Sherlock Holmes Edwardian Parodies and Pastiches II

by Bill Peschel

  “No, not half bad,” said M. Dupin, rather sarcastically, I thought. “Do you remember that little story of ‘The Purloined Letter,’ for instance? What a little gem of a story that is! When I get to reading it over I forget all about you and your feeble imitations. There is nothing forced there. Everything is as sure as fate itself—not a false note—not a thing dragged in by the heels. And the solution of it all is so simple that it makes most of your artifices seem clumsy in comparison.”

  “But if Poe had such a good thing in you, M. Dupin, why didn’t he make more of you?” snapped Sherlock Holmes.

  “Ah, that’s where Mr. Poe proved himself a real literary artist,” said M. Dupin, puffing away at his eternal meerschaum. “When he had a good thing he knew enough not to ruin his reputation by running it into the ground. Suppose, after writing ‘The Murders of the Rue Morgue’ around me as the central character, he had written two or three books of short stories in which I figured. Then suppose he had let them dramatize me and further parade me before the public. Likewise suppose, after he had decently killed me off and had announced that he would write no more detective stories, he had yielded to the blandishments of his publishers and had brought out another interminable lot of tales about me? Why, naturally, most of the stuff would have been worse than mediocre, and people would have forgotten all about that masterpiece, ‘The Murders of the Rue Morgue,’ and also about ‘The Purloined Letter,’ so covered would those gems be in a mass of trash.”

  “Oh, I’ll admit that my string has been overplayed,” sighed Sherlock Holmes moodily, reaching for the hypodermic syringe, which I slid out of his reach. “But maybe Poe would have overplayed you if he could have drawn down a dollar a word for all he could write about you.”

  “Poor Edgar—poor misunderstood Edgar!—maybe he would,” said Dupin, thoughtfully. “Few enough dollars he had in his stormy life. But at the same time, no matter what his rewards, I think he was a versatile genius, enough to have found something new at the right time. At any rate he would not have filched the product of another’s brain and palmed it off as his own.”

  “But great Scott, man!” cried Sherlock Holmes, “you don’t mean to say that no one else but Poe has a right to utilize the theory of analysis in a detective story, do you?”

  “No, but see how closely you follow me in all other particulars. I am out of sorts with fortune and so are you. I am always smoking when thinking out my plans of attack, and so are you. I have an admiring friend to set down everything I say and do, and so have you. I am always dazzling the chief of police with much better theories than he can ever work out, and so are you.”

  “I know, I know,” said Sherlock Holmes, beginning to mop his forehead again. “It looks like a bad case against me. I’ve drawn pretty freely upon you, M. Dupin, and the quotation marks haven’t always been used as they should have been where credit was due. But after all I am not the most slavish imitation my author has produced. Have you ever read his book, The White Company and compared it with The Cloister and the Hearth? No? Well do so, if you want to get what might be termed ‘transplanted atmosphere.’”

  “Well, it seems to be a great age for the piratical appropriating of other men’s ideas,” said M. Dupin, resignedly. “As for myself, I don’t care a rap about your stealing of my thunder, Sherlock Holmes. In fact, you’re a pretty decent sort of a chap, even though you are trying my patience with your continual refusal to retire; and besides you only make me shine the brighter in comparison. I don’t even hold that ‘Dancing Men’ story against you, in which you made use of a cryptogram that instantly brought up thoughts of ‘The Gold-Bug.’”

  “But you did not figure in ‘The Gold-Bug,’” said Sherlock Holmes with the air of one who had won a point.

  “No, and that merely emphasizes what I have been telling you—that people admire Poe as a literary artist owing to the fact that he did not overwork any of his creations. Bear that in mind, my boy, and remember, when you make your next farewell, to see that it is not one of the Patti kind, with a string to it. The patience of even the American reading public is not exhaustless, and you cannot always be among the ‘six best-selling books’ of the day.”

