the journal of the sherlock holmes society of western australia...

The Journal of the Sherlock Holmes Society of Western Australia (Inc)

The Western Flyer

Volume 17, No. 2, Spring 2007

Saving the Guns at Maiwand1882 by Richard Caton II Woodville

Cover: Obverse of the medal awarded participants in the Second Anglo-Afghan War, a series of battles that included the Battle of Maiwand.

Please see the Note on the inside back cover for further information.

The Western Flyer Volume 17 Number 2 Spring 2007 1

The Western FlyerVolume 17 Number 2, Spring 2007.

Contents

The July meeting: the Maiwand Dinner.......................................................2

The August meeting: The Victorian Way of Death...................................3

Weapons from the Canon: Mrs. Hudson’s Pistol, by Colonel Moran.........................................4

Sherlockiana: from the collection of Captain Jack Croker....................................5

Conan Doyle in Western Australia: by the Earl of Maynooth...................................................................6

Sherlock Sightings: by Mrs. Violet Sawyer.........................................................................9

Monogrammed Clothing..............................................................................11

A Bloody Quiz by Lady Adair....................................................................................12

A Slightly Less Bloody Puzzle by Mrs. Felicia Sawyer......................................................................17

An Interesting Note on the Cover Illustration..................inner rear cover

2 The Journal of the Sherlock Holmes Society of Western Australia

The July MeetingThe Maiwand Dinner

This year, the dinner to remember the Battle of Maiwand fought on July 27th, 1880 (and Watson’s wounding) was held at the Koh-I-Noor Indian restaurant. A goodly number of members and friends turned out in traditional military, Asian, or Victorian formal wear to celebrate the event — much to the surprise of the large number of regular customers at the restaurant! Unfortunately, because of the crowded and bustling nature of the venue, it was not possible to hold the proposed after dinner talk.

Conan Doyle’s character of Dr John H. Watson is thought to be largely based on the 66th Regiment’s Medical Officer, Surgeon Major A. F. Preston, who was wounded at the Battle of Maiwand (see the opening chapter of “A Study in Scarlet”). Another physician in Afghanistan at the time, who might also have influenced the portrait of Watson, was Dr. William Brydon, one of the few survivors of the First Anglo-Afghan War.

The food at the Koh-I-Noor is varied (“hot” and “not so hot”) and generally excellent. Many people made repeated trips to the buffet for second helpings. However, as a sign of its popularity, the restaurant has a high turnover of clientele, and the seating space was somewhat cramped, especially if you happened to be wearing a bustle. Nevertheless, the evening was enjoyed by all.

The Maiwand dinner


August MeetingAn evening with the Honourable Philip Green

The August meeting was held at the Bevans’. Originally planned as a radio play night, instead Roderick delivered part of the talk that he should have given at the Maiwand Dinner and presented two videos. The first showed Princess Alice recounting her memories of the death and funeral of Queen Victoria, and the second was a fascinating account of death in Victorian times and the contemporary population’s attitude to it. The rise of the public graveyard, as opposed to the tradiitional grave-yard by a church, came about from a number of causes, including the rise of railways, which provided easy access to land for both the living and the dead, and the health problems caused when some churches, eager for funds, over-sold grave sites and kept numbers manageable by the expedient of turfing older corpses into rivers. The equally lucrative art of graverobbing, by which ‘resurrection men’ provided cadavers to medical schools, was examined, and the public attitude to cremation, powerfully influenced by a belief in the resurreection of the body (pref-erably at a much later date than the resurrection men made possible), was challenged by an eccentric who publicly burned the body of his young son. British law, working on the admirable principle that if some-thing is not illegal, you can’t punish someone for doing it, was powerless to provide the retribution the gentleman’s neighbours devoutly desired. In all, a gory but fascinating look at the commodification and reconcep-tualisation of death in Victoran times.

Captain Jack Croker and the Honourable Lady Brackenstall


Mrs Hudsonís PistolBy Colonel Moran

A hitherto tiny pistol has come to light that I have reliably been informed once belonged to a well know London landlady, a Mrs. Gladys Hudson. While I have no means of verifying that this Mrs Hudson is the actual lady who once cared for Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. John Watson, the pistol certainly fits into the late Victorian and early Edwardian era.

