^{The Norbury}Chronicle

e-newsletter of the Holmesian Studies SIG of American Mensa

since ’88, Baker Street Irregulars scion since ‘95

"Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed." (Mark 4:22)

Issue XLVI Summer ‘15

The Lost Detective

W e have been playing the first case in “The Lost Detective” game, “The Copycat” on facebook, featuring Sherlock Holmes as “Arthur Bell” (Get it? Arthur Conan Doyle plus “Dr. Bell”.) It is a hidden objects game, but some of the objects turn out to be important clues to the murder that turns into a series of murders (with kidnapping and jewel theft added later.) It has cryptology and logic, and persistance and forensics. It’s quite fun, especially since as a player one plays a rookie at Scotland Yard. It’s from The Other Guys that did the Jane Goodheart game. This is, we would say, an improvement.

T he story interestingly starts in 1895, the very year that the Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and Subjugation of Humanity (THRUSH) was founded by the surviving Moriarty brother. It even includes along the way such things as a dancing girl sending a life-and-death message in the Dancing Men cipher to the Popeye theme song!

The Lost Adventures ... still more pun-ishments

"The Adventure of Sir Reginald Falmouth and the Giant Rooster of Woking" by Robert C. Burr: "To have some chicken catch a Tory."

"The Adventure of the Beaten Detective" by David A. Haugen: "[We had] "mayhem on the outside…violins in here."

"The Adventure of the Boulevard Assassin" by Richard Milne: "[He was] guilty, but in Seine."

"The Adventure of the Card Playing Cats" by Richard Milne: "The cat that wins continually has to be a cheetah."

"The Adventure of the Desperate Colonel" by Richard Milne: "Philately will get you nowhere."

"The Adventure of the Disillusioned Diamond Miner" by Richard Milne: "All Rhodes lead to Rome."

"The Adventure of the Gastronomical Clue" by B. J. Kready, B. J. and Steve Mann: "[It was] alimentary, my dear Watson."

"The Adventure of the Intermitant Island" by Angela Milne: "[It was] an optical Aleutian."

"The Adventure of the Mad Millionaire" by Richard Milne: "[The] mills will be alive with the Hounds of Munich."

"The Adventure of the Malevolent Orchestra Leader" by Richard Milne: "[He] is obviously a bad conductor."

"The Adventure of the Missing Scotch" by Richard Milne: "[I could tell] by the nip in the heir."

"The Adventure of the Oriental Banker" by Richard Milne: "So many owed so much to Tso Fu."

"The Adventure of the Prodigal Niece" by Richard Milne: "The Fairfax is Watson’s department."

"The Adventure of the Soft Cell" by Richard Milne: "Hope springs E. Turnell."

"The Adventure of the Wimbledon Racketeers" by Richard Milne: "The sun never sets on the British umpire."

On Isadora Persano

from Sherlock Holmes and the Mad Doctor

The curiously femme name of Isadora, rather than Isadore, was a clue to Persano's ambiguous gender, rather more than just a feminym like Benjamin Franklin's "Mrs. Silence Dogoody" or Sir Walter Scott's "Crystal Croftangley". In "The Problem of Thor Bridge" [Watson] rightly described him/her as a journalist and duellist, but also mad. S/he was married to Marina, who told us of his/her enemies, Carlos Vicente Gasca in Mexico ("The Case of the Remarkable Worm" by Brian M. Thomsen) and the family of Francisco de Cassales in Guahanna. ("The Mystery of the Mumbling Duellist" by Paul D. Gilbert) S/he posed as a medium in Florence, likely for grist for one of his/her notorious exposés, that Holmes exposed for Cesare Lombroso, Oliver Lodge, B. K. Mallik, Winifred Lewis, Arthur Conan Doyle and Madame Blavatsky. They were however not impressed. ("The Case of Isadora Persano" by Ted Riccardi). They had just the opposite epistemolgy as Joe "Just the Facts" Friday. ("Dragnet" by Jack Webb) Persano's connection with Phillimore was confirmed by Raffles and Bunny who found him/her unconscious in Phillimore's garden with an unhatched sapphire-like worm egg. ("The Adventure of the Forgotten Umbrella" by Mel Gilden)

On Sophy Anderson

from Sherlock Holmes and the Mad Doctor

[Holmes and I] saved Lt. Richard Hornblower and steward Jack Luhulu on the Sophy Anderson ("The Affair of the Politician, the Lighthouse, and the Trained Cormorant" by Howard Collins) and investigated her namesake reported sunk twenty years before. The Grice-Patersons, then owners of Uffa Island, were then suspected of wrecking her. ("Sherlock Holmes, Dragon-Slayer (The Singular Adventures of the Grice-Patersons in the Island of Uffa)" by Darrell Schweitzer) Beatrice and Henry were however involved in an even more peculiar case of the murder at an archeological dig, while Alexander and Donald reported sighting the legendary Black Pig and were accused of stealing the MacGlevin Buckle. ("The Adventure of the Silver Buckle" by Dennis O. Smith) The Black Pig turned out to be a manifestation of As(h)toreh as Kalee (Folk-Lore of the Holy Land by J. E. Hanauer) or Kali the Black. (Studies and Texts in Folklore by M. Gaster)

The original Sophy Anderson led us to Sir William Carey and the theft of the Bagdah Emerald by yet another ancient Egyptian cult, the Sons of the Pharoahs, ("The Loss of the British Bark Sophy Anderson" by Gary Lovisi) the murderer of Prof. Edford ("The Long Man" by Rafe McGregor) and the cover-up by Joseph Nully and Michael Lofthouse. ("The Case of the Vanishing Barque" by June Thomson) To close this timeloop we trivialized the cult into the fraternal organization the Sons of the Desert ("The Sons of the Desert" by Byron Morgan) with the help of Lord Paddington, Arthur Stanley Jefferson. ("A Chump at Oxford" by Charles Rogers, Felix Adler and Harry Langdon)