Sherlock Holmes Edwardian Parodies and Pastiches I

by Bill Peschel

  CAPT KIDD

  When Sherlock had finished the pirates were overjoyed. It seemed to them just as easy as finding money.

  “Go, friends,” said she, dramatically, “and return laden with my dowry to claim me as your bride.”

  So the whole crew of twenty-seven murderers piled into the jolly-boat and pulled for the shore. They did not know that she was kidding them.

  As soon as Sherlock was left alone on the “Mary Ann,” she rushed to the mast-head and waved her apron twice out into the stilly, starry night. This was a signal. Then she pulled the Hound of the Baskervilles’ tail, till he barked hoarsely. This was another signal.

  Anon, a revenue cutter, slipped abreast the doomed “Mary Ann,” and in a trice Sherlock was in Dr. Watson’s arms, and the officers of Scotland Yard swarmed over the pirate craft.

  “This is magnificent, Holmes!” cried the doctor. “We have their ship, and they are at our mercy on yonder island, climbing banyan trees. And all was accomplished by your superhuman guile! Why, you will be famous!”

  “Tut, tut, my dear Watson,” said Sherlock, sadly, passing her hand over her peachblow complexion, “you know better than that, for this isn’t the first time we’ve aided Scotland Yard together. I do all the work, but who gets the credit? Inspector Cram, of course, of the Yard.”

  Sherlock Holmes at Groton

  H.M. Woolsey

  The Groton School in Massachusetts is considered one of the most elite and exclusive boarding schools in New England. Many of its wealthy graduates walk a privileged path through Harvard and Yale and on to high positions in government, Wall Street, and other institutions.

  Take, for example, the author of “Sherlock Holmes at Groton.” Heathcote Muirson Woolsey (1884-1957), who understandably went by “H.M.,” was the son of a Yale professor and grandson of a Yale president. He was an accomplished student, rising to senior prefect and captain of the football team. His role as a servant in a production of “Our Domestics”—a British farce from 1867—was played “with a great deal of dry wit and [he] carried off the part with considerable ability and intelligence.” Woolsey attended Yale for four years, then embarked on a trip around the world with a friend before studying architecture at Columbia and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He married Dorothy Bacon in June 1909, and as he embarked on a career as an architect, she raised their family and wrote for the New Republic and the Atlantic Monthly. A pleasurable, productive life, which makes finding this grim story all the more curious.

  “Suicide at Groton School,—Boy of the graduating class shoots himself with a pistol.”

  These were the headlines that appeared in the Boston Herald. I read them with sorrow, for many years before, I had been a member of the school. I remembered a boy at Groton during my time with the same name. This must be his son, I thought.

  I had just read the brief account which the paper gave, when the doorbell rang and the butler brought in a telegram for my friend Holmes. It requested his services as detective at Groton. Evidently, there was more to the case than the paper had stated. The first train that we could catch brought us to the school by noon. Everyone seemed to be thinking of the same awful accident. The gloom had entered into the entire community. We ate a hurried meal with the head-master, and while we were seated at the table, he told us the particulars of the case.

  The night watchman had heard the shot between two and three in the morning. He immediately ran in the direction from which he thought the noise had come. He did not find any explanation immediately, but after some search came upon the body of a boy, lying on his back, half-way between the school-house and the building that had been known in my day as the Hundred House. Near the body was a pistol. The boy had evidently climbed out of his window on the ground floor of the Hundred House; wandered here, and shot himself. Before venturing out, he had hurriedly slipped on a pair of trousers and a coat, but had nothing on his feet.

  At first thought, there seemed no doubt but that he had lost his mind from overwork or the like and in his frenzy had shot himself. There was, however, one objection to this theory, and it was on account of this objection that Holmes had been called. An intimate friend of the dead boy had happened to have a talk with him but an hour before the shot was heard. To the positive knowledge of this friend, the boy at that time was in perfect possession of his senses. Furthermore, at no time during the life of the deceased was he known to have been subject to mental disorder.

  These were the facts my friend had to work with. Certainly, unless he could find further information, there was little that could be done. Moreover, it has never been Holmes’ policy to give any professional opinion on a case until he has exhausted all sources of information, so he immediately started a minute examination of the ground where the body had been found. No marks of interest were to be found, except that the clotted blood stained the grass by the side of the road.

  He next asked to see the body and was led up to the school infirmary where it had been placed. Here again, nothing in the shape of a clue appeared. The bullet had penetrated the left ventricle of the heart, the powder blackening the skin about the wound, thus proving that the shot had been fired from very near.

  There was one more place to examine. This was beneath the window out of which the boy had climbed. Here there were bushes planted, and the soft loam held the foot-prints wonderfully. In an instant, Holmes had finished his investigations. A few more hasty questions, and we were off for Boston.

  I have never seen my friend Sherlock Holmes as interested in his work as when he returned from Groton in the evening of the twentieth. His usual impenetrable calm seemed shattered. Even his massive intellect seemed to find difficulty in coping with this new case.

  “Doctor,” he said to me, “I am on the trail of Big Bill.”

