Historical Context: "Be Gay Solve Crime"
Chance or Chess? a BBC Sherlock Podcast
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Edgar Allan Poe's Sherlock Holmes
The eccentric amateur sleuth was introduced in 1841 The murders of Rheumorgh. So readers were invited by Poe to send encoded messages which Poe then solved. All except one which turned out to be meaningless. His own cipher remained unsolved despite the enticement of a year's subscription to the magazine. He says he goes out only at night and despite having satisfied his creditors because he was in debt I think he had to pay off his debts. And there's another reference of these two men and says and keeping the shutters closed at night might not sound suspicious today but it certainly did in 1841.
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