I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere

Elementary’s Mycroft and Morland Holmes — A Tale of Doyle's Two Mycrofts

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“He was very like the chap that I had seen the night before” [STOC]</h4>
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Arthur Conan Doyle never set out to make Sherlock Holmes a series character. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Study in Scarlet</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Sign of Four</i> did not set the literary world on fire in 1887 and 1890 respectively. Before <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Strand Magazine</i> came into being in January 1891, there wasn’t a market for a short story serial character. Such a thing did not yet exist.<br />
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In the beginning of the nineteenth century, with the rise in literacy and more cost-effective printing and distribution, serialize novels in magazines and newspapers were popular. It’s why the novels of those times were so long; they were first serialized by authors who were being paid by the word. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Years-Oxford-Worlds-Classics/dp/0199537267/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466201654&sr=1-1&keywords=twenty+years+after" target="_blank">Alexandre Dumas wrote 1.25 million words</a> about the Three Musketeers between 1844 and 1850. </div>
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With the acceptance of “A Scandal in Bohemia” in March 1891, Doyle wrote six Holmes stories for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Strand</i>, being paid by the word, averaging £35 for each. When the July, August and September issues hit newsstands, sales increased because of the amateur detective and his medical companion and the magazine asked for more. Doyle offered <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Strand</i> £50 per story, regardless of length, hoping the magazine would decline such a ridiculous offer. They did not.<br />
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Doyle planned to kill Holmes in the twelfth tale. After informing his mother of that plan, she begged him not to do it and even supplied Doyle with the kernel for the plot of "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches." When <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Strand</i> again asked for another Holmes series, Doyle countered with <b>£1000</b> (approximately $75,000 in US dollars today [Editor's note: calculated by using <a href="http://currency.wiki/1893gbp-usd" target="_blank">Currency.Wiki</a> and Dave Manuel's <a href="http://www.davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php" target="_blank">Inflation Calculator</a>) for twelve, again hoping the asking price was too rich for the magazine. It was not and the author stuck to his guns and killed off the detective in the twenty-forth story, “The Final Problem”.</div>
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For nine years, “Final” was the operative word when it came to Holmes, but with the worldwide success of William Gillette’s play <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sherlock Holmes</i> and mounting personal expenses, Doyle decided to turn his “creeper” of a ghost story into a reminiscence of the late detective and HOUN was the first bestseller of the twentieth century in the modern sense of the term. Such a chink in Doyle’s armor <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Teller-Tales-Arthur-Conan-Doyle-ebook/dp/B00HY09X16/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466201748&sr=1-2&keywords=teller+of+tales" target="_blank">led Collier’s Weekly to offer</a> <b>$25,000</b> ($715,000 today) for six, <b>$30,000</b> ($860,000 today) for eight or <b>$45,000</b> ($1.3 million today) for 13 revived Sherlock Holmes stories, with the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Strand</i> throwing in an extra £100 per thousand words. Being human, Doyle accepted.<br />
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But also, being Doyle, he went at the task with the highest professional resolve. “I don’t think you need have any fears about Sherlock. I am not conscious of any failing powers, and my work is not less conscientious of old,” Doyle wrote his mother. Watson made clear throughout <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Return</i> that Holmes had retired and this was to be the final series of adventures.</div>
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The siren call of cash has power over mortals — and in the nineteen years between 1908 and 1927, Doyle would come to terms with his once-hated nemesis and sporadically write 20 more short stories and one novel. The point is not to berate Doyle for a moral weakness, since what he did was to be well-compensated for giving the public more of what they wanted and not rob or kill for filthy lucre, but to point out that the Canon is a series of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">stops</i> — and in the fifteen years between Mycroft’s two guest-starring turns, Holmes’s brother had evolved in Doyle’s mind and that the character in "The Greek Interpreter" is subtly different than the one in "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans"<br />
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It is this difference that Robert Doherty and the writers of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Elementary</i> exploited in their Mycroft and Morland Holmes.</div>
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Interpreting "The Greek Interpreter"</h3>
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Holmes informing Watson of the existence of a heretofore unknown brother is one of the Canon’s classic scenes; the older sibling with “better powers of observation than I,” but with “no ambition and no energy,” who<br />
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“audits the books in some of the Government departments. Mycroft lodges in Pall Mall, and he walks round the corner into Whitehall every morning and back every evening. From year's end to year's end he takes no other exercise, and is seen nowhere else, except only in the Diogenes Club, which is just opposite his rooms.” </blockquote>
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Holmes describes the Diogenes:<br />
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“There are many men in London, you know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubbable men in town. No member is permitted to take the least notice of any other one. Save in the Strangers' Room, no talking is, under any circumstances, permitted, and three offences, if brought to the notice of the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion. My brother was one of the founders, and I have myself found it a very soothing atmosphere."</blockquote>
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“His body was absolutely corpulent,” Watson describes him on first meeting,<br />
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“but his face, though massive, had preserved something of the sharpness of expression which was so remarkable in that of his brother. His eyes, which were of a peculiarly light watery grey, seemed to always retain that far-away, introspective look which I had only observed in Sherlock's when he was exerting his full powers.” </blockquote>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNPXBvD8KaCq5X6-AhXg6e2GtqfIfCgY90Laj2w79ZhQzXMM5-zrRnzGToMXYsgUzFn8wB0-4N2nKdAUhN3XyMhitDki3_TrSeRGjvh6sLeU-AausdAyxA_7pziSZjcJQgAveHl3PwXiOa/s1600/GREE-07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNPXBvD8KaCq5X6-AhXg6e2GtqfIfCgY90Laj2w79ZhQzXMM5-zrRnzGToMXYsgUzFn8wB0-4N2nKdAUhN3XyMhitDki3_TrSeRGjvh6sLeU-AausdAyxA_7pziSZjcJQgAveHl3PwXiOa/s320/GREE-07.jpg" width="281" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Mycroft Holmes in "The Greek Interpreter" - illustration by Sidney Paget</span></td></tr>
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In competing deductions of a stranger on the street we get a hint of sibling rivalry that later pasticheurs and scriptwriters have made much hay over.</div>
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Holmes, Watson and Mycroft (for the second time) listen to Mr. Melas’ story then Holmes queries Mycroft on any action he has taken:</div>
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“Any steps?” he asked.</div>
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Mycroft picked up the <i>Daily News</i>, which was lying on a side-table.</div>
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'"Anybody supplying any information as to the whereabouts of a Greek gentleman named Paul Kratides, from Athens, who is unable to speak English, will be rewarded. A similar reward paid to anyone giving information about a Greek lady whose first name is Sophy. X2473.’ That was in all the dailies. No answer.”</div>
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“How about the Greek Legation?”</div>
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“I have inquired. They know nothing.”</div>
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“A wire to the head of the Athens police, then.”'</div>
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“Sherlock has all the energy of the family,” said Mycroft, turning to me. “Well, you take up the case by all means, and let me know if you do any good.”</div>
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Here is a man to whom writing out two telegraph forms and dispatching a servant to send them puts him on the brink of exhaustion; writing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">three</i> would send him over the brink. In fact, this picture of an inert and ambitionless man is reinforced when Holmes and Watson walk home from the interview.</div>
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Holmes ascended the stairs first, and as he opened the door of our room he gave a start of surprise. Looking over his shoulder I was equally astonished. His brother Mycroft was sitting smoking in the armchair.</div>
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"Come in, Sherlock! Come in, sir," said he, blandly, smiling at our surprised faces. "You don't expect such energy from me, do you, Sherlock? But somehow this case attracts me."</div>
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[Holmes is so shocked by this unprecedented event that he elicits history’s first instance of “No s—t, Sherlock” from the reader.]</div>
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"How did you get here?"</div>
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"I passed you in a hansom."</div>
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If the Canon had ended with the stories of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Memoirs </i>or of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Return</i>, this is the only portrait of Mycroft we would be left with: a lazy and unambitious man, perhaps agoraphobic (“From year's end to year's end he takes no other exercise, and is seen nowhere” except work, home and club) and perhaps misanthropic. An intelligent underachiever content to bookkeep in obscurity and live more within the confines of his mind (“His eyes … seemed to always retain that far-away, introspective look which I had only observed in Sherlock's when he was exerting his full powers”) than the world and behind the façade of a “social club” of fellow hermits.<br />
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It is only the intellectual excitement of Sherlock’s work that pulls Mycroft from his comfort zone, and yet for all his intellect makes the tyro error of advertising in the papers after Melas has related the dire consequences of doing just that from Latimer and Kemp and then to suggest to interview the ad respondent rather than to rush to the probable location of the kidnapped Melas and Kratides. As we will see, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Elementary</i>’s Mycroft (Rhys Ifans) will draw heavily from this well.</div>
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<b>Planning "The Bruce-Partington Plans"</b></h3>
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Over the fifteen years from GREE to BRUC, Mycroft must have evolved in Doyle’s mind, grown in stature, ability and status from the eccentric recluse to someone more fitting to be the older brother of the world’s first—and best—consulting detective.</div>
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Gone is the man with no energy and no ambition. He is not too lazy to go anywhere save work, club and home, but “Mycroft has his rails and he runs on them. His Pall Mall lodgings, the Diogenes Club, Whitehall - that is his cycle. Once, and only once, he has been here. What upheaval can possibly have derailed him?" And “that Mycroft should break out in this erratic fashion! A planet might as well leave its orbit.”<br />
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Why? Not because he’s an insignificant accountant too sluggish to move, but because he is a governmental entity too important to be derailed by the trivial.</div>
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"You told me that he had some small office under the British Government."</div>
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Holmes chuckled.</div>
