How I became a Sherlockian

by Rich Krisciunas

I was introduced to Sherlock Holmes when I was ten when a local TV station showed the Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce movies including "Hound of the Baskervilles." I loved Holmes's deductions. Growing up, I don’t recall reading the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle because I read mostly stuff about baseball.  After graduating from law school in 1975,  I had a "Hound of the Baskervilles" framed movie poster that I hung in my office and another lawyer saw it and invited me to a meeting of The Amateur Mendicant Society of Detroit. I attended several meetings and enjoyed the camaraderie of playing "The Game" but had to drop out after I was promoted to a special unit where I tried only First Degree Murder cases and didn’t have time for recreational reading. However, more than once in a closing argument to the jury, I did mention that "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

 My wife bought me Baring-Gould's "The Annotated Sherlock Holmes" for Christmas, which I found amazing and I started reading a different short story each night before bed, and she gave me a different Sherlock Holmes book every year that I read during the Christmas break. One year it was Nicholas Meyer’s “The Seven-Percent-Solution,” another year, Loren D. Estleman’s “Sherlock Holmes versus Dracula or The Adventures of the Sanguinary Count.” When we took a visit to London, I bought my first deerstalker. After I retired from the active practice of law, I discovered that the Mendicants were still meeting and there were three other societies in Michigan. I began attending their meetings and rekindled my love for the Canon. I loved playing the game and reading old Baker Street Journals from when they were first published.  

I hate to admit it but because of the Covid pandemic, I was able to attend numerous virtual meetings via Zoom each week and made Sherlockian friends from around the world that I never would have met. Attending these meetings and hearing the opinions and comments about the stories inspired me to lead discussions and write poetic toasts and more lengthy articles that were published in different Sherlockian publications. The area that fascinated me most was the legal one. How would Sherlock Holmes do if he had to testify in court? Would his brilliant deductions be admissible? Could the villains Holmes claimed committed crimes be convicted by the Crown? With tongue firmly planted in cheek, I began to defend the most reprehensible villains in the Canon like Baron Adelbert Gruner, James Calhoun and Beppo.  I wrote an article that Holmes was the real killer of Charles Augustus Milverton. Playing the Game today and making all of the friends I made all started after watching "Bill Kennedy Showtime" on Sunday afternoon TV in Detroit. That's how I became a Sherlockian.