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Rugby/rugby three-quarter

“I believe your friend Watson played Rugby for Blackheath when I was three-quarter for Richmond.” (Robert Ferguson)
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Undertaker's mute

In Victorian times, a person employed as a professional attendant or mourner at a funeral.

Other 'Stauntons'

“There is Arthur H. Staunton, the rising young forger,” said he, “and there was Henry Staunton, whom I helped to hang.” (Sherlock Holmes)

Other Rugby players

“There’s Moorhouse, first reserve, but he is trained as a half, and he always edges right in on to the scrum instead of keeping out on the touchline. He’s a fine place-kick, it’s true but then he has no judgment, and he can’t sprint for nuts. Why, Morton or Johnson, the Oxford fliers, could romp round him. Stevenson is fast enough, but he couldn’t drop from the twentyfive line, and a three-quarter who can’t either punt or drop isn’t worth a place for pace alone.” (Cyril Overton)

Sherlock Holmes - Deductions

“Mr. Overton was evidently considerably excited when he sent it, and somewhat incoherent in consequence.” Read More...

Sherlock Holmes - Character Illustrations

Things had indeed been very slow with us, and I had learned to dread such periods of inaction, for I knew by experience that my companion’s brain was so abnormally active that it was dangerous to leave it without material upon which to work. For years I had gradually weaned him from that drug mania which had threatened once to check his remarkable career. Now I knew that under ordinary conditions he no longer craved for this artificial stimulus, but I was well aware that the fiend was not dead but sleeping, and I have known that the sleep was a light one and the waking near when in periods of idleness I have seen the drawn look upon Holmes’s ascetic face, and the brooding of his deep-set and inscrutable eyes. Therefore I blessed this Mr. Overton, whoever he might be, since he had come with his enigmatic message to break that dangerous calm which brought more peril to my friend than all the storms of his tempestuous life. Read More...

Deception which Sherlock Holmes practised on the young lady in the telegraph office

“I am sorry to trouble you,” said he, in his blandest manner, to the young woman behind the grating; “there is some small mistake about a telegram I sent yesterday. I have had no answer, and I very much fear that I must have omitted to put my name at the end. Could you tell me if this was so?”
The young woman turned over a sheaf of counterfoils.
“What o’clock was it?” she asked.
“A little after six.”
“Whom was it to?”
Holmes put his finger to his lips and glanced at me. “The last words in it were ‘for God’s sake,’ “ he whispered, confidentially; “I am very anxious at getting no answer.”
The young woman separated one of the forms.
“This is it. There is no name,” said she, smoothing it out upon the counter.

Note to Jeremy Dixon from Sherlock Holmes

The note which produced Pompey, the draghound.

Telegram from Cyril Overton in response to a question by Sherlock Holmes

“Ask for Pompey from Jeremy Dixon, Trinity College.”

Note from Dr Leslie Armstrong to Sherlock Holmes

SIR [it ran]:
I can assure you that you are wasting your time in dogging
my movements. I have, as you discovered last night, a
window at the back of my brougham, and if you desire a
twenty-mile ride which will lead you to the spot from which
you started, you have only to follow me. Meanwhile, I can
inform you that no spying upon me can in any way help Mr.
Godfrey Staunton, and I am convinced that the best service
you can do to that gentleman is to return at once to London
and to report to your employer that you are unable to trace
him. Your time in Cambridge will certainly be wasted.
Yours faithfully,
LESLIE ARMSTRONG

Note received by Godfrey Staunton

Godfrey read it, and fell back in a chair as if he had been pole-axed.

Telegram from Cyril Overton to Lord Mount-James

The telegram which brought Lord Mount-James to the Bentley Private Hotel by the Bayswater Bus.

Telegram from Godfrey Staunton to Dr Leslie Armstrong

The last words of the telegram being - ‘Stand by us for God’s sake.’

Telegram from Cyril Overton to Sherlock Holmes

Please await me. Terrible misfortune. Right wing threequarter missing, indispensable to-morrow.
OVERTON.

Chesterton, Histon, Waterbeach, Oakington and Trumpington

Villages visited by Sherlock Holmes.
cambridge_map

King's Cross station, London

King's Cross station is a major railway terminus opened in 1852.
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Bentley's Private Hotel

“Yesterday we all came up, and we settled at Bentley’s private hotel. “ (Cambridge Rugby team)

Trinity College, Cambridge

College attended by Cyril Overton, Godfrey Staunton and others.
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Wife of Godfrey Staunton

A woman, young and beautiful, was lying dead upon the bed. Her calm, pale face, with dim, wide-opened blue eyes, looked upward from amid a great tangle of golden hair.

Pompey

“The pride of the local draghounds — no very great flier, as his build will show, but a staunch hound on a scent. Well, Pompey, you may not be fast, but I expect you will be too fast for a couple of middle-aged London gentlemen.”

Jeremy Dixon, Trinity College

“I’ll just send round a note to Mr. Jeremy Dixon, and then I have no doubt that our luck will turn.” (Sherlock Holmes)

Friendly native in the yard of our own inn

“All that I have learned I got from a friendly native in the yard of our own inn. It was he who told me of the doctor’s habits and of his daily journey.” (Sherlock Holmes)

Coachman to Dr Armstrong

“I do not know whether it came from his own innate depravity or from the promptings of his master, but he was rude enough to set a dog at me. Neither dog nor man liked the look of my stick, however, and the matter fell through. Relations were strained after that, and further inquiries out of the question.” (Sherlock Holmes)

Young woman in telegraph office

The young woman separated one of the forms.
“This is it. There is no name,” said she, smoothing it out upon the counter.

Lord Mount-James

“Lord Mount-James is his nearest relative — his uncle; one of the richest men in England.”
“The old boy is nearly eighty — cram full of gout, too. They say he could chalk his billiard-cue with his knuckles. He never allowed Godfrey a shilling in his life. for he is an absolute miser.” (Cyril Overton) Read More...

Father of Godfrey Staunton's wife

A rough-looking man with a beard. Read More...

Porter at Bentley's Private Hotel

Sherlock Holmes was a past-master in the art of putting a humble witness at his ease, and very soon, in the privacy of Godfrey Staunton’s abandoned room, he had extracted all that the porter had to tell.

Inspector Stanley Hopkins

A promising detective, in whose career Holmes had several times shown a very practical interest.

Dr Leslie Armstrong

The square, massive face, the brooding eyes under the thatched brows, and the granite moulding of the inflexible jaw. A man of deep character, a man with an alert mind, grim, ascetic, self-contained, formidable.

Godfrey Staunton

The crack threequarter, Cambridge, Blackheath, and five Internationals.

Cyril Overton, Trinity College, Cambridge

An enormous young man, sixteen stone of solid bone and muscle, who spanned the doorway with his broad shoulders, and looked from one of us to the other with a comely face which was haggard with anxiety.

“I was first reserve for England against Wales, and I’ve skippered the ’Varsity all this year.”

221b Baker Street, London

Home of Sherlock Holmes and at times Dr John Watson.
They (the rooms) consisted of a couple of comfortable bedrooms and a single large airy sitting-room, cheerfully furnished, and illuminated by two broad windows.
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Sherlock Holmes

“Well, I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one in the world. I’m a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is. Here in London we have lots of government detectives and lots of private ones. When these fellows are at fault, they come to me, and I manage to put them on the right scent." (Sherlock Holmes) (Study in Scarlet)
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