Episode 309: Holmes In an Hour or Two

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Support for I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere comes from MX Publishing,
with the largest catalog of new Sherlock Holmes books in
the world. New novels, biographies, graphic novels, and short story
collections about Sherlock Holmes find them at MS publishing dot com.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
And listeners like you who support us on Patreon or
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Speaker 1 (00:32):
I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, Episode three hundred and nine
Holmes in an hour or two.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
I Head of Sherlock. It very well since you became
as drumming man.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
In a world where it's always eighteen ninety five. It's
I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere. A podcast for devotees of
mister Sherlock Holmes, the world's first unofficial consulting detective.

Speaker 4 (01:01):
I've Heard of You before, Holmes, The Medland Holmes, The
Busybody Homes, the.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Scockland Yard, Jacket Office.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
The Game's afoot As we interview authors, editors, creators, and
other prominent Sherlockians on various aspects of the great detective
in popular culture. As we go to fess, sensational developments
have been reported. So join your hosts Scott Monty and

(01:32):
Bert Walder as they talk about what's new in the
world of Sherlock.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Holmes the time.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
I'm mild Curtis.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
This is I hear of Sherlock Everywhere.

Speaker 4 (01:46):
Now here are your hosts, Scott Marty and Bert Walder.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Oh, thank you so much, Bill Curtis. As always, it's
an honor to get an introduction from you, and welcome
everyone too. I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere. The first podcast
for Sherlock Holmes dets where it's always eighteen ninety five.
I'm Scott Monty, I'm Burt Wolder and Bert. Are you
ready to knock this episode out in an hour or two?

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yours mine and ours? It's all fine, it's all one
thing to me help yourself.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Well, we've only got time, that's the only thing we've got,
and the same amount too, the great equalizer. Well, we
have a lovely show for you today. We've got a
number of things lined up, including and interview with the
recently two two to one be cond Brad Keithalver talking

(02:44):
about his book Holmes in an hour or two, and
the Sherlockian Chronologist Guild Handbook and the Guild itself. So
for those of you who are interested in chronology or
just how this takes part in our corner of the
hobby world, you'll be interested to stay tuned for this

(03:06):
interview with Brad. We've also got the Learned Society, where
we talk about what events are going on in the
world of Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts, and of course the canonical couplet.
I should note that our friend Madeline Kennonez, who does
a Chance of Listening, which is a review of Sherlockian podcasts,

(03:27):
she's on a bit of a hiatus, having traveled herself
to two two one becon, and we're more than happy
to give her arrest since she's been working extraordinarily hard
on our behalf in these audio waves. So we'll say
hello to Madeline when she comes back on episode three ten. Meanwhile,

(03:47):
if you'd like to support the show, you can do
that on Patreon or substack. You pick whatever works for
you and go to Patreon dot com, slash I Hear
of Sherlock or I Hear of Sherlock dot substack dot
com links in the show notes to both of those.
For as little as a dollar a month, you can
support what we do here. That'll get you access to

(04:08):
bonus content from our archives. And if you do it
on Patreon, well, of course you get a choice of
thank you gifts at certain levels, so we do encourage
you to do that. And this is all in service
of what we do in the world of Sherlock Home.
So thank you in advance. Whether you're a paying member

(04:28):
or just a regular listener, We're happy to have you
here and invite other people along for the journey, tell
them what this is all about, and turn them on
to I hear of Sherlock everywhere. Oh that stately music can.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
Mean only one thing.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
It is time for us to learn about the learned
societies Bert. Where do we find ourselves in the middle
of May.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
The middle of May. It's a busy day, Saturday, May seventeen,
So much going on in virtual and person to person meetings. Skokie, Illinois.
There'll be a meeting of the Carlton Criterion Bar Association,
a luncheon meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. The Nashville Scholars of

(05:16):
the Three Pipe Problem are having their Luncheon meeting. Contact
for that is Jeff Stewart. You can find all these
courses we've said on Sherlockeancalendar dot com if you want
to send an email to some.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Of these people.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
On Saturday, again, the seventeenth, New York, New York, the
Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes are having their Galla Spring Luncheon
on the East side of Manhattan at a terrific Italian
restaurant and Hevyhertzog is the contact for that, but also
you can go to ash dot NYC dot com. The
Norwegian Explorers have a virtual meeting of their study group.

(05:53):
Tom Gottwaldt is the contact for that. More at Norwegian
Explorers dot org. That's also in this seventeenth Not to
be outdone, the Illustrious Clients of Indianapolis. They're having dinner
in Indianapolis on the seventeenth of May and the contact
for that is Louise Haskett and you can find that more.

(06:14):
I find out more about that on the Illustrious Client's
Facebook page.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Now, what could be better than an afternoon tea with
other Sherlockians. Well, afternoon tea with Sherlockians from the Sherlock
Holmes Society of South Australia, go all the way to
Adelaide for tea. The Adelaide Rascals are your home for
all of those events. You can find them at Adelaide

(06:40):
Rascals dot com. Virtual meeting on the eighteenth of May
with the Sound of the Baskervilles. Just go to Soundothebaskervilles
dot com to find out more about their meeting. David
Hougen's the contact, and oh goodness, another in person meeting
on the eighteenth with the notorious Canary Trainers. You can

(07:04):
contact Glenn Link at Comicsworthreading dot com slash Canary Trainers.
And another virtual meeting the Tea Brokers of Mincing Lane.
They're having their meeting on eighteenth And finally, oh look
at this. The Men on the Tour and the Cornish
Horrors are having a joint meeting in Waterford, Connecticut, and

