The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes II

by Sebastian Wolfe (ed)

  Paradol (fierce dignity): I ’ave come ’ere, mademoiselle, to get my pants!

  Holmes: Are we to understand that Your Excellency’s trousers have disappeared too?

  Paradol: No, no, no! Not deesappear. At Buckingham Palace, in de presence of Her Majesty de Queen, I ’ave remove my pants and throw dem out of de window! Watson: No!

  Paradol: But yes! All of a sudden I see—in a mirror!—six men in de masks and de false whiskers, which are creeping up on me to attack me. I cry: Vive la France! and do my duty. No pants.

  Imogene: You performed this in the presence of Her Majesty?

  Paradol: I regret! She pushes a great cry and faints—boum!—on a gold sofa. And to you, mademoiselle, I weesh also to apologize.

  Imogene: You owe me no apology.

  Paradol: I regret! It is I who have pinch the pants of your papa! I conk him on de onion wit a blackjack—viola!—because I must ’ave pants to follow you.

  Watson: The diplomatic service is sadly changed. But why should these wretches wish to purloin your britches? Paradol: You ’ave ’eard, perhaps, of the Paradol-Matchlock Treaty between England and France?

  Imogene: The secret treaty! Yes!

  Holmes (to Paradol): And the secret treaty, I think, is in Your Excellency’s trousers?

  Paradol (staggered): Quel homme! Quel homme magnifique!

  (As he speaks, Holmes takes the trousers from under Watson’s coat.)

  Holmes: A secret chamber—two thin plates of copper—hides the secret treaty. May I return these valuables to Your Excellency? (Bowing)

  Paradol (receiving trousers): Monsieur! In de name of my government, in de name of all France, I . . . (He breaks off, staring; and begins to examine the trousers feverishly.) Imogene: You are agitated, M. de Paradol. Is the copper chamber not there?

  Paradol: The copper chamber, yes! But de treaty . . . is gone!

  Imogene: Gone!

  Watson: Gone!

  Holmes: Have no fear, my dear sir. The secret treaty is still in this room. It has merely been abstracted by a thief and a traitor!

  Watson: Not Professor Moriarty?

  Holmes: Not Professor Moriarty, no. But his chief lieutenant—and the second most dangerous man in London—stands—here! (He whips the false mustache off Watson, who stands snarling.)

  Imogene: But that’s Dr. Watson!

  Holmes: No, Lady Imogene. The real Watson lies bound and gagged in some den of infamy. May I introduce you to Colonel Sebastian Moran.

  Watson (shouting): Curse you, Holmes! May you die of a bullet from my air gun!

  Paradol: But how—why did you suspect de wretch? Holmes: A very simple matter, I assure you. When he recognized a new French Ambassador, whose appointment has not yet been announced, I knew him for the villain he is. I gave him an opportunity to steal the treaty (reaches into Watson’s inside pocket and produces impressive-looking document) and he has done so.

  Paradol (exultantly): The Adventure of de Paradol Chamber!

  Watson (snarling): No, curse you! The Adventure of the Copper Britches!

  The Adventure of the

  Conk-Singleton Papers

  John Dickson Carr

  Narrator: Crime marches on! . . . A long, thin silhouette emerges against the gaslight. Here is an unpublished record: ‘In turning over my notes of some twenty years I cannot find any startling event on New Year’s Eve except that which is forever associated with the Conk-Singleton Papers. On New Year’s Eve of 1887, it is perhaps unnecessary to state, Mr. Sherlock Holmes did not wear a paper hat and blow squeakers at the Hotel Metropole. Far into the night, while the wind howled round our sitting room in 221B Baker Street, Holmes sat bending over a microscope . . .’

  (Sherlock Holmes at microscope, Watson immersed in a copy of H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines) Holmes (after a moment looks up and stares glassily out at audience): It is spinach, Watson. Unquestionably, it is spinach!

  Watson: Holmes, you amaze me! What new wizardry is this?

  Holmes (rising): It means a man’s life, Watson. The gardener was lying when he said he found Riccoletti’s body in the gooseberry bushes. (He rubs his hands.) I think, perhaps, a note to our friend Lestrade . . .

  Watson (jumps up): Holmes! Merciful Heaven. I had forgotten!

  Holmes: Forgotten what?

  Watson: A note for you was delivered by hand this morning. You must forgive me. I was attending the funeral of my last patient.

