Watson's Tin Box meeting summary - October 19, 2026

On the third Monday of each month, Watson's Tin Box of Ellicott City meets at Union Jack's in Columbia MD and we gathered October 19 for another great gathering of members. 

As always I took a census of where people were attending from: Columbia MD won the competition for most attendees with six people - we also had visitors from places including: Frederick, Bellcamp, Ellicott City, Silver Spring, Frederick, Gaithersburg, Darnestown Woodbine, Sandy Spring, Washington DC and Baltimore. 

Congratulations to Michael Becker who became a member of WTB with his second visit, and we welcomed first-time visitor, Greg Bodine ! 

The story of the meeting was 'The Adventure of the Retired Colourman'.... but we always start with toasts. 

Tom Hill delivered a toast to The Woman - an original.

Liane Luini contributed her traditional 'second toast'. This month's was written by PJ Sullivan and offered on the Occasion of the Annual Dinner of the Cornish Horrors (RI), 4th November 2023.

A Toast to Dr. Leon Sterndale

by PJ Sullivan

I present to you one Dr. Sterndale,

Whose adventures were storied and many;

Called Leon, his friends would regale – 

Or would, shall we say, had he any. 

For he lived in a manner most solit’ry 

Hunting lions abroad all his life, 

Returning to Cornwall occasion’ly 

To the woman he wished was his wife. 

But sweet Brenda was slain by her brother. 

Roundhay’s wire reached Sterndale in time. 

Abiding his own law – no other – 

He enacted a vengeance sublime. 

The Devil’s Foot Root provided, they say, 

The revenge for which his soul cried. 

The Great Explorer cornered his prey, 

And Tregennis: “My God! How he died!” 

I’ll not recount this whole terrible tale, 

A tragedy steeped in Cornish gore. 

The details – the Horrors – would leave you all pale, 

And possibly you may have heard it before. 

So a toast now to Leon Sterndale 

Who dealt Justice, I’m sure you’ll agree; 

Whom Watson and Holmes would not denounce, 

And nor, I imagine, would we. 

Tom Fahres delivered TWO Haikus. First to The Woman of the evening:

Amberley’s young wife

Believed to be “The Woman”

To Doctor Ernest

Secondly, Tom delivered his traditional Haiku for the story of the month:

Canon’s last story

All of the perps were collared 

And Barker debuts

Next came Announcements

• Carla Coupe reminded us that the 47th Annual "Saturday With Sherlock Holmes" at the Pratt Library will be held Saturday, November 14th from 10:30 to 1:00. It will be live-streamed at this link.
• Olivia Millunzi reminded us that the play 'Clue' (based on the movie) will be performed at the Hipodrome, Baltimore on January 23 & 24.
• Tom Fahres shared a save-the-date of Friday Oct 23, from 4-6pm for the MoCo Maryland Mullusk Masticaters SPODE. Meet at Olney Grille, Olney, Maryland.
• Kem White would like a recommendation of a local bookbinder please. Are there local bookbinding classes? Please let me know!
• The next meeting of the Red Circle of Washington DC will be held on Saturday, Novmber 22 - starting by joining a screening of 'The Seven Percent Solution' at the AFI Silver Spring to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of its original release. Afterwards, we can dine at J. Hollinger's - right across the road. The speaker will be Julie McKuras coming from Minnesota, and details can be found at www.redcircledc.org

• We were reminded that Peter Blau has also announced that tickets are now on sale for Mark Shanahan's popular play "A Sherlock Carol" at the Arts Barn in Gaithersburg.  There will be a  do-it-yourself theater party and Red Circle meeting on Sunday, December 6.  Purchase your own tickets, and the group will then gather somewhere nearby for drinks afterwards. You can purchase your tickets at the Arts Barn web-site.
• Matt reminded people that there is a Maryland scion WTB members probably haven't visited - Denizens of the Bar of Gold, which meets just over the Bay Bridge on the Eastern Shore of MD. You can learn all about the scion here, and join their mailing list: http://www.homeroomd140.com/invitation_fall_26.html#Index 
• The 'Baker Street in Baltimore' newsletter has returned after a hiatus - this was started in 2014, and paused during COVID. Now, Liane Luini will publish irregular issues, all of which can be read here.
• At the recent Six Napoleons of Baltimore 80th Anniversary Dinner, WTB displayed the Evidence Box. We created a printed inventory to share with dinner attendees, and I provided copies to WTB members.

