Sherlock Holmes Victorian Parodies and Pastiches

by Bill Peschel

  I was just dressing for dinner—a practice it seems that the Americans have imitated us in—at the club which I was making my residence in New York when a servant knocked at the door and informed me that a gentleman who gave the name of the senior member of one of the leading firms of American publishers was waiting for me in the visitors’ room. I was somewhat annoyed by the inopportune moment of his call, and perhaps I was a trifle brusque in my greeting when, after keeping him waiting half-an-hour or so, I strode into the visitors’ room, where sat a man wearing that expression of obsequious deference that is common to a publisher in the presence of an author.

  “Ah, ‘Doctor’ Watson,” said this person in a tone that was strangely familiar. “How did you enjoy your walk down Broadway this morning? And what do you think of the Stock Exchange? And how does the city look from the top of a 29-story building?”

  I staggered and almost fainted. Indeed, I was compelled to lean upon the mantel for support, for my visitor was none other than Sherlock Holmes! He had sent up the name of the publisher in order to give me an all the more agreeable surprise. I will spare my readers the sentimental details of the proceedings immediately following this revelation. After I had again and again embraced the friend I had mourned as dead, and had made him repeat for the hundredth time the story of his marvelous rescue by a ship bound for China, whence he had reached New York that day, via San Francisco, I said, “I suppose it was my manager who directed you to me here. And he told you of our stroll about the city this morning, did he?”

  “On the contrary,” replied Sherlock Holmes, “I haven’t spoken to another soul, except to give my cabman your address and the servant here a wrong name, since I arrived in town, just about an hour ago.”

  “How on earth, then,” I exclaimed, “did you know that I had visited the Stock Exchange and gone up on the top of a building? But, of course, that is only clever conjecture, since this is the usual route for a stranger in New York on his first day. However, that does not explain how you came by my address!”

  “Not exactly conjecture,” said Holmes carelessly. “You were driven to this club from the steamship pier. And, after remaining here for about an hour, you went out with two other men, walked down Broadway to Wall Street, spent half-an-hour in the gallery of the Stock Exchange, walked back to the World building and went up in the lift to the roof, came to the club to luncheon, and then went to your manager’s office, where you were interviewed by a dozen newspaper reporters.”

  This had been exactly the programme of the day. And, accustomed as I was to Sherlock Holmes’ miraculous power of drawing conclusions where apparently no premises exist, I was startled more than I care to admit.

  “Tell me,” I blurted, “by what course of reasoning you have acquired these facts.”

  “What have I told you,” asked Holmes somewhat impatiently, “about deduction and analysis?”

  “But you have had no data to go on,” I protested. “I am not even wearing the clothing I had on this morning.”

  “When I tell you how I became aware of your movements today,” observed my friend with a laugh, “you will be astounded at your stupidity. Just think over what means there are of reaching the conclusion I have arrived at. Remember what I have told you before—that when every possible theory is proved false, the impossible one, if it is the only one remaining, is the right one.”

  After fruitlessly racking my brains until it was too late to keep my dinner engagement I said, “Since you tell me that you have had no conversation about my itinerary with anyone since your arrival in town an hour ago, I confess that I can find no possible explanation for your knowledge of my movements during the day. For Heaven’s sake do not keep me in suspense any longer. Tell me by what course of deduction and analysis you have drawn so accurate conclusions in this instance.”

  “I read it all in the afternoon papers,” said Sherlock Holmes, yawning.

  This contemptible trick I can never forgive. Sherlock Holmes is again dead to me.

  The Sign of the ‘400’

  R.K. Munkittrick

  Richard Kendall Munkittrick (1853-1911) was a humorist and editor of Puck (1881-1889) and Judge (1901-1906). He was born in Manchester, England, but moved to Jamaica and then the U.S. A sample of his humor can be seen when a magazine asked him to contribute a brief biography:

  “Descended from a race of clergymen and drunkards, I am a natural born lotus eater. Would rather loaf a week than work an hour. Left school at 15 and went into the dry goods business. Remained five years, and knew less of the mysteries of business than when I started. Then a position was secured for me on an East River steamboat. I once received a load of bran in a thundershower, and I showed my sympathy for the family of Gen. Rawlins by shipping his body to Connecticut for 50 cents—putting him through at the rate charged for a barrel of apples. Then I quit. Have been hammering a living out of writing since ’76.”

