by Marvin Kaye
The series was published by Verlagshaus fur Volksliteratur und Kunst (The Publishing House for Popular Fiction and Art), in Berlin. They had been successful with publishing groschenromane, the German equivalent of the dime novel (or penny dreadful). I was further interested to discover that those first issues were noted in English as being published under “privilege of copyright in the United States of America reserved under the Act approved March 3, 1905.” I believe that this means the German publisher contracted with and bought the rights to the character from the American reprinter of Sherlock Holmes, not from Doyle and his British publisher. I think that is the reason for the problem with Doyle’s lawyers (Doyle was after all alive at this time and still writing his own new Holmes tales), so his lawyers insisted the title of this German series be changed. It was. Though of course the German publisher never eliminated Sherlock Holmes from any of the stories. A rather neat trick of copyright infringement. In fact, during this era, Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes appeared in quite a few so-called “pirates,” or pirated book editions in America and other countries where Doyle received no payment. I can only imagine Sir Arthur’s frustration, and the fact that his solicitor must have had a full-time job insisting upon the protection of Doyle’s literary rights, as well as payment for the use of his creation or for reprinting stories in those long ago days before international copyrights, and almost a century before Holmes would legitimately enter the public domain.
* * * *
As I continued my investigation into this amazing area of Germanic Holmesia, I made use of various helpful sources on the Internet that really opened my eyes to what had gone on here regarding this early unauthorized version of Sherlock Holmes in Europe. This is being done, you must remember, all while Doyle was still alive and it must have been a constant source of irritation to him.
What I discovered next shocked and surprised even myself. For I soon learned that my copies of the first 12 issues of the rare booklets in my hardcover book were only the tip of the iceberg of this strange story. For with booklets apparently being published each week from January, 1907 until June, 1911—I discovered there were an amazing 230 issues in this series! Truly an incredible accomplishment. Each 32-page issue features a new Sherlock Holmes and Harry Taron mystery adventure with a wonderful color cover drawing depicting a key scene from the story. For instance, issue #36 shows a dockyard scene as one man attacks another with a revolver—perhaps Holmes arresting a villain? While on issue #41 we see Holmes versus a ghastly ghostly image. There are many more covers and all the art is interesting and exciting. Even if you can not read the German stories, these books can be enjoyed for the cover art alone. The main character in all issues of the series is undoubtedly Sherlock Holmes, who is still the solver of amazing crimes and investigates problems that the police can not crack.
It’s an intriguing series for any Holmes fan or the lover of pastiche, and while these stories have lately been reprinted by Doyle’s German publisher into a series of 34 best-selling paperbacks, I do not believe they have ever appeared in English. That is a shame. I would really love to have the opportunity to read one of these tales in English to see how these early German writers treated the Great Detective and his cases. However, with a new Holmes story appearing in Germany every week in this series, the German publisher had to have a stable of reliable professional writers always at hand—who also had to write fast—able to meet incredibly tight deadlines quickly. Certainly none of them could have been as good as Doyle? Or could they? My assumption is that with 230 stories written by various writers, they must be of varying quality. However, this series was extremely popular and lasted five years, so the stories must have had positive aspects going for them other than merely containing the character Sherlock Holmes. Whether this is the case or not, it kind of makes me wonder what it might be like to read one of them today in English—in a decent translation, of course.
The strange tale of these German Sherlock Holmes stories does not stop here. In October of 1907, 16 of the original German stories were adapted into French by the publisher Fernand Laven. Later on, in 1927, a Dutch publisher did their version of the German stories, this time under the title Harry Dickson de Amerikaansche Sherlock Holmes or “Harry Dickson, the American Sherlock Holmes.” Holmes was now changed to Dickson and now became American! Holmes remained Dickson from then on. In this new version Holmes (or I should say, Dickson) still has his assistant, but now the assistant’s name has been changed yet again, now from Harry Taron to Tom Wills. This Dutch series lasted 180 issues until May, 1935.
