221B Baker Street (3D)
🫖 A Mrs Hudson game — Landlady of 221B, patience of a saint
Holmes is out on a case, and Mrs Hudson wants the sitting room set to rights before his step sounds on the seventeen stairs. Step inside 221B as Watson described it — the coal fire and the wooden mantelpiece, the two broad windows onto a fog-bound Baker Street with hansoms clattering past below, the chemical corner and its acid-stained deal table, the bearskin hearthrug, the bookcases and the great index. Each errand hands you seven canonical objects to find against a three-minute clock, every one with the line from Conan Doyle that put it there. Examine anything and Watson's own account comes back to you. A different list every time; nothing to download.
- ✅ Free
- 🔓 No sign-up
- 🌐 Runs in your browser
- 📱 Desktop & mobile
What it does
The canonical room in 3D
Firelight, gaslight and a lamp on the table against the cold glow of the street; claret wallpaper, worn Turkey carpet, leather, brass and wood grain — all drawn procedurally in your browser with three.js.
Nineteen objects from the canon
The Persian slipper, the cigars in the coal-scuttle, the V.R. in bullet-pocks, the gasogene, Meunier's wax bust, Irene Adler's photograph and more — each with its quotation and story.
A new errand every round
Seven objects, three minutes, hints at fifteen seconds apiece. The list rotates each time, and your best score is kept.
How to play
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1
Read Mrs Hudson's list — each item comes with the quotation that names the story it is from.
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2
Walk the room with WASD (or the thumb-stick on a phone), look with the mouse, and press E or click to examine what is under the crosshair.
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3
Find all seven before Holmes comes home; a hint marks the nearest one for fifteen seconds of clock.
The sitting room at 221B, as Watson saw it
In A Study in Scarlet Watson describes the rooms Holmes found for them as "a couple of comfortable bed-rooms and a single large airy sitting-room, cheerfully furnished, and illuminated by two broad windows." The sitting room is where nearly every case begins: clients climb the stairs, take the chair opposite the fire, and tell their story while Holmes listens with his fingertips together.
The room was famously untidy. In The Musgrave Ritual Watson admits that Holmes kept "his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece" — and that, in one of his queer humours, he decorated the opposite wall with "a patriotic V.R. done in bullet-pocks".
When Holmes returned from the dead in The Empty House, Watson found everything kept as it had been: "the chemical corner and the acid-stained, deal-topped table", the row of scrap-books and books of reference, "the diagrams, the violin-case, and the pipe-rack — even the Persian slipper which contained the tobacco."
The famous objects and where they come from
The gasogene (a soda-water siphon of two wire-caged glass globes) stands "in the corner" beside the spirit case in A Scandal in Bohemia — the same story in which Holmes asks Watson to look Irene Adler up in his index, and keeps her photograph as his only fee. The index itself returns in The Sussex Vampire, where Holmes reads out its entries under V.
The violin is a Stradivarius that Holmes bought from a broker in Tottenham Court Road for fifty-five shillings (The Cardboard Box). His long cherry-wood pipe replaced his clay when he felt "disputatious rather than meditative" (The Copper Beeches); his "old and oily clay pipe" was "to him as a counsellor" (A Case of Identity). Dr Thorneycroft Huxtable fainted on the bearskin hearthrug in The Priory School.
In The Empty House, a wax bust of Holmes made by Oscar Meunier of Grenoble sat in the window as a decoy, and Mrs Hudson moved it every quarter of an hour until Colonel Moran's air-gun put a bullet through its head. The tin box of old cases tied up with red tape is from The Musgrave Ritual; the dark lantern is the one Holmes shuttered in the bank cellar in The Red-Headed League.
Playing well: seeing versus observing
Holmes once pointed out that Watson had climbed the seventeen steps from the hall hundreds of times without observing how many there were. The same applies here: the objects are not hidden behind anything, but they sit among the papers, books, bottles and pipes that fill the room. Work methodically — the mantelpiece, the hearth, the chemical corner, the windows, the bookcases — rather than wandering.
Read the quotations on the list; they are clues. A line from The Musgrave Ritual about the mantelpiece tells you where to look before you start. Save hints for the end, when the clock matters most: each one costs fifteen seconds but marks the nearest missing object.
“You see, but you do not observe.” Every object in the room is placed from Watson's own descriptions — The Musgrave Ritual, The Empty House, A Scandal in Bohemia and more. Built in three.js; it runs entirely in your browser, on desktop or phone.
Frequently asked questions
Is 221B Baker Street a real address?
When Conan Doyle wrote the stories, Baker Street did not run to number 221 — the address was fictional. The street was later extended and renumbered, and the Sherlock Holmes Museum now displays "221B" at 239 Baker Street in London. The sitting room in this game follows Watson's descriptions in the stories rather than any museum.
What is in Sherlock Holmes's sitting room?
According to the stories: two broad windows onto Baker Street, a fire with a wooden mantelpiece (letters pinned to it by a jack-knife), a Persian slipper full of tobacco, cigars in the coal-scuttle, a V.R. shot into the wall, the chemical corner with its acid-stained deal table, the violin, the pipe-rack, a gasogene and spirit case, the bearskin hearthrug, shelves of scrap-books and Holmes's index, and armchairs for Holmes, Watson and the client.
Is the game free, and do I need to download anything?
It is completely free and runs in your web browser with nothing to install — no account, no API key. It works on desktop with mouse and keyboard, and on phones and tablets with touch controls. A Fast graphics mode is available for older machines.
How do I play?
Each errand gives you seven objects from the canon to find in three minutes. Walk with WASD or the arrow keys, look with the mouse, and press E or click to examine whatever is under the crosshair. Examine an object on the list to tick it off; a hint marks the nearest missing object for fifteen seconds of clock. Your best score is saved on your device.
Are the objects accurate to the Sherlock Holmes stories?
Yes. Every object on the list, and the quotation beside it, comes from Conan Doyle — mostly The Musgrave Ritual, The Empty House and A Scandal in Bohemia, with others from A Study in Scarlet, The Copper Beeches, The Speckled Band, The Red-Headed League, The Naval Treaty, The Priory School and The Cardboard Box.