(07:26):
our contact for that is none other than Bert Wolder.
Good grief, that sounds fun you discussing that evening.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Well, I'm going to be speaking about Freddie Steele and
just for about twenty minutes, I think giving a little
overview of Steele and his work and his life really
interesting but there's a great program that Mike Burdan and
Greg Darak and Dana Mancini and others have put together
with lots of fun. So we're looking forward to that.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Good good.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
And then we have a virtual meeting of the Honorable
Ronald Adair Las Vegas card Room Wow on the twenty
second of May. That sounds like a lot of fun.
That's Thursday, May twenty second. Contact for that is Carolyn Coleman.
And in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on the twenty fourth of May, Saturday,

(08:22):
May twenty fourth, a in person meeting of the Afghanistan
Perceivers and Brian Wilson is the contact for that, or
you can go to Tulsa hyphenshrlock dot org.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
And here in Michigan, the Ribston Pippins are going to
be having their dinner meeting in Royal Oak. Regina Stinson's
the contact there and they of course are at Ribston
Dashpippins dot com. And oh my goodness, if you get
down to Mechanicburg Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, the White Rose Irregulars are

(08:56):
having their meeting on the twenty fourth. Denny Dobrie is
the contact there and Bert why don't you wrap it
up with New Jersey.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
Paul Hartnett, our friend Paul Hartnett and in Middlesex Township,
New Jersey, has a meeting on Wednesday, the twenty eighth
of May. All of his meetings are on Wednesday afternoon.
The Middlesex Constabulary meets in Middlesex Township, New Jersey.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
Perfect. Well, that is all that's going on in the
second half of May in the world of Sherlockian Societies,
as reported by Ron Fish at the Sherlockian Calendar. If
you know of something that belongs on this calendar, get
in touch with Ron at Sherlockianclendar dot com and make

(09:43):
sure you check out all of the things throughout the
year and continue to follow along with us here on
the Learned Societies. For those of you who have been
around here long enough, you know that the MS Book

(10:04):
of New Sherlock Home Stories has been going on for
nearly a decade, and it is now rounding out its
final series with Volumes forty eight through fifty two, edited
by David Markham. One of the hallmarks of the MS
Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories has been its constant

(10:24):
support of Undershaw, the home of Arthur Conan Doyle for
a number of years and Undershaw, as well as being
transformed into a school for children with special needs, has
been the object of support by MX Publishing. The proceeds
of the book collection have gone to Undershaw. We're talking

(10:45):
over one hundred thousand dollars of the last decade and
on May seventeenth, twenty twenty five, you can enjoy an
Evening with Sherlock Holmes, a virtual event that's a live
stream directly from Undershaw in celebration of this ten year
anniversary and final publication date of the stories. Just go

(11:06):
to mxpublishing dot com to get your copy of the
final four volumes in this series and to sign up
through event right to attend the event. Find out all
about it at mxpublishing dot com. Brad Keithalverer has been

(11:28):
around the Sherlockian world for quite some time. As a
matter of fact, I remember him from back in the
early days of the hounds of the Internet, but his
history in writing about all sorts of interesting things in
our hobby goes back to the nineteen eighties where he
had books like The Elementary Methods of Sherlock Holmes, The

(11:50):
Armchair Baskerville Tour and Sherlock and the Ladies, Speculations, musings
and gossip. We spoke to him here recently about the
monstrum Opus of Sherlock Holmes, a compendium of horrors Doctor
Watson Dared not tell. But he's also widely known for
his blog Sherlock Peoria, which he writes on a well

(12:14):
irregular basis. He also hosts the podcast Watsonian Weekly, and
of course he is notorious for his membership in the
Sherlockian Chronologist Guild. Brad received his investiture in the Baker
Street of Regulars in nineteen eighty nine, as Wynwood read
brad Key Fober welcome back to I hear of Sherlock everywhere.

Speaker 3 (12:38):
Well, thanks glad to be here.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
You joined us for the very first time on episode
fifty six, way back on fifty six, talking about sherlock Peoria,
and then you and Rob Nunn joined us a couple
of years ago to talk about monstrum Opus, a wonderful
book of pastiches that had to do with the supernatural
and monstrous. And now you're back again, and I should

(13:02):
say it's about time.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
Well, thanks literally to be back. It is, I mean,
it is about time.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Oh, oh, we do what we can. Well, we want
to talk to you about Srilokian chronology. Why don't we
begin at the beginning for you? Where did you begin
your fascination with chronology.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
That's kind of funny because in my first day decade
as a Shirlakian back in the eighties, you know, Magico
was putting out reprints of everything in the world, and
there was a point where I consciously went, I'm not
this chronology stuff is too boring. I'm not buying those books,
and it came to haunt me later when I would
want them later. So but interesting enough. At the same time,

(13:47):
I had an article published in the Baker Street Journal
that was basically about the chronology of Redheaded League comparing
the days. You know, it was going, okay, who are
we living Watson or Tobez Wells in this story? So
then I really stayed away from chronology until two thousand

(14:07):
and one, when I was the discussion leader for the
Hounds of the Internet, and you know, that's a weekly thing.
You put out questions on a story every week, and
when I was doing that, I decided, well, since I'm
walking through these stories every week, I'm going to start
doing the chronology of the stories every week to go
with the discussion questions. So by the time sixty weeks

(14:31):
had passed, I pretty much put together chronology and I
put it out on my Sherlock Peoria website at that time,
which since I've gone to you know, blogger, Google's thing
instead of the full website like I used to have.
So that was that was really my start in chronology.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
Well, how did you address that start? I mean, you
weren't what resources did you use to figure out that
early chronology?