  Holmes (impatiently): The letter, Watson! The letter! (Watson takes note from his pocket, hands it to Holmes, who examines postmark, holds letter up to light, then opens with care and reads.) ‘There will call upon you tonight, at three o’clock in the morning precisely, a gentleman who desires to consult you about a matter of the deepest moment. Be in your chamber at that hour, and do not take it amiss if the visitor wears a mask.’

  Watson: This is indeed a mystery. What can it mean? Holmes: These are deep waters, Watson. If Porlock had not warned me about the Scarborough emeralds . . . (Thoughtfully) Three o’clock . . .

  (Clock strikes three. Bong! Bong! Bong! Immediately followed by three loud raps on door in same tempo)

  Watson: And that, if I mistake not, is our client now. (Enter visitor dressed in evening clothes but covered with medals—decorations, stars, ribbons, etc.)

  Visitor: Mr. Sherlock Holmes?

  Holmes: I am Mr. Sherlock Holmes. This is my friend and colleague, Dr. Watson.

  Visitor: You will forgive me, Mr Holmes, if I do not reveal my identity. I also wear plain evening dress so as not to be conspicuous.

  Holmes (coldly): You would be better served, My Lord, if Your Lordship removed the mask.

  Visitor (staggering back): You know me, then?

  Holmes: Who could fail to know Lord Cosmo Conk-Singleton, third son of the Duke of Folkstone and private secretary to the Prime Minister?

  Watson: You mean . . . Mr. Gladstone!

  Visitor (finger at side of nose): Sssh!

  Holmes (same): Sssh!

  Watson (same to audience): Sssssh!

  Visitor: The matter upon which I have come to consult you, Mr Holmes, is no ordinary one.

  Holmes: It seldom is. Pray be seated.

  Visitor (sits): It will be not unknown to you, Mr. Holmes, that for some time there has been—shall we say—disagreement between Mr. Gladstone and Her Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria. I have here a diplomatic communication in Her Majesty’s own hand, sent to Mr. Gladstone on December 15, 1886. You are empowered to read it. (Hands important-looking document to HOLMES.) Watson: These are deep waters, Holmes.

  Holmes: Her Majesty, I perceive, was not amused. Visitor: She was indeed (hesitates) somewhat vexed. (Then suddenly amazed) But how could you possibly know—Holmes: Her Majesty has twice underlined the word ‘bastard.’ And she has placed three exclamation points following her instructions as to what Mr. Gladstone should do with the naval treaty involving a certain foreign power. Surely our inference is obvious.

  Watson: Excellent!

  Holmes: But very superficial. (Reading again) ‘Even that German sausage, my late husband, could have done better.’ Hmm! Yes! But how do these diplomatic matters concern me?

  Visitor: Mr. Holmes, the Prime Minister has been poisoned!

  Watson: What?

  Visitor: On December 24th Mr. Gladstone received—apparently as a Christmas present from Queen Victoria—a case of Scotch whisky.

  Holmes: I see. And did the case indeed contain whisky?

  Visitor: Whisky, yes. But each bottle was most unhappily charged with two ounces of prussic acid!

  Watson: Merciful heaven! The man is dead!

  Visitor: No, Dr. Watson, no! Dei gratia, he still lives! The strength of the whisky neutralized the poison.

  Holmes (blandly): Come, come, this is most disappoi—most interesting. Have you any proof, My Lord, that the Prime Minister drank this particular whisky?

  Visitor (producing document): Here is a letter of thanks, in Mr. Gladstone’s own h
and, written on Christmas Eve. Pray read it aloud.

  Holmes: Will you oblige, Watson?

  Watson (very dignified, clears throat gravely, and reads): December 24th, 1886. Illustrious Madam: How extremely kind of you to send me this case of whisky for Christmas! I have never tasted such superb whisky in my life. The whisky you have sent me for Christmas is superb. I keep tasting it and how kind of you to sen me thish wondrous whichkey which I keep tasting for Xmas. It really is mosh kind of you to keep sending me this whisky in cases which I kep tashing for whichmas. Hie! Dock, dickory dock, and kissmus.

  Visitor: Can there be any doubt, Mr. Holmes?

  Holmes: None whatever. Then it is your belief, My Lord, that Queen Victoria is the poisoner?