In several of the famous stories, Homes and Watson used assorted convenient methods of transport: hansom cabs, broughams, trains, and last but by no means least, foot. It is quite possible that around the turn of the century, one or even both of them tried the new transporta-tion craze of bicycling.

The bicycle offered a rela-tively inexpensive means of trans-portation for both sexes as well as for children. Sharing roads with assorted carriages and carts certainly led to a few accidents, while negotiating wet and slippery cobbled streets made all the more hazardous with copious amounts of fresh horse droppings also had its problems. But something completely different caused cyclists even more trouble: dogs.

All sorts of canines took delight in chasing these new-fangled mechanical monsters, and there are n umerous accounts of cyclists being knocked off their cycles or savaged by ill-mannered dogs.

It did not take very long for the cyclist brigade to fight back, and a new defensive firearm was conceived: the bicycle pistol. Usually single shot .22 Belgian-made pistols, these cheaply made anti-dog weapons fired a tiny Flobert cartridge, also called a bulleted breech cap. A small lead ball was propelled by the rim fire priming compound, no additional gun powder or smokeless powder being needed.

These bicycle pistols are now quite sought-after collectors’ pieces, as most were broken or thrown away ages ago. A complete working pistol now fetches several hundred dollars.


The Sherlock Holmes Society (Inc) in HistoryFrom the Collection of Captain Jack Croker

As you all probably know, there is a controversy over the type of pipe that Sherlock Holmes smoked. It is generally believed that he smoked a calabash-style pipe. The type of pipe he used is only vaguely referred

A very fine example of a calabash circa 1890

to in the canon. When the actor William Gillette wanted to play Sherlock Holmes on the stage he asked Sir Arthur Conan Doyle if he could use a curly pipe so his mouth would not be covered when he delivered his lines. The media from then on usually showed a calabash in Holmes’ mouth. He is seen in the Jeremy Brett television series smoking a Cathedral pipe; but more than

likely he used a common straight pipe like most other smokers in the nineteenth and twentieth centu-ries.

Here are some examples of these pipes in the Captain Jack Croker collection, given to him by Holmes as wedding presents before he migrated to Australia with his bride.

A short cathedral pipe

This is a small part of the Jack Croker pipe and tobacco collection. If you wish to see more of it. Ask him when next we meet at his and Mrs. Croker’s (nee Brackenstall) home.

Straight pipes


The Quest for a KnightA serialised saga byThe Earl of Maynooth

In a recent correspondence with Moriarty (aka Steve Duke), a South Australian Sherlockian of note, I read this seemingly innocent query: Have you found the places in WA where ACD visited in 1920?

At that time I was aware that Sir Arthur had visited Australia but thought he had bypassed our great state and only visited the eastern coast of this nation. However Moriarty’s question planted the seed of a quest and I felt bound to investigate Sir Arthur’s travels on the off-chance that he had been in Western Australia; and the next several issues of The Western Flyer will contain the path of my quest, followed by transcriptions of the items of interest which I found.

I knew that Doyle’s “Spiritualism” tour of Australia had taken place across 1920 and 1921, so this was my starting point. I assumed that the “highest paid short story writer of his time” would rate a mention in the newspapers if he had landed in WA. With this in mind I took myself to the Battye Library and began a trawl through the on-site computer indexing to see what they had listed for Sir Arthur. The only thing that caught my eye as useful in this quest was The Wanderings of a Spiritualist by Sir Arthur, which is his account of travels in promoting Spiritualism. This was “stacked”, in the library vernacular, and so I had to put in a request for a library gnome to enter into the bowels of the great edifice and locate the book for me. This would take about half an hour so in the interim I decided that I should begin my search of the newspaper archives.

I thought only of The West Australian, and the very helpful staff of the library instructed me on the workings of the microfilm archival system, on how to operate the two types of microfilm viewers and on how to charge a card to pay for any copies that I might want. (I later realised that there were other papers in Perth in those heady days and eventually searched The Daily News archival material as well.)

