"The Other Grand Game"

"I must confess that I missed my rubber. It was the first Saturday night in three-and-thirty years that I might have had my rubber, and I missed it."

Good Sherlockians, as I know we all are, will immediately recognize the above as a paraphrase from banker Merryweather in "The Red-Headed League." Bad, low-minded Sherlockians would certainly have missed my reference to the grand game of whist, and we won't even get into the dark alleyways in which their minds tend to wander. We are all good Sherlockians, after all.

And as good Sherlockians, we should always endeavor to produce a proper Holmesic state of mind whenever and wherever possible. The re-creation of Canonical moments, the study of Holmesian methods, the total immersion in the words of Watson . . . all of these are amenable to that proper state. Which brings me to my missing rubber.

In early April, I had the good fortune of being asked to stand up in front of The Camford Scholars and ramble on about Sherlockian things. It was the night of their annual Red-Headed League Banquet, and the Scholars were dining at The Brass Key, a restaurant in the old bank building in Leroy, Illinois. They select this site every year quite naturally, because the climactic scene in REDH takes place in a bank-in the vault, to be exact.

The Brass Key has a vault in the center of it. Its door was open wide, but its interior was as dark the vault of the Coburg branch of the City and Suburban Bank. The salad bar used to be inside the vault, but no longer. All through dinner, my eyes kept wandering to that darkened vault ... it seemed to beckon me, to call me to right some wrong.

"It is the first Saturday night for seven-and-twenty years that I have not had my rubber," Mr. Merryweather, the bank director at City and Suburban, told Sherlock Holmes the night they all went out to catch John Clay. Holmes was sympathetic to Merryweather's plight.

"I had brought a pack of cards in my pocket," Holmes told Merryweather later as they prepared to douse their dark lantern," and I though that as we were a partie caree, you might have your rubber after all. But I see that the enemy's preparations have gone so far that we cannot risk the presence of a light."

The darkness of the vault quickly ended any thoughts Holmes and Merryweather had of a card game, and as I kept looking at the darkness of the vault at The Brass Key, I felt a very old spirit tugging at my sleeve. I knew that vault was there. I knew this moment would come. I had a pack of cards in my pocket. I handed out copies of the rules of whist halfway through my talk, for no apparent reason.

Still, I failed. The darkness of the vault's mysterious interior intimidated me. The score now stands: Darkness - 2, Whist - 0

And we cannot leave it at that, can we?

I have called The Brass Key, and the vault is available for parties of eight or less. So here is my proposition: a tournament of whist in the vault at The Brass Key. Four scion societies, each represented by a pair of card-playing partners, duelling it out for the first ever Merryweather Memorial Whist Tournament trophy.

I hope to convince the inestimable Robert C. Burr to play as my partner in representing The Hansoms of John Clayton. I also hope to convince him to bring along his dark lantern, should it become necessary to fend off the darkness of the vault.

Now I need just six more Sherlockians representing three more scions. No dates are allowed for this jaunt; there won't be room for them in the vault. I expect that I can get The Camford Scholars to field a team; how about the rest of you? Time to show your Sherlockian mettle here. Call me or write if interested, and I'll set the date for a Saturday night as soon as the necessary four teams (or two, if that's all we get) are found. Whist rules available upon request. No experience required.

I'll report the outcome soon..

(Printed in Plugs & Dottles, May 1991)