"The Return of Sherlock Holmes" Quiz

Answer: He has assumed the identity of an elderly deformed book-collector.

Watson is completely taken in by Holmes' disguise. He even bumps into the disguised Holmes and apologises for the books that he has knocked down. Holmes' strange "croaking voice" is not recognised even when he speaks directly to his old friend. When Holmes reveals himself Watson faints for the first and only time in his life.

Answer: His brother Mycroft

Holmes apologises to Watson for leaving him in the dark about what happened. However, he had needed Watson's realistic account of his "death" in order throw his enemies off his track. He had only confided in Mycroft because he had needed money for his travels to Tibet.

Answer: Colonel Sebastian Moran

Colonel Moran had been Moriarty's chief of staff and was one of the few people who knew that Holmes had survived by the waterfall. He was in the empty house intending to shoot Holmes with the special air-gun built by Von Herder, the blind German mechanic. Ronald Adair was one of Moran's victims because he had threatened to expose the Colonel as a card cheat.

Answer: His walking stick.

According to the report which Watson reads out from the "Daily Telegraph" it was an oaken walking stick which showed stains of blood on its handle. In the same room were signs of a "murderous struggle" and an open safe. This pointed to the obvious conclusion that MacFarlane had been involved in a murder.

Answer: It had been written on a train.

Some lines on the document were as clear as print; some lines were very badly written and in some places the document could not be read at all. The clear writing was from when the train was stopped. The indifferent writing was from when the train was in motion. The indecipherable writing occurred when the train passed over a series of points.

Answer: The bloody thumbprint of MacFarlane at the crime scene.

When Holmes first sees the thumbprint he is exultant. He had made a close examination of the crime scene on the previous day. He knew that the incriminating mark had been put there over night. This meant that his client was innocent for he did not have access to the premises during this time.

In fact the new thumbprint had been created using the wax that Oldacre had made MacFarlane press to seal a letter on the night of the supposed murder.

Answer: E

Holmes declares, "As you are aware E is the most common letter in the English alphabet and it predominates to so marked an extent that even in a short sentence one would expect to find it most often." After that he mentions T,A,O,I,N,S,H as the letters most likely to come second, third, fourth, etc by numerical calculations.

However, they are so close in frequency that they are not as easy to predict as E.

Answer: Elsie

Elsie is the name of the woman involved in the case. However, from a decoding point of view, her name is also very helpful because it contains the letter "E" more than once. This enables Holmes to work out the letters "L", "S" and "I". With these four letters available it is only a matter of time before the code representations of each letter fall into his hands.

Answer: To the local pub.

"Go to the nearest public-house. That is the centre of country gossip. They would have told you every name from the master to the scullery maid." This is how Holmes rebukes Watson. Later Holmes himself visits the pub and gets into a fight with Mr.Woodley. Holmes ends up with a cut lip and Woodley has to be taken home in a cart.

Answer: They had played cards for her.

Carruthers had the misfortune to fall genuinely in love with Miss Violet Smith whilst Woodley was just determined to force the girl to marry him. She recognised the "drunken brute" that Woodley was and would have nothing to do with him. Carruthers used to follow her to and from the station in order to see that she was safe. He was the cyclist behind the solitary cyclist.

Answer: In a room at the "Fighting Cock" inn.

The heir to the Duke of Holdernesse was told that his mother was waiting to see him. In fact he was put into the hands of Reuben Hayes, the landlord of the "Fighting Cock" who brutally killed the German teacher who had followed behind.

Answer: The cheque for six thousand pounds.

Holmes tells the Duke of Holdernesse that the device that allowed the horses' feet to be disguised is the second most interesting object. However, the cheque is very welcome to him as a "poor man". Watson comments that it is one of the few cases where he insists on a fee.

Answer: He had been trying to transfix a dead pig that swung from a hook.

Holmes found it absolutely impossible to transfix the pig with a single blow. This told him that the man who had killed Captain Peter Carey must possess both extraordinary strength and exceptional skill.In the end this proves to be true of Patrick Cairns. In the struggle to overpower him Holmes needs both a pair of handcuffs and the combined efforts of Watson and Gregson.