Like a Japanese pearl diver, into the archives I dived, looking for that gem of an article. As I have stated, I knew that the great man’s travels were in 1920-1921 so I began in January of 1920. Scrolling through the newspapers through the viewer, I found that when one stops scrolling, ,one’s eyes continue to roll around in their sockets fully expecting the


streaming visions to continue in the direction that they have been travel-ling. An interesting phenomenon, but not one of a spiritual nature.

After skimming through January of 1920 I decided that my requested “stacked” book was probably ready for pick up. When my eyes had finally stopped rolling like a snapped-up blind and I was able to focus on the clock, I found that I had taken an hour to get through January. If The Wanderings of a Spiritualist held no hints for me I could be chasing through The West Australian for as many as 23 more hours with who knows what what detriment to my eyes.

Fortunately, Sir Arthur was kind to me and I was able to find the pages relating to Fremantle very quickly in the index. They clearly stated that Doyle’s ship was in Fremantle on February 11, 1921. I was over-joyed to find that Sir Arthur had indeed been in WA, and more than a little relieved that I would not have to wade through two years of West Australian newspapers, interesting though they might be.

* * * * *

Extract from

The Wanderings of a SpiritualistBy Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Although my formal tour was now over, I had quite determined to speak at Perth if it were humanly possible, for I could not consider my work as complete if the capital of one State had been untouched. I therefore sent the message ahead that I would fit in with any arrange-ments which they might make, be it by day or night, but that the ship would only be in port for a few hours. As matters turned out the Naldera arrived in the early morning and was announced to sail again at 3 p.m., so that the hours were awkward. They took the great theatre for 1 p.m., which alarmed me as I reflected that my audience must either be starving or else in a state of repletion. Everything went splendidly, however. The house was full, and I have never had a more delightfully keen set of people in front of me. Of all my experiences there was none which was more entirely and completely satisfactory, and I hope that it brought a very substantial sum into the local spiritual treasury. There was quite


a scene in the street afterwards, and the motor could not start for the crowds who surrounded it and stretched their kind hands and eager faces towards us. It was a wonderful last impression to bear away from Australia.

* * * * *

With this knowledge in hand I trudged back to the microfilm cavern and began searching from February 1921. I felt quite like Howard Carter at King Tut’s tomb when I began reading advertisements like the following. These started on the 9th of February and were printed each day thereafter until the 11th, in both The West Australian and The Daily News:

The West AustralianFriday, February 11, 1921

Page 2, Column 2Amusements

HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE————

Ben and John Fuller .. .. .. .. Lessees————

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLEWill Lecture on “Spiritualism”

OnTO-DAY at 1 p.m.

————Doors open at 12 o’clock prompt.

Admission: 5s., 3s. ,2s. And 1s.Box Plan now open at Nicholson’s

——COME and HEAR the GREAT

EXPONENT of PSYCHIC TRUTH.

This announcement seems the perfect place to break, and the excite-ment builds for the visit of Sir Arthur to our fair state.

Next issue: February 10th! Before the lecture: Archbishop Riley’s comments.


Sherlock SightingsByMrs Violet Sawyer

Of all the characters to spring, fully armed, from the heads of their creative fathers, none has proved as enduring, as often alluded to, or as widely recognised as Sherlock Holmes. His stories are still sold and read, long after other popular works of the same era have been forgotten (I challenge you to name a character in a tale by Charles Kingsley, Charlotte Yonge, or Julia Ewing, for example).

We all know of the many films and books about the greatest detec-tive of all time. There are the famous sayings (and non-sayings, such as “elementary, my dear Watson” and “No s**t, Sherlock”), that have crept into common speech. But at a much less obvious, yet perhaps more

Holmes gets cover treatment in this Fforde novel

significant level, allusions to Holmes and his comrades indicate that Holmes has penetrated the fabric of society and become so embedded in it that even soaking overnight in a stain remover with hungry enzymes will not remove him.