• Michelle March ended announcements by sharing her 'charm' for this month's story. I'm not always good at adding this - Michelle created small 'Watson's Tin Boxes' for us all, and each month we receive a charm related to the story - this month the charm was a painbrush!

We moved on to the quiz, prepared by Olivia Millunzi. Completeing the quiz prior to the Evidence Box presentation or story discussion really helps separate the wheat from the chaff! 

As always, Michelle March provided some wonderful t-shirt design prizes tied to the evening's story:

Had the blues,

Became green with envy,

Saw red

Too yellow for confrontation

Condemned them to purple rain

All there in black and white

50 shades of Josiah Amberley

(Orange you glad to read the whole thing?)

Joshia Amberley

Tried to gloss over his crime

Painted himself into a corner

Shady character

Couldn't brush off Holmes

Call him Matte, he's finished

Debbie Clark presented the evidence box for Retired Colourman to an attentive audience. The evidence display on the evening, and some examples of the evidence:

Left: Pictured is the plaque the Railway Arms Hotel, where Watson calledHolmes on the telephone. Right: Also pictured is the book on chess which Amberley read to hone his playing skills, and chess set. Pictured is the commercial art box from Amberley’s former company. A colourman is someone who works for a color production manufacturer.

Left: Pictured are Josiah Amberley’s calling, or visiting, cards, which he usedfor business and personal concerns. Pictured is the white pill Amberley tried to take once he had been accused of murder. Pictured are the tinted glasses worn by Mr. Barker, a privateinvestigation and a friendly Holmes’ rival. Right: Pictured are tickets for the Haymarket Theatre, which was presenting Odette, which Holmes used as a clue to determining the solution to the mystery.

Our discussion of the Retired Colourman story was lively! Before we began, I reminded the group that the occupation of colourman was a true one. A few years ago, walking in London I spied just such a business - you can see more in my blog post.

This story was one of the last written by Doyle, and has had plenty of radio adaptations, but only one television episode. We began by asking: is this a good story? There was a strong feeling of no - but pehaps it's fair to say there were issues with the tale and its plotting and believability, rather than of the writing itself. Grant said it was a 'terrible story', but with interesting features such as a competing/collaborating private detective (Barker) we all wish would have made a reappearance in future stories. Olivia really liked that this new foil was being introduced. Debbie shared that author Will Thomas has a mystery series based on Barker titled the 'Barker & Llewellyn' series - 17 novels in total have been published.

Was the claim of elopement believable? And what was the deal with Amberley having an artifical leg - it didn't seem to have any bearing on the story or its solving. Greg asked - was it believable that the phrase 'We we...' was visible in the room if Amberley was painting it?

There was quite a bit of discussion about the paint in the house (I hadn't really made the connection between a colourman and house paint), the smell of the paint, the gas that was used in the murder, and whether that gas would have had a smell. Did Amberley paint to cover up the smell of gas to those he was murdering? We thought no, because he just locked them in an gassed them. Then.... was the paint to cover up some telltale smell of the toxic gas after the fact? Well gas tends to not stick around. I assumed reading the story that it was to cover up the smell of wherever the bodies were buried in the house - but we are left believing those were tossed down an old well. So the painting of the house as a strategy isn't really clear.

Amberley taking a poison pill was a remarkable and hasty admission of guilt given that there was no direct evidence (though Holmes was clearly going to look in the well at some point!). Michelle described it as a 'flip-the-table' moment, and Greg felt that it demonstrated the forethought Amberley put into the murder.