Speaker 3 (15:04):
Just the canon? I mean, and that's something I've always said,
I mean and really pushed, is that all you need
to do to do chronology is basically the calendar, the
cannon and maybe a perpetual calendar past that. You know,
it's whatever resources you can find. But that was all
I used for that one, is just you know, going
through with the perpetual calendar and the cannon, and you know,

(15:27):
it was very very basic. Since then, I've learned, you know,
there are so many ways to go with chronology, and
Vincent Rice came right came up with a deep way
of looking at where you take a story and you
analyze every single aspect of it from the technology to
any given thing mentioned in it that you know, you

(15:49):
can look up the history of you can really go
deep with chronology. And you know, so I've learned a
lot since then about you know, how far you can
go with this thing.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
But what did you do when you came across things
that just had no dates? You know, things like the
Glorious Scott or the Musgrave ritual you know, which is well,
clearly it's it's an early case because the most grave
ritual issus is at university. But then there's you know,
Silver Blaze and Three Gables and others that just don't
seem to have any date associated with them.

Speaker 3 (16:24):
That's when you start just grabbing at details of the
story like, okay, is Watson married? Is you know, where
is there anything that ties to anything that we have
a date for? And any chronologist that has done exact
dates for every single story at some point they're writing

(16:46):
fan fiction because I mean, there are stories where there
is no evidence at all. And I'll I will confess
to one thing. I have made up an argument for
when Dying Detective happened. But I literally kind of put
it on my birthday.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
Just because I very morally ask of you yes.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
I mean that's you know, there was precedence for that, so.

Speaker 1 (17:11):
I like that. So gosh, I mean, there's so many
different ways for us to go here. So let's let's
talk a little bit about the Chronologists' Guild. Okay, what
is it and how did it come together?

Speaker 3 (17:26):
That's that's one of those things. It was like, you know,
when we were just in COVID and post COVID things,
we've wound up doing a lot of things we weren't
doing before. And one of the things was at some
point I was talking to Vincent right about stuff and
we're like, well, we should have a Slocking Chronologist Guild.

(17:48):
And I thought, oh, you know this is he said, oh,
let's get Mike mcswiggen in it. So it was basically, oh,
I'm going to just do this thing and create a
PDF newsletter that we send out for our chronologists guild
of three people. And because it was it was a topic,
it just I don't know, something about the fact that
it seemed to be the most unpopular part of Sherlockiana

(18:11):
just appealed to me and it's like, oh, well, let's
let's make an organization that's you know, we'll never have
any members, and you know, it's it's everybody thinks it's
boring and we'll just you know, I didn't expect it
to take off, but you know, so that's why it's
I just put out a monthly PDF newsletter that kind

(18:32):
of started working through the stories and we've you know,
gathered a few different folks have written for us over
the years, in the last four years, and that's just
how that started. It's just basically a mailing list for
a PDF newsletter. And then after four years we decided
to have a little more fun and create a little

(18:54):
handbook and a T shirt and you know, not many
of these things exist.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
Of course, but well, how many members are you up to?

Speaker 3 (19:02):
We're up to have about fifty members. We do a
thing when I see, like I said, when we first
started this, I thought, oh, nobody's going to want to
do this. It's so weird and everything. So I said,
we said, we can have public members and private members.
So we have private members are people that are on
the mailing list that the things are sent out blind
copy of carbon covery. Nobody knows who they are. But

(19:23):
the public members are once you've you know, decided that
you want to openly admit you're Sherilocke and chronology minded.
You can pick a member date and then I have
a list in the newsletter that comes out all the time.
So between the two sets of members, we have about
fifty right now.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
Okay, And you've, as you mentioned, you put out this
Chronologist Guild handbook. And Bert was at the Dayton conference
and picked up a copy and actually picked up a
copy for me as well and sent it my way,
which I am for which I am eternally grateful. And
it strikes me almost of a similar tone. Rob Nunn

(20:06):
wrote the ForWord for this little handbook, and he said,
I must admit chronology has never interested me that much.

Speaker 3 (20:15):
So yeah, Rob is not a chronologist, but he edits
the newsletter for me. Well go, and he's the assistant
editor but doesn't really care about it.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
Isn't it interesting that we get a couple of guys
who really weren't interested in chronology who are now involved
in the chronologist skill.

Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah, chronology, I'll sneak up on you. I mean, it's
along the way. Let's see. About twenty ten, I applied
for a new job and one of the requirements that
job he had to take a couple of tests, and
they wanted you to give a ten minute presentation with
some basic PowerPoint slides, just to see, you know, how

(20:55):
you were, how well you were talking to people and
doing things. And they said you could pick any topic
you want. People have picked. You know, how to make
tacos people have picked up. And for some reason the
time I went, I'm going to do it on Trulucky
and chronology. So I walked in with two non three
non Trilochians, and I prepared this presentation where I walked

(21:18):
them through what the lure is of Sherlockan chronology, how
it's done. And they thought that was the most wonderful
thing they'd ever heard in terms of somebody with an
analytical mind and whatever. And it helped get me this
job that I currently still have.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
Well, that's fantastic.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
You know, when when you think about it, it really
I mean, to the to the average reader, you don't
really give it much thought. But when you step back, Okay,
we have sixty of these stories that are considered canonical,
and you know there were others the apocrypha, which we're
doing a series on the Apocrypha over on Trifles.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
By the way, I picked up you had chronology episodes
that I've actually noted in my newsletter.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
Oh well, we appreciate that, and we would probably do
a whole chronology series over on Trifles at some point too.
We may need to confer with you on that. Brat.

