Sherlock Holmes Edwardian Parodies and Pastiches II

by Bill Peschel

  Hardly a game passed without ending in a free-for-all fight or mobbing the umpire.

  “In order to keep the records straight on the batting order, we named one of the twins ‘Left-Foot’ and the other ‘Right-Foot.’ Right-Foot had been batting like a fiend ever since the opening of the season, while Left-Foot was somewhat weak with the stick, but the best fielder on the team. Left-Foot played center field and Right-Foot covered the right garden. Whenever it looked as if we were in a pinch it was the custom to bring in Right-Foot in place of Left-Foot occasionally to even up matters. He was always good in a pinch and many a time had won the game by taking the place of Left-Foot at the bat.

  “We called our team the Knockers and the other bunch with which we were playing the series answered to the name of the Pickle-Eaters. The Pickle-Eaters had grown suspicious that we were working a smooth game on the batting order and were getting very particular about the selection of an umpire.

  “We had a game scheduled at home one Sunday afternoon and were looking for a large bunch of trouble when the Pickle-Eaters entered a protest against the regular umpire acting and refused to start the game until someone else was selected. Just as the controversy had reached the stage when it looked as if it would be necessary to dish back the money to the crowd, a tall, cadaverous-looking man, leading a dog that looked like a cross between a bloodhound and an Irish setter, stepped from the bleachers and volunteered to take charge of the ceremonies.

  “Without even waiting for an answer, the tall stranger walked out to the position back of the pitcher’s box and called the game. The assurance of the man won the point, and both teams went into the game without further argument.

  “Talk about science in umpiring a ball game, that guy certainly had everything skinned that ever came over the pike. He could outrun any man on either team and was always at the spot when it looked as if the decision would be close. There was no disputing his decision, because he was always in the proper position to hand out the right dope.

  “It was in the last inning that the real sensational decision of the game occurred, which marked the stranger as the greatest exponent of the baseball umpiring art and assisted in revealing his identity.

  “We were up for the last crack at the ball, with the Pickle-Eaters two runs in the lead. There were two out and all of the bases full when the scorer called Left-Foot to the bat. It was a tight hole and the captain decided to take a chance on ringing in Right-Foot. He gave the signal and the chief willow swisher went to the plate. He swatted the first one that came over squarely on the nose and landed it over the center-field fence, and went trailing around the bases, bringing in all of the men ahead of him.

  “Almost as soon as Right-Foot landed on the ball, the head guy of the Pickle-Eaters was out with the big protest, claiming that it was the wrong man up. The lanky one listened to his tale of woe and was at the bench to meet Right-Foot when he wandered in from his little canter. Before the startled player had time to draw his breath, the umpire had grabbed his foot with one hand and sliced a piece off the heel of his shoe with a sharp knife that he was carrying in the other hand. He performed a similar operation on Left-Foot, and then started for the outfield like a shot.

  “When he reached the spot where Right-Foot was accustomed to stand in the right garden, he went down on his knees and examined the ground for several minutes with a microscope, then made for the center pasture, where he repeated the performance. Without saying a word he rushed back to the bleachers’ stand, where his dog was fastened and, after releasing the queer-looking animal, rubbed the piece of leather that he had clipped from Right-Foot’s shoe over his nose and ordered the dog to ‘go find him.’ The hound went around the bases at a modest canter, almost perfectly imitating the gait of Right-Foot, and wound up at the players’ bench by taking a firm hold on the surplus bottom of Right-Foot’s trousers.

  He examined the ground for several minutes with a microscope.

  “‘Right-Foot out for batting out of his turn,’ shouted the umpire. ‘Side out and the Pickle-Eaters win.’

  “Not even a protest was entered to the decision. It was all done so quick and in such an amazing manner that no one thought of disputing the decision. The players gathered in a crowd to discuss the strange proceedings, but when they looked for the stranger, both he and the dog had disappeared. No one had noticed them leave the grounds, and just how he got away is a mystery that is still being discussed by the old-timers back in the little village.