  I understood; it was the same great bank-robber with whom Holmes had always wished to cross swords. Now his chance had come. There was a look of grim determination in the great detective’s face such as I had never seen before.

  “I shall leave for St. Louis at nine” he said, “please see that the papers do not get hold of the fact that I am on the Groton case. I don’t want Bill to know who is after him.” I nodded assent. He did not say anything more but after a few mouthfuls of breakfast left for the station.

  The next I heard of him he was in Colorado. Two weeks had passed and not a word of success or failure. Now the telegram read, “Hot on trail. Hope to have my man to-night.”

  It sounded badly for “Big Bill,” for Sherlock Holmes’ hopes are always well grounded. There had been a long chase, however, and it was to Bill’s credit to have held off the capture for two weeks. Sure enough, twenty-four hours later, the message read “Have him well guarded at railroad station.” In just five days, the detective appeared at our door with as contented a look as I have ever seen him wear.

  “How did you know it was Bill?” I asked as soon as he was settled in a comfortable chair with his favorite pipe in his mouth.

  He puffed for a while without answering. I waited patiently, knowing that when he did speak he would tell the whole story.

  “Why, that was easy,” he said at last. “Do you know how tall ‘Big Bill’ is?”

  I didn’t know anything about his height but in order not to appear too ignorant, I said. “He must be over six feet, isn’t he?”

  “I should say he is, five inches over in his stocking feet. Well, when I was examining the loam beneath the window of the murdered boy’s room, I noticed that some of the footprints were those of a small foot with no shoe on, while others were extremely large, and of a person with shoes on. I also noticed that directly below the window there were two prints of this large foot, which did not show the heels. In other words he had stood on tip-toes. Now if he stood on tip-toes, it was for a reason, and the only probable reason was to look into the window. The window I measured to be six feet three inches from the ground. The man that would look into it, even standing on the very tips of his toes, must have be
en six feet four. Big Bill is the only burglar I know of who is that tall.”

  All this seemed simple to me, but what could a burglar want of this boy and why did he kill him? I thought. Holmes seemed to divine my thoughts for he answered them immediately.

  “The trouble was, I could not see what Bill was doing at Groton and especially after a boy. I found that the treasurer had two hundred thousand dollars in bonds at his office in the school-house. He was just about to pay for a new building. That made it all clear. Bill knew that the money was somewhere around, but he didn’t know just where. He was going to make the boy show him, but the fellow yelled and Bill fired, dropped his pistol and ran. I knew where he was likely to go to. He had a hiding place up in the Colorado Rockies.”

  Herlock Sholmes Again

  Anonymous

  This amusing example of the deduction-gone-wrong trope appeared in the June 20 issue of Snap-Shots.

  “This glove,” said Herlock Sholmes the great detective; “this glove speaks to me of a great mystery.”

  “I knew it would,” said Swatson, who had brought the glove to him.

  “Yes,” said Sholmes, lighting a cigarette and putting his feet on the mantel. He puffed in meditative silence for some minutes. “Now,” he resumed, “the question is—”

  “The question is where and when was the murder committed,” interrupted Swatson, with the keen haste of a man who delights to anticipate the thoughts of a great personage.

  “No, that is not the question,” replied Sholmes, while Swatson shrank swiftly into his natural state of subjection. “The question is, shall we work it up into a hundred-and-fifty-thousand-word novel, or merely make a short sketch of it?”

  Swatson vouchsafed no reply, save to motion to his empty pocket.

  “Ah, we need the money at once?” smiled Sholmes. “Then it shall be a short sketch, for the cash comes much more quickly from the magazines than from the royalties on a book.”

  For some moments, he pulled at his cigarette, then laid the glove in the open palm of his right hand.

  “This glove,” he deduced, “was worn by a young woman who belongs to one of the best families. How do I know that? Because she was on her way to the manicurist’s. How do I know that? Because you picked it up in front of the manicure-shop across the way. I saw you. Very well. I know she was going there because she was in a hurry, and she drew the glove from her hand before she entered in order to save time. She had an engagement for the theatre. How do I know that? They all have. Yesterday, she bought a copy of Lady Rose’s Daughter at the bookshop in Main-street. How do I reason that out? The newspapers advertised a special sale of the story at that shop for that day. She plays golf. I deduce that because she plays bridge-whist. I am positive of that because she has a lap-dog. I am sure of that because she is a pianist. I discover that because of the shape of the fingers of the glove. I venture the opinion as to the other attributes of her elevated station because she also drives a motor-car.”

  “Keen, keen!” cried Swatson. “But how in the world do you deduce that she drives a motor-car?”

  “Smell the glove,” commanded Sholmes.

  Swatson did so. The scent of gasoline was overpowering.

  “Now, Swatson,” kindly said Sholmes, “don’t you see how I did it all? I smelled the glove first and then deduced all the rest. I have cultivated the hab—”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Sholmes,” spoke a slender lady who had entered unnoticed, “but I took the liberty of running up here to ask if Mr. Swatson did not pick up my glove. I thought I saw him do so, and I knew I would find him here. I had cleaned the gloves with gasoline and hung them on my window-ledge to dry, and one of them fell.”

