The Downstate Illinois Sherlockian Invitational
and The Mighty Debs

By Brad Keefauver

Gather ’round, my young Sherlockians . . . it’s time for a story, and a true story at that. You may have heard stories like this before, stories about baseball teams, or hockey teams, or basketball teams with freethrow-shooting dogs or werewolves wearing flubber-soled shoes. But this tale isn’t about sports. It’s about Sherlockians, and that makes it all the better.

Way back in the year nineteen hundred and ninety-six, a Baker Street Irregular in Peoria, Illinois, decided to hold a tournament. He thought it would be fun to let Sherlockian societies show just how Sherlockian they could be. There would be a pastiche contest, a speaking contest, and at the center of it all, a Canonical knowledge competition. Medals would be awarded the victors amidst much pomp and circumstance, even though the Irregular knew that merely competing would be its own reward.

He called this modern-day joust “The Downstate Illinois Sherlockian Invitational,” and sent invitations to all sorts of midwest Sherlockian societies, as well as issuing an open call for any interested groups to participate. Among the groups that answered the call was a Missouri-based scion society called “The Harpooners of the Sea Unicorn.” The Harpooners were a proud and mighty scion, whose leader, Michael Bragg, would cut a dashing figure on the foredeck of some great British sailing ship, loyal to Queen and Country, fighting off Spanish pirates at every turn. Yes, the Harpooners were a society of manly men, as their name would imply, but in the crew they brought to this particular battle, they included one woman, a dainty yet spirited creature named Barbara Roscoe.

Barbara was a relative newcomer to the realms of Sherlockian competition. She had doubts as to her ability to compete in such a grand tournament, but went anyway, encouraged by the Harpooners’ fearless leader. The result, however, was somewhat dispiriting.

All of the Sherlockian societies that showed up to test their mettle that day took a severe drubbing at the hands of the Occupants of the Empty House. The Occupants had stocked their team with three seasoned Baker Street Irregulars, and were determined to take second to no one. They knew where to find “three caltrops in chief over a fess sable.” They knew Watson’s secret weakness. They knew it all that day, and were quite unbeatable. Other teams charged forward, but to no avail. The Occupants of the Empty House were at the top of their game.

The Harpooners, on the other hand, were not having such a good time of it. A team consisting totally of cardboard figures of Sherlockians came very close to beating them, and being bested by inanimate objects is never any fun. Many of those watching that day wondered if the Harpooners escaped with any self-esteem left whatsoever. They needn’t have wondered . . . the Harpooners still had a certain Sherlockian named Roscoe with them when they left the arena that day. And somewhere, deep in that most fledgling of Sherlockian hearts, a small flame of ambition still burned.

A year passed. Or almost a year, in any case.

The call went out for teams to compete in the second Downstate Illinois Sherlockian Invitational.

Still smarting from last year’s defeat, or possibly frightened of the prospect of new cardboard opponents, the Harpooners of the Sea Unicorn were not quite ready to return to Peoria. Well, most of the Harpooners, anyway. Barbara Roscoe was set on returning, and more than that . . . she was determined to win the blasted tournament that had so humiliated her and her fellow Harpooners the year before. But she couldn’t enter by herself — or could she?

Having spent much of the preceding year getting to know the enemy, Barbara now knew quite a bit about the Occupants of the Empty House. She knew that they were a lively group, ever willing to help out a fellow Sherlockian, and that in the past competition their chosen team for the Canonical knowledge tournament had left out a certain feminine element. Just as the old male Baker Street Irregulars sparked the creation of the young female Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes in the 1960s, so too did the old male Baker Street Irregulars on the Occupants team now spark the creation of another team of youthful females. Looking to help out Barb Roscoe, Occupants Patricia King, Shannon King, and Janet Bensley banded together to form the Three Garish Debs, a brand new Sherlockian society.

They formed a battle plan: divide up the sixty stories between them and conquer. Yet hardly two weeks remained before the tournament. How could their upstart society hope to challenge such experienced veterans as the Occupants team?

When the day of reckoning finally came, it was not the Occupants who first gave the Debs pause, but the Tankerville Club. Paul Herbert, Ralph Hall, and Don Hobbs formed a triumvirate of Sherlockian trivia that blasted through the early rounds. The “Big Wheel” — a large, multicolored spinning wheel with the Christ abbreviations for all sixty stories on it — would spin and a question concerning the case that came up would be asked. “Who was the Scotland Yard man involved?” “Was Watson living at Baker Street at the time of the case?” Again and again the Tankerville Club came up with the right answer, seeming almost unstoppable, until . . .

The Impossible Task. Billed as “the Kobayashi Maru of Sherlockian trivia,” the Impossible Task gave each competing society five minutes to transcribe as much of a Canonical tale, word for word, as they could. When the five minutes were up, one point would be awarded for each correct word before a mistake was finally made. The mighty Tankerville Club missed the wole first paragraph of the story they picked, and the lead went up for grabs.

Bob Burr, leading the Hansoms of John Clayton team (with Nellie Brown and Kathy Carter helping out), had run wild with the opening passage to A Study in Scarlet, and the Hansoms now leapt to the fore.

More spinning of the Big Wheel followed. Shaw questions were asked. Disease and eye color questions were asked. Questions answered by horrible puns on the names of those present were asked. Everyone performed valiantly, even successfully, yet the Hansoms maintained their commanding lead.

Finally, it all came down to one “Final Jeopardy” type of question. The Big Wheel was spun and the teams were asked to wager their points on the topic of “The Adventure of the Empty House.” The Occupants of the Empty House were delighted, since their namesake story was sure to nab them their second victory in a row. In addition to their three old Irregulars, Gordon Speck, Bill Cochran, and Joe Eckrich, they had added Andy and Michelle Wist to their team. They outnumbered all the opposing teams, they had the final question in their home court, and they were almost to victory . . . almost.

The final question was read: “Who died in Lauder in 1887?”

The Tankerville Club bet all of their points . . . and failed.

The Hansoms bet a third of their points . . . and failed.

The Occupants bet all of their points . . . and failed.

Only the neophyte Debs, sure enough of their own limits to bet none of their hard-earned points on the unknown question, came out unscathed. In the tournament’s final moment, the Three Garish Debs had taken over the lead and won the tournament, where the cocksure older societies failed.

The Downstate Illinois Sherlockian Invitational had other competitions this year. The essay competition, won by Patricia King, with Melissa Hellen in second and Mary Green in third, was competitive enough. And the scion song competition was thoroughly enjoyable with the music of The Holmes & Watson Report’s staff guitarist Bill Cochran and a rip-roaring barbershop finale by Bob Burr’s quartet. (The Hansoms won, with Occupants in second, and the Debs in third.) But the most exciting and memorable part of the whole day has to remain the underdog victory of the Three Garish Debs.

During a portion of the competition featuring some classic questions by John Bennett Shaw, someone commented that Shaw was probably up there in the afterlife laughing at us trying to figure out his riddles even now. Personally, I hope he was, because he definitely would have enjoyed the little show put on that day. Because if they get cable in heaven, “The Mighty Ducks” doesn’t come close to “The Mighty Debs” for good Sherlockian entertainment.