THE GREEK INTERPRETERS

On September 30th, 2008, fifteen members of the Greek Interpreters and three guests met at Hershey's Steak and Seafood restaurant in East Lansing for our Fall meeting. Two of our guests, James O'Keefe and Bev Sobolewski, are members of the Amateur Mendicant Society of Detroit. The third was Stephen Landes, the Chief Tobacconist for the Arcadia Mixture of Ann Arbor.
The story on which the evening's quiz and discussion focussed was "The Adventure of Charles Agustus Milverton". According to our records, this seems to be the first meeting at which this episode from the canon has been examined. Following an excellent dinner of prime rib or white fish, the meeting opened with the customary Canonical Toasts to Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft Holmes, the second Mrs. Watson and The Woman. A resolution of the quiz was carried out by Bill Reusch (the chemist).

     

Several issues were raised during the discussion period. Chief among these was Holmes' role in deliberately misleading Lestrade and allowing a murderess to escape the judgement of the law. It was noted that Holmes had avoided turning in criminals in other cases, such as Blue Carbuncle and Abbey Grange, when he knew that the police had all the same evidence on which his deductions were made. In this case, however, it seemed as though he had gone one step further. His rather callous attitude toward his relationship with Agatha also seemed atypical. In general, the members were not impressed by the quality of this story, which lacked any element of a mystery to which Holmes could direct his skills of observation and deduction.
A highlight of the evening was an illustrated presentation by Bev Sobolewski, titled "The Merry Wives of Watson". The various proposals and arguments that have been made concerning the mysterious second Mrs. Watson were presented accompanied by entertaining graphics.

The meeting concluded with the reading of Vincent Starrett's "221B" poem, followed by our singing of The Anthem.