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"I did not know you quite so well in those days. One has to be discreet when one talks of high matters of state. You are right in thinking that he is under the British Government. You would also be right in a sense if you said that occasionally he is the British Government."</div>
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"My dear Holmes!"</div>
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"I thought I might surprise you. Mycroft draws four hundred and fifty pounds a year, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">remains a subordinate, has no ambitions of any kind, will receive neither honour nor title, but remains the most indispensable man in the country</i>." </div>
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"But how?"</div>
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"Well, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">his position is unique. He has made it for himself</i>. There has never been anything like it before, nor will be again. He has the tidiest and most orderly brain, with the greatest capacity for storing facts, of any man living. The same great powers which I have turned to the detection of crime he has used for this particular business. The conclusions of every department are passed to him, and he is the central exchange, the clearing-house, which makes out the balance. All other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience. We will suppose that a Minister needs information as to a point which involves the Navy, India, Canada, and the bimetallic question; he could get his separate advices from various departments upon each, but only Mycroft can focus them all, and say offhand how each factor would affect the other. They began by using him as a short-cut, a convenience; now he has made himself an essential. In that great brain of his everything is pigeonholed, and can be handed out in an instant. Again and again his word has decided the national policy. He lives in it. He thinks of nothing else save when, as an intellectual exercise, he unbends if I call upon him and ask him to advise me on one of my little problems. But Jupiter is descending today.” [Emphasis ours - <i>Ed</i>.]</div>
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Mycroft Holmes is, in fact Her Majesty’s analog to Sherlock Holmes, a consulting intelligence analyst but as superior to the average analyst as Sherlock is to the average Scotland Yarder. He is a department of one, subordinate but independent and like the ship of State itself can only move off-course (or depart Olympus) with great effort and reason. Gone is the lack of energy; the energy is now mental rather than physical. Gone is the lack of ambition for he has created his own, important niche in a realm where only the strong survive; but rather he lacks ambition<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">s</i> — the desire for fame, power or wealth.</div>
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Doyle’s physical description of Mycroft is also subtly different. </div>
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A moment later the tall and portly form of Mycroft Holmes was ushered into the room. Heavily built and massive, there was a suggestion of uncouth physical inertia in the figure, but above this unwieldy frame there was perched a head so masterful in its brow, so alert in its steel-gray, deep-set eyes, so firm in its lips, and so subtle in its play of expression, that after the first glance one forgot the gross body and remembered only the dominant mind.</div>
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The eyes are now alert and steel-gray not introspective and watery gray; the brow so masterful that the seal flipper hand fades from memory. Mycroft has habits, not indolence: “I extremely dislike altering my habits, but the powers that be would take no denial.” Supplicants must come to him prepared: “Give me your details, and from an arm-chair I will return you an excellent expert opinion. But to run here and run there, to cross-question railway guards, and lie on my face with a lens to my eye - it is not my métier.” Doyle paints for us a man worthy of the name Holmes in "The Bruce-Partington Plans" — and that is the one the reader of the Canon remembers the most.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_RsCP4DhUvb1kFRzP9mMcLXfiytgi2UmKlOH_paSaq4R7XKBGSgg9PxRBeh6wiYQfIpqHOJx21LZNriAyiVwPsopLa-J91DuLD3JZgngUoTWFJw-0cQ3u3HDuOhpD8_TKCZJx2KYkmlob/s1600/Bruc-01+Twidle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_RsCP4DhUvb1kFRzP9mMcLXfiytgi2UmKlOH_paSaq4R7XKBGSgg9PxRBeh6wiYQfIpqHOJx21LZNriAyiVwPsopLa-J91DuLD3JZgngUoTWFJw-0cQ3u3HDuOhpD8_TKCZJx2KYkmlob/s1600/Bruc-01+Twidle.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mycroft Holmes in "The Bruce-Partington Plans" - illustration by Arthur Twidle</td></tr>
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Doyle explains this different Mycroft to the reader by having Holmes claim he did not know Watson well enough to let him in on the truth, one unsatisfying within the confines of The Game, as "The Greek Interpreter" would have to take place after the publication of <i>A Study in Scarlet</i> ("I hear of Sherlock everywhere since you became his chronicler.”). That would place GREE in 1888 at the earliest, which would mean that Holmes did not know Watson well after <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">seven years</i>.<br />
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Remember also that in 1883 Holmes contradictorily told Helen Stoner, “This is my intimate friend and associate, Dr. Watson, before whom you can speak as freely as before myself.” A more likely explanation within The Game is that Watson <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">did</i> know truth in 1888, but it was the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">public </i>who could not know of Mycroft’s position in the government until 1908, when Mycroft’s role was either generally known or he had retired.</div>
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While Doyle elevated Mycroft to Sherlock’s governmental analog equal, it was Sherlockians who made Mycroft something more. By taking “he is the British Government” out of the context of Mycroft’s recommendations occasionally being implemented as government policy, Mycroft has become an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">éminence grise</i> who has the ear of Queen and ministers and powers over purse-strings (as in Billy Wilder’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Private-Life-Sherlock-Holmes/dp/B00K6D1RVW/ref=tmm_dvd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1466201883&sr=1-3" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes</i></a>) or a James Bondian “M” of a proto-MI6 run under the cover of the Diogenes Club or, as Vincent Starrett might have it, a mole of Moriarty. It is this Parallel Mycroft, <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2016/01/original-holmes-and-parallel-holmes.html#.V2R5U6KNFZY" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">as Mattias Boström would style it</a>, that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Elementary</i> uses as the template for Morland Holmes.</div>
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“Morland is not from [the] Canon,” said <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px16uAMW9bE" target="_blank">Robert Doherty at WonderCon 2016</a>, “and in some respects that makes him harder to write. You know if you’re taking something from [the] Canon you’re on some pretty solid footing, but with Morland, he was from whole cloth.” Yes, Holmes <i>père</i> is never mentioned or hinted at in the Canon, but by exploiting the duality of Doyle’s two Mycrofts and the duality of Canonical and popular culture Mycroft, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Elementary</i> has created a family dynamic that is influenced by Doyle and the cultural mythos that has built up around Mycroft but is outside the Canon, one both familiar and unique to Sherlockians, exploring how Sherlock became the show’s version of the icon and how the show’s Mycroft became GREE’s underachiever, by having the father be the pop culture Mycroft puppetmaster. </div>
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<b>Rhys's Piece</b></h3>
<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0406975/" target="_blank">Rhys Ifans</a>’ Mycroft was introduced in Season 2, where it is clear he and brother Sherlock (Jonny Lee Miller) aren't on good terms:</div>
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<b>Sherlock Holmes:</b> Fatty, This is Watson. Watson, this is Fatty.</div>
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<b>Mycroft Holmes:</b> Fatty? I’d say I slimmed down quite a bit. Wouldn’t you say?</div>
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<b>Sherlock:</b> Lap-band?</div>
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<b>Mycroft:</b> Exercise.</div>
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<b>Sherlock:</b> Exercise requires energy and ambition. You’ve never had either. (S2 E1)</div>
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This Mycroft is a successful restaurateur who owns several Michelin-starred restaurants named Diogenes. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Elementary</i> combines the elements of obesity, work and club [GREE] to give us a Mycroft whose safety zone is food and a self-created environment where he can sate his inner demons. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later in the season we find out that Mycroft was recruited by MI6:</div>
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<b>Mycroft Holmes</b>: It’s true, my business was going through a rough patch. I needed cash to keep my restaurants afloat.</div>
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<b>Sherlock Holmes</b>: So you took money from drug dealers. What could go wrong?</div>
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<b>Mycroft</b>: Le Milieu approached me with what they called a ‘mutually beneficial arraignment’. It was not an offer one could decline and yet that’s precisely what I intended to do. But before I could give my official word, I was visited by a man from MI6. He told me they’d been watching Le Milieu and were aware of the offer; he urged me to accept. Burrow in, keep my eyes and ears open, do some good for Queen and country.</div>
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<b>Sherlock</b>: And here was me thinking that MI6 was an intelligence organization. But they sought help from you, a virtual cartoon character.</div>
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<b>Mycroft</b>: You’re not listening…. I suppose, at first, it was all very romantic. I was an asset. I was imbedded with Le Milieu. As it turned out, I had something of a knack for spying.</div>
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<b>Sherlock</b>: What’s your double-o designation? License to kill or just to annoy?</div>
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<b>Mycroft</b>: I never was an operative. Never went on missions. But I did find I had a capacity for storing facts. Quite a remarkable one. And as my work with Le Milieu brought me into contact with other criminal organizations, I began to take on their secrets, too. I became a sort of clearinghouse for MI6. I could often, but not always, predict the effect of certain actions that might be taken to dismantle criminal groups. I know you don’t take me seriously, but the agency does. And they have done for quite some time.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Sherlock</b>: So you honestly expect me to believe that you are an MI6 asset and you have kept that hidden from me for over a decade?</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Mycroft</b>: [sarcastically] Right. Because we’re so close. (S2 E23)</div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
As with Melas in "The Greek Interpreter," Mycroft’s action led to a kidnapping — Joan Watson’s (Lucy Liu). Throughout the season, Mycroft had shown a fascination with Sherlock and Joan’s work and during the effort to free Joan from Le Milieu we get a flip version of GREE’s deduction competition:</div>
<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Sherlock</b>: You have the intellectual tools to make simple deductions. Your failure to apply them in an energetic fashion is a constant source of befuddlement. Look around you. Really look around.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Mycroft</b>: Excuse me. This cushion’s been disturbed. There’s scratches on the floor. Dry blood? There may have been some kind of scuffle.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Sherlock</b>: More than a scuffle, I’d say. Those scratches are drag marks. Someone pulled a heavy object to this door. (S2 E22)</div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
