Arthur Conan Doyle · 1903
Questions on the text, each answered in the book’s own words, with the minute you hear it.
Challenge a friend: 123BookWarThe text
Answer South African securities
“you do not propose to invest in South African securities?”
Answer Thurston
“You never play billiards except with Thurston.”
Answer Riding Thorpe Manor
“That is what Mr. Hilton Cubitt, of Riding Thorpe Manor, Norfolk, is very anxious to know.”
Answer Five centuries
“my people have been at Riding Thorpe for a matter of five centuries, and there is no better known family in the County of Norfolk.”
Answer Parker, the vicar of his parish, was staying there
“I stopped at a boarding-house in Russell Square, because Parker, the vicar of our parish, was staying in it.”
Answer At a registry office
“We were quietly married at a registry office, and we returned to Norfolk a wedded couple.”
Answer Threw it into the fire
“She turned deadly white, read the letter, and threw it into the fire.”
Answer On the sundial in the garden
“then yesterday morning I found this paper lying on the sundial in the garden.”
Answer Liverpool Street
“He was to reach Liverpool Street at one-twenty.”
Answer The black wooden door of the tool-house
“They had been drawn in chalk upon the black wooden door of the tool-house, which stands beside the lawn in full view of the front windows.”
Answer About two in the morning
“About two in the morning I was seated by the window, all being dark save for the moonlight outside, when I heard steps behind me, and there was my wife in her dressing-gown.”
Answer To put half a dozen farm lads in the shrubbery and give him a hiding
“My own inclination is to put half a dozen of my farm lads in the shrubbery, and when this fellow comes again to give him such a hiding that he will leave us in peace for the future.”
Answer Upon the pedestal of the sundial
“save that a long inscription had appeared that morning upon the pedestal of the sundial.”
Answer Seven miles
“Without a word Holmes hurried to a carriage, and during the long seven miles’ drive he never opened his mouth.”
Answer Three in the morning
“Why, Mr. Holmes, the crime was only committed at three this morning. How could you hear of it in London and get to the spot as soon as I?”
Answer Four
“But there are still four cartridges in the revolver. Two have been fired and two wounds inflicted, so that each bullet can be accounted for.”
Answer The candle was not guttered
“Both door and window were only open for a very short time, however.” “How do you prove that?” “Because the candle was not guttered.”
Answer Twenty fifty-pound notes of the Bank of England
“There were twenty fifty-pound notes of the Bank of England, held together by an india-rubber band—nothing else.”
Answer A little brazen cylinder: the third cartridge
“Then, with a cry of satisfaction, he bent forward and picked up a little brazen cylinder.”
Answer One hundred and sixty
“am myself the author of a trifling monograph upon the subject, in which I analyze one hundred and sixty separate ciphers, but I confess that this is entirely new to me.”
Answer never
“It might be ‘sever,’ or ‘lever,’ or ‘never.’ There can be no question that the latter as a reply to an appeal is far the most probable”
Answer Wilson Hargreave, of the New York Police Bureau
“I therefore cabled to my friend, Wilson Hargreave, of the New York Police Bureau, who has more than once made use of my knowledge of London crime.”
Answer Seven
“There were seven of us in a gang in Chicago, and Elsie’s father was the boss of the Joint.”
Answer Elsie’s father, old Patrick
“He was a clever man, was old Patrick. It was he who invented that writing, which would pass as a child’s scrawl unless you just happened to have the key to it.”
Answer At the winter assizes at Norwich; changed to penal servitude
“The American, Abe Slaney, was condemned to death at the winter assizes at Norwich, but his penalty was changed to penal servitude in consideration of mitigating circumstances”
“The Adventure of the Dancing Men,” The Strand Magazine, December 1903; collected in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, 1905. Public domain. The cipher figures are reproduced from the 1905 edition.