by Otto Penzler
“How you startled me, Intha!” she said. “Are you going to meet that woman again?”
“Ah! Vera, to what lengths will your jealously lead you?” said Intha chidingly.
At that moment Silent Percy arrived unheralded on the scene. “Poor Vera,” said Intha, as he crawled out of the ditch and once more gathered up his hammer and nail, “she never would have been happy anyhow.”
While this tender scene is being enacted, Chumley Marchbanks, the knut of Bond Street, having strolled down Grafton Street to pay a visit to the new night club “des Ramparts,” which had sprung into fame very recently, inadvertently, and owing to the inadequate lighting, took the yellow bus at Fell Hire Corner and found himself in Bellewarde. All might yet have gone well with him had he not fallen over Crook, the Cambridge Cracksman, who after emptying his pockets pushed him into the Bec. The waters flowed on.
(To be Continued).
Next week: A new set of characters, and another thrilling instalment.
Chapter 5
CHARACTERS:—SAME AS BEFORE.
Snowflakes were falling heavily around Hordon Goose Farm, where we left Herlock with the fair Honoria. Breezy Bill, the Bouncing Butcher of Bellewarde, had just been hit in the neck by a whizzbang when the chug-chug of a motorcycle was heard. “Can it be Intha?” cried Honoria, while Shomes proceeded to tune his violin. “No!” roared he, as a motor despatch rider came round Fell Hire Corner. “News at last from my Baker Street Squad.”
Hurriedly tearing open and reading the despatch, the true Shomes stood revealed in all his strength and method. Seizing his vermoral sprayer, he rapidly squirted an enormous dose into his forearm. Just then the voice of the faithful Hotsam was heard calling “Where are you, Shomes?” “Here” replied the great detective, rapidly emptying his revolver at the approaching figure. “Thank goodness I’ve found you at last, but you nearly got me that time,” said Hotsam admiringly. “Never mind, better luck next time,” said Shomes, sotto voce, to Honoria. Aloud, “To work, there’s mischief afoot. Thank heaven I attended that two day course at the Technical School. I shall now be up to all their dodges.” Drawing a searchlight from his pocket, he read the fateful message:
Division moves tomorrow at dawn AAA. You will assemble all characters at zero fifteen outside Cloth Hall, Typers, P 13 D 1-1 in time to catch the underground for *————at twenty AAA. On arrival there steal any rations you can find, and carry on with serial AAA —Editor. (*Censored —ED)
“At last!” shouted the great sleuth. “At last!” shouted the others, as they busily collected the usual paraphernalia of the great man. “Hotsam,” cried Shomes, “send off the orderly sergeant at once to warn all Characters. Then meet me at the Denin Gate.” With these words he disappeared into the gloom and a crump-hole. All these arrangements having been made, Hotsam and Honoria continued their journey down the Denin Road, arriving in Typers just in time to meet Intha Pink before he left for his nightly work. Having rapidly given him a summary of all that had happened, they went into a neighboring estaminet to await the fateful hour of zero.
(Another long and thrilling instalment next week).
Chapter 6
Shot in the Culvert
CHARACTERS:—SAME AS LAST WEEK.
Shomes and Co. having arrived at their new sphere of action speedily got going again. Intha Pink seized his hammer and nail and fell off the bus when near Hyde Park Corner. Meanwhile Hotsam had disappeared into the darkness, on a mysterious errand, taking the fair Honoria with him. Lizzie, as she saw his stalwart form disappearing from her sight, cried, “Do not leave me Herbert,” but a curse was her only answer. In despair she threw herself in the way of a passing whizzbang and disappeared from our tale. Intha crept rapidly towards his objective, and had almost succeeded in attaining his end, when a machine gun spat in his direction. Completely perforated: yet he smiled happily, and murmured “It’s a blightie.”
