Sherlock Holmes Victorian Parodies and Pastiches

by Bill Peschel

  How much that amounted to I really do not know, but that it was a large sum I am sure, for Lohengrin must have been very wealthy. He couldn’t have afforded to dress in solid silver-tinsel tights if he had been otherwise. I had the tights assayed before returning them to their owner, and even in a country where free coinage of tights is looked upon askance they could not be duplicated for less than $850 at a ratio of 32 to 1.

  Sherlock Holmes’ Latest Triumph / Another From Sherlock Holmes

  Charles Joseph Colton

  In the past, Sherlockian researchers on the hunt for parodies and pastiches had to prowl the stacks of libraries in the U.S. and Britain and spend days leafing through dusty collections of newspapers and magazines. The ongoing digitization of these works has made this task much easier. It’s possible now for anyone to sit at a computer and, with a few word searches, discover works that haven’t been read since the day they were published.

  The two examples below come from illustrator Ian Schoenheer, who found these poems in Volume of Various Verse by an attorney-turned-writer who spent his life in his native New Orleans. We know little of Charles Joseph Colton (1868-1916), except that he worked as a court reporter, contributed poems to the Times-Democrat newspaper, and edited his own magazine.

  Sherlock Holmes’ Latest Triumph

  An unknown had suicided: to find what he’d been

  In life, the noted Sherlock Holmes, of course, had been called in;

  The great detective searched the clothes upon the defunct man,

  And in a confident tone his conclusions thus began:

  “That this man lived in Providence is patent to my eye;

  Men keep mementoes of their homes, and here’s a flask of R.I.

  And late in Philadelphia he sojourned; that’s a fact

  That’s patent; in his pocket is a last year’s almanac.

  “Deceased was a book agent; note his canvas shoes;

  A hunter, too; his pantaloons of duck doth that disclose;

  And fisherman; his underwear of net proves that to me—”

  And all around were thunderstruck at such sagacity.

  Another From Sherlock Holmes

  The famous vidocq, Sherlock Homes, and I, stood at the bar;

  I complimented him upon his great success thus far,

  Whereat the sleuth assured me, though in accents of some pride,

  That ’twas simply observation and deduction, well applied.

  “For instance,” he went on, “this crowd coming in the door

  Are a lot of gentlemen whom I have never seen before;

  Yet I’ll merely note the drinks they take, and to me will stand confessed

  Their respective walks and callings.” I watched eagerly the test.

  “Beer,” said the first man—whispered Holmes: “An undertaker, sure.”

  The second asked for “port”—said S.: “A sailor, simple, pure.”

  “Punch,” called the third—said Sherlock: “He a pugilist must be.”

  “Gin,” cried the next—and Holmes declared: “A cotton planter he.”

  “And he” the sleuth went on, about the last one of the group.

  “Must be a daily paper scribe”—the youth had called: “A scoop.”

  And when I made the inquiry, to Sherlock’s great delight,

  I found that he in every single instance had been right.

  Appendix

  The Adventure of the Stomach Club Papers

  Bill Peschel

  In his remaining years, Mark Twain devoted his energies to dictating his memoirs, a monumental outpouring of stories and opinions that he told, not in chronological order, but as they came to him. Although he embargoed them for a century, excerpts were printed in his lifetime. Currently, The Mark Twain Project at the University of California has been working to publish the complete Autobiography.

  But not everything has been collected. Around 2000, I bought a box of old papers at a warehouse auction in Carlisle, Pa. There was nothing about the box that suggested there were treasures within. It contained a jumble of handwritten papers, receipts, advertising circulars, crumbling newsprint, and other ephemera. It certainly held no value to its original owner, who had scrawled “BURN THIS” on the side.

  An examination of the pages, however, revealed that they were nothing less than Mark Twain’s tales of his adventures with Sherlock Holmes and his circle. Dictated to a secretary as part of his autobiography, he chose not to publish them. Apparently, the box was given to a maid who, instead of following instructions, took the box home. Perhaps she frugally intended to light her household fires. Eventually, the box was sealed and stored and passed through the family over the years until it was disposed of in Carlisle.

