If it wasn’t for Solar Pons (or maybe Sherlock Holmes), a vital element in the May 6, 2023, coronation of King Charles III would be missing.

Allow me to elucidate.

Calling Sherlock Holmes

At Christmas in 1950, London was still slowly pulling itself together after the end of World War II. The holiday season was a welcome respite from the deprivations of the post-war era, and everyone was looking forward to a quiet week between Christmas and New Year. 

But it was not to be. Christmas morning brought reports that The Stone of Scone was missing from its traditional place underneath the Coronation Chair at Westminster Abbey. The 336-pound chunk of sandstone had been in England’s control since it was seized in 1295 by King Edward I during the Wars of Scottish Independence. Until that time, the rock had been part of Scottish coronation ceremonies held at Scone Palace in Perthshire—where it was also known as “The Stone of Destiny.” The rock then became a symbolic part of British coronation ceremonies into the 20th century.

It’s theft raised the question: Would the next monarch be considered the ruler of Great Britain without the Stone of Scone’s presence?

The fact that the heavy piece of sandstone had been stolen from one of England’s most revered historic sites was bad enough.

But that it went missing for months became a national embarrassment. Rewards of $4,000 (about $50,000 today) were offered. Scotland Yard dispatched details in London, Wales and, of course, in Scotland. Local waterways were dredged. Speculation that Scottish nationalists had stolen the rock ran rampant, but proved to be little value in finding the famed stone.

While Britons were shaking their heads, Americans were bemused and it showed in the domestic news and editorial coverage. “Calling Sherlock Holmes: Britain Needs Help Unearthing the Scone Stone” trumpeted the New York Herald Tribune in a late January 1951 editorial that was picked up by other newspapers around the country. “Conditions of this sort admit of only one solution—that Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the eminent consulting detective, be coaxed from his retirement on the Sussex Downs and given charge of the mystery.” 

The Herald Tribune editorial writer knew his Sherlock Holmes Canon, recalling that Holmes had successfully handled the case of the Second Stain and the Bruce-Partington submarine plans “to say nothing of his single-handed defeat of the entire German espionage system headed by Von Bork in 1914.” The fact that Holmes had not been called in “no doubt stems from Scotland Yard’s well-known reluctance to concede his superiority—a stiff-necked attitude which nearly gummed up the works in A Study in Scarlet.” 

The Herald-Tribune writer lamented that “Evidently Lestrade, Gregson and Athelney Jones haven’t learned their lesson yet.”

The editorial ends with: “These are deep waters indeed. The sooner that Mr. Lestrade pays one more call to 221B Baker Street, the better it will be for all.” 

Out in the heartland, the sentiments were the same.

Take for example, the St. Joseph (Missouri) News in its Jan. 4 column: “ ‘Come, Watson, come. The game’s afoot. The Stone of Scone has been stolen and all these days those Scotland Yard ‘experts’ have been at sea. Let us leave this cozy parlor at 221B Baker Street.’ Thus speaks the shade of the great and only Sherlock Holmes to his crony, his oftentimes inept assistant, but his faithful all-time biographer, Doctor Watson. And Dr. Watson, forgetting for the nonce that he too is a spirit, arranges for a cab.”

The anonymous columnist pulls down his “well thumbed Holmes Omnibus” and recalls other times when Holmes was of no small aid to her majesty’s government, recalling The Naval Treaty and the Second Stain adventures.

Knowing how easy it was for Holmes to find the Mazarin Stone makes it obvious he could just as easily find the Scone Stone, he reasoned.

And so it went, from the St. Louis Post Dispatch (“Case for the Great Sherlock”) to The Washington D.C. Evening Star (“They Need You Mr. Holmes”) and so many others.

If Holmes was coaxed out of retirement, it was one of those cases where he chose to remain anonymous. Considering the fact that Holmes would have been well up in age, it seems more likely that he forwarded requests for aid to his successor.

Enter Solar Pons.

