Monday 1st and Tuesday 2nd December 2003.

Find out who did it! Read the conclusion at the end of this page!

Each Scout had to solve the murder on the evening from the clues that each character gives. Sherlock Holmes asked the questions and each character had a series of answers that they needed to reveal.

The Suspects

The other night in the library, when many characters were out of their books enjoying a sojourn in the night air, a crime was committed, grim and grave, right in our own library. As a result his Majesty Henry VIII – that famous monarch from the English history books – has disappeared. Gathered are the characters who were present in the library at the time of the nasty deed. Fortunately Master Sherlock Holmes is here to investigate, so the perpetrator of this heinous crime will no doubt be revealed as the night proceeds.

Master Sherlock Holmes (from Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conlan Doyle)

I am a man with such superior detective skills that I have become world famous. Nothing goes unnoticed by me. I already know a lot about each of the suspects, just from looking at their appearance. I am not a great reader of fiction. I prefer to do chemical experiments and I also play the violin. Did any of you happen to steal my lighter from me? I seem to be missing it ever since my visit to the library last night. Was the King a thief? Do you think he stole my lighter? I am really missing my pipe. I can’t use it without my lighter. This certainly does not seem like a normal case. Things are not what they seem. It is more like the Mr Angel case. You may like to read about it in my diary, if you get time.

Huck Finn (from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain) I’m a good boy – honest. Me Pap – he kidnapped me and kept me in a cabin. I escaped. But before I left, I killed me a pig and made it look like I’d been murdered. Then I hid on Jackson Island, but I found out I wasn’t alone – Miss Watson’s, Jim, had run away. So we floated down the river on a raft at night and slept and fished all day. I got separated from Jim and I stayed with a family that was feuding with them neighbors. But Jim found me and we escaped from them thank God. Then we got mixed up with some con artists – the Duke and the King we called ‘em cause they pretended to be royals so we’d wait on them. But King Henry was a worse King than the one in my book. “He used to marry a new wife every day, and chop off her head next morning. And he would do it just liken he was ordering eggs.” “Fetch up Nell Glynn”, he says. They fetch her up. Next morning, “Chop off her head!” And they chop it off. “Fetch up Jane..” and so on. King Henry kept trying to latch on to me and Oliver, said we could be his sons, but we wouldn’t have a part of it.

Pinocchio (from Pinocchio by Carlo Lorenzini - penname Carlo Collodi retold by James Riordan) When I was a puppet I lied a lot, but the Good Fairy taught me not to and to be good. ‘How stupid I was as a puppet. And how glad I am to be a real live boy.’ When I lied my nose became so long I ‘could not move without banging it against the walls or door.’ Geppetto sold his coat to buy me a spelling book for school. I sold it to go to the puppet theatre. Then I saved a puppet from being burnt by the showman and the showman gave me coins for my father. A fox and a cat told me they could multiply my money in “The Field of Miracles”. A bird and the ghost of the cricket tried to warn me not to. The evil fox and cat hung me in a tree to die, but the Good Fairy saved me. But I still let them fool me into burying my money so it would grow. They stole it. Later I became a donkey and ended up rescuing Geppetto from the belly of a whale with the help of the Good Fairy. King Henry thought that I was a silly puppet and he tried to fool me into being his slave. But the Good Fairy warnedme that he was an evil man.

Peter Pan (from Peter and Wendy by Sir James Matthew Barry) I live on an island inhabited by pirates, mermaids, fairies and Indians. On the island there are lots of fairies like Tinkerbell. “When the first baby laughed for the very first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about and that was the beginning of the fairies.” I taught the three children of the Darling family to fly so they could return with me to the island. We were trying to stop the evil pirate Captain Hook from going about his wicked ways. Then Captain Hook plotted to do away with me and he captured Wendy Darling, but I was able to save her. There is also a crocodile that follows us about that has a clock inside his belly going tick, tick, tick. King Henry was impressed with my victory over Captain Hook.

Wizard of Oz (from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum) To get to my place you follow the yellow brick road. People think that I can accomplish anything. Dorothy and her friends came to see me. The Scarecrow was amongst them. He was in search of a brain. They all expected me to wave a magic wand and to solve their problems for them. Instead I told them that they must first prove themselves worthy by bringing me the broomstick of the Wicked Witch before I would grant their requests. They succeeded and I pointed out to them that they already possessed what they sought. They just had to start using their abilities. King Henry was jealous of my supposed abilities. He wanted to be able to do anything himself.

Robin Hood (from Robin Hood by various authors) I am a wealthy man who has been forced to become a thief. I steal from the rich and give to the poor. The poor of England were being asked for too many taxes. The taxes were required to fund various political battles overseas. I simply gave back to the poor the money that they had had unfairly taken away from them in the first place. Little John and I met on a plank across a river. But he would not let me pass. He is a very portly but strong monk. He did not see why he should make way for me and so we did battle. He used his staff, but I was victorious in our skirmish. Afterwards, he came to know me and to be one of my main supporters. Dress suggestions: Dress in period clothes, a cape and a mask.