Perhaps his appearances are most apropos in fiction – after all, Homes himself began life as a fictional char-acter – and a brief look at some of the works that assume readers know all about Holmes indicates how pervasive his influence has become. The trend is not new. Forty years ago, Robert Heinlein’s science fiction classic, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, introduced a master computer (long before computers were widely used or personal computers were even thought of): a “High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor, mark IV. . . – a HOLMES FOUR”. It/he is named

Mycroft by the narrator, after a story “written by Dr Watson before he founded IBM”. The association between the immense intelligence and deductive ability of Holmes and that of the computer is obvious –and the reference to Dr. Watson’s post-Holmesian career offers an interesting


suggestion that the good doctor’s abil-ities, however denigrated by Sherlock Holmes, were not entirely insignifi-cant.

A more recent sighting of Mycroft appears in a very recent series by Jasper Fforde. Here, he is the narra-tor’s uncle, a genius who creates such things as translating carbon paper and a recipe for unscrambling scrambled eggs. In the first book of the series, Lost in a Good Book, Mycroft retires by using one of his inventions to jump into a story and “turns up quite unex-pectedly in ‘The Greek Interpreter’ and claims to be [Sherlock’s] brother”.

Science fiction (if that is the genre of Lost in a Good Book) is not alone in paying tribute to the master. Allu-sions to Holmes in Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce are frequent enough to have engendered an entire book.

The Curious Incident offers a fresh and perhaps disturbing interpre-

tation of Holmes’ character

More accessible, although still occupying the “literary fiction” shelves at Dymock’s (as useful category that warns us when we are in danger of wandering near a book that might prove to offer some intellectual or philosophical stimulation) is Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, whose protagonist, William of Baskerville, investigates a series of grotesque murders that take place in a monastery.

Another, more recent, work, one that also refuses to be easily cate-gorised, is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon. Christopher, an autistic boy with a brilliant mathematical mind, sets out to solve the mystery not of why the dog didn’t bark, but of who made it impossible for the dog to do so by sticking him with a garden fork. Christopher, who has some interesting observations about the fate of dogs in The Hound of the Baskervilles, says the story is his favourite book: “I like Sherlock Holmes and I think that if I were a proper detective he is the kind of detective I would be. He is very intelligent and he solves the mystery.” Many of Christopher’s qualities, such as his extraordinary powers of observation, his ability to concentrate, and his reclusiveness, are shared with Holmes, and offer a new way of viewing the detective.


Why do writers makes allusions to Holmes? There are many reasons: doing so offers a shorthand reference to a recognised way of thinking; it situates the author’s work within the infinitely interconnected, infinitely fragile web of ideas that spread from work to work; it is a subtle way of establishing the writer’s credentials, in the same way that name-dropping does. Most importantly, perhaps, it establishes a link between the writer and the reader, suggesting that the two are equally well-read and erudite, and that there is a kinship between them. With a single word or phrase, the author unlocks a private world that others, less worthy than ourselves, do not recognise and cannot enter.

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Itís in the Blood. . . a quiz by Lady Adair

Last year, we were fortunate to have Senior Constable Brett McCance from the Forensic Crime Scene Unit as a guest speaker. He spoke on blood stains and blood spatter analysis. In keeping with this theme, here is a quiz on blood.

1.Human blood consists of several types of cells suspended in a fluid called:

[a] haemoglobin[b] lymph[c] plasma[d] serum

2. Erythrocytes are red blood cells. Which of the following statements about red blood cells is false?

[a] Erythrocytes are produced by the red bone marrow. [b] Erythrocytes are red because of the presence of haemoglobin[c] Red blood cells are the best source of DNA.[d] The main function of an erythrocyte is to transport oxygen

3. Dr Karl Landsteiner won the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1930 for which of the following discoveries?

[a] the DNA molecule[b] the for basic human blood groups[c] the genetic cause of haemophilia[d] the Rh factor

4. The Rhesus factor is a special protein, called an antigen, which may be present on the surface of the red blood cell. Which animal is it named after?