Also in 1928, Belgian publisher Janssens had author Jean Ray translate the Dutch series into French and the well-known French-language editions of Harry Dickson, le Sherlock Holmes Americain, began in January, 1929 and ran 178 issues until April, 1938, just before World War II began and Paris fell. Ray soon began writing original stories published with cover art supplied by noted German artist Alfred Roloff. Roloff’s excellent artwork is said to have inspired Ray’s desire to write new stories. In France, Harry Dickson’s fame is said to rival that of Arsene Lupin and even the great Sherlock Holmes himself.
While these various series may be fodder for another day, it is worthy to note that the beginnings of Sherlock Holmes pastiche in Europe began over a hundred years ago in Germany, way back in 1907 with a lovely little series of dime novel booklets—or as I have put it—with Sherlock Holmes and the case of the German serials.
SUN CHING FOO’S LAST TRICK, by Adam Beau McFarlane
An unseasonably hot June brought a feverish outbreak of criminal activity, leaving Scotland Yard busy and Holmes cataloguing newspaper articles into albums with paste and scissors. Countless visitors had presented their problems at 221 Baker Street. But that summer, without any client asking him to, Holmes solved a man’s killing after we witnessed it with our very own eyes.
The sun lasted late on Whitmonday and Mary was visiting family, so I asked Holmes to join me at a variety show featuring Sun Ching Foo, the conjurer. I’d hoped that a magic show of impossible acts would entertain a man whose trade was explaining mysteries. With his straw hat and walking stick, he joined me for an evening’s entertainment.
The hall’s benches were crowded with people from all walks of life. The stage was ornately decorated and rigged with curtains. We sat through singers, dancers, and jugglers, and we ate our way through a series of roasted peanuts, Chelsea buns, and peppermint water. Sun Ching Foo was saved for the big finish—though little did we know how big it would be.
Wearing an electric blue robe embroidered with golden stars and moons, Sun levitated his assistant and plucked white hares from his wizard’s cap. His assistant, Lai Way, wore a black gown and long sable hair. Her Oriental face was yellow with dark eyes.
The grand finale was the famous bullet-catching trick. Lai Way asked for a volunteer who was a soldier or a former soldier. I raised my hand. She stepped down and waded into the crowd, picking a man and asking him to go to the stage.
While the soldier made his way forward, she asked for another volunteer. She was not near me, but I raised my hand again. Sherlock looked at me with a slight smile of amusement.
Again, I was not picked. The new volunteer marked a bullet. Lai Way thanked him, dropped the bullet into a pail, then walked the pail to the stage.
When Lai Way reached the volunteering soldier who was now onstage, he introduced himself as Alastair Franklin.
She picked the bullet from the pail. “Is this reel bullet, Alastair?” she asked in halting English. He agreed. Then Way asked, “You see how it marked with skrachis?” He agreed again.
Excitement bubbled inside me. I’d seen the trick before: the volunteer would load a gun and shoot it at Sun Ching Foo. But Sun would catch the bullet in his hand and show it to the soldier, who would recognize it by the scratches made by the other volunteer in the crowd. I thought, let Holmes try and explain this!
Alastair Franklin and Lai Way stood at the left end of the stage. Sun stood on the right e
nd. The assistant handed Franklin a rifle. It resembled the jezail that ended my career in the Army, except this one was white, inlaid with bone or ivory and studded with jewels.
She produced black powder and a ramrod. Angling the gun upright on the stage,
Franklin poured black powder down the muzzle into the barrel. He pushed in the bullet.
Way handed him the ramrod, then he moved the bullet and powder down the barrel.
Once the ramrod was shoved from end to end of the barrel, she motioned for the ramrod. Franklin gave it back, and she stepped away, fading into the shadows in the back of the stage.
He cocked the gun and loaded a percussion cap under the hammer. As Franklin raised the gun, the band begun to play. A drum roll reeled through the air. “Ready!” Sun Ching Foo called out. “Aim!” The soldier settled the gun against his shoulder and peered down the length of the barrel. The wizard shouted, “Fire!”
