"Aluminium" (SH60460, Rating: G)

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Title: The Musgrave Ritual: Aluminium
Author: gardnerhill           
Word Count: 60
Rating: G
Warning: None.
Summary: A brief history of bauxite.

***

“He had a crutch fashioned from aluminium?” Watson whistled. “A very wealthy family.”

“And I retrieved it from thieves wishing to steal eight pounds of metal more valuable than gold.” Holmes shook his head. “A pity it’s so costly to extract – aluminium’s lightness and strength actually makes it a capital material for crutches.”

“The American chemists may change that soon.”

Comments

[laurose8.livejournal.com]

Great spotted and well written. It must have been an interesing case.

And a good bit of speculation from Watson.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I do remember learning in my chemistry class that because aluminum had been so hard to extract till about 1888 that it was more valuable than gold and was used for jewelry (Napoleon had a rattle made of it for his son). So in ACD's day that would be like a story about someone with a solid platinum crutch.