Sherlock Holmes (novel)/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

 * The Hound of the Baskervilles:
 * Watson remarks on the death of the escaped convict Neil Selden, brother of Henry Baskerville's butler's wife, that "Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him." After the hound set loose by Stapleton fails to kill Henry Baskerville, his abused wife gleefully leads Holmes and Watson to his hideout. Watson doesn't outright say it, but this gives a strong impression of just how evil Stapleton is.
 * The novel opens with Holmes reading about Dr James Mortimer who has written papers on 'Is Disease a Reversion', 'Some Freaks of Atavism' and 'Do we regress?'. Atavism is defined as 'The tendency to revert to ancestral type'. Later on, we discover that the main villain, Stapleton is a relative of the Baskervilles. How? By the fact that he looks almost identical to the painting of the evil Sir Hugo Baskerville (who was responsible for the Baskerville curse). In other words, Stapleton is a reversion to the evil Baskerville type and we have an incredibly brilliant piece of foreshadowing.

Fridge Logic

 * Irene Adler lived only about three years after the events of "A Scandal in Bohemia." That story, published in June 1891, takes place in March 1888, and Watson's opening remarks refer to her as "the late Irene Adler." She was either actually dead, or believed by Watson to be dead, just three years and three months after her triumph over Holmes.