"Dog-Paddling on the Outer Limits of a Sherlockian Columnist's Mind"

A Sherlockian friend recently remarked that he thought I could write an article on anything — from eggspoons to dirty laundry. Why anyone would care to write about either eggspoons or dirty laundry is beyond me, but I was still complimented that he considered my range that expansive. I wasn't totally sure I deserved his compliment; after all, I can't ever remember writing about those two subjects. Could I really write about eggspoons or dirty laundry? Better still, would it be halfway interesting for me or anyone else?

And so this column began. As a modern Sherlockian, with all the conveniences, I raced to my copy of William Goodrich's Good Old Index. In the old days, when I was a boy Sherlockian, we used to skim the Canon by hand, turning the pages slowly, one at a time, searching for references. Thanks to the inestimable services of Mr. Goodrich, however, those days are past. His index rapidly points out the mention of an eggspoon on page 23 of The Complete Sherlock Holmes, in STUD. And laundry? Well, there is no listing for "laundry," but there is one for "bogus laundry affair" (even in this age of modern conveniences, it still helps to know your Sherlock). It's to be found in "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box" on page 897.

Turning to page 23 of my Complete, as well as thanking Bill Goodrich once more under my breath (I'd have been forever hunting that eggspoon), I found:

"Why this article," I said, pointing at it with my eggspoon as I sat down to my breakfast.

Not much there to work with. Besides learning that eggspoon is one word and not two, all an eggspoon seems to do is give Watson something to point with. I suppose that is slightly important, as Watson would hardly seem such a solid, trustworthy fellow if he were continually pointing at things with a knife or some other sharp object. An eggspoon really suits him quite nicely. In order to get an article together on Watson's eggspoon, though, I will need a bit more data.

A thorough search through the Keefauver-Carter library of strange and unusual things yields but one tidbit of information from The Encyclopaedia of Household Information: "The sulphur in eggs will discolor silver spoons by uniting with the silver and forming a sulphuret. The quickest and best way to remove the stain is to rub the spoon with salt between thumb and finger."

At this point, I began to agree with Holmes-there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace, Eggspoons shall now haunt my every waking moment. What are they? Why are they? In desperation, I have to turn to dirty laundry and "the bogus laundry affair." We find Lestrade writing to Holmes:

"He is a big, powerful chap, clean-shaven, and very swarthy — something like Aldridge, who helped us in the bogus laundry affair."
So the bogus laundry business had Holmes aided by this Aldridge fellow along with Lestrade. No dirty laundry there. In fact, the whole idea of bogus laundry seems to me to steer away from dirty laundry. I mean, how do you fake laundry? By packaging it up, I would guess. Wrap up some black market substance like clean shirts and deliver it from a laundry — it's the perfect scheme for building a criminal empire. I suspect it was Moriarty's idea; we are told so little of his day-to-day operations, but to gain Holmes's respect they must have been ingenious little operations like this.

So if the bogus laundry is clean bogus laundry (and since it Is bogus, it really isn't laundry at all anyway), I've run straight on into another dead end. Maybe dirty laundry and eggspoons aren't in my range.

Or maybe, just maybe, Watson had kleptomaniacal tendencies, and whenever he left Baker Street to move in with another wife he would pocket little souvenirs that didn't belong to him. Things like that eggspoon (stained silver though it undoubtedly was). That choice morsel of gossip should be enough "dirty laundry" for anyone. I'll get this problem licked yet, wait and see. When I finally find a Watson, and he writes up "Brad Keefauver — His Limits," it's definitely not going to read: "Knowledge of Eggspoons — Nil. Knowledge of Dirty Laundry — Nil."

(Printed in Plugs & Dottles, July 1988. A brief postscript for March 2002: Some time after writing this column, my friend Pj Doyle returned from Scotland with a gift. A real egg spoon, it turns out, is a small spoon made of non-tarnishable horn or bone to be used for eating eggs. The Scottish eggspoon Pj brought back is made of horn, and holds a treasured spot in my Sherlockian collections.)