SUNDAY, November 1st at 1:30pm: TEA TIME at Baker Street Returns to "The Valley of Fear"

We're back, in the home stretch of the sojourn through the Sherlock Holmes canon of works penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle between 1887 and 1927 (some 68 individual works from short stories to full novels). Today we present Part 5 Doyle's 1915 novel The Valley of Fear.

To catch up, here's where we have been ...

The great Detective Sherlock Holmes solves a case in England which leads to a secondary story in Vermissa Valley in the US. Sherlock Holmes must solve the mysterious murder of a Mr. Douglas of Birlstone Manor but finds that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Holmes and Watson travel to Birlstone and investigations ensue.

Holmes, Watson, with Inspectors MacDonald and Mason hide out in the garden to watch the moat and catch Cecil Barker fishing something out of it; a bundle of clothes weighed down by the missing dumb-bell. The clothes belong to an American who has been seen in Birlstone recently and whose bike was found nearby. A label in the clothes tell the detectives that they come from Vermissa Valley; V. V.. 

But Holmes has a greater revelation yet. When they are back inside he calls on Mr Douglas to tell his own story. The others are shocked as the supposedly murdered man enters, he has been hiding in a priest hole the last few days. The dead body is in fact Ted Baldwin, sent to kill Douglas but who ended up dead himself. Douglas and Barker made it seem that Douglas was dead in the hope of avoiding further attempts on Douglas's life. Baldwin has the same brand on his arm as they belonged to the same society but unfortunately Douglas could not remove his wedding ring to make the deception complete. 

Douglas gives Dr Watson a bundle of papers which tells the next part of story; The Scowrers. 
On the train to Vermissa Valley, John McMurdo meets Scanlan, a fellow member of the Eminent Order of Freemen. He confides to Scanlan that he is on the run from the law. Scanlan tells McMurdo to look up the Bodymaster of the Vermissa Lodge 341, Black Jack McGinty, who is also connected to a band of killers called the Scowrers. 

McMurdo moves in with the Shafters and immediately falls for the daughter of the family, Ettie, but learns from her father that she is seeing another man, Ted Baldwin of the Scowrers. McMurdo also learns that the Scowrers and Freemen are one and the same and when he mentions that he is a Freeman Mr Shafter throws him out. When Baldwin confronts him McMurdo quickly heads for McGinty's place to establish himself as a fellow Freeman and makes a good impression. McGinty makes peace between the two men. 

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Join us in the Seanchai Fireside Room as we resume our journey through The Valley if Fear:  Kayden Oconnell, John Morland, and Caledonia Skytower, live in voice.