discussion in October was “The Adventure of the Three Garridebs,” and we had gotten as far as Watson’s gunshot wound at the hand of Killer Evans. The passage goes thus:

“In an instant he had whisked out a revolver from his breast and had fired two shots. I felt a sudden hot sear as if a red-hot iron had been pressed to my thigh. There was a crash as Holmes's pistol came down on the man's head. I had a vision of him sprawling upon the floor with blood running down his face while Holmes rummaged him for weapons. Then my friend's wiry arms were round me and he was leading me to a chair.

“‘You're not hurt, Watson? For God's sake, say that you are not hurt!’

“It was worth a wound — it was worth many wounds — to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.”

This is a passage so beloved by thousands of Sherlockians, and yet when I read it, I can only wish I felt about it the way that others do. For me, this moment does not stick the landing.

Watson says “for the one and only time” he saw a “great heart as well as a great brain”... And I have to call him out on it. It’s a beautiful bit of writing, and it is also patently false.

Sherlockians talk a lot about Watson as an unreliable narrator — favorite vectors for this topic include case dates and his wives. But we talk far less about something arguably more important: how unreliable he is when it comes to Sherlock Holmes himself.

Consider, if you will, that Watson is reasonably open and honest in his first two published stories, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four. He describes a young Holmes as a complete oddball in the first story and does not shy away from depicting Holmes’s drug use in the second story, despite his disapproval of it. He’s also open about his own thoughts and emotions.

Then comes The Strand Magazine, and “A Scandal in Bohemia.” And Watson opens that story with a commentary about Sherlock Holmes and romantic love, and closes the story by circling back to that commentary. This is Watson spin-doctoring, and though he’s rarely quite so blatant about it again, we do see more spin-doctoring moving forward.

Watson tells us that he comes to think of Holmes sometimes as “an isolated phenomenon, a brain without a heart” (“The Greek Interpreter”). In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Watson also says, “[Holmes] burst into one of his rare fits of laughter as he turned away from the picture. I have not heard him laugh often, and it has always boded ill to somebody.”

Watson wants us to think of Sherlock Holmes in a certain light. Holmes is “the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen,” as described by his friend in SCAN. Watson wants us to think of Holmes as coolly logical and unemotional (which is most certainly how Holmes wants himself to be perceived).

And yet, as recorded by Watson himself, Holmes is no stranger to emotions. The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes Vol. II bears witness the work done by Charles E. Lauterbach and Edward S. Lauterbach to document the number of times Holmes smiles, laughs, jokes, or chuckles, etc., for a total of 316 instances across 60 stories, as originally presented in the The Baker Street Journal Christmas Annual No. 5.

In short, Watson tells us one thing, and shows us another.

And by the publication of 3GAR, he has been doing this for a very long time — more than thirty years. The popular image of Holmes as serious and unrelentingly rational has been solidified.

But here, Watson is shot, an event that triggers a massive reaction in the Great Detective. Now, Watson has to reckon with the image that he’s built up.

“For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain.”

This is demonstrably false.

Watson would have to have been obtuse in the extreme — fully the embodiment of his pop-culture duffer persona — to miss the glimpses of Holmes’s heart which he shared with us himself. 

Consider when Holmes lets James Ryder off the hook in “The Blue Carbuncle” — “I suppose that I am commuting a felony, but it is just possible that I am saving a soul.” Or in “The Devil’s Foot,” after an ill-conceived drug trip: “I owe you both my thanks and an apology. It was an unjustifiable experiment even for oneself, and doubly so for a friend.” Or back in The Sign of the Four, when Holmes realizes how tired Watson is: “Look here, Watson; you look regularly done. Lie down there on the sofa, and see if I can put you to sleep”

In “The Final Problem,” Holmes writes to Watson, “I am pleased to think that I shall be able to free society from any further effects of [Moriarty’s] presence, though I fear that it is at a cost which will give pain to my friends, and especially, my dear Watson, to you.” And after Watson has both fainted and come to in “The Empty House,” Holmes cautions: “Wait a moment! Are you sure that you are really fit to discuss things? I have given you a serious shock by my unnecessarily dramatic appearance.”

Our hearts are not revealed in big moments of drama but in the little things, the small moments that add up to a full picture of who we are. Watson is observant enough to know exactly how large his friend’s heart really is, long before they ever meet Killer Evans.

