by Bill Peschel
“Just let matters run along, doctor. The vessels will be returned as soon as their taker learns that they have been missed, that their absence has occasioned alarm and that they are wanted back.”
“But it is impossible,” put in the dean. “If what you say were true, the taker would have learned of the situation by this time and would have straightened matters.”
“Not if he were a member of the faculty outside the chemistry school,” countered Holmes. “Campus gossip, as you know, enters not into the local affairs of the various colleges; it concerns administrative politics mainly.”
Newspapers Would Have Told.
“But the taker would have read of the reported theft in the newspapers, and then, if innocent, hastened to explain,” persisted the dean.
“Not at all,” replied Holmes. “Your typical faculty man prides himself by not reading the newspapers. He says they lack the scientific spirit. He makes no allowance for the circumstances that in so many cases necessarily impair the accuracy of news reports. He pronounces an arbitrary dictum, somewhat amusing from one who is engaged in imparting to others a liberal education, that all newspapers are conscienceless and purposefully inaccurate. He will have none of them. He will read Aristotle and thicken his shell.”
Here I offered a suggestion, though I rarely inject any views of my own when Holmes is at work. “The faculty men,” I said, “may not read the downtown papers, but no doubt they read the Minnesota Daily, the student publication on the campus, and they would have read in that the account of the missing platinum. Surely the professors all read the publication which is prepared by students who are under their daily instruction which, therefore, must reflect in its every article the spirit and the teaching of the faculty.”
I Am Sat Upon.
Holmes smiled the fatherly smile he always gives me when I have made some particularly foolish deduction. “Alas, no,” he said. “You are right in part, but the suggestion will not meet the case. The platinum was taken only a few days ago. The Daily will not have an account of it short of a fortnight.”
Dr. Frankforter arose. “Mr. Holmes,” he said, “will you pardon my hastiness in impugning your reasoning and conclusions? I am convinced you are right. We will watch for developments. Good day.”
Holmes picked up his needle and began jabbing little holes in the newspaper on his knee. “Life is just one little thing after another,” he said.
The Mystery of the Elastic Band
Anonymous
The University of Edinburgh is justly proud of its alumni. Around the school are mounted 35 commemorative plaques honoring great men and women such as physicist Max Born, diarist and biographer James Boswell, physicist Peter Higgs, suffragist Jessie Macmillan, and even Conan Doyle.
But not everyone at the school took everything about Conan Doyle seriously. Here is one of two stories from The Adventures of Herr Lock Shomes that were published in the newspaper The Student, this one in the March 6 issue. They were discovered and republished by John Gibson and Richard Lancelyn Green in My Evening with Sherlock Holmes.
To my mind the unravelling of the mystery of the Elastic Band will always rank as one of Shomes’ greatest exploits. Perhaps in other cases he showed himself more of a sleuth-hound, as in the “Hobble Horror,” or the “Tragedy of the Chinese Cheese-Cake,” but it was in this case that he first showed that power of deductive reasoning which afterwards made him so famous, and on this account I shall recall its more important features.
I well remember the evening on which the events occurred. I had called round to Shomes’ digs to borrow his microscope, for I had a hard winter that year taking Materia Medica and Political Economy, and incidentally German Measles after Christmas. I found Shomes sitting on the floor with his legs curled beneath him, tailor-fashion; on his knees was a drawing-board with a hearthrug on it; in his right hand he held a packing-needle with string attached, and in his left a pipe; before him, propped against a chair, was an open copy of Modern Fashions, and every now and then he consulted the paper, drew diagrams with the stem of his pipe on the rug, and then proceeded to stitch.
“Good evening, Matson,” he said, without altering his position. “I see by the reflection of your nose in the mirror we are in for a wet night.”
Marvelling at his perspicuity, I sank into a sofa and asked him what he was about.