  This is the third story to be transcribed and edited for publication. The first, “The Adventure of the Whyos,” was published as an ebook single. “The Humorist’s Curse” appears in The Early Punch Parodies of Sherlock Holmes. Each volume in the 223B Casebook Series will contain another story, with an eye toward collecting them in a book eventually.

  Today’s newspaper brought me joy in the form of this item from the death notices:

  June 14, at his residence in Mayfair, aged 77, Mr. Stuart MacNaughton, the well-known bookseller and publisher, of 103 Piccadilly. The deceased, the son of a respectable builder, was born at his father’s house, in St. John’s Square, Edinburgh, and at the age of 14 was placed with the late Mr. Petheram, bookseller, in Holborn, where he acquired a taste for rare and curious books and an all-consuming passion for Scottish history. During his residence in the United States, Mr. MacNaughton appears to have been a keen observer of men and manners, and especially of American humorists such as Mark Twain. He returned to England about 1852, and commenced business in a little slip of a shop in Piccadilly. . . . His remains were interred at Highgate Cemetery, June 21st, and were followed to the grave by many sympathizing friends.

  So MacNaughton was dead. Nothing sets up a man so well in the morning than the knowledge that he outlived someone he hated. I have no doubt that there were many in attendance at the revels. A vast, flowing river of humanity followed the hearse to the burying ground, each person in attendance there to ensure that he’d stay down. Do not speak ill of the dead, we are preached, and I shall not. But I do not consider speaking the truth to fall under that rubric. And as the purpose of these autobiographical notes, to be published a century after my passing, is to tell the truth, I would be comfortable in saying that many people were happy that the Scottish laird had breathed his last.

  Telling the story properly required some cogitating. I smoked my cigar for awhile and watched from my bed as Sinbad and Danbury vied for a moth fluttering at the window. The kittens gazed at their prey with a stillness and intelligence that men should emulate. As they played, I considered the tale, making sure I had grasped all of the necessary facts.

  What happened in London during that damp and miserable summer of 1879 wasn’t funny. Not to me anyway. But any tragedy can turn into comedy given enough time. A few years back, that Borden girl over in Falls River picked up her hatchet and passed the time on a sweltering afternoon slaughtering her father and mother. Got away with it, too. I’ve no doubt that they’ll be telling her story again and again, portraying her as a put-upon orphan who was driven to brain her parents. They will praise her piety. They will show that parenticide is a respectable hobby to be indulged in by the young. You may see the fun in it now, long after I have degraded into dust.

  Back to MacNaughton.

  Livy, the girls and I were spending the season in England. In a London hotel I was furiously writing A Tramp Abroad, piling up the pages of manuscript during the day in between sociable interruptions from visitors. Writing can be a tonic when used to relive pleasant memories or act as a safety valve for your anger. Scribbling to meet a deadline, to provide your family with their daily crust, is wearying work. The drudgery was relieved only by attending banquets and dinner parties every night. I was quite the pet th
en.

  One evening, after a particularly strenuous day, Livy wanted to indulge our fondness for the theatre. Henry Irving was finishing his first season at the Lyceum, so we attended a special show in which he performed scenes from Hamlet, Richard III, Richelieu, and others.

  We were ushered into a box on the second level, which provided a fine view of the spectacle. We could see the stage and the audience, and the audience could see the stage and the wealthy and celebrated in the boxes. When we tired of each other, we considered the décor. I’ve never seen so much gold on display outside of a Bavarian church or a California assayer’s office. Royal craftsmen must turn to decorating theatres when they run out of palaces to gild.

  The circus was a rousing entertainment from start to finish. The actors jumped about the stage as if they had done it before. It was an education to watch Irving command the stage, exerting his personality to the utmost degree to command the audience’s attention. After the play, we went backstage to congratulate the players. I was quickly recognized and Livy, bless her, knew that until I was extracted from the mob that she was better off consulting with the other women about the celebrated personages who attended the riot, the females’ habiliments, and the shortcomings of their husbands.

