Sherlock Holmes Edwardian Parodies and Pastiches I

by Bill Peschel

  While Watson was engaged in demonstrating the reasons for his conclusions, Holmes paced rapidly up and down the room, apparently paying not the slightest attention. Finally he whipped out his watch, looked at it, and said, “By Jove, Watson, I must go. I’ve got an important engagement that I had almost forgotten.”

  “Oh, don’t be in such an infernal rush,” replied the doctor, “I’ve got to get away early myself. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll just turn this man over to my assistant, see the next case or two hurriedly, and then go along with you.”

  At Watson’s order the next case was led in. “This man,” said the externe, “is a rubber cutter, and his complaint is of headache and dizziness.”

  “Now, Holmes,” said the doctor, “won’t you just look at this fellow’s gums with your glass and see if you don’t see a dark line at the junction of the gums and teeth. You do—thank you. It’s a clear case of lead poisoning, just as I thought. Now, my man, let me look at your tongue.”

  A sudden exclamation from Holmes caused Watson to look at him. As he did so he noticed that his friend’s face had suddenly taken on an expression very like what one might expect to see in a mummy that had been spoiled in the making. “Did you speak?” he asked, somewhat maliciously.

  “No,” growled Holmes between his clenched teeth, “but the diagnosis in this case is too absurdly clear. This man has either been doing some painting at home, or else he uses a hair wash containing lead. Isn’t that so, my good fellow?” asked Sherlock addressing the patient.

  “Aw, I never washes me hair,” was the reply, “and I have enough to do in the shop without bothering with no painting at home. It ain’t in my line.”

  Holmes collapsed in his chair.

  “Perhaps if he will tell us just what his functions as a rubber cutter are it will help you to arrive at a correct solution of the problem,” put in the doctor dryly. “Exactly what is your work my man?”

  “I just puts the patterns down on the sheet rubber and cuts around them with a knife,” was the answer.

  “Does that help you, Holmes?” asked Watson.

  The great detective sat dejectedly and made no reply.

  “Well, we won’t waste any more time on it,” rattled on Watson, “but the situation is just this. From your extensive reading and observations, you must know that in the preparation of rubber there is used a considerable amount of litharge, or the red oxide of lead. Now, you don’t have to examine this fellow’s hands very closely to conclude that soap is not a large factor in his items of expenditure. My glance at his tongue showed me that he is an habitual tobacco chewer. On the basis of these two observations, I concluded that the transference of really considerable amounts of the lead from fingers to mouth was a daily occurrence. And now I’m about ready to toddle along with you. From certain sounds I have heard in the last few minutes, I think there’s a deaf man with general paralysis in the further room. I’ll just run in and look at him and then I’m at your service.” Watson rose from his chair and went toward the door. As he was about to turn the knob, he heard a low moan followed by a thud, and looking round he saw that Holmes had fallen apparently lifeless on the floor.

  The Downfall of Our Old Friend Sherlock Holmes

  Anonymous

  The Harvard Advocate prides itself on being the oldest college art and literary magazine in America. Except for a few years during World War II, the magazine had been published since 1866. Many contributors went on to become major players in the culture, including T.S. Eliot, E.E. Cummings, Adrienne Rich, Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, and Francine Prose. The writer of this parody, published in the June 4 issue, showed a fine talent for making the characters perform the most extraordinary actions with a straight face.

  It was, I find upon referring to my notebook, during the year of ’95 that Sherlock Holmes was at work on the now world-famous Crandell mystery. Having a sincere liking for me, he had asked me if I should care to watch him analyze the egg sauce upon which, as the public may well remember, hinged the whole case. I was only too glad to have my friend ask me, and so, as was my frequent habit, leaving my clientage in the hands of a rising practitioner, I dropped in one evening at 22 Baker St.