We did recognize some possible inspiration in the story - particularly that of H.H. Holmes in Chicago in the 1890s (described in non-fiction book 'Devil in the White City'). Baring Gould says this story probably occurred in 1898. H.H. Holmes was reputed to have created sealable rooms in his hotel that he would use to gas people, then dispose of their bodies. Brent pointed out that a number of stories have clear inspirations in real-world crimes, such as the Empty House and the Royal baccarat scandal.

Our presentation was from member Olivia Millunzi (one of us! one of us!). That was probably Olivia's third presentation in four years! Olivia has been confusing people using the Canon since she dressed as Sherlock Holmes for Halloween when she was ten; the great-coat was made (by her very supportive mom) of upholstery fabric, and the deerstalker was two of her dad’s baseball caps pinned together.  Though she no longer fits in the costume, she has since become a member of Watson’s Tin Box of Baltimore, and a charter member of the Dancing Men Scourers (by-laws pending). She lives in Frederick, MD with an unconscionable number of books and a cat.

Olivia Millunzi’s presentation explored the history of Broadmoor Hospital, a high-security psychiatric hospital in England established in 1863 for people considered criminally insane. The presentation connected to the evening's story via Sherlock's comment on the guilty party: "I think his destination is more likely to be Broadmoor than the scaffold".

Olivia traced the hospital’s development, changing approaches to psychiatric care over the past two centuries, and ongoing problems with overcrowding, administration, security, and patient safety. And there was drama, with attention given to scandals involving abuse, staff misconduct, and failures of oversight including an escapee who returned after escaping succesfully three decaudes earlier. The presentation concluded with historical cases illustrating Broadmoor’s connection to notorious crimes, and changing attitudes toward mental illness and criminal responsibility. I am hopeful this presentation will evolve into an article!

Next month, we'll discuss Charles Augustus Milverton, and Andy Solberg will be telling the story of the Hound of the Baskervilles from the perspective of the dog!

‘Here are the very letters’ (FIVE): Sherlockian Correspondence in Japan

A while back, I wrote a blog post about a letter by David Christie Murray that was on display in Tokyo. That led to some wonderful exchanges with Tomoya Yoshida and we decided to write an article about it - and this blog post is also written by both of us.

Long story short, the same letter has also been discussed by Hirayama Yuichi in ‘A Conan Doyle Letter in Japan: Marquis Maeda’s Collection’ (Canadian Holmes, vol. 49, no. 4, Fall 2026, pp. 31–34). Hirayama reconstructs Conan Doyle’s movements in the spring of 1896, using Pugh’s Chronology to place him in London on the date of writing. He also looks at Christie Murray’s own Holmes imitation, ‘The Investigations of John Pym’ (1895). 

Or article focuses on the letter’s provenance and its place in the wider correspondence between the two men. We examine the purchase from Maggs Bros., whose sale catalogues issued before 1929 do not list the letter, and we note that Maeda Toshinari also bought a first edition of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes from the firm in 1930. We describe Toshinari’s practice of keeping a single autograph from each person, which may explain why the other Christie Murray letters are not in the Maeda Ikutokukai collection. And we read the letter alongside the four other Conan Doyle letters printed in Murray’s Recollections (1908), which concern the Dreyfus case, a proposed statue of George Washington in London, and My Contemporaries in Fiction. Read side by side, the two articles complement each other.

So we have formatted the article as a longer-form blog post for people to read, as it won't be published. Many thanks to Mark Jones for his editorial feedback on the original article - including the title. I'm terrible at thinking of titles.

‘Here are the very letters’ (FIVE): Sherlockian Correspondence in Japan
Tomoya Yoshida and Matthew D. Hall

Tomoya Yoshida is a Japanese Holmesian who lives and works in Tokyo, Japan. He is a member of the Japan Sherlock Holmes Club and serves on the editorial committee of its annual publication, The World of Holmes. He has also been a member of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London since 2006.