Here we leave him and turn to a series of eventful happenings on the banks of the Douve. Hotsam, still dragging Honoria and perspiring freely, had managed to reach the lifeless form of Bill Banks, when a 17 in. shell detonated between them. Hissing out “We are discovered” he hurriedly grabbed Honoria and made off. But not far. Alas! His foot slipped, and with his burden he fell into the turbid waters below. The waters flowed on. Shomes, appearing on the scene some hours after, rapidly began looking for clues. Having found some, the great detective started off, but too late, the gas was on him, and he had left his vermoral sprayer in the bus.
And so ends this remarkable history of persistence and sagacity. The great enemy of the criminal is now only a name, but his methods must always remain one of the marvels of the criminal history of our nation.
THE END
[N.B. Should there be a few characters not dealt with in this Chapter the reader must understand that they all met their deaths in the liquid fire attack. —The Author.]
The Reigate Road Murder
ANTHONY ARMSTRONG
(Writing as A. Bonan Oil)
GEORGE ANTHONY ARMSTRONG WILLIS (1897–1976) was a prolific Canadian-born British author of historical and crime novels, humorous short stories and plays, and radio and film scripts in several literary genres. In 1924, he began to write humorous pieces for Punch and started to use the pseudonym Anthony Armstrong. He wrote crime novels and humorous works and plays, some of which were adapted for radio from the 1930s through the 1960s. His published articles and short stories appeared in The New Yorker, County Fair, The Strand Magazine, Gaiety, the Daily Mail, and The Evening News.
Among his dozen mystery novels are The Strange Case of Mr. Pelham (1957), which served as the basis for the 1970 film The Man Who Haunted Himself, starring Roger Moore, and five novels about Jimmie Rezaire, a tough London thug who becomes a private eye with a somewhat underdeveloped sense of ethics.
Armstrong is perhaps best known for Ten-Minute Alibi, the hugely successful mystery play about a seemingly perfect murder, which he coauthored with Herbert Shaw; it made its debut on Broadway on October 17, 1933. Armstrong wrote a novelization that was published the following year, and an unloved low-budget film was released in 1935.
“The Reigate Road Murder” was first published in London in the December 1926 issue of Gaiety; its first book appearance was in How to Do It by Anthony Armstrong (London, Methuen, 1928).
THE REIGATE ROAD MURDER
Anthony Armstrong
I MAKE NO excuse for putting the following before the public, for the simple reason that the incidents narrated form the only occasion when my famous friend, Holmlock Shears, ever found himself at fault over a case.
I remember we were sitting in our room in Baker Street, one wet afternoon, occupied in our usual fashion—I with a pencil trying to write some further memoirs, and Shears playing the violin behind an impenetrable cloud of blue smoke—when a lady was shown into the room.
She was tall and of medium height, with dark light hair, a mouth and two eyes. She wore a macintosh, face-powder, and a worried look, and advanced upon me from the doorway.
I dodged—not without difficulty, owing to my wound received at the battle of Maiwand—and speaking from cover, asked her what she wanted.
“Murder has been done,” she gasped. “Where is Mr. Holmlock Shears? I do not see him.”
I pointed silently to the smoke cloud from which issued the strains of Mendelssohn’s Lieder. Each strain was, of course, disguised so as to prevent Mendelssohn recognising his own property.
“He is inside there,” I said proudly.
“Will he speak to me?”
I walked across and knocked on the edge of the smoke cloud.
“Lady to see you, Shears.”
Mendelssohn’s Lieder—what was left of it—changed abruptly to I Don’t Love Nobody, played with the back of the bow and one cuff-link; three strings snapped; the smoke barrage drifted away; and Holmlock Shears was revealed to our sight.
It is totally unnecessary for me to describe in any way my well
-known friend; his tallness, his leanness, his long fingeredness, and his pointed eyes. I need not weary the reader by mentioning his hawk-like nose which gave him such an air of alertness, and will pass over any reference to his chin, and to his hands, mottled with chemicals, spattled with nicotine, and measled with pricks from his hypodermic syringe. There is no need for me to describe—but by this time I have done it.
“You are married,” suddenly flashed my companion, glancing at her left hand. “This afternoon you used face-powder.”