For someone without training, Mycroft acquits himself well, especially, as filmed, the clues are subtle to read. After Joan is rescued, she finds out the depths to which Mycroft would sacrifice for Sherlock. He had quit MI6, to get on with his own life, until:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Joan Watson</b>: Tell me about Sudomo Han ….</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Mycroft</b>: Han was an Indonesian businessman who kept an office in London. About three years ago, when Sherlock was at the height of his drug use, or at the bottom, whichever way you look at it, Han approached him to act as a sort of confidential courier. Said he need to transfer a packet of trade secrets to a colleague without his competitors finding out the package had passed hands.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Joan</b>: Sherlock took the job.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Mycroft</b>: Unfortunately. What Sherlock didn’t realize was that Han was financing a terrorist plot. The trade secrets were instructions for the transfer of funds, and the competitors Sherlock managed to elude were British agents. Luckily, MI6 thwarted the attack, so no one was hurt, but in the process Sherlock’s involvement came to light. He, uh…could’ve been sent to prison for a very long time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Joan</b>: So MI6 offered you a deal.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Mycroft</b>: By my handler. He said if I came back to work, Sherlock’s problems would disappear.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Joan</b>: In other words, everything that you did for MI6, letting drug traffickers use your restaurants, that wasn’t for money, or to save your business. That was all to protect Sherlock. (S2 E23)</div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mycroft comes to a harsh judgment of his actions and himself:</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Mycroft</b>: ‘He has no ambition and no energy. He will not even go out of his way to verify his own solutions. He would rather be considered wrong than go to the trouble of proving himself right.’ Something I overheard Sherlock say to my father once. He was 15.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Joan</b>: I can’t even picture him at 15.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Mycroft</b>: It hurts. And to be assessed like that.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Joan</b>: He knows a lot. He doesn’t know everything.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Mycroft</b>: I could have followed father into business. I could have followed Sherlock into his passions. But I wanted… less, I suppose.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Joan</b>: You are a success. You own restaurants all over Europe. And the things you’ve done for your country---</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Mycroft</b>: Folly. Obviously. I should have said no when the agency approached me. But I remembered what Sherlock said. And I remember my father failing to disagree. And I…I thought I could prove, at least to myself, that I was more than what they thought. Idiocy. (S2 E24)</div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
In his own variation of "The Final Problem," Mycroft lets the NSA fake his death to fool Le Milieu and disappears on his own hiatus.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Elementary </i>takes Mycroft's obesity, his desire for obscurity ("How comes it that he is unknown?" "Oh, he is very well known in his own circle." "Where, then?" "Well, in the Diogenes Club, for example." I had never heard of the institution…"), and need for a comfort zone and recombines them.<br />
<br />
Food, a symbolic substitute for Mycroft, becomes both his work and his social club. The Diogenes restaurants become the place where he shares that most accessible part of himself with a select clientele. His ambitions are small compared to his father’s and to his brother’s, but like GREE Mycroft's unremarkable bookkeeping job within walking distance of home and unsociable social club, he is happy and content in his self-made world.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The twist during the course of Season 2 is the blending of this Mycroft with the Canonical Mycroft's government servant and espionage [BRUC]. He is an asset to MI-6, letting his restaurants be used by Le Milieu and being a clearing-house of intel and a strategic analyst. Unlike with Doyle’s Mycroft, the later version does not become the default Mycroft, but Ifans' Greek Interpreter-based Mycroft stays dominant and becomes an uneasy fit to a man trying to prove to himself that he is not the failure his father and brother believe he is. In fact, he did quit only to be lured back in by his handler to prevent Sherlock’s arrest.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ultimately for some, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Elementary</i>’s Mycroft, while hewing close to Doyle, seemed too foreign. They were expecting something more like Parallel or pop culture Mycroft. Indeed, the portrait of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Elementary</i>’s Mycroft was incomplete until John Noble appeared to flesh out the family tree and to give the viewers a pastiche theory of how Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes came to be the men they are; “how far any singular gift in an individual was due to his ancestry, and how far to his own early training.”<br />
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<h3>
<b>The Not-So-Noble Father</b></h3>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Father Holmes has been an unseen presence since the beginning of the series. The brownstone occupied by Sherlock and Joan is his least-valuable holding in New York City. Sherlock’s low opinion of bankers, lawyers and capitalists expressed throughout the series has been colored by the relationship with his father: “My father is a Lovecraftian horror who uses his money to bludgeon his way to ever-more-obscene profits.” (S2 E22) Early in the first season, the viewer is teased by the possibility of meeting the man:</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Joan Watson</b>: Your father e-mailed me last night before I went to bed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>He’s coming into town for business. Wants to have dinner. [Sherlock chuckles] What’s so funny?</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Sherlock Holmes</b>: Him. Dinner. Us. [Looks at Joan] You. Remind me, Watson. How many times have you met the man?</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Joan</b>: Never.</div>
<b><br />
</b> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Sherlock</b>: That’s because he’s secured your services as my sober companion electronically. And all of your subsequent correspondences have been via e-mail or through one of his legion of personal assistants.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Joan</b>: So?</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Sherlock</b>: So take it from someone who has spent incrementally more time with him than you, he has zero intentions of meeting us for dinner this evening. (S1 E6)</div>
</blockquote>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
And later:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Sherlock</b>: One, my father does not care about me. He does what he does out of a sense of familial obligation. Big difference. Two, he does not care about you or what you think. Meeting you would be a formality. Three, as I’ve already told you, your concern is unwarranted because he has absolutely no intention of showing up tonight.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Joan</b>: How could you possible know that?</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Sherlock</b>: Because he is a serial absentee. A pathological maker and breaker of promises. Been that way since I was a boy. Fool me one, shame on you, fool me ad nauseam---(S1 E6)</div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
That <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">incrementally</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">serial absentee</i> are telling. Morland is always away on business; Sherlock and Mycroft were sent to different boarding schools and their mother was an opioid addict who became estranged from Morland and the family, later dying in an apartment fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>While the Canonical Watson thought Holmes was an orphan until "The Greek Interpreter," <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Elementary</i>’s Sherlock <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was</i> functionally an orphan.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVRkwmCwZeOdA0Zv0YWco4FSk_ftgl1YFlNr2CWmu6C8rp__mHCyzXJDCoIORo8oZXa-rOz-Q99iBQjiPvOdaxgOc9xI50qsFrGZtc4mkyuxcD4wRM8I0BGwzXGdqjyLYgjibnnwJzbX0p/s1600/Morland+Holmes.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVRkwmCwZeOdA0Zv0YWco4FSk_ftgl1YFlNr2CWmu6C8rp__mHCyzXJDCoIORo8oZXa-rOz-Q99iBQjiPvOdaxgOc9xI50qsFrGZtc4mkyuxcD4wRM8I0BGwzXGdqjyLYgjibnnwJzbX0p/s640/Morland+Holmes.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In Season 4, in a scene that plays like a version of the one in BRUC, Sherlock clarifies his father’s position in the world and the ease in which he can make the improbable happen:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Joan Watson</b>: Look, I think it’s nice that he wants to help, but you know we can’t go back to the department---it’s not possible. </div>
<b><br />
</b> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Sherlock Holmes</b>: Neither was war in the Falklands, but the old man tends to get what he wants.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Joan</b>: I can’t tell if you’re serious right now.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Sherlock</span>: How much do you really know about my father? You’ve rarely broached the terms of your initial appointment.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Joan</b>: Mostly I dealt with people under him. I know he’s some sort of international consultant.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Sherlock</span>: It is true I am not the first consultant in the family but the title is where the similarities end. Father’s business exists to grease the skids so that politicians and corporations can operate around the globe. Sometimes these are noble ventures, more times they are not. But they happen because Father is an influence peddler par excellence. If he says he can restore us he means it. </div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, Sherlock warns, “With him there is always a cost. The toll always comes due.” (S4 E2) And the Machiavellian nature of Morland comes clearer as the season continues:</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Sherlock Holmes</b>: Were you under the impression that we were dealing with a nice man? … Perhaps I underplayed the danger. Perhaps my constantly referring to my father as the devil incarnate wasn’t clear. He has armies on his payroll. He has mercenaries on speed dial. There are countries that you knew the name of as a child that no longer exist because of him. (S4 E22)</div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="MsoNormal">
This portrait of an amoral power-broker will be familiar to viewers of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sherlock</i>. While the Parallel Mycroft <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> the British Government and a master behind-the-scenes manipulator occasionally at odds with his brother, making Morland Holmes his independent business equivalent paints a complex family portrait, combining Canonical and Parallel-Canonical elements, familiar to the Sherlock Holmes fan, but connected in original ways.<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br />
</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Elementary</i>’s Mycroft, unsatisfying to some, becomes more complete when viewed against Morland. Sherlock saw Mycroft cashing in his trust fund as soon as possible to open up Diogenes as lazy and unambitious, but set against a harshly demanding absent but famously successful father and a competitive younger brother...<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Sherlock</b>: [to Morland] Well, it happened rather famously on your one and only visit to Baker Street. Or do you not recall excoriating me for not stocking your favorite tea? [S4 E2] </blockquote>
Mycroft’s move can be seen as wisely leaving an unhealthy world and creating a personally satisfying one, as "The Greek Interpreter" Mycroft did in setting up all he would need in England within a block or so in the heart of Whitehall.<br />
<br />
To open a restaurant, have it not only survive but thrive, to be Michelin-starred, and to open others across Europe is not the calling of a lazy, unambitious buffoon.<br />
<br />
Even the addition of elements of "The Bruce-Partington Plans" to Ifans’ Mycroft achieves a deeper meaning. Perhaps Mycroft’s success with Diogenes came relatively easy to him, so he undervalued his efforts and saw himself through his father’s disdain. When MI6 came calling, he saw an opportunity to prove to his father and himself he could be more than <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mere restaurateur</i>.<br />
<br />
The head of MI6, Sir James Valentine, confirms Mycroft’s worth to the agency. Assessed dispassionately, Mycroft performed much better than Sherlock’s harsh appraisal at the end of Season 2 before departure on hiatus and his heartfelt hug and genuine sentiment “This last year has been a gift,” not only went steps to answering his query to Joan at the beginning of the season of how one becomes Sherlock Holmes’s friend but, as the look on Sherlock’s face confirms after Mycroft leaves, one-ups the detective in their sibling rivalry.<br />
