Reaching Conclusions

‘It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’
‘THE ADVENTURE OF THE BERYL CORONET’
Holmes’s gift (and occasional curse) was his unearthly ability to alight upon the truth where others had failed to do so.

Taking a Walk Down Memory Lane

‘A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use.’
‘THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS’
This memory method relies on your intimate knowledge of a place and is particularly useful for memorising a lot of connected information, such as a
list. Once you have mastered it, you should be able to recall a list of items far longer than the traditional seven or so.
This technique goes under a number of different names. Some know it as the Memory Palace, others as the Method of Loci or the Roman Room
Technique, to name but a few. Underlying the system is the selection of a place that you know really well such as your current home, or one from
your childhood, or perhaps the local high street or the office (especially if you’re a workaholic). You could even focus on a single room if it has lots of
elements in it that you are familiar with.
Let’s say you’ve opted for your childhood home. You then need to fix firmly in your mind a route through the house. Start with your key in the front
door. Open the door and step into the hallway. Plot a path taking in all the different rooms, upstairs and downstairs. Once you have the route
established, you can use it again and again, every time there is a new list of information you want to memorise.
If there are more things to remember than there are rooms in the house, consider developing the system so that as you walk your route, you take
in several features in each room. For instance, rather than associating only one thing with the kitchen, you could picture your fridge, the kitchen
table, the toaster and the sink. That’s space for four new things.
Each of the familiar elements on your route is known as a ‘memory peg’. The job now is to hang each item you wish to remember on a different
peg. Let’s say you are off to the shops but you can’t find a pen so you need to carry your shopping list in your head. The first item is a bottle of milk,
which we’ll place on the front door step. The next is a newspaper, which we’ll conveniently slot into the letter box. Next is half a dozen eggs.

Improving Your Memory

‘My mind is like a crowded box-room with packets of all sorts stowed away therein – so many that I may well have but a vague perception of
what was there.’
‘THE ADVENTURE OF THE LION’S MANE’
Having accumulated the wealth of data required for your Holmesian-style thinking, it is vital to ensure it becomes firmly lodged in your memory.
Holmes seems to have had little problem with memory, able to pluck from the air tiny details of conversation long after they have occurred or
recalling crime reports from years past.

Information Sifting

‘It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognise out of a number of facts which are incidental and which are vital.’
‘SILVER BLAZE’
As Holmes amply illustrated, information may be gleaned from myriad sources. But once a body of relevant information has been accumulated, the
next trick is to separate the wheat from the chaff: that which is truly useful and that which ultimately will lead you down a blind alley.

Breaking the Code

‘I am fairly familiar with all forms of secret writings, and am myself the author of a trifling monograph upon the subject, in which I analyze one
hundred and sixty separate ciphers.’
‘THE ADVENTURE OF THE DANCING MEN’
Cryptography (from the Greek for ‘hidden writing’) is the science of code- and cipher-creating, while cryptanalysis is concerned with breaking them.

Mastering Disguise

‘Accustomed as I was to my friend’s amazing powers in the use of disguises...’
‘A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA’
There were times when Holmes recognised that his best chance of garnering crucial information was to go undercover. This was no hardship for
the Great Detective. As he admitted in The Valley of Fear: ‘Some touch of the artist wells up within me, and calls insistently for a well-staged performance.

Laying Your Cards on the Table

‘He had played nearly every day at one club or other, but he was a cautious player, and usually rose a winner.’
‘THE ADVENTURE OF THE EMPTY HOUSE’
It is unclear how much of body language is inborn in us and how much is learned. Charles Darwin highlighted certain facial expressions (happiness,
sadness, fear, disgust, surprise and anger) that are recognised across cultures, suggesting they at least are genetically inherited. But much else is
learned socially.
The card table is one of the prime battlefields of body language. Every serious card player aims to mask their own body language, while
attempting to discern the ‘innate’ body language of their opponents (i.e. that which cannot be masked). In this context, signals that indicate the hand
of a player are known as ‘tells’. The aim of a great player is to perfect the ‘poker face’, that serene look which gives nothing away to the onlooker.
There are plenty of characters in the Holmes stories who would have benefitted from this talent. Several men found themselves in all types of
trouble (including virtual ruination) as a result of their lack of success at the gambling table (whist was seemingly the most common route to downfall
in Sherlock’s England). Watson himself had a tendency to gamble dangerously, to the extent that Holmes kept the good doctor’s cheque book
locked up for him. Here are a few tips regarding ‘tells’ that those players never learned:
Watch the face
This is where a trained eye can spot ‘micro gestures’ that are hard to control. If the eyes smile, they probably have a good hand.