“It was worth a wound,” but he already knows. He knows with every case Holmes has invited him to join, with every person his friend has helped who is more, always, than a “mere unit, a factor in a problem.” 

However, likely for Holmes’s safety as much as his reputation, Watson prefers that we think of him as being as invincible as possible. And so, rather than acknowledge the many small moments of revelation, he plays up a big moment to fit the narrative he’s crafted.

But, of course, Watson has known his friend’s heart all along.

The Spy Who Love Watson by Heather Hinson

Let me take you back to the beginning of this year. I wrote a blog post talking about His Last Bow and discussed Martha, the housekeeper of Baron Von Bork. In my post, I surmised that Sherlock Holmes needed someone back home to help him out as he established his undercover persona in America to finally get the contacts to get to Von Bork. Holmes’ undercover mission was a long and arduous process that took the better part of two years.

But what I didn’t mention is who exactly Martha the housekeeper was.

Hold tight folks because I am about to drop something so controversial, I fully expect to be strung up at the next Parallel Case meeting. The Von Bork’s housekeeper, Martha, is none other than the sixth Mrs. Watson.

Before the pitchforks come out, let me explain my reasoning.

In His Last Bow, after Von Bork is knocked out and tied up, Holmes and Watson have a comfortable moment where they’re sharing a bottle of Tokay while Holmes catches Watson up on everything that’s been happening. Holmes has been out of the country for two years, living in America as an Irish- American man by the name of Altamont who has no love for the English and is willing to sell his abilities to the highest bidder. This isn’t something he volunteered to do, rather he was asked: “Ah, I have often marveled at it myself. The Foreign Minister alone I could have withstood, but when the Premier also deigned to visit my humble roof—!” (LAST)

When looking up the word “premier” on Google it is defined as “the leader of the government of some countries.” Or the highest-ranking government leader. While we all know the British Prime Minister is the highest-ranking government leader, the premier would be the next highest. There are few people who would both have the Prime Minister’s ear and be able to convince Sherlock Holmes to come out of retirement and spend two years in America building up an alias to stop a German spy in August of 1914. Even though he’s not specifically mentioned by name, we can assume that Mycroft Holmes would be the only person to fit that bill.

Once Holmes agrees to this, he would need someone on the home front, someone willing to play the long game, to feed him information when needed so he would know when to strike.  All the while, feeding information to the Home Office as well. It would have to be someone trusted.

Bear with me again while I invoke BBC Sherlock. There are quotes from Mycroft Holmes in “The Abominable Bride”:

“Our way of life is under threat from an invisible enemy, one that hovers at our elbow on a daily basis. These enemies are everywhere, undetected, and unstoppable. We don’t defeat them. We must certainly lose to them. Because they are right, and we are wrong.” (TAB)  

In WWI, England was using women as spies. There was a group of female spies, well-educated and fluent in multiple languages known as the Alice Network that was run by Louise de Bettignes. Martha would have more than likely been part of a group like this. Recruited by Mycroft Holmes, Martha would be the best person to be hired by the Von Bork’s for the long game, two years as the devoted housekeeper. But this person would also need to be someone Sherlock Holmes would trust. Someone who, if something happened to him in America, would know who to contact. We know that John Watson wasn’t involved until he received the telegram from Holmes asking him to meet in Harwich with the car. Multiple other stories have Watson casually mentioning how Mrs. Watson was always in the countryside visiting family. At the beginning of WW1, thinking his wife safe in the countryside, Watson would offer his services where they could be used in the War Efforts. All the while never knowing that his own wife was a British spy somewhere on the English coast serving as housekeeper to a well-known and dangerous German spy.

But what about the fact that Watson wouldn’t know his own wife? Why didn’t Martha say anything to him? Wouldn’t Watson be in on it?

As mentioned, if Mrs. Watson is supposedly up North visiting relatives, then Watson would think her safe from the war and not worry about where she was or what she was doing. As we’ve seen with poor Mary, once John Watson marries his wives, they tend to become an afterthought. So intent on helping with the upcoming war effort, chances are he didn’t think about her. Plus, Mycroft could have had him doing small things outside his practice.