  Visitor: No, Mr. Holmes! (Horrified) A thousand times, no! But think of the scandal! It bids fair to rend asunder the fabric of the Empire! You must come down to Sussex and investigate. Will you come?

  Holmes: No, My Lord. I will not.

  Watson (amazed): Holmes, this is unworthy of you! Why won’t you go?

  Holmes: Because this man is not Lord Cosmo Conk-Singleton! (Sensation. Holmes produces revolver.) Let me present you, Watson, to none other than Professor Moriarty.

  Watson: Professor Moriarty!

  Holmes: Your double disguise as a younger man, my dear Professor, deceived me for perhaps ten seconds. The note from Mr. Gladstone seems quite genuine. But the letter from Her Majesty is a manifest forgery.

  Watson: Forgery, Holmes?

  Holmes: Her language, Waston! Her language!

  Watson: You mean—

  Holmes: Queen Victoria, Watson, would never have written in so slighting a fashion of her late husband, Prince Albert. They intended the letter to lure me to Sussex while the Scarborough emeralds were stolen from Yorkshire, not knowing (Holmes produces emeralds from his pocket) that Lord Scarborough had already given them to me for safekeeping!

  Visitor (in a grating voice): One day, Mr. Holmes, you will try my patience too far!

  (Curtain)

  The Adventures of

  the Snitch in Time

  August Derleth and Mack Reynolds

  On an autumn afternoon of a year that, for manifest reasons, must remain nameless, there came to the attention of my friend, Mr. Solar Pons, a matter which was surely either the most extraordinary adventure ever to befall a private enquiry agent in or before our time, or an equally extraordinary misadventure, the raison d’etre of which remains obscure even now, though it might have been born in the circumstances of the moment, for it was one of those days on which London was literally swallowed in a yellow fog, and we had both been confined to our quarters for two days, with no more incident than the arrival of an occasional paper and the unfailing complaint of our long-suffering landlady about Pons’s spare appetite.

  Even our warm and comfortable quarters, for all that a fire burned at the hearth, had begun to pall on us. Pons had exhausted the microscope; he had abandoned his chemistry set; he had ceased his abominable pistol practise; and for once there was not a single item of correspondence transfixed to the center of the mantelpiece by his knife. He had hardly stopped his restless wandering among the disorderly order of our quarters, and seated himself in his velvet-lined chair, holding forth on the points of difference between Stradivarius and Amati violins, when he rose once more with his empty pipe in his hands.

  He was at the fireplace, about to take the shag from the toe of his slipper, tackled below the mantelpiece, when suddenly, he paused. He stood so for a moment, in utter silence, his hawklike face keen with interest, his body seeming actually to lean forward as if to catch the sound that smote upon his ears.

  ‘If I am not mistaken, Parker,’ he said with unaccustomed gravity, ‘we are about to have a most unusual visitor.’

  I had been standing at the window looking out, and had just turned. ‘Nothing has disturbed this fog for the past half hour,’ I protested.

  ‘My dear Parker, you are looking in the wrong direction. The footsteps are approaching from out there, and a little above.’

  So saying, he turned to face the door with alert expectation in his gray eyes.

  I had for some time been conscious of a curious sound, almost as of water sliding at regular intervals against the roof. Apparently this was what Pons had mistaken for the sound of footsteps. Almost at the same moment of this realization, a most peculiar assault was made on the door to our quarters. I had not heard the outer door; in truth, I had heard no step upon the stair. But now a kind of brushing sound broke in upon us; it began at the top of the door, and did not become a recognizable knock until it had descended to midpanel.

  Being nearest the door, I moved to open it.

  ‘Pray be cautious, Parker,’ said Pons. ‘And spare me your alarm. Unless I am in egregrious error, our visitor is from another world.’

  I gazed at him, mouth agape. I had heard and marveled at his extraordinary deductions before, but this came from his lips with such calm assurance that I could not doubt his sincerity even while I could not accept his words.

  ‘Come, Parker, let us not keep him waiting.’

  I threw open the door. There, confronting us, was a strong, healthy man, bronzed by the sun, clad in a fantastic attire of such brilliant hues as to dazzle the eye. His footgear—a strange combination of sandal and slipper—must have made the curious slapping sounds I had at first mistaken for the dripping of water, but which Pons had correctly identified as footsteps, however alien to our previous experience.

  Our visitor looked briefly at me and said, ‘Ah, the famous literary doctor, I presume?’ and smiled, as if in jest.