[a] guinea pig[b] lemur[c] monkey[d] rabbit

5. Which is the rarest of the four human blood types or groups?

[a] AB[b] A[c] B [d] O

6. Can you safely transfuse a type B person with type A blood?

[a] yes [b] no

7. If you've ever watched an episode of "CSI", "Law and Order", or similar crime shows, you'll know the name of the chemical that causes bloodstains to glow blue in a darkened room:

[a] cyanoacrylate[b] luminol[c] myoglobin[d] phenolphthalein

8. Drops of blood falling from a stationary person or object, as opposed to a moving one, are more likely to be which shape?

[a] circular [b] comma-shaped [c] elliptical[d] tear-shaped


9. When blood is directed towards the source of the energy or force that caused the spatter, the pattern is called:

[a] back spatter[b] cast-off pattern[c] flight path[d] ricochet spatter

10. The last word on bloodstains must, of course, come from Sherlock Holmes. In which of the four novels did Holmes claim to have found a definitive test for haemoglobin, and, therefore for determining whether a stain was indeed a bloodstain?

[a] The Hound of the Baskervilles[b] The Sign of Four[c] The Valley of Fear[d] A Study in Scarlet

Answers: 1. Answer: [c]. The fluid portion of blood is called plasma. Plasma is 92%

water and contains dissolved substances such as minerals, proteins and clotting factors. When the blood is permitted to clot, and the clotted materials are removed, the fluid that remains is serum.

2. Answer: [c]. Red blood cells do not have a nucleus or mitochondria. Since DNA is contained in the cell nucleus and mitochondria, red blood cells are not a good source of DNA. Sperm, saliva and hair are preferred sources.

3. Answer: [b]. In 1909, Dr Karl Landsteiner, an Austrian physician, classi-fied human blood into four basic groups or types, based on the presence or absence of special proteins (called antigens) on the surface of the red blood cells. The four basic human blood groups are A, B, AB and O. These classifications are based on the presence or absence of two antigens, A and B. If you have both antigens, you are type AB. If you have only one antigen, you are either type A or type B accordingly. If you do not have either antigen, you are type O.


4. Answer: [c]. In 1937, Dr Karl Landsteiner, with Dr Alexander Wiener, identi-fied the Rh factor, another antigen present on the surface of the human red blood cell. The Rhesus factor is so called because it was first discovered in the blood of Rhesus monkeys, or to be more precise, Rhesus macaques. The words 'positive' and 'negative' in your blood group indicate whether you possess the Rhesus factor. For example, if you are O positive, you have the Rhesus factor. If you are B negative, you do not.

5. Answer: [a]. The figures quoted here are only approximations based on a number of sources. Although the figures are approximate, on a global scale, it is gener-ally accepted that O is the most common group (43%), followed by A (40%), B (12%) and AB (5%), the least common. The statistical distribution or percentages vary from country to country, and among ethnic groups. However, there is a saying at the blood bank that “the rarest blood type is the one that is not available when YOU need it”.

6. Answer: yes. Until recently, the answer would have been no. However, under the leadership of Dr Henrik Clausen, scientists at the University of Copen-hagen, Denmark, have discovered two bacterial enzymes that can eliminate the A and B antigens from the blood, thus converting red blood cells of types A, B, and AB into O. This has enormous implications for improving the availability of blood for blood trans-fusions, eliminating the need to delay transfusions while blood is being typed, and the overall safety of transfusions. You can transfuse a type B person with type A blood if you have converted it to type O blood first by this method. Clinical trials are currently under way. The major problem to be overcome is that large amounts of enzymes are required for the conversion. ("Bacterial Glycosidases for the Production of Universal Red Blood Cells", published online in Nature Biotechnology, April 1, 2007).

7. Answer: [b]. The luminol reagent reacts with the iron present in the haemo-globin component of blood. In a darkened room, it will glow blue under an ultraviolet light for about 30 seconds. Luminol is effective even if the traces of blood are not visible to the naked eye and even if an attempt has been made to clean up the blood. However, luminol is not infallible evidence for the presence of blood because it will also fluoresce in the presence of copper or an alloy of copper, some types of bleach, horseradish, urine (if there is a trace of blood in the urine) and faeces. It also does not indicate whether the blood is of human or animal origin.