Matthew D. Hall is an Australian scientist who lives and works in Maryland, USA. He is invested as "The Earl of Maynooth" in the Baker Street Irregulars, and is currently the Gasogene of Watson's Tin Box of Ellicott City.

A recent exhibition at the Tokyo National Museum titled ‘Hyakumangoku! The Maeda Clan of Kaga’ included a letter written by Arthur Conan Doyle. The exhibition, which ran from April 14 to June 7, 2026, commemorated the one-hundredth anniversary of the Maeda Ikutokukai Foundation, established to preserve the cultural legacy of the Maeda family, former rulers of the Kaga Domain (an administrative region of Japan) and one of the most powerful samurai houses of Edo period Japan (1603-1868). 

Exhibition Advertisement. Courtesy of Tomoya Yoshida.

Over centuries, the Maeda family amassed an extraordinary collection of manuscripts, books, artworks, arms, armour and personal objects that reflected both their political influence and interest in scholarship and culture. The Maeda family flourished through its marital ties with the House of Tokugawa, whose successive heads held the title of ‘Shogun’ during the Edo period from 1603 until 1867. The fifth Maeda lord, Tsunanori (1643-1724), began collecting valuable books in his teens and devoted himself to the preservation of cultural assets through three principal activities: acquisition, conservation, and systematic cataloguing. His efforts made a major contribution to laying the foundations of Kaga culture.

Following the end of the Edo period, Maeda Toshitsugu (1858-1900), the fifteenth head of the Maeda family, received a noble title from the Emperor and served as a member of the House of Peers. In the modern era, the Maeda clan moved from Kanazawa to Tokyo, where the ‘Marquis’ Maeda Toshinari (1885-1942) sought to ensure that the materials collected by the family over centuries would be carefully protected and made available for future study through the creation of the Maeda Ikutokukai Foundation. The central items in the collection are twenty-two items now ranked as ‘National Treasures’ such as samurai swords, and an important archive of rare Japanese and Chinese books, historical documents and family records. In the twentieth century, the Marquess Toshinari Maeda collected an international collection of autographs and letters. Toshinari became the sixteenth head of the Maeda clan in 1900, served in the Diet and trained in the Army where he became a Commander in the Imperial Guard of Japan. The Foundation was created in 1926 and from 1927 to 1930 Toshinari served as a military attaché in London. It was there that he set about collecting manuscripts written by monarchs, statesmen, military leaders, scientists, artists, and authors such as Arthur Conan Doyle. 

The catalog of the exhibition states that the letter was purchased at Maggs Brothers’ antiquarian bookshop on 15 May 1929. Maggs Brothers was, and still is, a celebrated London bookdealer. Just a few years prior to Toshinari’s purchase, it had famously sold the penis of Napoleon Bonaparte to the Philadelphian book collector Abraham Rosenbach and, in 1932, they acquired a Gutenberg Bible and the Codex Sinaiticus from the Soviet government. In this window of time, Toshinari purchased the letter illustrated as Figure 2 and also a first edition of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (on 6 March 1930), which is still held by the Maeda Ikutokukai (but was not displayed in the exhibition). The letter from Conan Doyle, to Christie Murray of whom more shortly, could not be identified in any available sales catalogue of Maggs Brothers published prior to Toshinari's purchase, but at the time they did have for sale Conan Doyle's signed autograph manuscripts of ‘The King of the Foxes’ and ‘An Iconoclast’.¹

The letter on display at the exhibition, titled ‘DOYLE, SIR ARTHUR CONAN. English detective Novelist, author of “Sherlock Holmes.” 1859-1930.’

