Frritt-Flacc
by Julia Sabin and Elizabeth Levin
ANSWER: FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
Though the supposed script excerpts are from the TV series House, the flavor text hints towards the rumor that the character of Gregory House is based on Sherlock Holmes. The patient deaths in each excerpt correspond to characters who die in Holmes stories, clued by cause of death, names in most cases, and details of the original stories.
Name | Sherlock Holmes story | Cause of death | Time |
---|---|---|---|
Mr. Sutton / Mr. Blessington | "The Adventure of the Resident Patient" | hanged | 5:09 PM |
James Barclay | "The Adventure of the Crooked Man" | death by apoplexy | 10:08 AM |
Arthur Cadogan West | "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" | hit over head with a life-preserver and left on top of a train | 10:34 PM |
Brenda Tregennis | "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot" | inhalation of smoke from a poisonous West African plant | 6:21 PM |
Pietro Venucci | "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons" | stabbed in the neck | 2:19 PM |
Alec Fairbairn | "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box" | beaten and ear cut off | 7:13 AM |
unnamed wife of Godfrey Staunton | "The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter" | tuberculosis (referred to as "consumption") | 8:36 AM |
Julia Stoner | "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" | snakebite | 1:28 PM |
Peter Carey | "The Adventure of Black Peter" | impaled through the torso by a harpoon | 11:03 PM |
Charles Milverton | "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" | gunshot wounds | 7:38 PM |
John Turner | "The Boscombe Valley Mystery" | complications from diabetes | 11:07 AM |
Richard Brunton | "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual" | suffocation | 3:21 PM |
Ronald Adair | "The Adventure of the Empty House" | head wound from an expanding bullet | 4:23 PM |
Rose Spender | "The Disappearance of Lady Francis Carfax" | senility | 9:11 PM |
Willoughby Smith | "The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez" | stabbed in the carotid artery | 9:30 AM |
Joseph Openshaw | "The Five Orange Pips" | fell into a chalk pit | 5:04 AM |
Victor Savage | "The Adventure of the Dying Detective" | Sumatran disease | 8:22 PM |
Paul Kratides | "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter" | inhalation of charcoal smoke | 12:17 PM |
Sherlock Holmes | "The Adventure of the Final Problem" | drowning | 6:27 AM |
(Arthur Conan Doyle intended "The Adventure of the Final Problem" to be the last Holmes story, but his readers protested so vehemently that he reluctantly brought the character back; thus the note at the end.)
Ordering the Sherlock Holmes story titles by the hour of the time of death (which range from 5am to 11pm, one per hour) and indexing into each one by the minute yields the answer FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.