Solar Pons Intervenes

Pons did take up the case. August Derleth published Dr. Parker’s account in a tale titled “The Adventure of the Stone of Scone” which can be found in The Return of Solar Pons.

In the story, Pons awakens an astonished Dr. Parker at 4 a.m. Christmas Day. 

“We are about to have the best Christmas gift of all—a client is on his way here,” Pons announces, adding that “it is my brother Bancroft who is coming. You may judge for yourself the gravity of a situation which dislodges that lover of his comfort from his bed at this incredible hour.” 

Upon Bancroft’s arrival, Pons notes that his corpulent brother has been “somewhere on your hands and knees. In dust too. One of the government buildings?” chides the detective with glee. Bancroft has no patience for his little brother’s “exercises.” 

“Let us have done with this Kinderspiel and come to the matter at hand. It is this—the Stone of Scone has been stolen from Westminster Abbey.” Pons refuses to be serious. “This bids to be the merriest of Christmases!” he cries. 

Bancroft then gives details that newspapers would be echoing for weeks on end: A night watchman noted the marks on the carpet from Edward the Confessor’s Chapel suggesting a heavy object had been dragged down the altar steps. It was lugged through the transept, past the Dryden memorial, the graves of Browning and Tennyson, then out of the building at a door near the Poets’ Corner. There, presumably, a car was waiting. 

“You can well imagine into what consternation this singular event has thrown the government, since it is known that there are certain strong anti-monarchists who might wish to embarrass His Majesty and strike a blow for republicanism,” fretts Bancroft. 

Arriving at the scene it’s obvious the stone was dropped and broken into to parts, based on the sandstone remnants. This actually helped the thieves, since the pieces would now be lighter to transport than the whole.

Pons eventually identifies the guilty parties as young Scottish college students, full of fervor for their homeland. He and Parker have dinner with the four—“all likable young people”— the Stone is returned and Pons delights in his holiday challenge.

The End of the Case?

You now know the confidential history of the case. The public history is, to my mind, equally intriguing.

Here, we must give Scotland Yard some credit. After months of seeming failure, CID agents were able to identify one of the four college students responsible for the act by, of all things, going through Glasgow library records to determine who was reading up on the Stone of Scone. 

As the Portland (Maine) Press-Herald of April 17, 1951 noted, “that was good Sherlocking.” The police got the student researcher to acknowledge involvement with the theft and then confess that the stone was hidden away at Arbroath Abbey, about 75 miles northeast of Edinburgh.

The four miscreants were identified as Ian Hamilton, Gavin Vernon, Kay Matheson, and Alan Stuart, but were never charged. Perhaps it was due to their youth and idealism. I think the British government just wanted the whole embarrassing episode to just go away. 

Even after finding the rock, the British police could get no rest from comparisons with Holmes. The Associated Press report of April 3 was headlined, “Reported Solution Like One Sherlock Holmes Would Have Called ‘Elementary.’ ”

Lestrade must have once again felt humiliated. 

Romancing the Stone of Scone

The Stone made its way back to England, but decades after the theft kerfuffle settled down, Queen Elizabeth had the stone sent back to Scotland, and it normally is safely housed at Edinburgh Castle.

According to the Scottish Parliament Information Center. then-Prime Minister John Major made clear that,

“The stone remains the property of the Crown. I wish to inform the House that, on the advice of Her Majesty’s Ministers, the Queen has agreed that the stone should be returned to Scotland. The stone will, of course, be taken to Westminster Abbey to play its traditional role in the coronation ceremonies of future sovereigns of the United Kingdom.”

The Center assures all that, “During his coronation, King Charles III will sit on the Coronation Chair which contains the Stone of Destiny.” 

(Let us hope his majesty is well cushioned. That doesn’t look like a comfy seat.)

And that is how Solar Pons, and perhaps Sherlock Holmes, made it possible for the next king of England to be crowned with all the appropriate symbolism the ceremony deserves.

For those still looking for a Vincent Starrett link, no matter how thin, here it is.