by Bill Peschel
“Do your best, all of you,” said their illustrious president. “I fear you can do little; these things are unintelligible to the unintelligent. But study on it, and meet here again one week from tonight, with your answers neatly typewritten on one side of the paper.”
The Infallible Detectives started off, each affecting a jaunty sanguineness of demeanor, which did not in the least impress their president, who was used to sanguinary impressions.
They spent their allotted seven days in the study of the problem; and a lot of the seven nights, too, for they wanted to delve into the baffling secret by sun or candlelight, as dear Mrs. Browning so poetically puts it.
And when the week had fled, the Infallibles again gathered in the Fakir Street sanctum, each face wearing the smug smirk and smile of one who had quested a successful quest and was about to accept his just reward.
“And now,” said President Holmes, “as nothing can be hid from the Infallible Detectives, I assume we have all discovered why the lady hung from the clothes-line above that deep and dangerous chasm of a tenement courtyard.”
“We have,” replied his colleagues, in varying tones of pride, conceit, and mock modesty.
“I cannot think,” went on the hawk-like voice, “that you have, any of you, stumbled upon the real solution of the mystery; but I will listen to your amateur attempts.”
“As the oldest member of our organization, I will tell my solution first,” said Vidocq, calmly. “I have not been able to find the lady, but I am convinced that she was merely an expert trapezist or tight-rope walker, practising a new trick to amaze her Coney Island audiences.”
“Nonsense!” cried Holmes. “In that case the lady would have worn tights or fleshings. We are told she was in full evening dress of the smartest set.”
Arsene Lupin spoke next.
“It’s too easy,” he said boredly; “she was a typist or stenographer who had been annoyed by attentions from her employer, and was trying to escape from the brute.”
“Again I call your attention to her costume,” said Holmes, with a look of intolerance on his finely cold-chiseled face.
“That’s all right,” returned Lupin, easily. “Those girls dress every old way! I’ve seen ’em. They don’t think anything of evening clothes at their work.”
“Humph!” said the Thinking Machine, and the others all agreed with him.
“Next,” said Holmes, sternly.
“I’m next,” said Lecoq. “I submit that the lady escaped from a near-by lunatic asylum. She had the illusion that she was an old overcoat and the moths had got at her. So of course she hung herself on the clothes-line. This theory of lunacy also accounts for the fact that the lady’s hair was down like Ophelia’s, you know.”
“It would have been easier for her to swallow a few good moth balls,” said Holmes, looking at Lecoq in stormy silence. “Mr. Gryce, you are an experienced deducer; what did you conclude?”
Mr. Gryce glued his eyes to his right boot toe, after his celebrated habit. “I make out she was a-slumming. You know, all the best ladies are keen about it. And I feel that she belonged to the Cult for the Betterment of Clothes-lines. She was by way of being a tester. She had to go across them hand over hand, and if they bore her weight, they were passed by the censor.”
“And if they didn’t?”
“Apparently that predicament had not occurred at the time of our problem, and so cannot be considered.”
“I think Gryce is right about the slumming,” remarked Luther Trant, “but the reason for the lady hanging from the clothes-line is the imperative necessity she felt for a thorough airing, after her tenemental visitations; there is a certain tenement scent, if I may express it, that requires ozone in quantities.”
“You’re too material,” said the Thinking Machine, with a faraway look in his weak, blue eyes. “This lady was a disciple of New Thought. She had to go into the silence, or concentrate, or whatever they call it. And they always choose strange places for these thinking spells. They have to have solitude, and, as I understand it, the clothes-line was not crowded?”
Rouletabille laughed right out.
“You’re way off, Thinky,” he said. “What ailed that dame was just that she wanted to reduce. I’ve read about it in the women’s journals. They all want to reduce. They take all sorts of crazy exercises, and this crossing clothes-lines hand over hand is the latest. I’ll bet it took off twenty of those avoirdupois with which old Sherly credited her.”
