A mystery house! A murderous attack! A severed body part!
An injured man is brought to Dr. Watson who, in turn, takes him to Holmes. Bring out the brandy!
The adventure for May’ s discussion is “The Engineer’s Thumb” Which was originally printed in the Strand Magazine in Mach 1892. (And in the Baltimore Weekly Sun as “A Strange Adventure.”
From “The Adventure Of Arthur Conan Doyle – The Life of the Creator of Sherlock Holmes“, Charles Higham reports:
“In further letters, Robert Louis Stevenson expressed pleasure in ACD’s book The Refugees and revealed that he had held his native overseer Simale (1) enthralled with “The Engineer’s Thumb“, which, he prayed to God to forgive him, he had narrated as though it were a true story.”
(1) RLS was living in Samoa at this time
From Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Memories and Adventure” he wrote:
“…he (Robert Louis Stevenson) complained to me in a comical letter of the difficulty of telling a story when you had to halt every moment to explain what a railway was, what an engineer was, and so forth.”
At this time we are still meeting via Zoom. Sheldon will send the invitation link closer to the meeting date, along with his “Musings” and minutes of the previous meeting.
Date: Tuesday, May 4, 2021
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Rich Kriscunas will treat us to another of his interesting and insightful presentations.
Sheldon Goldfarb will read his musings on the adventure.
If you have any question, please contact Fran at: franziskah@shaw.ca
Here are the Bonus Questions:
(a) What was Sherlock Holmes reading when Dr. Watson brought Victor Hatherley to see him?
(b) What was Sherlock Holmes smoking? (Please be specific)
(c) What did Hatherley see on the round table when he first arrived and was shown into a room by Colonel Stark? (again, please be specific)
The Stormy Petrels of BC 