Sherlock Holmes Victorian Parodies and Pastiches

by Bill Peschel

  “Madam,” he replied with much formality, “permit me to present my best friend, Woctor Dotson. Whatever I may hear he may hear, and unless you speak to both of us you cannot speak at all.”

  I had risen to withdraw from the room when the lady protested against my presence and now sat down again.

  “With your assurance,” she said to Sholmes, “I will tell you my story and implore your assistance. My husband—”

  “I beg your pardon, madam,” interrupted Sholmes, “you have not told me your name or his.”

  “Oh, excuse me,” she said, quite embarrassed. “I am Mrs. Calbro, of—”

  “Fourteen Bertry Square, and your husband is Henry M. Calbro,” interrupted Sholmes, fairly taking the words out of her mouth.

  Sholmes laughed at the consternation of his visitor, for she was violently affected by his words, and, after calming her, she went on.

  “As I was about to say,” she said, shrinking away from him, “my husband disappeared two days ago, and I have seen nothing of him since. He had just received quite a large sum of money and as he was met by three men just after leaving the house, I greatly fear something has happened to him.”

  Sholmes studied her critically through his fingers as he set deep in his chair listening to her story.

  “Your husband was a man about six feet tall, l believe,” said Sholmes, in that confident manner which always provoked me.

  “Yes,” she replied, starting nervously.

  “Dark eyes; almost black?”

  “Yes.”

  “One front tooth gone. Or rather I should say, a false tooth?”

  “Y-yes,” stammered the visitor, half in fear.

  “Will you be kind enough to state the amount of money he had on his person when you last saw him?” asked Sholmes, peering at her closely.

  “I am not sure, but I think there was £94.”

  Sholmes shook his head as if disturbed. “Four men in the party,” he said to himself, “and only three shillings left.”

  The visitor stared at him, but he offered no explanation.

  “Your husband, madam, was of bibulous habits also, was he not?” he asked politely, but still with the confidence of certain knowledge.

  “Periodically only,” she said, trying to shield him.

  “The worst kind,” responded Sholmes. “I think I am not mistaken,” he continued, “in saying that he had on, when you last saw him, a silk hat, dark clothes, stylishly made, and wore patent leather shoes, No. 9?”

  It was so like a revelation to the wife that she rose from her chair and paced the apartment in nervous excitement.

  “How do you know these things?” she exclaimed. “You did not know him, I’m sure, for he would have told me. He always told me everything,” and she broke into a flood of tears.

  “Calm yourself, my dear madam, calm yourself,” said Sholmes, soothingly. “I can do nothing for you now, but if you will return to your home and have confidence in my ability to restore him to you all will be well.”

  “But when—when?” she asked imploringly.

  “Of course,” he said to her in cold, businesslike tones, “in such cases as these there can be no absolute certainty, for the very slightest events may throw out of line every calculation the shrewdest of us make; but I think by day after to-morrow at noon your husband will be with you.”

  “Alive and well?” she asked with trembling eagerness.

  Sholmes hesitated for an instant.

  “Alive, yes,” he answered, “and as well as could be expected under the circumstances.”

  She would have asked more of him, but he cut her off and gently escorted her to the door.

  As we heard her footsteps descending the stairs he turned to me with a smile.

  “Are you a man or devil?” I asked in amazed admiration.

  “Why?” he inquired, betraying slightly the conceit which at times asserted itself in his character and which I had noticed first in his defense of an article he had written in the Times, which I had criticized.

  “How do you know this man so minutely, when I am sure you had never heard of him until his wife came to you with her story.”

  “Don’t be too sure of that. You are talking now as my friends at Scotland Yard talk.”

  “So or not,” I said, “how do you know this man Calbro?”