“Pish and a few tushes!” remarked Raffles, in his smart society jargon. “You don’t fool me. That clever little bear was making up a new dance to thrill society next winter. You’ll see. Sunday-paper headlines: STUNNING NEW DANCE! THE CLOTHES-LINE CLING! CAUGHT ON LIKE WILDFIRE! That’s what it’s all about. What do you know, eh?”
“Go take a walk, Raffles,” said Holmes, not unkindly; “you’re sleepy yet. Scientific Sprague, you sometimes put over an abstruse theory, what do you say?”
“I didn’t need science,” said Sprague, carelessly. “As soon as I heard she had her hair down, I jumped to the correct conclusion. She had been washing her hair, and was drying it. My sister always sticks her head out of the skylight; but this lady’s plan is, I should judge, a more all-round success.”
As they had now all voiced their theories, President Holmes rose to give them the inestimable benefit of his own views.
“Your ideas are not without some merit,” he conceded, “but you have overlooked the eternal-feminine element in the problem. As soon as I tell you the real solution, you will each wonder why it escaped your notice. The lady thought she heard a mouse, so she scrambled out of the window, preferring to risk her life on the perilous clothes-line rather than stay in the dwelling where the mouse was also. It is all very simple. She was doing her hair, threw her head over forward to twist it, as they always do, and so espied the mouse sitting in the corner.”
“Marvelous! Holmes, marvelous!” exclaimed Watson.
“Marvelous! Holmes, marvelous!” exclaimed Watson, who had just come back from his errand.
Even as they were all pondering on Holmes’s superior wisdom, the telephone bell rang.
“Are you there?” said President Holmes, for he was ever English of speech.
“Yes, yes,” returned the impatient voice of the chief of police. “Call off your detective workers. We have discovered who the lady was who crossed the clothes-line and why she did it.”
“I can’t imagine you really know,” said Holmes into the transmitter; “but tell me what you think.”
“A-r-r-rh! Of course I know! It was just one of those confounded moving-picture stunts!”
“Indeed! And why did the lady kick off her slipper?”
“A-r-r-r-h! It was part of the fool plot. She’s Miss Flossy Flicker of the Flim-Flam Film Company, doin’ the six-reel thriller, At the End of Her Rope.”
“Ah,” said Holmes suavely, “my compliments to Miss Flicker on her good work.”
“Marvelous, Holmes, marvelous!” said Watson.
Sherlock Holmes Solves a Problem in Publishing
Anonymous
This book review of an Arthur B. Reeve mystery featuring detective Craig Kennedy appeared in the May 8 edition of the Philadelphia Evening Ledger. Because Kennedy used his scientific knowledge to solve cases, it was appropriate to enlist Holmes as his reviewer. Reeve (1880-1936) wrote 82 short stories and 18 novels about Kennedy, who over the course of the series reverted to a more traditional detective. A television series in 1951 revived the character briefly.
“No, my dear Watson,” said Sherlock Holmes, as his aquiline fingers spun the pages of The War Terror and his still more aquiline nose dipped into the book which I had just handed him, “No, your literary training has misled you. The threads are not all in my hands now. But before you complete your account of this, my latest exploit, I think I shall be able to show that this is not a novel.”
With his accustomed abandon when on the trail of a mystery, my friend th
rew himself absorbedly into the reading of The War Terror, which professional courtesy prompts me to say is published by Hearst’s International Library Company, New York. No tinge of professional jealousy blighted his enthusiasm as he raced through the adventures of Craig Kennedy as Mr. Reeve has recorded them. An hour by the clock and shag by the pound were scarcely consumed before Holmes had reached his decision.
“Just as I thought,” he broke out abruptly, as he sawed on his old violin. “36 chapters divided by three equals 12 short stories. Twelve stories cut up into three parts, the incisions carefully glued and sandpapered, make 36 chapters. A most simple problem. Except that The War Terror exhausts the war after three chapters and—as I said—is no novel, your rival’s narrative lives up to the implication of its publishers,” concluded the great detective with blighting irony.
