Sherlock Holmes Edwardian Parodies and Pastiches I

by Bill Peschel

“Mitral regurgitation,” I said, referring to the chuckle. “I perceive, also, that you have walked some distance, and are of an untidy temperament. This is apt to grow on elderly females. From your height, I should infer you had rickets when young, but that your father was a man of wealth.”

  “You mean my diamond,” said she; “it was given me by my husband.”

  This was weary work.

  “Then where is your wedding-ring?” I asked, looking at the thin tapering hands, and striking a series of consecutive fifths.

  My visitor made a movement of impatience.

  “The E string is slightly out of tune,” she observed.

  I handed her the violin. The E string was altogether missing.

  “You forget whom you are talking to,” said I. “But pray name your business! Two kings and three marchionesses are already on the telephone, and I cannot give you long. Also the purple Emperor of Paraguay has been consulting me on a matter of the most urgent importance.”

  I had learned this trick, I must confess, from Sherlock. Whenever, in the old days, I challenged his deductions, he always used to refer me to the case of the Green Sparrow of Pesth, or the Aurora of Candahar. Even as I spoke, I got up and rang up a false telephone, with which it was my custom to impress patients. Once Mrs., I mean Lady—

  But even as I turned, I heard a well-known voice—

  “You have gone up a little in weight, Watson,” it said; “I should say you were seven-stone-six.”

  In an instant I knew who it was.

  “Holmes, this is unworthy of you!” I cried. “Besides, I am thirteen stone,” and I stood on the weighing-machine. It only registered fourteen stone and instantly burst with a loud report.

  “That convinces us both of its fallibility,” he remarked. “I should be obliged, Watson, if you would sit down and not pretend to ring up imaginary people. It was I who invented the purple Emperor of Paraguay. But it was you who broke my E string.”

  Even in this short space of time he had entirely divested himself of the habiliments of the slovenly spinster, and in the chair there lay back the figure of Sherlock Holmes, clad in his usual dressing-gown, his thin, hawk-like, athletic face irradiated by a painful kind of smile.

  “You have attempted to impersonate me,” he said.

  “You have been fooling around in Devonshire long after I had killed you,” I retorted.

  His face became filled by that egotism which I have often deplored in these and similar pages.

  “I do not deny,” he said, “that you have been on occasions of some slight use to me. But the times when your infernal tail-coat and bowler-hat have irritated me beyond endurance are without number.”

  This roused me.

  “If it hadn’t been for me,” I said, “you would never have been heard of.”

  “We are quits,” he replied; “if it hadn’t been for me you would never have found anything to write about. Oblige me by the tobacco.”

  I handed him his purple shag and watched him with extreme interest, for I saw he was in his most intuitive mood. I should get copy out of this.

  “I observe,” he said, “that in my absence you have not been idle. A lady of title has called here today; you were very busy before dinner; you planted a polyanthus at Uxbridge a few days ago and have an idle servant; you have lately read a volume by Mr. Alfred Austin; you have a young dog which it has been necessary to chastise because he dug up the polyanthus; you smoked a cigarette just before I came into the room; and replied, this afternoon, to a letter from your mother-in-law, who proposed herself to come and stay with you; you have a brother who used to drink but who was buried on Thursday; Sir Richard Calmady’s mother has married again; you went to the wedding.”

  I paced up and down the room in incontrollable agitation.

  “Holmes, this is not fair!” I cried. “You have been spying on me!”

  A look of pained surprise covered his face.