Before replying, Shomes got up and made a thorough inspection of the room, revolver in hand; he even went to the length of lifting the fender, and he peered into a Gladstone bag which I recognised as one he had borrowed, some time before, to carry empty jam jars to the grocer when his funds were low; then he looked through the keyhole to see if the landlady had left her usual post of observation, and satisfied at length, returned and said in a low voice—
“My dear Matson, this is the night of the students’ Fancy Dress Ball. I have information that the Poker Gang will be there, so we shall attend disguised. Be back here disguised in half-an-hour, and bring your flask and tobacco-pouch, for our vigil may be a long one. By the way, order a taxi at the cab office as you pass.”
I left in a hurry, ordered the taxi, and proceeded to disguise myself as a Chinese Mandarin. This rig-out I borrowed from my landlady’s husband who “sandwiched” for the Maypole, and it suited me down to the ground; my landlady’s hair-pad, when plaited, makes an excellent pig-tail, and I flatter myself that a permanent squint I have contracted from gazing at other people’s drinks rather adds to my Oriental appearance.
In this guise, after half-an-hour, I presented myself again before Shomes; he was standing before a mirror clad in jet-black oilskins, sou’-wester, and thigh boots; he was in the act of emptying a carafe of water over his head as I entered, and at my exclamation of astonishment he informed me quietly that he was disguised as a “Dirty Night” and had the hearthrug underneath in case his disguise was penetrated.
Just then a piercing howl rang through the night air. I started in alarm but Shomes calmed me. “Come along, Matson, our taxi’s here,” he said, laying his hand on my arm; “that’s only the dog at the corner run over.”
Shomes’ conclusions were quite correct, and we were soon humming merrily towards the Union.
We were just passing the Infirmary when, at a given signal from Shomes, I opened the door and slid gently into the street; a few yards further on, Shomes dropped off too, ran quickly to the car lines and bent down with his ear to the cable-slot; as I came up I heard him say to himself, “Ha-Ha, like Charley’s Aunt, still running.” Then with a quick glance round he yelled, “Come along, Matson,” and sprinted off towards the Union.
As we rounded the M’Ewan Hall, Shomes leading by a few yards, his top-boots clattering on the pavement, his oil-skins gleaming in the lamplight and flapping behind him as he ran, like the wings of a dying duck, we could see before the Union door the policeman and the taxi-driver, gazing inside the taxi. Both were evidently wondering what had happened to the fare, and the former was taking notes. The hall-porter was looking on apathetically. It needed little skill to circumvent them and gain the Union in safety.
Once in the dancing-hall, I lost Shomes in the crowd of turnip-lanterns, geisha girls, pierrots, and mustard plasters, and was only reminded of his presence by a kick on the shins, and a husky whisper of “Cheer-O” in my ear. Shomes stood beside me, revealing surreptitiously in his hand a black elastic band; with a warning glance he murmured, “Balcony Room, fourth waltz”, and was swallowed up by the crowd.
By the time I had come to the fourth waltz I was beginning to feel uncomfortable, and this feeling was accentuated by the fact that during the waltz my ball-bearing braces had failed me in my hour of need and there was imminent danger of my nether garments and myself parting company. However, at the end of the waltz, my partner and I adjourned to the Balcony Room: it was in total darkness, but after bumping into a few people we at last found a chair and sat down. I remember I was doing my best to make small talk, though inwardly I was wondering what was to happen, an
d was in the middle of an animated discussion with my partner, on the variations of one-step, when there was a crash beside me: a scream, then a dull thud, and I hurried across the room to the switch, tripped over someone and fell, hitting my head against a chair. Light flashed; then inky darkness.
When I came to myself I was lying in Shomes’ digs on a sofa. Before the fire, on the floor, sat Shomes with the hearthrug before him, picking out the stitches with my knife. In front of him lay two dancing-pumps—one with an elastic band, the other without, but with the band lying beside it: by Shomes’ side stood my tobacco-pouch and flask—both empty.
As he picked out the stitches I could hear him murmur, keeping time with his knife:—
“Eetle ottle,
Black bottle,
Betle ottle,
Out.”