Speaker 3 (22:17):
You don't want to chase your listeners away. I don't
know too much. Little chronologies like seasoning. You know, it's
a little it's good.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
But yeah, yeah, but as you say to the lay person,
they you present this to them, and we've got these
sixty stories. They were all written in a certain order,
or at least published in a certain order. But then
you back out of it and you go, well, they
didn't all take place chronologically as written. So it becomes

(22:44):
a fascinating puzzle to have to piece together and to
make certain parts fit to you know, try to reason
away some of the illogical things that happen or the
perhaps mistakes. So when you put together this handbook, I'm curious,

(23:08):
how how do you take on certain premises? In other words,
I think it was Paul Thomas Miller whose premise is
Watson does not lie. But that's his take.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
On putting his chronology.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah, and I have to imagine other chronologists have other
premises that they base their chronologies on. How do you
how do you piece this all together?

Speaker 3 (23:33):
Well, it really is a personal choice, because I mean,
Paul went, and I've had the same attitude as Paul.
I go. You know, I trust Watson fully. But you know,
the original chronologists back in the thirties, they wanted I mean,
they wanted Watson to be a proper you know, British
gentleman and only be married one time. So to them,

(23:57):
his his monogamy was more important than the day. They
would sometimes switch a date, say well, he wrote this date,
but that's obviously wrong or a printer's error or something,
because he was married, then he couldn't have been saying
this like he was and come up with these excuses
for the dates not lining up. But I know Paul
and I both are among the school where we followed
the dates first and then let the other parts sort

(24:19):
it out. And Watson's marriage is I mean, you think
that's like your gossipy TMZ kind of, but that is
such a part of the whole chronological mess, is the
fact that you know his marriages don't line up with
any kind of timeline that you can put together.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
Well. And let's not forget too that the Sherlock Holmes
stories were written by a guy who had been married
twice that we know of.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
That's true, yeah, and that's that always gets to intrigues
me too, because part of Sherlock and chronology is lining
things up with, you know, the actual historical facts as
we know them. And it's fascinating that. I mean, it's
always one of the things that's always just really fascinating
me about. Even though he didn't plan it, and you know,

(25:12):
Doyle didn't he didn't care about all his chronology stuff
and everything, but the dates of Watson's writing lines up
with i mean, the public actual publication dates in Strand magazine.
If you look at it, you know you've got the
first two initial attempts studies scart outside of the four.
But Strand doesn't start publishing the short stories until after

(25:37):
Holmes is dead at Reichenbach Falls, So suddenly, you know,
Holmes is gone, Watson is writing these stories to memorialize
his friend who didn't really like him and probably didn't
want him publishing anymore. So then you know you have
this whole hiatus when you know he when Holmes returns
to London in eighteen ninety four. Suddenly the Strand stops

(25:59):
publishing story about him, and then the stories don't start
being published again until Holmes retires. So it's just the
magic of the canon and the way it interacts with reality.
It's amazing.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
Well, maybe we're all living on separate timelines.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
Yeah, that's it makes you wonder.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
Brad, what happens. You know, when you get into chronology
and you look at the entirety of Holmes's career, how
do you think that changes your appreciation for the cases
and the stories and the character development and the way
the friendship develops over time, And how do you think

(26:44):
Because what happens when you look at it is that
it's not a bell curve by any means. You know,
there are some very busy years for Sherlock Holmes, like
eighteen eighty seven, and then many unbusy years, and then
you can say to yourself, well, ge, you know, maybe
Watson says several times, oh, there are a lot of
cases that I'm not going to trouble my readers with

(27:05):
because maybe they didn't have an answer or or it
wasn't really a good use of Holmes's ability and maybe
it was a pedestrian case. So he gets himself, he
gives himself a lot of outs. But but you do develop,
you know, a sense of the of the career, don't you.

Speaker 3 (27:24):
Yeah. I mean there's because basically, I mean, if you
a chronology is basically the bare bones of a life story.
There you're you know, the whole time Holmes and Watson
were together. It's it's laid out. And by putting it
in order, you i mean you have to figure things
out about Okay, what was Watson's married life? Like, what
was the relationship between Holmes and Watson? Like? Some people

(27:46):
have looked at, Okay, how does the drug use fit
in this timeline? How you know anything? Once you start
going down those rabbit holes, that's the thing. I mean,
as you're putting the dates in, you start going, you know,
wandering down these rabbit holes. I mean one of the
things I looked at early on was, I mean, as

(28:08):
you go through the cases, Home's attitude towards women changes
along that as you you know, lay him into the
timeline where eventually he's trusting Winner to go with him,
and that intern out real well, but different from early
on when he was saying women are never to be
trusted early in the stories.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
Does does chronology ever leach over from the published cases
to the unreported cases? The reason I ask is that
I did some work myself on the unreported cases, just
to count them all, and I came up with a
number of one hundred and seven unreported cases, you know,

(28:53):
which which you can you can certainly debate about. But
this is you know everything from you know, the Abergavenny
murder to you know Woodhouse or an elderly woman or Wilson,
the notorious Canary trainer. So that's the eight of z there.
But when you do that and think about just the
unreported cases, the tired Captain, the Sultan of Turkey, Archie Stamford,

(29:18):
all the things Watson mentions that you never find out
anything about, then you're you're you're at the point of saying, well,
wait a second, when did we first hear about this?
And what and what time did that case take place?
But then when was it published too? I mean, the
case may have taken place, you know, in eighteen seventy nine,

(29:40):
but the story was published in eighteen ninety three, So
Watson is mentioning the case in eighteen ninety three, not
when the actual case happened in eighteen seventy, you know,
blah blah blah.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
Does that ever?