  I found Sherlock seated in his deep chair, one foot upon the mantelpiece, the other lost in the mazes of the chandelier. The room was opaque with tobacco smoke. He was playing with one hand upon his violin some plaintive ditty from Mozart, while with the other he languidly filled his favorite hypodermic needle with a compound of cocaine, morphine, rum, and prussic acid, and gently injected it into his arm. On his face was a seraphic appearance of serene abstraction, from which, judging by my long experience, I knew that something was troubling his mind. Such, indeed, was the case, for in the morning papers there had appeared an article eulogizing the great competence of Lestrade of the Scotland Yard upon his energetic action in connection with the Adams Poisoning Case, in which Sherlock had actually discovered a portion of the fatal pill and had generously allowed Lestrade to take all the credit of the discovery.

  As I entered, Holmes condescended to nod to me, and I took my place, humbly and happily, at his feet on the hearth rug.

  “Well,” said Holmes after a pause, during which he had playfully bent one end of the poker round my neck and the other round the leg of the chair—Holmes was a very strong man, but so great was my veneration for my friend that I lovingly submitted to all his little idiosyncrasies—“shall we proceed to work? It is an interesting and delicate piece of business that we have on hand to-night, and we must proceed with much caution.”

  I acquiesced, and Holmes, standing up, stretched his mighty frame, accidentally stepping on my head and pushing it through the floor.

  Suddenly there was a knock.

  “Come in,” said my friend, relapsing into his lounging attitude and clasped his hands behind his head. The door opened and a large, elderly woman entered. Upon her head she wore a pale lavender bonnet interlaced with many-hued ribbons, while all over her dress were various badges and insignia presenting a formidable array of clashing color.

  “I should like to see Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” she said, cleaving her way through the smoke.

  “This is Mr. Holmes,” I said at last, as my friend smoked quietly on and appeared to be half asleep.

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” said the stranger.

  “Entirely unnecessary,” said my friend without rising. “You are a Daughter of the Revolution. I perceive that you are nearsighted, have tried numerous hair tonics without effect, and while young you were poor, but have outgrown poverty. Miss Amelia Ryan, what can I do for you?”

  “Ah,” said the woman in amazement, “you have heard of me, you know who I am?”

  “Never saw or heard of you before.”

  “You fill me with astonishment,” said the Daughter hastily, sitting down in a chair in which, for lack of room, Holmes had placed a large saucer filled with a strong solution of sulphuric acid. She, however, did not notice it.

  “Mr. Holmes, do tell me how you know so much about me when you have never seen me before.”

  “I rarely talk upon such matters,” said Sherlock, with great composure, “but that you may for an instant perceive the workings of the most wonderful mind in London, I will condescend to tell you all.” Holmes was always susceptible to feminine flattery. “Your dress is, as you must be aware, covered with sundry badges of all sizes and colors, while your hat is bound up with ribbons of all colors and shades. Now, from my vast experience, I know that no woman save a Daughter of the American Revolution would wear a pale lavender hat beribboned to such a degree as the one which you have on. Besides, those badges are all plainly marked D.A.R.”

  “Wonderful!” ejaculated the stranger.

  “Pooh!” said Holmes. “You have a pair of pince-nez upon your nose. Women, I reflected, are by nature of an inquisitive temperament; they delight to pry, to see things for themselves. This constant scrutiny at close range will, in time, cause the lens of the eye to
widen, the focus thereby becoming shorter. You will have to wear glasses if you wish to render your vision normal. You wear glasses. You are therefore shortsighted. That you have used hair tonics without effect must at once become evident to you if you glance in the mirror.”

  Holmes gracefully prevented any confusion he might have caused his visitor by playing a wild fantasy from Schopenhauer while she adjusted her wig.

  “Observe your feet,” continued my friend, tossing his violin upon the mantelpiece. “They are covered with patent-leather, square-toed shoes. No woman would wear square-toed shoes if she could wear pointed ones. Evidently you can’t. While young, you were accustomed to walk barefooted and developed the spatulate toe, a trait so common in the fingers of typewriters and piano players. You were young before the new theories of health came in and, therefore, would have worn shoes if your parents could have afforded it. Evidently, they could not. The spatulate toe can never be crammed into a pointed shoe. All this is an example of the most trivial observation.” And Holmes at once sunk into a profound slumber.

  “Really, Mr. Holmes, you utterly paralyze me,” said the fair intruder, fainting rapidly. “But my name?”

  “Ah, your name. The initials are on the back of your watch and they coincide with a name on one of the badges. Quite simple. But to proceed to business. Why did you come here?”