  She took the glove, smiled her thanks and left.

  “Do you know who she is?” asked Sholmes, after the door had closed.

  “Yes,” replied Swatson. “She is the manicurist.”

  Sherlock Holmes Analyzes a Perfect Stranger

  John T. McCutcheon

  This cartoon, which appeared in the June issue of The Bookman, opened a new area in the exploitation of Holmes. Instead of being used as an subject of parody or to sell products, he criticized inequalities in American society. John Tinny McCutcheon (1870-1949) was a political cartoonist who won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1932.

  Sherlock Holmes—“Ah, a stranger whom I’ve never seen before.”

  “How do you do, sir. I observe that you are in the coal trust; also that you have just had a narrow escape; that you have no children; that you were in a great hurry this morning; that you have been writing, and that you shaved with your left hand this morning. Are you going away on the afternoon or the evening train?”

  “Why, this is simply marvelous, Mr. Holmes. Everything you’ve said is true. How in the world did you find out all these things about a man you’ve never heard of before?”

  “By a very simple process of deduction. I can tell by your hands that you are in a trust, and I know it was the coal trust by the hungry way you looked at my purse there on the table, and by the fact that you glanced apprehensively around you as if expecting some one to hit you with a club. I knew that you had just had a narrow escape, by the fact that three bricks grazed you, and the brick dust is still on your coat. You have no children, for if you had you would have some consideration for poor people who have children. I knew that you expected to take a journey, because I understand the grand jury is in session. I also knew that you had shaved with your left hand because your face is cut, and there is ink on your right forefinger, showing that you were writing out an order to whoop the price of coal while shaving with your left. You were in a hurry, because you had time to have only one shoe polished. It’s all very simple.”

  An Easy Case for Padlock Jones

  Anonymous

  This is another contribution from Snap-Shots, this time from the Sept. 26 issue. The author is not known, but the story’s Bronx setting points to W.L. Riordan, who published two stories set in New York, reprinted below, that also featured Padlock Jones.

  The genius of Padlock Jones that enabled him to arrive at exact conclusions from apparently irrelevant circumstances was well shown in the celebrated Walkley kidnapping case.

  Padlock Jones sat in his office one morning when there was a knock at the door and a tall, military-looking man rushed in, grasped the great amateur detective by the hand, and exclaimed:

  “Help me, Mr. Jones! I know you can find my boy if he is still above ground. I am Colonel Walkley of the 98th Regiment. Find my child, and I will give you all I have in the world.”

  “Don’t want it,” answered Padlock Jones, emptying his pipe. “You may tell me about the kid, however, and I will see what I can do for you.”

  Colonel Walkley paced the floor for a few moments, and then, in a tone of suppressed agitation, said, “The boy is my only child. My every thought and hope is centred in him. When I came home last Tuesday and was told that he had been kidnapped I fell senseless in my chair. His mother, his grandmother, and his six aunts who live with us were also prostrated.”

  “Now, let’s have the facts,” said Padlock Jones.

  “Very well,” replied the colonel. “Last Tuesday morning about ten o’clock, my boy and his nurse were at the front gate and about to start for the park when the girl was called back by my wife. Georgy was left at the front gate alone for less than five minutes, but when the nurse returned, he was not in sight.

  “The police were notified, and the detectives found a boy who said he had seen a tall, dark man speak to Georgy while the nurse was absent, give him some apples and walk off with him. That is all they have discovered yet, and is probably all they will ever discover.

  “How old is your boy?” asked Padlock Jones.

  “Just four years old,” the colonel answered. “He is the brightest and manliest little fellow in the world, and we all worship him. No child has ever had more love and care. When my wife and I were not petting him, his grandmother and his six aunts wer
e hovering over him. Yet he was kidnapped.”

  Padlock Jones filled his pipe again and fell to thinking.

  “Been gone four days,” he mused aloud. “Man knew where he got him and yet didn’t—”

  Padlock Jones paused for a moment, and then, slapping his knee, cried, “It must be! Nobody else could have done it.”

  “What!” exclaimed the father. “Do you know who—”

  “Just wait till I go to the telephone,” Padlock interrupted.

  Within five minutes he returned.

  “Well, colonel,” he said, cheerfully, “my deduction is right so far. Within an hour, I hope to be able to tell you where your child is. You may sit here or call in after—”

  “No! I’ll stay here,” the colonel rejoined, trembling with impatience. “Tell me, what have you discovered?”

  “I can tell you nothing yet,” was the reply. “Wait till I hear the telephone bell.”

  Just three-quarters of an hour later, the bell rang and Padlock Jones entered the inner room again. When he returned, he took the colonel’s hand and said, calmly, “Let me congratulate you. Your boy has been found. If you will go up to the Bronx Insane Asylum in about two hours, you will find him there.”

  Colonel Walkley sprang to his feet and made a rush for the door. At seven o’clock that evening, he was back at Padlock Jones’s office to give thanks for the return of his son.

  “I can never repay you!” he cried. “He was found near Spuyten Duyvil, wandering about with an escaped lunatic. But tell me, Mr. Jones, how did you ever guess—”