  The “400” in the story, which appeared in the Oct. 24 issue of Puck, refers to the social elite of New York City, based, according to legend, on the number of people who could fit into Mrs. William Astor Jr.’s ballroom.

  For the nonce, Holmes was slighting his cocaine and was joyously jabbing himself with morphine—his favorite 70 per cent solution—when a knock came at the door; it was our landlady with a telegram. Holmes opened it and read it carelessly.

  “H’m!” he said. “What do you think of this, Watson?”

  I picked it up. “COME AT ONCE. WE NEED YOU. SEVENTY-TWO CHINCHBUGGE PLACE, S.W.,” I read.

  “Why, it’s from Athelney Jones,” I remarked.

  “Just so,” said Holmes, “call a cab.”

  We were soon at the address given, 72 Chinchbugge Place being the town house of the Dowager Countess of Coldslaw. It was an old-fashioned mansion, somewhat weather-beaten. The old hat stuffed in the broken pane in the drawing room gave the place an air of unstudied artistic negligence, which we both remarked at the time.

  Athelney Jones met us at the door. He wore a troubled expression. “Here’s a pretty go, gentlemen!” was his greeting. “A forcible entrance has been made to Lady Coldslaw’s boudoir, and the famous Coldslaw diamonds are stolen.”

  Without a word Holmes drew out his pocket lens and examined the atmosphere. “The whole thing wears an air of mystery,” he said, quietly.

  We then entered the house. Lady Coldslaw was completely prostrated and could not be seen. We went at once to the scene of the robbery. There was no sign of anything unusual in the boudoir, except that the windows and furniture had been smashed and the pictures had been removed from the walls. An attempt had been made by the thief to steal the wallpaper, also. However, he had not succeeded. It had rained the night before and muddy footprints led up to the escritoire from which the jewels had been taken. A heavy smell of stale cigar smoke hung over the room. Aside from these hardly noticeable details, the despoiler had left no trace of his presence.

  In an instant Sherlock Holmes was down on his knees examining the footprints with a stethoscope. “H’m!” he said; “so you can make nothing out of this, Jones?”

  “No, sir,” answered the detective; “but I hope to; there’s a big reward.”

  “It’s all very simple, my good fellow,” said Holmes. “The robbery was committed at three o’clock this morning by a short, stout, middle-aged, hen-pecked man with a cast in his eye. His name is Smythe, and he lives at 239 Toff Terrace.”

  Jones fairly gasped. “What! Major Smythe, one of the highest thought-of and richest men in the city?” he said.

  “The same.”

  In half an hour we were at Smythe’s bedside. Despite his protestations, he was pinioned and driven to prison.

  “For heaven’s sake, Holmes,” said I, when we returned to our rooms, “how did you solve that problem so quickly?”

  “Oh, it was easy, dead easy!” said he. “As soon as we entered the room, I noticed the cigar smoke. It was cigar smoke from a cigar that had been given a husband by his wife. I could
tell that, for I have made a study of cigar smoke. Any other but a hen-pecked man throws such cigars away. Then I could tell by the footprints that the man had had appendicitis. Now, no one but members of the ‘400’ have that. Who then was hen-pecked in the ‘400,’ and had had appendicitis recently? Why, Major Smythe, of course! He is middle-aged, stout, and has a cast in his eye.”

  I could not help but admire my companion’s reasoning, and told him so. “Well,” he said, “it is very simple if you know how.”

  Thus ended the Coldslaw robbery, so far as we were concerned.

  Of course, Jones got all the credit. I showed the newspaper accounts to Holmes. He only laughed, and said: “You see how it is, Watson, Scotland Yard, as usual, gets the glory.” As I perceived he was going to play “Sweet Marie” on his violin, I reached for the morphine, myself.