  And with these words, M. Dupin, pipe, and all, vanished in the tobacco-laden atmosphere of the room, leaving the great detective, Sherlock Holmes, looking at me as shamefacedly as a schoolboy who had been caught with stolen apples in his possession.

  The Last of Sherlock Holmes:

  The Mystery of the Governor’s Message and the Missing — — — —.

  A.B. “Banjo” Paterson

  Illustrated by Lionel Lindsay

  Late on the night of Jan. 20, police in Perth, Australia, received an urgent telegram from Sir Harry Rawson (1843-1910), the governor of New South Wales. Two reliable officers were ordered to meet the train from Moss Vale, where the governor was summering, and meet someone who would order them to keep an eye on two unnamed individuals. Word of the mysterious telegram spread quickly, and news reports fueled speculation. Several days later, the government explained that Rawson had given a messenger negotiable debentures to raise a £2 million loan and was concerned for their safety. Eventually, the truth surfaced: Two Russian agents had been negotiating with a shipping company to buy one of their vessels and the government became alarmed after learning of their presence in the country.

  Little more than a week after the story broke, this parody appeared in at least two Australian newspapers—The Evening News of Jan. 28 and The Daily News (Perth) of Feb. 16. No byline was printed, but a compiler for Project Gutenberg Australia identified its author as Andrew “Banjo” Paterson (1864-1941), the reporter whose poems of Outback life such as “Waltzing Matilda,” “Clancy of the Overflow,” and “The Man from Snowy River” would shape Australia’s self-image. His portrait appears on the Australian ten-dollar bill. Lionel Lindsay (1874-1961) was beginning his career that would see him as one of the country’s most popular artists.

  Those who have followed the career of the marvelous detective Sherlock Holmes, and his assistant, Dr. Watson, will remember that the final exploit of the great Sherlock, as recorded by Conan Doyle, was the recovery of a missing despatch box by the Prime Minister of England. This adventure is supposed to have closed the history of the great detective so far as English readers are concerned; but such a mastermind could not remain unoccupied; such a genius must find an outlet for its energies; and there are indications that various mysteries now puzzling Australians—such as why Pye was left out of the Australian Eleven, and The Missing Diamonds, or the Mystery of the Mont-de-Piete, will before long engage the attention of his giant intellect; in other words, Sherlock Holmes is in Australia.

  If any confirmation were wanted of this statement, it would be found in the solution recently worked out of a labyrinthic mystery which Sherlock Holmes and Company alone could have successfully solved.

  Suppressing, for obvious reasons, the real names of the parties, let us proceed to narrate how Sherlock Holmes unraveled the mysterious telegram sent by one whom, for the purposes of the story, we shall call Sir Tarry Hawser, the Governor of New South Carolina.

  * * * * *

  It was midnight of a sweltering Sydney summer night. The streets were quiet, except for the usual crowds around the betting shops, and Sherlock Holmes, disguised as an Officer of Detective Police, paced restlessly up and down his official sitting-room, holding in his hand a telegram. From time to time he glanced restlessly at the door. A step was heard without, and three knocks were given. The door slid noiselessly into the groove in the wall, admitting Sherlock’s old and true friend, Dr. Watson, now disguised as a policeman. Without looking round, Sherlock motioned him to a chair, saying, “Sit down, Watson. I have a small matter in hand.”

  “How did you know it was me?” said Watson, gazing admiringly at the back view of the greatest detective the world has ever known. “I never spoke nor gave my name to a soul.”

  “My dear fellow,” said Sherlock, with calm supe
riority. “I knew it was you the moment that you started to come up the stairs. I knew it was you by the heavy way you put your feet down. When I heard the sound on the stairs, I said, ‘This is either Watson, or a draught horse,’ and as no draught horse could get round the angle in the first landing, I knew it was you the moment you had passed that point. But there is a small matter, a mere official trifle, which is likely to afford us a little work. It is a matter which, as a rule, I would hand over to the traffic constables, with instructions to inquire whether any strangers had been seen in town lately. But as our old friend, Sir Tarry Hawser, is concerned in it we must attend to the matter ourselves.”

