Sherlock Holmes Edwardian Parodies and Pastiches II

by Bill Peschel

  The policeman did so, and we passed on. Inside, Holmes made a trivial purchase, then looked over the city directory, particularly the classification of trades and professions in the back. At last he concluded this task and motioned to me. We went out together.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “It’s solved, Watson,” he said. “Every thread of it has been run to its end. It’s perfectly beautiful.”

  “Do you know the name of the victim?” I asked.

  “I do,” he said.

  “And the name of the physician who performed the first operation?” I went on breathlessly.

  “That, too,” he declared. “I told you I knew that. It’s perfectly beautiful, man! The prettiest crime—I mean, of course, in its features—I have ever had anything to do with.”

  CHAPTER VII

  Deeply underlying the outward reserve of Sherlock Holmes, there is, I am pained to say, a love of the theatric. It is a part of the man; perhaps it arises from his profession. It exists and is dominant always in the recital of a story. For this reason, Holmes would tell me nothing then of what he had discovered, or even suggest to me the names of the victim, the surgeon, and the physician who, he declared, played principal parts in the tragedy. I had to wait in patience.

  After we reached home, we slept for several hours, then Holmes arose and went out. Twice around the clock I didn’t see him, but when he did come back late at night, he seemed tired and there was an indefinable trace of something else in his manner.

  I knew it would be useless to ask questions, therefore I said nothing as he sat for an hour or more smoking and gazing out the window. His eyes were bright with a feverish brilliancy, and twice he reached for the hypodermic and the little tube of poison. Each time after he had thrust the keen needle far into the flesh of his arm he leaned back with a sigh.

  Finally, he began to talk, and as he went on his voice ran from a low, thrilling tense note to the high excited voice of a man who seeks vainly to control himself. Then, he turned the light on that strange mystery which has proven impenetrable to the keenest police intelligence of the country.

  “It has been a beautiful problem, Watson,” he said. “And it has proven beyond all question the truth of my previous assertion that when a man of intelligence seeks to cover a crime he can do it successfully—if he is not a criminal.”

  “But I thought you had solved this?” I exclaimed.

  “I have, but it was through the mistake of a fool who meddled and not because of any mistake of the man whose brain conceived the plan of disposing of the body of the girl,” he said, and in his tone was an implied defense of the surgeon he had so frequently mentioned. “Yes, when a brain of power turns to crime the result is always extraordinary; it is only the stupid criminals who are caught. They write their name and address, one might say, on everything they touch.”

  He was silent for a little while, then suddenly with a sweep of his hand he indicated one end of the room.

  Play A Little Tragedy.

  “There’s a stage,” he exclaimed. “We will play a little tragedy. It is the old story of a woman who erred, but it is a wonderful one.”

  Again silence for a moment, and then he went on.

  “There is now living in Boston a young surgeon whom we will call Dr. X. He is a graduate of the foremost school of surgery in this country, and for four years remained in Europe studying. His social position is high, he is well-to-do; he practices his profession for sheer love of something to do.

  “Three years ago, he met and fell in love with a Miss W. She was the daughter also of rich parents, but two years ago her mother died. Her social position was, if anything, higher than that of the surgeon: but apparently she loved him, that is for a time. Then there came a break between them; it was possibly due to a remark made by another man, the son of a banker.

  “At any rate the surgeon, grimly swallowing his grief at the loss of her love, applied himself to his profession, with the result that he achieved a high position. And still—I have this from his own lips—he loved the girl. It was an unobtrusive love, but none the less earnest.

  “After a while he knew, vaguely, that the man who had been the cause of the break was himself paying court to Miss W. He said nothing, but continued at his work. He avoided them, so he rarely met the girl. In fact he rarely met anyone except professionally, for that social life which had once seemed so attractive to him when he and Miss W. were together had lost its charm. And for a year he didn’t see Miss W.

  “One day six months ago, he met her, and he learned she was engaged to be married to the son of the banker. He congratulated her, yet his love for her was as great as it had ever been. Three months later, he learned that sudden financial disaster had overtaken Miss W.’s family. Still, the marriage, he thought, and there again a fortune.

  “Well, there wasn’t any marriage, Watson. The son of the banker, a handsome, dashing man of that type which appeals to women too often—it’s a pity—practically jilted Miss W. He was looking for power and control of funds which would make him a power. And meanwhile the girl trusting him, had erred—it was not an uncommon occurrence nor did it vary from that story which is told every day in other cases.

  Grief Tore Her Heart.

  “With no mother, with no one to trust and in fear of her father, the girl made that other mistake in a desperate attempt to save her own honor and the name she bore. She went to Winthrop, presumably as a visitor at a house there, and honor and grief were tearing out her heart. Perhaps suicide suggested itself.

  “In Winthrop on Tuesday, September 19, there came that dreamless sleep under the knife. She awoke in good condition apparently, but through a blunder of the physician—whom we will call Dr. Nemo, and who was a fool as I said of inexcusable ignorance—there was poisoning. It was to be combatted. For a few hours the physician kept the secret, fearing for his own freedom should it become known.

