Holmesian Housecleaning

With that year of Orwellian dread, 1984, coming to a close, and the fresh prospects of 1985 before us, the time has come to do a little closet-cleaning around the old column. Like any other endeavor, doing a monthly piece for PLUGS & DOTTLES has its share of by-products, fallout, and general scrap ideas tha somehow don't make it into print. A lot of them seem like interesting enough thoughts, but they just don't have what it takes to fill out a column. Unless, of course, you put them all together like so:

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Sherlock Holmes always seemed to be facing unruly or threatening types in his sitting room at 221B. In ILLU, for example, Watson finds it necessary to pick up a fireplace poker just in case Steve Dixie gets out of hand. We know Holmes favoured the loaded riding crop as a weapon, but he surely had other means of self-defense at his disposal. A look at THOR shows us one of these. J. Neil Gibson, the Gold King, is on the verge of going berserk when Holmes calms him with a single action. We are told "Holmes smiled languidly and reached his hand out for his pipe." Perhaps as the master detective liked a clay pipe for his meditative moods and a cherrywood for his disputatious moods, when his mood turned very disputatious he preferred a lead pipe.

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According to the map, a Holmes Avenue can be found just west of Peoria in Norwood, Illinois. If anyone happens to be out that way and finds a builder with charred bones in the remains of his woodpile, would you let us know? (Or don't you believe in omens?)

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The Neville St. Claires of TWIS are indeed an odd couple. On the one hand, Neville has kept Mrs. St. Clair totally in the dark about his true occupation (begging) throughout their married life; yet on the other hand, there seems to be an amazing telepathic connection between them. From one part of the house, Mrs. St. Claire knows when her husband has cut himself shaving in another part. She doesn't hear him yelp; she just senses it. And when he vanishes on Upper Swandam Lane, that same sense tells her that Neville is alive and well. All that is weird enough, but when you add the notorious "waiting for Holmes in a flimsy nightie" routine that Mrs. St. Claire pulls, this couple really would make for an exciting episode of The Newlywed Game.

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Does the name Prince Leopold Lowenstein ring a bell with anyone? He co-authored an odd little character analysis book some time ago called Meet Yourself As You Really Are, which is how we come across him. One has to wonder if he is some relation to H. Lowenstein, that obscure scientist from CREE. Somehow, the fields of elixir-of-life rejuvenation and character analysis do not seem so far apart that the Prince might not be an heir to the mysterious "H."

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A simple test for finding out just how Holmes-crazed your Sherlockian friends are: Leave a small wooden box sitting in a prominent place when they come to visit. No one who has gone through an enthusiastic reading of DYIN lately would dare casually pop such a box open for a look inside. It's a bit like taking a shower after seeing Psycho.

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A pair of possible cousins to the great detective represented local districts in the Illinois House of Representatives in Victorian times: John Holmes of Peoria County from 1893 to 1894, and Richard Holmes of Tazewell County from 1875 to 1876. Maybe Holmes never made it to Peoria, but perhaps some of his kinfolk did.

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An answer to the problem of Mary Morstan's mother (whom Mary reports as dead in SIGN, but then visits in FIVE): If Mrs. Morstan, possibly overwhelmed by the duties of motherhood, possibly in love with another man, deserted her husband and infant daughter, would it not be very natural for Captain Morstan to tell his young daughter that her mother was dead? That explanation would be so much simpler for a young child to accept. And when the events of SIGN hit the newspapers, would it not be just as natural for the guilty mother to try to re-establish contact with her daughter? Getting to know the daughter she'd run out on so long before, Mrs. Morstan would have wanted Mary to come visit her current home, hence Mary's visit in FIVE. It's a much more pleasant thought than an extended graveside visit, in any case.

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Well, that pretty much tidies up "Alias James and Agatha" for the new year. Thanks for indulging us, and be here next month for a neat and spiffy new column.

(Printed in Plugs & Dottles, January 1985)