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    Sherlock Holmes Case-Book of Curious Puzzles: A Collection of Enigmas to Puzzle Even the Greatest Detective
    Sherlock Holmes Case-Book of Curious Puzzles: A Collection of Enigmas to Puzzle Even the Greatest Detective
    Sherlock Holmes Case-Book of Curious Puzzles: A Collection of Enigmas to Puzzle Even the Greatest Detective
    Ebook440 pages3 hours

    Sherlock Holmes Case-Book of Curious Puzzles: A Collection of Enigmas to Puzzle Even the Greatest Detective

    By Sidney Paget, Gareth Moore and George Wylie Hutchinson

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    About this ebook

    My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere.
    -Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of the Four.

    Pit your wits against the greatest detective of them all with this collection of fiendish and hugely entertaining puzzles and enigmas. Some involve riddles, some plays on words, and some rely on mathematical principles. Use your powers of logical deduction, and see if you can match the towering intellect of Sherlock Holmes.

    Not only does this collection include brilliant puzzles to ponder over, but it presents these quandaries within exchanges between Holmes and Watson. In this way, this puzzle book retains the same cosy Victorian charm that Holmes' tales are so loved for.

    Featuring the original pen and ink illustrations by Sidney Paget and George Wylie Hutchinson, this gorgeously designed puzzle book will immerse you in Holmes's mysteries and keep you entertained for hours.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcturus Publishing
    Release dateAug 1, 2022
    ISBN9781398821699
    Sherlock Holmes Case-Book of Curious Puzzles: A Collection of Enigmas to Puzzle Even the Greatest Detective

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      Book preview

      Sherlock Holmes Case-Book of Curious Puzzles - Sidney Paget

      Sherlock Holmes Case-book of Curious Puzzles: A Collection of Enigmas to Puzzle even the Greatest Detective, by Dr Gareth Moore

