by Bill Peschel
“Hello,” said he, impatiently.
“Is this Mr. Holmes?” came a voice.
“Yes,” replied the detective, irritably. “Hurry up and get off the wire. I want to call the police. I’ve been robbed.”
“Yes, I know,” said the voice. “I’m the thief, Mr. Holmes. I wanted to tell you not to worry. Your stuff will be returned to you as soon as we have had it photographed for the illustration of an article in to-night’s Boston Gazoozle. It will be on the newsstands in about an hour. Better read it; it’s a corker; and much obliged to you for the material.”
“Well, I’ll be blanked!” cried Holmes, the ’phone receiver dropping from his nerveless fingers. “I fear, my dear Watson, that, in the language of this abominable country, I’ve been stung!”
* * * * *
Two hours later the streets of Boston were ringing with the cries of newsboys selling copies of the five o’clock extra of the Evening Gazoozle, containing a most offensive article, with the following headlines:
DO DETECTIVES DETECT?
A GAZOOZLE REPORTER DISGUISED AS A HARVARD PROFESSOR
Calls on Sherlock Holmes, Esq.
And Gets Away with Two Suit Cases
Full of the Great Detective’s
Personal Effects, While
Dr. Watson’s Hero
Tells What He Does Not Know About
PRAGMATISM
By His Left Eyelashes
The Science of Refined Deduction Admirably Illustrated
Anonymous
You might say this example of the deduction-gone-wrong trope relies on plain horse sense for its humor. Although credited to The Washington Post, this story was found in the May 25 issue of the Geneva N.Y. Daily Times.
“Don’t look up now,” said Mr. Hemlock Holmes to his fellow commuter, the horse doctor, “but when you do look up, take particular notice of the man sitting directly across the car from us who seems to be half asleep.”
The veterinary raised his eyes after a brief interval and regarded with a searching look the person indicated.
“What do you deduce?” asked Hemlock Holmes.
“Well,” said the horse doctor, “I see no evidence of heaves; his mind seems to be all right. I should say that he has neither ringbone nor spavin. But I should want to see his gait before saying that he has no springhalt.”
“These things are matters of observation and not of deduction,” said Mr. Holmes, a trifle nettled. “Now, endeavor to follow me.
“This man,” Mr. Holmes went on, “is employed in an office. His liver is slightly out of order, and he wears spectacles when at work.”
“Wonderful!” exclaimed the veterinarian. “How do you make it out?”
“It is as plain as your nose on my face,” said Hemlock Holmes. “If you will observe him closely you will see that his eyelashes on the upper lid of the left eye slant toward the left.”
“So they do,” said the D.V.S.
“Well, that tells the whole story, so far as my deductions have progressed,” said Mr. Holmes. “The eyelashes of the upper lid of his left eye slant toward the left because the spectacle lens over that eye when he is at work presses over in that direction.
“The reason why the lens presses them over is that his right ear stands out further from his head than his left ear, making the spectacle bow on that side a loose fit and making his spectacles sit slantwise. The reason why his right ear wings out further than his left is because he sleeps on his left side.
“He sleeps on that side because his liver won’t let him rest comfortably on the other.”
“Wonderful—wonderful!” exclaimed the horse doctor.
The train halted at a station and as Mr. Hemlock Holmes and the veterinary arose to alight the man opposite looked up and said:
“Hello, Doc! Everything all right? Yes. Thanks. Just been to town to get fitted to some eyeglasses. Never wore them before. Must be getting old, I guess. So long.”
Mickey Sweeney, Detective of Detectives
Lincoln Steffens
Illustrated by H.A. Linnell
With the rise of mass media, police officers found themselves in the uncomfortable position of having the public looking over their shoulders while they worked. One of them was journalist Lincoln Steffens (1866-1936), whose stories of big-city corruption, and the public’s apathy about it were reprinted in The Shame of the Cities (1904). For the July issue of American Magazine, Steffens used what he learned about police methods for this story that casts a gimlet eye at Holmes’ method. Harry A. Linnell (1873-?), was a Massachusetts artist who specialized in illustrating stories.
A word of warning: late in the story several very inappropriate words are used to describe African-Americans. These words were left in because they reflected how people spoke and thought back then.
“Say, Mickey, here’s a detective in this book that always sits in a corner facing a room.”
Mickey rolled up off the sofa. “Lemme see,” he said eagerly. The boy had seemed to be asleep, but he came and seized the book with a very lively interest. And all the other reporters were interested, too. They laid down their cards and turned to watch Mickey read the passage.
The hero of the police world was the chief of detectives, Inspector Foley. He was very successful; and the whole city had faith in him. Leading citizens especially believed in Foley, and he served them especially well. Many of them could tell wonderful stories of his detective skill. For that matter, however, Foley himself could tell wonderful stories of his triumphs, and he did, often. That was one reason why he was a favorite among the newspaper men, excepting only Mickey Sweeney.
“Foley?” he would say, “Foley is all front,” and he showed very plainly his unbelief. The Inspector noticed it. The other boys noticed that Foley noticed because, as they remarked, the Inspector was “all the time playing to Mickey.” A pompous, serious Irishman, Foley had need of approbation, and the disbelief of Mickey was a discordant note in his world of rhythmic admiration. And besides, Mickey—keen, “straight” and “wise”—commanded the respect of the police.