The shot exploded off the walls as Sun Ching Foo dropped to his knees and cried out, “Thomasina!”
I looked at Holmes, who had a look of uncertainty on his face, then I grabbed his arm and the curtain began to descend.
“Watson, what are you doing?”
“That was not supposed to happen—he really was shot.”
When we reached the stage, Sun lay face-up on the boards with blood coating his costume. “I’m a doctor!” I exclaimed. Tearing the silk, I pulled brass buttons apart from their loops. The bullet had passed through him, leaving a wound hole in his abdomen through to his back.
The stage curtain was a scrim. On the far side of it, we could see the orchestra, the rows of chairs, and the exit doors in the back. The musicians struck up “God Save the Queen” and then the audience stood up to sing.
Sun gasped for air, choking. He coughed and splashed blood from his mouth, then he was dead. His head dropped against the floor, knocking his hat off. His queue severed from his head as a black cloth band slipped from its concealment under against his hairline. Looking at his face, I saw that his complexion and Oriental features were a careful artifice of cosmetics.
I closed his eyelids and looked up. Peering over me, Inspector Lanners stood beside Holmes. “I was in the audience,” he said.
The stage was a grim scene as we huddled around the corpse. People filed out of the theatre. While the body of Sun Ching Foo lay still, couples were holding hands and mothers towed away their entertained children.
Holmes searched the stage. He took out his pocket lens and hovered around the wall. “Lanners,” he said, “the bullet has lodged itself,” he said, pointing. Holmes pried it from the lincrusta wallpaper and turned it around under the magnifying glass. The weapon that pierced Sun Ching Foo had been rendered into a shapeless lump of metal.
“Could it have been from another gun? Someone in the audience or secreted near the stage?” Lanners asked.
Holmes shook his head. “We would have heard a separate shot fired. Sun Ching Foo must have been killed by his own gun; otherwise, the report from another fire-arm would have revealed itself. No marksman could have timed his gun to have fired simultaneously.”
“Would you be willing to join us at Scotland Yard?” Lanners asked.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Holmes responded.
* * * *
The constabulary took the soldier and Sun Ching Foo’s stagehand to Scotland Yard while we followed in a cab. The new Metropolitan Police building was two levels of grey granite lifting red and white stripes of bricks. Windows in gables and dormers looked out from an additional five floors. Lamps along the Victoria Embankment glowed in the settling dusk.
After we arrived, Lanners allowed us to meet with Alastair Franklin. The large man had side whiskers linked to his moustache. White hairs sprouted from his blond hair and his skin had a tanned complexion.
Holmes asked, “Did you know Sun Ching Foo? Any business or relationship with him?”
“No, inspector.”
Holmes held up his hand. “Just Mister Holmes. Had you seen him before?”
“I’m in the navy, just returned from Alexandria the day before last. My wife and our son were at the show—they’ll be wondering what happened to me, I expect.” Despite his sturdy build, his hands trembled anxiously. “I don’t know what happened upon the stage; all I did was as I was told.”
“Did you know that you would be selected from the crowd?”
He shrugged his shoulders, lifting his palms up, while shaking his head. “Now how would I know that?”
Holmes turned to Lanners and asked, “Where is the gun?”
After locking the sailor into an interrogation room, the inspector led us to an office where the muzzleloader laid across a desk. The rifle butt was pentagonal with an upward curve. The whole stock was painted white and fastened with shiny buttons that looked like jewels.
“These extra screws hold an exceptionally pronounced ramrod holder substituted for the original one.” Holmes pointed to a slender tube beneath the barrel, running from breech to muzzle.
Lanners opened the door and ushered in the conjurer’s assistant. She remained wearing a black cossack. Lai Way sat then she removed her wig. Her red-gold titus hair contrasted with the cascade of her brunette wig.
“You are not Chinese, either?” I said.
