Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson receive a mysterious note that was slipped under their door. However, upon examining the note, Holmes deduces that it was written not by a criminal seeking help, but by their acquaintance Dr. Nygaard as a sample text for his students. Holmes is frustrated that the note turned out to be something so trivial rather than an intriguing case. They discover that Dr. Nygaard hired one of Holmes' Baker Street Irregulars to deliver the note, solely because the professor had papers to grade and wanted to waste a Saturday afternoon writing this sample text instead.

1. or the Case of the Missing Person
(with Dr Nygaard’s apologies to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Note: The number at the end of each slide indicates the
number of corrections you must make.

2. At 221B Baker St, a sofa was littered with
copies of The Strand Magazine, and pages of this
venerable periodical were being torn and
crumpled, slowly and methodically, into little balls
and tossed, languidly, in random directions until
the room was filled, to the level of a gentleman’s
ankles, with these forlorn missiles of boredom,
these most quiet and gentle manifestations of Mr
Sherlock Holmes’ frustration.
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3. If a case of most puzzling complexity were
not immediately presented to the world’s only
consulting detective and his devoted Boswell, then
quite soon a pistol might be drawn and additional
bullets fired into the wall, perhaps in the pattern
“HRM.”
Fortunately, within minutes, a note for Mr
Holmes was slipped under the door, and little feet,
poorly shod, judging from the sound of the thin
soles upon the floor, were heard quickly flitting
down the stairs and out the front door.
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4. The Plot thickens…
With this delicate pattering, boredom was
banished, if only momentarily, from the brain of Mr
Holmes. Mrs Hudson was called, yet no visitor had
been seen by the obviously irritated but long-suffering
landlady.
The envelope was opened, the marks upon it
carefully examined, and the quality of the paper and
the ink quickly assessed by the famous detective.
For the space of a minute, an expression of keen
concentration flashed across the hawk-like
countenance of the Wise One. 6

5. “What dark and sinister business is
delineated in this missive?” asked Watson.
Then, like the sun when it is partially
obscured by a passing cloud, the look of intrigue
faded, only to be replaced by a smirk of half-amused
disgust.
“Oh, Watson,” Holmes replied. “I have been
deceived yet again by our old acquaintance, the
deranged Doctor of English Literature.”
“Then, no crime has been committed? There
is no puzzle to be solved, no case to be written up
and carefully annotated?” Watson looked
disappointed.
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6. “It has been said before, by myself, during our
adventure involving the spotted serpent, that ‘when
a doctor does go wrong, he is the first of criminals.’
There has indeed been a crime committed upon the
world of unsuspecting students, in the form of this
paltry document.”
“What is written upon the paper?” asked
Watson.
The note was placed upon the table, its
creases smoothed by the long, thin fingers of the
detective.
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7. Subject Verb
The jewels were stolen.
Is the subject verbing? (Are the jewels stealing?) No!
The problem is a passive verb, and passive verbs often
indicate a “missing person” case!
Who is verbing? (Who did the stealing?) The jewel thief,
of course! But DON’T write “the jewels were stolen by the
jewel thief.” The verb is still passive and the unnecessary
prepositional phrase weakens the sentence!
Rewrite the sentence to make the verb active and to reveal
the missing person: The thief stole the jewels.
Good! Now try another: The police were called.

8. “What rubbish!” shouted the detective. “What
twaddle! What talent is wasted on such tripe, when
there are more challenging enigmas to be
concocted! It will be said many years from now, that
the soul of a poet was possessed by the Mad
Doctor, but all her artistic impulses were murdered
by the lowly toil of teaching. Mercy must be shown,
Watson; sympathy must be felt.”
“The students must be pitied, too,” Watson
said, meekly. “But what of the mysterious
messenger? The note was delivered, but by whom?
And why was it brought to us?”
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9. All is revealed…
“My methods are known and often imitated by
feeble minds. One of my Baker Street Irregulars
was hired by the pathetic pedagogue, though it
cannot be fathomed how enough spare cash was
scraped up to cover the fee,” Holmes replied.
“As for the purpose,” he continued, “Well,
obviously, there were papers to be graded and
scores to be entered into the grade book, and a
Saturday afternoon was squandered on this
nonsense, instead.”
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