Sherlock Holmes

I read Sherlock Holmes recently before Robinson Crusoe. I read the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes ,  The Hound of Baskervilles and the Return of Sherlock Holmes. They were pretty good, Sherlock was very good at observing , inducing and determining things. One of my favorite stories was the Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle where a precious blue gem was stolen, and then shoved down the neck of a goose. The Goose traveled for some time and finally ended up at the table of one of Sherlock's Friends. Sherlock does the job for the love of it and rarely gets money , but sometimes when he works for rich people ( for example the Duke of Holderness ) he gets money. Sherlock supposedly dies in the adventure of the final problem, while also taking Professor Moriarty ( the leader of crime in London ) down with him. It happened on the edge of a water fall, when Dr. Watson ( Sherlock's dear friend ) left to go supposedly help a ill person at a nearby town. But there was no ill person and the letter had been a fake to take him away from Holmes. When Watson got back he saw that there was a scuffle of footsteps, and a note ( that was written by Holmes ) that confirmed his death . When Watson had left Holmes he had seen a black figure walking towards him. Basically it seemed that Moriarty had fought with Holmes and they had gone over the edge, into the waterfall. But , as it turned out  in the return of Sherlock Holmes , He had not fallen over and had escaped. But before the return of Sherlock Holmes there is the Hound of Baskervilles. Arthur Conan Doyle actually had help on this one from his friend Mr. Fletcher Robinson. Here is a quick summary: A Dr. Mortimer comes into Sherlock's place at baker street. He tells him about the Baskervilles and about the legend of the Hound. Then he goes on to talk about the recent death of Sir Charles Baskerville ( who was a friend of his ) and how his face was very distorted, and how there were no injury marks on him. There were hound footprints twenty yards away from him , and the footprints that led to the body changed midway as if he had started running. Also he had waited at a spot before this. The Last know Baskerville , Sir Henry, came up to live in Baskerville hall. After some time Sherlock discovers that there really was a hound, and that he had sulfur and glowing paints on him to make him seem surreal, as he was in the legend. The hound was kept by a Mr. Stapelton , who was actually a Baskerville and had changed his name twice. He wanted to kill off all the others with his hound , and then claim the hall. He had died though, in the swamp , by getting fully covered in the bog. Sherlock and his friends had shot the hound dead also. In the return of Sherlock Holmes, Holmes makes himself known too Watson and explains how he had not fallen and escaped. He had written the note , thinking that he really would die. But then when he and Moriarty had wrestled, Sherlock slipped away from him when they were on the brink, and Moriarty fell and died while Holmes survived . Holmes then realized , if everyone thought he was dead, then the followers of Moriarty would not try to kill him . So instead of going back down the path and making tracks , that would signify he had survived, he climbed the rock face next to him. He laid on top of it and waited for Watson to come and go. But then a large boulder rolled next to him and he looked up. He saw a man's face above him & another boulder fell past him. Moriarty had not come alone and his friend was throwing rocks at Holmes for revenge. Holmes started down the rock face, and another boulder went past him. It was extremely hard going down, and halfway down he slipped and fell miraculous on the path and not in the falls. He quickly got up " torn and bleeding ...I took to my heels, did ten miles over the mountains in the darkness , and a week later I found myself in Florence "*. After this he had  some more great adventures, and landed Colonel Moran in the hand of the police. Colonel Moran was the man who had thrown boulders at Holmes and many other dreadful things. The book ends with the Adventure of the second stain, where a letter was lost , that if publicized would lead to war. Holmes found that the wife of the person who had kept it safe had taken it and given it to an European secret agent , in exchange for some other letters. The man had died though shortly after the exchange ( he had hidden the letter under a rug under a trapdoor. ) by the hands of some other woman. Then she had taken the letter when she realized how important it was and gave it to Holmes who put it back in the box it had been before. There were about 625 pages of reading.

* From the book , Holmes telling Watson what had happend