      CONTENTS

      Introduction

      Puzzles

      The First Deduction

      The Reigate Squires

      A Special Number

      The Fast Train

      The Case of the Red Widow

      The Impossible Breakfast

      Four By Four

      The Present-Packing Poser

      A Mysterious Place

      Great Nieces and Great Nephews

      The Barrel Quarrel

      Brothers and Sisters

      Reading Room

      The Three Feet Feat

      A First Keyboard Conundrum

      Keeping Up With The Hudsons

      The Cuboid Calendar

      A Carefully Constructed Number

      The Secret Message

      The Bamboozling Bacon

      The Second Deduction

      The Primary Sequence

      A Card Conundrum

      Red and Green Apples

      Even More Apples

      The Long Walk

      Clipped Wings

      The First Rebus

      The Impatient Pocket Watch

      Celebrity Conundrum

      The Third Deduction

      Lost and Found

      The Second Keyboard Conundrum

      Crossing The Bridge

      Juggling Juices

      Cake Conundrum

      A Coded Message

      The Mixed-Up Label

      Another Card Conundrum

      The Two Dentists

      The Circular Puzzle

      The Secondary Sequence

      The Fourth Deduction

      The Same Tea

      The Nut Case

      A Strange Garden

      Common Property

      The Four Coins

      High Time

      A Sibling Sum

      A One-Way Oddity

      The Second Rebus

      The Shifting Box

      The Door Dilemma

      The Cake Trios

      The Scone Problem

      Wet Clothes

      The Slow Workmen

      A Second Coded Message

      An Odd Order

      The Fifth Deduction

      Sleeping It Off

      Getting the Chop

      The Case of the Secret Sailors

      Irregular Twins

      A Puddle Puzzle

      The Tertiary Sequence

      The Strange Shipwreck

      A Palindromic Puzzle

      Racing Results

      Carnival Cakes

      Matching Socks

      Holmes, Scrambled

      The Musgrave Ritual

      Common Property Two

      An Illuminating Problem

      A Strangely Shaped Riddle

      Truth-tellers and Liars

      The Poisoned Party

      A Third Coded Message

      Summation Sorcery

      The Island in the Lake

      Use Your Head

      A Fourth Coded Message

      The Lesser of Three Evils

      The Domino Deceit

      A Likely Story

      The Party Problem

      Bridge, Interrupted

      Atop the Shipping Container

      Newspaper Pages

      Truth-tellers and Liars Two

      A Fair Race

      A Banana Bargain

      Target Practice

      The Broken Five

      The Tricky Testimony

      Tying the Knot

      A Table Tennis Trick

      The Cube Quandary

      Bacterial Growth

      A Textile Teaser

      A Fifth Coded Message

      A Psychic Paradox

      The Crossroads

      The Third Rebus

      A Close Shave

      Shrinking Vocabulary

      Taking the Fall

      The Missing Penny

      Seeing Double

      The Mansion Murder

      Mrs. Barker’s Case

      Pint-sized Fun

      An Odd Biography

      Walking the Dogs

      The Quaternary Sequence

      Bottled Up

      Don’t Put the Cart Before the Horse

      A Sixth Coded Message

      An Entertaining Enigma

      Crossing the Thames

      Crumbled Up

      A Long Year

      The One Rule

      Keeping Clean

      The Three Children

      The Family Name

      The Fourth Rebus

      An Uncrackable Sequence

      A Priestly Poser

      The Long Throw

      A Seventh Coded Message

      Running in Circles

      The Fifth Rebus

      The Long Corridor

      Dearly Beloved

      The Treacherous Trap

      Solutions

      INTRODUCTION

      Dear Reader,

      Welcome to this most portentous volume. It is the very first of its kind, for within the pages of this book I have collected together the most unique puzzle vignettes. All have been gathered during the past few years of my life, during which I have had the rare privilege to accompany that most singular of detectives, Sherlock Holmes, on many of his most renowned cases.

      Should you somehow fail to have heard of the detective tour de force that is Mr Sherlock Holmes, let me take a moment to introduce you to him, peccadillos and all.

      His signature feature is his towering intellect. His cranial cogitations are majestic in their profundity, often reducing mere mortals such as you, no doubt—and certainly I—to mere observers, no matter how much we might wish to offer some additional insight into his investigatory activities. Having already solved a mystery, he enjoys playing with others in the way that a cat will tease its prey, ensuring that you are never in any doubt as to how superior his own intelligence is to yours. He will frequently challenge you to reach some conclusion or the other, but it is invariably one that he has long ago passed at the wayside in his own insatiable quest for knowledge.

      This book collects together more than 130 such challenges that Holmes has set me over recent years, and which I present here in written form for your edification and entertainment.

      These challenges are of several different types. Some rely on principles of the mathematical kind, while many need one or more logical deductions to be made from the presented writings. A few make reference to contemporary technology or other new inventions of our Victorian era, and others require abstract thinking to explain some apparently impossible situation. Let me assure you, however, that none require any special knowledge or experience, beyond the wit that God himself gave you as you entered this mortal world.

      Holmes is rather fond of riddles, so I should also take this opportunity to give you fair warning that at least a few of the challenges require cleverness of the language variety, with a few plays on words and the like. If a puzzle seems unsolvable, it is always worth considering that some cleverness is at play and all is not as it seems. I have also seen fit to put a small hint into some of the puzzle titles, so if you should ever find yourself stuck it is always worth considering the true meaning of the title. It might perchance be of some small assistance in your hunt for even the most elusive of answers.

      Should any of the conundrums herein happen to challenge and perplex you beyond your ken, I have (much against Holmes’s recommendation, I might add) included full solutions at the back of this volume. Here I have stated the answer as it was originally given to me. This section might, I suggest, be given to a friend or detective colleague to read, so that they can concoct a hint that is slightly less fiendish than those already given to you on the puzzle pages.

      Each challenge may be tackled on its own, and you may dip in and out of the book at your leisure. The material tells no grand overall story, beyond documenting the genius of the man I am lucky to call my friend: Mr Sherlock Holmes.

      Doctor John Watson,

      221B Baker Street, London, 1897

      PUZZLES

      THE FIRST DEDUCTION

      Holmes and I met with some of the Baker Street Irregulars to discuss a case. Before we arrived at the meeting place, he remarked that we were meeting with three boys who had worked with us before: Tom, Mickey, and Joe. The names rang bells, but I could not immediately remember which was which.

      Which cases did they help us with again, Holmes? I asked, hoping that this would jog my memory.

      Oh, let me see, Watson. It was—if I remember your case names correctly—The Crimson Consideration, The Mark of Three, and The Case of the Vanishing Glass.

