by Bill Peschel
“Fiery red hair, clean shaven, and a long, thin nose,” replied the major.
“Come, Totson,” said my friend, “we will see into this.”
Wishing our companion good morning, we left him with a most bewildered expression on his countenance, and walked rapidly back to the town. Without a word my friend led me into a bicycle store and selected two machines.
“Now, then, we can both ride well, and don’t mind a skid when it’s for a good cause,” said Gnomes, as he mounted.
I followed suit, and we proceeded to the end of the lane which led to Major Spark’s location. Here we picked up the trail and sprinted away merrily.
“It is impossible to say exactly how long a start our red-headed friend has had. Anything under three hours; probably not more than one, as the marks were very fresh,” said Gnomes, some time later. “You see, he will make for the railway to Lorenco Marques, and get in the train when he can do so in safety.”
“That will not be until he gets over the Transvaal border,” I added.
“Hullo!” shouted Gnomes, “we’re on the right track. Here’s the cedar box.”
We both dismounted, and my friend, running a few yards aside his bicycle, plucked the missing article from among the leaves of a thick bush. Needless to say, it was empty.
We continued our journey for about twenty miles without further incident until we came to the banks of a river, thickly fringed upon the margin with tangled shrubs and tall reeds. We rode gently along, and at its side, when, coming to a break in the vegetation, we observed a figure in the water bathing.
“Clean shaven, long nose, and red hair,” muttered Gnomes, seizing me so suddenly by the arm that we both fell off, fortunately without making a sound.
Immediately in front of us upon the ground was a heap of clothes and a bicycle with a red front tire.
Noiselessly my friend crawled to the bather’s wardrobe, and I watched him as he went through the pockets of every article. Finally, he felt them all over carefully, and came back looking considerably crestfallen.
“It’s not there,” he said. “We must introduce ourselves and await events.”
Shortly afterwards the bather appeared, and we made his acquaintance, chatting affably while he dressed.
“Your bicycle appears rather over-inflated in the back wheel,” observed Gnomes to our quarry.
The reply, “that he liked his tires hard,” was, I thought, given in rather a startled manner to so simple a question, and I saw that my friend noticed it as we all three mounted abreast.
Before we had gone a dozen yards, I, who was riding upon the right side of the stranger, and level with his back wheel, was startled by a report as of a pistol, and feeling a sharp blow in my left ear, clapped my hand upon it and retained what I thought was a bullet. Abruptly jumping off, I turned and saw our companion lying on the ground, with Sherlock Gnomes sitting on his chest.
His machine lay upon the grass, and pointing to a large rent in the inner tube, which protruded over the rim of the back wheel, the latter said:
“It was fortunate you were in the way just then, Totson, or the gem might have been lost. I guessed that it was hidden in the tire, but confess I did not expect it would reveal itself so energetically.”
My surprise at these events was so great that I had not thought to unclose my hand and inspect the missile. Doing so now, I unveiled an enormous pearl which emitted a beautiful pink radiance in the strong sunlight.
The Missing Letter
Opie Read
This was an unexpected find: an Australian newspaper publishing a parody written by one of the most popular American humorists not named Mark Twain. The article in the Riverina Recorder of Oct. 31 was credited to the Arkansaw Traveller, a comic newspaper founded by Opie Read (1852-1939). Read’s folksy lectures about the South drew large audiences nationwide, even if Arkansas didn’t appreciate the joke. Read also wrote more than a dozen novels set in the South that displayed as enlightened an attitude toward African-Americans as those written by his friend Twain.
“Now, tell me all the details of the case,” said Hemlock Jones. “Omit nothing, for a detail which might seem unimportant to you may furnish me the key to the mystery.”
“All right,” replied the visitor, a middle-aged banker, who was troubled by the demon of jealousy. “What I want is to lay my hands on a certain letter. A week ago last Monday, my wife, who is somewhat my junior—in fact, twenty years younger than I am—received the letter. It was laid beside her plate at the breakfast table. I at once recognized the handwriting on the envelope as that of a young man who was said to be in love with her when I married her. She glanced at the envelope, blushed, and hastily concealed the letter. I said nothing, but I made up my mind to find out what this correspondence was about.
“When she went shopping next day, I made a thorough search of the house, but I did not find the letter. A few days later, I employed detectives who are experts at this search work to go through the house. They failed, too. I was positive she did not carry the letter on her person, so I would have concluded that she had destroyed it had I not known that women never destroy letters, no matter how compromising they may be.”
“Right, right,” said Hemlock Jones. Then, after thinking for thirteen seconds, he asked, “What sort of a woman is your wife? Is she an ordinary frivolous woman, or is she particularly intelligent?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with the matter,” replied the banker huffily.
“Of course you don’t,” assented Hemlock Jones smilingly. “If you did, you wouldn’t be here seeking my assistance. Now, answer me.”
“Well,” said the banker, “she is a woman of the keenest intelligence.”
“That settles it!” exclaimed Hemlock Jones, rising to terminate the interview. “I can lay my hands on the missing letter this minute!”
“What!” cried the visitor, rising, too, in his astonishment.