  So saying, he tossed to Watson a telegram timed 11 p.m. and bearing the Hoss Valley telegraph stamp.

  Watson held it up to the light, and read it aloud: “‘Hawser, Hoss Valley, to Sherlock, Sydney. Have just come home from amateur races. Very hot. Have lost—’ what’s this he has lost?—‘exiguous co-ordinate?’”

  “That’s where the difficulty is,” said Sherlock. “That part is in cipher, and we have lost the key. It is evident he has lost something. I deduce that from the fact that he goes on: ‘send two detectives at once.’”

  “And what do you think he has lost?” said Watson.

  Sherlock smiled his inscrutable smile and threw himself into an easy chair.

  “I think I recognize the hand of Moriarty in this,” he said.

  “Do you mean Moriarty, the Crown Prosecu—”

  “No, I mean Moriarty, the great chief of crime, the Napoleon of iniquity. See here, Watson,” he went on, stepping over to the window and drawing aside the curtain: “Look out and tell me what you see.”

  “I see Phillip street, and a cab at the corner, and a man over the way going into a pub after hours.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “He looks like a beer fighter.”

  Sherlock smiled his slow smile of satisfaction.

  “Watch that man,” he said, “and tell me if he looks round as he goes into the bar.”

  “Yes, he does.”

  “Does he beckon with his hand, and is he joined by another man?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “I thought so. Moriarty, at every turn! That is no ordinary emergency. I would go myself, but—” and here he paused, lost in thought.

  “Why not telegraph Sir Tarry, and see—”

  “What, and have the telegram intercepted by Moriarty? Watson, you surprise me. Oblige me by pressing the bell.”

  A velvet-footed official came to the door.

  “Are all arrangements made?” said Sherlock sharply.

  “They are, sir.”

  “Have you rung up the press and told them at what time the detectives leave, and where they are going, and by whom they are wanted?”

  “We have, sir.”

  “Have they been photographed and their descriptions circulated among the criminal classes?”

  “They have, sir.”

  “Have they got a banner and masks for their faces and a bloodhound to follow the tracks?”

  “They have, sir.”

  “Excellent, excellent,” said Sherlock Holmes. “It is a great aid to detective work, Watson, to notify beforehand what you are going to do. It lowers the number of convictions and enables Neitenstein to effect a saving of gaol expenditure. And now let us snatch a few hours’ sleep. We can do nothing till the morning. Good night, Watson. Mind the step.”

  Next morning there was a great to-do. People were asking, “What had the Governor of South Carolina lost? Had the miscreants been arrested? Had Rozhestvensky’s fleet appeared on the Upper Marrumbidgee, and begun to shell the Barren Jack Reservoir? Was a Russian emissary disguised as a commercial traveler trying to sell fire extinguishers to the burnt-out settlers? The public mind was all unrest, and all looked to the great detective to know what had been done.

  Meanwhile, the detectives had started for the railway station with the utmost secrecy, accompanied by a German band, a banner, and a bloodhound. The time and place of their departure and the object of their visit were all chronicled in the society columns among the fashionable intelligence, and were read with interest by the criminal classes.

  They followed up the blood-stained trail. “A Russian spy has passed along here,” they said. But the desperado was found to be only an ordinary swagman, and the sleuth hounds of the law were puzzled.

  “Strange!” they said, “that the criminals are not here to meet us after our departure was so extensively advertised.” They returned as unobtrusively and secretly as they set out, and were met by four hundred people at the railway station, who cheered them heartily.

  Public excitement ran higher than ever. The mysterious message—what was it about? Had the detectives arrested anyone?

  It was then that the genius of our friend Holmes shone out more brightly; with more luster and luminosity than on any occasion in his history. He rigidly refused to give any information. “We have told the criminals what we are going to do,” he said, “but it would never do to tell the public what the affair was all about. Enough for them to know that the criminals, whoever they were, were taken no unfair advantage of. Let it never be said that Sherlock Holmes descended to the low expedient of surprising a burglar. Any officer giving any information whatever will be sacked.”