If Watson knew his wife was a spy helping England, that would be the end of that. John Watson might have married a woman named Martha, but as we saw with the Mary’s and Violet’s, there are so many of them that Sherlock saying the name wouldn’t have even registered. Again, Watson thinks his wife is with family, he wouldn’t even think to expect her here. If Martha is a spy, then she could be good at disguises as well. Martha is only mentioned as a “dear old ruddy-faced woman in a country cap” (LAST).

Ruddy faced means red faced. Which could come from leaning over an oil lamp or finishing the last of the housekeeping. Or even being out in the sun for prolonged periods of time. If Holmes and Watson are in their late 50’s early 60’s, then hypothetically (in my mind)  Martha is an older woman as well.  Probably not in her 50’s but at least in her 40’s. If not, there’s always the magic of makeup to make her look older. The family would feel more comfortable with a grandmotherly figure taking care of their house.

At the end, Holmes doesn’t keep Martha long, just enough to mention her as his help, “There is no one in the house except old Martha, who has played her part to admiration. I got her the situation here when first I took the matter up.” (LAST). Again, Holmes would want someone he trusted to be his eyes and ears at home and who better than Mrs. Watson? “You can report to me to-morrow in London, Martha, at Claridge's Hotel.” (LAST). This shows that she isn’t just a housekeeper. If she’s due in London the next day to report to Holmes and possibly Holmes the Elder, then she’s working for the British Government. Sending her off to London to give a report suggests that Holmes wants to both show her off and get her out of the house as soon as possible.

Knowing that if John finds out that a) his wife is a British Spy and has been practicing espionage for the last two years and b) Holmes knew about it and was actively collaborating with her, he wouldn’t be too happy about it. That’s why she didn’t acknowledge him, that’s why she was moved out quickly after the plot had finished. This way Martha is debriefed and can be returned to the countryside or stay in London and return to her town residence with her husband.

The last thing Holmes needs after two years of not seeing his friend is an entire car ride to Scotland Yard getting an earful from Watson.

(a special thanks to Ariane DeVere for her TAB transcripts. https://arianedevere.livejournal.com/81144.html)

Moving in with Sherlock Holmes by Brad Keefauver

In our excitement to follow the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, we often skip over the more mundane parts of their lives together in early readings. At some point, though, one starts stopping to smell the roses, so to speak, and ponder the parts of their lives where they weren’t investigating mysteries … like the time they moved into a new apartment.

Two strangers moving into a new apartment together is something that doesn’t happen to all of us, nor that often. Maybe when we’re in college, or starting a career in an expensive city (as was Watson’s case), but ideally we don’t choose to just cohabitate with strangers. You might just get a strange, strange roomie, which is actually what happened to our friend John Watson.

“We met the next day as he had arranged and inspected the rooms at No. 221B Baker Street …That very evening I moved my things round from the hotel, and on the following morning Sherlock Holmes followed me with several boxes and portmanteaus. For a day or two we were busily employed in unpacking and laying out our property to the best advantage.”

There’s a whole lot going on in those few lines if you try to imagine what that “day or two” looked like in real time.

Watson had hotel-level belongings and was able to get everything from the hotel to Baker Street that evening. It’s hard to imagine having enough things in a hotel that it took more than a couple of trips.

Sherlock Holmes, however, shows up with “several boxes and portmanteaus.”

A portmanteau, in case you were wondering, is a large trunk or suitcase that opens into two equal parts. And Sherlock Holmes showed up with “several." Watson has come to London for the first time, and is in start-up mode, but Sherlock Holmes has been living in rooms (plural) on Montague Street in the neighborhood of the British Museum. Now, much of that area has been rebuilt from Holmes’s time, but it’s hard to imagine it being a cheap neighborhood in which to live. Holmes plainly came from money, but, like Watson, had the realization that he was probably not going to continue in the lifestyle to which he had become accustomed on his consulting detective fees at that time. But it still meant he probably had a lot more stuff than Watson.

What stuff? Well, being Holmes, probably not that much more in the way of clothes than Watson. Books, for certain. Papers, notes from his studies of everything useful to his occupation, also probably a part of it. He was still using the labs at St. Bart’s so maybe not so much chemical equipment just yet. And young Holmes was still thinking he could sit in his sitting room and do consulting, so maybe the handcuffs and guns weren’t so important to him yet, either. Definitely not time for a wax dummy of himself yet. Sherlock Holmes was probably still transitioning from student to professional man, so we have to think that most of his things fit that sort of category.