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<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Morland’s complex relationship with Sherlock is wonderfully conveyed John Noble in voice and expression:</div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Morland Holmes</b>: When you had your troubles in London, I lost faith in you. I provide for you in New York because I wanted you out of sight and mind. Little did I know that the untended corner of the garden would grow so strong and healthy…. I’m not talking about the last few days, I’m talking about the last few years. I respect what you’ve built here, the work you’ve done. I’m proud of you. Didn’t think I would be. (S4 E2)</div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The anger, disgust and pride are all there. Morland sees their relationships as worthy opponents on par with a wily business competitor. Joan, in their first face-to-face meeting dissuades him of that notion:</div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Morland</b>: If you think Sherlock is the only one who considers me an enemy, you’d be wrong. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Joan</b>: He doesn’t consider you an enemy.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Morland</b>: An antagonist, then.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Joan</b>: [matter-of-factly] No. I think he just…thinks you’re a terrible father. (S4 E2)</div>
</blockquote>
<br />
Morland is clearly hurt. Speaking of hurt, Joan notices during her lunch meetings with Morland unusual dining habits and numbers and type of vitamins he’s taking and posits that he’s had chemotherapy treatments. <span style="font-family: "arno pro" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">While going over Morland’s internet appearances to see if she can detect signs of illness, </span> she comes across the info that Sabine Raoult, a woman Morland was seeing, was killed in a drive-by shooting. Sherlock deduces that two of the bullets never found at the shooting scene ended up inside his father. Morland confirms this and admits the other reason he’s in New York is to get revenge on Sabine’s killer.<br />
<br />
Sherlock decides to investigate and discovers that Professor Joshua Vikner (Tony Curran), former mentor and father of Jamie Moriarty’s (Natalie Dormer) daughter had taken over the Moriarty organization and tried to assassinate Morland, but killed Sabine instead.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Sherlock</b>: [to Morland about Vikner] I’m sure you’ve been painting a portrait of evil in your mind’s eye since Sabine’s death, but it’s really not like that. A closer approximate would be Great Uncle Willard as a younger man.” (S4 E24)</div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
We don’t know if Miller’s Sherlock is related to Vernet, however we can say that “Capitalism is the blood is liable to take the strangest forms.” Morland had assumed that he had angered a rival business competitor, but is puzzled as to why Vikner would try to kill him. Sherlock had deduce that there was dissent in the Moriarty organization over Vikner’s leadership, headed by Iranian diplomat Zoya Hashemi (Roma Chugani). Morland, Sherlock and Joan interview Hashemi and get a sense of how large the criminal organization is; they have a presence, large or small, in about half the countries of the world. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Hashemi</b>: When Moriarty was captured, those with the most influence in the group realized that we couldn’t continue on without a leader. We were, as you said, a snake and we were eating our own tail. Certain candidates emerged---Vikner was one of them. But others, like myself, advocated for an individual outside the group, a man we long admired. A legend. He had spent a lifetime playing dice with the globe and had profited immensely. He still does.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Sherlock</b>: [to Morland] She’s talking about you. They wanted you to lead them.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Hashemi</b>: Tell me you don’t see art in what we do. Tell me you couldn’t have perfected it. (S4 E24)</div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Morland’s wounding and Sabine’s death accomplished the same result as Morland’s death would have; it gave Vikner enough time to consolidate his leadership over the group. Sherlock asks Hashemi to help “roll up” the group, but she replies it is too big to jail. Later at the brownstone, Joan asks:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Joan</b>: Do you think Morland would have said “yes” to the offer to take over the group?</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Sherlock</b>: No. There’s no denying over his long and storied career my father has facilitated deals where death was the likely outcome for someone, somewhere. But Vikner and his people persue death as a business deal. It’s a difference of kind, not of degree.</div>
</blockquote>
<br />
The offer had come as a bit of a shock to Morland as he no doubt saw himself as one of “the good guys” or the hero of his own life story:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Morland</b>: It’s really something, realizing you are, for all appearances, the kind of man who would accept the leadership position in a group like that. I’ve always blamed myself for what happened to Sabine. I was sure I had done something to upset a competitor or acted too aggressively in a negotiation, angered the wrong dictator or CEO. I’d stay up at night struggling to put a finger on it, to figure out exactly what I had done wrong.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Sherlock</b>: Right. ‘Cause it wasn’t one thing, was it? It was everything. Your life’s work. You would have been a spectacular failure, by the way. You don’t have the stuff to be an evil mastermind.(S4 E24)</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Parallel Mycroft works in a moral gray area; the needs of the government outweigh the rights of individuals or the niceties of international laws. In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes</i>, Queen Victoria, coming to the understanding of the unsportsman-like nature of submarine warfare orders Mycroft to destroy his prototype. Mycroft allows the German agents to steal the sub and rigged it to sink after theft---which also seems a bit unsportsman-like. By making Morland a Parallel Mycroft, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Elementary</i> shows us, in the context of the Game, how Sherlock became Holmes, the man who would “rather play tricks with the law of England than with my own conscience” [ABBE] while still having a code of ethics, by contrasting him with a father who is not evil but,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Sherlock</b>: <span style="line-height: 107%;">Father’s work is anything but frivolous, I assure you. Thanks to him, this energy firm and other clients like them have literally brought light to lands that were dark and just as often rained darkness where once there was light. Father doesn’t distinguish. Perhaps you need sanctions eased against a rogue nation so you can sell them your tanks, or your factories can only spew toxins if the US doesn’t sign an emissions treaty. Father can make it so, with the moral neutrality of the plague…. Not evil. </span>Neutral. Like a shark, or a tsunami. (S4 E3)</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The difference between Sherlock’s sense of justice and Morland’s moral relativism is critical, especially as we see throughout Season 4, father and son have similar<i> modus operandi</i> for achieving results, such as threats and bribery. In Sherlock’s case, the threats are exposure of criminal activity or the bribe a <i>quid pro quo</i> to not expose criminal activity in exchange for information to bring a larger crime to justice. Morland uses them as a means to an end.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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As the Holmeses work together, Joan, who like the Canonical Watson doesn’t mind breaking the law or facing arrest in service of a good cause, keeps a wary eye on them both to make sure Morland doesn’t corrupt and Sherlock doesn’t become corrupted. He does admit to Joan that he could get used to having a helicopter at his disposal to avoid New York traffic. But as we see, while Sherlock might naturally wish for a rapprochement his father, he has come to reject the moral neutrality that allows Morland—and the Parallel Mycroft of pastiche—of using people, loved ones, corporations and governments as chess pieces to be moved and sacrificed for an end-game. The dominant father-figure of Parallel Mycroft gives the characters of Sherlock and his brother a psychological depth for Canonical traits taken from Doyle and repurposed in both familiar and original configurations in, not a retelling of the Canon, but an exploration of a version of the essence of Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson, family and partnership.</div>
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The differences between father and son are displayed on the rooftop of the Brownstone at the end of season four when Morland informs Sherlock he has accepted Hashemi’s offer to head the Moriarty group, which resulted in Professor Vikner’s assassination.</div>
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<b>Morland</b>: I told you, I will not lose my son.</div>
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<b>Sherlock</b>: So your only recourse is to become the head of an organization which murders for profit?</div>
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<b>Morland</b>: How else would I dismantle it? Ms. Hashemi was right, the group is virtually impervious to threats from the outside, but a threat from the inside on the other hand…</div>
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<b>Sherlock</b>: What you’re describing would be suicide.</div>
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<b>Morland</b>: I should be returning to London this evening. The group will no longer have a presence in New York. You have my word. What is it about you and I that we do so much harm to the ones we allege we care about? I know about Irene Adler now. Ms. Hashemi explained. For years, you’ve blamed yourself for her death. You never questioned it … and the case could be made that your brother is in banishment because of you.</div>
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<b>Sherlock</b>: Do you have a point?</div>
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<b>Morland</b>: Being loved by you is a dangerous thing, Sherlock. Probably why I’m still alive. Men like us… we’re not meant to make such connections.</div>
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<b>Sherlock</b>: I disagree.</div>
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<b>Morland</b>: Ask yourself: who do love more than any other in the world? And what do you think will happen if you stay with her?</div>
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As performed by John Noble, the viewer believes Morland is infiltrating the group to destroy it—to save his son in a gambit where the grand master is willing to sacrifice a bishop (Vikner) and his Queen (himself) to save the King (Sherlock). We believe Miller that he’s come to see Morland as human (“You don’t have the stuff to be an evil mastermind.”), although not forgiven for his paternal failings. He was willing to frame the Professor for a murder committed by one of his hired assassins who already languishes in prison, but Vikner’s murder was out of the question for Sherlock. We know what Morland would do for those he loves; Sherlock, like the Doyle’s Holmes, has “a great heart as well as ... a great brain” [3GAR] and a moral compass. Parallel Mycroft-as-father-figure puts those differences in stark relief.</div>
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Stay Tuned</h3>
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<i>Elementary</i>’s Sherlock is capable of growth and the arc of the series has been to follow the great detective from the nadir of addiction, that dulling of distractions in too-sharp of focus, through the redemption of true friendship with Joan, something that didn’t exist in his familial relationships. <i>Elementary</i> does this not by a retelling of Canonical stories, but by using the Canon, and the pop culture canon, in original ways.</div>
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The fourth season of <i>Elementary</i> will be out on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Elementary-Season-4/dp/B01D4SPZR2/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1466786489&sr=1-1&keywords=elementary+season+4+dvd">DVD</a> August 23, 2016 and the fifth season will premiere on CBS Sunday, October 2, 2016 at 10:00 pm ET.<br />
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I do not know what’s in store. I would love to see a story arc showing Morland dismantling the Moriarty organization from the inside, perhaps with Mycroft's help and Jamie Moriarty emerging from the shadows to protect her empire, but the realities of actor availabilities will no doubt triumph over my personal wishes. However, I am looking forward to what Robert Doherty, Bob Goodman, the writing staff and the cast will have for us.</div>
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<i>Author’s note: My quotes from the TV show are based on the closed captioning and the dialog as I hear it. I’ve done the best I can to be accurate.</i></div>
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Elementary’s Mycroft and Morland Holmes — A Tale of Doyle's Two Mycrofts