Frankenstein’s Monster (from Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley) Frankenstein gathered various body parts from graveyards and the like in his quest to create me as a living being. Even though he had spent so much time and effort creating me, he found me so horrible he ran in revolt. The night he gave me life, he said “I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs”. I wreaked of the dead that had been used to create me. I met King Henry in the library. It was by no means a pleasure. King Henry was not a civilized man. In all of my interactions with him, I found him detestable – almost as detestable as people found me as a monster. Dress suggestions: Wear clothes that look stitched together and draw some stitches on your brow.

Aladdin (from The Adventures of Aladdin by various authors) I met a mysterious stranger who said he would pay me a silver penny if I went down a manhole for him’. I found myself in a ‘large chamber... (filled with) pots of gold.’ ‘…bring me the lamp!’ he said. When I hesitated, he left me in there, dropping his ring in the chamber as he did so. Terrified, I put the ring on my finger and ‘twisted it round and round’. ‘Suddenly a great genie…appeared’, and said he was at my command. I told the genie I wanted ‘to go home’ and immediately I found myself there. I told my mother of my adventures. She was a little disappointed I had returned with only the old oil lamp. But she started to polish it and ‘out shot another genie’. He said that we had set him ‘free after centuries’ and that he would be our servant. Things went pretty well after that and I married a beautiful princess. King Henry was jealous of my having a genie and even though he was already wealthy, he ordered me to give me to him but I refused. Dress suggestions: Wear middle eastern clothes (eg baggy trousers). Add sequins and jewels.

Oliver Twist (from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens) At the workhouse, I lived on “the smallest portion of the weakest food possible.” Then I was apprenticed to the undertaker. One of his workers taunted me about my dead mother, so I ran away to London. The people I lodged with turned out to be none other than a gang of thieves, but I did not realize it till later. I saw them picking the pocket of a gentleman, but I ended up being taken as the culprit of the crime. Fortunately, a witness spoke in my favor. The gentleman who was robbed treated me kindly. But then, I was kidnapped by the thieves and held their prisoner. Another kind family came to my aid and, it was discovered... Let’s just say that with “gratitude to that Being whose code is Mercy” I am now the adopted son of the gentleman. But people say I am “still the same gentle, attached, affectionate creature”. King Henry was a bloodthirsty tyrant who always got what he wanted, but “thinking it might be dangerous to express (my) feelings more openly”, I said nothing. He said he wished he’d had a son like me rather than the delicate Prince Edward, but how could I trust a man who killed not only his enemies, but his wives as well.

Don Quixote (from Don Quixote of the Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes) I am a knight-errant. I go throughout the land “offering... (myself) to occasions and dangers, which, being once happily achieved, might gain ...(me) eternal renown”. I am also fulfilling my duty to mankind. I do it all for my “Dulcinea de Toboso” “O lady of all beauty! courage and vigor of my weakened heart!” “Mine office and exercise is, to go throughout the world righting of wrongs and undoing of injuries”. In one adventure I came upon some men carrying the image of a “beautiful lady, whose tears and pitiful semblance clearly denote(d) that ... (they) carry her away against her will.” I lay my hand upon my sword and “assaulted the image carriers; one whereof... came to encounter... (me) with a wooden fork” and I was “overthrown to the ground and extremely bruised.” King Henry failed to appreciate the velour of a knight such as I. He had the audacity to tell me to “get out of his way and go attack a windmill”.

Who did it
Pinocchio may have turned King Henry into a donkey, but the donkey is not still about, so we can’t know that for sure.

Peter Pan seemed to have a plan but he never really revealed it, so we don't now if he did anything. His powers may or may not have worked on King Henry as they may have involved magic.

Robin Hood threatened to burn King Henry but then he released him. We don’t know that he did anything at all. He may have made King Henry into a meat pie, but we can’t be sure of that.

Frankenstein’s Monster may have locked him a room with a collar they gave him, but as someone else said later, when dawn comes he would have vanished back into his book and then been reborn the next night when someone read about him in a book.

Aladdin also only relied on the magic performed by his genies and as we said, magic doesn’t work in real life. Notice nothing the genies said actually happened.

Peter Pan had said there was a burnt smell in the library. This was the smell of the burnt books. The Wizard of Oz had looked up Henry’s books and knew where they were. He told Huck what he found. He visited the library in the daytime. If King Henry was not to come back to the library, his books would have to be burnt while he was in them (ie during the daytime) and not at night when he was out of his books. He probably used Sherlock Holmes’ missing lighter in order to burn the books.

But as Sherlock Holmes said, the books were wet in the library. This was because the Wizard of Oz, in trying to burn King Henry’s books, had set off the sprinkler system in the library. So he had been doused in water and, thus, had not been able to fully burn his books.

Oliver Twist locked him in a room, , but as someone else said later, when dawn comes he would have vanished back into his book and then been reborn the next night.

Don Quixote appeared to have won the duel, but that doesn’t mean he
rid the library of King Henry.

Huck Finn did it. Huck had used the repair shop tools to make sure King Henry didn’t come out of his book. He glued the pages of King Henry’s books together. He must have glued them together during the daytime while King Henry was in his books. Aladdin said, the pages of the books on King Henry were glued together. As someone said, book characters come alive again each time someone reads their story. But as the pages of King Henry’s books have been glued together, he will never come alive again and, therefore, never be able to come to the library again. By some coincidence Robin Hood bought Huck and Tom a meat pie, but the fact that he ate it didn’t mean he was eating King Henry.