  “Do you not know my methods yet?” he said. “All this is, or should be to one who has access to my note-book, perfectly simple. To begin with—there is a countess’s coronet lying on the floor: I inferred a countess had been to see you. A large ink-stain on your forefinger, my dear Watson, indicates that you have been writing, and in a man of your scrupulous cleanliness, it is fair to infer that if you had written before lunch you would have washed before dinner. On your instep there is a withered polyanthus leaf, imbedded in a small crust of pleiocene clay, which occurs only at Uxbridge, where I know you have a cottage. The clay is rather dry, and from that I inferred a lazy servant who did not clean your boots properly. The volume of Mr. Alfred Austin which you have lately read is surely indicated by the fragments in the grate, on which, even from here, I detect Veron . . . Gar . . ., surely “Veronica’s Garden.” Out of your pocket is sticking a small dog-whip with a leaf of polyanthus on it; I infer you have beaten the dog that dug up the polyanthus at Uxbridge. The fact of a cigarette before dinner was purely guesswork, but I see no cigar-butt in the ash-tray, from which I assume you smoked a cigarette before dinner, just before I came into the room. The letter from your mother-in-law proposing to come and stay with you I inferred from the fact that in the hall there was lying a reply from you, addressed to Mrs. Smith, and in the top corner the word ‘Damn’, instead of ‘To be forwarded’. Your drunken brother I have often heard you mention; the fact that he was buried on Thursday is an easy deduction from the funeral card on the mantelshelf. Sir Richard Calmady’s mother is a rather longer shot; but I see footprints of a heavy man on your carpet only a few inches apart. No one but Sir Richard with his deplorable absence of shin could have made them. The orange-blossom on your table, in conjunction with the piece of wedding-cake, indicates the rest. Besides,” he added, “I saw it in the evening paper.”

  His fascination and extraordinary brilliance instantly asserted their old spell over me. There sat Holmes the sleuth-hound; Holmes the violin virtuoso; Holmes the hero of the Speckled Band; Holmes the authority on cigar-ashes; Holmes my friend. The room, too, was a monument to him. On the walls was the elaborate design of revolver bullets instead of a paper, which he used to idly plant there while thinking out some crime which had baffled all Scotland Yard; the bookshelves were filled with his monographs, and behind the door hung up several of his more remarkable disguises. Even the tail-coat and bowler-hat that I wore were indirectly the fruits of his incomparable brain.

  “Holmes!” I cried with unparalleled devotion, forgetting all his egotism, forgetting even the vast store of thrilling adventures I could have made from his note-books, “Holmes, welcome home!”

  I could see from his half-closed eye that he was much gratified.

  “And tell me,” I went on, “what really happened to you.”

  He shifted in his chair.

  “You will not altogether like it, Watson,” he said, “but it is fair you should know. My disappearance was carefully planned to deceive you into thinking I was dead. I led you to believe that Moriarty was on my track, intent to kill me. That was not the case. The supposed Moriarty was none other than my brother, who joined me in Switzerland. Since then we have been investigating crime in Turkestan.”

  “But why this elaborate ruse?” said I.

  He paused a moment.

  “Well, my dear Watson, the reason is not very complimentary to you; but the fact is, that I simply could not stand any more of you. You got on to my nerves quite indescribably, and it was necessary for my peace of mind that you should not be with me. I knew your almost too faithful nature. I knew how you would leave your practice to take care of itself if I evinced the slightest desire for your companionship; and the only thing to do was to make you think I was dead. In fact, my dear fellow, I rather thought you would commit suicide as soon as you were convinced I was no longer living—but you did not. I must confess my deductions were a little at fault there. Well, you may blame me if you wish, but neither my brother nor I could stand you. So we made this extremely simple little plot to throw you off t
he track. And now I have come back because I find I can’t do without you any more.”

  I was indescribably touched at his frankness; at the same time, I was a little hurt.

  “What was it in me that got on your nerves?” I asked.

  Holmes shook his head impatiently.

  “Your hat, your coat, your obtuseness, your whole personality,” he said.

  “Then why have you come back?” I asked. “My hat, my coat (or others exactly like them), my—my obtuseness and personality are all here.”

  “I know my dear fellow,” he said; “but you have something which I now know outweighs them all. It is your matchless mediocrity of mind and literary style which is the one and proper medium for the telling of my adventures, since it leaves the mind of the reader entirely free to follow what I do. You are my pen, my right hand. I am your brain. We are both perfectly useless alone. Together, we dominate the English-reading public. So, Watson, I came back.”

  Even as he spoke a prodigious peal came from the door-bell, followed by a succession of piercing screams. “And adventure meets me on the threshold,” said Holmes. “That is a good omen for our future work.”