“However did you know?” gasped the woman, recoiling in amazement at this sudden remark, and though I had had ample previous proof of Shears’s superhuman powers of observation and deduction, even I was overcome with wonder.
“Now what is it you want with me?” he went on. “You’ll have to be quick, because I’m only allowed two pages.”
“There has been a murder at my house in South London. It’s nothing serious—only my husband; but I should like, just as a matter of interest, you understand…”
“One minute. I suppose Scotland Yard are there and have no clue and are completely baffled?”
“Oh, yes, we got all the usual procedure over at the beginning and now they’ve gone away. But it is all most puzzling, for not only can we not find the murderer, but we can’t even find the corpse. I am sorry to trouble you about such a little thing.”
“To a great mind nothing is little. I will come at once.” His eyes flashed swiftly over her. “It is raining,” he said quietly, just as if it were the most commonplace remark in the world.
“Wonderful!” I ejaculated, while our visitor stood staring at him in amazement, which small incident I have only included to show the abnormal analytical power possessed by the great detective. In a flash he had deduced the above from her streaming macintosh and wet umbrella, whereas ordinary people would have looked out of the window.
Half an hour later we were in the very house where the dastardly crime had been committed. Shears was faced with the stupendous task of not only discovering the murderer, but also of discovering the corpse. But he was at once busy. He examined with a pocket lens the road outside, the path inside, the aspidistra in the front parlour, and everyone who happened to pass him—myself twice included—talking the whole time about Cremona fiddles and uttering little cries of self-encouragement.
Springing upon a small pile of grey dust in the hall, he scrutinised it closely.
“There are one hundred and fourteen different kinds of cigar and cigarette ash, my dear Watnot,” he began. “I have written a monograph on the subject. This ash is the ash of a Trichinopoly cigar…No, I’m hanged,” he broke off suddenly, “it isn’t after all. I don’t know what it is. Why can’t they always smoke Trichinopoly cigars?” he went on petulantly. “They have always done so far, and between you and me it is the only one I really know.”
But despite this serious setback, such was his amazing cleverness that within ten minutes he had formulated his theory about the murder. Summoning our hostess to the parlour, he began, “This is a very simple crime. The murder was committed by three men; one with a squint to the right, one with a squint to the left, and one without a squint at all. One of the three was smoking a Trichin—no, was just smoking—and had a short while before purchased something for one shilling and elevenpence three farthings. They rode cycles and carried the corpse away in the direction of Reigate.”
“By heavens, Shears, this is wonderful!” I ejaculated.
“Not at all, my dear Watnot; very elementary. Pass the hypodermic syringe.”
“But you amaze me. What…”
“An intrinsically simple case of plain deduction with one or two instructive points. I reasoned thus. Our hostess here tells us that there has been a murder. Therefore a murder has been committed. There is no body. Therefore it has been taken away. So far, so good. But by whom, and how? By the murderers, who were three in number, and carried the corpse away on their bicycles; for there are three bicycle tracks on the Reigate road outside, and, moreover,” he emphasises his words with his forefinger, “moreover, all exactly parallel, such as could only have been made by men carrying a rigid body laid across the handle-bars between them. I have already sent off my band of ragged urchins from Baker Street to follow up the tracks and tell the men they are wanted on the telephone. That little subterfuge will fetch them back, so that in half an hour we may expect to have them under lock and key.”
“Marvellous!” I murmured feebly. “But the squint…”
“Elementary, Watnot, elementary. The two men on the outside carrying a body between them must each have had a squint inwards in order to be able to do it. Or if they hadn’t they will have by now. As regards the article purchased for one and elevenpence three farthings, that follows simply on the finding of the cigar ash. That cigar the man was smoking could only have been given him instead of the farthing change…”
He broke off suddenly as a voice was heard outside, and our hostess rushed to the door.
Shears sprang to his feet.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Thank Heaven, the mystery is solved!” cried the lady triumphantly. “It is my husband alive and well. He was not murdered after all. He has just returned from a ride on his tricycle!”