  R.K. Munkittrick

  On the Threshold of the Chamber of Horrors

  Montgomery Carmichael

  A notorious murder trial which ended up involving Madame Tussaud’s wax museum in a libel suit no doubt inspired this pastiche. The Chamber of Horrors was a section of the museum set aside to display wax models of murderers and other criminals, sometimes with the actual relics connected to their crimes. The previous year, tutor Alfred John Monson was tried in the shooting death of his pupil on the grounds of Ardlamont Estate in Scotland. Despite expert testimony against him by Dr. Joseph Bell, Conan Doyle’s inspiration for Holmes, Monson received the uniquely Scottish verdict of “not proven.” Soon after, Madame Tussaud’s placed an effigy of Monson in its “Ardlamont Mystery” display in its Chamber of Horrors. Monson sued for libel and won, but received only one farthing in damages. It did not help his case that he had offered to sit for the model and contributed the clothing he wore on that fatal day.

  “On the Threshold” appeared in the Oct. 27 edition of The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News. Montgomery Carmichael (1857-1936) was a Roman Catholic who left his hometown of Birkenhead, studied in Germany, and, as a member of the Consular service, spent the rest of his life in Italy. He wrote books on Tuscan towns, literary essays, Catholic art, and a “biography” of an English Roman Catholic convert that was later revealed as fiction.

  It was five weeks or more now that Edward Clay had been “wanted” for the revolting and mysterious murder at Manchester, known as the London-road murder. The police, said the Press, were “very reticent” on the subject, and for a good reason; they possessed not the faintest clue to Clay’s whereabouts.

  Meanwhile he was living peaceably at a dingy little Temperance Hotel in Bloomsbury, taking his walks abroad by daylight in his ordinary apparel, and quietly enjoying the proceeds of an embezzlement of £1,000.

  It was thanks, perhaps to his very ordinary appearance, that Clay had hitherto escaped police vigilance. Any man more like the general impression of man it would be difficult to imagine. He was a fourth-rate trainer by profession, but there was nothing at all horsey in his appearance. Then he was neither tall nor short, stout nor thin, fair nor dark, nor was there the faintest irregularity or peculiarity in his features. He wore a blue melton overcoat with velvet collar, a brown billycock, a white pique tie with imitation pearl pin, and he usually carried the commonplace hazel stick that every other man in London carries. In short, his whole appearance was neutral and inconspicuous, and as he strolled down Baker-street, no human being on the pavement looked less like a notorious murderer than Edward Clay.

  But as he strolled down Baker-street, his eyes happened to wander up to a window. Two men were looking down into the street, one cadaverous, clean-shaven, his keen face full of power and intelligence, the other heavy, common-place, good-natured, with a thick moustache hiding his indolent mouth. Clay recognised in the former a celebrated detective, and started slightly. Perhaps the start betrayed him. Both men suddenly disappeared from the window. Clay quickened his pace. After walking a hundred yards, he turned and saw both the men on the doorstep. They began to follow him briskly.

  Clay turned down the Maryle-bone road, and being no longer under observation ran hastily over to the St. John’s Wood Station of the underground railway. He looked up at the clock—one minute to two; he had just time to catch the train. He took a ticket to Willesden, his intention being when there to walk over to the great junction, and get a North London train back to Broad-street. But would not the detective have time to be upon him before the train started? He looked cautiously out of the station entrance, and it was well for his safety that he did. The detective had divined his plan, and was just disappearing into the northern entrance of the “Circle” station, no doubt with the intention of finding his way to the St. John’s Wood platform by a circuitous route and unexpectedly pouncing on his prey. The detective’s friend was coming along the Marylebone-road towards the St. John’s Wood Station. In thirty seconds more Clay’s retreat would be completely cut off. If he went into the station, there he would find the detectives; if he waited where he was the detective’s friend would soon be up with him. He turned, into the street, and began to walk briskly towards Portland-road.