The exhibition catalogue provides images of both sides of the letter, addressed to fellow author and journalist David Christie Murray (1847-1907). It is a significant literary letter for it describes Conan Doyle's feelings on killing off his famed character:

Reform Club

May 8 / 96

My dear Christie Murray,

I have been in Egypt and have only just got back and received your note. Poor Holmes is dead and damned. I couldn't revive him if I would (at least not for years), for I have had such an overdose of him that I feel towards him as I do towards pâté de foie gras, of which I once ate too much, so that the name of it gives me a sickly feeling to this day. Any old Holmes story you are, of course, most welcome to use. I am house-hunting in the country, which means continual sallies and alarms, but I should much like to meet you before I go away, to talk over our American experiences. I do hope you are not going to allow lecturing to get in the way of your writing. We have too few born story-tellers.

With all kind regards.

Yours very truly,

A. Conan Doyle.

Conan Doyle's thoughts on Sherlock’s demise are already known because Christie Murray included the transcript of this letter and several others in his book Recollections published in 1908. Christie Murray had been fairly prolific as an author earlier in his career, but was unwell in later years of his life and Recollections was his first book in ten years and his final one. In fact, he had died the previous year (1907), although there is no recognition in the introduction to the fact that the book was completed by an editor. Presumably Recollections was in press at the time of Christie Murray's death. 

In his letter, Conan Doyle does not completely rule out the literary resurrection of Sherlock (‘at least not for years’), but it is clearly not something Conan Doyle could then stomach, and it was another five years after this letter that The Hound of the Baskervilles appeared. While Conan Doyle indicated that Christie Murray was ‘most welcome to use… any old Holmes story’, there is no evidence that one was used by Christie Murray for a literary project. 

Conan Doyle and Christie Murray corresponded and even met in the United States in 1894 – a menu from dinner at the Aldine Club in New York signed by both Conan Doyle and Christie Murray was auctioned in 2017 (shown).² 

The front and back of a menu for a dinner given by the Aldine Club NY to Conan Doyle in 1894. Note that the menu rear is signed by both ACD and Christie Murray.

They presumably interacted regularly in England, though both travelled a great deal. Christie Murray’s book My Contemporaries in Fiction (1897) dedicated a great deal of space to praising Conan Doyle (Chapter 13 titled 'The Young Romancers’), and Christie Murray likely earned Conan Doyle's appreciation with the praise for his non-Sherlock work:

‘The Sherlock Holmes stories are far, indeed, from being Dr. Doyle’s best work, but it is to them that he mainly owes his popularity. They took the imaginative side of the general reader, and their popular properties are likely to keep them before the public mind for a long while to come. To estimate Dr. Doyle’s position as a writer one has to meet him in ‘The Refugees,’ in ‘The White Company,’ and in ‘Rodney Stone.’ In each of these there is evident a sound and painstaking method of research, as well as a power of dramatic invention; and in combination with these is a style of unaffected manliness, simplicity, and strength, which is at once satisfactory to the student and attractive to the mass of people who are content to be pleased by such qualities without knowing or asking why. The labour bestowed on ‘The White Company’ may very well be compared to that expended by Charles Reade on ‘The Cloister and the Hearth.’

Christie Murray's 1908 Recollections include transcriptions of five letters from Conan Doyle. Each letter is included in the book as a transcript rather than an image of the original letter.

I recently purchased a fairly battered copy of Recollections - the only copy I could find available (though I'm sure they pop up regularly). 

The first letter is included in a chapter on Christie Murray's handwriting expertise and his researches into the Dreyfus Affair, the French espionage scandal that could have inspired several Holmes stories. Conan Doyle was clearly interested in the scandal, and the serving of justice:

‘My dear Murray, 

Its being a week-end will prevent my coming up for I have always several visitors. I hope when you can come down you will let me know. Very much interested in your views upon the Dreyfus case. I fancy that the Government may know upon evidence which they dare not disclose (spy or traitor evidence) that he is guilty and have convicted him on a bogus document,

