Tuesday, 2 December 2025

Sherlock Holmes And Nicholas Van Rijn

"'You are both wrong.'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Master Key" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, January 2009), pp. 195-233 AT p. 229.

"'You are all wrong.'"
-Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb" IN Conan Doyle, The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes IN Arthur Conan Doyle: 3 Books In 1 (Mumbai, 2007), pp. 229-254 AT p. 225.

Holmes and van Rijn are right, of course!

A perfect parallel. In the latter case, a man was taken on a twelve mile journey by night in a coach but did they go north, east, west or south? All wrong. Six miles out and six miles back to the starting point, but to give the impression of a twelve mile journey. Holmesian villains are devious.

In the next Holmes story, a character is cut to the quick. Quiz time: where does van Rijn say that he is cut to the quiche? (Someone please help me with this one. I can't remember.)

I think that van Rijn is a bit like Poirot but here he is a bit like Holmes.

OK. I am still rereading "Star of the Sea" but also Holmes.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kaor, Paul!

But that coach had to go six miles in one direction before turning back to return in a different direction six miles.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Yes.