Sherlock Holmes Victorian Parodies and Pastiches

by Bill Peschel

  I could not help smiling at the extreme simplicity of his explanation.

  “Of course, it was as easy as possible,” said I.

  My remark appeared to nettle him.

  “I may add,” said he, “that the particular help which you have been asked to give was that you should write in their album, and that you have already made up your mind that the present incident will be the subject of your article.”

  “But how—!” I cried.

  “It is as easy as possible,” said he, “and I leave its solution to your own ingenuity. In the meantime,” he added, raising his paper, “you will excuse me if I return to this very interesting article upon the trees of Cremona, and the exact reasons for their pre-eminence in the manufacture of violins. It is one of those small outlying problems to which I am sometimes tempted to direct my attention.”

  The Röntgen Ray-der

  “Mr. M—”

  One element that set Sherlock Holmes apart from his fellow detectives was his bleeding-edge interest in science. It started as early as A Study in Scarlet, when he raved about discovering a test for bloodstains during his first meeting with Watson. Although the invention anticipated reality by two decades, it demonstrated Conan Doyle’s ability to extrapolate future advances from current discoveries. That trope appears in this pastiche, which involves photography and X-rays, the latter which Wilhelm Röntgen had discovered the year before “The Röntgen Ray-der.”

  The story comes from the 1896 winter edition of Phil May’s Illustrated Annual. May (1864-1903), who might be the “Mr. M” who wrote this piece, was a talented caricaturist before ill health cut short his brilliant career. He worked for a number of magazines, including Punch and The Sketch, and published several one-off magazines under his own name.

  Cloncroskey smiled. Like all really great men, while famous for the impenetrable secrecy with which his coups were prepared, he was in familiar life communicative, to the point of boasting, confiding to the point of rashness: the need of flattery and sympathy invariably associated with genius. Shylock Bones had just been caught in his grounds photographing the defences of the house, and had been brought into the sanctum sanctorum of the redoubtable Five—not without demur on the part of one of them.

  “My dear Creeman,” Cloncroskey had replied, laughing, “the brain is a limited organ: crowd it with too much precaution and you stultify its use. That is the mark of the beast in you—the taint of Scotland Yard; you don’t know when you have conquered. Our defences, whether impregnable or no, represent the highest development of human ingenuity; genius can go no farther. Only savages depend on secrecy: a good general prefers to trust to his strategic position, going on the presumption that the enemy has already obtained plans through his spies. Show Shylock up by all means; if he learns half what I give him credit for already knowing he is not a detective.”

  Shylock Bones, then, the celebrated professional amateur, was introduced into the den of the most famous gang of high-art cracksmen in London. Shylock was perhaps the one man in the world (apart from Smith) that Cloncroskey regarded with a genuine admiration and sympathy: a flattering esteem for which the detective was perhaps indebted to his natural rather than his acquired gifts. For if Cloncroskey could not help looking the debonair, but noble and poetic prince, Bones, the most painfully conscientious and moral man among the champions of society, was born with the hang-dog air of a hereditary criminal.

  “My dear Shylock!” said Cloncroskey, coming forward with his charming affectionate manner; “what a pleasure! Let me introduce you—no names—ex-inspector Creeman, whom I daresay you have met in former years at that melancholy barrack, the Yard!”

  Ex-inspector Creeman, greeting the visitor with his left hand, lightly and rapidly, but with professional completeness, passed the other over his former colleague’s clothes. “Surely, rather rash, Bones? Not even a derringer?” he said.

  “Oh—to suspect me of anything so out of date!” murmured Bones, with a melancholy and reproachful glance. “You are out of the swim, Cree-boy,” he said tearfully, producing a miniature Kodak from his arm-pit; “look here,” and he showed them a negative of the group taken as he entered. Creeman examined it doubtfully and passed it to Cloncroskey, who after a mere glance of indifferent admiration handed it back to the photographer, saying, “Keep it, my dear Bones, if it is of any use to you; but you will find duplicates of all of us, cabinet size, at the Bereoscopic Company. Any of your men outside—think they would like a drink?”

  “I have half a dozen of Q Division over the way in case you gave me a chance; but I suppose it is no good raiding you?”

  “Mere waste of labour—mere waste of labour,” replied the cracksman affectionately. “Private house, my dear Bones—nothing on the premises; got the Bond Street swag reset and placed in our Paris window by seven this morning. By the bye, anything worth seeing in that bag?”

  “Ha—you can’t see through it?” said Bones anxiously.

  Cloncroskey burst out laughing. “My dear Bones!—here, pour him out a fizz.”

  Bones took the glass, held it to the light, and then smelt it. “Really, that is scarcely courteous of you,” said Cloncroskey, with dignity. “Pray remember, Mr. Bones, that you are among gentlemen.” Bones drank it with a sigh. Then, with a melancholy gingerness, he opened the bag and drew out a large camera and folded tripod.

  “Knowing how you keep abreast of the times, Mr. Cloncroskey,” he said, as he discontentedly rummaged in his bag, “I thought perhaps your eyeglass might be charged with the Röntgen rays.—Excuse my delay: I dropped an important negative in here when your fellow gagged me.”