  “We were asking each other who the man could possibly be when the town constable came forward and volunteered the information that the erstwhile umpire was Sherlock Holmes, who had been investigating a strange murder case in an adjoining hamlet.”

  A Hitherto Unrecorded Conversation Between Dr. Watson and Mr. Herlock Sholmes

  S.T. Ewart

  This is another delightful example of the “wayward deduction” trope designed to appeal to readers of the April issue of Library Journal. Of S.T. Ewart, we deduced from the few articles published under his byline that he was an assistant librarian and cricketer.

  It was not without certain misgivings that I entered our rooms in Baker Street one night late in the Autumn of 1904. For some time, in fact ever since the arrest of Professor Eisenbach—that brain of the criminal octopus which terrorised three continents—my gifted friend had had nothing to occupy him, and I knew from past experience that this resulted in no good. It was with no small sense of relief therefore, that, seeing Sholmes apparently deep in one of his interminable experiments, I crossed over to the mantelpiece and observed that the morphia still remained level with the top of the label on the bottle.

  I glanced over at Sholmes, and was about to seat myself, when, without looking up, he said, “Ah! My dear Watson! So you found it a little too difficult and brought it along here? Ah! Well, it may serve to pass the evening. Let me have a look at it.”

  Accustomed as I was to his brilliant deductions, amazement held me dumb for a moment.

  “Good gracious! Sholmes! How on earth did you guess that?”

  “Really now, Watson, I thought I had schooled you better than that. Do you mean to tell me that you cannot see such an absurdly simple train of reasoning as that? But you have brought something, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. But tell me how you knew.”

  “Very well, if you must have it. As a rule, you are most regular in your habits, yet to-night you have returned fully thirty-seven minutes before your usual time. You have come in a cab, for your boots are spotless, and you gave the cabman considerably more than his legal fare, for he went away without a murmur. All this points to a certain haste and excitement on your part. And when one adds to this that you came into the room without knocking and at once crossed over to the mantel-piece, ostensibly to examine the clock but really to look at the morphia-bottle, the case becomes quite clear. Why should you come home so early if you did not have something for me? And why should you be so anxious about the morphia unless your reason was to see whether or not I was in a fit condition to undertake your problem?”

  “How absurdly simple!” I exclaimed.

  “Oh, of course! Of course!” returned Sholmes, a faint look of annoyance appearing on his keen features. “Everything is simple when it has been explained. A minute ago you were lost in wonder, and now you say ‘how absurdly simple.’ However, let me see what you have.”

  On my particular chair at the club, I had discovered a fragment of paper, evidently placed so as to attract attention, with the following legend in very bad printing:

  p.xv.+347. Ill. 74 port. Q.’ 97. H1174.

  I had at first treated it as of no importance, but on examining it more closely, a sudden thought that it had a more dreadful significance than was apparent crossed my mind. I had helped Sholmes in many of his cases, and several times my name had crept into the public press. It could be more likely than that some band of criminals should have harboured revenge and have decided on this method of conveying to me the mes
sage of my doom? However, I had been unable to find any clue as to its contents and so had brought it along to my friend Sholmes in the hope that with his mighty intellect he might solve the riddle.

  I handed the slip to him and told him of my suspicions. It was a yellowish piece of paper with ragged edges; its other features I have already described.

  Sholmes took it and examined it carefully through a lens; then detached a minute portion of the paper and tested it chemically. He then sat down in his chair and looked at the inscription long and earnestly. At last he spoke.

  “This is a most curious thing, Watson. Several facts become obvious—for example I can see this has been torn from a larger sheet of paper by a man of about fifty-three, stout, bald-headed, and wearing spats—but the meaning of the print seems cryptic.”

  He paused, then burst into a violent fit of laughter!

  “I have it!” he cried. “Why, it’s as clear as daylight! Oh, Watson, you’ll be the death of me yet! Just listen to the true story of your vindictive criminals.”