  Later on in the day the Prime Minister, by one of those singular lapses of which even the greatest minds are capable, actually made public the details of the affair. There was nothing to make a fuss about, he said. There had been no crime committed, and he didn’t see why the public should be kept in a state of unrest. He said that Sir Tarry Hawser had merely wanted two detectives to look after some unsalable bonds that the Carruthers Government were trying to palm off on the British moneylender; but the public would not believe this story at all.

  “Why,” they said, “should he wait until the middle of the night to remember about the bonds? No, there was a mystery in it, and Sherlock Holmes is the only man who can tell us.”

  When this was reported to Sherlock, he again smiled his deep, enigmatical smile.

  “To the ordinary superficial observer, Watson,” he said, “there was nothing in it. But the trained, deductive intellect discards all the theories of guarding bonds. The great mastermind of crime was at work in this.”

  “And what was it then that Sir Tarry Hawser wished the detectives to do? What did he wish them to guard?”

  Sherlock Holmes looked round furtively, and drew his questioner close to him.

  “The family washing,” he hissed. “He didn’t like sending it down, considering the people that were about. Look out, Watson, and tell me what you see in the street.”

  “I see the same pub, and I think the same man going in to have a drink.”

  Sherlock Holmes gave his usual chuckle of triumph. “There you are, Watson,” he said, “that proves that my suspicions were correct. Moriarty is yet at large.”

  Sherlock Holmes’ Daughter

  H.H. Ballard

  Without giving too much away, this story from the April issue of The Brown Book of Boston contains a twist at the end that would probably delight readers of JohnLock fanfiction today.

  Harlan Hoge Ballard (1853-1934) was an educator in Lenox, Mass. He founded the Agassiz Association, named for naturalist Louis Agassiz, to encourage young people to study natural history. A learned man, he wrote several books on behalf of the association, as well as a translation of Virgil’s Aeneid, and two writing guides.

  Ballard will appear in a later volume with a piece from his Adventures of a Librarian (1929). While his appreciation of Sherlock was plain, in another essay he concluded that learning was more rewarding than reading fiction: “Amateurs delight in effort regardless of the value of the thing achieved. Selfish pleasure in achieving kills interest, once the goal is reached. . . . Detective stories, once read, are forgotten. Sherlock Holmes cared nothing for his criminals after he caught them. But if efforts result in adding however slightly
to the world’s knowledge, or happiness, the pleasure of achievement becomes legitimate, and interest is lasting.” I wonder many equally learned Sherlockians would agree?

  It was our tenth anniversary. Some of us had not met since we stood in a row before good old Dr. Bancroft to receive our diplomas.

  We had finished our coffee, pushed back our chairs, and lighted our cigars. We were still laughing at the story of Dr. Brown—“Billy” he used to be, and “Billy” he was again that night.

  “Billy,” then turned to a quiet banker who was sitting next to him, and who was known on Wall Street as Thomas Vanderpool, Esq., and cried, “Come on Van! It’s your turn next! Gentlemen, we will now listen to the adventures of the banker.”

  Vanderpool had been the baby and the Beau Brummell of the class, used to have a new pair of dark green kid gloves on every Sunday morning, and all that sort of thing, parted his hair in the middle, fond of the girls, but a good, clean fellow, though very quiet and a bit dull, and the last man in the world to have an adventure or tell it if he had.

  So we all clattered our knives against our glasses, and shouted, “Van! Van! It’s up to you, Vandy,” until Tom was actually a bit fussed.

  However, he got his cigar around to the other corner of his mouth, took off his gold glasses, and to the astonishment of every man present told the liveliest story of the evening.

  “Fellows,” said he, “as a rule in a banker’s life there is not much doing. But as some of you may remember, I started in to be a surgeon, and possibly you may be interested to hear the remarkable experience which switched me off. It was in eighteen hundred ninety-four, no, ninety-three.