  He hastily refilled his pipe, his eyelids half closed, and the room grew dense with tobacco smoke.

  “My landlady is out,” I shouted to make myself heard above the screaming, “and no one will answer the bell. In the meantime somebody is being murdered on the doorstep.”

  Holmes sighed wearily.

  “You will never distinguish the essential from the incidental, Watson,” he said. “Those screams—I think I recognise the timbre of the Queen of Bohemia—are not those of pain but of passion. We will wait till they are quieted. Then you shall bring her Majesty in.”

  “Have you seen much of them lately?” I asked.

  “Yes; I have been able to be of some small service to the King,” said Holmes, “whereby I saved a European war. It was a very simple little problem. He rewarded my services in a manner quite beyond their deserts by presenting me with the remarkably fine diamond that perhaps you noticed I was wearing.”

  The door-bell had long since had its wire broken, but our fair visitor continued to hammer on the door. The screams had died down and at a sign from Holmes, I took off my bowler-hat and went to let her Majesty in.

  A woman of transcendent loveliness was standing on the threshold. She was tall and commanding in figure, but her face was distorted with passion.

  “Take me to Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” she said.

  I preceded her upstairs and threw open the door. The room was quite empty, but a sound of furniture being pushed as a barricade against the bedroom door from the inside told me that my friend was exercising his usual caution in dealing with this problem.

  “He is in there!” she cried. “Come out, Mr. Holmes! I will not hurt you! I only want my diamond! Otherwise, I shall shoot this man, whom I recognise as Watson, barricade the bedroom door from this side, and set fire to the house. You know my hasty temper.”

  Some unusually strong emotion must have been excited in Sherlock Holmes at this speech, for he trembled so much in the adjoining room that the whole house shook.

  “Does your Majesty swear not to make an attack on my person?” he asked.

  “I would not touch you with a barge-pole,” she replied. “Come out!”

  We heard the barricade slowly moved away, and in another moment, Sherlock Holmes emerged and, with an impressive sweep of his right arm, deposited the diamond in the Queen’s hand.

  “I restore the stone to your Majesty with pleasure,” he said. “It is false, and worth about £10.”

  She looked at it a moment curiously.

  “Very stupid of the King,” she said; “he telegraphed to me in London that you had stolen the Blue Gem and left for England. But I see you only got hold of the imitation one, which I wear on second-rate occasions. One does not leave valuable gems about, Mr. Holmes, when people of shady character are at the Palace. Goodbye! Next time you leave Bohemia you will leave it sitting on a donkey’s back, face to the tail.”

  She swept from the room, and for a few moments there was silence. Then the dreamy look that I know so well came into my friend’s face.

  “There are a few little lacunae to be supplied,” he said, “in what, after all, is a very commonplace affair. You see, the theft could not have been found out till I had left Bohemia, which, as you know, has no extradition treaty with any other country. Therefore I was safe in that respect. But a superficial examination of the stone by a jeweller in Paris convinced me it was false. Therefore I had not stolen the real gem. I did not tell you it was false, my dear Watson, because the announcements made by you that I have been engaged in investigations for crowned heads help my prestige very much, and to let you know that my reward has been only a £10 paste diamond would not lead you to believe I have been of any great service to them. And now that you do know all, I am sure my secret is safe with you, for otherwise you would spoil the market for both of us. The Queen is a woman of great force.”

  He reached out for his violin.

  “Let me play you a little thing of my own which I have not published,” he said. “Tomorrow, we will begin writing some more adventures.”

  Sherlock Holmes: Discovering the Border Burghs and, by Deduction, the Brig Bazaar

  Anonymous

  When the Scottish town of Selkirk needed money to rebuild the local footbridge, they held a bazaar and sold programs. A copy of the program made headlines in 2015 when it was found to contain a Sherlock Holmes story possibly by Conan Doyle. After all, he had contributed one to a fundraiser by his alma mater in Edinburgh, and he had even opened the Selkirk bazaar on the second day! But then Sherlockians read the story and deduced that it was an amusing pastiche, but clearly not by Conan Doyle. Note that the story capitalizes on the free trade debate raging at the time. Seeking to represent the Border Burghs in Parliament, Conan Doyle campaigned in favor of free trade within the British Empire, but tariffs outside it.