Answer: Blackmail.

Holmes asks Watson to think of "the serpents of the Zoo" and talks of Milverton as a "slithery, gliding, venemous creature". He also calls him "the king of all the blackmailers". However, Holmes is forced to admit that Milverton is a genius at his trade.

Answer: Watson.

Both Holmes and Watson had been present at Milverton's house on the night on which he was killed. They were nearly caught whilst escaping and Watson was grabbed by the ankle as he went over a six-foot wall. The witness had given quite an accurate description but Lestrade thought Holmes was joking when he suggested Watson could be the man.

Answer: The black pearl of the Borgias.

When Beppo, one of the criminals, discovered that the police were on his trail he headed for the factory where he worked. He knew he had only a few minutes to hide the pearl. He made a hole in one of the six plaster casts that were drying in the passage and covered it over with a few further touches of his fingers.

Answer: It came from a long-jump pit.

For Holmes the source of black clay demonstrated that the most athletic of the students, who was renowned for his long-jumping, was the most likely suspect. The spiked shoe had been left on a table and snatched up leaving a scratch that was slight on one side but which deepened in the direction of the bedroom door. The guilty student had hidden there when the lecturer returned.

Answer: Behind the professor's book-case.

Holmes had considered the various options for hiding places in the professor's house. The two similar corridors with coconut matting had convinced him that a short-sighted person could make a mistake when running in a panic. One corridor led to the professor's bedroom. Holmes had deliberately dropped a large quantity of cigarette ash in the professor's room in order to see if there was concealed compartment behind the bookcase. Traces in the ash would show if the bookcase moved.

Answer: He follows the carriage in which Dr. Armstrong travels.

Pompey is a drag-hound. Holmes has been constantly unable to follow Dr. Armstrong whom he is sure will lead him to Godfrey Staunton. So Holmes squirts a syringe of aniseed over the doctor's carriage and puts Pompey on the trail. The dog leads him successfully to where he wants to go. However, he only finds a terrible tragedy and not a crime.

Answer: He had gone to be with with his sick wife.

The student, Godfrey Staunton, had made a secret marriage of which his rich uncle, Lord Mount-James, would not approve. When he learns that his wife is dangerously ill Godfrey dashes off to be with her. In fact he remains with her until she dies. Sherlock Holmes knows that no crime has been committed and so he agrees to keep the whole matter secret.

Answer: They are arrested in New York one day after the crime in England.

Inspector Hopkins had always considered the Randalls to be his chief suspects in the crime. He is most disappointed when it is demonstrated that they could not possibly have committed it. Though he works out the truth, Holmes does not present Hopkins with the solution.

Answer: He decided that only two people had been drinking the wine.

Holmes' deduction was that two people had been drinking from the two glasses and that the third had been filled from the dregs of the other two. This meant that Lady Brackenstall and her maid had been lying about the three criminals drinking from the glasses.

Answer: At the foot of the hole in the ice of the nearby pond.

The silver had been taken by the killer as a ruse in order to suggest that the death had been caused by a robbery that had gone wrong. Where the ice had been broken for a solitary swan to rest on the water was an obvious place for its disposal. Hopkins can at least have the satisfaction of that recovery even though he never does catch the murderer.

Answer: He returns it to the despatch box from which it was stolen.

It was Lady Hilda Trelawny Hope who had stolen the letter to give to Eduardo Lucas for he was blackmailing her. She recovered the letter after the death of Lucas and Holmes persuaded her to allow him to return it to the despatch box.

Answer: The Prime Minister.

Watson begins his description of the adventure by saying that he is required to suppress many of the details of "the most important international case" which Holmes was ever required to handle. Watson gives the Prime Minister the name Lord Bellinger and says that he was twice "Premier of Britain".

It is in fact Trelawny Hope, Secretary for European Affairs, who had discovered the loss of the crucial letter.