  “Then he told the girl; told her that death was approaching unless some other man, a surgeon, came into the case. That surgeon, Dr. X., was called as one of the foremost in his profession. He answered the call as a matter of common humanity, not knowing then who the victim was. When he saw the girl—the girl he had himself loved—there was the frenzied effort to save her. Not one thing was left undone, and if she could have been saved he would have saved her.

  “Then, Watson, came one of the strange features of this strange case. Dr. X. operated; it was his knife that made that small wound on the right of the body; and a steady hand, steadied by a vision of the past, guided the knife. Of course, we know it was too late. The girl died. Two men, in the brilliant glare of their operating light, stood beside the body and wondered.”

  Sherlock Holmes paused, lighted another cigarette, and sat silent for a long time.

  “But the dismemberment of the body?” I asked. “Why was that done?”

  Holmes turned on me almost fiercely.

  “Done?” he exclaimed. “Why, there were a dozen reasons. The surgeon could not have issued a death certificate. Dr. Nemo”—and he smiled as he spoke the name, a smile of derision—“could not issue one, therefore . . . ” He waved his hands meaningly.

  “But why couldn’t a surgeon of reputation, Dr. X. for instance, issue a death certificate?” I insisted.

  Saved Her Good Name.

  “Had a death certificate been issued, the father and family would have wanted to know why the girl died,” Holmes responded. “The law would have demanded to know why. The only thing to do was to dispose of the body. It saved, above all, the good name of the girl, even from her father; it saved the reputation of the surgeon, whose name, mentioned in the case in any connection, would have been ruin; it saved the physician, Dr. Nemo—and it saved the banker’s son. Not that these last two deserved it.”

  “But surely there was some other way,” I suggested. “Surely this—”

  “Can you imagine the agony of a man of deep feeling, cutting to pieces the body of the woman he loved?” Holmes aske
d. “Wasn’t it a strange position? Wasn’t it one of the most dramatic things you have ever heard of?”

  “I suppose so,” I said, still unsatisfied, “but—”

  “Why wasn’t the body disposed of in some other way?” said Holmes. “It was impossible. There was only one way. The surgeon saw that way. He acted accordingly. Why, it was positively a great act of kindness. Some time, perhaps, that surgeon will be arrested, because of the stupidity of Dr. Nemo. But I hope that day will not come.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  Together we sat silent for a long time. I saw Dr. X.’s motives now; it put the mystery in a different light. Punishment of Dr. Nemo meant punishment of Dr. X., therefore it was out of the question in Holmes’s mind. We began to talk of the strange features of the case.

  “You seemed to attach great significance to that sticker impression on the suit case,” I said.

  “It was through that that I solved the mystery,” said Holmes. “That was the work of a fool—again Dr. Nemo. I reasoned this way: The sticker was not on the suit case when the man who sold it to Berkman had it; it was not on the suit case when Berkman sold it to—”

  “To whom?” I asked quickly.

  “To Dr. Nemo,” said Holmes. “He’s the man whom Berkman’s description fits. As I was saying, that sticker was not on the suit case then. Therefore, it must have been placed on the suit case after it was purchased. It was on the case when it was thrown into the water. The water mercifully took it off.”

  “But you said it had the name or initials of the surgeon on it?”

  “It did have. It wouldn’t have been put on there for any other purpose. Dr. Nemo was not such a fool as to put his own name on it, but he was fool enough to put another man’s name on it—the name of the surgeon. It was a sample of that particular brand of cunning which always opens a problem to public inspection. Mercifully the water washed the sticker off.”

  “But,” I asked wonderingly, “how did you know from that sticker incident those things which came out later? For instance, the exact house?”

  Written By Dr. Nemo.

  “Readily found out. I merely asked a baggage man in Winthrop if he had ever seen baggage bearing a sticker of the size of that. He had frequently noticed it on a case of what seemed to be surgical instruments that same man carried. He had also noticed it on a trunk belonging to this same man. This man was a doctor; he remembered the name was Dr. Nemo. He told me so.

  “That day when we were on the beach, he is the man who came to tell me where the house of this doctor was. He didn’t know it and had to learn it. He did so and told me. Dr. Nemo moved from the house on the day of the girl’s death. Then I searched the house.”

  “And there you found—” I began.

  “The one thing which Dr. X. had left to betray himself: a cigarette butt. It had his initials on it; they are frequently that way. I applied these initials to surgeons shown by the directory. I found initials to correspond. I found the man whom I call Dr. X. He told me the story. He spoke entirely without reserve and made clear to me his motives in the matter. Since then I have verified his story as to the girl.”

  “But how did you happen to learn her name?” I insisted.

  “Ah, that’s luck!” said Holmes. “I received an anonymous letter which told me that. It bore the postmark, ‘St. John, N.B.’ It was written by Dr. Nemo,” he added.

  “For what purpose?” I was amazed.

  “Because he is a fool,” said Holmes. “He was frightened by the publicity which was aroused and, for some strange reason, wrote to give the name of the girl. He thought that identification might end the affair. The name was right.”

