by Bill Peschel
“There,” said Holmes quietly, “have some of mine, I always carry them with me and to their head clearing qualities I owe much of my success—in fact it is part of my SYSTEM to use them in my SYSTEM.”
The Man Who “Bested” Sherlock Holmes
Joseph Baron
This story debuted as “entertaining Christmas reading” in a special holiday edition of the Burnley Express newspaper. An editorial note in the previous week’s edition told readers that Conan Doyle himself “has gone through the MS. of this story, and emphatically pronounced it ‘good’,” placing Baron alongside James M. Barrie as the only authors whose parodies Doyle publicly praised.
“I don’t care what you say,” I claimed, enthusiastically; “my opinion is that Sherlock Holmes will be as great a favorite with posterity as Pickwick or Count Fosco, or anybody else you can name in fiction.”
“Bosh! Rot!” replied my friend. “Don’t libel posterity in that reckless manner; it never did you any harm, and the poor body cannot speak for itself. And why should you imagine it will be so easily imposed upon?”
“But look at his unique individuality—his wonderful reasoning powers,” I retorted.
“Unique and wonderful fiddle-de-dee! I could tell you a story which might somewhat alter your opinions.”
My friend Anderson was a particularly smart private detective, specially retained by a burglary insurance company, and I gave him credit for speaking with a touch of professional jealousy. Still, he had brought off some clever captures and exposed a few people who had attempted to defraud his company, so I was compelled to regard him as an authority. I invited him to proceed with this wonderful yarn of his.
Well—he began—I was just putting the finishing touches to my breakfast one lovely morning—it was the beginning of July—when I heard the sound of wheels in the street, and looking through the window, I saw a neat little dog-cart pull up at my own door. The driver got down and rang the bell, and a minute later my servant brought in a letter, which I opened. It was brief, and ran as follows:—
“Luton Square, E———,
“5th July, 1892.
“Dear Sir,
“I shall be glad to see you as early as possible. A burglary was committed at my house late last night or early this morning, and very valuable property stolen. If you can make it convenient to accompany the bearer, so much the better.
“Yours faithfully,
“J.H. McDonald.”
“The driver is to wait for an answer, sir,” my servant reminded me as I stared at the letter.
“Say I will be with him in less than five minutes,” I replied. So I finished my breakfast, and after referring to the directory for information respecting McDonald, who was, it appeared, a retired army captain, I went downstairs and entered the dog-cart.
On arriving at Luton Square I was shown into the drawing-room, and the captain joined me almost before I was seated. I noticed that his agitation was very great.
“Good morning, Mr. Anderson,” he said, giving me his hand; “I am exceedingly obliged by your prompt compliance with my wishes, and I trust—but before going any further, may I ask if you have any objection to working, if necessary, with a fellow-expert in matters of this kind?”
“None whatever,” I answered; “who is he?”
“A Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” he said; “I understand he is a specialist?”
“He is a remarkably clever man,” I replied.
“Then perhaps you will kindly follow me,” he said; and he led the way to the dining-room and unlocked the door.
“You see,” he explained, “I thought I’d better lock the room up, so that nothing could be disturbed until your arrival—”
“Morning, Kitty, darling,” interrupted a voice, the exact counterpart of the captain’s, finishing with the unmistakable sound of a kiss; then, “How are you, papa?” in a feminine voice. A moment’s reflection convinced me that it was a parrot speaking, and, looking up, I found my surmise to be correct.
“Ah, Poll, old woman,” returned the captain; and motioning me to be seated, he began:—
“First of all, Mr. Anderson, my small household consists of six persons—myself, my wife, my daughter Kate, a cook, a general servant, and the driver who brought you here. The three servants have been in my employ for years, and I would trust them with untold gold. Now, then. Yesterday afternoon I received from Messrs H———and C———, jewellers, of Bond Street, a brooch set with a particularly precious stone—precious to me, and of priceless value by reason of old associations and circumstances connected with it; but I need not trouble you with them. The intrinsic value of the gem may not be more than five hundred pounds, and that of its setting, perhaps another thirty.”
