Reply Paid

by H. F. Heard

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  Reply Paid

  A Mycroft Holmes Mystery

  H. F. Heard

  Foreword by Paul D. Herbert

  MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

  TO CHRISTOPHER WOOD

  ANOTHER BOTTLE FROM THE SAME BIN

  CONTENTS

  Foreword by Paul D. Herbert

  Reply Paid: A Mystery

  Introduction to The Adventure of Mr. Montalba, Obsequist

  The Adventure of Mr. Montalba, Obsequist

  About the Author

  FOREWORD

  Paul D. Herbert

  I read Reply Paid many years ago and recently re-read it. During the interim the details had slipped my mind but one thing that had not was the villain’s attempt at disposing of the narrator, Sydney Silchester. Call it sinister, sneaky, diabolical, evil—I think of Mr. Mycroft’s discovery of it every time I notice the book resting on one of my shelves. That in itself is praise, for there are many other mystery stories I have read for which the denouement has long been forgotten.

  My belief that Mr. Mycroft is actually Sherlock Holmes in his later years obviously affects my judgment. At first I tried reading the novel with an open mind, viewing Mr. Mycroft as just another detective. But no matter how hard I attempted to block the thought from my brain, the idea wouldn’t vanish so I gave up. I was constantly looking for comparisons that would confirm my belief that Holmes and Mr. Mycroft were one and the same. And there are many to be found. For instance, Mr. Silchester is frequently kept in the dark about affairs even if it means putting his life into danger just like Holmes did earlier to Dr. Watson. Mr. Silchester occasionally shows his frustration (shared by his readers, no doubt) at not being told all the facts, but he soldiers on, knowing Mr. Mycroft’s penchant for not revealing his ratiocinations until later. As is well known, Holmes also had a flair for the dramatic.

  Another familiar trait is Mr. Mycroft’s encyclopedic knowledge, even of what seems trivial at first glance. It is very mindful of Holmes conversing with Watson about golf clubs or the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic. Ears, newspaper-print type, perfume, philology, etc.—Holmes was well versed in a wide variety of subjects as was Mr. Mycroft. And why shouldn’t they be? They were one and the same! It’s also true that H. F. Heard himself possessed a vast knowledge and an excellent memory. Information that may have seemed useless to others was stored in his mind, as some future learning might suddenly deem the fact important.

  But that doesn’t mean they were versed in everything. Holmes defers to Watson when it comes to horse racing and admits to Cyril Overton that his ramifications do not include amateur sport. Watson also tells us of Holmes’s limits, including the fact that his knowledge of literature, philosophy, and astronomy was nil, and it was feeble when it came to politics. But as Watson made those observations after knowing Holmes for only a few months, we can’t assume they are completely accurate, though Watson wouldn’t have said as such if there weren’t at least some traces of their veracity. However, to contrast this, Holmes tells us, “I hold a vast store of out-of-the-way knowledge without scientific system, but very available for the needs of my work. My mind is like a crowded box-room with packets of all sorts stowed away therein—so many that I well have but a vague perception of what was there.” This is demonstrated by his consultation of his Index, as Holmes often had to turn to it for further information such as on vampires or Irene Adler.

  The limitations to the range of Mr. Mycroft’s scope aren’t as well known both because Silchester doesn’t tell us what they are, and the Mr. Mycroft stories only comprise five tales compared to the sixty in the Holmes Canon. So should we assume Mr. Mycroft can discuss at length ballet dancing, tattoos, rugby, or crocheting? Granted, as he grew older he had time to learn more about different subjects, but he also would be willing to acknowledge his deficiencies in areas that he was unlikely to confront as a detective. If a subject with which he was unfamiliar became something he needed to know, the result would have been research. As Holmes once said, “I never guess. It is a shocking habit—destructive to the logical faculty.”