  The stranger then proceeded with great clearness and tranquillity to narrate the following exceedingly extraordinary tale.

  “My father is dead. He belonged to the old Mayflower stock, though you may think that my name belies the fact. I come from New Jersey, U.S.A., though, while in more affluent circumstances the family lived in Philadelphia, where since 1729 they have paid for a pew in the Grace Baptist Temple. We can trace our ancestry back to the eldest son of Priam. As for me, I have founded fifty-seven societies,”—“fifty-seven varieties” murmured Holmes as he dozed as if in gentle correction,—“and I am a great woman.”

  “You are,” said Holmes with much fervor. “I can easily see that.”

  “How so?” inquired the woman, no little amazed.

  “Look in the mirror,” said the imperturbable detective, and as she did so he leisurely shoved the radiator up the chimney.

  “To continue my narrative. Last month occurred the fiftieth anniversary of my birth, and to celebrate the occasion in a fitting manner, I founded ten more societies and came to England with a large package of facsimiles of the Declaration of Independence to distribute in the mother country. Allow me—” But here her eyes suffused with tears.

  “Madam, pray be careful or you will spoil the rug.”

  “Ah, that is the trouble, Mr. Holmes. I am staying at the Charing Cross Hotel—upon the top floor. Two nights ago, upon retiring, I placed my badges carefully upon my bureau; together with the package of Declarations, and the next morning the package was gone, and the badge of my oldest society—ah, that badge; I could have borne the loss of anything else. Can you help, Mr. Holmes, to recover it? The Scotland Yard have worked for two days and are utterly at sea, so I have come to you from Lestrade.”

  At the words “Scotland Yard” my friend sat up very straight and a great look of contempt crossed his face. Taking advantage of his momentary self-forgetfulness, I managed to extricate my head from among the beams in the floor.

  “The Scotland Yard is composed of fools,” said Sherlock very forcibly, “mere dotards; the merest problem in quadratic equations would puzzle them.” Then he relapsed into his chair and smoked, at first in quick puffs, then in longer ones. I saw that he was arriving at some conclusion and cautioned Miss Ryan to say nothing. Suddenly, Holmes sat up, chuckled, and rubbed his hands.

  “Yes, Watson, this case certainly presents some features of its own. Ah, Watson, where have you been? Allow me, Miss Ryan, to present to you my dear friend, Dr. Watson.” So like Sherlock. “When may we visit your room?”

  “This evening at 10.30 I shall be in.” And she left much relieved.

  “Really, Watson, this case is interesting. Kindly hand me over the files marked ‘S.’ and ‘R.’—I thought so. Sons of the Revolution, much rivalry between the two. All revolt. ‘Ryan,’ Mother of the Daughters. Hum—” and Holmes again fell silent.

  “Watson,” he said to me, gently pushing me with his foot, “should you like to come with me? I shall rejoice in your company.”

  I was only too glad to have the privilege of going with him, for to me it was most interesting to watch the working of so inscrutable a mind. So I joyfully acquiesced.

  Sherlock drew from the table drawer three large revolvers, two carving knives, a pair of handcuffs, and a bottle of chloroform.

  “It’s always safe to be armed, Watson. You had better take along that lyddite bomb which is there in the corner. Conceal it carefully. Our task is a dangerous one.”

  As we crossed the square, a shadow of annoyance spread over the features of my friend. “We are three seconds ahead of time,” he remarked, looking at the big clock. “I dislike having a miscalculation of that sort occur.”

  We were ushered into the lady’s apartments. With a sweet smile of recognition, she opened the door. Sherlock, in his customary brusque manner, failed to look at her. In an instant, he had taken in the room and rushed over to the window, where, whipping out his magnifying glass, he intently examined the sill.

  “Ah, Trichinopoli, I thought so,” he murmured. Then, he pulled out one of the carpet tacks with his teeth. “At last, discovered!” and with a cry of exultation, he disappeared head-foremost through the window.

