Dear Holmesians,
Ref Tim's letter re: the London landmarks in The Red Headed League(TRHL)
Even in the story, a reference is made to the location of the red headed
client's address, first as Coburg Square and later as Saxe-Coburg Square.(It
may be of interest to Holmesians that Saxe-Coburg is the family name of the
present ruling family of England. Actually,Saxe-Coburg Gotha. The name
"Windsor" was adopted sometime before the ascension of QE II to the
throne,around 1952/3)
This was to get rid of the bad blood generated during WW I due to the name of
the then Lord of the Admiralty(Battengurg) which was a name of German origin
and therefore replaced with its English translation,Mounbatten (Lord Louis
Mountbatten being the son of the said earlier Lord of the Admiralty).Since they
did not want similar bad blood with ruling family as Saxe-Coburg Gotha is also
of German origin,it was changed to Windsor, after the castle of that name,
which is the tradidional seat of the ruler.
TRHL also brings out two characteristic traits of SH. First, his musicmanship
and second,his dual nature.His fondness for music(and proficiency at the
violin) is well known and brought out during the visit of Watson and SH to St
James's Hall to hear a musical programme of German chamber music(SH finds
German music "introspective" and prefers it over French or Italian)
His dual nature is so well brought out by Watson's(Sir ACD'S) description:
The exreme exactness and astuteness being a foil for his other poetic and
contemplative mood.
To quote"As he listened to the music in perfect happiness, gently waving his
thin, long fingers in time to the music while his gently smiling face and his
languid, dreamy eyes were as unlike those of Holmes the sleuth-hound,Holmes
the relentless,keen- witted, redy- handed criminal agent........The swing of
his nature took him from extreme langour to devouring energy"
To answer Tim's questions;
(i) Holmes himself calls TRHL a "three pipe problem" and asks Watson for
50 minutes' silence.
(ii) True, watson was living elsewhere, it is a mystery because as far as
I recall, Watson is not yet married.I think that during the course of their
partnership, they had begun living separately for some time till Watson
rejoined him at 221B again, before finally shifting out after his marriage.
(iii) Mary Southerland is a 'Red Herring' and has no actual connection to
the stories in the canon.This was a regular feature,the references to cases of
the past which are actually non-exixtent in the canon.
Regards to all,
VPS

Tim Symonds <tim.symonds@...> wrote: Any members interested
in this intriguing and fairly weird but amusing story
and visiting London could do a walk to the places in The Red-Headed League,
which in addition to 221B Baker Street are:

St James's Hall, Piccadilly
Saxe-Coburg Square, off Farringdon Street (in the story, Coburg Square is
used as an alternative to Saxe-Coburg Square)
City & Suburban Bank, Farringdon Street
4 Pope's Court, Fleet Street, 17 King Edward Street, St Paul's.

I personally do not know of Pope's Court or King Edward Street but maybe one
day I'll wander over to 'the City' and check them out.



Here are some testing questions for aficionados of this story:

i. you can judge the difficulty of the challenge to Holmes by the number of
pipes he smokes during the case. How many pipes does Holmes smoke in The
Red-Headed League?
ii. where is Watson living at this time?

Problem: in this story Holmes refers to the Mary Sutherland case - but this
is the following case, i.e. A Case Of Identity.








-----Original Message-----
From: SherlockHolmesSocietyofIndia@...
[mailto:SherlockHolmesSocietyofIndia@...] On Behalf Of sumalsn
Sent: 07 February 2006 06:02
To: SherlockHolmesSocietyofIndia@...
Subject: [sherlock holmes society of india] The Red Headed league

Dear Holmesians,
It shall be the " The Red headed League " for discussion . Shall we
start?
Sumal







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