Sherlock Holmes Victorian Parodies and Pastiches

by Bill Peschel

  “O come now! How do you make—”

  “Look at the handwritings! A man whose mind is distressed doesn’t write such a natty hand as that, all flourishes and whipthongs. He spread his elbows and took his time over it, and if you look narrowly you can see half a dozen brown spots in the middle of the ‘—worthy’ where the ashes puffed out of his pipe and slightly burnt the paper. Depend upon it, we have to deal with some cowardly scamp who, for private ends of his own, has married the girl and then bolted.”

  On the following day we met Mrs. Bagworthy at Lakey’s Hotel by appointment. This establishment is a third-rate house at the bottom of Bloater-street. We were not exactly welcomed by the proprietor.

  “I’m gettin’ sick of this here business,” he shouted, angrily, into our faces.

  “Police for breakfast, police for dinner; we’ve ’ad the ’ole blamed Force down at one time and another.”

  Hoakes explained blandly that we didn’t belong to the Force.

  “I dessay you don’t, neither! But you look as if you’d come out of their ’ands only last week; you’ve got the proper Newgate cut, you ’ave! Here, Tom, show these tramps upstairs to number 17, and keep an eye on the towels.”

  It was a small, square, plainly-furnished apartment. There was no wardrobe, no cupboard, nor any valance to the iron bedstead. Tom Thumb could not have hidden himself in the room. Mrs. Bagworthy rehearsed the details of the mysterious disappearance, showing us where, at the foot of the bed, “Arthur” sat on the tin box, smoking a cigar, whilst she, standing before the closed door, put on her cloak. “He was wearing a chemical diamond pin in his tie—he was always fond of jewellery, was Arthur—and it sparkled so prettily in the gaslight that I spoke about it to him, and the next minute—he had vanished.”

  “And what did you do then?”

  “It gave me a proper turn, Mr. Hoakes, but I didn’t go off. I called ‘Arthur,’ and told him not to be silly, but to come out again—though goodness knows there was nothing for him to hide behind in the room.”

  “They do say,” observed the crumpled waiter Tom, hoarsely, “as the gent had been a amateur Moore and Burgess, and was a good ’and at playin’ the ‘anky-panky.”

  “How dare they say such things of my husband!” cried Mrs. Bagworthy, indignantly. “I’ve never known him do anything but a little thought-reading, in fun; and as for playing the ‘hanky-panky’ on our wedding-day—it’s wicked of you to suggest such things!”

  I have never seen a man so almost inspired as Hoakes was during his examination of that room. The walls, the floors, the chimney, the bed, the washstand, were auscultated with the loving care of a physician sounding a phthisical patient. We stood reverently apart while the scrutiny lasted. As well as the magnifying-glass, he had a small compass, which he deposited at different places and watched with rapt attention. He seemed to be gathering clues as he proceeded, for his eagerness increased, and once or twice he spoke half-aloud—“Yes, yes, as I thought, as I feared! Ah, when an unscrupulous tea-traveller takes to crime, ’tis indeed a corker. He has no match!” Finally he reached the window and searched the woodwork inch by inch with his glass. At length an exclamation burst from him, and he turned with a burning glance on the trembling woman.

  “Did your husband wear a signet ring?”

  “Yes.”

  “Shield-shaped—on his third finger?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  Hoakes drew in a deep breath of triumph.

  “One more question, madam, and I have done. Was your husband partial to a large umbrella?”

  “He frequently carried a large one, as most travellers do.”

  “Did he bring it upstairs with him on the evening of his disappearance?”

  Mrs. Bagworthy reflected a moment. “I believe he did, sir, but I wouldn’t be quite positive.”

  “Thank you,” said Hoakes, quietly, “but I am. And now, I think I can promise you, madam, to produce your lost husband within three days.”

  We next chartered a cab for Camberwell, where Hoakes desired to be introduced to the tin trunk and such personal effects of Mr. Bagworthy’s as his wife was in possession of. On the journey a very curious thing happened. Mrs. Bagworthy and I occupied the back seat, and facing us sat Hoakes. His lens peeped over the edge of his vest-pocket and sparkled vividly in a ray of the March sunlight. Both my companion’s and my own eyes were attracted by its brightness. Suddenly Mrs. Bagworthy remarked:—”

  I wonder why Mr. Hoakes didn’t come with us? I thought he said he wanted particularly to see my husband’s clothing.”

