5. In which part of London does Mycroft live?
6. What color are Mycroft’s eyes?
7. Of what finish is Mycroft’s snuff box?
8. What type of handkerchief does Mycroft carry?
9. What odd rule do members of Mycroft’s club have to obey?
10. How much money does Mycroft earn each year?
QUIZ 8 HOLMES RETURNS
After an absence of almost ten years, Conan Doyle brought Holmes back to entertain his public with thirty-four additional adventures. As Holmes explains to Dr. Watson after the good doctor recovers from his shock, he conceived of the idea to allow the world to think that he had died in the accident while tumbling down the cliff. Holmes wanted to put some distance between himself and the Moriarty gang. Within hours of his return, Holmes and Watson are back on the streets of London pursuing a murderous villain. This quiz contains ten short-answer questions about Holmes’s Great Hiatus and his return to London.
1. What does Watson do after seeing Holmes for the first time after he was presumed dead?
2. How was Holmes able to release himself from Professor Moriarty’s grasp when they were wrestling on the cliffs of Reichenbach Falls?
3. How long was Holmes’s hiatus?
4. Where did Holmes spend his time?
5. What topic did Holmes research?
6. At what time does Holmes return to Baker Street?
7. Why does Holmes return to London?
8. Who knew that Holmes was still alive?
9. What alias did Holmes use while exploring in the north?
10. How is Holmes’s first case after his return linked with his past?
QUIZ 9 MESSAGES AND SECRET CODES
Perhaps the best secret message was written in the forgotten riddle of “The Musgrave Ritual,” an edict which was memorized by every Musgrave family member since its origination in the seventeenth century.
“Whose Was It? His who is gone.
Who shall have it? He who will come.
Where was the sun? Over the oak.
Where was the shadow? Under the elm.
How was it stepped? North by ten and by ten,
east by five and by five, south by two and by two,
west by one and by one, and so under.
What shall we give for it? All that is ours.
Why should we give it? For the sake of trust.”
The meaning was lost over time and came to be considered trivial and insignificant, even with regard to the mystery continuing to haunt the Musgrave family. Holmes and the Musgrave butler, however, believed otherwise. Connect the following fifteen codes and messages with the story and the individuals involved.
1. “THE OLD MAN IS DEAD.”
2. “There is danger-may-come-very-soon-one. Douglas’-rich�country-now-at-Birlstone-House-Birlstone-confidence-is-pressing.”
3. “Jagged or torn.”
4. “I will be at Thor Bridge at nine o’clock.”
5. “Will come without fail to-night and bring new sparking plugs.”
6. “Come at once if convenient—if inconvenient come all the same.”
7. “Be at the third pillar from the left outside the Lyceum Theatre tonight at seven o’clock.”
8. “I will be there, you may be sure. Maudie”
9. “Our own colours, green and white. Green open, white shut. Main stair, first corridor, seventh right, green baize. Godspeed. D.”
10. “Come at once without fail. Can give you information as to your recent loss. Elman.”
11. “You will see me when all is ready. Come at once. F.H.M.”
12. “S. H. for J. O.”
13. “The cottage is still tenanted [it said]. Have seen the face again at the window. Will meet the seven-o’clock train and will take no steps until you arrive.”
14. “Put the papers on the sundial.”
15. “The game is up. Hudson has told all. Fly for your life.”
QUIZ 10 FIRST WORDS
It is easy to picture Conan Doyle developing that very first line and then spinning the rest of the tale as effortlessly as a passenger climbing aboard a train and sitting back to enjoy the ride. In the early days of writing Sherlock Holmes tales, Conan Doyle quickly cranked out the stories almost in first draft. As he grew tired of writing about his detective, he continued with the same rapidity, except with the intention of submitting them to his publishers as quickly as possible so that he could write other things which held his interest more. His attitude toward Sherlock Holmes, however, did not deter his fans from absorbing every word and then demanding more. The following quiz contains thirty of the most interesting first lines of the Sherlock Holmes tales. Your task is to identify the tale.
1. “It was a bitterly cold night and frosty morning, towards the end of the winter of ’97, that I was awakened by a tugging at my shoulder.”
2. “I have never known my friend to be in better form, both mental and physical, than in the year ’95.”
3. “In the third week of November, in the year 1895, a dense yellow fog settled down upon London.”
4. “When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes cases between the years of ’82 and ’90, I am faced by so many which present strange and interesting features that it is no easy matter to know which to choose and which to leave.”
5. “My dear fellow,” said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodging at Baker Street, “life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.”
6. “It was the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the Army.”
7. “It is years since the incident of which I speak took place, and yet it is with diffidence that I allude to them.”
8. “I don’t think that any of my adventures of Mr. Sherlock Holmes opened quite so abruptly, or so dramatically, as that which I associate with . . . ”
9. “Of all the problems which have been submitted to my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, for solution during the years of our intimacy, there were only two which I was the means of introducing to his notice—that of Mr. Hatherley’s thumb, and that of Colonel Warburton’s madness.”
