As the greasy pall of a London fog settles on the hallowed halls of 221B Baker Street, it’s time to reveal the answer to this week’s MMM.
We’re looking for “an element found in many of Holmes' solutions.” But where to start? For one, there were four clues with enumerations whose entries were spelled-out numbers:
17A – TWENTYSEVEN with the enumeration (1)
23A – TEN with the enumeration (4)
44A – FIFTYTHREEwith the enumeration (3) and
67A – TWENTY with the enumeration (2)
Ah, maybe if I look up the numbered squares 10, 20, 27 and 53; that’s gotta be it (even if it *is* too easy)! And they spell… N-O-P-E. Nope? Nope! Ohhhh… okay, back to square one.
So what else do we have? The title! “Elementary, My Dear Watson” (which, by the way, Holmes never once said in the entire canon). Parsing “elementary” in a different way is the key: The numbers are atomic numbers of elements, and in “enumeration order,” they spell:
#27 – Cobalt, or CO
#20 – Calcium, or CA
#53 – Iodine, or I
#10 – Neon, or NE… spelling out the answer to the prompt -- COCAINE.
(As referenced in a few of Holmes’ cases and in Nicholas Meyer’s “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution,” a cocaine-based solution was often used by Holmes to counteract his ennui when his brain was not engaged in a case).
The randomly selected winner from the
83 people who did crack the case is
Steve M. Steve, let me know if you'd rather have a Blarney Rebel Band CD, or a Utica Club keepsake, or $15 donated to a charity of your choice. Congratulations!!