  “Bones?”

  Bones looked up; he saw a revolver levelled at his head. “Not this sort of negative?” said Cloncroskey, with that gravity which is all the suspicion a gentleman can, with any politeness, show.

  “No, no, no, no,” replied the celebrated amateur, with the nearest approach to a smile of which his melancholy visage was capable; “I have stuck up three men on one occasion, but never five.”

  Cloncroskey put up his shooter. “You referred to this new spectroscope invention, I suppose,” he remarked politely, passing over his rather undignified demonstration with a handsome blush; “anything in it, do you think, Bones?”

  “A great deal, a great deal,” replied the photographer with enthusiasm—Bones was in reality even more proficient as a scientist than as a detective. “But it is the old story of armoured plates and projectiles; I am not sure which of us will turn it to the best account by the end of the year. For instance, I have here a few little experiments through earth and brick walls respectively which I shall be glad of your permission to examine; but if I can perfect my efforts to distinguish the harder precious stones through a steel safe I shall probably approach you, rather than the Yard, for a partnership.

  “Now let us see.” He held up some negatives to the light.

  “Why, your walls are—are not of brick, Mr. Croskey?” (Cloncroskey. or the Count Amadeo Klonkroskikoff, denoted merely the extension of the cracksman’s business.)

  “Steel-lined,” replied Cloncroskey, with the slightest trace of annoyance. “We men of wealth have to protect ourselves from burglars.”

  “Exactly,” replied the melancholy photographer, holding up another plate. “That accounts for this jemmy and skeleton key buried in the garden?”

  “My dear Bones—surely your camera must be at fault? To suspect me of anything so very—amateurish!”

  “That is all right,” put in Creeman.” That is one of Jonathan’s dodges to secure a conviction. He put them in two nights ago; I let him, as I was on duty, and had them up yesterday just to engrave his initials on them and replace them.”

  “Ah—no pranks, I think, Creeman; always be on the safe side. Give him till to-morrow, and if he comes drop him into the lime-pit, but if not have the things up and plant them somewhere else—in Benjamin’s yard, say. But this invention really interests me, Bones; d’you feel inclined to
make another experiment? I have about me a little hereditary locket which I declare I will hand over to you if your camera detects it.”

  “Very good,” said the photographer, with miserable alacrity. “It will take some minutes of exposure: There must be no movement. Will you sit down there; if you other gentlemen will kindly sit behind me? No movement, please; the fluorescent film is so sensitive that even a disturbance of air might spoil it.”

  Cloncroskey sat opposite the lens; the other four sat behind the operator. Shylock threw a black cloth over his head and the camera, as for an ordinary photograph.

  “Look at the lens,” said the muffled professor of science and detectivism; “your arms hanging down by your side, please, so as not to conceal the body.”

  The king of art-cracksmen obeyed; he looked at the lens. A thin flap fell down and disclosed the muzzle of a pistol and the words in large print, “DON’T MOVE.”

  Cloncroskey knew the astonishing recklessness of the detective very well; the reason he was so respected by the anti-force was on account of his melancholy and oft-proved boast that no capture was worth the making that did not require the risk of his life. Cloncroskey then smiled with sincere admiration—and did not move.

  The machine clicked and the printed card slid away and was replaced by another. This one said:

  “Keep your arms down—send your men out of the house; three.” A little bell struck one; struck two.

  “I hear something,” said Cloncroskey sharply. “Out into the grounds all of you: take your posts and wait the word.”

  His four companions, accustomed to implicit obedience, filed out with glances of amused intelligence; and the door was shut. Shylock Bones was quite certain that any door in this house was soundproof.

  “I seem to have got you, Cloncroskey,” he said mournfully.

  “Yes,—very neat indeed,” replied the burglar without moving; “if it didn’t seem that I have got you too. I’ll wait five minutes while you think it over, and then I’ll take my chance. What ball have you got in it—a .38?”

  “No; a .45 explosive.”

  “Ah! Makes a nasty hole in one,” said Cloncroskey, with disgust. “Where have you sighted me? Looks about the collar bone.”

  “To allow for the kick: it will just lift your roof from the eyes.”

  “Oh! Common, Bones, common. You don’t think of my nice walls. Just look at that priceless Vandyke behind my head—a connoisseur like you, Bones!”

  The photographer, his hand still in the camera, took his head out of the cloth and looked up. The picture in question was a mounted general, pointing a telescope towards the foreground in his outstretched hand. At the end of the telescope protruded from the canvas an inch of nickeled barrel.

  “Is it all right?” said Cloncroskey, without moving his head.

  “It’s there, sure enough,” replied the photographer with melancholy surprise. Then addressing the picture, “Mine is a hairspring, Vandyke: don’t move.”

  “Five minutes up,” said Cloncroskey pleasantly. “Give you three, old man, to pack up that camera.” A little bell from the direction of the picture struck one: struck two.

  “I pass,” sighed the detective dejectedly, drawing his pistol from the camera and uncocking it.

