by Bill Peschel
“Uncle William saw his error, and shook the walker by the hand.
“‘Pleased to meet a brother angler,’ and so forth and so on. Then he packed up his tackle and said: ‘Thanks for the tip. I shall come back here one day next week and—trawl.’
“That ended the episode, and I went off to Pont Street to tell Nellie that we were made for one another, and how lucky it was for her that I had found it out. Immediately on my arrival I was as a man who had been struck by a beam between the eyes.
“‘You shall be the first to congratulate me! Though I have only known him a comparatively short time, yet I am quite sure that he will make me happy.’
“‘Happy? What? Who?’ I asked.
“‘Oh, I don’t think you know him personally. But he is a most delightful man. You’ve heard of his wonderful place.—Ben MacSturrock Castle?”
“‘You are engaged to the Duke of Preston?’
“‘No; you have made a mistake. Ben MacSturrock belongs to Mr. William Tunnicliffe, the great dog-biscuit manufacturer, my fiancé.”
“I back-watered a little. Said I:
“‘I have heard of him as an enthusiastic fisherman.’
“‘Possibly. He is wonderful! He is everything!’ she answered, with almost an approach to girlish glee.
“‘I—I hope you will be happy.’
“‘I am sure of it. William is the kindest of men.’
“‘Have you been engaged long?’
“‘No; he only proposed to-day, after lunch. Now, this is where I want your help. He is going to settle fifty thousand pounds on me. Mind you, he insisted. First of all, he suggested a hundred thousand.’
“‘He could do the one as easily as the other.’
“‘He is immensely rich. In fact, he has no idea of how much he is worth.’
“‘Of that I am sure.’
“‘Now, I want you, if you will, to be one of the trustees of my marriage settlement.’
“‘With pleasure,’ said I. She deserved it. Still, it is somewhat galling for the girl—the lady you love—to propose that you should be a trustee of her marriage settlement. After a pause I added: ‘By-the-by, is your fiancé a tall, distinguished-looking man?’
“‘Yes, yes.’
“‘With an iron-gray moustache and cotton-wool whiskerettes?’
“Reluctantly she admitted:
“‘Yes, he has slight whiskers; but nothing to mention.’
“By way of apology I explained:
“‘I certainly should not have mentioned the matter except for purposes of identification. But I must congratulate you on being engaged to my poor Uncle William. A wife might cure him. It is a drastic remedy. But his is a bad case. Begin by trying to break him of an unfortunate habit of fishing either for mackerel, or, indeed, any other fish, in the costume department of Debenhall and Snellbody’s.’
“And, would you believe it, that woman, who might have been my wife had she not preferred a person of unsound mind, called me names?”
He ceased.
“You will pardon me, Mr. Holmes, but what the dickens has this pleasing anecdote got to do with the case in hand?”
“Ask Watson; he knows my methods.”
“With all possible respect, it seems to me that it would be quite useless to consult the Doctor on that point.”
“Quite,” echoed Watson, who had scarcely looked up from the summer number of the Stethoscope during Holmes’s recital.
Then the greatest methodist of our day spoke slowly, weighing his words:
“It was through my annoyance at Uncle William’s courtship that I investigated the reason why men wore whiskers, and eventually discovered the WHISKER LEAGUE.”
Chapter XV
The Truth About Watson
Paul felt that, at last, Sherlock was actually—though indirectly—approaching the matter of the mysterious warnings; he controlled his growing impatience, and listened eagerly. The Doctor seemed bored with the whole performance.
Slowly the great man (not Watson) spoke:
“It must have occurred to you, as a thinking man, that the wearing of tufts of hair on the sides of the face is a disfiguring and purposeless proceeding. In all walks of life, from the very highest to . . . almost . . . the very lowest are to be found wearers of whiskers, such as my Uncle William. Now, whiskers serve no good purpose: women loathe them, they collect microbes, and they get very dusty when their proprietor is motoring. They make their proprietor ridiculous and, except in rare cases, vulgar. Why, then, are they worn?”
Paul confessed himself in the dark.
Watson did not move in the matter.
“It is an astounding thing that a man should shave the bulk of his natural ivy, and retain two triangles of fungus beneath his ears.”
“Admitted, Mr. Holmes,” said Paul.
“Men, even in the twentieth century, are some what vain. And it is a legitimate assumption that they would not thus disfigure themselves save for some important purpose. Eh?”
“The house is with you, Mr. Holmes.”
“It is common knowledge,” continued the eminent one, “that Freemasons have a system of mutual identification. It is said that by means of a grip of the hand they can make themselves known to one another. But a handshake is only serviceable when you are sufficiently near to another man to be able to shake his hand. Do I make my meaning clear?”
“Perfectly, thanks.”
“Whereas I have discovered that, at three hundred yards, whiskers are distinctly visible to the naked eye. Therefore it was that they were adopted as the sign manual—the sign facial, I should say—of the ubiquitous WHISKER LEAGUE.”
“You surprise me! But what is the object of the league? Not merely . . . to grow whiskers? There can be no money in it!”