  Accustomed as I was to my friend’s behavior, I said nothing, but asked Miss Ryan if she would not take a light supper with me below stairs and await further developments from the great detective. She graciously complied, and we descended. When we got down, she met a friend, and we three had a very cozy time talking of ancestors, vivisection, abolition, and similar pleasing topics. Suddenly, it occurred to me that I should see what had happened to my friend Sherlock. I went out and gazed about. Not the slightest trace of him could I find. Then, the mania for a little detective work on my own part seized me. I thought that I should like to investigate Miss Ryan’s room and employ some of the methods of my great friend. Accordingly, I tiptoed upstairs and opened the door quietly but firmly with the lyddite bomb. I looked around. Then a brilliant, an exceedingly scintillating idea struck me. I pulled aside the bureau, which Sherlock wished on no account to be disturbed, and there, to my great delight, I found the badge and the bundle of Declarations. “Bah!” I thought, “Sherlock isn’t the only man possessed of the power of inductive ratiocination.” Quickly pocketing them, I left through the register.

  The next evening at 11 o’clock, a bent old man called at my house and insisted on waking me up, saying that his call was urgent for his wife was dying. I let him in and asked him about his wife, while I was preparing my medicines. I happened to turn my back toward my visitor. Suddenly, I heard the old familiar voice.

  “Why, Watson, aren’t you going to say good-evening?”

  I promptly fainted with surprise.

  “Watson,” he whispered, as I came to under the influence of the strong anesthetic my friend administered to me, “I am on their tracks. Today, I have gone over all the newspaper files in London dating from the year 1823, and in the Gazette for Nov. 12, 1832, I found the first mention of the Amalfi gang as smoking exclusively the Trichinopoli cigar. The villain is one of them. He has departed for America with his booty. I have cabled to all parts of the globe. He cannot escape us.”

  “Wonderful!” I exclaimed. I had better not upset his theory by telling him of my discovery.

  “Commonplace,” he said, in his usual blasé manner. “On the window sill I found the vestige of fluffy ash of a Trichinopoli. No one but a man reduced to the last resources would smoke such a cigar. Through the mazes of London I traced the man by the ash, examining street after street with my magnifying glass, down to the docks. He cannot escape me.” He did not.

&
nbsp; The world would not soon forget the extraordinary capture of the Amalfi gang through the efforts of the famous detective Mr. Holmes—how he traced them to and through America and finally incriminated the whole lot in Texas on the identification of the teeth marks of one of the members on a radish—had they not, unfortunately, to Holmes’ great discomfort, proved to be a stray remnant of the celebrated Ku Klux Klan which Holmes had finished up in his first volume.

  But the world will never forget the sensation caused by my testimony on the Ryan case, a sensation which completely shattered the wonderful theories of Holmes and caused him to be the laughing-stock of all the Scotland Yard. I was the lion of the day. I changed my shaving mirror so that the light would strike both sides of my face; always shaved every day and went out to dinner every night. Sherlock never forgave me. He has retired to the recesses of 22 Baker St., where he plays his violin incessantly, smokes vast quantities of bad tobacco, and endeavors to find out whether the sun rises in the north, east, south, or west.

  The Adventure of the Diamond Dog Collar

  Bert Leston Taylor

  This is the first of four parodies by Bert Leston Taylor (1866-1921) that appeared this year in Puck. The Massachusetts-born Taylor started as a combination reporter and printer, working for newspapers in New England and Minnesota before moving to Chicago. At the Chicago Journal and later the Chicago Tribune, he became one of the first modern newspaper columnists, publishing brief observations, reader-submitted jokes, and other odds and ends infused with his unique voice. He moved to New York in 1903 and joined Puck the following year. A fifth Taylor-made production will appear in the 1915-1919 book.

  It was a rainy, muggy night in August and Sherlock Holmes, who was as usual inhabiting my modest apartments—his only home—was collaborating with me on a sketch called “Nothing Doing.” Business in our line was frightfully dull. For nearly a week, no one had been murdered under other than common-place circumstances, no cryptograms had turned up, and the only crime of any human interest—the attempt to compel Henry Gassaway Davis to spend something—had been tracked down by a cheap and chipper Pinkerton sleuth. Dissatisfaction with this dull state of affairs was general, and I felt certain that Holmes himself was bored stiff.