  He paused to settle himself into the well-known pons asinorum attitude and then continued.

  “When one gets a hint as to the inner significance of this little slip of paper, a delightful vista opens up before the mind’s eye. This is no murderer’s message, Watson, but a fragment from the diary of a doctor!

  “Cannot you picture an elderly, benevolent looking practitioner with the outward peculiarities I mentioned a short time ago? He is methodical, intensely methodical, for not only does he keep a complete record of each of his patients, but he actually prints that record, probably with a small hand press. Let us examine his entry. ‘P. xv. + 347’ evidently denotes the patient: Patient 347 in class 15. What class 15 may be we cannot ascertain, but we may be confident that the patient is really unwell, for is not ‘Ill.’ printed in italic type. In fact, he is evidently so near death’s door that our doctor has forsaken the ordinary pharmacopceia and fallen back on good ‘74 port. It seems, however, that even that generous wine has failed to achieve its purpose, and our doctor queries (‘Q.’) the advisability of trying a more virulent brand such as ‘97.

  “From the remainder several conclusions—”

  At this moment we were interrupted by the door opening suddenly and disclosing to our view a portly apparition.

  “Good Lord!” murmured Sholmes, “bald!”

  “About fifty-three!!” said I.

  “Stout!!!”

  “And wearing spats!!!!”

  “I hope you will pardon this intrusion, gentlemen,” said the apparition, “but I mislaid a rather important note to-night at the club, and as I was told that Dr. Watson had used the seat I vacated, I ascertained his address on the chance that he might help me.”

  “Was this your note?” inquired Sholmes holding out the paper.

  “Yes! Yes! That’s it! Oh, what a relief!” panted our visitor.

  “Perhaps,” suggested Sholmes, persuasively, “as we have been able to return your note, you will have no objection to explaining its meaning to us?” As he spoke, Sholmes glanced over at me with a look of triumph in his eye, and I knew that all he wanted was corroboration of his deductions.

  “With pleasure, gentlemen,” said the visitor. “I promised my wife to bring her a book from the library, and to save the trouble of writing, I tore the call mark of the one she wanted from the catalogue. When I found I had lost the number, I was almost too afraid to go home.”

  “But,” shouted Sholmes, pointing to the slip, “what does all that mean?”

  “Why! Don’t you know Mr. Sholmes?” and the old gentleman seemed to get even stouter with pride, “why it means that the book has fifteen pages of prefatory matter and 347 pages of text; that it is illustrated, and contains 74 portraits; that it is a quarto; and that it was published in 1897. It’s all so absurdly simple! ‘H1174’ is the—”

  But Sholmes had rushed to the mantelpiece and was busy injecting morphia.

  Lord Sheffield’s Mascot

  An Australian Adventure of Sherlock Holmes

  “A.R.B.”

  This was published in a Christmas supplement in several Australian newspapers, including the Mudgee Guardian and North-Western Representative.

  Among the notebooks which record the adventures of my friend few cases appear in which the crime did not centre round London. There were, of course, the famous case of the Indiana wreck, and the stolen bullion and the peculiar theft in Yedo of the draft of the Anglo-Japanese treaty after its approval by the Mikado. Both necessitated long voyages in which I (the “domestic Watson,” as he began to call me) was unable to accompany him without sacrificing my practice.

  Indeed my friend had no liking for long pursuits, and preferred those cases where after brilliant and concentrated efforts for a few sleepless days, he could sit down by the fire at his rooms in Baker street and evolve those wonderful nets of logic which entrapped so many criminals. The problem once solved, he would return to his violin and his cocaine, and pass days in indolence that was almost lethargy. Even such a constitution as his could not pass unimpaired through the strain of his dangerous habits, and it became apparent that unless a complete change of scene and living were effected his brain and body would be ruined. If other evidence were wanting, the listlessness with which he accepted the advice and consented to undertake a long voyage made it apparent that my friend was far from being his headstrong self.