The Mystery of the Acetylene Lamp
Anonymous
The second of two stories from the University of Edinburgh’s The Student newspaper takes potshots at student politicians. It’s regrettable that the end of the story reflects racial attitudes that were common at the time.
Of Herr Lock Shomes’s many adventures which have not yet been chronicled, one of the strangest was that connected with the disappearance of the acetylene lamp.
He was busy with one of his intricate chemical experiments, a much-stained copy of Dobbin and Marshall on the desk before him, amid the usual picturesque untidiness of our digs in Warrender Park Road, when suddenly his investigations were cut short in a dramatic manner. From the street came the sound of pattering footsteps, and a figure rather “nattily” dressed, whom I recognized as Ferguson, the President of the Union, precipitated himself through the door and subsided on Shomes’s most comfortable armchair. His anxious countenance spoke of great agitation; he seemed to be on the point of saying something, but took out a large spotted handkerchief and started to weep violently.
The questions on Shomes’s lips was cut short by the equally sudden, though more stertorous, entry of another and bulkier figure, namely D.P. Blades, who wept equally violently, sharing his friend’s handkerchief for this purpose.
“Oh! Mr Shomes,” said No. 1.
“It’s awful,” said No. 2.
“The honor of the University—”
“The reputation of the Union—”
“The falling off in subscriptions—”
“Our chance of re-elections.”
“Matson,” said Shomes, “I think you’ll find a bottle of Johnny Walker under the trap-door behind the gas-meter.”
At these words our visitors sat up, and a faint wan smile stole over their doleful countenances, and by dint of questioning, Herr Lock Shomes managed to elicit their story.
It appeared that a daring burglary had been committed at the Union, a fine acetylene lamp having been removed from the cycle-shed, without any clue to the identity of the criminal being discovered.
Shomes inquired whether they had communicated with Scotland Yard.
“Yes,” said Blades, “Detective Hawkshaw has the case in hand.”
On our arrival at the Union we met the official in question, “Werry perplexin’, sir,” said he, “nothin’ so bad since the last Rectorial; puzzlin’ the best brains of the Force.”
Shomes followed Ferguson round to the cycle-shed. The lock did not appear to have been tampered with, and there were no signs of disturbance within. At the far end of the shed was the bicycle from which the lamp had been taken.
“Ah!” said Shomes meditatively, “1891 model, 142857 h.p. Wrecks.” Then he rummaged in the tool-bag, sniffed at the petrol-tank, “honk-honked” the horn, and finally took a chip off the enamel attached to another bike, and hid under the tarpaulin, emerging with a look of triumph on his face.
“Come along, Matson, I have no doubt our excellent landlady has our tea ready. But first I have a job for you, which I have no doubt you will find quite congenial. I believe your friend Miss Rosemary Caskerville has a dog of some kind.”
“Yes, a thorough-bred Bohemian Tripehound, called Caligula, and known as the Hound of the Caskervilles.”
“Well, go and ’phone up No. 5005 and ask her to lend you him tomorrow.”
I went and did as he requested, Miss Caskerville promising to bring him round to the Old Quad, although he was a bit “off-colour,” having been gorging on scraps from the Cake and Candy Sale.
On my return to our digs, Shomes met me with a chuckle. “We’ve have a great display of energy from Hawkshaw since you left. He’s arrested all of the Union Committee and the S.R.C. that he could lay his hands; he brought a “Black Maria” up to the union painted like a piano-van, and ran in Ferguson, Blades, Mills, Mackay, the Thom Bros., C.L. Warr, Haldane, and Bunny Edwards; in fact everyone worth arresting.”
“Did no one escape?”
“Yes. Georgeson escaped, disguised as a charwoman, and Dickson took refuge in a class, where, of course, he was safe, as it was the last place anyone would think of looking for him; and we, too, have had a narrow escape, as the landlady says a Mr. Lockjaw the Disinfective called for us while we were out.”
“Have you formed any theories about the case yet?” said I.
