“some novel and suggestive circumstance” [BRUC]

We’ve talked about victims before — people down on their luck, women powerless to do anything, and the like. Then we thought a little more about victims of circumstance.

There are a handful of clients and even side characters in the Sherlock Holmes stories who, through no intention of their own, find themselves in difficult straits. These are such victims. And it’s just a Trifle.

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• Other episodes referenced:

  • Episode 199 - The Victims

  • Episode 257 - Damsels in Distress

  • Episode 493 - Up Against It

  • Episode 495 - Female Villains

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Performers: Uncredited violinist, US Marine Chamber Orchestra
Publisher Info.: Washington, DC: United States Marine Band.
Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

“I see that there was nothing in it, after all.” [REDH]

In this month’s “Mr. Sherlock Holmes the Theorist” episode, we’re getting aggressive: we’re taking on a number of trifling things at once.

Greg Darak, BSI (”The Engineer’s Thumb”) wondered about various troubling items in “The Red-Headed League,” a story popular not only for its plot but for its many problems. Dates, practical matters and more face Holmes and readers. These are many Trifles.

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Once again, listener Kaj Johansen has inquired about a trifling topic that we hadn’t given much thought to. And as the reference only appears in one place in the Canon, we were concerned there might not be enough to cover.

He wondered about the Thames River police force as mentioned in The Sign of Four. There’s not much else to go on in the stories, but we found plenty from the historical record that gave us a sense as to what Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, and Athelney Jones were working with. And it’s just a Trifle.

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One of the wonders of “His Last Bow” is a snapshot of Britain before the Great War. We’re treated to Sherlock Holmes still in top form in the last recorded case of his career, pitting him against the German spy Von Bork.

Michael Pollak, BSI (”The Blue Carbuncle”) won the 2010 Morley-Montgomery Award for his article “The Spies Who Never Were with Some Observations on Holmes’s Retirement” for his analysis of Conan Doyle’s handling of espionage in the Canon, particularly when spy hysteria was running rampant. Was it sensational? Restrained? Accurate? It’s just a Trifle.

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In this case, it was a Letter to the Editor in a 1983 issue of The Baker Street Journal. A Sherlockian who was familiar with the comings and goings of children had an astute observation.

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“I would willingly give five hundred” [REIG]

Five hundred! It’s astounding to think we’ve managed to notch 500 episodes of Trifles. But, do this weekly for nine and a half years, and the math seems to work.

To celebrate our quincentennial, we took an unorthodox approach — one inspired by a scene in The Valley of Fear. Random text on a given page. The exercise was a fascinating one and it produced a number of Trifles.

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We occasionally get suggestions for topics, and this is one of those cases. Kai Johansen wondered “who was Barker?” — as in “Barker, my hated rival on the Surrey shore,” in “The Retired Colourman.”

It led us to a short article in The Baker Street Journal by William Schweickert (Vol. 43 No. 2) that takes us through Mercer, Shinwell Johnson, and Langdale Pike and then proposes that Barker held a particularly important role. What was it? It’s just a Trifle.

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“my friend and rival, Mr. Barker” [RETI]

We occasionally get suggestions for topics, and this is one of those cases. Kai Johansen wondered “who was Barker?” — as in “Barker, my hated rival on the Surrey shore,” in “The Retired Colourman.”

It led us to a short article in The Baker Street Journal by William Schweickert (Vol. 43 No. 2) that takes us through Mercer, Shinwell Johnson, and Langdale Pike and then proposes that Barker held a particularly important role. What was it? It’s just a Trifle.

If you have a question for us, please email us at trifles@ihearofsherlock.com. If you use your inquiry on the show, we’ll send you a thank you gift.

“Trifling Trifles” is back — short-form content that doesn’t warrant a full episode. This time, “Lomax” emerges from the sub-library. Make sure you’re signed up so you don’t miss this is exclusive benefit for our paying subscribers.

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“I’ve heard of your methods before now, Mr. Holmes” [NAVA]

In this month’s “Mr. Sherlock Holmes the Theorist” theme, we turn our attention to another detective — a contemporary of Sherlock Holmes: Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke.

The creation of R. Austin Freeman, Thorndyke appeared in 21 novels and 40 short stories published between 1907 and 1942. In Baker Street Miscellanea No. 9, Howard Brody uncovered Thorndyke’s opinion of Sherlock Holmes’s methods, and it’s just a Trifle.

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“It is not cold which makes me shiver” [SPEC]

We’ve all had moments when we’ve shivered. Perhaps it’s from being exposed to the cold for a while, so the entire body spasms in an effort to create heat. Or maybe it’s a tingle along our spine, brought on by something that scares us.

We trace the appearance of shivers and shivering in the Sherlock Holmes stories, to determine who was shivering and why. We even explore a little about origins of the word itself. It’s just a Trifle.

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Trifling Trifles

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Performers: Uncredited violinist, US Marine Chamber Orchestra
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Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

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“the gap of loneliness and isolation” [MAZA]

Holmes and Watson go together like every great paring. To think of one of them, one must, by simple association, think of the other. It seems almost anathema to consider them alone.

In his 2009 Morley-Montgomery Award-winning article for The Baker Street Journal, “Holmes Alone: Glimpses of Post-Watson Baker Street in ‘The Mazarin Stone,’” Marshall Berdan, BSI (“Henri Murger”) paints a very different picture than the lost-without-his-Boswell detective. His analysis is just a Trifle.

