“a nasty cropper” [STOC]
Yet, James Ryder was nowhere near as knowledgeable a fowl handler as his sister, Maggie Oakshott. If he were, he would have known that chickens and turkeys possess crops, but geese do not.
"A goose has no crop," Miss Mildred Sammons stated in a letter to the "Line o' Type or Two" column of the Chicago Tribune on December 27, 1946. Dr. Jay Finley Christ, to whom the letter had been addressed, noted,
"Mildred Sammons' announcement in the Line of Dec. 26 that 'a goose has no crop' produced a considerable shock among Sherlock Holmes experts. Consultation of one ornithologist, two zoologists, and three poultry dressers, together with ocular demonstration, made it abundantly clear that the lady is correct. Holmes made an alimentary error, which the Baker Street Irregulars should have noted long ago."
Peter Blau, BSI ("Black Peter") in More Leaves from the Copper Beeches (1976) made the only logical conclusion:
"The matter of geese's crops is really beside the point...if we assume that the Blue Carbuncle was not found in the goose's crop at all, and that the long debate has actually centered on a printer's error, which substituted an o for Watson's a."
One wonders how the tale might have turned out differently if Mrs. Oakshott raised chickens, ducks, or turkeys. Would it have been possible to find the blue carbuncle in a turducken?
Perhaps we'll need to take this investigation to Baker Street Alimentary...
Baker Street Elementary follows the original adventures of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, as they and their friends work through the issues of elementary school in Victorian London. An archive of all previous episodes can be viewed at www.bakerstreetelementary.org.
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