The observation of trifles

‘The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle’ Re-Imagined

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson investigate the curious discovery of a blue carbuncle in the crop of a Christmas goose abandoned by a man during a scuffle with some street ruffians. Holmes makes a series of deductions concerning the owner of a tattered old hat recovered along with the goose and thus sets out on the trail of the audacious thief who stole the precious stone five days previously.

“See what my wife found in its crop!”

The smallest point may be the most essential

In ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’, Sherlock Holmes says to Dr Watson: “You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles”. A similar sentiment is recorded in ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’, in which Holmes declares: “It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles”. This practice is clearly demonstrated in ‘The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle’, where Holmes famously deduces a number of facts about an unknown man based on observations of his hat and its condition, such as the man’s age, intellect, hair colour, use of hair product, and even decline in fortune. Throughout the Sherlock Holmes canon, the detective performs comparable feats of deduction from the study of personal belongings, including eyeglasses (‘The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez’), a pocket watch (‘The Sign of Four’), a walking stick (‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’), and a pipe (‘The Adventure of the Yellow Face’).

“A very seedy hard-felt hat.”

Over the last 35 years, LEGO® has produced a variety of accessories to accompany minifigures from various themed sets, such as Space, Pirates, Castle, and City, as well as film-based sets like Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Many of these accessories have proved useful when creating the illustrations for the Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series. For example, the first illustration of the current story (above) includes several different accessories for LEGO® minifigures, such as a magnifying glass, printed newspaper tiles, and a tattered hat (which was part of a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde minifigure called ‘Mr Good and Evil’). Additional accessories featuring in the other illustrations for this adventure include a glass bottle, a meat cleaver, and a gemstone (representing the titular blue carbuncle). However, for the book series, I have also had to create, from existing LEGO® parts, some minifigure accessories including Holmes’s smoking pipes and the dead Christmas goose from ‘The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle’, which was difficult to design to minifigure scale. In the end, for me the most accurate representation of the goose (see photo below) was the simplest, consisting of only two LEGO® parts: a white hand of a standard minifigure to represent the neck of the bird and the arm of a collectible minifigure called ‘Chicken Suit Guy’ to form the body.

“He bowed solemnly to both of us.”

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All 12 books in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series, as well as a complete collector’s edition incorporating all of the stories, are available for purchase on Amazon UK, the Book Depository (with free worldwide delivery), and the MX Publishing website.

LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of Companies. The LEGO Group has not been involved in nor has it in any other way licensed or authorized the publication of this book series.