Touring Baker Street with Vincent Price

"Well, tonight it's back to Baker Street. Back to that unlikely London of the nineteenth century where high adventure awaits all who would seek it, in a hansom cab or under a gas lamp in an Inverness cape."

- Orson Welles, The Mercury Theatre on the Air.

Normally, I blaze across the pages of any detective novel that stands in my way, and even a brush with a 400-page behemoth, whose sheets are covered with turgid prose, hardly effect my pace, but somehow I was thrown off my game this week – and have been trotting through Freeman's The Stoneware Monkey (1939), without reaching the final chapter, for over three days now! Social obligations also make it unlikely that I will arrive there before Thursday; however, this provides me with an opportunity to post this filler recent discovery.

Back in the 1980s, the incomparable Vincent Price guest hosted a television show, in which he introduced the viewers at home to a new Sherlock Holmes episode, starring Jeremy Brett as the maverick detective from Baker Street, and closed the hour with a final thought – which are minor gems and usually very insightful. It's also a delight to hear him cite Ellery Queen as a source when introducing Silver Blaze as one of the finest sports detective yarn ever written. They can be found scattered all over YouTube, but here you can have a peek at his opening and closing statements regarding a personal favorite of mine, The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual. Take note of the brilliant, second part of the video!