“He was very like the chap that I had seen the night before” [STOC] Arthur Conan Doyle never set out to make Sherlock Holmes a ...

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by James C. O'Leary

Topic Set for Our 100th Show

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"we wish your advice upon the subject" [ENGR]</h4>
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You may have heard that we have the 100th episode of <a href="http://ihose.co/ihoseshows" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere</a> set to publish on July 15, 2016. It's been nine years in the making, and we're looking forward to celebrating with you.<br />
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Topic set, but your help is needed</h4>
We settled on the topic for the centenary show, thanks in part to the helpful suggestion of Steve Mason. Steve suggested a retrospective of sorts.<br />
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As we've been preparing for the show, we realized that we have lots of favorite moments from the previous 99 episodes, but that you might have some favorites of your own — or perhaps you'd like to know how the sausage is made, how the show comes together — or even how it came to be in the first place.<br />
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Frankly, we think the behind-the-scenes reporting might be a little too boring for our listeners, but we'd like to get <i><b>your</b></i> opinion.<br />
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What are your favorite moments from the show over the last 99 episodes? What bits are the most memorable? What guests or topics really stick out?<br />
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The more specific you can be, the better. Just leave us a comment below or <a href="mailto:comment@ihearofsherlock.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">drop us an email</a>.<br />
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We're looking forward to creating our 100th episode with you!<br />
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Topic Set for Our 100th Show

"we wish your advice upon the subject" [ENGR] You may have heard that we have the 100th episode of I Hear of Sherlock Everyw...

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by Scott Monty

Mr. Magoo Meets Sherlock Holmes

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"as blind as a mole" [TWIS]</h4>
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Modern audiences may not be familiar with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Magoo" target="_blank">Mr. Magoo</a>. The wealthy, cantankerous, short and nearly blind cartoon character was created in 1949 and enjoyed a remarkable run in both short and feature length presentations, as well as on television.<br />
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In the 1960s, the television show began as <i><a href="http://amzn.to/1bmm2Hz" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo</a></i>, which ran for 26 episodes. Episode 25 was "Mr. Magoo's Sherlock Holmes" and starred Jim Backus (as usual) as the voice of Magoo, who in this case took the role of Dr. Watson alongside Paul Frees as Sherlock Holmes.<br />
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The case is a clever little mystery that includes touches of a number of Sherlock Holmes stories, including <i>The Sign of Four</i>, "The Speckled Band," "The Musgrave Ritual," and "The Six Napoleons" to name a few. A young lady named Helen arrives at Baker Street worried that her stepfather is trying to steal her inheritance by harming her.<br />
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Watson and Holmes follow a set of clues that take them across London, but eventually concluding around the corner from 221B Baker Street at the "Marylebone Wax Museum" — obviously a stand-in for Madame Tussaud's.<br />
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It's a fun little show that's actually fairly faithful to the tenor of Conan Doyle's stories and even includes some original dialog and phrases from the Canon.<br />
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We initially had a YouTube link to "Mr. Magoo's Sherlock Holmes," but the account has been removed. Looks like you'll have to get the DVD from Amazon if you'd like to watch it. If you do, let us know if there are any other adventures that inspired this version.<br />
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Mr. Magoo Meets Sherlock Holmes

"as blind as a mole" [TWIS] Modern audiences may not be familiar with Mr. Magoo . The wealthy, cantankerous, short and nearly...

