Arthur Conan Doyle · 1893
Questions on the text, each answered in the book’s own words, with the minute you hear it.
Challenge a friend: 123BookWarThe text
Answer Colonel James Moriarty
“My hand has been forced, however, by the recent letters in which Colonel James Moriarty defends the memory of his brother”
Answer Narbonne and Nimes
“I received two notes from Holmes, dated from Narbonne and from Nimes, from which I gathered that his stay in France was likely to be a long one.”
Answer The 24th of April
“It was with some surprise, therefore, that I saw him walk into my consulting-room upon the evening of the 24th of April.”
Answer Air-guns
“You are afraid of something?” I asked. “Well, I am.” “Of what?” “Of air-guns.”
Answer Twenty-one
“At the age of twenty-one he wrote a treatise upon the Binomial Theorem, which has had a European vogue.”
Answer The Napoleon of crime
“He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city.”
Answer Over forty
“Then will come the greatest criminal trial of the century, the clearing up of over forty mysteries, and the rope for all of them”
Answer Five
“Pray take a chair. I can spare you five minutes if you have anything to say.’”
Answer The 4th of January
“You crossed my path on the 4th of January,’ said he. ‘On the 23rd you incommoded me; by the middle of February I was seriously inconvenienced by you”
Answer A two-horse van
“As I passed the corner which leads from Bentinck Street on to the Welbeck Street crossing a two-horse van furiously driven whizzed round and was on me like a flash.”
Answer Vere Street
“but as I walked down Vere Street a brick came down from the roof of one of the houses, and was shattered to fragments at my feet.”
Answer His brother’s rooms in Pall Mall
“I took a cab after that and reached my brother’s rooms in Pall Mall, where I spent the day.”
Answer A quarter-past nine
“dash through the Arcade, timing yourself to reach the other side at a quarter-past nine.”
Answer Seven
“The station clock marked only seven minutes from the time when we were due to start.”
Answer Mycroft, Holmes’s brother
“It was my brother Mycroft. It is an advantage to get about in such a case without taking a mercenary into your confidence.”
Answer Engage a special
“What would you do, then?” “Engage a special.”
Answer Canterbury
“This train stops at Canterbury; and there is always at least a quarter of an hour’s delay at the boat. He will catch us there.”
Answer Brussels
“We made our way to Brussels that night and spent two days there, moving on upon the third day as far as Strasburg.”
Answer The Gemmi Pass
“branching off at Leuk, we made our way over the Gemmi Pass, still deep in snow, and so, by way of Interlaken, to Meiringen.”
Answer The 3rd of May
“It was on the 3rd of May that we reached the little village of Meiringen, where we put up at the Englischer Hof, then kept by Peter Steiler the elder.”
Answer The Grosvenor Hotel in London
“having served for three years as waiter at the Grosvenor Hotel in London.”
Answer Davos Platz
“She had wintered at Davos Platz, and was journeying now to join her friends at Lucerne, when a sudden hemorrhage had overtaken her.”
Answer Three feet
“He had remained on that three-foot path, with sheer wall on one side and sheer drop on the other, until his enemy had overtaken him.”
Answer Holmes’s silver cigarette-case
“I found that it came from the silver cigarette-case which he used to carry.”
Answer In pigeonhole M., in a blue envelope inscribed ‘Moriarty’
“Tell Inspector Patterson that the papers which he needs to convict the gang are in pigeonhole M., done up in a blue envelope and inscribed ‘Moriarty.’”
“The Adventure of the Final Problem,” The Strand Magazine, December 1893; collected in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, George Newnes, London, 1894. This text follows the Project Gutenberg transcription (#834). Public domain.