Speaker 2 (29:54):
Is that ever bump up to people's frame?

Speaker 3 (29:57):
F thorough chronologists have the unpublished cases into their timelines
where they use, okay, at what point was it mentioned?
Is you know, how is it mentioned whatever, and tried
to insert it into their timeline in terms so that
you know, I've seen timelines where it's all the cases
that you know, and oh, I can't think of who

(30:20):
the last, because I just saw one like that. But
I know one person who has gone over and above
on it is David Markham, who not only has his
own personal chronology he's never published it, but he's inserted
the unpublished cases. He's inserted every postiche he's ever read
into that timeline. Somehow. He apparently has a big notebook,

(30:42):
big fat notebook where he tries to put everything into
one great order, which I don't know how that's even possible,
but that's what he says he does.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
So the imagination is a wonderful thing.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
It is definitely is talk a little bit about the
rabbit holes, you know, because it's the rabbit holes that
sometimes people hear that, you know, going down this rabbit hole,
and they say, boy, that must be awful, But no,
it's not. I mean, that's really part of the attraction here,
isn't it.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
Yeah. I mean, and there's you know, there's all furs
of brothers, the major rabbit holes of the marriage. Then
there's the little ones like electricity. When was electricity put
on in a certain part of London? And when is
mentioned in the story that somebody had electric lights? So
then you suddenly get into this whole rabbit hole of studying, Okay,

(31:33):
how did electricity come into play across London? And you know,
in neighborhoods, and you know, sometimes people get into things like, oh, Eric,
Eric Scase, that wasn't talking in Minneapolis at the last
conference there, he did that whole thing about telegraphy. Yeah,

(31:55):
and that's he wound up in the Chronologist Guild after
that talk, because everybody in that room that was a
chronologie was like, hey, you're hitting all our buttons here
with the you know, development of telegrams and using it
to make the timeline of this story work.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
Yeah, for our listeners, we should say that what Eric
did there was you know, there are events in the
Sherilokian world where we learn that a character in a
far distant, distant place sent a message to London. And
one day Eric said to himself, I wonder how that
would have traveled. Where was the telegraph office and where
were the lines? And how is it relayed? And how

(32:32):
many points of relay were they? And how long would
it have taken? Would it have taken a day or
three days or a week? Or had that work? And
he charted all the undersea cables, all the wires, all
the offices from point A to point B, and it
was really quite a quite a presentation.

Speaker 3 (32:51):
Yeah, it's one of those that's and those rabbit holes
are what make this. I mean, you can make crowdy
as complicated as you want to make it, or as
simple as you want to make it. One of the
things I did a couple of years back at two
twenty one Bcon where I'm speaking to you from this weekend,
actually was I got in my head that if you

(33:11):
put the few basic facts about each story on a card,
you could make a sixty card deck and then just
start laying out those cards and make yourself a timeline
in a very short time. I mean, it wouldn't be perfect,
it might not have all the details, but you could
whip one together. And I actually printed up these little

(33:31):
decks of cards, sixty cards, and brought them down here
to two to one bcon and we had a seminar
where everybody laid it out, and you know, the first
cards you lay down or study in Scarlet, last Bow,
final problem, empty house, and then you, bit by bit
you start looking at the things on the cards and
placing them in an order, and you know you can,

(33:52):
so you can get a basic timeline together in a
fairly short time if you know the thing that's always
taken the time is you know, part of the thing
of putting it in the cards. And I did this
in my workbook Homes in an Hour for chronologists, because basically,
if you just take the raw information, just the basic

(34:13):
raw information, Watson's datesy gifts, the seasons, any other little
important things, you can scrunch that down to pretty much
one card. And that's why I mean the deck that way,
So you could just look at the basically, because what
people have always done is you read the whole canon
one story of time. Read the whole story, pick out
every single point. But if somebody went ahead and picked

(34:33):
out some of the basics for you like I did
on those cards, then you don't you know, time is
in the reading, the whole cannon, all in the fun too,
of course, but you can you can do it a
little quicker if you, you know, just have the raw
data to work with.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
That's fascinating. So this, this deck of sixty cards, is
this something that you just made for yourself? Is it
something that is commercially available to other Sherlockians?

Speaker 3 (34:57):
Actually, I made just a PDF that you could print
out and then cut it yourself, okay, which I printed
at the local Kinkos, and then you know, used a
paper cutter and made the decks that I brought down here,
and I sent that PDF with the monthly newsletter for
the Schlockian Chronologist Guild at the time. I just sent
it out to everybody, so you know, it's everybody's. People

(35:19):
that wanted to could print it out, and I think
somebody got fancy and printed it out on you know,
you could print it out on fancier paper or you know,
something they do with menus at Kinko's if you really
wanted to get nice with it. But yeah, that's was
the way I did it.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
It just yeah, And I suppose for the more enterprising
among Sherlockans, if you wanted to sit down with friends,
whether it's a two two one bcon or just at
a Scion meeting or what have you, and and play
a game of poker with these cards, you could blow
a hole in the space time continuum with a full house.

Speaker 3 (35:53):
That's true, that would be good. I'm I'm curiously what
makes them full? I guess the full house would be
like if you had a matching set from the adventures
that we're in order, or.