  She turned a pair of dreamy eyes on me as I sat stupidly grinning at my astonishment.

  “I think if you look closer, madam, you’ll see Mr. Hoakes sitting there in front of us.”

  She looked, but obviously without seeing his very palpable presence.

  “There’s no one there,” she said, smiling at what she appeared to think was my little joke. Then it flashed upon me that she was hypnotised, no doubt by the sparkle of the lens. Hoakes and I exchanged nods. In a few moments she came out of her partial trance and chatted to us as if nothing had happened.

  In Bagworthy’s clothes Hoakes read a world of subtle meaning in his most approved style. He construed characteristics of deceit in every fold and wrinkle. “This is no ordinary scoundrel’s waistcoat, Chasemore; see here what I’ve found.” It was a small brass dinner-check with the Queen’s head neatly cut in it. “That’s as good as a half-sovereign on a dark night to a tipsy cabman. And look at this overcoat; look at the long slit and the secret pocket it forms in the lining, right under the armpits. And those slippers—they reek of trickery! You see that bend in the sole, showing his habit of walking about, secretly, on tiptoe! The man’s a monster of hypocrisy and crime!”

  In discussing the case that night Hoakes was becomingly mysterious and reticent, as all good novelists and detectives should be. We agreed that the theory of the instantaneous disappearance was now satisfactorily explained on the assumption that Mrs. Bagworthy had been for the moment hypnotised, probably by the sparkle of the chemical diamond in her husband’s tie, and that during her trance he had slipped away unobserved. But how?—for the employees at the hotel were unanimously confident that he had never come downstairs in the ordinary way.

  Hoakes tapped me significantly on the knee.

  “What was he doing with that umbrella upstairs?”

  “But that explains nothing,” I objected.

  “It explains everything. He used it as a parachute! I saw the marks of his boots and his signet-ring outlined in the soft ashwood of the window-sill. He climbed out that way and floated down into the stable-yard, unnoticed in the dark.”

  Next evening I called at Butcher-avenue, and found a seedy-looking cab-driver asleep in his hat by the fire. It was Hoakes.

  “I’ve had a heavy day,” he explained. “This is my third disguise since morning.”

  “Have you been successful?”

  “Very. I’ve got my man well in hand, and I shall be up with him to-morrow. He thinks he’s going to Antwerp on the noon boat, but I don’t!”

  “You’ve seen him, then?”

  “Not yet. But I’ve seen his other wife and the children. Oh, yes—very much married man—nice little house and shop in the Commercial-road—sells German yeast—under an alias, of course. Ran him to earth by means of his trouser-buttons. You remember I cut one off yesterday and measured the trousers. Well, I found his tailor, to whom, of course, he figures under his German yeast alias—‘Augustus Bundelman.’ Same initials, you observe. Had a chat with his little wife, and surprised the confession from her that her husband’s favourite dish is—apple dumplings! That’s corroboration I should hope? Oh, we’ve got him fairly!”

  “And how will you proceed to-morrow? For heaven’s sake, be careful, Hoakes, do nothing rash!”

  “It’s plain sailing now. I shall go down to St. Katherine’s Wharf disguised as a dock-hand; Mrs. Bagworthy will be there to identify him
, and we nail my little man as he steps on board.”

  “Well, good luck, and let me hear from you to-morrow night.”

  I did hear from him. At seven a policeman brought a note to my shop, as urgent as a four-line “whip.”

  “Come at once—identify me—bail me—save me!”

  I found my friend extremely dishevelled and depressed. He looked so life-like a dock-hand that I did not wonder at the police discrediting his assertions to the contrary. Had we been Frenchmen we should have wept on each other’s shoulders.

  “My poor Hoakes, how did it all happen?”