  Holmes talked on for an hour elucidating many points which had seemed wholly mysterious; of the disappearance of the head and limbs, which he declared would never be found; of his reasons for visiting the steamer and asking questions of the purser, which proved that Dr. Nemo had gone to St. John, and of a hundred other things.

  But there were three questions in my mind—questions which hammered for an answer. These all related to the identity of the three principals in this strange tragedy. Holmes heard the questions and smiled slightly.

  “It would seem no good for me to give you those names, Watson,” he replied. “It’s idle curiosity. Perhaps some day they may be known. I hope not.”

  “But will you give them to the police?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, finally. “I was interested in this case purely and simply as a problem. I shall sail for Liverpool tomorrow.”

  “And the mystery will never be solved?”

  “Not publicly.”

  Holmes reached his slender hand for the hypodermic.

  Moriarty’s Return

  T. Arnold Johnston

  Of all the villains in the stories, Professor Moriarty was undoubtedly the most powerful and the most underused. Fleshing out his story became the goal of many a pastiche writer, such as this entry that ran in eight installments in The Student, the official magazine of Edinburgh University, from Nov. 2 to Dec. 21. T. Arnold Johnson (1881-1918), became a doctor like Conan Doyle. Scholastically gifted, he conducted experiments with bacteria which resulted in several accidental injections, resulting in his early death of meningitis at 37.

  On two occasions I have laid down my pen with mingled feelings, after what I thought my final record of those singular adventures, in which my gifted friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, exhibited his unique powers in the detection of crime. At each attempt I was dissatisfied by the totally inadequate appreciation I was able to offer of the brilliancy of my friend’s methods.

  On the first occasion I had detailed the solution of his final problem in connection with the affairs of Professor Moriarty, which had resulted, as I then thought, in the terrific plunge of Holmes locked in Moriarty’s death grip over the precipice at the Reichenbach Fall. Although the lapse of two years had soothed my grief with the healing touch of time, I could not write down the details of that overwhelming loss without opening the old wound and experiencing all the desolation and horror of that fatal evening.

  The second occasion was after what I cannot but regard as the miraculous return of Holmes. I had been tempted by the former popularity of my brief and incoherent sketches of those dramas in crime, which I had feebly assisted my friend to expose, to again assume my pen and recount his subsequent feats in criminal investigation, before his final retirement into private life. It was two years after this, when he was quietly living in his private cottage near Marlow on the Thames, that he was unwillingly forced to leave his studies on the conisation of the lighter elements. Only the most imperious call, and the most unexpected happenings compelled him, much against his will, to re-adopt for a time those methods by which he has gained a world-wide reputation.

  The night which witnessed the most extraordinary denouement of Holmes’ career was towards the end of a somewhat boisterous November in 1904. I had run down from London to spend a weekend with Holmes in his cottage, and we were established at opposite sides of the fire in his particular den. Many of the relics of our rooms in Baker Street were there, and aided to recall the varied scenes we had enacted together. In spite of the orderly methods of my friend’s mental reasoning, he was always the most untidy of men in his personal habits. The Persian slipper still performed the role of a tobacco jar; a box of cigars half protruded from the coal scuttle; the table cloth was stained with chemical reagents as of old; a litter of broken test tubes and paper filled one side of the fender. The walls bore evidence that he had not given up his habit of chamber pistol practice, and his neglected correspondence was as usual fixed to the centre of the mantelshelf by the blade of a jack-knife. The tidiest object in the room was his shelf of scrapbooks, filled with out-of-the-way information and criminal biography.

  Holmes had been lying back in his chair, slowly sucking at his pipe in silence for the greater part of an hour. His look had been getting more intent, until he had that appearance of intense concentration, formerly assoc
iated with the solution of a more than usually intricate problem. Finding him too absorbed for conversation, I had glanced through the evening paper, and seeing in it little of interest, I gave myself up to recalling some of those scenes which had so strongly bound us together. Above the fireplace was a framed photograph of the Reichenbach Fall, that Holmes had purchased as a memento of his great escape. As I looked at it Holmes suddenly remarked—

  “My dear Watson, I begin to have a feeling, that if Professor Moriarty had succeeded in his kind intentions with regard to my humble person, I would nevertheless have returned sooner or later to my ordinary courses.”

  Such a statement coming from a man of Holmes’ mental power startled me into sitting up in my chair, and gazing at him in blank amazement.

  “Do you mean that you could have escaped out of that churning fury at the foot of the fall.”

  “At least it has to be proved that the feat is impossible.”

  “But Moriarty never returned.”

  “That also has not been proved, but I see that I have shocked you by referring so lightly to the waters of Reichenbach.”

  Holmes lay back further in his chair with a gleam of amusement in his eyes, and began to toy idly with some odds and ends on a small smoking table beside him. There were various pipes, a curious Japanese match-box with a polished metal mirror in the lid, ash trays, and such trifles. He turned them over one by one, finally turning the match-box on its side and shifting it carelessly about for a moment or two.

  “I have sometimes thought,” said I, “it was to be regretted that the marvelous mental powers of Professor Moriarty should have been destroyed. Turned to some other career than the vicious organization of crime, he would have attained an eminence as great and respected as your own. Had he been a doctor—”