“Certainly not. The object of the blue-riband army is not simply to wear blue ribands. No, the whiskers are like the ribands, signs of membership.”
“I see.”
“I hoped you would. As to the purpose of this secret society, I would I could say,” said Holmes gravely, “that it is as innocent as the temperance organization. But . . . it is not. Emphatically, it is not.”
“And my guardian is a member of it! Impossible!” cried Paul, indignant at the suggestion.
“No, your uncle is not a member of it. That’s just it. That is the cause of the danger.” Holmes leant forward in his chair, and whispered with flashing eyes: “He is in the greatest danger. Death is knocking at his doors. But . . . for a thousand a year . . . I can keep him alive—whiskers and all.”
“Such a sum would be judiciously expended in the preservation of my dear guardian. But tell me, Mr. Holmes, what is the danger that faces him?”
Holmes spoke earnestly, slowly; his hands made feverish movements; his eyes sparkled.
“The object of the WHISKER LEAGUE is anti-English. These men with the curious face-fittings have bound themselves together on purpose to destroy our Empire—an Empire on which, as perhaps you may have heard, the sun never sets. On occasions, persons who were not members have grown the insignia of the organization. They have been warned. If they have desisted, all has been well. If they have not, the league has dealt with them swiftly, suddenly . . . fatally.
“Your guardian has been warned. Three messages were delivered—indirectly, I admit, but so skilfully that their purport was conveyed to him. From your description of his demeanour on receipt of these warnings, I gathered that he was, for purposes of his own, spying on this dread organization, and that—in order to penetrate its secrets—he was willing to face . . . death.”
In his excitement his voice rose: “But I was wrong, utterly wrong. He is going to his destruction in absolute ignorance of his peril. He is technically . . . an unconscious whisker-wearer. He knows nothing of the league.”
“Are you sure? How can you know?”
“Sure! Sure!” cried Holmes, nervously walking about the room. “What man, in face of that last most awful warning, could remain callo
us? What man could remain unmoved when—through his dining-room window the head of a murdered whisker-man—falls with a dull thud on the floor?”
Watson rose and tried to speak.
Holmes drowned his voice.
Violently waving his hands, he cried:
“Only I can save him!—Only I! For a thousand a year I can have him watched. He can sleep in his whiskers in safety. He can wag these scarlet oriflammes in the eyes of the monstrous murder league . . . if I am on his side. He can walk whiskered and unharmed.”
“Holmes!”
Watson spoke firmly.
Deliberately he stared into Sherlock’s wild eyes.
In a second the lids dropped.
“Yes, Doctor.”
“The Duc de Beauvrille is in your bedroom waiting to consult you in a most important case.”
A pause.
Holmes stroked his forehead wearily.
“Quite so, quite so. I shall be back by Michaelmas, at latest . . . certainly not before.”
Then he moved out of the room, and quietly closed the door.
In amazement Paul had watched this strange proceeding.
“I owe you an explanation,” said the Doctor, motioning him to a seat, and speaking with much emotion. “The case is very simple, but very sad. My poor friend’s mind is totally unhinged. Years ago he became a victim to cocaine, and while under the influence of the drug his brain evolved extraordinary criminal mysteries. Of course, they stood in no sort of relation to life. But they had a certain fascination of their own . . . at any rate, to me, his friend. To humour him, I . . . wrote them down. And, as you are aware, they had a considerable vogue with the public.”
Indignantly Paul cried:
“You made capital out of the terrible condition of your poor friend!”
“Bear with me, sir. For years I never suspected what was the matter with him.”
“But you are a medical man!”
“Yes, in a sense. But I am not precisely . . . what shall I say? . . . a great genius.” And he added, as though making an immature jest, “I often think that I am somewhat of a . . . can I say? . . . chump-head.”
“You can, so far as I am concerned. Indeed, you are well known to be a chump-head. You needn’t worry about that.”
“Thank you; it is a pleasure to be able to speak quite candidly. Well, I never noticed anything peculiar about Sherlock until he chanced to attract the attention of a policeman by standing on his head at the corner of Baker Street and Portman Square. He vainly explained that this was one of his methods of . . . taking exercise. But, unhappily, the affair was inquired into, and the upshot of the matter was that his friends asked me to look after him.”
“You—pardon me—but you, of all people! How about his brother?”
“Ah, you allude to his brother Mycrobe. Mycrobe Holmes is a delusion. He does not exist. Neither does Uncle William with the whiskerettes. The whole thing, the crimes, the criminals, the arrests . . . all inventions, the marvellous inventions of a shattered brain!”
Watson was overcome with emotion.
“Except the deer-stalker cap?”
“Except that. But, of course, the wearing of that sort of cap is in itself a symptom of disease. There is, indeed, madness in his methods.”
“I’m very sorry for your poor pal and his lamentable taste in caps, but you two have wasted a lot of my time. You are in charge of this lunatic. Why do you let him go about causing dull thuds in people’s dining-rooms?”