  “It’s the easiest thing in the world,” he said, toying with a small vial of cocaine, “when you know how,” and he winked at me cunningly. “I happened to be at the police station last night when they brought him in. He was temporarily a mental and moral wreck and speechless, but the papers on his person identified him perfectly, and, working on that clue, I spoke to his wife as I did. He had three shillings in his pocket, and you may imagine what kind of a time four men must have had in two days on the difference between three shillings and ninety-four pounds. Didn’t I tell his wife the periodicals were the worst? And I was right. He was the worst I ever saw. I may be wrong, though, in telling her he would be restored to her by day after to-morrow, but the police physician is a friend of mine, and I’ll go right down there and tell him to soak Mr. Calbro in vichy and ammonia and other restoratives in order that my conclusions in this great case may be confirmed. Will you accompany me for the sake of the adventure?

  More than ever impressed by the true greatness of this strange being, I put on my top coat and went with him to the police hospital.

  The Adventure of the Child’s Perambulator

  “Another Conan Doyle” (Charles Loomis)

  This story from the April issue of Puck might have been inspired by the Berners Street prank of 1810. Someone had sent hundreds of letters—to tradesmen, greengrocers, even the Lord Mayor—asking them to come to 54 Berners Street at the same time. The result was a day of chaos and pandemonium as everyone vied to reach the home. “Perambulator” is also noteworthy for its clever exploitation of Holmesian tropes, and the witty dialogue that begs to be read aloud. Charles Loomis also contributed “A Trip to the Country” above.

  I had not heard from Sherlock Holmes for some time, when one day I received a post card, with no date or signature, bearing the single word. “Come!”

  I knew that I was wanted on a dangerous and delicate mission, so I put an American bowie knife, a dark lantern, a brace of revolvers, a bottle of smelling salts, and a ham sandwich in my grip. Then I kissed my wife goodby telling her I might be back in a six-month, next day or never, and bidding her to tell my patients to keep stout hearts and to continue to take whatever I had ordered until I returned. I hurried off to the station, and in two hours had reached the lodgings of Sherlock Holmes, in Baker Street, and knocked on the door which he at once opened.

  “Ha! Watson, you’ve come,” said he. I couldn’t deny the fact although I did not know by what subtle processes he had arrived at the conclusion.

  “Well,” said I, “what’s in the wind today?”

  “Do you value your life?”

  “Not a ha’porth,” said I.

  “Good, neither do I. I have got a murder mystery on my hands besides which that of the Boscombe Valley sinks into insignificance. But, hark! what is that? I hear a footstep. Ten to one, it’s Lestrade of Scotland Yard. I never mistake the cocksure gait of his. He’s coming to consult with me.”

  I WENT TO THE WINDOW AND LOOKED OUT.

  I went to the window and looked out. For once, Holmes was mistaken. The noise he had heard was caused by a tally-ho and six that dashed by at a furious rate. Not a soul was in sight. The tally-ho stopped at the corner and a man alighted. The next minute he was knocking at our door, and a voice shouted: “Phair the divvle does Sherlock Holmes keep himself?”

  “Walk in,” said the great unraveler, and a red-headed man in a smock and overalls entered the room.

  “You are an English gentleman, are you not?” asked Holmes.

  “Phwat make ye think so?”

  “Your disguise and accent.”

  “Can your friend be trusted?”


  “Certainly, he is my colleague, Dr. Watson.”

  “Then behold me, Sir Edward Percyvale Vere Bermondsey-on-Trent Boggs,” and with that he shed his smock and overalls, pulled off his wig and beard, and stood revealed as a slim, aristocratic-looking fellow, whose ancestors, according to Burke’s peerage, which Holmes at once consulted, turned up their noses at William the Conqueror.

  “Sir Edward, take a sofa. We are at work at a little murder mystery, but we can let it stand for awhile. Please give me the smallest particulars of the mystery you want unraveled.”

  Sir Edward spread himself over the sofa, and, taking out a copy of the Times, said: “Yesterday’s Times contains the following advertisement: ‘If the finder of the child’s perambulator that was mislaid somewhere between Charing Cross and Seven Dials will return same to Edward Percyvale Vere Bermondsey-on-Trent Boggs, 27 Henrietta Street, third bell, he will be handsomely rewarded, as the perambulator contained nothing save a child, of no value to any one save the owners.’”

