fruit stains? what the deuce?

Yesterday, I started reading The Complete Sherlock Holmes V. 1. It is very thick, about the size of a paver brick and I haven't read anything this big since 2201 Fascinating Facts (both fascinating and factual). I am only on page 15 but I was so engaged yesterday that I did not even realize I boarded the wrong el train and somehow (OK, I know how. Sometimes I forget to think) and ended up in Evanston. Whoops.

In these 15 pages I have two observations. First, we take for granted the science and mystery involved in DNA testing. Not only is it integral in our criminal justice process but now you can store your DNA for less than the price of an iPod and eventually test it to figure out genetically why you are so odd to have stored your DNA and tested it in the first place.

But, in the case of Sherlock Holmes, he was simply ecstatic to have figured out how to chemically distinguish a blood stain from a rust stain. To quote Sherlock: "Criminal cases are continually hinging that one point...are they blood stains, or mud stains, or rust stains, or fruit stains, or what are they? That is one questions that has puzzled many...now we have the Sherlock Holmes's test and there will no longer be any difficulty."

Which leads me to wonder, how many times did the farmer tell the judge: "Well, you see, we were just a mashin up some berries next to that there rusty nail, me and my wife ya see, and she got a big ol fruit stain right there by her heart, right be for b'fore, ya know, she passed out and got dead"

Secondly, our friend and dear neighbor Adam (whom he and his wife Carrie we surprisingly do not write nearly enough about but let me quickly paraphrase: wine, cards, laughter, 2-4 nights a week) has a phrase that he likes to say instead of cursing (good boy Adam) and I have always wondered where it came from. And, now I know, it is Sherlock Holmes! Literatures most cunning and beloved detective. To set the scene, Watson is desperately trying to convince Sherlock the importance of knowing basic solar system facts. Sherlock, however, could really care less: "What is it the deuce to me? You say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work"

What the deuce, indeed.