10. “To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman.”
11. “The July which immediately succeeded my marriage was made memorable by three cases of interest, in which I had the privilege of being associated with Sherlock Holmes and of studying his methods.”
12. “It was some time before the health of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes recovered from the strain caused by his immense exertions in the spring of ’87.”
13. “I find it recorded in my notebook that it was a bleak and windy day towards the end of March in the year 1892.”
14. “It was in the spring of the year 1894 that all London was interested, and the fashionable world dismayed, by the murder of the Honorable Ronald Adair under most unusual and inexplicable circumstances.”
15. “We were fairly accustomed to receive weird telegrams at Baker Street, but I have a particular recollection of one which reached us on a gloomy February morning some seven or eight years ago, and gave Mr. Sherlock Holmes a puzzled quarter of an hour.”
16. “It was with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these the last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was distinguished.”
17. “To the man who loves art for its own sake,” remarked Sherlock Holmes, tossing aside the advertisement sheet of the Daily Telegraph, “it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived.”
18. “We were seated at breakfast one morning, my wife and I, when the maid brought in a telegram.”
19. “Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case.”
20. “Holmes,” said I as I stood one morning in our box-wi
ndow looking down the street, “here is a madman coming along. It seems rather sad that his relatives should allow to him to come out alone.”
21. “During my long and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Sherlock Holmes I had never heard him refer to his relations, and hardly ever to his own early life.”
22. “Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before.”
23. “Somewhere in the vaults of the bank of Cox and Co., at Charing Cross, there is a travel-worn and battered tin dispatch-box with my name, John H. Watson, M. D., Late Indian Army, printed upon the lid.”
24. “From the point of view of the criminal expert,” said Mr. Sherlock Holmes, “London has become a singularly uninteresting city since the death of the late lamented Professor Moriarty.”
25. “In recording from time to time some of the curious experiences and interesting recollections which I associate with my long and intimate friendship with Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have continually been faced by difficulties caused by his own aversion to publicity.”
26. “Holmes had been seated for some hours in silence with a long, thin back curved over a chemical vessel in which he was brewing a particularly malodorous product.”
27. “It may have been a comedy, or it may have been a tragedy.”
28. “From the years 1894 to 1901 inclusive, Mr. Sherlock Holmes was a very busy man.”
29. “It was pleasant to Dr. Watson to find himself once more in the untidy room of the first floor in Baker Street which had been the starting-point of so many remarkable adventures.”
30. “It is a most singular thing that a problem which was certainly as abstruse and unusual as any which I have faced in my long professional career should have come to me after my retirement, and be brought, as it were, to my very door.”
QUIZ 11 CHARACTERS ACCORDING TO WATSON—PART 1
Deductive reasoning is to Sherlock Holmes what character descriptions are to Dr. Watson. This brilliant attribute is rarely, if ever, discussed in the numerous essays written about Watson. Holmes’s chronicler had a gift for matching adjective with character: “A lean, ferret-like man”; “fresh-complexioned young fellow”; “a bright, quick face, freckled like a plover’s egg.” His simple but vivid words flowed within the story, bringing the characters to life as if they had stepped from the page into reality. Here are fifteen character descriptions from A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, the stories written before the Great Hiatus. Identify the character and the story or novel.
1. “He was a man of about fifty, tall, portly, and imposing, with a massive, strongly marked face and a commanding figure. He was dressed in a sombre yet rich style, in black frock-coat, shining hat, neat brown gaiters, and well-cut pearl-gray trousers. Yet his actions were in absurd contrast to the dignity of his dress and features, for he was running hard, with occasional little springs, such as a weary man gives who is little accustomed to set and tax upon his legs.”
2. “entered the room with a firm step and an outward composure of manner. She was a blonde young lady, small, dainty, well gloved, and dressed in the most perfect taste. There was, however, a plainness and simplicity about her costume which bore with it a suggestion of limited means. The dress was a sombre grayish beige, untrimmed and unbraided, and she wore a small turban of the same dull hue, relieved only by a suspicion of white feather in the side. Her face had neither regularity of feature nor beauty of complexion, but her expression was sweet and amiable, and her large blue eyes were singularly spiritual and sympathetic.In an experience of women which extends over many nations and three separate continents, I have never looked upon a face which gave a clearer promise of a refined and sensitive nature.”
3. “In height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to which I have alluded; and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the prominence and squareness which mark the man of determination.”
4. “She was rather above the middle height, slim, with dark hair and eyes, which seemed the darker against the absolute pallor of her skin. I do not think that I have ever seen such deadly paleness in a woman’s face. Her lips, too, were bloodless, but her eyes were flushed with crying. As she swept silently into the room she impressed me with a greater sense of grief than the banker had done in the morning, and it was the more striking in her as she was evidently a woman of strong character, with immense capacity for self-restraint.”