Lai Way agreed. “We have been Hindoos, Muhammedans, and Injuns. Sun Ching Foo was my husband. His real name is Cecil Windham.”
“You must be Thomasina, the name he called out,” Holmes said.
She nodded as she rubbed her face. The make-up that darkened her complexion and drew out her eyes smeared away.
“How did you meet him?” Holmes said.
“I was a showgirl in America and Cecil hired me as assistant. When he came to London, he became Sun Ching Foo.”
“How does the bullet-catching trick work?” Holmes asked.
“I don’t know. Cecil never explained the trick to me,” she said.
“What was supposed to happen?” he said.
“He was supposed to catch the bullet in his hand.”
“But you cannot catch a bullet in your hand!” Lanners exclaimed.
The assistant shrugged. “Cecil did.”
“Tell me about your part in the trick,” Holmes said.
“A man in the crowd marks the bullet. As I walk to the stage, I switch the bullet with a different one. The one that I replace it with has my own markings. Then, when the bullet is fired, Sun Ching Foo catches the bullet. He shows it to the soldier—and it’s the same one that I have marked.”
“Is this the bullet?” Holmes reached into his pocket and held out his fist. Unfurling his fingers, he revealed a minie ball.
Thomasina’s face went white. “How … how did you … ?”
“It was clutched in his hand while Watson attempted to save him. Clearly, the bullet was not meant to kill but instead, he was to hold up his bullet as if the shot traveled from the barrel and into his grasp.”
“Then where was the bullet from the gun supposed to go?” she asked.
“Perhaps the soldier was to fire away and not actually strike Sun Ching Foo?” Lanners asked.
“You mean, somehow the soldier’s aim would be off?” Holmes said.
Lanners mused. “Could Sun Ching Foo have created some kind of illusion, so the soldier would not be actually aiming properly?”
“That’s no better than saying ‘magic’,” Holmes said.
Thomasina agreed. “I have been part of every performance of the trick, but I noticed no changes to the stage.”
“Perhaps it was supposed to be arranged? Perhaps the soldier was a confederate?” I said.
“We already talked to the solider. I am convinced of his innocence.” Holmes said.
I added, “Perhaps there was a confederate in the audience. Someone who would have fired away from Sun Ching Foo. But rather, she picked someone else.”
“No, sir! This is not true,” Thomasina said.
“Perhaps someone uncovered his Am
erican identity?” I asked.
Holmes shook his head. “And this person knew the secret to the magic trick and, moreover, had enough access to bedevil it? I think it unlikely.” He continued speaking. “Did Windham have any enemies?”
She shook her head. “His only concern was other conjurers who had more business than he.”
“What about enemies within the show? You or his other assistants?”
“Not at all, Mister Holmes. I was a poor showgirl with nothing in America. When Cecil met me, he could barely afford to pay me and buy food for himself … but together, we made something special, didn’t we?” A tear caught the light sparkling in her eye.
Lanners spoke up. “Go home and rest, everyone. We’ll learn no more tonight. Come back tomorrow and we can continue with refreshed eyes.”
“A man was killed in front of us. Can I rest, Watson?” Holmes crushed his straw hat between two fists.
* * * *
We returned to Baker Street very late. I agreed to stay the night, just like old times. As soon as we finished breakfast the next morning, the pageboy presented Thomasina Windham. She removed her bonnet with trembling hands.
“Please Mister Holmes, you must help me. I am at your mercy,” she said.
Sherlock walked over from the fireplace and greeted her. “Calm your nerves and we can discuss the matter.”
Before taking a seat, Thomasina stepped over to the window, eyeing the back garden and the long shadows cast by the low morning sun.
We reclined into chairs while our guest’s nerves settled with a glass of brandy. She told Holmes, “I wish to hire your services.”
I took the brandy bottle off the mantel, re-filled her glass, then returned it to its position beside a bowl of lilies and a vase of peacock feathers.
Holmes said, “How can we help you, madam?”