  All was running as smooth as expected until an interval of quiet. I was left alone, and I took the opportunity to seek solace in a cigar. I had it clipped and in my mouth when the sudden flare of a match in my face blinded me. The scent of sulfur invaded my nose and inflamed a coughing fit.

  “Evening, Mr. Twain,” the voice said. My sight cleared, and instead of Lucifer I saw a Cockney before me. He was a young man whose face was squashed between his small-brimmed cap and dirty yellow neckerchief. His squint and sallow skin gave him the appearance of being well on his way to becoming a wizened old man, even though he was barely into long pants.

  “I’ll be brief, sirrah,” the gnome leaned in and exhaled a breath composed of beer and onions. “I don’t like to discuss business out in public, but seeing it’s such an important man as yourself, I’ll make an exception. If you call at the home of Mr. Stuart MacNaughton tomorrow at the address on this card, you may hear something to his advantage.”

  The rout in the room grew louder. Irving led the procession of actors and actresses into the room. He stood by silently, taking in the accolades, while the members of his company were greeting their friends at a volume usually heard in a slaughterhouse. The noise was so great I was forced to lean closer and call into his ear.

  “His advantage? Shouldn’t it be my advantage?”

  “I think you’ll take my meaning when you take your meeting. I see your lovely wife coming, so I must go.”

  “You still haven’t said why I should visit,” I said.

  “Ah,” the fraud paused as if he hadn’t expected me to ask. “It’s to do with your lovely chat at the Stomach Club in Paris. Mr. MacNaughton is by way of a businessman in the book line, and he would like to publish it.”

  “Absolutely not! You may tell him that for me. I will not give him the speech for all the gold in his vault.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about his gold,” he shied a disgusting leer at me, which unnerved me. “Don’t you worry about getting him a copy of your speech, either. He already has it. Greetings, Mrs. Clemens! Lovely play, was it? It’s like you said, Mr. Clemens: ‘None knows it but to love it; none name it but to praise.’” He tipped his hat and left me with my mouth agape, like a hooked carp.

  “Youth?” Livy tugged the crook of my arm. “What’s the matter? You look so furious.”

  I fought to master my emotions, something I fail at frequently. I wanted to bash something. But what? And what for? The scoundrel had quoted those lines in front of my wife, and then vanished in the press of the crowd. I couldn’t tell Livy what that was about. Especially over that speech, of which she knew nothing.

  “You look heated,” she said. She opened her fan and waved it in front of my face. “You’ve had a long day, perhaps we—”

  “Pardon me.”

  A tall scarecrow of a young man loomed over us. It was one of the actors, still in his costume as the Messenger in “Raising the Wind.” He had appeared in several of the scenes, hovering about in the background, but had left no impression on me. That’s not meant as criticism. Except for Irving’s co-star, Ellen Terry, it was as difficult as climbing the Matterhorn for an actor to shine in the light from Irving’s sun.

  The Cockney’s threat had left me unbalanced, my head spinning with nasty conjectures. But this slender fellow, away from Irving, proved just as commanding of my attention. He solicitously clasped my wife’s hand with a slight bow before gripping mine with a startling firmness.

  His eyes rapidly darted at my hands and other parts of the corpse, leaving me feeling dissected. Then he said, “You’re a writer.”

  I confessed. He passed over the confirmation as inconsequential and asked what we thought of the performance. We chewed over the play in fine style. Livy took the reins for most of it, giving me a chance to inspect the visitor. He looked quite the gentleman. His accent was polished, but not by any school or class. He relaxed in our company, but inside it was clear that a brain was still at work. He continued to exude this presence, this ability to look in you and see everything. It must be the same feeling a microbe has under a microscope. It was unnerving.