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by Scott Monty

Episode 98: Europe and Sherlock Holmes

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"Oh, he has a European fame, has he?" [REDC]</h4>
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While Sherlock Holmes is firmly rooted in London, the connections to Europe in the Sherlock Holmes stories are many. But have you ever stopped to ponder, as a whole, how mentions of the Continent and various European countries stack up? You might be surprised.<br />
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Travel with us as Burt and Scott take a deeper look into some of the European influences that Conan Doyle infused into the various stories. From Moriarty's European reputation to the "European situation" mentioned in "The Second Stain." What was so delicate at the time and who was Lord Bellinger? We note how refugees were treated in Europe in the time of <i>The Valley of Fear</i>. We even do an accounting of Holmes's fine work for many of the royal houses of Europe.<br />
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In addition, we treat you to a rundown of some Sherlock Holmes news, we welcome Steve Mason as our quiz contestant and have a special themed Gas-Lamp from <i>The Sherlock Holmes Journal</i> to fall in line with our European topic. All this and more!<br />
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As usual, we couldn't do this without the significant support of Mary Miller for her extraordinary Patreon support! If you contribute at Mary's level, you get mentioned on the show. But we welcome any amount of support that you can muster.<br />
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<h3>
<b>Notes</b></h3>
1:50 Hello and the perils of punctuation<br />
3:52 Current celebrations in London<br />
5:18 Brexit and <i><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qgt7" target="_blank">The Now Show</a></i><br />
8:33 Sponsor: <i><a href="http://www.bakerstreetjournal.com/" target="_blank">The Baker Street Journal</a></i><br />
10:45 Europe and Sherlock Holmes<br />
13:00 WARNING: Two bad dad jokes within 30 seconds of each other<br />
17:30 What was going on in Europe during the events of 'The Second Stain'<br />
23:33 Europe and London as central characters<br />
36:55 Holmes never ate chocolate (perhaps to avoid memories of Switzerland)<br />
39:30 Two Sherlock Holmes museums in Switzerland<br />
44:07 Sponsor: <a href="http://wessexpress.com/" target="_blank">Wessex Press</a><br />
45:17 Sherlock Holmes in the news<br />
56:18 Sponsor: <a href="http://amandalester.net/" target="_blank">Amanda Lester, Detective</a><br />
57:35 Mental Exaltation<br />
1:07:40 Gas-Lamp<br />
1:12:20 Final thoughts - please <a href="http://ihose.co/ihosesurvey" target="_blank">take our survey</a><br />
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<h3>
Sponsors</h3>
This episode includes our two longtime sponsors and a special sponsor who is supporting us for the first half of this year:<br />
<ul>
<li>The <a href="http://www.wessexpress.com/" target="_blank">Wessex Press</a>, featuring <i><a href="http://wessexpress.com/html/newspaper2.html" target="_blank">Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle and the Newspapers</a></i> </li>
<li><a href="http://www.bakerstreetjournal.com/" target="_blank"><i>The Baker Street Journal</i></a>, where you should get <a href="http://www.bakerstreetjournal.com/itemsforsale/subscriptions.html" target="_blank">your annual subscription</a> in now to secure all four issues plus the Christmas Annual. </li>
<li>And Paula Berinstein's <a href="http://amandalester.net/" target="_blank">Amanda Lester, Detective</a> series for young adults.</li>
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Would you care to become a sponsor? You can find <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/p/contact.html#.Vc1Qx7JViko" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">more information here</a>.</div>
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<a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/ihearofsherlock/ihearofsherlock098.mp3" target="_blank">Download</a> [Save As] | File size 35.9 MB, 1:18:26</h4>
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<h3>
Links:</h3>
<ul>
<li><i>Vanity Fair</i> on <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2016/05/queen-elizabeth-90-years-of-royal-portraits" target="_blank">What Queen Elizabeth’s 90 Years of Royal Portraits Tell Us About the Monarch</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qgt7" target="_blank"><i>The Now Show</i></a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.travelandleisure.com/slideshows/best-hotels-book-lovers/11" target="_blank">12 Literary Hotels for Book Lovers</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/tv/sherlock/34751/sherlock-series-4-toby-jones-character-name-revealed" target="_blank">Toby Jones will play Culverton Smith</a> in Series 4 of <i>Sherlock</i></li>
<li><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/kareem-abdul-jabbar-write-mycroft-894508" target="_blank">Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will write a Mycoft Holmes comic book series</a></li>
<li><a href="http://qz.com/677700/why-does-gin-and-tonic-taste-so-good/" target="_blank">Why does gin and tonic taste so good?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bakerstreetbeat.blogspot.com/2016/05/favorite-best-strongest-and-their.html" target="_blank">Favorite, Best and Strongest Stories - and their opposites</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2016/06/harper-collins-needs-to-do-more.html#.V2GBmPkrLb1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Harper Collins falsely accuses Conan Doyle of plagiarism</a></li>
<li>Leave us a rating or review on iTunes by <a href="http://bit.ly/ihearofsherlock" target="_blank">going here</a></li>
<li>The <a href="http://patreon.com/ihearofsherlock" target="_blank">I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere Patreon</a> page</li>
<li>The <a href="http://ihose.co/ihosesurvey" target="_blank">IHOSE listener survey</a></li>
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Many more links, articles and images are available in our Flipboard and Scoop.it sites at <a href="http://ihose.co/flipsherlock" target="_blank">ihose.co/flipsherlock</a> and <a href="http://www.scoop.it/t/sherlock-holmes" target="_blank">ihose.co/scoopsherlock</a>, as well as on the <a href="https://plus.google.com/communities/114565123495685504221" target="_blank">The Sherlock Holmes Community</a> on Google+ (with over 3,700 members), as well as through our accounts on <a href="http://facebook.com/ihearofsherlock" target="_blank">Facebook</a>, <a href="http://instagram.com/ihearofsherlock">Instagram</a>, <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2016/04/ihose-on-snapchat-just-in-time-for.html">Snapchat</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/ihearofsherlock" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a href="http://ihearofsherlock.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Tumblr</a>.</div>
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Episode 98: Europe and Sherlock Holmes

"Oh, he has a European fame, has he?" [REDC] While Sherlock Holmes is firmly rooted in London, the connections to ...

+ Read more »

by Scott Monty

The Secret Notebook of Sherlock Holmes — A Review

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"in the funny mood" [MAZA]</h4>
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<i>The Secret Notebook of Sherlock Holmes</i> by Liz Hedgecock, like many pastiches, starts with an introduction “verifying” the authenticity of the document. It goes on for a little longer than necessary, but it does set the tone — you know you’re in for lighthearted fare. This is a collection of short, humorous tales, more along the lines of <i>Without a Clue</i> or <i>The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Smarter Brother</i> than it is reminiscent of the Canon.<br />
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That’s not to say that the Canon is ignored. The author makes good use of it, and the comedy is never derisive. The plots are just as often simple domestic troubles at 221B Baker Street as they are cases from clients, but those scenes are just as entertaining as the mysteries.<br />
<br />
Whether witnessing Watson’s imagination run wild and suspecting Mrs. Hudson of poisoning Holmes, or watching Holmes track down Oscar Wilde’s notebook with anticlimactic results, these short tidbits from the lives of Holmes and Watson are a fun read. My personal favorite was “The Mystery of Mornington Crescent,” a post-retirement story that brings Holmes back to London to investigate an Underground station where no trains stop. The characters were well done, Holmes gets some great lines, and the solution was fitting.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUrpEsw-wrY6NU9f_lo74lyALDwD9bI6nyD24xFdXs3E0Ltduw6IJ024b6HMxtc2d1uEnP9TMA7f3fVMAGnOnTh-5eCnuvfiRY_9fPq4RWb18JKO2iVYEeF25y3m_0T7ejimG7SO9wMXnY/s1600/secret+notebook+of+SH+-+full.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUrpEsw-wrY6NU9f_lo74lyALDwD9bI6nyD24xFdXs3E0Ltduw6IJ024b6HMxtc2d1uEnP9TMA7f3fVMAGnOnTh-5eCnuvfiRY_9fPq4RWb18JKO2iVYEeF25y3m_0T7ejimG7SO9wMXnY/s640/secret+notebook+of+SH+-+full.png" width="398" /></a></div>
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If you’re looking for a quick lunch-break trip to Baker Street, with a laugh rather than a complex mystery, then this collection will serve you well. <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B01D1VTKWS" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="fe9587ae39dbc55beea4b19f0bddd6e8" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="The Secret Notebook of Sherlock Holmes" href="http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Notebook-Sherlock-Holmes-ebook/dp/B01D1VTKWS/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=fe9587ae39dbc55beea4b19f0bddd6e8&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_644124" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Secret Notebook of Sherlock Holmes</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_644124" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=fe9587ae39dbc55beea4b19f0bddd6e8&_cb=1465816659348" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i> is available for Kindle on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Notebook-Sherlock-Holmes-ebook/dp/B01D1VTKWS?ie=UTF8&keywords=secret%20notebook%20of%20sherlock%20holmes&qid=1463170527&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1">Amazon</a>.<br />
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The Secret Notebook of Sherlock Holmes — A Review

"in the funny mood" [MAZA] The Secret Notebook of Sherlock Holmes by Liz Hedgecock, like many pastiches, starts with an intr...

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by Katie Magnusson

Just What Will a Whitaker's Almanack Get You?