Yours very truly,

A. Conan Doyle.

The remaining letters are included in a chapter composed of letters received by Christie Murray. The second letter is that recently on display in Tokyo. The third is on the curious topic of a proposed statue of George Washington to be erected in London. Christie Murray first published a letter in newspapers in 1897 on the topic, and presumably Conan Doyle wrote to him shortly afterwards (the letter is undated):

My Dear Sir,

I think that your idea of a statue to Washington to be erected by public subscription in London is an admirable one. The future of the world belongs to the Anglo-Celtic races if they can but work in unison, and everything which works for that end makes for the highest. I believe that the great stream which bifurcated a century ago may have re-united before many more centuries have passed, and that we shall all have learned by then that patriotism is not to be limited by flags or systems, but that it should embrace all of the same race and blood and speech. It would be a great thing – one of the most noble and magnanimous things in the history of the world – if a proud people should consent to adorn their capital with the statue of one who bore arms against them. I wish you every success in your idea, and shall be happy to contribute ten guineas towards its realisation.

Yours very truly,

A. Conan Doyle.

The reader could be forgiven for expecting to read of a quartering of the Union Jack and the Stars & Stripes!

Letters four and five presumably relate to Christie Murray's book My Contemporaries in Fiction. Conan Doyle was indeed grateful for being counted among peers such as Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling, and a comparison made with Poe. The second letter refers to having just moved into Undershaw, so the letters were probably written in 1897 (and may have been direct follow-up correspondence to the Washington statue letter above).

Undershaw, Hindhead, Haslemere

My Dear Murray,

I shall be delighted and honoured to have a first glance at the ms. I never read anything of yours which I did not like, so I am sure I shall like it, but there are degrees of liking, and I will tell you frankly which degree I register.

Now you will bear that visit in mind and write to me when you are ready and your work done.

With all kind regards, yours very truly,

A. Conan Doyle.

Undershaw, Hindhead, Haslemere.

My Dear Murray,

I have just finished your critical book and think it most excellent and useful. I couldn't help writing to you to say so. It is really fine—so well-balanced and clear-sighted and judicial. For kind words about myself many thanks. I don't think we are suffering from critical kindness so much as indiscriminate critical kindness. No one has said enough, as it seems to me, about Barrie or Kipling. I think they are fit—young as they are—to rank with the highest, and that some of Barrie's work, Margaret Ogilvy and A Window in Thrums, will endear him as Robert Burns is endeared to the hearts of the future Scottish race.

I have just settled down here and we are getting the furniture in and all in order. In a week or so it will be quite right. If ever you should be at a loose end at a week-end, or any other time, I wish you would run down. I believe we could make you happy for a few days. Name your date and the room will be ready. Only from the 16th to the 26th it is pre-empted.

With all kind remembrances, yours very truly,

A. Conan Doyle

As the Sherlock letter was acquired by Toshinari, one wonders whether the other Christie Murray letters are also in private hands (see below); they are certainly not with the Maeda Ikutokukai Foundation. As a matter of principle, Maeda Toshinari collected only a single autograph from each individual. If he later obtained a finer example, he would relinquish the previously acquired item. Ultimately, he built a collection comprising the autographs of 230 figures.

The ACD Encyclopedia recently created a page on Christie Murray (inspired by our original blog post perhaps?), and included an image of a second letter from ACD to Christie Murray - the letter on the Dreyfus Affair. This suggests all letters retained by Christie Murray went into the hands of collectors at some point after his death.

The Conan Doyle letter is something of a curiosity at an exhibition of cultural significant Japanese items from the Maeda clan, but it's a wonderful curiosity.

Notes

1. Maggs Brothers, ‘Autograph Letters and Historical Documents’, Sales Catalogue No. 513, Christmas 1928 (https://archive.org/details/b31652086/mode/2up).

2. ‘The Sherlock Holmes Collection of Daniel Posnansky’, 19 December 2017, Profiles in History, Calabasas, California. [Please confirm reference]