“Yes,” continued my friend, “the letter is right here in this room, unless all my deductions are wrong, and they have never been wrong so far. First, let me ask you, didn’t your wife give you a letter to mail some time since last Monday week?”
“Yes, come to think of it, she did,” answered the banker.
“And that letter is in your pocket yet?”
“Yes, by Jove, here it is!” said the banker. “It is addressed to my wife’s mother. But what has that got to do with it?”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Hemlock Jones. “Open the envelope and you will see. It contains the lover’s letter, doesn’t it?”
“It does! It does!” cried the banker. “But how on earth did you know it?”
“Plain as daylight,” Hemlock Jones replied. “Your wife wanted to conceal that letter, and, being a woman of keen intelligence, she knew it could not be concealed effectually in the house. Her intelligence told her, too, that if she would put the letter in an envelope addressed to her mother and give it to you to mail, it would rest securely in your inside coat pocket till the coat wore out. There could be no safer hiding-place, she thought, and her calculations would have proved correct if you had not come to me.”
A Deduction Process
Which Revealed a Whole Lot About a Young Man
Anonymous
This comic dissection of domestic life appeared in the Nov. 4 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
“Do you see that man with the dark mustache?” said Sherlock Holmes Jr.
“Yes. Do you know him?”
“I never saw him before. He is married. He ought to live in a flat but doesn’t. His wife is afraid of the hired girl, and he is left handed.”
“Mr. Holmes, you are an everlasting marvel. How can you tell all that about a man you don’t know and whom you never saw before?”
“Look at the second knuckle on his left hand. You see it is badly skinned. Also, there is a black mark on his left cuff. Now, let us see what we must make of this. When a left-handed man pokes up the furnace fire, how does he do it?
By putting his left hand forward, of course. Thus it happened that it was his left hand which scraped against the furnace door. The blackened cuff shows that it was a furnace door. Having this foundation to work upon, the rest is easy. If he lived in a flat, he would have no furnace to look after and, if his wife were not afraid of the hired girl, they would make the latter do the poking up.
“It is all very simple, if one’s perceptive faculties are properly trained. He can’t really afford to live in a house, because if he could he, would have a man look after the furnace. Therefore, he ought to live in a flat.”
Refused to Be Foiled
Claude Eldridge Toles
This syndicated cartoon appeared in the “Morsels of Wit & Humor” column in the Dec. 8 issue of the Cook County Herald in Grand Marais, Minn. In his brief life, Claude Eldridge Toles (1875-1901) turned out thousands of editorial illustrations, cartoons, comics, and spot art. He could create a distinctive character with a few pen strokes, and his fluid linework anticipated Will Eisner by several decades.
Gladys Kanbee (queen of opera)—The jewels I reported stolen have been found. They were merely mislaid.
Hemlock Holmes (king of detectives)—I’m very sorry, madam, but one of the five men I arrested has just confessed to taking the jewels.
Claude Eldridge Toles.
The Adventure of the Stolen Doormat
Allen Upward
In an age of multi-talented writers, Allen Upward (1863-1926) stood apart for the range of his life and work. The Dublin-born barrister fought for Greek independence. He served as British Resident in Nigeria. His modernist poetry was published by Ezra Pound. He wrote essays on the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and George Bernard Shaw and a book on the evolution of religion. He thought so highly of himself that he thought he would win the Nobel Prize.
He also wrote genre fiction for money: Ruritanian romance in The Prince of Balkistan (1895), horror in The Yellow Hand (1904), science-fiction in The Discovery of the Dead (1910), espionage in The Secret History of Today (1904), and near-future speculation in the Romance of Politics series, in which the Roman Catholic Church conquered Britain, exiled the monarchy to Australia, and launched a new Inquisition.
This parody of a Holmes case appeared in The Wonderful Career of Ebenezer Lobb described by one reviewer as “the imaginary autobiography of a middle-class megalomaniac.”
The harsh duty is cast on me of exposing a charlatan who, after trading for a long time on the credulity of the public, has now gone to his long account.
A Roman poet has declared that we should speak no evil of the dead; but on the other hand a modern writer, the author of “Odgers On the Law of Libel and Slander,” has pointed out that there are certain disadvantages in speaking ill of the living. On one side there is the maxim—De mortius nil nisi bonum, on the other, the maxim—Actio personalis moritur cum persona. If both these writers had their way, Judas Iscariot would go scot-free. On the whole it seemed to me that the advice of the Roman litterateur may be more safely ignored than that of his English successor. I therefore withheld this memoir from the press during the lifetime of the specialist.
Now that he is no more, having met with a fatal accident while traveling in Switzerland, I have decided, at whatever risk of causing pain to the sorrowing relatives, that I must go through with my distasteful task.
I was sitting over breakfast in the Dovecote one morning when Susan rushed into my presence, all tear-stained and disheveled, and exclaimed:
“If you please, sir, the doormat’s gone!”
