by Bill Peschel
We did so, and as the old soldier appeared in the doorway the clock struck six.
“Permit me, colonel,” said Sherlock, and handed over the cup.
“The case has been interesting, though elementary, Watson,” said Holmes as we sat in the London train an hour later. “Very elementary. I saw at once, this morning, from the manner in which the colonel dealt with my whisky, that, to coin an expression, he was no cold-water sharp. I had found myself looking askance at the part played by the Indian cook and the servant or servants who waited upon our military golfers at the dinner. But, upon arriving here I eliminated the cook—at least, the inspector had arranged his elimination for me. He was to be arrested at Waterloo.
“I then examined the waiter, as you saw. He was complaining of a headache; he did not remember when it began, but was sure that he woke up with it this morning. He did not remember seeing the trophy on the table when he cleared away the remains of the banquet. He did not remember any speeches. He had a vague idea that he had found the billiard-room full of dead bodies an hour or so after the dinner, but was not sure. It might have been a dream, he thought. It all seemed to be a dream to him, he remarked, banquet and all. Towards the end of the meal he had noticed a kind of haze about the place. He did not remember anything more. Fancied he had been out of sorts. Had a dark blue taste in his mouth, as though he had been drugged. The crockery used at the dinner had not yet been washed.
“Suspecting at first the presence of some Indian drug, I went into the cellar and among other things counted the number of empty wine, liqueur, and spirit bottles that had been removed after use at the dinner. The number was incredible. I began to get a glimmering of the truth. Then I examined Colonel Cleak as to his staying powers. He considered he could give a bottle of anything drinkable start to any member of the club and beat him to a standstill. Then I gathered from the colonel’s coachman that his master was ‘abso-lutely’ on the night of the banquet. This being so, what must the others have been like? I began to see what the waiter’s dim recollection of dead bodies meant. It was clear to me that none of the members either knew or cared what had happened to the trophy by the time they had finished their liqueurs and were ready for whiskies and sodas in the billiard-room. The empty bottles proved that.
“Then in the scullery I found three quart champagne bottles empty, and a half-empty bottle of cognac, and then I understood why the waiter thought he had been drugged. Now, how does an extremely ‘drugged’ waiter, when alone, remove the débris of a banquet, my Watson? He removes it by armfuls—glass, cutlery, decorations, dishes, flower-bowls, everything—by armfuls. (I have written a small monograph on the effects of drugs on waiters.) And that is what this waiter did. All the members were far too ‘drugged’ to care. I found the things piled in heaps on the scullery tables and floor. Among them was a round bowl liberally covered with a mixture of mayonnaise and about a 50 horse-power tipsy cake. I marked this down, and at two minutes to six went into the scullery and washed it. It was the trophy, of course. The waiter had mistaken it for a flower-bowl. That is all!” and the great detective smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and dreamily proceeded to recharge his cocaine pump.
The Coming Back of Shedlock Combs
“Woctor Dotson” (Leavitt Corning)
Illustrated by G. D. George
This light-hearted parody of “The Adventure of the Empty House” came from an unlikely source: a humor magazine edited by a politician and ad man from St. Paul, Minn. For more than three decades, Leavitt Corning (1870-1935) published humorous essays, commentary, and cartoons in his quarterly The Razoo, including four stories featuring Shedlock Combs that were published in A Book (1909). Corning not only ran an advertising agency, but he was at times a city alderman, a delegate to two Republican National Conventions, and a representative in the state House. G.D. George was an artist for the St. Paul Dispatch.
NOTE
The author of this and other “Shedlock Combs” Stories is an intense admirer of the Sherlock Holmes creations of Dr. Conan Doyle. This has not prevented his seeing some of the fictional possibilities of the deductive theory of criminal detection.
This sketch, with some exaggerations, follows Dr. Doyle’s famous and ingenious tale of the Return of Sherlock Holmes.
CHAPTER I.
I was disconsolately reading a morning paper in the old rooms in Baker street which Combs and I had occupied before he had been thrown over the cliff and killed by Mofessor Proriarty, his mortal enemy.
