The really untold tales

Out on the fringes of Sherlockian culture, at those places where the world of Holmes overlaps with the universe of non-Sheriockians going through their daily routines, weird things happen.

One of these was recently pointed out to me by Tom Stix when we were both at the Sunshine State Sherlockian Scion Symposium in early May. Catalogs for a bookseller called "Mysteries By Mail" were distributed with the symposium's membership packets. On page fifteen was a section called "Audio Fun for Sherlock Fans!" and after drawing my attention to it, Tom simply said, "You should write a column on it," and left me to find out why.

With all the diversions that the symposium had to offer, it was an hour or two before I could lay my hands upon the catalog again, and when I did, this is what I found:

"Sir Arthur Conan Doyle...

"Sherlock Holmes: A Baker's Street Dozen

"read by a cast

"Contains The Blue Carbuncle and The Yoxley Case"

I didn't remember Sir Arthur Conan Doyle writing up the Yoxley Case (or selling it on Watson's behalf).

"Aha!" I thought, "they're including cases from the tin dispatch box!"

Looking up the Yoxley business in the Canon to see just which untold tale it was, I was stunned to find that Doyle had indeed published the Yoxley Case ... under the title of 'The Adventure of the Golden Pince-nez."

A bit embarrassed at my own ignorance and glad no other Sherlockians were nearby at that particular moment, I continued reading down the list of other cases that were contained on the tape.

"The Norwood Builders and Solitary Bicyclist..."

Apparently Jonas Oldacre had taken an accomplice, and the ad copywriter wanted to make sure no one thought that Violet Smith was a unicyclist. They seemed small enough matters, so I read onward:

"The Final Problem and A Case of Identity, Six Napoleons and Rare Disease . . .” I didn't recall "Rare Disease" even among the untold tales, but after my hideous blunder with the Yoxley Case, I supposed that the ad meant "Dying Detective" or "Blanched Soldier," both of which featured rare diseases.

So, I read onward.

"The Mystery of the Second Strain and The Speckled Bank..."

Okay. Even my half-vast Sherlockian knowledges could pick those two out as frauds. It didn't stop me from trying to envision what they were about, however.

"The Second Strain" must have been a great story, being me obvious sequel to the matter of Baron Maupertuis and the Netherland-Sumatra company, the strain of which was so great that it left Holmes lying ill in the Hotel Dulong in me spring of 1887. Since the first "strain" was plainly a complicated matter, and an international affair at that, this "second strain" must have really been something. It probably even involved brother Mycroft, that master of international affairs.

"The Speckled Bank" is more elusive, its very visual imagery suggesting a paint-spattered bank building. What purpose would anyone have in speckling a bank? Surely a polka dot exterior isn't enough of a distraction to allow anyone to rob the inside while everyone is out looking at the outside ... or is it? Whatever bizarre plot lay behind the speckling of the bank, it sure sounds like the sort of mystery Holmes would be involved in.

Funny thing about Sherlockians ... even a typographical error offers hopes of some new case from Watson's records of Sherlock Holmes. Non-Sherlockian ad copywriters, catalog typesetters, and proofreaders obviously don't know how they torment us with these little goofs.

When I ran into Tom Stix later that day and reported my findings, he told me that once, in a newspaper article about Sherlockians celebrating the centennial of A Study in Scarlet, the centennial had been reported as that of The Scarlet Letter. Since most literate folk know that The Scarlet Letter is definitely not a Holmes story, that particular mistake doesn't seem as torturous. Yet I still find myself wondering: what if Sherlock Holmes were in The Scarlet Letter? Would Jefferson Hope have blazed a trail of vengeance against the Puritans over what they did to his poor Hester Prynne? Or would Holmes have dealt with the machinations of Roger Chillingworth to begin with and headed off the need for vengeance entirely?

It's no wonder that pastiche writers exist in such abundance. There are stories of Sherlock Holmes lurking in more nooks and crannies than you could fit a tin dispatch box into, and any Sherlockian worth his deerstalker has to be a little bit curious about each and every one of them ... even me ones mat probably don't exist. And who is to blame for that? Try the man who said:

"Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

And there are many truths about Sherlock Holmes out there, even in typographical errors.

(Printed in Plugs & Dottles, June 1997)