This doormat, destined to such celebrity in the annals of crime, I should explain, was a prized gift from my dear Aunt Penelope. It was made of india rubber, and bore the inscription WELCOME, in large capitals. During the day time it occupied a position on the top of the steps outside the front door. Every night it was my custom to bring it inside before locking up, and in the morning it was Susan’s duty to restore it to its place. Susan is a female. She might be pardoned for giving away under the stress of misfortune. But such weakness was not for a man. Without permitting myself to waste the precious moments in idle grief, I resolved on instant action.
“Bring me a telegraph form,” I commanded the agitated girl. “I will wire at once to a criminal specialist in Baker Street who, without a doubt, will be able to solve this dark problem and recover my missing property.”
“Yes sir. Shall I tell a policeman?” asked Susan.
I have had cause ere now to suspect that Susan is not such a stranger to the Constable on duty in Camberwell Grove as she would have me believe. I am not easily deceived, and when a constable is constantly haunting the pavement outside my front gate and greeting me with effusive familiarity every time I go in or out, I draw my own conclusions. On this occasion I fixed a sternly searching gaze on Susan, under which she quailed, as I responded:
“It can do no harm to communicate with the police. But I will not have the Dovecote overrun by officers on the pretext of making inquiries about this crime—you understand?”
The crimson flush which mantled in her cheek showed that she did.
The wire was despatched, and within an hour I got the following response:
ARRIVE NEXT TRAIN. PUT NO TRUST IN POLICE.
H—LM—S
He was as good as his word. Within five minutes of the arrival of his wire he was seated before me, clad in the well-known ulster and traveling-cap without which he never went anywhere, even in the hottest weather. As he explained to me, it was his uniform, and if he had not worn it, the public would not have recognized him at a glance in the illustrations.
Along with him the celebrated expert brought a rather insignificant, stupid-looking man whom he introduced as Dr. W — — . I received the doctor coldly.
“Pardon me,” I said to his principal, “if I remark that I expected to see you here alone, Mr. H — — s. The very distressing crime which has plunged my household into grief, and stirred Camberwell to its depths, is not one to be laid bare to every stranger’s eye.”
The medico blushed, but his friend took up the cudgels on his behalf.
“I know it looks like bad taste,” he said, “but I have to cart him about with me in order that he may write an account of my investigation for publication in a well-known magazine.” He drew me aside and added in a whisper, “Poor fellow, although he has been through so many of my cases with me, and seen so much of my method, he still remains as simple and credulous as a child, and every fresh case comes as a complete surprise to him. He is no use in my work, but he gets money by reporting my doings, and I get reputation so I put up with him as best I can.”
While he was speaking he glanced once or twice round the room and played with the leaves of a photograph album on the table.
“Well, of course, if it is your custom, I will say no more, but I should have thought it would be far more convenient to leave your friend at home and tell him all about it when you get back. Now to come to this case. The facts are extremely simple.”
He stopped me with a gesture.
“My dear Mr. Lobb! That is just what I have to explain to my friend W — — . It is precisely the cases which appear extremely simple which present the greatest difficulties. Give me a really bizarre crime like a murder by a Mormon or an Andaman islander, and I can dispose of it without leaving my room, whereas with a thoroughly ordinary affair like this of yours, I find myself all at sea.”
“Well, let me tell you how this case stands so far, Susan—”
He interrupted me again.
“Susan? Who is that?”
“Susan is my general.”
“Ah!” He looked round at the doctor. “Make a note of that W — — . Yes?”
“She has been in my service eleven years and two months. During that time I have found her faithful, honest, and obliging. Her habits are clean, she is an early riser, and a regular attendant at Divine Service.”
The expert shook his head doubtfully.
“All that tells me
nothing. Has she any followers?”
I hung my head. I saw the net was closing round the unsuspecting girl, and that unless I were careful she would be lost.
“No,” I answered uneasily, “at least I have sometimes thought that the policeman on the beat—”
Mr. H — — s threw up his hands.
“Always the police!” he cried. “They meet me at every turn! When was this policeman seen last?”
“Susan tells me she saw him this morning and gave information of the robbery. He is now on the track of the criminals.”
The specialist lay back in his chair and smiled a smile of supreme scorn.
“He has got a clue,” I continued. “Two gipsies were seen passing down the Grove this morning, and they afterwards went off along the Peckham Road. The officer has gone in pursuit of them.”
“Really, Mr. Lobb, I am ashamed of you. The idea of supposing that the stupid brains of the regular police could possibly fathom an inscrutable affair like this. This tale about gipsies is clearly a blind. I am glad the police are out of the way, however, as I can now pursue my own inquiry undisturbed. What kind of mat was it?”
Before I could answer, Dr. W — —hurriedly leant over and murmured something in his friend’s ear.
“Oh, ah, I forgot!” said Mr. H — — s. And turning to me he remarked: “My friend here reminds me that I have forgotten the usual preliminary demonstration. I have first to give you a specimen of my detective powers. Let me tell you then, that I have already discovered you to be a man of independent means, not following any regular profession, but occupying yourself with literary pursuits, and particularly the study of poetry; you hold Evangelical views, are a teetotaler, have a quarrelsome disposition, and were formerly friendly with a clergyman of the Church of England from whom you are now estranged.”