A fascinating murder story in the paper finally attracted my attention and I determined to have a look at the place where the deed had been done.
I arose and slipped on my overcoat.
After slipping on my overcoat I went out and slipped on the first step.
“On the face of it I could see nothing but the hands.”
I mention these matters in detail as details are very important in detective stories.
The murderee in this case was a gay and festive lad yclept Lord Oftenbroke. He had succumbed to a slight internal disorder caused by a large lovely expanding bullet which had, the night before, torn its poetic way through several branches of his interior department and at last lodged firmly in his heart.
No one had heard the shot.
The coroner and some sleuths from Yotland Scard accompanied me when I went to see him.
I started to rubber around the apartment.
I produced my magnifying glass and examined a clock on the mantel piece.
But on the face of it I could see nothing but the hands.
A dog followed me home
I next examined the furniture, ceiling, carpet, piano, and lace curtains.
At last, finding nothing else to look at, I took a glance at the Dead ‘un.
He was sitting in a chair and there was a bunch of money on the table before him.
He had a hole in his chest where the bullet went in and none in his back where it came out.
This proved conclusively that it was still in him because it couldn’t come out the way it went in, unless it bounced back, which is something that bullets never do.
I could make nothing of him.
Neither could his parents when he was alive.
So I took myself away.
There was nothing else there but myself that belonged to me or I would have taken that too.
A dog followed me home but I scarcely noticed him for I was in a Brown Study.
I have a Green Study in my apartments.
But the one I was in when I saw the dog was Brown.
The dog, a pleasant animal, followed me into the house and sat watching me as I ate, although he steadfastly refused to touch any of the morsels which I tossed him.
At the conclusion of the meal I turned to the mantel to get a match for my pipe and when I turned around there stood my old and much missed friend Shedlock Combs, with a grin on his face and the dogskin thrown in the corner!
CHAPTER II.
The next thing I knew I was recovering from a faint, which I carelessly dropped into when I recognized my long lost friend.
“Tell me about it Shed,” I said.
He leaned back in the chair he used to use before he was dead and said, “There are some things, Woctor Dotson, of which I never told you and here are two of them.”
So saying S. Combs produced from his pocket a pair of wings.
“Thus I was saved.”
“You see, Woctor,” he said, “when Proriarty and I went over the cliff together I disengaged myself from him as we were falling and attached these to my shoulders. Thus I was saved. I inspected Proriarty as he lay very ca’m and still and jellified at the bottom of the abyss but I was scared to come back.”
“Why?” said I breathlessly.
“Pay attention, I’m coming to that,” said Shedlock.
“I am all ears,” I said.
“I’m all ears,” I said.
“Your ears are rather large for a fact,” he rejoined and resumed, “while I was sailing about the
abyss and its environs with my wings I was conscious that somebody was trying to slay me with a slingshot loaded with expanding bullets. He was a great friend of Proriarty’s and was there to see that I was surely done for. He is the worst man I ever knew next to Proriarty. However, I dodged his bullets, watching for my chance which finally came when he was loading his slingshot. I swooped down on him, kicked him promiscuously in the face and ran away before he could recover from the shock, stanch his bleeding beak and reload his weapon.”
“But dear me, Shedlock,” I said, “Why, oh why did you remain hid so long?”
“In the first place,” said Combs, “you must know that my friend with the sling was none other than Captain Doumup, the noted society man and intimate friend of Proriarty’s.”
“What!” I exclaimed, “do you mean to say that the Captain who is one of the best known men in His Majesty’s service is also a bad wicked wienerwurst like that?”
“Sure,” said Combs, “and I think he did this Oftenbroke business and I’m here to prove it; are you wid muh?”
“Am I?” says I.
“All right,” said Combs, “now come on and rig up a dummy to look like me, stick it in my window, put a light behind it so it will throw a shadow on the curtain at night and then lay for the lad who takes a shot at it!”
That night at 9 we entered an empty house across the way and took a pike at Comb’s window.
“The effect was startling.”