  Also similar is the pace of the tale, though this is more about the authors (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H. F. Heard) than it is the characters. It’s slow and deliberate, fitting because Mr. Mycroft is hardly a young man. If you are a hard-boiled fan only, you may find this tale not entirely to your taste. The action is more reminiscent of mystery tales from the 1930s and earlier than it is of recent detective fiction.

  There are several points that differ considerably from Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes. One is that the story takes place in Los Angeles and a western desert. However, a look at pastiches of Holmes that have put the detective in such places as St. Paul, the Old West, New York City, Chicago, Boston, Nebraska, Utah, Arizona, Texas, Connecticut, and many different places in Canada don’t make Heard’s tale seem out of the ordinary.

  While the true pastiche has the author trying to imitate another’s style so the work will compare favorably with the original, Heard doesn’t attempt in the least to do that. He uses his own style, which is vastly different from Conan Doyle’s, having fewer characters, less dialogue, more descriptions by the narrator, plus other nuances.

  Some might question Mr. Mycroft’s energy level. How can a man of his age withstand the extremes of the desert? But didn’t Sherlock Holmes always keep himself in excellent physical condition? And pastiches are no exception. In The Curse of the Nibelung by Marcel D’Agneau an octogenarian Holmes is able to survive behind the lines in the Second World War and is even able to pilot an airplane! In Laurie King’s Mary Russell novels the retired beekeeper Holmes not only accompanies the young lady on her many dangerous adventures but marries her as well.

  Does Mr. Mycroft believe in spiritualism? Holmes, of course, does not. For example he once stated in “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire” that, “This agency stands flat-footed upon the ground … No ghosts need apply”; and in The Hound of the Baskervilles he listens with an air of resignation to a reading of the Baskerville legend and afterward caustically remarks that it would be interesting to a collector of fairy tales. Yet suppose Mr. Mycroft is not a true believer but merely wants to hear what the medium has to say in case something in her remarks sparks a thought in his brain? This I can easily see Holmes doing.

  The inclusion of spiritualism is an indication that Heard might have had Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in mind. Is this further evidence that Mr. Mycroft is Sherlock Holmes? Perhaps. However, Heard did not need Conan Doyle to make him think of the paraphysical world. He had lived in the 1920s when spiritualism was a main topic of debate, and in the 1930s he was very active in the Society for Psychical Research. (Conan Doyle had joined the Society in 1893 and resigned shortly before his death in 1930 when he felt the organization had become too critical of mediums.) So Heard was not only contemplating man’s purpose in the universe but was considered by others such as Aldous Huxley and Christopher Isherwood to be an authority on the subject. Among his interests was the connection between the psychological and historical parts of man, and he made this the subject of many of his nonfiction writings. Heard definitely had a fascination with the search for the actual meaning of man’s existence, which included the true nature of spiritualism.

  Readers of Reply Paid will undoubtedly be reminded of the anthrax scares of the early part of the 21st century as well as the nuclear age. Was Heard prescient? As stated before, he was a man who stored information for the future, and he often was able to visualize what lay ahead. He was a remarkable individual!

  The more one reads of Heard, as others have pointed out, it becomes clear that he, a
s well as Holmes, is also a model for Mr. Mycroft. And why not! A good author will not write about a subject in which he or she is unfamiliar, and we know that Heard was not only erudite with near perfect retentivity but also possessed excellent powers of ratiocination and forethought.

  But while Heard shares many of the attributes of Mr. Mycroft and Holmes, Conan Doyle, on the other hand, is more like Watson and Silchester. He is primarily a storyteller, an eyewitness and companion to someone whose ability to reason and whose wisdom as well as profound learning are far above that of the common man. If Conan Doyle occasionally treads into areas with which he is only slightly familiar (e.g., horse racing) it is not a major concern of his, as he is more interested in presenting an easily readable tale.

  Heard is a bit of a contrast to that. While Conan Doyle is well versed in most things medical, Heard’s ken pertaining to all sciences and religion is almost without peer. He has been labeled a philosopher, mystic, and theological historian, so when Mr. Mycroft apprises Silchester on these subjects no disagreement will be found among most readers unless they are experts in the subjects being mentioned.