8. Answer: [a]. Stationary drops of blood are usually circular because they tend to fall vertically onto a flat surface. Moving drops, however, will fall onto a surface at an angle, producing an elliptical shape which will indicate the direction in which the drop was travelling.


9. Answer: [a]. A cast-off pattern is the pattern created when blood is released or thrown from a moving object. Flight path is the path of the drop as it moves through the air. Ricochet spatter is the change in direction of blood after impact with a surface that results in the staining of a second surface. These definitions were devised by the International Association of Bloodstain Pattern Analysts (IABPA) in an effort to standardise forensic terminology.

10. Answer: [d]. This occurs in Chapter 1, during the historic moment when Watson and Holmes meet for the first time:

At the sound of our steps he glanced round and sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure. "I've found it! I've found it," he shouted to my companion, running towards us with a test-tube in his hand. "I have found a re-agent which is precipitated by haemoglobin, and by nothing else." Had he discovered a gold mine, greater delight could not have shone upon his features.

"Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said Stamford, introducing us."How are you?" he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength for which I should hardly have given him credit. "You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”

"How on earth did you know that?" I asked in astonishment."Never mind," said he, chuckling to himself. "The question now is about haemo-

globin. No doubt you see the significance of this discovery of mine?""It is interesting, chemically, no doubt," I answered, "but practically----""Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years. Don't you see

that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains? Come over here now!"

Lady Adair goes native at the Maiwand dinner


________20A! He’s Gone! screamed the headline in the Times. I folded my paper to read more comfortably. Edward “________25” Anstruther, ________20D known as “Smoke” for the way he knocked out his victims and disap-peared with their valu________s27, had entered a local church, ________ed 22A the unfortunate rector who, being on his ________s17A praying, offered a n________8 target, and ________5 the ________33 chalice and candlesticks from the very altar. Staying only long enough to race up the ________s15 and ring a short ________10 of bells, he entered the ________by2 Prince ________18 Hotel and mingled with the ________35 crowd there. He ordered s________1D and ate, finding time to ________16D the landlord’s wife and ________32 his daughter, then tossed his ________21 into the mob, which went ________28, and sauntered down the road. An alert policeman recognised him and gave chase. ________25 was ________ly2 caught, but was ________27 to escape into the ________3 where he was soon lost in the ________35 throng.

Flyer Puzzle:A Day at the Fair

by Mrs. Felicia Saawyer


He was st________4 carrying his ________-gotten 4 goods, wrapped in the ________29 cloth from the altar; but the police, who quickly surrounded the ________3, were un________27 to find the ________29, the ________33, or the ________17D who had committed the ________22D.

This had happened two days ________31D. I could only assume that my abrupt summons to the ________3 by my friend Sherlock Holmes, asking me to meet him in the area ________2 the fortune-teller’s booth, was related. I waited there now, at the edge of an ________31A ________13 where I had already seen horses curvet, trick-cyclists collide, and gypsy girls perform a dance ________1A for decent men’s eyes. I had tried not to ________32.

I seemed to have been waiting an ________30. Holmes’ failure to appear was a ________16A of my patience. My ________17A, injured many years earlier, ached; and I ________7 it by sitting on the edge of one of a pair of tubs full of mint, ________34, parsley and the like, ________2 the fortune-teller’s booth. The herbs were dying, although the ones in the companion tub appeared to be flourishing.

The fortune-teller was an ________ ly 24, ________-favoured 4 woman with the coarse dark f________ ures 8 of the ________23. She stared into a ________6D. She had a moustache on her ________1D lip. No-one was having his fortune read. I was not surprised: her price was a ________33 coin, too much for a ________26 reading. For such a price, I felt, one would expect some rather remarkable lies.

