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The essence of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock stories (and what makes them clever and recommended reading) is that the answer lies in plain sight. Holmes do
by ethbro 8y ago
The essence of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock stories (and what makes them clever and recommended reading) is that the answer lies in plain sight.
Holmes does not succeed because he is superhuman (although the stories are not without their action bits), but because he applies himself more fully than others, and prepares and experiments more thoroughly.
Is the number of steps important?
Well, it would be if one were attempting to decide between two suspects, one on crutches and one a runner, and the time of path traversal was known.
But by then, others (notably the ever-mystified Scotland Yard) would have already dismissed stair count as unimportant.
Seemingly insignificant facts in aggregate, my dear
albertgoeswoof, a case do build.
- Semiapies 8y agoYes, but Sherlock Holmes also always magically knows which trivia is important, because he's written that way. He doesn't bother with the count of stairs on every staircase he's ever walked on. And he lives in a world where the trivia he notices always reflects accurately on hidden truths, instead of being simply useless details that reveal nothing of consequence.
- j9461701 8y agoFor example in one story Sherlock deduces that the person sending a ransom note is an educated man attempting to appear stupid, because although the note is grammatically incorrect the newspaper the letters are cut out from was The Times. And only educated men read The Times. Except....what if that's just coincidence? I mean The Times costs the same amount at a news stand as any paper right? So what if the kidnapper, who is so barely literate he doesn't read any daily paper at all, went to a news stand to buy something to cut the letters from and happened to pick The Times?
- graeme 8y agoGeorge Macdonald Fraser did a funny sendup of this in Flashman and the Tiger, where Holmes creates a completely wrong narrative of Flashman using true facts he observed about him.