“How could I help it? I ask you. I had the head here, because I am studying diseases of the brain. I am anxious to find out the cause of . . . my devotion to my friend Holmes. Well, you must know that I never, never allow him out of my sight except for a reasonable purpose. He must have no opportunity to buy cocaine.”
“Quite so.”
“Yesterday evening he asked me to lend him the head—it had a beard on it—in order to teach a barber’s apprentice how to shave scientifically. So plausible was his request that I naturally granted it. Besides, who could refuse dear old Holmes anything?”
“Dr. Watson, you are one of the leading asses of our day,” said Paul politely; as he left the room.
* * * * *
It was high time Watson should be told.
Sherlock Holmes
Harry Graham
Illustrated by Malcolm Strauss
Jocelyn Henry Clive “Harry” Graham (1874-1936) lived a varied career as a reporter, a lyricist for operettas and musical comedies, and a soldier, fighting with the Coldstream Guards in the Boer War and World War I. His light verse, characterized best by the title of his first collection, Ruthless Rhymes, was an influence on P.G. Wodehouse. This more sedate example of his humor appeared in Metropolitan Magazine’s June issue with photo-illustrations from the Gillette stage production of Sherlock Holmes and republished that year in Graham’s More Misrepresentative Men. Malcolm Strauss (1883-1936) was a New York illustrator known for his portraits and still lifes.
The French “filou” may raise his “bock,”
The “Green-goods man” his cocktail, when
He toast Gaboriau’s Le Coq,
Or Pinkerton’s discreet young men;
But beer in British bumpers foams
Around the name of Sherlock Holmes!
Come, boon companions, all of you
Who (woodcock-like) exist by suction,
Uplift your teeming tankards to
The great Professor of Deduction!
Who is he? You shall shortly see
If (Watson-like) you “follow me.”
In London (on the left-hand side
As you go in), stands Baker Street,
Exhibited with proper pride
By all policemen on the beat,
As housing one whose predilection
Is private criminal detection.
The malefactor’s apt disguise
Presents to him an easy task;
His placid, penetrating eyes
Can pierce the most secretive mask;
And felons ask a deal too much
Who fancy to elude his clutch.
No slender or exiguous clew
Too paltry for his needs is found;
No knot too stubborn to undo,
No prey too swift to run to ground;
No road too difficult to travel,
No skein too tangled to unravel.
For Holmes the ash of a cigar,
A gnat impinging on his eye,
Possess a meaning subtler far
Than humbler mortals can descry.
A primrose at the river’s brim
No simple primrose is to him!
To Holmes a battered Brahma key,
Combined with blurred articulation,
Displays a man’s capacity
For infinite ingurgitation;
Obliquity of moral vision
Betrays the civic politician.
I had an uncle, who possessed
A marked resemblance to a bloater,
Whom Sherlock, by deduction, guessed
To be the victim of a motor;
Whereas, his wife (or so he swore)
Had merely shut him in the door!
My brother’s nose, whose hectic hue
Recalled the sun-kissed autumn leaf,
Though friends attributed it to
Some secret or domestic grief,
Revealed to Holmes his deep potations,
And not the loss of loved relations!
I had a poodle, short and fat,
Who proved a conjugal deceiver;
Her offspring were a Maltese Cat,
Two Dachshunds and a pink retriever!
Her husband was a pure-bred Skye;
And Sherlock Holmes alone knew why!
When after-dinner speakers rise,
To plunge in anecdotage deep,
At once will Sherlock recognise
Each welcome harbinger of sleep:
That voice which torpid guests
entrances,
That immemorial voice of Chauncey’s!
Not his, suppose Hall Caine should walk
All unannounced into the room,
To say, like pressmen of New York,
“Er—Mr. Shakespeare, I presoom?”
By name “The Manxman” Holmes would hail,
Observing that he had no tale.
In vain, amid the lonely state
Of Zion, dreariest of havens,
Does bashful Dowie emulate
The prophet who was fed by ravens;
To Holmes such affluence betrays
A prophet who is fed by jays!
With Holmes there lived a foolish man,
To whom I briefly must allude,
Who gloried in possessing an
Abnormal mental hebetude;
One could describe the grossest bétise
To this (forgive the rhyme) Achates.
‘Twas Doctor Watson, human mole,
Obtusely, painfully polite;
Who played the unambitious role
Of parasitic satellite;
Inevitably bound to bore us,
Like Aristophanes’s Chorus.
But London town is sad to-day,
And preternaturally solemn;
The fountains murmur “Let us spray”
To Nelson on his lonely column;
Big Ben is mute, her clapper crack’d is,
For Holmes has given up his practice.
No more in silence, as the snake,
Will he his sinuous path pursue,
Till, like the weasel (when awake),
Or deft, resilient kangaroo,
He leaps upon his quivering quarry,
Before there’s time to say you’re sorry.
No more will criminals, at dawn,
Effecting some burglarious entry,
(While Sherlock, on the garden lawn,
Enacts the thankless role of sentry),
Discover, to their bitter cost,
That felons who are found—are lost!
No more on Holmes shall Watson base