Every so often a worker with a ________12, spade and ________14 would walk past, glare at me as if I had deliberately k________ ed 4 the ________34 I sat upon, and move on. I decided to move on too, as I wanted something to ________8 and Holmes had not yet made an appearance. I wondered if I could find some pas________9.

‘Read your cards, sir?’ the ________ ine 23 fortune-teller called as I rose. ‘Alas, I can ________4 afford your fee,’ I confessed.‘For you, it w________4 be free.’ She beckoned me to the booth, where

she had ________d 6A an exotic Eastern atmosphere with odds and ________19 of ________33 cloth, red lights, and incense. She peered into her ________6D.

‘I see old blood – a wound– in your ________17A. . . or perhaps shoulder, unless I am mis________5.’ She passed her hand over the ball. ‘You are a man who ________9, but is not always successful. I see a knife. . . and a pen. . .You are a healer – ________26?– but do better when you ________6A stories. I see. . . Quick, Watson, catch him!’

The fortune-teller dashed past me to the ________12 man, who flung his ________14 at her and raced towards the busy ________13. I tackled him to


the ground and sat on him. We had ________d6A a scene; very soon a const________27 appeared and the man was ________5 into custody. I tended the gash on Holmes’ head – for the ________ ly 24 ________ ine 23 woman was, indeed, he.

‘Whatever were you doing, Holmes? And why did you attack that man?’‘Take the spade, dear fellow, and dig in that tub. You w________4 find

something remark________27.’‘By all that’s wonderful! The ________ en 33 chalice and candlesticks! But

the altar cloth is beyond repair.’‘Tosh. Mrs. Hudson w________4 be ________27 to wash it. Yes, Watson.

________25 Anstruther hid them there– you noticed, of course, that this tub of herbs was dying, did you not? What conclusions did you come to?’

‘Well– none.’‘My dear friend. I can at________16A to your marvellous consistency even

without consulting a fortune-teller. St________4, I am grateful that you caught the ________17D after he sc________ed1D me with the ________14.’

‘But–’‘He hid in the crowd and had only to borrow a ________12 to look like

a ________3 worker. He hid his loot in this tub– disturbing the plants, as you see– and had only to wait to retrieve them. He is a master of disguises, but so am I. I had only to persuade the real fortune-teller to let me take her place. And ________20A! Here she is!’

She was a most ap________10ing young woman, and her high charge now seemed understand________27. But I do not think I w________4 be adding this tale to the annals of Holmes’ deeds. His remarks about my character were hurtful, although I am sure he only meant to ________16D.

Colonel and Mrs Barclay at the Maiwand dinner


The Editors of The Western Flyer:

The Editors of The Western Flyer:Alex Bevan (Dr), aka Dr. Leslie Armstrong

50 Tyrell Street NedlandsWestern Australia 6009

(08) 9368 [email protected]

Margaret Johnson (Dr), aka Mrs. Frederica Sawyer7 The ValeWilletton

Western Australia 6155

(08) 9457 [email protected]

The Society website:http://members.iinet.com.au/~exlibris.shswa.html

An Interesting Note:The Maiwand is always a splendid affair, with the scarlet and black

uniforms of the Militia setting off the rich brocades, silks, and velvets of the ladies. This year a new medal was spotted on the chest of the Earl of Maynooth. It was that awarded to combatants in the second Anglo-Afghan War. Silver medals were awarded to all British combatants; bronze medals were awarded to non-combatant assistants such as cooks, porters, and the like.

The Maiwand, although a major battle of the war, was not recognised with a clasp because it was seen as a defeat. The clasp on the medal shown on the Flyer’s cover denotes the battle near Kandahar of September 1, 1880.

The medal’s obverse carries a portrait of Queen Victoria; she was not particularly happy with the likeness, which was the first not to show her as a young monarch. Despite her objections, the image was retained. The reverse is a charming depiction of an elephant assisting the cavalry with their gun; it was designed by the famous children’s illustrator, Randolph Caldecott.

The reverse of the medal awarded to participants in the Second Anglo-Afghan War

The Editors of The Western Flyer:

the journal of the sherlock holmes society of western australia...

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