  “My cursed luck again,” he moaned. “She didn’t come in time—Mrs. Bagworthy—the boat was about to start—he came on board—something had to be done—I charged him—he denied it, denied everything—I dragged him ashore—there was an awful row—the boat went off—we fought and then gave each other in charge—they’ve let him go on his own recognizances, but they won’t believe I’m not a dock-hand. It’s too late to bail me to-night, so go down and bring up Mrs. Bagworthy, and let us have an explanation.”

  Away I posted to Camberwell. Imagine my surprise when I was precipitated, by a flurried servant-girl, into the presence of the re-united bride and bridegroom, sitting hand in hand by the fire.

  “Oh, for shame of yourself, sirs,” I cried, “dallying in the lap of pleasure while the man who dragged you from the Antwerp boat and the paths of crime is groaning on a bed of straw!”

  My rhetoric was florid, but well-meant. Up started Mrs. Bagworthy.

  “Sir, how dare you! And poor Arthur only just come out of hospital!”

  “Well,” I said, “it was his own fault. He shouldn’t have struck Hoakes. He should have come off the boat quietly.”

  Then it all came out. We were talking at sixes and sevens. Mr. Bagworthy rose and explained, while I sat and humbly listened, for self and Hoakes. He was not Mr. Bundelman, and never had been. On the evening of his disappearance, not noticing his wife’s temporary trance, he had quietly walked downstairs to await her in the street. There he had been knocked down by a hansom and hurried off insensible to hospital, but for three weeks he had suffered from “aphasia” or aberration of speech, and was quite unable to put his thoughts and wishes into intelligible words or writing. He couldn’t even give his own name and address. As for the incident of the apple-dumpling, he confessed, with some confusion, that he had removed it from the dish and popped it into a large envelope he had in his pocket, being extremely fond of cold dumpling, with the intention of eating it later on. He further supposed that the packet was jerked out of his pocket by the collision, and picked up eventually by some honest soul, who, finding it already addressed and stamped, consigned it to the post.

  “This will be a sad blow for my poor friend,” I said. “His chain of evidence was so complete, beginning with the parachute-descent and the trouser-buttons, and ending triumphantly at the German yeast shop. I will bid you goodnight and break the news to him in his lonely cell.”

  The action of Bundelman v. Hoakes resulted disastrously for my friend. I expect him out at the end of next week.

  The Yellow Cockroach

  “A. Cone and Oil” (Charles C. Rothwell)

  The Rothwell stories are unusual in that it posits Holmes—renamed Sherwood Hoakes—as a jailbird. The previous story mentions the “Newgate cut,” the haircut that prisoners receive and which Hoakes has to cover up with a skull cap when out in public. This story refers to the plank bed that inmates sleep on and the treadmill that they walk on as punishment. It appeared in the May 28 edition of The Ludgate Weekly.

  Next to the great “Crumpet mystery,” which, as no doubt you remember, stirred London to its inmost heart, and went very near bringing my poor friend to the gallows, all innocent as he was, but too easily confiding, the case which most thrilled the popular imagination at the time, filling the newspapers with sensational columns under the heading of “What’s become of the Bishop?” is the one I am about to lay before you. I had seen nothing of Hoakes for several weeks, though I never failed to glance at his succinct little “ad” every morning in the second column of the Daily Caterwaul. On my last visit at Butcher-avenue, I had found him much ruffled in his temper and rather out of spirits. It transpired that some officious old clergyman of the neighbourhood had called on him, and in the the kindliest way had invited him to attend their annual thieves’ supper, and give the company a short account of his personal experiences before reformation and after.

  “It’s Scotland Yard has done this,” he said bitterly. “It’s they who disseminate these libels against my professional character. I admit that I’ve been unfortunate in one or two of my cases, but, having expiated my errors of judgment on the plank bed without a murmur, why should the police be for ever throwing the treadmill in my teeth? They’re jealous of me—bitterly jealous of me, Chasemore—that I know for a fact.”

  Some six weeks elapsed before I heard from Hoakes again. One night I was on the point of closing up my place of business (I am so much of a dispensing chemist that I dispense with all business after eight o’clock), when a young and unprepossessing man, wearing an ostler’s sleeved vest, stepped to the counter and handed me a bottle done up in brown paper and sealed.

  “What’s this for, my man?”

  “I dunno. The directions is inside.”