“He’s hard to fool,” they said, so the Chief of Detectives played to Mickey, and—in vain. If he had a good story to tell the reporters of a criminal mystery solved, he addressed himself to Mickey, and his only reward was some slighting remark by the boy.
“Foley reads detective stories, and that’s where he gets his.”
The other reporters suspected that this was true, but they didn’t want to believe it. They admired the great detective too much to care to learn that his feet were of clay. So they resisted Mickey’s theories.
One of Foley’s habits which the press never wearied of picturing was that of taking, in a restaurant or other public place, a seat where, with his back to a corner, he could command the whole situation. It was picturesque; it suggested “the eye that never sleeps,” and thus the reporters reported it.
“Bet he got it out of a book,” said Mickey.
Now Mickey himself never read detective stories. “Make me tired,” he said, so he didn’t know; he only guessed that Foley “got it out of a book.” The other fellows challenged Mickey to produce his proof, and the controversy was an old one among them. Hence, then, the eagerness of Mickey and the interest of the others to see whether the Inspector’s peculiarity had really turned up in a book.
It was there. Mickey read the passage to himself, then he turned to the reporter who had found it.
It was there. Mickey read the passage to himself
“Where’d you get the book?” he asked.
“Foley lent it to me.”
Mickey’s triumph was complete, but he said not a word. The boy had an odd way of never rejoicing over you when he had you beaten. And another trait of his—most excellent in a reporter—was to go on getting evidence after his case was proven. So now he started away.
“Where you going, Mick?” one of the card-players asked.
“To see if Foley has read the book,” he answered, a
s he disappeared out of the door.
Foley was reading when Mickey was admitted. He was lying on his red leather sofa, his coat, collar and boots off, and, closing the book over his finger, he looked up over his glasses at the reporter. There was no greeting.
“What ye reading, Inspector?” the boy asked.
“Sherlock Holmes,” the Inspector answered.
“Sherlock Holmes!” Mickey exclaimed. “What you fooling with guff like that for?”
The Inspector removed his glasses, the better to look at Mickey, and his stare seemed to call for some answer.
His stare seemed to call for some answer
“Yes, guff,” Mickey answered.
“So you have read some of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes?”
“Yes, I’ve read some of the fakes of Sherlock Holmes and I’ve written some of ’em besides, I guess.”
“Sherlock Holmes is a character in fiction,” the Inspector began in his best style. Foley had acquired a certain dignity of expression which amounted to an affectation. But he couldn’t sustain it long. Once, for example, he pretended to give an order in the presence of the reporters to his detective-sergeants. They listened solemnly but they didn’t obey, and when the reporters complained again, Foley called the men in again before the reporters.
“With these gentlemen of the press to bear me witness on Saturday last I commanded you, the members of my staff, to,” and he quoted his order. So far he was very formal and dignified. But he took a step toward the line of detectives and, thrusting out his jaw, he dropped his affectation. “Now,” said he, “what I’m after askin’ you is, Did yez did it?”
So he began with Mickey: “Sherlock Holmes is a character in fiction,” he said, “fiction which seems to have the approval of our highest class of literary publications. It is indeed fiction, but that don’t mean that it ain’t onto the biz all right all right.” He caught himself up, and proceeded: “But what do you mean, Mr. Sweeney, by saying that you have written some such stories yourself? You don’t write fiction, do you?”
“Oh, often,” said Mickey, who knew that if he didn’t smile the Inspector wouldn’t. And the Inspector didn’t. “But, see here, Inspector, you lent a book to one of the fellows, The Cross of the Crossroads, or something like that. It’s a translation of a French detective story. Now that’s entirely different. Ever read it?”
“I have,” said the Inspector.
“Well,” said Mickey, “either that’s wrong or Sherlock Holmes is.”
“Neither is wrong. They are entirely different kinds of detective work,” and, by way of penalty for the kind of detective work Mickey had been guilty of, the boy had to listen to a dissertation on police art, which “made him tired.” And what made him feel that way was that Foley should try to fool him, Mickey, who used to sit with the detectives down in the basement, hear their gossip, and thus learn in the most indirect and satisfactory way just how they went about their work. He stood all he could stand from the Inspector, then he rose.
“So you don’t think,” he said, “that the feller that wrote up Sherlock Holmes isn’t just a-guying the police?”
“Guying the police?” the Inspector exclaimed, and he got up on his feet. “Guying—”
“I don’t know a thing about it,” Mickey hastened to add, “but as I read some of his leads to his stories I thought I got here and there a clue to the effect that he was shooting some shot, small bird shot, but shot just the same, and hot, into what he calls Scotland Yard, which is the same thing, I guess, that you are here. And that never struck you at all?”
The Inspector was uncomfortable. He sometimes suspected that he was very stupid and he knew that Mickey was sometimes very keen. He fell back on “bluff,” his surest recourse.
“I’ll show you, Mr. Sweeney,” he said, “the methods of Mr. Holmes applied in operation under your own eyes. Would that convince you?”