When Watson writes “For a day or two we were busily employed in unpacking and laying out our property to the best advantage,” I have a feeling he actually meant, “Holmes was unpacking and putting things where he wanted.” Watson’s contributions were probably a few books, some picture or memento for the mantelpiece, and a few personal items in the Baker Street bathroom. Most of his gear was probably just stored in his bedroom. If he had an army trunk, a lot of it might have just stayed there.

When Sherlockians do re-creations of 221B Baker Street, they most certainly are picking some point in time like 1895 to lovingly stock their room with Holmes memorabilia. But 221B Baker Street of 1881 was most certainly a different place. Mrs. Hudson’s furniture and pictures on the wall, a mix of books on the shelves that were mostly Sherlock’s, some mantelpiece items from both men. Any painting of Reichenbach Falls would have been too eerily predictive. Watson would later hang pictures of men he admired, Holmes would at some point tack criminal pictures to his bedroom walls and build up that level of debris Watson sees on Holmes’s bedroom mantelpiece. (Nice bedroom, Holmes.) But in 1881things were very different.

The 1954 Ronald Howard TV Sherlock Holmes episode titled “The Cunningham Heritage,” we actually see a Watson and Holmes move-in day, where these two not-so-young gentlemen were coming into Baker Street with all sorts of odd possessions. Watson seems to have brought a wicker basket of books, whilst Holmes unpacks a chemistry lab. Holmes hands Watson a human skeleton a one point, but, as with so many things with that version of Holmes and Watson, it hardly seems a true representation of the Canon as we know it. (Despite the “documentary film” theories of a certain podcast called Sherlock Holmes Is Real.)

Imagining the details of that first incarnation of 221B Baker Street is an intriguing exercise. What bits that we came to know later were there from day one? Whence came the bearskin hearthrug? How many items were just commonplace , and how many had their own story behind them?

221B Baker Street existed in four dimensions and not just three, and exploring the idea of what it looked like when is just one more challenge for Sherlockians, as well as the opportunity for one more niche, dare anyone venture into that rabbit hole: Sitting room chronology.

Always something more to explore in the world of Sherlock Holmes, isn’t there?

Toasts from Holmes in the Heartland

At the Holmes in the Heartland banquet dinner, two of our members gave wonderful toasts that we felt should be shared with a wider audience.  So please enjoy Adam Presswood's toast to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Stacey Bregenzer's toast to the villains in the Canon.

A Toast to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Adam Presswood

My father was the third oldest of either ten or eleven children. I never remember. There’s a good reason for that. My father’s family situation was so abusive and horrible that he did his best to get as far from any of his family as he could after he turned eighteen. Apart from one, very beloved maternal aunt, he simply didn’t remain in touch with his family. He married my mother when he was twenty-one and she was eighteen. In terms of family, this was a step up. Still, the instinct to put distance between himself and large segments of the family was strong in my father, and our family of six was often an island unto itself.

What, you might justifiably ask, does any of this have to do with Conan Doyle? Well, the simple truth was, at least at that time in my life, that I often felt I was without a story. I didn’t know a lot of my extended family on my mother’s side, at least not well, and my father’s relatives were a giant question mark. Whenever other kids in the neighborhood or at school would ask about my roots, my heritage, my family history, and other such things, I was usually at a loss for something to say.

It was during this same time that I discovered I hated math. My fifth-grade teacher, however, caught on to the fact that I loved to read. She would thus bribe me to finish my math by letting me read a book from the shelf in the back of the room afterward. One such afternoon, I stumbled upon a YA version of "The Final Problem," my first encounter with Sherlock Holmes. I went home and told my mother all about it. Now, I don’t know whether she really believed what she told me, or if she just sensed that I needed something to hold onto. Regardless, she proceeded to tell me that I was related to Conan Doyle through my maternal grandfather’s mother. 

Well, from that day forward I had a story. And you can bet that I told that story every chance I got, whether or not people understood the significance. Whenever anyone would ask about my family, I had my blood connection to Doyle to brag about. Unfortunately, after many decades of tellings and retellings, the story finally came to a bitter end when a dying aunt on my mother’s side of the family denied the tale and said it was the dumbest thing she had ever heard. I was by then a grown man, and I took the news with a stiff upper lip. 