  The speculation that Mr. Silchester was modeled on Heard’s independently wealthy friend C. R. Wood gains additional credence in this story, for how could anyone expect to earn a living by having an occupation of solving puzzles and decoding messages as well as possessing enough money to maintain an office and a secretary? Surely that was just a frivolity that happened to interest him rather than being dependent on this singular pursuit as a source of income.

  Of a more bibliographic nature is the contrast between the American and British editions. The book was published first in America by Vanguard and utilized his nom de plume of H. F. Heard, a pseudonym used for most of his fictional writings. On the other hand, British publisher Cassell thought the public would better recognize the name of Gerald Heard from his earlier nonfiction works and decided not to make the change.

  Another difference in the editions is the photograph of Heard that appears on the dust jacket. The Vanguard edition picture shows him with his familiar beard (grown in 1937 when an injury prevented him from shaving), while the Cassell edition has a photo taken in the mid-1930s showing him sans any facial adornment. I must admit to preferring the bearded photo as he looks Rex Stout-like, the way you would like to imagine a mystery writer from the 1940s to have appeared. On the other hand, the clean-shaven Heard reminds me more of Mr. Milquetoast than it does Mr. Mycroft.

  Speaking of Mr. Mycroft, in the British editions of A Taste for Honey and Reply Paid he is Mr. Bowcross instead. Both books were published in the early 1940s at a time when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s sons, Denis and Adrian, were threatening to sue anyone who borrowed from their father’s work. As explained by John Roger Barrie in the afterword to the Blue Dolphin edition of A Taste for Honey, Cassell decided not to take the risk so they concluded that Mr. Mycroft, whose name is very remindful of Sherlock’s older brother, should be changed. By the time the third Mr. Mycroft novel The Notched Hairpin saw print in 1951 the threats had subsided and Cassell restored the protagonist’s original name.

  The short story “The Adventure of Mr. Montalba, Obsequist” which is included in the appendix of this volume is making one of its few appearances in print since the tale debuted in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in 1945. This is a case in which Mr. Mycroft, who might occasionally be accused of pedantry, is definitely surpassed in that category by the grandiloquence and affectation displayed by Mr. Montalba. Readers possibly will ask if Heard is engaging in some leg pulling when he portrays a taxidermist as a stuffed shirt? A slight controversy arose when the editor of EQMM first saw a proof of the story and labeled it a partial fantasy to which Heard protested, saying he had personally witnessed a man successfully demonstrating how to stay in a cataleptic state for a long period of time.

  While most of what has appeared in this foreword may be fodder for those seeking background on the author and characters, the main thing is the book itself. It received accolades when it first saw print that still hold true today. Reply Paid is not a story whose plot has been repeated by other authors. It is not only unique but also a nostalgic trip back to the pre-Second World War days as well as a very enjoyable read.

  Paul D. Herbert founded The Tankerville Club, a Cincinnati-based Sherlockian society, in 1976, which he still moderates. He was invested into the Baker Street Irregulars in 1977. He is author of 1983’s The Sincerest Form of Flattery: An Historical Survey of Parodies, Pastiches, and Other Imitative Writings of Sherlock Holmes, 1891–1980. He has written numerous articles for The Baker Street Journal, the Sherlock Holmes Journal, and Baker Street Miscellanea. His writings have appeared in several Sherlockian anthologies, and he has lectured at numerous Sherlockian workshops, seminars, and symposiums. Mr. Herbert is a retired teacher.