Speaker 1 (36:03):
How that rates in marriages and a couple of short dates.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
Yeah, because that was the thing about the cards. I've
put separate different graphic elements on them to denote, Oh,
Watson was married in this case or he wasn't married
in this case, and kind of tried to count for
that too. So yeah, you could come up with a
very crazy card game out of those.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
The fun never ends here. So you mentioned your workbook
homes in an hour or two? What is that?

Speaker 3 (36:33):
That is kind of what I said with the cards,
where I thought about, you know, everybody's done these chronology
books that have come out over the years, there's a
dozen of them where everybody walks you through. Okay, here's
what I found in the stories, and here's why I
say this date is that date? And like I said,
with the cards, I kind of went, hey, every single

(36:54):
one of these guys is going over the same information
every single time. So if you took that basic information
that every single chronologist is using and just put that
in a book or in a deck of cards or whatever,
so that somebody could just read that same information and
make their own judgments. So I thought, I'm just going

(37:15):
to make a workbook for people to just be able
to hit the highlights and kind of get an idea
of when they think each story occurred. So then in
the workbook, I took each story and went, okay, here's
like a page of the basic facts from that story
that are involved chronology. And then you know, gave some

(37:36):
blanks for the people to write in their stuff. I mean,
I put a thing early on in the book where
I encouraged them to write in the book where I said,
you know, sign your name on this line to say
you're going to write in this book and work it
and not you know, make it collectible by your own work.
Instead of just going I'm not going to ruin this book.

(37:57):
So yeah, I just wanted to try and see how
quickly you could if you just had the basic facts,
how quickly you could put a timeline together. I was
hoping to get it so you could do it in
an hour. I tried doing it myself with the book
that I wrote, and I couldn't do it in an hour.
So I had to say, homes in an hour or two.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Well, that's fair enough hours and hours of fun for yeah, chronology.

Speaker 3 (38:23):
Yeah, it's enough to get too intrigued. Because the thing
about chronology, and this is something way back when I
did that little short presentation on it that I realized
is Doyle set a trap for us. Because if you
just start with the adventures and go in the first one,
the first one, you know, Scalbal, here's a date. It
occurred in March twentieth eighteen. I forget what the exact date,

(38:43):
but an exact date right in the front of the story.
Next story, I think you get another. It's like, as
you work through it, it's just a it gives you
just enough up front you're thinking, oh, this is I
can put these in order. This is easy, and then
as you work your way through the adventures, it gets
more complicated and more complicated, but by then you're invested.

(39:04):
It's the trap.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
So as you think about the major chronologists who have
kind of paved the way before us, whether they were
wayward or whether they were try it and true, who
are the significant ones that stand out to you and
who like as far as legendary chronologists, whose chronology do

(39:28):
you prefer?

Speaker 3 (39:30):
Oh, well, I've always been a big fan of Ernest
Bloomfeld Zeisler because he was the first chronologist to use
other chronologists were you know, there's a little bit of
mentioning whatever, but he looks at every chronologist that came
before him. He actually in his chronology book actually lists
them in there and then makes his own arguments and says,

(39:51):
why I don't think this person was right or that
person was right. So you know his work in the
late fifties late I don't have my timeline in front
of me, but he was important. He was one of
the key ones that I got in really quickly because
he went so deep. The one that always gets me

(40:15):
is Carry Cummings, the guy that did the biorhythmic. So
he only made it through the first two novels and
Adventures and Memories. But he was using that old pseudoscience
of bio rhythms and charting home's physical and emotional bioorrhythms
and how they lined up with and using that to

(40:36):
try and you know, he used the other data too,
but then he would use that to try and place stories,
which is just a unique I mean that's like nobody's
done that kind of thing. It's like, you know, yeah,
for a good reason. And he didn't even wasn't even
able to finish the cannon. So yeah, I just like that.

(41:01):
I mean, his it is so different.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah, we should tell our listeners if you've never heard
of bio rhythm, it's the idea that based on the
time and day you were born, that there are different
rhythmic cycles of emotional wellbeing and cognitive ability and physical
strength that perpetuate at different days, you know, twenty three
day physical cycle and so on and so forth. But

(41:25):
tying that to the chronology of Sherlock Holmes is amazing.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
Yeah, And you know, it's it's interesting because in our
timeline that we have in our newsletter of chronologists and chronology,
we've got I prefer to like the Conan Doyle era
and then the Golden Age, so over age. Now we're
in the basically the Internet age, where you know, there's

(41:52):
people doing chronologies out on the Internet that are Schrilockians
that you know, are outside of our traditional Charlokian venues
and stuff. And then there's you know, it seems like
we had kind of in the last ten years, we've
had a good surge of people. There's been like three
or four new chronology books out there between Bruce Harris

(42:14):
and Paul Thomas Miller and last name's Copo. I can't
remember his first name, but yeah, he came out with
a big one too.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
Now, if people would I mean, we'll have links to
obviously where people can get the book homes in an
hour or two. But if people want to join the
Chronologist Guild, where should they go?

Speaker 3 (42:41):
Just email me? That's right, that's the best way to
do it. I mean, it's b kei fover at gmail
dot com and that I'll hook him up because you know,
it's totally no news, you know, send out a BDF newsletter.
That's the whole whole thing of the guild.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
Easy enough. Yeah, and we should also mention in passing here.
There are a couple of other episodes that we hosted
here in addition to the ones that you were on B.
We had Vincent Wright on on episode one four talking
about chronologies, and that was a well years ago, so

(43:23):
the stuff has happened since then, and then we had
him back on on episode two hundred and thirty three
to talk about Helen Elizabeth Wilson, the first Sherlockian scholar.
And I note that Ms. Wilson Grace is the cover

(43:43):
of the Chronologist Guild handbook, so she's like the patron
saint of chronologies.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
Well, you had another good friend of ours, Madeline Gionis,
come up with that, drawing from the one picture we
have of her that was in a college yearbook or something.
I think Vincent found it in. So yeah, yeah, she
graces the cover. She's actually, if we want to get
real technical, she's like the second Chronologist of Sherlock Holmes,

(44:13):
because the first Chronologist was Professor Moriarty where he has
those dates where Holmes mess with him in Final Problem.
But we don't want to have him be our mascot,
so we don't know a good choice.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
Flo So what's next on the Chronologist timeline.