      This helped me a little, and I recalled a connection between The Mark of Three and the name Joe. But I still could not picture him, and as for the remaining two boys, I had no idea which cases they had assisted us with.

      When we arrived at our meeting, I realized that I did indeed recognize all three boys. One had a mole on his chin, another a scar beneath his eye, and the third had wild, bushy hair that sprang out from his head at all angles. I was confident that the one with the scar was Mickey, as I remembered a story about his brother giving him the scar in a fight. It was then that I remembered his impressive bushy hair had featured heavily in my account of The Case of the Vanishing Glass.

      From these somewhat paltry recollections, I am pleased to say I was able to greet each boy by the correct name, and make some polite remark about the case he had helped us with.

      Can you deduce which name belonged to which boy, and on which case he worked?

      ANSWER

      THE REIGATE SQUIRES

      An original short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

      It was some time before the health of my friend Mr Sherlock Holmes recovered from the strain caused by his immense exertions in the spring of 1887. The whole question of the Netherland-Sumatra Company and of the colossal schemes of Baron Maupertuis are too recent in the minds of the public, and are too intimately concerned with politics and finance to be fitting subjects for this series of sketches. They led, however, in an indirect fashion to a singular and complex problem which gave my friend an opportunity of demonstrating the value of a fresh weapon among the many with which he waged his life-long battle against crime.

      On referring to my notes I see that it was upon the 14th of April that I received a telegram from Lyons which informed me that Holmes was lying ill in the Hotel Dulong. Within twenty-four hours I was in his sick-room, and was relieved to find that there was nothing formidable in his symptoms. Even his iron constitution, however, had broken down under the strain of an investigation which had extended over two months, during which period he had never worked less than fifteen hours a day, and had more than once, as he assured me, kept to his task for five days at a stretch. Even the triumphant issue of his labours could not save him from reaction after so terrible an exertion, and at a time when Europe was ringing with his name and when his room was literally ankle-deep with congratulatory telegrams I found him a prey to the blackest depression. Even the knowledge that he had succeeded where the police of three countries had failed, and that he had outmanoeuvred at every point the most accomplished swindler in Europe, was insufficient to rouse him from his nervous prostration.

      Three days later we were back in Baker Street together; but it was evident that my friend would be much the better for a change, and the thought of a week of spring time in the country was full of attractions to me also. My old friend, Colonel Hayter, who had come under my professional care in Afghanistan, had now taken a house near Reigate in Surrey, and had frequently asked me to come down to him upon a visit. On the last occasion he had remarked that if my friend would only come with me he would be glad to extend his hospitality to him also. A little diplomacy was needed, but when Holmes understood that the establishment was a bachelor one, and that he would be allowed the fullest freedom, he fell in with my plans and a week after our return from Lyons we were under the colonel’s roof. Hayter was a fine old soldier who had seen much of the world, and he soon found, as I had expected, that Holmes and he had much in common.

      On the evening of our arrival we were sitting in the colonel’s gun-room after dinner, Holmes stretched upon the sofa, while Hayter and I looked over his little armoury of Eastern weapons.

      By the way, said he suddenly, I think I’ll take one of these pistols upstairs with me in case we have an alarm.

      An alarm! said I.

      Yes, we’ve had a scare in this part lately. Old Acton, who is one of our county magnates, had his house broken into last Monday. No great damage done, but the fellows are still at large.

      No clue? asked Holmes, cocking his eye at the colonel.

      None as yet. But the affair is a petty one, one of our little country crimes, which must seem too small for your attention, Mr Holmes, after this great international affair.

      Holmes waved away the compliment, though his smile showed that it had pleased him.

      Was there any feature of interest?

      "I fancy not. The thieves ransacked the library and got very little for their pains. The whole place was turned upside down, drawers burst open, and presses ransacked, with the result that an odd volume of Pope’s Homer, two plated candlesticks, an ivory letter-weight, a small oak barometer, and a ball of twine are all that have vanished."

      What an extraordinary assortment! I exclaimed.

      Oh, the fellows evidently grabbed hold of everything they could get.

      Holmes grunted from the sofa.

      The county police ought to make something of that, said he; why, it is surely obvious that—

      But I held up a warning finger.

      the story continues on page 22

      A SPECIAL NUMBER

      Holmes once asked me, Watson, do you have a preferred number?

      I thought about it for a

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