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"Let us consider the claims of Whitaker's Almanac" [VALL]</h4>
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We all remember that when Holmes and Watson solved Porlock's cipher in the early paragraphs of <i>The Valley of Fear</i>, their tool was a slightly out of date edition of <i>Whitaker's Almanack</i>. There is no other mention of Whitaker's (or any other almanac) anywhere in the Canon, but there can be little doubt that it was a frequently used reference at 221B Baker Street, standing on the shelf right next to such other workhorses as <i>Bradshaw's </i>(railway timetables), <i>Crockford's </i>(Church of England clergy), <i>Debrett's </i>(genealogy and careers of the aristocracy), perhaps even <i>Wisden's </i>(cricket).</div>
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Whitaker's is still in business, now in its 148th annual edition, and <a href="http://www.whitakersalmanack.com/" target="_blank">complemented by a website</a>, <a href="http://whitakersalmanack.com/">whitakersalmanack.com</a>.<br />
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It is distinctly British, with its emphasis on names and details of British government and business. The North American equivalent probably is (or was, before the Internet was everybody's default reference source) the <i>World Almanac</i> formerly published by the <i>New York World-Telegram</i>. The <i>Old Farmer's Almanac</i>, legendary though it be, is hardly in the same league.<br />
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I don't believe I've ever owned an up-to-date <i>Whitaker's</i>, but I do have an old one, and it is an essential tool in my Sherlockian research, as well as evidence of how valuable it must have been at times to Holmes and Watson. It is the almanac for 1893, right in the heart of the Baker Street era. I've lost track of how I came upon it, its original gilt-and crimson leather binding has been replaced, and its digest-sized pages are yellowing, but it is as vital a tool as ever it was.<br />
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Behold this volume of 728 pages (plus more than another 150 for advertisements). Holmes speaks accurately when he observes that "It is in double column. Though reserved in its earlier vocabulary, it becomes… quite garrulous towards the end." Every page is crammed with essential information — well, information, anyway — in what I would calculate to be 6-point type ("nonpareil", the British used to call it, as a chart on page 414 confirms). <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP1Nh0DMwmWvWlC0ilhsJ3Y6zv1sFfSXVuJA8n_jzE1rSYufGHMDduktqcsKVOiyaqXnlnwHUc7U32hgrOiYE9UPDFl7zurECepb9der_dvDJZ8OC5ywEdDq3CftIGN5SZTwl5CFHgdgQM/s1600/Frank+Wiles+-+Valley+of+Fear+Sherlock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP1Nh0DMwmWvWlC0ilhsJ3Y6zv1sFfSXVuJA8n_jzE1rSYufGHMDduktqcsKVOiyaqXnlnwHUc7U32hgrOiYE9UPDFl7zurECepb9der_dvDJZ8OC5ywEdDq3CftIGN5SZTwl5CFHgdgQM/s320/Frank+Wiles+-+Valley+of+Fear+Sherlock.jpg" width="204" /></a>Like just about any almanac, it begins with astronomical information, including the dates of the seasons, the incidence of Easter and Passover and Ramadan, and "the apparent right ascension of the principal planets at mean noon". Miscellaneous anniversaries also find a place, including the death dates of the Rev. J. G. Wood (he who identified the Lion's Mane) and Emperor Napoleon III.<br />
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Beyond that, there are exhaustive lists of peers and baronets, majors-general, Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, judges, warships, archdeacons, professors — yes, Whitaker's is one of the "several trustworthy books of reference" in which Professor Moriarty's salary could have been ascertained. Oddly, I do not find his name here; but of course, this is the 1893 edition, and he is known to have died at Reichenbach in 1891.<br />
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The book continues with information about the Royal Academy (artists), banks, sheriffs, fairs, wheat prices, weights and measures, tax rates, and railway companies. Garrulous passages, interspersed with statistics, running from page 441 to page 571, cover the British Empire and the nations of the world. There are a couple of mentions of Mahratta, though none, so far as I can see, of pigs'-bristles. Page 534, which Holmes and Watson used to solve their cipher, is in this 1893 edition of the book mostly about the economy of Egypt, with a mention of the Khalifa.<br />
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The world is vastly changed since Joseph Whitaker, the almanac's first editor, put this volume to press 123 years ago. For that very reason, a Sherlockian (this Sherlockian, at any rate) finds it useful for the information it provides about postage rates, cab fares, the salaries of government employees (the postmaster at Wandsworth earned £450 a year, just like Mycroft Holmes), and the hours of the British Museum. Here, too, you can find details of the hood Watson was entitled to wear as a Doctor of Medicine, and a long description of how one might find the will of a deceased person (Doctors' Commons, to which Holmes refers in "The Speckled Band", was not involved). <br />
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And if a cipher message from Porlock ever comes your way, you'll be ready.<br />
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<i>Image source: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABlue_plaque_re_Joseph_Whittaker_(of_almanack_fame)_-_geograph.org.uk_-_927613.jpg" target="_blank">Mike Quinn</a> [<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)" target="_blank">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>], via Wikimedia Commons</i><br />
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Just What Will a Whitaker's Almanack Get You?

"Let us consider the claims of Whitaker's Almanac" [VALL] We all remember that when Holmes and Watson solved Porlock...

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by Chris Redmond

Qualify for the Quiz on IHOSE #98

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"come on to the Continent with me" [FINA]</h4>
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Episode 98 of I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere is coming your way on June 15, and our focus will be Sherlock Holmes and Europe.<br />
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Appropriately enough, our Mental Exaltation quiz on Episode 98 will bring us onto the Continent, and we hope you'll join us.<br />
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<br />
Here's how Mental Exaltation works:</h4>
Each month, we'll post a qualifying question to determine a listener who'll play on the program. A contestant will be chosen at random from all correct entries.<br />
<br />
If you'd like to enter, you <b>must</b> subscribe to I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere by email. We'll patch you into the show to have you play over the phone or Skype.<br />
<br />
If you succeed in passing the test, you'll win a copy of <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1780929064" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="a538715700515c2b420a9c99d3aa6d7c" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Lives Beyond Baker Street" href="http://www.amazon.com/Lives-Beyond-Baker-Street-Contemporaries/dp/1780929064/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=a538715700515c2b420a9c99d3aa6d7c&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_660624" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lives Beyond Baker Street</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_660624" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=a538715700515c2b420a9c99d3aa6d7c&_cb=1465492270047" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i> by Christopher Redmond, which chronicles the lives of many Europeans alive during Holmes's time.<br />
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Qualify Now</h3>
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="1000" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ltP83A55ZDvQtLea6xxVK3iNiVpxbcQjoCuXBZkWRcE/viewform?embedded=true" width="660">Loading...</iframe><br />
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Good luck!<br />
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<i>Image credit: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/IHearofSherlock/photos/a.10152292129633047.1073741826.6723878046/10152207040483047/?type=3&theater" target="_blank">Tom Francis (Facebook)</a></i><br />
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Qualify for the Quiz on IHOSE #98

"come on to the Continent with me" [FINA] Episode 98 of I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere is coming your way on June 15, and ...

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by Scott Monty

Harper Collins Needs to Do More Detective Work for The Crime Club

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"what do the public, the great unobservant public...care about the finer shades of analysis and deduction!" [COPP]</h4>
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I really don't have time for this. My second daughter Esther was born the day before yesterday, and right now I have to spend the rest of my spare time finishing the English version of my book <i>From Holmes to Sherlock</i>. So you will all understand that I have plenty of important things to do - and writing this blog post was definitely not on that list.<br />
<br />
However, that British newspaper <i>The Sunday Times</i> makes it impossible for me not to react. Today they published the utmost rubbish (<a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/literary-sleuth-unmasks-conan-doyle-as-plot-thief-gsrkfvflq" target="_blank">"Literary sleuth unmasks Conan Doyle as plot thief"</a> [paywall] regarding Conan Doyle, and I just get so annoyed. It seems that anyone can claim whatever they want about Conan Doyle – and the newspapers will believe it. Even <i>The Sunday Times</i>.<br />
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We have seen it so many times before. Just mention Conan Doyle's name, and the journalists will lose all interest in checking the credibility of the source. Especially if the source is not at all a Conan Doyle expert. In the newspaper world anyone saying anything about Conan Doyle is an expert. In the case of<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2015/02/conan-doyle-didnt-write-lost-sherlock.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the Scottish man who found a short story last year</a> that he thought was written by Conan Doyle, he even said himself that he was no Conan Doyle expert, yet the newspapers treated his views on the authenticity of the story as the views of an expert. And they saw no need to contact a real Conan Doyle expert before spreading the extraordinary news over the world. (The Scottish man was <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2015/03/the-final-word-on-lost-sherlock-holmes.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">wrong</a>, of course.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This time it's Harper Collins that just want publicity for a forthcoming anthology. So they contacted <i>The Sunday Times</i>. On June 16 they will publish <i><a href="https://www.harpercollins.co.uk/9780008137335/the-crime-club" target="_blank">The Crime Club</a></i> – and this is h<span style="background-color: white;">ow they describe the book on their web site: </span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">"The Detective Story Club’s first short story anthology is based around a London detective club and includes three newly discovered tales unpublished for 100 years, plus a story bearing an uncanny resemblance to a Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes story but written some seven years earlier."</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">The story with the "uncanny resemblance" is a short story from 1915 with a plot that is extrem</span>ely close to the plot of "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Problem_of_Thor_Bridge" target="_blank">The Problem of Thor Bridge</a>", which Conan Doyle wrote in 1921 and published in 1922. According to <i>The Sunday Times</i> it was the proof reader Hugo Lamb who noticed this resemblance, and David Brawn at Harper Collins "has no doubt that Lamb has solved a literary crime." Brawn concludes, "It's real plagiarism."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh, please. </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit;">Why not take the time to do some research before you contact <i>The Times</i>? Or here's a stretch: how about <a href="http://lmgtfy.com/?q=thor+bridge+plot+origin" target="_blank">a good old fashioned Google search</a>? I tried – it took me two minutes to search for "thor bridge plot origin", which led me to search for "thor bridge hans gross" – and then I had all the material I needed.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit;">This is no secret – anyone can find it in e.g. Leslie S. Klinger's </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit;"><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="0393059162" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="866f1592d72ea067d1f364502c4ba168" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes" href="http://www.amazon.com/New-Annotated-Sherlock-Holmes-Complete/dp/0393059162/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=866f1592d72ea067d1f364502c4ba168&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_1417641" rel="nofollow" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes</a><span style="border-color: initial !important; border-image-outset: initial !important; border-image-repeat: initial !important; border-image-slice: initial !important; border-image-source: initial !important; border-image-width: initial !important; border-width: initial !important;"><i><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_1417641" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=866f1592d72ea067d1f364502c4ba168&_cb=1465182932715" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i></span> (published by W.W. Norton)</span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit;">. It was Conan Doyle's editor at the <i>Strand Magazine</i>, H. Greenhough Smith, who gave Conan Doyle the plot idea for this story. Smith had found it – an authentic crime case – in Dr Hans Gross' <i>Criminal Investigation – A Practical Handbook</i>, published in English in 1906, and in German already in 1893. Since the authors of the 1915 story were a superintendent and a police historian, they had of course read the same non-fiction book, and based their story on it.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="background-color: white;">What really bothers me is not only this article in <i>The Sunday Times</i>, but the fact that Harper Collins, according to their presentation of the book, seems to make a mystery of something that is not a mystery, and while doing so are making accusations against Conan Doyle that are totally unfair and false. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="background-color: white;">However, anyone can be a Conan Doyle expert. Just go ahead and claim whatever you want. People will publish it. And I will – again – waste my time on complaining about it.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="background-color: white;">Finally, I want to apologize to my family and to my American publisher Otto Penzler for having written this blog post. I had no choice.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="background-color: white;">[<b>Editor's note:</b> Mattias Bostrom, BSI ("The Swedish Pathological Society") is the author of </span></span><i><a href="http://www.piratforlaget.se/bocker/fran-holmes-till-sherlock/" target="_blank">Från Holmes Till Sherlock</a></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;"> and writes for I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere typically only under duress.]</span><br />
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<span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>