  It was an old medicine bottle, of a particularly disreputable cast of countenance. Its stopper was a bit of paper, screwed up. There was no prescription accompanying it, and, from the smell, I judged the bottle had last held unsweetened gin. I unrolled the improvised cork, and, to my astonishment, found it was a short note from Sherwood Hoakes, in hurried pencil:

  “Dear Chasemore,—Come if you can, and as soon as you can. Here’s a mystery with a vengeance, and some queer folk concerned in it. Fill the bottle with water, and seal with red wax if you can come to-night, and with black if you can’t. Charge the man 6d. for the ‘medicine’ . . . S.H.

  “At the sign of the ‘Jew’s Harp,’

  “Cohen-street, East,

  “Putney.”

  I was at Putney by half-past nine, but only after some difficulty did I find the “Jew’s Harp,” in Cohen-street East. It proved to be a mean little alehouse situated in a most unhandsome quarter. I pushed on into the barroom at the bottom of the unclean passage, and came upon a man sitting dozing beside a small fire in a rusty grate. A two-days’ old beard stippled his chin and cheeks; a wisp of blue neckcloth supplied the place of a collar; his clothing would have been a dear purchase at sixpence.

  “Who are you?” he demanded, “but cub id and sit dowd.”

  “Pretty good in its way,” I said; “but you’re playing at the ostrich with its head in the sand. Your nails are too clean, Hoakes, my boy, for your present character.”

  “Well, that’s true,” he said. “But this is only a dress rehearsal. The curtain doesn’t rise on me till to-morrow.”

  “Who are you then?”

  “Mine host’s brother-in-law; he’s the landlord here, a Jew, and rejoices in the name of Raphael Lewis. He’ll be back presently. It’s a case of sudden death, entailing a suspicion of foul play. The coroner’s jury were satisfied that the evidence showed ‘natural causes’—namely, excessive drink. But Lewis isn’t satisfied; the man in question was his brother Lazarus, better known as Lazy Lewis. He did odd jobs for all sorts of people; when he was sober he was incorrigibly idle and thievish, but, oddly enough, when drunk he appears to have been a fairly decent, civil fellow, and honest in his bemused way. On the fifth and sixth of last month he was working for an old gentleman here whom they call ‘the Bishop,’ and who was in fact formerly the Bishop of British Gambogia; on the afternoon of the 7th, Lazarus staggered into this room, dazed and drunk, and lay down on that settle. He was coughing violently, and his brother concluded that he was seriously ill, and sent for a doctor. But he died within five minutes, and the only intelligible words he uttered were, ‘the yellow cockroach!’ which he gasped
out twice, and then coughed up the ghost.”

  “Post mortem on him?”

  “Yes; but all it disclosed was the drunkard’s typical cirrhosed liver, quite enough to account for his death.”

  “Does Lewis pretend to find any meaning in the words used by his brother, ‘yellow cockroach’?”

  “None whatever; but the dying man uttered them with such emphasis, that Lewis is convinced they contain some reference to the cause of his death.”

  “Have you any other clue?”

  Hoakes rose and took a bundle from a cupboard, and spread the contents on the table.

  “The deceased’s clothes. Neither beautiful nor odoriferous, are they? Look at the boots—drunkard’s boots—soles showing how he habitually dragged his feet. The vest betrays a trembling hand—front all stained with spilt liquor. This long thread is my most important clue; notice the bit of carefully modelled cobbler’s-wax at the end of it.”

  “It has been used to fish up something, you think?”

  “Yes; those particles of yellow dust on it tell their tale to an instructed eye. That, and this bent old tin-whistle, are all the materials I have to probe the mystery with.”

  While we were examining the clothes, our landlord, Raphael Lewis, came in. He regarded my presence with obvious surprise and suspicion, and I looked upon him without experiencing anything approaching pleasure. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and they were partly rolled up, and he wore a dingy pot hat tilted back on his ears. His face had an unhealthy “doughy” look, a mean and sensual expression; and his watery, uncertain eyes warned everyone who looked into them not to trust their owner, however plausible his tongue. He looked more like a brutish Gentile than a cunning Jew, although he spoke catarrhally through his “dose.”