  My astonishment at this manner of address, accompanied as it was with an almost insolent amusement, left me momentarily speechless.

  ‘Come in, come in, my dear fellow,’ said Pons behind me. ‘Pray overlook Dr. Parker’s rudeness. I perceive you have come a long way; your fatigue is manifest. Sit here and relieve yourself of the problem which brings you to these quarters.’

  Our visitor walked into the room, inclining his head to acknowledge Pons’s invitation.

  ‘I hope you will forgive my coming without an appointment,’ he said, in a somewhat stilted voice, accompanied by florid and Victorian gestures. ‘I fear I had no alternative. Let me introduce myself—I am Agent Tobias Athelney of the Terra Bureau of Investigation, Planet Terra, of the Solar System League.’

  Pons’ eyes twinkled merrily.

  ‘My dear sir,’ I could not help interrupting, ‘levity is all very well, but this is neither the time nor the place for it. Just where are you from?’

  Our visitor had taken the seat to which Pons had waved him. At my words, he stopped short, took a small, violet-covered notebook from an inner fold of his robelike costume, and thumbed through it until he found the place he sought.

  ‘Pray forgive me,’ he murmured. ‘If we were still using your somewhat fantastic calendar system, it would be the year 2565 A.D.’

  Pons, who had been scrutinizing him closely, now leaned back, closed his eyes, and touched his fingertips together. ‘So you represent yourself as a governmental agent of almost 700 years in the future, Mr. Athelney?’ he said. ‘A traveler in time?’

  Our visitor grimaced. ‘Not exactly, Mr. Pons. To my knowledge, there is no such thing as time travel, nor can such travel ever be developed. No, the explanation for my presence here is more elementary. We have recently discovered that the universe is not, indeed, one, but of an infinite number. We have learned that everything that possibly could happen has happened, will happen, and is happening. Given an infinite number of alternative universes, you can easily understand how this would be so. To illustrate, Mr. Pons, there are alternate space-time continua in which Napoleon won at Waterloo; there are still others in which Waterloo was a draw; and there are yet others in which the battle was never fought at all—indeed, in which Napoleon was never born!’

  I flashed a glance of mounting indignation at Pons, but my companion’s face had taken
on that dream expression I had learned to associate with intense concentration. Surely it could not be that he was being deceived by this patent mountebank!

  ‘Infinite other universes than this,’ murmured Pons, ‘containing other persons identical to myself, and to Dr. Parker, here, who carry on their little lives in much the same manner as we do?’

  Our visitor nodded. ‘That is correct, Mr. Pons. There are still other space-time continua, in which there are no such persons as yourselves, never have been, and never will be.’ He coughed almost apologetically. ‘In fact, in this multitude of alternate universes, Mr. Pons, there are some in which you two are fictitious characters, the product of a popular writer’s art!’

  ‘Amazing!’ exclaimed Pons, adding, with a glance at my dour face, ‘and yet, not entirely incredible, would you say, Parker?’

  ‘Preposterous!’ I answered. ‘How can you sit there and calmly accept this—this nonsense?’

  ‘Dear me,’ murmured Pons, ‘let us not be too hasty, Parker.’

  ‘I am sorry to have upset Dr. Parker,’ said our visitor soberly, ‘but it is from just such a universe that I have traveled to this. Approximately 700 years before my birth, in my space-time continuum, a series of stories dealing with Mr. Solar Pons and Dr. Lyndon Parker were written, presumably by Dr. Parker, and became the all-time favorites of the literature of deduction.’

  ‘Let us assume all this is so,’ said Pons. ‘For what purpose have you come?’

  ‘To consult you, Mr. Pons.’

  ‘I fancied as much,’ said my companion with a serene smile. ‘Though it would seem a long chance indeed to consult a fictitious character.’

  ‘ “Touché!” answered our client. ‘But a fictitious character in my universe and 700 years before my time. But in this universe you are very real indeed, and the greatest detective of all time!’ He sighed. ‘You cannot imagine, Mr. Pons, the difficulty of first finding a continuum in which you were real, and then, on top of that, one in which you were contemporary.’

  Pons sat for a moment in silence, stroking the lobe of his left ear. ‘I submit,’ he said at last, ‘since patterns of crime and its detection continually evolve, you are haunting the wrong continuum, Mr. Athelney.’