Shears lit his pipe in baffled anger and disappeared in a cloud of blue smoke, drawing the violin, his last bow, and the hypodermic syringe after him.
The Succored Beauty
WILLIAM B. KAHN
WILLIAM B. KAHN appears to have made only a single contribution to the literature of Sherlock Holmes. It was published in 1905 in The Smart Set Magazine, a literary journal founded in 1900 and edited during its most successful years by H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan, who commissioned work by many of the best young writers of the time, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dashiell Hammett, Dorothy Parker, and James Joyce.
Parody was not unwelcome in its pages, and as the Sherlock Holmes character and stories were at the peak of their popularity, they were an obvious subject. Since this story was the first and only parody produced by Kahn, it should come as no surprise that its full published title was “More Adventures of Oilock Combs: The Succored Beauty,” and that the parody is one of the first to recognize how many Holmes stories involved marital problems.
Nothing could be learned about the author, though there was a William Bonn Kahn (1882–1971) who wrote The Avoidance of War, a Suggestion Offered by William B. Kahn, Written for the Society for Peace in 1914. The possibility exists that it is the same person, though it seems unlikely that this would be of interest to anyone.
“The Succored Beauty” was first published in the October 1905 issue of The Smart Set Magazine; it was published separately in a chapbook limited to 222 copies titled An Adventure of Oilock Combs (San Francisco, Beaune Press, 1964).
THE SUCCORED BEAUTY
William B. Kahn
ONE NIGHT, AS I was returning from a case of acute indigestion—it was immediately after my divorce and I was obliged to return to the practice of my profession in order to support myself—it chanced that my way homeward lay through Fakir Street. As I reached the house where Combs and I had spent so many hours together, where I had composed so many of his adventures, an irresistible longing seized me to go once more upstairs and grasp my friend by the hand, for, if the truth must be told, Combs and I had had a tiff. I really did not like the way in which he had procured evidence for my wife when she sought the separation, and I took the liberty of telling Combs so, but he had said to me: “My dear fellow, it is my business, is it not?” and though I knew he was not acting properly I was forced to be placated. However, the incident left a little breach between us which I determined on this night to bridge.
As I entered the room I saw Combs nervously drinking a glass of soda water. Since I succeeded in breaking him of the morphine habit he had been slyly looking about for some other stimulant and at last he had found it. I sighed to see him thus employed.
“Good evening,
Combs,” said I, extending my hand.
“Hello, Spotson,” cried he, ignoring my proffered digits. “You are well, I see. It is really too bad, though, that you have no servant again. You seem to have quite some trouble with your help.” And he chuckled as he sipped the soda water.
Familiar as I was with my friend’s powers, this extraordinary exhibition of them really startled me.
“Why, Oilock,” said I, calling him in my excitement, by his praenomen, “how did you know it?”
“Perfectly obvious, Spotson, perfectly obvious. Merely observation,” answered Combs as he took out his harmonica and began to play a tune thereon.
“But how?” persisted I.
“Well, if you really wish to know,” he replied as he ceased playing, “I suppose I will be obliged to tell you. I see you have a small piece of court-plaster upon the index finger of your left hand. Naturally, a cut. But the plaster is so small that the cut must be very minute. ‘What could have done it?’ I ask myself. The obvious response is a tack, a pin, or a needle. On a chance I eliminate the tack proposition. I take another chance and eliminate the pin. Therefore, it must have been the needle. ‘Why a needle?’ query I of myself. And glancing at your coat I see the answer. There you have five buttons, four of which are hanging on rather loosely while the fifth is tightly sewn to the cloth. It had recently been sewn. The connection is now clear. You punctured your finger with the needle while sewing on the button. But,” he continued musingly and speaking, it seemed, more to himself than to me, “I never heard of the man who would sew unless he was compelled to. Spotson always keeps a servant; why did she not sew the button on for him? The reply is childishly easy: his servant left him.”
I followed his explanation with rapt attention. My friend’s powers were, I was happy to see, as they were when I lived with him.
