WILLIAM S. BARING-GOULD, ASH, BSI, 2s
Remembering The Blue Swirl of His Tobacco-Smoke (BSI: The Gloria Scott)
by Patricia Moran
The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes began with a group of students at Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, Connecticut in 1966. Along with the Doubleday Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Journal, Baring-Gould’s Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street was an indispensable Sherlockian sourcebook for the “founding five.” In February of the next year, close Canonical readings and erudite discussion resulted in a somewhat truculent fan letter to William S. Baring-Gould. Beginning “Dear Sir, You Cur,” we quoted his own criticisms of Watson’s time sense against him and complained about a discrepancy in his dating in Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street. If, according to his calculations, Holmes and Irene Adler were together in Montenegro in June through August of 1891 (nine months after which was March through May 1892)—and if this sojourn did indeed produce a son—what about the note in the “Chronological Holmes” of the “Birth of a son to Irene Adler at her girlhood home near Hoboken, New Jersey” in “Late 1892”? A fifteen-month gestation period? Or another liaison for Irene after her rendezvous with Holmes? What a slur on Miss Adler! We demanded satisfaction.
And we got it, sort of. By return mail we were greeted: “Dear Ladies: You seem to have caught me with my dates down.” Mr. Baring-Gould presented a revised account of the consequences of the Holmes-Adler menage, involving a longer sojourn in Montenegro, the birth (after the due nine-months period) of twin sons to Irene, and the subsequent marriage of Irene Adler to a man named Vukcic. These facts were soon to be released to the world in Nero Wolfe of West Thirty-Fifth Street. His wry compliment, “With amazing feminine intuition, you have come close to putting your fingers on a vital piece of information,” was a challenge to further correspondence. Of course, we wrote back to thank him—the beginning of a (for us) delightful correspondence which lasted until the sad news of his death in August of 1967
The highlight of the acquaintance was our first extramural Sherlockian activity. On Tuesday, March 7, 1967 we met Baring-Gould for dinner at Asti’s in Manhattan. (We were hoping that their opera-singing waiters would perform a suitably Sherlockian or Adlerian selection). We enjoyed lively conversation, at times conducted fortissimo to overcome the operatic background noises. (The music stopped: five earnest voices were heard in chorus declaiming: “Sidney Greenstreet!”) As we rose to go, B-G pointed to the exhausted wine bottle and inquired, “Who gets the baby?” Seven pairs of eyes turned as one to Linda [Patterson], who accepted the memento with restrained dignity. Bill Baring-Gould was the first active Sherlockian we met, and it’s impossible to say how much his kindness and encouragement meant to us.
Remarks at Presentation at Culinary Institute 4 May 1991 by Evelyn Herzog, Principal Unprincipled Adventuress:
…Without losing sight of the historical fact that first one and later two women were BSI members for some years (and ASH members, as well), many Adventuresses often expressed their extreme willingness to see the BSI become a co-educational organization. As you all well know, on 12 January of this year that happy day arrived, when Wiggins of the BSI inducted half a dozen surprised but deeply gratified women into that organization. Now that the excitement has somewhat abated and a more mellow frame of mind has returned, I would like to take this opportunity to look back and honor here tonight some people who have been of singular importance to the Adventuresses.
I pause here for a word about ASH investitures. Ordinarily a new member chooses a name from among the females of the Canon — the definition of “female” being taken, um, broadly. That is, we have as our investitures the names of women and children, ships, books, works of art, and manifestations of nature. However, we can perceive another way — a very Canonical way — of making an ash of oneself; proving indisputably that gender is not destiny and that ASHes are made, not born.
…a few words for someone who is here only in spirit. The learned and impish William S. Baring-Gould was the first Sherlockian to encourage ASH — before it even was ASH. I would like to offer to Ceil Baring-Gould an ASH pin and ask her to accept on behalf of her late husband a card which commemorates him as that which remains when even the ash is gone, namely, “The Blue Swirl of His Tobacco Smoke.”
