The Game Is Afoot for Griffith Park Irregulars : Sherlock Holmes: Fans of the English sleuth re-enact Reichenbach Falls episode, despite a lack of water.

Fans of Sherlock Holmes had a real mystery on their hands Saturday when they set out in Los Angeles to re-create the “death” 100 years ago of the fictional English sleuth in a plunge over a waterfall.

Despite their best detective work, members of the Sherlock Holmes society could not track down a waterfall in drought-plagued Los Angeles.

So they re-created that, too, as they acted out Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s finale for the Sherlock Holmes series, “The Final Problem,” during a 5 1/2-hour odyssey that took them from Glendale to Griffith Park.

Doyle resurrected the detective 10 years later in “The Return of Sherlock Holmes.”

As costumed mystery fans portraying Sherlock Holmes and archvillain Professor James Moriarty repeated their lines and pretended to wrestle at the edge of a make-believe Reichenbach Falls in Fern Dell, John Sohl of Canoga Park climbed to the top of a dried-up hillside spring and emptied a bucket of water.

The scene Saturday afternoon jolted other visitors at the popular fern grotto east of Hollywood.

But members of the local Sherlock Holmes society--the Non-Canonical Calabashes--took it in stride. They’re used to cliffhangers.

Doyle’s mystery-solving Sherlock Holmes character has become the world’s most popular fictional figure, said Sean Wright, 41, a writer and founder of the 100-member local society. “His stories evoke the Victorian era. And we all want to think we can solve puzzles. Sherlock Holmes is the exemplar of the rational man.”

Wearing a lab coat, a stethoscope and turn-of-the-century looking eyeglasses, Wright portrayed Holmes’ sidekick Dr. Watson during Saturday’s re-enactment.

Jerry Kegley, a 29-year-old banker from Montrose, played Professor Moriarty. Chuck Kovacic, 41, a television actor from Panorama City, played Sherlock Holmes.

The 50 Holmes fans who gathered for breakfast in a wood-paneled room at the Tam O’Shanter Restaurant in Atwater Village were given clues.

Their journey took them to the Glendale train station, Griffith Park’s Travel Town and merry-go-round, a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house in Los Feliz and the Greek Theater before directing them to the make-believe waterfall at Fern Dell.

Brian Malion, a Burbank chef, said he stayed up until 5:30 a.m. Saturday making his costume from military surplus trousers and a thrift shop vest.

He said he learned of the Holmes event after seeing a flyer at a Hollywood record store.

“Sherlock Holmes has always been a hero of mine,” he explained as he pulled an English police whistle from his vest pocket to give it a toot.

“I just didn’t know there are other people who felt the same way,” he said.

So Malion felt at home surrounded by bowler-clad Rich Lainhart, a heavy-equipment operator from Burbank, and Bill Goldstein, a workers compensation claims director from Encino who sported a deerstalker cap.

“Most people will tell you they started reading Sherlock Holmes at about age 10, when they were sick in bed with the measles or something,” said Lynn Fish, a social worker from Culver City who also was wearing a checkered deerstalker hat.

Diana Grant, a homemaker from Pasadena, wore a harried look as she searched for clues. She had her three children in tow--Elizabeth, 6 weeks old; Joshua, 19 months, and Sarah, 3 1/2.

“Events like these are the only time I get a chance to use my brain and have fun,” Grant said.

Cleo Sefton, a hotel sales manager from Orange, agreed.

“Sherlock Holmes is a one-of-a-kind character. The stories leave you wanting to read more,” she said.

In the end, the waterfall ran out of water before Holmes and Moriarty ran out of their lines during Saturday’s finale.

It was an open-and-shut case.