Sherlock Holmes lives!

I went to the Sherlock Holmes presentation by Dr. C. Paul Martin at the Marshall library last night.

He immediately recognized a kindred spirit. Perhaps it was the deerstalker hat I was wearing. My sister sent it to me a while back and I was crazy-glad for an excuse to wear it.

Actually, the presentation was more about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the worlds first consulting detective, and a host of other characters.

Does anyone remember Professor Challenger? Brigadier Gerard? Or works like "The White Company," and "The Marricot Deep"?

Martin had a PowerPoint presentation, and for a real treat, a film of Conan Doyle talking about Holmes and his interest in Spiritualism.

I've always wondered if Rudyard Kipling,wrote his poem "En-dor" about his friend Conan Doyle's obsessive interest in Spiritualism.

"Oh the road to En-dor is the oldest road And the craziest road of all! Straight it runs to the Witch's abode, As it did in the days of Saul, And nothing has changed of the sorrow in store For such as go down on the road to En-dor!"

Martin also gave the crowd an occasional trivia question. I knew who "The Woman" was of course. But I was dreadfully embarrassed when he gave us a trick question, "In which story did the deerstalker hat appear?"

I was guessing, "The Hound of the Baskervilles."

The answer is, none of them. The hat is never mentioned, it appeared in an illustration. I knew that! (But I got the story wrong anyway.)

By the way, likewise about the crooked stem pipe, That's not canonical either. I believe it was a stage actor who used it because he just couldn't say his lines around a straight-stem pipe.

And that shows I'm only a Holmes dilettante. If I were a real aficionado I'd know that actor's name.