  “My wife is lying ill at my house in Henrietta Street, and the doctor has prescribed absolute quiet; but since early dawn yesterday the street has been filled with perambulators, containing all sorts and conditions of noisy children, and the bell has not ceased ringing. My wife and I are perfectly childless, and I am at a loss to conceive who could have put us to this great annoyance. This morning my wife’s illness has taken a turn for the worse, in consequence of the ceaseless clamor, and if you can help me to find the man who inserted the advertisement, I promise you that I will furnish a murder with no element of mystery in it.”

  “This is a very lucid account of which promises to be the most interesting case I ever undertook. Pardon me if I ask a few questions that may appear to be trivial, but which nevertheless, may have a direct bearing on the subject.

  “Was your wife ever married before?”

  “She was not.”

  “Ha! That is very important, and now may I ask whether you have had in your employ a Pole at any time in the last six years?”

  “No sir, I employ none but English.”

  “And quite right. Now one more question. What was the maiden name of your wife’s mother?”

  “Saunders.”

  “Enough, come here to-morrow at this time, and I will show you the busy-body who inserted the advertisement, or my name is not Sherlock Holmes.”

  During the whole interview, Sir Edward was smiling in a very peculiar way, and he now took his departure still smiling.

  HE PLAYED FOR ME IN A MANNER TO MAKE THE GREAT SARASATE HIMSELF BLUSH.

  When he had gone, Holmes said, “It will not take long to clear up that mystery, though it is a very pretty one. Then we will make up for lost time on the murder case. In the meantime, let us forget that such things as mysteries that need ferreting. Hand me my violin, and I will play you seven variations of ‘After the Ball,’ by Grieg.” For the next half hour he played for me in a manner to make the great Sarasate himself blush, and then he said, “Come we have idled enough. I will disguise myself, and you take this business directory and hunt up all the firms engaged in the manufacture of perambulators.”

  In a few minutes I had prepared a list of the perambulator manufacturers in the United Kingdom. Before I had finished, however, Holmes had stepped out of his bedroom, disguised as an unmarried Baptist preacher of Pennsylvania, U. S. of A. Not a person could have guessed what he represented, so cleverly was he made up. I, who am comparatively unknown, did not need a disguise; but Holmes suggested I carry my revolvers, as he might have to place me in a dangerous position.

  HOLMES HAD STEPPED OUT OF HIS BEDROOM, DISGUISED AS AN UNMARRIED BAPTIST PREACHER.

  On leaving the house we jumped into a cab, and, after giving directions to the cabman to take us to Hogg & Chichester’s, the leading manufacturers of perambulators, Holmes dismissed all thoughts of business from his mind, and, taking out a jews-harp, played the “Spanish Rhapsody” in a manner that I have rarely heard equaled.

  Arriving at the warehouse, Holmes asked to see the foreman, and that worthy soon came into the room.

  “Have you among your workmen a Pole?”

  “No sir, we have not a Pole.”

  “Quite so. Kindly let me see the man who is not a Pole.”

  A young man with auburn hair and a pug nose came to us in a minute.

  “Are you the young man who is not a Pole?”

  “I am.”

  “Is your name Saunders?”

  “It is not.”

  “Do you ever see the Times.”

  “No, sir, the pink ’un is the only paper I ever read.”

  “What do you think of this affair.”

  “Nothing. Didn’t even know there was an affair.”

  “Just so. That is all.”

  When we had regained the street, Holmes said, “This mystery is prettier than I first gave it credit for, still I have a clue. I consider it very auspicious that that young man is not a Pole. If he is not the man who inserted the advertisement, then we must go to the Isle of Wight for him.”

  “Why the Isle of Wight?” asked I.

  “Wait,” said he oracularly.

  Just then we passed a restaurant. “How long since you ate?” asked he.

  “Breakfast was my last meal,” I replied.

  “Do you know I haven’t thought to eat for the last five or six days. Suppose we go in.”

