Despite the fact that I am a one-person interdisciplinary team, I need the help of collaborators to solve crimes. Even I can't know (do) it all. It is necessary to divide the labour of solving crimes among a team of specialists, coordinated, of course, by myself as a generalist. I had many other collaborators beside my good friend Watson.

Various inspectors from Scotland Yard also served as somewhat stolid sounding-boards. Having access to the vast facilities of Scotland Yard, they were able to do much of the hard slogging work. The information thus acquired they would, from time to time, pass on to me when they reluctantly sought my help on a case in which they had plodded down a cul-de-sac and reached a dead-end.

Other collaborators did things for me which I did not have the time or energy to do myself. The Baker Street Irregulars - a gang of street urchins - could be counted on to collect information when an official presence would have scared off my quarry [SIGN]. Merger, my general utility man, could help with leg work and thus save my energies for larger issues [CREE].

Other collaborators could provide information which I did not want to keep up to date. Shinwell Johnson had the credentials of being an ex-convict and thus could provide information about the underworld when I needed it [ILLU]. Langdale Pike, London's foremost gossip, provided some information which contributed to the solution of a case [3GAB]. There is little point in cluttering my mind with the gossip, whether of the social set or of the underworld, which has, by its very nature, a short shelf life. My mind gravitates to general principles rather than specific facts which vary from day to day.