“My dear Matson, it is simplicity itself. The thief is in the Botany class; yesterday he skipped the lecture, but attended the practical class. How do I know? Well, during my apparently inane actions in ‘honk-honking’ that horn, &c., I found it all without exciting the suspicions of that stupid policeman. On the handle-bars I found a smudge of Canada balsam; as you may know, it is used in preparing botanical slides for the microscope. There were also some red stains; now, Bower and Gwynne-Vaughan’s Practical Botany book has a red cover. But they were not sticky stains; they were wet. Well, yesterday morning there was a sharp shower, though it was fine in the afternoon. Evidently our man ‘cut’ the lecture and went for a stroll under the trees, where the water dripped off the leaves on to his book; in the side-car I found a page of botany notes, the thief having evidently hidden there on being disturbed at his work.”
Next morning Shomes went down to the Botanic Garden, while I went to the old Quad for Caligula. How to get the brute into the garden was indeed a problem, but I had brought a vasculum with me into which I crammed him on getting off the car at the Arboretum gate. But I had not gone far when a ranger stopped me and asked what was in the box.
“Botanical specimens,” said I.
“My dear Matson,” said Shomes, removing his disguise, “botanical specimens are not in the habit of giving a series of muffled whines such as issuing from that vasculum. I think you can release Caligula from his somewhat cramped quarters.”
The class was just coming out. On reaching the laboratory, we set Caligula at liberty, first letting him sniff a damp handkerchief filled with calcium carbide. He ran off coughing and spluttering, his tail between his legs, and started to eat some grass lying on one of the desks. However, on taking him to the front bench, he began pawing at a ventilator covered with perforated zinc immediately under a window. Shomes picked up a botanical razor, and started to prise open the zinc. It resisted his efforts, so seizing a microscope with a heavy foot he used it as a hammer, and soon had the grating open.
With a snuffle of delight the Hound of the Caskervilles made a grab at some object inside, but quick as thought Shomes took it out of his mouth and held it up to me—a peppermint drop!
We stared blankly at each other, quite non-plussed, when Shomes with a laugh said, “I see what it is, Matson. This is the bench where the girls sit at. Some gentleman in the back benches has thrown a peppermint to a friend of his in front; she has failed to catch it, and it has gone down the ventilator; Caligula, preferring the smell of peppermints to that of calcium carbide, for which I can hardly blame him, tried to dig it up out of the grating. Well, that clue has failed. But I see the students have an excursion to North Berwick on Saturday. We shall join them, and see if we can pick up any clue.”
Saturday morning saw Shomes, Caligula, and myself at Tantall
on, disguised as botanists, after a very merry journey down with the class in the guard’s van, where Shomes’s skill on the 6½d. toy bagpipes had made him a general favorite.
Soon our chance came. While hunting for some rare algae, the lecturer slipped into a pool up to his knees. As he stood with “one foot in the water and one foot on the land” he dropped his vasculum, and in picking it up dropped a halfpenny.
Instantly a student from West Africa, known in the class as Aaron, clad in gorgeous yellow boots and “Christy minstrel” striped collar and tie, threw off his coat and ran, not to help Mr Davie, but to grab the halfpenny. Caligula gave a sniff at his coat, and then started coughing and spluttering.
“Ha!” said Herr Lock Shomes. “Calcium carbide; that’s our man.”
That evening we paid a visit to Aaron’s digs. As we opened the door Shomes leveled a pistol at him and shouted, “Hands up, in name and by authority of the Senatus Academicus!”
On hearing these words our prisoner fainted, but we soon brought him round—to the police station.
“An interesting case, Matson,” said Shomes; “I hear that the Senatus have ordered friend Aaron to return to Africa. At any rate they consigned him to a warmer clime.”
Three Timelock Foams Stories
Wex Jones
As part of his weekly humor column, Wex Jones wrote a series of parodies between 1914 and 1916, most of them starring “Timelock Foams, the Great Detective” and his friend, Potson. We’ll reproduce three of the best. Because they were syndicated through the Hearst papers, their publication dates varied widely.
