These are the types of things you can tell people all Halloween long...
Moriarty and make sure he's not doing anything weird at the party like stealing lightbulbs or thumb tacks, that sort of thing. Interesting, no?? According to anecdotes the phrase MAY have also been used earlier, by actor/playwright William Gillette in an 1899 stage production of Sherlock Holmes, but there is no written evidence of that. Fun Sherlock Holmes fact: The phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson" does not appear anywhere in the writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Holmes's creator.