5. “Looking over his shoulder, I saw that on the pavement opposite there stood a large woman with a heavy fur boa round her neck, and a large curling red feather in a broad-brimmed hat which was tilted in a coquettish Duchess of Devonshire fashion over her ear. From under this great panoply she peeped up in a nervous, hesitating fashion at our windows, while her body oscillated backward and forward, and her fingers fidgeted with her glove buttons.”
6. “She was a striking-looking woman, a little short and thick for symmetry, but with a beautiful olive complexion, large, dark, Italian eyes, and a wealth of deep black hair. Her rich tints made the white face of her companion the more worn and haggard by the contrast.”
7. “a small man with a very high head, a bristle of red hair all round the fringe of it, and a bald, shining scalp which shot out from among it like a mountain-peak from fir-trees.”
8. “A lean, ferret-like man, furtive and sly-looking, was waiting for us upon the platform. In spite of the light brown dustcoat and leather leggings which he wore in deference to his rustic surroundings, I had no difficulty in recognizing . . . ”
9. “His costume was a peculiar mixture of the professional and of the agricultural, having a black top-hat, a long frock-coat, and a pair of high gaiters, with a hunting-crop swinging in his hand. So tall was he that his hat actually brushed the cross bar of the doorway, and his breadth seemed to span it across from side to side. A large face, seared with a thousand wrinkles, burned yellow with the sun, and marked with every evil passion, was turned from one to the other of us, while his deep-set, bile-shot eyes, and his high, thin, fleshless nose, gave him somewhat the resemblance to a fierce old bird of prey.”
10. “A pale, taper-faced man with sandy whiskers rose up from a chair by the fire as we entered. His age may not have been more than three or four and thirty, but his haggard expression and unhealthy hue told of a life which had sapped his strength and robbed him of his youth. His manner was nervous and shy, like that of a sensitive gentleman, and the thin white hand which he laid on the mantelpiece as he rose was that of an artist rather than of a surgeon. His dress was quiet and sombre—a black frock-coat, dark trousers, and a touch of colour about his necktie.”
11. “She was plainly but neatly dressed, with a bright, quick face, freckled like a plover’s egg and with the brisk manner of a woman who has had her own way to make in the world.”
12. “I entered my consulting-room and found a gentleman seated by the table. He was quietly dressed in a suit of heather tweed, with a soft cloth cap which he had laid down upon my books. Round one of his hands he had a handkerchief wrapped, which was mottled all over with bloodstains. He was young, not more than five-and-twenty, I should say, with a strong, masculine face; but he was exceedingly pale and gave me the impression of a man who was suffering from some strong agitation, which it took all his strength of mind to control.”
13. “A man entered who could hardly have been less than six feet six inches in height, with the chest and limbs of a Hercules. His dress was rich with a richness which would, in England, be looked upon as akin to bad taste. Heavy bands of astrakhan were slashed across the sleeves and fronts of his double-breasted coat, while the deep blue cloak w
hich was thrown over his shoulders was lined with flame-coloured silk and secured at the neck with a brooch which consisted of a single flaming beryl. Boots which extended halfway up his calves, and which were trimmed at the tops with rich brown fur, completed the impression of barbaric opulence which was suggested by his whole appearance.”
14. “Our visitor bore every mark of being an average commonplace British tradesman, obese, pompous, and slow. He wore rather baggy gray shepherd’s check trousers, a not over-clean black frock-coat, unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat with a heavy brassy Albert chain, and a square pierced bit of metal dangling down as an ornament. A frayed tophat and a faded brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair beside him. Altogether, look as I would, there was nothing remarkable about the man save his blazing red head, and the expression of extreme chagrin and discontent upon his features.”
15. “He was a large man with rounded shoulders, a massive head, and a broad, intelligent face, sloping down to a pointed beard of grizzled brown. A touch of red in nose and cheeks, with a slight tremor of his extended hand, recalled Holmes’s surmise as to his habits. His rusty black frock-coat was buttoned right up in front, with a collar turned up, and his lank wrist protruded from his sleeves without a sign of cuff or shirt.”
Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson in Universal Studios’ Dressed to Kill 1946
TWO
SHERLOCK HOLMES NOVELS
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence.”
—SHERLOCK HOLMES
THE PUBLIC IS INTRODUCED TO Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes tale, A Study in Scarlet. Published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887 and in novel form a year later, this two-part tale begins with Dr. Watson, recently discharged from the army, recovering from a battle wound. He is looking for direction in his life; Sherlock Holmes is looking for a roommate. A mutual friend named Stamford introduces them (preparing Watson beforehand about Holmes’s eccentric habits), and the two characters begin a partnership that continues for thirty-nine years on the written page and forever in the minds and hearts of Sherlockians.
The Sherlock Holmes Quiz Book Page 3