“Keep your hair on, old chap,” said the parrot.
“S-sh, Poll! Well,” continued the captain, “I showed the brooch to my daughter only—for it was to be a surprise gift to my dear wife, on her birthday, and such a gift as she would prefer to anything this world contains, simply on account of the associations I hinted at just now. After hearing Kitty’s rapturous expressions as to its beauty, and her assurance that for a similar present on her twenty-first birthday she would be as agreeably surprised as I could desire, I locked up the trinket in a private drawer of that cabinet in the corner. On coming downstairs this morning, the first thing I did was to go to the cabinet, to feast my eyes with a sight of the brooch, for I had been strangely anxious about it up to going to sleep, and had driven myself to dreaming of it, I suppose, by my anxiety; and ugly dreams they were, too, and you would fully appreciate my anxiety if you were acquainted with the history of the gem, and how it has been endeared to us for a quarter of a century. Mr. Anderson”—and his voice quivered—“imagine my dismay, my agony, when on opening the drawer, I found it was empty! The brooch was gone!”
“The brooch, the brooch,” muttered the parrot.
“I cannot describe my feelings at my loss, and though I am not a rich man, I will willingly pay five hundred pounds for the recovery of the brooch.”
“I will examine the cabinet, with your permission,” I said; and as I rose for the purpose of crossing the room the bird broke forth with:—
“Keep your hair on, old boy” (this in the voice of the driver). “Cook, how are we for butter? Pretty Poll!” The last two remarks in the sweet, feminine tones imitated previously; then in a delicious drawl: “For what we are about to receive, the Lo-ord make us truly thankful.”
“A very clever bird that,” I remarked, casually.
“She is a wonderful talker and mimic,” he replied, and was instantly absorbed in my examination of the lock of the secret drawer.
Here the servant entered with a visiting card.
“Tell the gentleman I will be with him immediately,” and as the servant left the room the captain said:—
“It’s Holmes, so perhaps you’ll excuse me for a short time. I’ll explain things to him, and bring him in to you; in the meantime, make whatever examination you like.”
He had no sooner gone than I made a complete and exhaustive examination of all that I considered bore on the case, but without result.
“Keep your hair on, old boy! Ain’t it ’ot? Woa!”
All this was in the driver’s voice, rendered with phonographic accuracy, even to the slight cockney accent, and as I looked up at the bird, and saw its head on one side and its eye fixed upon me so comically, it flashed across me all at once that it might possibly know something of the brooch.
I was lost in admiration of the parrot when Captain McDonald came into the room with Holmes, whom he introduced to me. Holmes was dressed in boating flannels and looked more like a middle-aged tradesman out for the day than one of the smartest detectives in London.
“I have given Mr. Holmes the particulars I have given you,” explained the captain, as Holmes went to the cabinet and repeated my performance. “Is there anything you would like to know before I leave the room?”
“Nothing just ye
t,” said my colleague.
“Just two questions,” I put in; “first, was the parrot in the cage when you were putting the brooch away?”
“Oh, yes,” answered the captain. And Holmes smiled.
“Did you leave the room for a single moment?” I asked.
“No, I simply opened the two drawers, deposited the brooch, locked them up, and went straight to bed.”
“Thank you,” I said, “that is all I require,” and as he left the room I turned to see what Holmes was doing. He had done with the locks of the drawers, and was engaged at the window, and looking mighty puzzled, I can tell you, when the parrot asked:—
“What’re you staring at?”
“Ah, Mademoiselle Psittacus Erithacus,” said Holmes, “you are very inquisitive this morning.”
“And very insulting, too,” I remarked; “she called me stupid just now.”
“She is a very intelligent bird,” he returned, sarcastically.
“All right, my friend,” I thought, “we shall soon see who is the stupid party. If you can come to any different conclusions cleverer than I give you credit for being.”
Holmes was on the floor looking for footmarks on the velvet pile carpet; but his microscope showed none. Then he took a good look at every inch of the apartment. He walked to the fireplace, then to the door, and finished by re-examining the two locks of the drawers. After this he opened his pocket-knife and began trimming his nails.