Harper Collins Needs to Do More Detective Work for The Crime Club

"what do the public, the great unobservant public...care about the finer shades of analysis and deduction!" [COPP] I really d...

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by Mattias Boström

Episode 97: The Sydney Passengers

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"After an excellent voyage the <i>Hotspur</i> landed us at Sydney" [GLOR]</h4>
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Australian Sherlockians are some of the most amazing people. We had the opportunity to put our theory to the test not once, but twice. And the most recent occasion was in April 2016 on a visit to Sydney.<br />
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There we met with some wonderful and fun Sherlockians: Bill Barnes, BSI, Roseane McNamara, BSI, Kerry Murphy, Christopher Sequeira, Doug Elliott, BSI, Robert Veld, Erin O'Neill, and Malcolm Ellis, to be specific. While we were there, we had a chance to learn about their own unique experiences and got them to tell us a few stories of life as a Sherlock Holmes fan Down Under.<br />
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In this episode, we'll take you there through music, sound effects and good old imagination. We hope you come along on this voyage with us. We promise it won't end the same way that the <i>Gloria Scott</i> met its fate.<br />
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As a bonus, here are some images of the Passengers:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9iqsEIoIF8qhHjV3zE20Y_9__UuLNEcEpT-rZIVyMePcB_cJjvfWM6H9CWA7N9tWxRMHGsuC1e9KpcN9CBXsLLlpu6KQ9gSFoFWZN7zJA-kqpzU9NzrFOPXQU9Z0-EOwzOKd_IlYqFG9Q/s1600/IMG_3166.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9iqsEIoIF8qhHjV3zE20Y_9__UuLNEcEpT-rZIVyMePcB_cJjvfWM6H9CWA7N9tWxRMHGsuC1e9KpcN9CBXsLLlpu6KQ9gSFoFWZN7zJA-kqpzU9NzrFOPXQU9Z0-EOwzOKd_IlYqFG9Q/s400/IMG_3166.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kerry Murphy and Doug Elliott</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi15zu_y6BR08dw78AdgoyQuf_qGaIUIO8Kfwqjp7i8eIddritYmWcM3Gtr7ESZiZw1KqFsRn5tSFEtYnnOCR2iOIRRTnK-IL1UKArIn-zhIMA3buRJytcJp4F_3cjaojlKC3ag0z07bH8_/s1600/IMG_3168.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi15zu_y6BR08dw78AdgoyQuf_qGaIUIO8Kfwqjp7i8eIddritYmWcM3Gtr7ESZiZw1KqFsRn5tSFEtYnnOCR2iOIRRTnK-IL1UKArIn-zhIMA3buRJytcJp4F_3cjaojlKC3ag0z07bH8_/s400/IMG_3168.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bill Barnes, Erin O'Neill, Malcolm Ellis</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM-CdKU9ajlALn02h9lU2X7BF6tREPBRKTYKSqIm0iMNbonXRaH5oz8sIaskwllzCbYYvPRvZIb7SOb3a6JtKthfN9Dl3PG0_2lf9n5FmjwueK9FbMi8kMo8bkV7RvyOT06UAlZ8Qzn2jK/s1600/IMG_3169.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM-CdKU9ajlALn02h9lU2X7BF6tREPBRKTYKSqIm0iMNbonXRaH5oz8sIaskwllzCbYYvPRvZIb7SOb3a6JtKthfN9Dl3PG0_2lf9n5FmjwueK9FbMi8kMo8bkV7RvyOT06UAlZ8Qzn2jK/s320/IMG_3169.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Robert Veld</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6kZ_49Fi5tIo6-gFRYaU-SsgF14y_aqJQV-WGrNDpNNbjhqth7Saww6c5uanL9wQOzedWAph4ulUtthd1llYUkISrUaXsmV1G2NuxVRaicOlrqB9HKxfMnezdwey6qBAr6AG8j1D3paHm/s1600/Roseane+McNamara.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6kZ_49Fi5tIo6-gFRYaU-SsgF14y_aqJQV-WGrNDpNNbjhqth7Saww6c5uanL9wQOzedWAph4ulUtthd1llYUkISrUaXsmV1G2NuxVRaicOlrqB9HKxfMnezdwey6qBAr6AG8j1D3paHm/s400/Roseane+McNamara.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scott Monty with Roseane McNamara</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0BE0nuf4oT94lDuGrmwFk_xOLSHhKq0qoqK21LwHKwwsYtl1GX3czTeChjKyEqFmliUec3PpbLvbB9UuUSkPZViK54DnJP3oF0fjvHMPPFR1XTtvQiLbNq8NullX3tmTznLx_37sMMaZB/s1600/IMG_3172.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0BE0nuf4oT94lDuGrmwFk_xOLSHhKq0qoqK21LwHKwwsYtl1GX3czTeChjKyEqFmliUec3PpbLvbB9UuUSkPZViK54DnJP3oF0fjvHMPPFR1XTtvQiLbNq8NullX3tmTznLx_37sMMaZB/s400/IMG_3172.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scott Monty and Bill Barnes</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHkTM9NKBWGnwtQ-8rPUtVLsBDkem9dAbX6uoCGeJFI4f3DPy53QJ8CW0H3TmSB2vrFCiDqJYRtd4L1rhxbdqjFjFKdt4SGvR1U9xcN_UjiTaW-cn66Ml3LI5QEyZptFv-dJfexoey8KBf/s1600/IMG_3193.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHkTM9NKBWGnwtQ-8rPUtVLsBDkem9dAbX6uoCGeJFI4f3DPy53QJ8CW0H3TmSB2vrFCiDqJYRtd4L1rhxbdqjFjFKdt4SGvR1U9xcN_UjiTaW-cn66Ml3LI5QEyZptFv-dJfexoey8KBf/s400/IMG_3193.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Convict uniform, with markings as seen in Sidney Paget illustrations</td></tr>
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This episode includes our two longtime sponsors and a special sponsor who is supporting us for the first half of this year:<br />
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Links:</h3>
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<li><a href="http://www.sherlock.on.net/" target="_blank">The Sydney Passengers website</a></li>
<li>Robert Veld's <i><a href="http://wessexpress.com/html/strand.html" target="_blank">The Strand Magazine and Sherlock Holmes</a></i></li>
<li><i><a href="http://bakerstreetjournal.com/australiasherlock.html" target="_blank">Australia and Sherlock Holmes</a></i> from the BSI International Series</li>
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<li>The <a href="http://patreon.com/ihearofsherlock" target="_blank">I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere Patreon</a> page</li>
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