  Chapter I

  “‘When the flyer, whose flight is not through air, sitting in his cage stretches his wing toward the left.’ I’ve read it a hundred times. It just gets under my skin—not being able to figure it out. I put it away in a drawer after the first few dozen attempts. Then suddenly I’d be sure I had it, snatch it out and start counting the letters, changing them, trying all the tricks. Even the simple plan of alternate letters, you see, begins by promising something—‘We tel’—just tantalizing enough to make one wonder if one wasn’t on the trail and some further variation of the letters might yield a straight message. Why bother? Well, because that’s only a beginning. Because after that picturesque gibberish there’s something that follows. Yes, it isn’t plain sailing, even then, but it’s all the better reading for the eye which has picked it out. There is something here, mark my word, though the casual reader would have dismissed it when he saw it in the paper in which I found it printed, as first to last all one piece—either crook’s code or just one of those pieces of perverse silliness with which the over-leisured amuse themselves. So, you see, I need a start. Now do you tumble to what I’m driving at? I need to get my hand under the edge of this code. I’m asking for bearings.”

  The man who had shot all this off at me hadn’t given me a chance to reply. He hadn’t even sat down on coming into my office. He hadn’t even waited for my secretary to show him in or even knocked! What he had said should show I had little chance of understanding what it was that he wanted.… So I spent my time, while he ran on, in looking at him. Though his tone was pretty excited, it didn’t seem to fit his appearance—a quiet sort of little fellow. Big head with black hair which I suppose he rumpled whenever he was puzzled; nervous hands with those knobbly wrists which look as though constant twisting of them had made them get enlarged. He’d a knobbly nose, too.

  I had just reached that point in my inventory, when, without waiting for me to give my guess as to his line, he continued: “You’re a decoder, aren’t you?”

  “Well, yes,” I answered. “Codes have always interested me.”

  “I know; I’ve followed you. That’s part of modern prospecting.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Like everything else today, it has to be teamwork and, worse, teamwork against time. Name your fee and I’ll tell you what I want. I’ve got to find this thing and I’ve got to find it fast. I think you’re my man, and if you’re not—well, I reckon I’ve only time to make one mistake and then this chance may be gone for good.”

  “Mr.________?”

  “Intil,” he added.

  “Mr. Intil,” I said, “you have come to call on me without making an appointment. What exactly do you want me to do?”

  “I’ve said; I’ve told you,” he replied. “Have I come to the wrong place? You are Mr. Silchester, aren’t you?” Taking my nod for enough, he rushed on: “First you wrote that little book on cross-word puzzles and their setting and solving. Then you made that study of the Roger Bacon stuff—whether there was really hidden Greek information in the twirls and twists of the tails of the letters in the actual manuscripts. And I know you’re the author of a
dozen articles in The Decoder. I know your style even when you don’t sign. Yes, I know about your lot. You’re just like the chess-champions—they can look and be as dumb as a dolt till you put a board in front of them. Then they just go through it like a water-diviner following a buried drain.”

  I let his compliments rest. “You want me to decode that piece of paper?”

  “Of course! What have I been saying since I came here!”

  “Then hand it to me.”

  He hesitated, then put it carefully down on my desk in front of me. The passage which he had copied out, maybe from a press-cutting, ran as he had read it.

  “It’s usual ‘agony column’ stuff,” I was remarking, when he cut in, “That’s the disguise—put your sense and your secret where only fools look for fun.”

  “Mr. Intil,” I said decisively,” please sit down! As you know my work, you know my method is aboveboard as chess.”

  He drew a chair and sat on the edge, watching his beloved copy.

  I went on, “You know, therefore, that there are a number of basic tests to make. Anyone can work these out, but, as in chess, some people have a natural knack for eliminating at once the blind alleys.”

  While I was saying this, I ran my eye through and across the lines. The born decoder, I’ve found, keeps his mind open, taking in the whole text. Then, if there is a clue, suddenly he’ll see certain letters almost as though they were of slightly different type. These letters generally give him a start on the message. None of us, I believe, ever gets the code message straight off—it glimmers through too briefly and is gone; Any strain or pull and it sinks away. But that diagnostic dip has shown if there is a message, running through and under the disguised surface-sentence—just as a chess master sees there’s a middle game and a “mate” standing out, if he can keep the path clear among all the possible other moves that lead nowhere.