“There is a gorgeous simplicity about this affair,” remarked Holmes, “and what the captain tells me makes that simplicity colossal in its gorgeousness. Here we are told that a valuable knick-knack has been stolen; we see for ourselves that no entry has been made from outside; we both know, I think, that the thief must be on the premises, and yet we are told distinctly that we are not to suspect them.”
“Keep your hair on,” screamed the parrot.
“Confound your noise!” cried Holmes, angrily.
“You must remember one thing,” Holmes continued, “and that is that his daughter was very much taken up with the bauble, and expressed a wish to possess one like it. There is only one person for it, Anderson, and Miss Kate McDonald is the thief. And here goes. There is the captain pacing the terrace like a caged lion; I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
I took my head in my hands to have a good, square think before he returned; I went over the simple facts of the case again, but all to no purpose.
The next things I remember were hearing the parrot talking in its cage above me, and the captain and Holmes talking as they came along the hall. The words the parrot said are as indelibly photographed on the tablets of my memory as if it had taken them down in shorthand, with an acid which bit in every syllable.
The parrot said, in the captain’s voice:—
“Brooch, precious brooch; safer, wouldn’t look there. Safe: billiard-table pocket; ha, ha! safe—brooch.”
“My coachman!” the captain was saying, indignantly; “why, the fellow would lay down his life for me.”
“Then there is only one other person for it,” said Holmes, decisively, as they reached the dining-room door.
“And that one?” demanded the captain, turning upon Holmes as they entered.
The latter was slightly pale, but cool.
“Captain, the purloiner of the lost brooch is your—”
He got no farther. Up to this point I had listened as in a dream. I heard, but was unable to speak. I was stunned by the lightning flash which laid bare the whole mystery, and the after-clap was still ringing in my ears. But I roused myself in time to save Holmes’s reputation!
“Allow me, captain,” I hurriedly interrupted, and casting an imploring look at my colleague; “I have made an important discovery since Mr. Holmes left the room. Will you, please, conduct us to the billiard-room?”
I felt instinctively that the mystery would be cleared up there. The parrot could not have uttered those pregnant words without hearing them from some person, nor could it have repeated another person’s words in the captain’s voice, or vice-versa. It was evident to me that McDonald’s uneasiness had caused him to get up in his sleep and—well, I was prepared to go “nap” on the rest. On reaching the billiard-room I said:—
“Mr. McDonald, will you oblige me by feeling in the pockets on that side of the table?”
He did—but it was not there! Had that parrot sold me? I felt like perspiring.
“Feel in the top pocket of this side,” I said.
“What the dickens, sir?” he began, after doing so.
“Now the middle one, if you please, captain.”
Holmes was excited. My heart almost stood still as the captain inserted his hand; oh, how I watched his face! If it were not there, only one other pocket remained, and—but I was relieved of all anxiety by the wondrous change in the captain’s face, as his hand touched the brooch. Such a look of astonishment, joy, and gratitude combined!
“Thank God!” he cried, in a voice of great emotion; and, seizing my hand, he wrung it warmly and long.
“Mr. Anderson,” he said, after a short interval, and pulled out his cheque-book, “I never, in the whole of my life, paid money more willingly than I pay this five hundred pounds.”
“Excuse me, captain,” I replied, “but there is no five hundred pounds due, as there has been no burglary committed.”
To say that both he and Holmes were astonished would but faintly describe their condition; they were, in the expressive phraseology of our Yankee cousins, “flabbergasted!”
“But how did you find it, Mr. Anderson? It is so—so—bless my soul, I can’t understand it.”
“Pardon me, sir, but we never disclose our modus operandi, do we, Mr. Holmes?” and I beamed a meaning smile upon the latter, which went home. “You see, Mr. McDonald, if we detectives and conjurors were to show the public how we did our tricks, we should have the profession crowded in no time, and then—”
“But this discovery was made by no trick.”
“Well, well, we have all sorts of little birds telling us things, eh, Mr. Holmes?”