The point is, for nearly forty years I had a story when I otherwise would not have, and I had that story because of Conan Doyle. So, ladies and gentlemen, please raise your glasses and join me in a toast to the man who gave us all – THE STORY!

A Toast to the Villains

Stacey Bregenzer

To All the Villains of the Sherlock Holmes Canon:

from the worthy foe to the... not so worthy adversaries,

from the masterminds of criminal organization, the bank robbers, and the counterfeiters to the man catfishing his stepdaughter, the one injecting himself with monkey extract, and the thieves who lose their loot.

To Adler, Moran, and Milverton, but also to St. Clair with his twisted lip, Gilchrist the cheater, and Wilder, whose jealousy led him to a really stupid kidnapping.

And especially to those who got their just desserts, attacked by dogs, bitten by their “pet” snake, lost at sea, or even acquitted by Holmes and Watson’s kangaroo court.

Because they all gave Sherlock and Watson a mission, Sherlock a reason not to use drugs, and us a plot to still enjoy 100 years later. 

We toast them all! Cheers!

A Recap of Holmes in the Heartland 2023

Holmes in the Heartland: Arch Enemies was a huge success!  More than 90 Sherlockians from the St. Louis area and around the country spent three days celebrating Sherlock Holmes and mingling with one another.  

The weekend officially kicked off on Friday afternoon, but plenty of folks arrived on Thursday and connected with one another.  Some went out to dinner, others hung out at the hotel, and one group braved the heat to attend a Cardinals game.

Friday

Friday afternoon found the Sheraton Westport hopping as everyone started arriving.  Brad Keefauver captured the energy of seeing everyone with this blog post.

Our first official event was an architectural tour of the St. Louis Public Library, followed by a viewing of the St. Louis Sherlock Holmes Research Collection in the library's Rare Books and Manuscript Room.  The Central Branch of the St. Louis Library is a gorgeous place, and the tours highlighted some amazing aspects of the place.  And people really seemed to enjoy looking over books from the collection and discussing certain aspects of specific pieces spread throughout the room.

There were a few hours for everyone to grab a bite to eat with friends after the library before our next event, the Just Desserts for Professor Moriarty banquet, sponsored by The John H. Watson Society.  Everyone enjoyed treats and coffee in a relaxed atmosphere while door prizes were raffled off to attendees.

Saturday

The biggest day of the weekend was Saturday.  The doors opened at 8:30 and the vendors started doing a brisk business right away.  While they eyed up purchases, attendees also mingled with one another and viewed the day's door prizes.

The speaker line up was a blast!  If we tried to recap every wonderful thing that was said, this blog post would be as long as an encyclopedia.  So we will just share the line up along with some pictures here.

Ray Betzner - Professor James Moriarty, and the Quest for Order in the Universe

Kristen Mertz - Moran's Game

Cindy Brown - Guys I Love to Hate: The List Keeps Getting Longer

Steven Doyle - Baron Gruner: The Most Misunderstood Villain in the Canon

Mike McSwiggin - The Ultimate Arch Enemies of the Canon: Dr. Watson and Calendars

Beth Gallego - Enemies for Life: Faces of Moriarty in Sherlockian Literature for Youth

Monica Schmidt - BBC, But You Do Not Observe: Sociopathy and Sherlock Holmes

Joe Eckrich, Rich Krisciunas, & Michael Waxenberg - Jefferson Hope: The Trial of the (19th) Century

As intriguing as these titles and pictures are, they don't even begin to do justice to the fantastic presentations.  We were very lucky to have such a great line up of speakers this year!

After a short break and time for socialization in the hotel bar, we were treated to a great buffet dinner.  Two of our local members, Adam Presswood and Stacey Bregenzer, gave toasts to Arthur Conan Doyle and villains in the Canon.  These toasts will be published in full in our next blog post.

After everyone was fully fed and we went through the dessert table more than a few times, it was time for the night's entertainment: The Alpha Inn Goose Club Trivia Night.  Brad Keefauver and his trusty goose companion, Steve Mason, took the group through trivia that spanned decades, genres, and myriads of interests.

Sunday

People who opted for the three-day registration got to visit the St. Louis Arch that included a guided tour of the new history museum, a trip to the top of the Arch, a documentary film on the building of the Arch, and of course some souvenir shopping.  We wrapped up the weekend with lunch at The Old Spaghetti Factory on Laclede's Landing before everyone finally filtered out on their ways back home.