  To be honest, I don’t remember very much of what was said. They say an execution focuses the mind wonderfully, but so does the sudden realization that your life is heading for the rocks on a lee shore, and decisions must be made immediately.

  This was probably apparent to our actor friend. He bowed slightly to get my attention and said, “It is always a pleasure to meet Americans. Especially such eminent visitors as yourself. How did you find Paris, sir?”

  I gulped and felt the blood rush from my face. “Fine, sir, fine,” I croaked. For an uncomfortable moment, I wondered if he knew of my visit, too? Was he in cahoots with the Cockney?

  “And you ma’am? Did you find the fan shop on the Rue di Rivoli delightful?”

  “Why, yes,” and Livy’s mouth formed a perfect circle, “I—but how did you know?”

  “Your fan told me so. I’m a great admirer of Madame Caillaux’s work,” he pulled a card from his waistcoat pocket and handed it to me. “It would be a pleasure to talk with you again. I’m always at home during the day.”

  He bowed slightly to us and moved on. That was my cue to cut the reins. I told Livy that the air was getting too close for my comfort, so we pressed through the crowd, shielding as much of my face with my top hat as possible, until we reached the street and hailed a hansom.

  Livy had much to say about the evening, so I let her carry the weight of the conversation until we reached the hotel. The children were asleep, so we dismissed the servants and prepared for bed ourselves.

  Still fully dressed before the chest of drawers, I pulled from my pockets my night’s accumulations—money, billfold, notebook, pencil, the usual odds and ends, and the two pasteboard cards. Both were of a piece. Both had the owner’s name set in script, twelve point centered, with their address in the lower left corner. Stuart MacNaughton conducted his business in Mayfair, on South Audley Street. He was successful, either in book publishing or blackmail. He worked within a shout of Piccadilly, the Royal Parks and Buckingham Palace.

  The other card read simply “Sherlock Holmes” and indicated that he occupied cellar rooms at 24 Montague Street. The address placed him within sight of the British Museum and was more suited to a scholar than an actor. There were mysteries piled on mysteries here, and I shook my head at the roustabout going on in my head.

  But Providence had one more trick to play. I tossed the cards in the silver tray, and one of them flipped over to reveal a bit of writing. I took it to the gas jet and tilted it to catch the yellow glow.

  For the second time that night, I felt a lurch such as one feels when the steamship you command runs aground, and there will be nasty q
uestions to come. On the reverse of Sherlock Holmes’ card—before he had spoken one word to me—he had penciled on the card, in a clear cursive as neat as a schoolmaster’s hand, “You are being blackmailed.”

  * * * *

  The next day, after a hasty toilet and a rushed breakfast, I took a hansom to Montague Street. All of Europe was cursed with a cold rain that summer, so the weather matched my mood. From my rolling throne, I lit my cheroot and watched the buildings roll by, sodden under their grey and black cloaks. The Londoners looked beaten-down under their umbrellas and slickers. I puffed on my cigar and waited impatiently for the curtain to rise on the next act.

  At 24 Montague Street, I dashed across the wet pavement into the two-story brick building, descended the fifteen steps to a basement hallway and knocked on his door. He received me with the same courtesy as last night and a cheerfulness that was irritating. Instead of the solemn stick, he bubbled with enthusiasm toward the world in general. It was a shock to see how different he acted backstage. It was almost as if he were another person.

  Nowadays, the world is familiar with Sherlock Holmes and welcome his eccentricities. Back then, he was a youth, unknown to all but his family and friends, and his face untraced by Sidney Paget’s pen. All the features found in Watson’s stories were there, but touched even less by age. The thin face not yet lined with care and concentration, the eyes clear and bright, the voice pitched a semitone high. The last of the boy was fading fast, and inside formed the shape of the man he would become.

  I didn’t know any of that the moment I crossed his threshold. All that I saw was an unknown actor who knew far more of my business than I was comfortable with. He could be a lunatic—his profession qualified him as a member of that fraternity—and possibly a criminal.