  Arriving opposite the entrance to Madame Tussaud’s, Clay looked back. The detective’s friend was following; his eyes were cast down; he was trying to look unconscious, and was really looking supremely self-conscious all the while.

  A “New-road” bus was passing. Clay deliberated as to jumping on to it, but pursuit would have been easy. At that instant the detective emerged from the St. John’s Wood Station. Clay was seized with momentary panic and did a seemingly foolish thing; he darted into Madame Tussaud’s. As he was paying his shilling, he realised that he had walked into a trap. In some confused way he still hoped to dodge behind the figures and escape. He walked quickly upstairs, and proceeded to the end room.

  Presently a smothered exclamation escaped him. There, very near the entrance to the Chamber of Horrors, was his own effigy in wax! There he stood, in blue melton overcoat and brown billycock and white pique tie, resting on his commonplace hazel. It was a wonderful piece of work. Clay had enjoyed reading its praises in the papers, but he was not prepared for so perfect a counterfeit presentment.

  And now a genuine inspiration occurred to him. He lifted the wax figure, carried it across the room, and hid it behind the effigy of a British peer in his flowing robes. It was only two in the afternoon; not a single visitor was in the place; a sleepy attendant was dozing at the other end of the room. He had been unobserved. Then he went back and put himself in the place of his own effigy, and gazed fixedly into space.

  He had not long to wait for his pursuers. The two men were soon standing in front of him.

  “Here’s his effigy, at all events,” observed the great detective. “It’s the best bit of wax-work I’ve ever seen. I saw it last week, and that’s how I recognised the man to-day; but, upon my word, it’s even more life-like than I thought.”

  “Yes,” replied the friend, “it’s really wonderful. It’s positively alive. The skin isn’t hard and shiny like wax. It really has that half-grimy look that the best of men get after running about Manchester for a day.”

  “I congratulate the establishment,” said the detective. “But we mustn’t allow the original to escape us while we are admiring the model. I expect, though, we shall find him where his model will soon follow—in the Chamber of Horrors.”

  “St!” cried the other, suddenly, a look of pride and triumph illuminating his good-natured features, “there he is—don’t you see—skulking behind that portentous-looking noble lord on the other side of the room. I shouldn’t have seen him if the fool had taken his hat off. Shall I go round the other way so as to cut off his retreat?”

  The detective considered the situation with a rapid glance. “No need for that,” he said; “he can’t escape us now. I think we may as well add a little refined torture to my gentleman’s agony. He richly deserves it.”

  The two men went across and sat down opposite the effigy of the majestic peer, the detective in full enjoyment of
the idea of starving out his victim. “Now then, my friend,” he said aloud, “when you’re tired of skulking you can come out. I’m in no hurry.”

  The Edward Clay of flesh and blood could now relax his features, and they softened into a smile of contempt and triumph. He bent down low, and crouching down, stole noiselessly from the room. Then, erect and leisurely, he strolled down the stairs, walked out into the street, and then back to the St. John’s Wood Station. There was no hurry; he realised that the detective, with his design of refined torture, was making him a present of an abundance of precious time. No watch had been set for him, for his adversary preferred reserving to himself the whole glory of his triumphs. In five minutes more Clay was whirling away in a train of the St. John’s Wood line.

  The two men continued to sit in silence for a quarter of an hour or more.

  “He keeps wonderfully still, doesn’t he?” observed the friend.

  “Yes,” replied the detective, “but I don’t envy him his sensations. Perhaps, however, the poor devil’s had enough of the rack now.” He rose from his seat, reached over the hereditary legislator, and with his cane rapped the shoulder of the wax image of Edward Clay. “Come along, my friend,” he observed facetiously, “come out of that. I don’t wish to be too hard upon you.”

  “Hi!” shouted an excited voice behind them. “Hi! Wot are yon doin’ to them figgers? I seed ye! I’ll ’aye ye run in as sure as my name’s—” An attendant gesticulating furiously came up to them.