"The Mazarin Stone"

The Mazarin Stone.

Case began Friday, June 1, 1894.

Why?

WATSON’S ABSENCE FROM BAKER STREET:
"It was pleasant to Dr. Watson to find himself once more in the untidy room of the first floor in Baker Street which had been the starting-point of so many remarkable adventures."

A CERTAIN TIMELESSNESS:
"It all seems very unchanged, Billy. You don’t change, either. I hope the same can be said of him?"

THE STATEMENT OF THE SEASON:
"It was seven in the evening of a lovely summer’s day . . ."

A REFERENCE TO A PAST WAX DUMMY:
"We used something of the sort once before."
"Before my time," said Billy.

THE STATE OF WATSON’S PRACTICE:
"You bear every sign of the busy medical man, with calls on him every hour."

THE CAREER OF NEGRETTO SYLVIUS:
"It’s all here, Count. The real facts as to the death of old Mrs. Harold, who left you the Blymer estate, which you so rapidly gambled away. . . And the complete life history of Miss Minnie Warrender. . . . Here is the robbery in the train de-luxe to the Riviera on February 13, 1892. Here is the forged check in the same year on the Credit Lyonnais."
"No; you’re wrong there."
"Then I am right on the others!"

WHAT THE BARING-GOULD ANNOTATED SAYS:
Summer 1903. 

WHAT ZEISLER, THE KING OF CHRONOLOGY, SAYS:
Summer 1903.

THE BIRLSTONE RAILWAY TIMETABLE:
"The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone" is perhaps the most sadly neglected case in the world of Sherlockian chronology. While the elder chronologists have jumped through hoops to date many another case on scant facts, they seem to collectively toss up their hands at this one and say, "Why bother!"

Well, if their Associated Shades are reading this from some Sherlockian houseboat on the river Styx, I’m going to tell them why. For the same reason one tries to date any story in the Canon . . . because it’s there. And while it may be disrespectful to call one’s elders "gurly men chronologists" ala Hans and Franz, I’m going to do just that. And then I’m going to date this case, if I have to give myself brain fever to do it. So here goes nothing . . .

First, we know that the story takes place after February 13, 1892. Watson is returning to Baker Street after an absence, an absence of long enough that he’s surprised to find it unchanged. Billy is still there, as well.

While Watson did desert Holmes for a wife in 1902, he wasn’t gone from Baker Street long enough for him to be quite so amazed in returning to Baker Street at any time before Holmes left those rooms for Sussex. No, Watson’s reaction harkens back to a time when he was still surprised to find 221B unchanged after its chief tenant had been dead for three years. A time of air guns and wax dummies. And a time when the flat disc gramophone was just taking off.

The year 1894.

"Before my time," Billy says of the use of a wax dummy in "Empty House," yet we saw in "The Valley of Fear" that the page was around during Moriarty’s career. If Billy was Holmes’s employee, rather than Mrs. Hudson’s, it would make sense that he would be let go at Holmes’s "death" and hired back shortly after the events of "Empty House" — thus the first dummy was before his time (and after his time as well). Billy’s return and Watson’s first encounter with him also explains Watson’s reiteration of how unchanged 221B is, even though we know the doctor has been here before since Holmes’s return.

So it’s summer of 1894, yet early enough in summer that Watson and Billy are just becoming reacquainted as Sherlock Holmes rebuilds his life. As busy as 1894 was for Holmes and Watson, that would be extremely early . . . something possibly as early as June 1. And as June 1, 1894 fell on a Friday, which times out nicely with Sylvius’s projected timetable for cutting the diamond up in Amsterdam by Sunday, I’m going to place "Mazarin Stone" on that very date. Friday, June 1, 1894.