The effect was startling.
The shadow of the dummy was so realistic that I was scarcely surprised when the right hand was raised in disputatious attitude and out upon the night air was wafted in familiar tones: “My dear Woctor, you have seen all that I have seen but you haven’t deduced what I have, that’s all!”
Then I realized that Combs was by my side and my amazement was unbounded. He watched me with a grin. “Merely a little idea of my own, carried out by means of a phonograph and a little clock mechanism,” he said in explanation, while I gasped my admiration of his stupendous, enormous, overwhelming and gigantic intellect.
Just then we heard somebody entering the house by the coal hole.
Stealthy steps succeeded a rattle of coal and the visitor came piking along to the very room in which we were seated with bated breath and each other!
“Ha,” said Combs, softly, “I wouldn’t have thunk it!”
He occasionally lapsed from grammatical form when under the influence of undue excitement.
“Look!” whispered Combs, and I gazed at a sight which even now gives me the willies whenever I think of it!
CHAPTER III.
Our visitor who was none other than Doumup, was loading a slingshot with an expanding bullet!
“Our visitor loading his slingshot.”
His weapon prepared, he took careful aim at the dummy which, as he shot, fell forward out of the chair without a word!
The Captain chuckled in glee.
He was having a gloat.
But it was a short gloat.
For Shed and I dashed out of our dark nook and jumped all over him.
“I will pin his arms to the floor!” I yelled.
“Don’t pin ’em, nail ’em; pins won’t hold him!” answered Shedlock Combs.
So I nailed him.
At this juncture the police who had heard in advance from Shedlock Combs that something was going to happen came dashing in with drawn salaries!
“The police with drawn salaries.”
They also had their clubs drawn.
Shedlock perched himself on the Captain’s chest and told us all about it.
“You see,” said he, “I knew about the slingshot, so when I heard that Lord Oftenbroke had been slain by a bullet and that no sound of shooting had been heard, I deduced Doumup had come for him.”
“Ah!” we all said in appreciation, while Combs shifted his position on the Captain’s chest and continued, “I knew if the Cap. was here he would want to get me so I set this trap. His coming to this room to fire the shot was a mere coincidence but it fitted in very well.”
“Very well, indeed,” we all agreed, while the Captain glared up at his captor.
“You cunning, cunning devil!” he said.
“You cute, cute angel!” retorted Combs. Whereupon we all laughed immoderately. The Captain collapsed after this and seemed to take no note of Combs’ further conversation. As he was nearing the end, a slight grunt called our attention to the Captain.
He seemed to be in trouble and upon investigation, we found that he had stabbed himself with his slingshot!
Thus ended a brave, bad man.
Combs wonders if he has joined Proriarty and if together they have yet succeeded in killing the devil.
But that is a problem which even the genius of that remarkable man cannot solve.
“He had stabbed himself with his slingshot.”
When I Grow Up
W.W. Denslow
Amid the occupations boys could dream about—it was an era when jobs such as pirate, motorman, man in the moon and clown were restricted by gender—was consulting detective, as depicted in When I Grow Up. William Wallace Denslow (1856-1915) was an editorial cartoonist who collaborated with L. Frank Baum on the illustrations for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
I want to be a plain-clothes man,
Fierce criminals to trace,
All made up in a deep disguise
With whiskers on my face.
When I should catch a crafty crook,
By “make-up” most effective,
I’d snatch my whiskers off, and say:
“I’m Hawkshaw, the Detective.”
Like Sherlock Holmes, one finger-mark,
Would be quite all I’d need
To trace and catch the villain
Who did the gruesome deed.
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Wikipedia
Footnotes
[Back] The Purloined Letter: Published in 1844, it is the third of three short stories featuring Poe’s detective C. Auguste Dupin. The case revolves around finding the location of a stolen letter containing incriminating information. As in “A Scandal in Bohemia,” Dupin deduced that the contents of the letter had not been revealed, because it would have led to consequences that have not occurred, and that the villain needed to have the letter nearby, limiting the number of places where it could be hidden.