Speaker 3 (44:38):
Oh, I don't know. I mean the handbook was a
big rush. We put that together in the month of February,
just because I had a wild idea that I wanted
to put it out for Dayton. So I mean, I've
kind of been taking a breather since then. We got
to get back to basics, I think in the coming
year in the newsletter, and because yeah, there's Bruce Harris

(44:59):
is always coming up with stuff, and you know there's
little thing, you know, little things like dates being different
in the original manuscript than when it was printed, and
we explore all that kind of stuff. So it's like
I kind of just see what comes along, and we
head down that rabbit hole when we get to it,
and then the next rabbit hole.

Speaker 2 (45:20):
Is, Brad, is there any holy grail other than Watson's wives?
But is there any holy grail like manuscripts we haven't
seen where there might be dates because we know dates
were changed in publication or something like that.

Speaker 3 (45:34):
Oh yeah, there's always the manuscripts. There is actually one
I forget who it is, but there is one older
shirt long gone for Rockeyan who wrote a chronology. Somebody
else read that chronology and it's gone. It just we

(45:55):
don't know where it wound up or if you know,
anybody actually has it on a shelf somewhere or something.
But we know it existed, and I can't remember the
name of that fellow. But yeah, there's a there is
a missing chronology out there that.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
I think you mentioned that in the handbook. There were
only a couple of was privately printed that one.

Speaker 3 (46:19):
Yeah, well, yeah there, but I think there was one
that never even quite got it was like the Bakersy
Press was going to print it, but then something happened.
I forget what it was. But yeah, that's the it's
been going on so long. You know. It's like everything
else in Trilocke. There's all kinds of HM things we
know about and things we don't know about that we're

(46:40):
always looking for it.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
Well, folks should be on the lookout for that. It's it.
There's a hole there in the space time continuum MHM.
To repair that. Well, Brad, we know you have taken
some time out of your schedule at two to one Beacon.
We do appreciate that. We'll let you get back to
the one. In the meantime. Folks can find you at

(47:03):
Sherlock Peoria on blog Spot. We'll have a link to
your blog as well as to your book homes in
an hour or two. Folks should pick that up if
they want to have some fun, and again sign up
for the Chronologist Guild newsletter. Brad, thanks for being on.
I hear of Sherlock everywhere.

Speaker 3 (47:23):
Oh You're very welcome. Always glad to do it well.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
I'm reminded thanks to Brad and thanks to his handbook
of a quote about chronology from Bill Cochrane, who said,
the beauty of Sherlockean scholarship is that any one person
may be right. Chronology is no exception.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
I like that, So there's hope for any of us.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
Really, Yeah, a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
I haven't joined, uh, the Chronologists Guild up until this time.
You know, I'm just kind of observed from the outside.
But you know, with this handbook that you returned with,
and now with Brad's discussion about this card deck that
he created that was available through the newsletter, I thought, well,

(48:25):
it's about time. It's about time I joined.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
It's time I became a chronologist.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
Shouldn't it shouldn't that be the Chronologist guild slogan. It's
about bout.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
It's about time.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Yeah. Oh, that theme music can mean only one thing.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
It's time for canonical couplet Sherlock in quiz show, where
we give you two lines of poetry and you tell
us which Sherlock Holme story it is that we are
talking about. If you were around here in episode three
hundred and eight, you may recall that we gave you
this clue. This lengthy narrative of labor ructions includes our

(49:11):
Sherlock's very best deductions. Bert, do you know which story
the labor disunion happened in?

Speaker 3 (49:21):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (49:21):
I sure do. Holmes is approached by a very troubled client,
Hilton Cubit, and he's mystified about his wife and her
strange activities. She's trained a chicken to tap out a
secret code. It's the case Watson called the Dancing hen.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Hey, yay, no no, no, no, no no. And I'm
not going to dwell on this for too long. I'm
going to go right over to our friend Eric Decker's
to our rescue. Eric says, Youick's I think I've solved it.
It's the story of the time Sherlock Holmes posing as

(50:02):
a rapscallion from the city meets Juliette, a wealthy young
woman from Vermissa Valley. They're from different worlds and try
to find love even as Sherlock and Watson solve John
Douglas's murder. It's the story Watson called the Valley Girl
of Fear, except I think I just confused this with

(50:24):
everyone's favorite Nicholas Cage movie, and this is just really
the value of Fear. Yes, Eric, well done once again,
so you completely rescued yourself in that instance. Yeah, we're
looking for the Valley of Fear. Sorry you missed the

(50:45):
mark again, Bert, But oh good news is we have
a number of other people who didn't miss the mark.
So we are going to bring out the prize wheel
and give it a big spear, watching it go around
as we wait for the faithful number to land on

(51:05):
number twelve. On number twelve and looks like that is
Christopher Yule, Christopher, thank you and congratulations to you. Will
have a prize sent out to you in the mail.
Like our prize last time is just an item from