  Behold us then ensconced in a private room of the Hotel Metropole, Sydney, crime and crime detection left behind.

  “You know, Watson,” said Holmes, throwing down his paper and stretching out his long thin legs. “I cannot find anything to interest me in the crime of these young countries. It is not among pioneer peoples that one finds those carefully constructed schemes which make the work of the detective a science. It is only in the hotbeds of civilization that intellect joins crime and makes it interesting. When this country evolves its Tennysons and Merediths it will also have its Moriartys and Whibleys. The perfection of criminal methods is an indication of advancement. I cannot find anything to interest me in Sydney criminal news: even the agony columns seem devoted to genuine cases of love-sick twaddle.”

  He had hardly finished speaking before a young man dashed into the room and asked, “Which is Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”

  I nodded towards my friend.

  The young man, a brisk, active-looking fellow of about thirty, well-dressed and well-groomed, turned to Holmes.

  “Sir, I have to apologise for the rudeness of this intrusion, but I have a matter of the utmost importance to consult you about.”

  Holmes looked at him intently from under his heavy-lidded eyes. “The importance of your affair does not explain why you should travel a couple of miles by tram instead of cab, climb leisurely up three flights of stairs, and then dash into a room as if you had hastened all the way.”

  For a moment a look of doubt flashed across the man’s face: he looked at the door as if uncertain whether to retreat or not. With a half sneer, he replied, “You have been watching me rather closely.”

  “Not at all,” said Holmes, with a quiet smile. “But stuck under your ring is a folded tram-ticket, coloured green, which I have noticed marks two sections. Again, the lift is not working today, and even an athlete in constant training as you are could hardly climb three flights of stairs without being out of breath.”

  “And the athlete?” asked the stranger.

  “More obvious still. Your sun-burnt face and hands tell a tale of the open air. It is plain from your hands and bearing that it is not open air toil which occupies your time. From the fact that yours is apparently a summer sport, and from the extreme softness of your hands, I consider it to be cricket. I might go further and add that the larger development of the left shoulder and arm, and particularly of the fingers of the left hand indicate that you are a left-hand bowler.”

  “But to return to my case.”

  “Good,” said Holmes.

  My heart misgave
as I saw him relapse into apparent listlessness, his long fingertips joined together in front of his face, and his eyes half shut. I knew that that brain which so urgently needed rest, was now working with an intensity and energy which was almost superhuman.

  “My name,” said our visitor, “is Hanbury Ashcroft, and I am attached to the English cricket team now in Australia, partly as secretary to the amateur members of the team, partly as a practice or auxiliary bowler. But apart from the fact that I am ambassador to you from Mr. Warner, our captain, I do not come into the story at all. I have first to make you acquainted with a secret of grave importance to international sport, and I trust in placing this confidence in—”

  “My dear fellow,” interrupted Holmes, “we seek no clients, and we seek no secrets. If you have misgivings on that point it is still time to take the matter elsewhere. I have no doubt that my friend Watson would be only too glad to see you withdraw before I grow interested in the case. However, I shall be delighted to hear you to the end on the condition that every fact and every detail is made clear to me.”

  I was surprised to hear Holmes speak so bluntly, but his curtness seemed to reassure Mr. Ashcroft.

  “The story is this: Lord Sheffield came into the possession of a valuable diamond and ruby ornament which was believed to be invested with magic powers. At first he jested about the matter, and in a joking spirit carried it with him to several matches. It may have been coincidence or something more inexplicable, but it was noticed that the team was invariably more successful when these jewels were with him. By and by, it became a custom to always take this precious trinket to important matches, and custom lent a tinge of superstition until it became a sort of mascot. Naturally the international contests were always marked by its presence, and a certain ritual of homage was built up so that it is the custom before any Test match for the team to hold a solemn meeting round the jewel and drink success to the event. In view of the treasure at stake an oath never to divulge to any man its existence is taken by each member.”