But Holmes did not take me, for a wonder.
“Just one question, captain, before we go: did you ever read Sylvester Sound, the Somnambulist, by Henry Cockton?”
A light broke upon them both.
“I have read the book, Mr. Anderson,” replied the captain, with a smile of anticipation.
“Well, the next time you think of going in for a little sleep-walking, I would advise you to take the same precaution as Sylvester did in attaching himself to his bedfellow,” and we all laughed heartily at the recollection of the somnambulist’s ruse and its result.
“And,” concluded Anderson, “that charming landscape by David Cox, hung in my den at home, was a present from the captain. What did Holmes say? I’ll tell you, Ah, it was rich the way I rubbed it in.
“‘Anderson,’ said he, ‘I’m obliged by your kindness—the way you did it was fine; but how did you find out about the old fellow walking in his sleep?’
“‘Perhaps, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,’ said I, ‘you noticed a parrot in the room we were in, or possibly so small a thing escaped your attention?’
“‘Go on, old sword of Damocles,’ said he.
“‘Holmes, old chap,’ said I, ‘that parrot was, as you remarked, an intelligent bird—a ve-ry intelligent bird.’ And I roared at the sight of his perplexity.”
I joined my friend in the boisterous laugh he was seized with at the memory of it all. But, while subsequently acknowledging his smartness in taking such ready advantage of so rare an accident, I would not alter my previous estimate of the reception posterity would accord to the chronicled exploits of Sherlock Holmes.
The Late Sherlock Holmes
J.M. Barrie
The last of three parodies that came from Barrie’s pen was published in the St. James’s Gazette on Dec. 29, the same month that “The Final Problem” was published.
SENSATIONAL ARREST
WATSON ACCUSED OF THE
CRIME
(By Our Own Extra-Special Reporters)
12.39 p.m.—Early this morning Mr. W.W. Watson, MD (Edin.), was arrested at his residence, 12a, Tennison-road, St John’s-wood, on a charge of being implicated in the death of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, late of Baker-street. The arrest was quietly effected. The prisoner, we understand, was found by police at breakfast with his wife. Being informed of the cause 0f their visit he expressed no surprise, and only asked to see the warrant. This having been shown him, he quietly put himself at the disposal of the Police. The latter, it appears, had instructions to tell him that before accompanying them to Bow-street he was at liberty to make arrangements for the carrying on during his absence of his medical practice. Prisoner smiled at this, and said that no such arrangements were necessary, as his patient had left the country. Being warned that whatever he said would be used against him, he declined to make any further statement. He was then expeditiously removed to Bow-street. Prisoner’s wife witnessed his removal with much fortitude.
THE SHERLOCK HOLMES MYSTERY
The disappearance of Mr. Holmes was an event of such recent occurrence and gave rise to so much talk that a very brief resume of the affair is all that is needed here. Mr. Holmes was a man of middle age and resided in Baker-street, where he carried on the business of a private detective. He was extremely successful in his vocation, and some of his more notable triumphs must still be fresh in the minds of the public—particularly that known as “The Adventure of the Three Crowned Heads,” and the still more curious “Adventure of the Man without a Wooden Leg,” which had puzzled all the scientific bodies of Europe. Dr. Watson, as will be proved out of his own mouth, was a great friend of Mr. Holmes (itself a suspicious circumstance) and was in the habit of accompanying him in his professional peregrinations. It will be alleged by the prosecution, we understand, that he did so to serve certain ends of his own, which were of a monetary character. About a fortnight ago news reached London of the sudden death of the unfortunate Holmes, in circumstances that strongly pointed to foul play. Mr. Holmes and a friend had gone for a short trip to Switzerland, and it was telegraphed that Holmes had been lost in the terrible Falls of Reichenbach. He had fallen over or been precipitated. The Falls are nearly a thousand feet high; but Mr. Holmes in the course of his career had survived so many dangers, and the public had such faith in his turning-up as alert as ever next month, that no one believed him dead. The general confidence was strengthened when it became known that his companion in this expedition was his friend Watson.
