“I had also a commission from the Sultan of Turkey which called for immediate action,” Sherlock Holmes said in the tale of “The Blanched Soldier.” As we head into Thanksgiving week, preparing to all be “sultans of turkey” on Thursday, it is incumbent upon the true blue Sherlockian to turn this very American holiday into a Sherlock Holmes-related event somehow, even almost all of us are spending the holiday with very non-Sherlockian family members.

But what of the true traditions, you ask? What of pilgrims? What of Indians? What of the giving of thanks?

Well, certainly you can find Mormon pilgrims or Malay pilgrims mentioned in the Canon of Holmes, but the best pilgrim you’ll find there is Sherlock Holmes himself. His pilgrimage started in Chicago in “His Last Bow,” which makes him an American pilgrim.

The same goes for Indians. A look through The Complete Sherlock Holmes will find you East Indians, Anglo-Indians, Apache Indians, Digger Indians . . . but again, we come to Sherlock Holmes who had “the countenance of a Red Indian.”

Since Holmes almost always had dinner with himself, Pilgrim Holmes and Indian Holmes made every meal a Thanksgiving. And why not? Sherlock Holmes is all about the giving of thanks, in whichever direction you choose. The word “thanks” appears nineteen times in the Sherlock Holmes stories. Clients give thanks to Holmes. Holmes gives thanks to Watson. A Pinkerton man gives thanks to a killer. The French give thanks to Holmes. Holmes gives thanks to Scotland Yard. The giving of thanks seems to flow in all sorts of directions in Holmes’s life.

So celebrate this most Sherlockian of holidays on Thursday in whatever way suits you best. Wear a deerstalker to the dinner table and annoy your family with some of the facts listed above. Fill your belly to Mycroft Holmes size and spend the rest of the day not talking to people. (Tell them you have a commission to do so from the Sultan of Turkey.) And give somebody some thanks.

Thanks for reading! (There, I’m off the hook.)

Your humble correspondent,
Brad Keefauver