  “Really, a splendid invention those Röntgen rays,” Mr. Cloncroskey said later, as he shook his visitor’s hand on the noble doorstep of Cloncroskey Mansion. “When you have perfected that safe-piercing spectroscope, let me know, Bones. I might be able to make you an offer.”

  Phil May Self-Portrait

  Another Victory for Herlock Shomes

  William Henry Siviter

  The structure of the Holmes story makes it adaptable for any subject: golf, chess, even fashion, such as this piece that appeared in the Dec. 19 issue of Harper’s Bazaar. William Henry Siviter (1858-1932), was born in England and raised in the U.S. He worked for Pennsylvania newspapers in Oil City and Pittsburgh and contributed humor pieces to magazines.

  “That’s a very fine-looking man,” said I, and I indicated with a nod of my head a rather tall gentleman with a luxuriant dark brown beard long enough to cover his necktie.

  “Do you mean that woman masquerading in men’s clothes?” asked Herlock Shomes, after a careless glance at the individual in question.

  I was piqued at this reply. It was evidently foolish, and so I replied,

  “I mean the man with the dark whiskers.”

  Herlock Shomes chuckled.

  “It’s a woman,” he replied, curtly.

  “Surely that is a man. Those whiskers are real,” I persisted.

  Herlock Shomes again chuckled softly to himself, but deigned no reply.

  I was not to be put off in this fashion, however. I would show him that his intense egotism ought to be curbed or rebuked. He is so vain of his wonderful and undeniable accomplishments that at times it is positively painful to be with him. Here was an excellent opportunity to humble his insufferable pride.

  “I will ask him for a light for my cigar,” I said.

  “Before you do, let me tell you that your man is a woman. She will probably resent your addressing her.”

  I was not to be put off in this way. I was now firmly convinced that Herlock Shomes did not wish me to speak to her, lest his theories should be found at fault. So I went up to where my man was looking into a shop window, and I said, holding a cigar in my hand,

  “My good man, could you oblige me with a match?”

  The reply was accompanied by a scowl.

  “How dare you address a leddy, sir, without an introduction?”

  “If you are a lady, why do you disguise yourself as a man?” I demanded.

  “I dress as a man for the express purpose of avoiding trouble, sir, if it is enny of your business,” she replied, angrily. “I am the bearded lady from the Ne Plus Ultra Museum.”

  With that she turned back to an inspection of the shop window. I rejoined Herlock Shomes.

  “He—she—says she’s the bearded lady in a museum,” I said, in rather a crestfallen tone.

  “I could have told you that,” replied Herlock Shomes, “though I never laid eyes on her before.”

  “Then you must tell me how you penetrated her disguise so quickly, for I declare she has none of the marks of her sex which I can distinguish—not one.”

  Herlock Shomes chuckled. “Notice her feet. Did you ever see such small and shapely feet on a man of her height?”

  ‘Never.”

  “She used a pocket-handkerchief just now. It was of fine lace and tiny in size.”

  “Shomes,” I replied, “you are a genius.”

  “Genius is but a synonym for hard work,” said he. “However, none of those signs I mentioned was necessary to prove to me that your bearded man is a woman. I saw her step daintily across the gutter, and as she did so she grasped the leg of her trousers with her right hand just above her knee, just as a woman grasps her skirt, and held it until she reached the sidewalk.”

  I nodded my head.

  “I don’t know what people are doing half the time with their powers of observation,” added Herlock Shomes, as he chuckled softly to himself.

  1897

  Conan Doyle. Newspaper illustrator, 1896.

  To Conan Doyle she is always the woman. On March 15, Jean Leckie came into his life, and he would mark the day ever after by presenting her with a snowdrop.

  We don’t know how they met, but once he fell in love with Jean, Conan Doyle acted with his customary certainty. He would not divorce Louisa, and he would make sure she never found out about the connection. He would keep his promise, but as Louisa became more of an invalid, Conan Doyle would be seen with Jean in public, creating a rift with some of his friends.

  Meanwhile, construction on the new home continued, and Conan Doyle found new ways to be sociable. He attended luncheon parties where he met Sir Francis Jeune, a judge in Divorce Courts, and this sparked an interest in divorce law reform. In May, he spent the weekend at Cli
veden, the home of millionaire William Waldorf Astor. Although he found the man “a pathetic figure with his dead wife & his millions,” he enjoyed spending time with the Home Secretary, Sir Henry Irving, and the American minister to Paris.

  By mid-October, the home was ready. Undershaw was as beautiful as planned, but the cost of building it strained his purse. Conan Doyle did some serious thinking about how to pay for it. Could Holmes help? Not a new round of stories, but how about a play? He calculated that it would be “lucrative” particularly in America and the Colonies. “If it came off I would pay for the whole house at one stroke,” he wrote his mother. He began working on the play and asked actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree to play Sherlock. He agreed, but only if he could play both Holmes and Moriarty. Waving aside Conan Doyle’s objection that the characters have several scenes together, he also suggested that he play Holmes in a beard. Conan Doyle said no.

  Published: Uncle Bernac (May).

  How He Did It

  Herlock Shomes Explains the Way to Detect a Bride and Groom