The Morley-Montgomery Collection

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“These villains have coaxed this unhappy lady to London” [LADY]

Professor James Moriarty, Colonel Sebastian Moran, Dr. Grimesby Roylott — it seems as if the male villains in the Sherlock Holmes stories get all of our attention.

And yet, there are a number of women who are complicit in Canonical crime — and in some cases the instigators. Who are they and where do we find them? It’s just a Trifle.

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Performers: Uncredited violinist, US Marine Chamber Orchestra
Publisher Info.: Washington, DC: United States Marine Band.
Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

“a rough familiarity” [LAST]

According to one Sherlockian scholar, there is material in “The Musgrave Ritual” that is strangely familiar. You may or may not have picked up on it before. We certainly didn’t.

E. Butler Richards, in Vol. 9 of Baker Street Miscellanea, wonders if Watson or Holmes was pulling the wool over our eyes in this entry from an early part of Holmes’s career. Does he succeed in convincing us of his thesis? It’s just a Trifle.

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“Funds were wanting, however” [STUD]

Not every case Sherlock Holmes took involved a crime. Often times, clients were dealing with a puzzling situation or a conundrum without a crime. And taking their cases to Sherlock Holmes was the best recourse.

And a number of these cases involved clients who were in a bit of a financial jam. Interestingly these cases all appeared in fairly close succession. Coincidence? Perhaps it’s just a Trifle.

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“Corresponding member of the Swedish Pathological Society” [HOUN]

When James Mortimer, M.R.C.S. left behind his walking stick in The Hound of the Baskervilles, it was filled with clues — enough to lead Watson to his medical directory, which listed Mortimer as a member of the Swedish Pathological Society.

In his 2008 Morley-Montgomery Award-winning article in Vol. 58, No. 4 of The Baker Street Journal, Mattias Boström, BSI (”The Swedish Pathological Society”) determined that Mortimer’s membership was an impossibility. He explains why and it’s just a Trifle.

The Morley-Montgomery Series

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“To my astonishment it was Sherlock Holmes” [CROO]

What if we told you that Watson wasn’t exactly honest with readers in “The Crooked Man”? That his telling of the tale masked that it was actually he, and not Sherlock Holmes, who solved the case.

John Rabe, son of old Irregular W.T. Rabe (”Colonel Warburton’s Madness”) questions Watson’s version of “The Crooked Man” in Vol. 76, No. 1 of The Baker Street Journal. And it’s just a Trifle.

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“the business in the crypt” [SHOS]

If you experience claustrophobia, this may not be the episode for you. Because it’s all about being shut up in close spaces. And it’s the monthly “Mr. Sherlock Holmes the Theorist” episode.

Denise M. Rogers walks us through the gothic theme shared between Edgar Allan Poe and some of the Sherlock Holmes stories in her Baker Street Miscellanea article “Crypts, Secret Rooms and Subterranean Passageways: Entombment as a Motif in the Canon” from Spring 1990. It’s just a Trifle.

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Don’t sleep on “Trifling Trifles” — short-form content that doesn’t warrant a full episode. We release these at the beginning of every month. The latest episode is “for those with ears attuned to catch the distant view-halloo!” This is a benefit exclusively for our paying subscribers.

Trifling Trifles

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Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

We consider Watson a reliable narrator. At least we hope he is. And yet there are a number of times when Sherlock Holmes accuses his Boswell of romanticizing the factual.

Is Holmes simply taking issue with how Watson writes with a more emotional and imaginative framework? Or is it possible that Watson was also exaggerating to make the stories more exciting? It’s just a Trifle.

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Don’t sleep on “Trifling Trifles” — short-form content that doesn’t warrant a full episode. We release these at the beginning of every month. The latest episode is “for those with ears attuned to catch the distant view-halloo!” This is a benefit exclusively for our paying subscribers.

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Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

Vincent Starrett eventually became the dean of American Sherlockians, widely recognized as the foremost expert and significant collector, in part due to his publication of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes in 1933. This month’s Morley-Montgomery Award episode comes to us from Starrett expert Ray Betzner, BSI (”The Agony Column”) from Vol. 57, No. 3 of The Baker Street Journal.

But before that book made its way to the public, a chapter appeared in a rather unusual place. For Starrett, who was accustomed to his Jimmy Lavender series appearing in, shall we say, less than family-friendly places, his Sherlock Holmes material appearing there must have been just a Trifle.

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If you want to know five different options for dates of a Sherlock Holmes story, all you have to do it get four chronologists together. Such is the case with “The Five Orange Pips.”

In the mid-1990s, Les Klinger, BSI (”The Abbey Grange”) looked at evidence within the story and external to it to determine if Watson’s claim of 1887 would hold up. Along the way, he tested the assumptions of many other Sherlockians before him. It’s just a Trifle.

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There’s a new “Trifling Trifles” episode out — short-form content that doesn’t warrant a full episode. We release these at the beginning of every month. The latest episode is “for those with ears attuned to catch the distant view-halloo!” This is a benefit exclusively for our paying subscribers.

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• Baker Street Rambles by Leslie S. Klinger (Gasogene Books)

• Other episodes mentioned:

  • Episode 318 - Dr. Watson’s Marriages

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Performers: Uncredited violinist, US Marine Chamber Orchestra
Publisher Info.: Washington, DC: United States Marine Band.
Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

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