Weekly Quiz 2014: 25
Questions and Answers
It’s a “No Theme” Quiz! Here are 15 random questions from the Canon for you to ponder.
1. Explain the “tweed cap mystery.”
Answer: Hatherley leaves his tweed cap in the house, but places it on Watson’s books when
having his thumb dressed. The cap cannot be both in the house and worn by Hatherley later.
ENGI.
2. Holmes remarked on flowers once in the entire Canon. What flower, which story or book?
Answer: NAVA; he spoke of the beauty of a rose.
3. Relate two criminals who studied at the same schools (public and university) and cite their
relative positions in terms of danger and intelligence.
Answer: Colonel Moran, EMPT, ‘the second most dangerous man in London’ and John Clay,
REDH, “the fourth smartest man in London’ were both educated at Eton and Oxford.
4. What is “the House”?
Answer: The London Stock Exchange which had its first home in Jonathan’s Coffee House.
Spoken by Stanley Hopkins in BLAC.
5. Why is the will in NORW questionable?
Answer: It was written on blue paper which is universally used only for drafts and never for
final copies. McFarlane may have deliberately planned the will to be invalid. NORW.
6. Why is ‘the baying of a hound’ not likely?
Answer: In COPP, the dog, Carlo, was a mastiff. Mastiffs do not ‘bay’, rather they growl. A
mastiff is an entirely different breed from a hound.
7. If one lunches at Swindon, what is the railway line?
Answer: The Great Western Railway. The main yards were (and still are) at Swindon.
Swindon is west of London in Gloucestershire. Buttons once lived there. BOSC.
8. How does Morley’s Hotel figure in WIST?
Answer: The Post Office, Charing Cross, was the address on the telegram to Holmes from
John Scott Eccles. The post office, in Holmes’s and Watson’s day, was located in the ground
floor of Morley’s Hotel with the entrance on the south side of the Strand. WIST.
9. In “The Adventure of the Three Students,” Watson writes a word that proves to be a strong
clue to the question “Was it Oxford or Cambridge?” Explain.
Answer: Watson writes: “Now, Mr. Soames, we will take a walk in the quadrangle, if you
please.” At Cambridge, the term would be ‘court.’ Only at Oxford is the term ‘quadrangle.’
10. Who are the Minchuns and how do they relate to the Canon?
Answer: Minchuns were the nuns of St Helen’s for whom Mincing Lane is named and figures
in the address of Ferguson & Muirhead, tea brokers in SUSS.
11. Which case would seem to be the eighth time Stanley Hopkins requested the assistance of
Holmes?
Answer: “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange.” Holmes states, “Hopkins has called me in
seven times” at the outset of the story, thereby indicating that this is the eighth request.
12. This the only murder to take place in Wales in the Canon.
Answer: The Abergavenny murder. PRIO.
13. Why is Saffron Hill so named?
Answer: The old palace of the Bishops of Ely, built in 1388, housed a garden where saffron
was grown. SIXN.
14. Why is Holmes in error when repeating the history of Leverton?
Answer: He calls him “The hero of the Long Island Cave mystery.” There are no caves on
Long Island. REDC
15. In what story do we find the original title for A Study in Scarlet?
Answer: CREE. “It is a tangled skein, . . .”