(51:25):
our I Hose vaults, this time around, for this canonical couple,
we are going to have a copy of a limited
edition the Sherlockian Chronologist Guild Handbook at least, I'm assuming
there's a few copies laying around. If not, I'm sure
Brad would love to give you a copy of homes
in an hour or two. Well, we will give it

(51:48):
to you, but it'll be through Brad. So stay tuned
and see if you can try your hand at this
clue the way a cowlike girl taken in bids us
beware of our kith and kin. If you know the
answer to this canonical couplet, put it in an email

(52:10):
addressed to comment that I hear of Sherlock dot com
with canonical couplet in the subject line. If you are
among all of the correct answers and we choose your
name at random, you'll win. Good luck, well Bert, I
don't know how we do.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
It me neither. It's amazing, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
Yeah, mostly because I hide the editing process from you. Oh,
shield you from that painful experience.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
Oh well, years ago, I you know I did the editing.
I still have some scotch tape left over if you
need it.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
Unfortunately, I don't have any scotch left because that's all
used up during the editing process. Oh, dear, So, folks,
if you'd like to send in some scotch to I
hear of Sherlock everywhere to help lubricate the process us,
we would, of course be I'm kidding. Uh, that would

(53:07):
be great though, you know, way better than Patreon or
substack Scotch delivery.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
Scotch delivery.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
Be careful what you wish for, eh, I'll split it
with you.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
Yeah, you're going to wind up with you know, Chateau
Thornycroft blend.

Speaker 3 (53:24):
Well.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
Julian Wolf years ago did one of his really tiny
Sherilockian amphlets. It's like about three by four and it
was called A Case of Scotch. Oh, I remember that, Yeah,
but I don't know if I have that in my collection.

(53:46):
Do you remember what it was about?

Speaker 3 (53:49):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (53:50):
No, was it actually about alcohol?

Speaker 3 (53:52):
Or Oh? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (53:54):
I think so.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
Yeah, No, I I've seen it. I'm sure I don't
have it. If I ever did have it, I don't
think I have it now, but I've certainly seen it.
These things pop up every once in a while. It's
a wonderful thing, isn't it. You know, all the little
publishing things that have happened over the years. This is
it's really great people just take their interests and take

(54:17):
some time and put out these pamphlets. And that's kind
of what Brad has done, you know, with chronology. It's
just really great.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
Oh. Sure, here I have my I have my copy
of a Case of Scotch.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
Oh, good for you.

Speaker 1 (54:32):
I just pulled it off the shell. It's in the
same I didn't see it before because it's in the
same packet as a Ramble in Bohemia.

Speaker 4 (54:42):
Hm.

Speaker 1 (54:43):
Let's see case of Scotch. It belonged to Owen Frisbee. Hm,
I believe it. Remember the speckle band. Oh look at
that Duggans do of Krookintaluck. It looks like it is
advertisement for Duggans sketched out, there being a reprint from

(55:07):
the Reminiscences of JW MD, late of the Army Medical Department.
Before now, majority of my readers not even aware that
Sherlock Holmes, at the urgent request of a certain personage
in high places, returned to Baker Street and resumed his
practice for a few years between two between the two
Great Wars. It was during this era of so called
peace that the incident I am about to narrate occurred. Oh,

(55:32):
it's it's just a short little pastiche.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
Oh really, it's a pastiche.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
Yeah, yeah, I won't. I'm not going to read the
whole thing, pages and pages long, but it's written in
Scotch dialect.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
That gets old pretty quickly.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
Yeah, and it's really hard to read. Holmes and I
looked at each other. Well, Watson's And if you ever
do see fit to chronicle this episode, you might refer
to it as the Adventure of the drunkenest Man in London.
Here the manuscript ends, but someone has added an appendix
in another hand. Reaching the bottom of the staircase, mister

(56:13):
Glenn Cannon stood up and took his bearings. He was
surprised to find that he still had the bottle, and
that both he and it were intact. It was one
fourth full, but he soon remedied that. Then he carefully
placed the empty container on the floor just inside the doorway,
while he muttered, I wouldn't have had them think I

(56:33):
was the dishonest man that would take their property. After
the decanter had been arranged to his satisfaction, he made
a starboard turn into Baker Street and proceeded on an
irregular course. Blah blah, blah. Finally the imprint was brought
into focus. Joe and Sid Crocker Beer, Ale and Spirits,
East India, Dock Road, London, East fourteen jewelry bought, no

(56:55):
questions asked, and with a further examine, revealed that he
had not been looking at the face of the watch,
but had an inscription on its back presented to Chauncey
Montgomery by the International League of Militant Teetotalers. Well that's uh,
that is quite a case. So folks, if you go

(57:18):
in search of this rarity of Julian Wolfe's case of scotch,
don't be disappointed when you do finally discover it. All right, Bert, Well,
so much for our ramble in Bohemia.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
Yeah, yeah, so much, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (57:35):
And I guess we'll wrap it up here. This is
the I don't even know completely scotched Scott Monty.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
I'm the chronologically challenged always late Bert Wolder.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
And together we say.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
The gay gay guess thing. The game yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
Ze uh foot, the games of a foot.

Speaker 3 (58:11):
I'm afraid that in the pleasure of this conversation I
am neglecting business of importance which awaits me and SMA.

Speaker 4 (58:21):
Thank you for listening. Please be sure to join us
again for the next episode of I Hear Of Sherlock Everywhere,
the first podcast dedicated to Sherlock Holmes.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
Goodbye and good luck and believe me hb my didnemo.
That is sincerely yours, Sherlock Holmes.

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Episode 309: Holmes In an Hour or Two

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