  When we were seated, he ordered six hot, hard-boiled eggs, which when brought, he ate, shells and all. “I need the lime,” he said. I looked with admiration at this remarkable man, who had the stomach of a camel and a Vidocq combined.

  Suddenly the door of the restaurant was opened by no less a person than Sir Edward Etcetera Boggs.

  “Ha!” said Holmes. “You are the very man I wanted to see. Have an egg.”

  Sir Edward, with the smile of the morning still lingering upon his face, declined the delicacy, but seated himself at our table, where he ordered a b. & s. and a cup of tea.

  “Sir Edward, have you relatives in the Isle of Wight?”

  “I have not.”

  “Do they spend the summer there?”

  “They do not.”

  “H’m. Have you ever happened to drop a hint that your wife hated to have people answering advertisements for lost perambulators when she was sick?”

  “No, I didn’t know she did hate it until yesterday. Now let me ask you a few questions: Aren’t you almost omnipotent?”

  “Almost.”

  “Well, do you know yet who inserted the advertisement?”

  “No.”

  “Isn’t all this Isle of Wight business a bluff to give you time to chance on a clue?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well then. I’ve won my bet with Watson. I inserted the advertisement myself, and bet him that you couldn’t find out who did it before we met again.”

  “You bet with Dr. Watson?—Who the devil are you?”

  To the everlasting discomfiture of Know-it-all Holmes, Sir Edward pulled off the whole top of his smiling face and disclosed inside of the papier mache head

  The well-known features of Lestrade, the Scotland Yard detective!

  The Reappearance of Sherlock Holmes

  Roy L. McCardell

  Roy Larcom McCardell (1870-1940) was an American journalist and humorist. He was a staff writer for Puck when this story appeared in the Sept. 25 issue. Two years later, he became a screenwriter and wrote more than a thousand scripts for the silent movies.

  * * * *

  Note.—Dr. Conan Doyle claims that, having let his great detective fall over an abyss, he can not see how to make him reappear again alive and well. The present writer in the following tale, kindly helps the doctor out of his difficulties.

  The End Inevitable.

  After that awful, unseen tragedy at the Falls of Reichenbach, when my friend had gone over the sheer and horrid precipice, clasped in a death struggle with Moriarty, as the traces of that awful combat showed too well, I return
ed to England a broken man.

  The dreadful death of Sherlock Holmes preyed upon my mind so much that, in the following Spring, I gave up the room in Baker Street and sailed for New York.

  Here I hung out my shingle, hoping that the change of scene and the newer faces and occupations would drive from my memory that awful scene of the death struggle ever in my mental eye.

  In some slight measure I was successful. That is, I had gotten so I could review the thing more calmly and still cherish that faint, trembling hope that Holmes was not dead.

  I was sitting in my office one Summer evening, turning the matter over in my mind. The image of my friend, discreet, cautious, resourceful, rose before me. Unconsciously, I spoke aloud, “Suppose, after all, Holmes was not killed?”

  “Well, let us suppose it.” As the words in answer to mine rang out, I sprang, faint with fright, to my feet, and clutched my study table for support. For there before me stood Sherlock Holmes in the flesh!

  “You? You?—”

  I gasped, but could say no more.

  “Yes, Watson.” It was the same careless yet incisive voice of old. “It is I. Have a cigar?” And my friend coolly sat down and pushed his pocket case toward me.

  “But—but, the Falls of Reichenbach, man?” I stammered.

  “Watson,” Holmes looked at me, smiling calmly, “I’II admit that circumstances did look as if I had gone over that dizzy height, into the boiling torrent below, in company with our extremely versatile friend, Professor Moriarty, and so I did. But, Watson, how often have I told you to deduce?” Here Holmes bit off the end of his cigar.

  “But you say you and he went over the falls. How—”

  But Holmes broke in.

  “Watson, am I not a man of resources?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, you remember that I wore a cloak when you last saw me?”

  “Yes, yes; but—”