“Sure,” said Mickey, and he escaped.
The boy had all but forgotten this “bluff,” as he called it, when the Chief asked him casually one afternoon to dine with him that evening. Whenever Foley stayed late in the office he went over to the Tiger Restaurant on the Bowery for dinner and sometimes he would take a reporter with him. But he didn’t often choose Mickey. He liked more awe than the boy gave him. And Mickey preferred not to go with Foley; when he went, it was “on the chance” of getting a story. For the Inspector, in his magnificence, delighted to drop a bit of news.
There was no news for dinner that night. The Chief took his corner seat, and he was very splendid in his entertainment as to food, but absent-minded and dull. Mickey did the talking, and his topic, the politics of his ward, was dull. It wasn’t dull to Mickey, but the Chief’s dullness spread over him and was depressing.
They both were glad to light their big, black, police cigars and walk out upon the cool Bowery. Mickey was for starting back to headquarters, but the Chief stopped upon the curb and, standing there, scrutinized closely the passers-by.
“Playin’ detective,” Mickey muttered, and he pointedly looked away.
“Sweeney,” said the Chief, after a while, “do you see that express wagon coming up the street?”
Mickey looked. He saw an old wagon drawn by an old horse coming toward them.
“Do you notice anything unusual about it?” the Chief asked.
Mickey didn’t notice anything unusual.
“Well,” the Chief said, “I do. I believe that that wagon has in it the swag of that silver robbery up in Madison Avenue.”
The robbery to which the Chief referred was a recent scandal. The man whose house had been broken into reported his loss first to the newspapers. The police everywhere warn citizens not to let anybody but the police know of such troubles. They say that if the newspapers get hold of the news they will publish it; this will frighten away the thieves and prevent the police from recovering the stolen property. This is only a police trick to avoid criticism. They give to the press all their successes; they suppress their failures, and thus keep up the appearance of efficient service. As a matter of fact, the first thing that the victim of a robbery should do is to telephone to the newspapers—all of them. That would soon show what a small proportion of the reported cases a detective bureau like that of New York “detects” and—it will make the police work on your case.
The newspapers had driven the whole police department to work on this silver robbery. Mickey himself had asked the Chief twice a day ever since it happened the irritating question:
“By the way, Chief, you ain’t got no clue to those silver burglars yet, have you?”
So he was interested now in the Chief’s suggestion that the silver was in that wagon. He had a confusing sense of incredulity crossed by admiration. “What sort of a game—.” Half thought, the question was pushed aside for the news interest: “Was the silver in the wagon?”
Mickey was excited. The Inspector was perfectly cool.
“Yes,” he said, as if to himself, “yes, I believe I’m right.”
And he turned around. There was, luckily, a policeman on the corner. The Inspector whistled low to him, and the man came up quickly.
“Officer,” said the Inspector, with his best drawl, “step out there and ask that man on the express wagon to drive up here to the curb.”
The officer obeyed. The passers-by saw the movement, and a crowd gathered as the policeman led the horse up to the Chief. The driver made as if to jump and run.
“Keep your seat there,” the Inspector commanded sharply, and it gave even Mickey a thrill to feel the driver sink on his seat.
The Inspector looked a definite moment at the driver. It was very dramatic, and the crowd, passing the word “Foley” about, breathed hard with the effect. And Foley, at his best, dropping his eyes from the man with the reins, stepped back and lifted the edge of a blanket that lay over a large laundry basket. One glance was enough.
Lifted the edge of a blanket that lay over a large laundry basket
“Officer,” he said, “jump up there on the seat with the driver and take this wagon to headquarters. I’ll be right over.”
That was all. “Don’t you like these long cigars, Sweeney?” the Inspector remarked as he turned to go. The crowd made way respectfully, nay, with reverence. “Great,” Mickey heard them say. “He’s great.” “Say, ain’t he a bird?” “And the way he did it.” “Yes, and that crack about the cigars.” “Wonder what the case is?”
“We were right,” the Inspector said, as he and Mickey proceeded slowly across the street toward headquarters.
“It was the silver?” the boy asked.
“It was the silver,” the Inspector answered.
“Well, but, Inspector, how did you know—”
The question recalled Sherlock Holmes to Mickey, and that brought back the Inspector’s promise to show him some time that the perspicacity of the great detective of fiction was true to life. This was the fulfillment of that promise. But the Inspector was speaking. He was answering Mickey’s question, which, apparently, had recalled Sherlock Holmes to him also.
“Suspicioning a thing is the fine art of detection”
“How did I know that that was the wagon?” he repeated. “I didn’t. I only suspicioned it. But suspicioning a thing is the fine art of detection. I have had from the first a suspicion in this case. There were but three burglars in New York who might have done that silver job in the way this job was done.”
Mickey had to dodge around a passer-by in Houston Street, but he came back, full of interest. “Three?” he asked.
“Three,” said the Inspector, “and one of them is a negro.”
“Well,” said Mickey.
“One of the three, the negro, was in the Tiger Restaurant.”
“And you watched him,” said Mickey. “No wonder you kept so still.”