  “We’ve had enough of old romancists and the men of travel,” said the Editor, as he blue-pencilled his copy, and made arrangements for the great Saturday edition of the Bazaar Book. “We want something up-to-date. Why not have a word from ‘Sherlock Holmes’?”

  Editors have only to speak and it is done, at least, they think so. “Sherlock Holmes!” As well talk of interviewing the Man in the Moon. But it does not do to tell Editors all that you think. I had no objections whatever, I assured the Editor, to buttonhole “Sherlock Holmes,” but to do so I should have to go to London.

  “London!” scornfully sniffed the Great Man. “And you profess to be a journalist? Have you never heard of the telegraph, the telephone, or the phonograph? Go to London! And are you not aware that all journalists are supposed to be qualified members of the Institute of Fiction, and to be qualified to make use of the Faculty of Imagination? By the use of the latter, men have been interviewed who were hundreds of miles away; some have been ‘interviewed’ without either knowledge or consent. See that you have a topical article ready for the press for Saturday. Good day.”

  I was dismissed and had to find copy by hook or by crook. Well, the Faculty of Imagination might be worth a trial.

  The familiar house in Sloan Street met my bewildered gaze. The door was shut, the blinds drawn. I entered; doors are no barrier to one who uses the Faculty of Imagination. The soft light from an electric bulb flooded the room. “Sherlock Holmes” sits by the side of the table; Dr. Watson is on his feet about to leave for the night. Sherlock Holmes, as has lately been shown by a prominent journal, is a pronounced Free Trader. Dr. Watson is a mild Protectionist, who would take his gruelling behind a Martello tower, as Lord Goschen wittily put it, but not “lying down!” The twain had just finished a stiff argument on Fiscal policy. Holmes loq.—

  “And when shall I see you again, Watson? The inquiry into the ‘Mysteries of the Secret Cabinet’ will be continued in Edinburgh on Saturday. Do you mind a run down to Scotland?
You would get some capital data which you might turn to good account later.”

  “I am very sorry,” replied Dr. Watson, “I should have liked to have gone with you, but a prior engagement prevents me. I will, however, have the pleasure of being in kindly Scottish company that day. I, also, am going to Scotland.”

  “Ah! Then you are going to the Border country at that time?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “My dear Watson, it’s all a matter of deduction.”

  “Will you explain?”

  “Well, when a man becomes absorbed in a certain theme, the murder will out some day. In many discussions you and I have on the fiscal question from time to time, I have not failed to notice that you have taken up an attitude antagonistic to a certain school of thought, and on several occasions you have commented on the passing of ‘so-called’ reforms, as you describe them, which you say were not the result of a spontaneous movement from or by the people, but solely due to the pressure of the Manchester School of politicians appealing to the mob. One of these allusions you made a peculiar reference to ‘Huz an’ Mainchester’ who had ‘turned the world upside down.’ The word ‘Huz’ stuck to me, but after consulting many authors without learning anything as to the source of the word, I one day in reading a provincial paper noticed the same expression, which the writer said was descriptive of the way Hawick people looked at the progress of Reform. ‘Huz an’ Mainchester’ led the way. So, thought I, Watson has a knowledge of Hawick. I was still further confirmed in this idea by hearing you in several absent moments crooning a weird song of the Norwegian God Thor. Again I made enquires, and writing to a friend in the South country I procured a copy of ‘Teribus.’ So, I reasoned, so—there’s something in the air! What attraction has Hawick for Watson?”

  “Wonderful,” Watson said, “and—”

  “Yes, and when you characterised the action of the German Government in seeking to hamper Canadian trade by raising her tariff wall against her, as a case of ‘Sour Plums,’ and again in a drawing room asked a mutual lady friend to sing you that fine old song, ‘Braw, braw lads,’ I was curious enough to look up the old ballad, and finding it had reference to a small town near to Hawick, I began to see a ray of daylight. Hawick had a place in your mind; likewise so had Galashiels—so much was apparent. The question to be decided was why?”