As it happened, the first of my great circumnavigations of the city coincided with the girls’ first victory. They came up against a team as inept and hardly less glamorous than themselves, and if I tell you the final score was 6-4, you know as much as you need to of the skills displayed. By that time too, we were drawing a large audience of wide-eyed males from all around the place, which didn’t help. Towards the end of this dour but engrossing struggle, we were down 4-0 when big Evie finally mastered the rebounding technique as I had taught her, stuck her sumptuous backside out and managed not to drop the ball for a change, then launched a court length pass to Maggie Dunne on the fast break. Jubilantly, Evie suddenly became unstoppable, rebounding in attack, missed the goal five times and grabbed it again while blocked opponents flailed helplessly before one of her frantic efforts wobbled all the way around the ring before it finally fell in the basket. Then Laura Dunne, determined not to be outshone by her sister, fluked a huge long goal and they were home.
They wrapped me in a huddle and bounced up and down to such an extent that every sensibility I possessed collapsed. Then, when they had hugged and kissed everyone in sight, they piled into the FJ and away we rode into the night.
I knew not what wild beast we were about to hunt down in the dark jungle of criminal London… The Empty House.
“From the point of view of the criminal expert,” said Mr. Sherlock Holmes. “London has become a singularly uninteresting city since the death of the late lamented Professor Moriarty.” … The Norwood Builder.
“… And so, my dear Watson, we have ended by turning the dancing men to good when they have so often been the agents of evil…” The Dancing Men.
“… it is inconceivable that anyone who wore such glasses could be slatternly in other respects.” … The Solitary Cyclist.
“.. Halloa! Halloa! Halloa! What have we here?” a bobbie in The Priory School.
“I know your methods, sir, and I applied them.”…Black Peter.
“Do you feel a creeping, shrinking sensation, Watson, when you stand before the serpents in the Zoo and see the slithery, gliding, venomous creatures, with their deadly eyes and wicked, flattened faces?”... Charles Augustus Milverton.
“This case is not entirely devoid of interest..” The Three Students.
“Surely my deductions are simplicity itself,” said he. … The Golden Pince-nez.
“Good-bye Lestrade. If any little problem comes your way I shall be happy, if I can, to give you a hint or two as to its solution.” … The Six Napoleons.
“… Mr. Holmes, you are a wizard, a sorcerer! How did you know it was there?”
“Because I knew it was nowhere else.” … The Second Stain.
Sherlock Holmes, back from the dead, in The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
“I had rather play tricks with the laws of England than with my own conscience.”… The Abbey Grange
It was on a bitterly cold and frosty morning during the winter of ‘97 that I was wakened by a tugging at my shoulder. It was Holmes. A candle in his hand shone upon his eager, stooping face, and told me at a glance that something was amiss.
“Come, Watson, come !” he cried. “The game is afoot. Not a word ! Into your clothes and come!”… The Abbey Grange.
For years I had gradually weaned him from that drug mania which had threatened once to check his remarkable career… The Missing Three-quarter.