The forensics people clearly weren't up to much in those days - I imagine that Sherlock Holmes would have been able to work out if somebody had been bumped off with a lump of lead piping rather than a revolver. Perhaps they had no Holmes to go to?
I know it's getting off the theme a little, but my favourite Sherlock Holmes was Basil Rathbone (those films were so atmospheric). What spoiled them was Nigel Bruce's bumbling and foolish Watson. Even allowing for artistic licence, it was inconceivable that a man who was a qualified doctor could be so dim!
Two of my favorites where the Spirograph and the Easy Bake oven. I can remember spending hours with the spirograph creating these beautiful, intricate designs, using different colors and shapes. I always found it amazing that you could make these interlocking patterns. But, it never failed, on the very last one, it would skip the gears and make a slash through all my hard work! Then there was the easy bake oven. I remember the cake mix came in these little boxes, just like a real cake mix, only smaller. I used to make them, frost and decorate them, then present them to my mom. I never figured out whether she actually liked them or not, but she always pretended to.
I never had the Easy Bake oven, and I somehow doubt it was even available in South Africa, but I had the Spirograph and loved it too. In fact I'd probably enjoy it now too, and I'm starting to wonder if my set is still packed away somewhere. As I recall, when the patterns got too intricate, they ended up making holes in the paper. I suppose I should have used cardboard, but it never crossed my mind.
My sister and I enjoyed both of these. I particularly liked figuring out how hot a light bulb could get to make the cake bake, got burned a couple of times doing it but only taught me a lesson on how hot a light bulb gets.
It's funny, my mother would tell me once not to touch something hot, or do something that would hurt me. Then she let me do it, and find out for myself why she had said, "no". It didn't take too many of these "teaching" moments for me to figure out that I'd do well to listen to her. Of course today, she would be an "abusive and neglectful" parent!! Nowadays, parents never let their kids learn these types of lessons. You see adults who have no concept of what is safe to do or not. They've never been allowed to fail and learn - I think parents today are crippling their children by bubble wrapping them and keeping them "safe".
My two favorite toys were a Red Ryder 1000 shot BB gun and a bicycle. This was in the late 1940's, before people panicked at the sight of a kid riding a bike down the street carrying a BB gun. Both bike and gun caused me a lot of grief later.