I wondered if my friend would drop Inspector Lestrange of Scotland Yard a word to institute proceedings, but, with his characteristic discretion, Holmes said nothing of the matter. It was only ten days later, and quite by accident, that I learned his decision. As I entered his study one afternoon, I heard the hurried snap of a closed book, and thought I detected a faint color on Holmes’ cheek. Upon his desk lay a well-thumbed copy of The War Terror, together with some notes of which I could read such fragments as “electro-magnetic gun . . . buy one triple mirror . . . spinthariscope, selenium cells . . . microphone . . . electrolytic murder . . . read Freud on psychoanalysis.”
I have read The War Terror. I appreciate Holmes’ interest. In fact, I may go so far as to say I regret that Craig Kennedy has only a reporter to depend upon as assistant and narrator, instead of a trained man of science.
Water, Water Everywhere and Not a Drop For Tea
Anonymous
When World War I broke out in 1914, the German Empire herded British civilians into internment camps. Many of them were housed at a horse racetrack outside Berlin. Facing the prospect of a long stay, the internees made the best of their situation. They turned the stables into barracks, built wooden sidewalks to traverse the mud and named them for streets in England, set up businesses, including tailors, cafes, and even a casino, and figured out ways to pass the time. One enterprising inmate launched a private postal system with mailboxes and stamps called the Ruhleben Express Delivery—the R.X.D. in the story. There was even a newspaper and a magazine, In Ruhleben Camp, from which this story was taken.
“Come in,” cried a familiar voice in answer to my knock on the heavy sliding door of the box stall. I discovered Sholmes reclining in a deck chair wringing some lost chords out of the soul of a concertina.
“My dear Whyson, I am delighted to see you,” he said, motioning me to an easy margarine box. “You will find the tobacco in that clog on the shelf.”
“But,” I began.
“Oh, that is quite all right,” said Sholmes, picking up an empty box and suspending it by a nail over the peep-hole in the door. “You will observe, my dear Whyson, that should anyone try to look through that hole he would simply see the inside of the empty box.”
“Marvellously simple,” said I, “and quite worthy of you, my dear Sholmes!”
“And now, Whyson,” said Sholmes, when we had settled ourselves comfortably with our pipes. “Where have you been hiding yourself, I have seen nothing of you lately?”
“I have been rather busy the last few days,” I replied. “This morning, for instance, I went early to the Canteen for a hard-boiled egg. But after waiting some hours in the line, the man next but one in front of me got the last. I next went to the Parcels Office and after waiting a few more hours nearly succeeded in getting a parcel. That is to say all of the contents of the thing addressed to me were confiscated with the exception of two glass jars of jam and those were broken.”
“Most annoying,” said Sholmes.
“Yes, one is kept constantly busy here doing nothing,” I replied. “This afternoon I waited a further two hours trying to get a ticket for Wagner’s Gotterdammerung and all I could manage was a seat on the top of one of the stoves.”
“That is very hard,” said Sholmes.
“And very cold,” I added.
“But now my dear Whyson I have just been presented with a very pretty problem, something that will interest you. Of course, I have a lot of other things on hand, the affair of the missing lion’s head, the disappearance of the balance sheet from the boiler-house, the mystery of the bucket from barrack eight, the fraud of the gilt watch-chain and the like. But as you know, my dear Whyson, I do not regard the problems that come my way from the point of view of the pecuniary profit that may accrue therefrom but solely as a specialist in mystery.” I could see that Sholmes had been presented with a problem after his own heart for seldom have I seen him as near excitement as he was on this occasion.
“Well, tell me all about it, Sholmes,” I cried, “and it will really seem like old times.”
“Here you are,” he replied and handed me an R.X.D. card from the Captains’ Office.
It ran as follows: “Dear Mr. Sholmes, we find ourselves in a frightful difficulty and would be indescribably grateful if you would come to our aid. Every night a number of men from various barracks steal from their beds and disappear until morning, in many cases not returning for the count at six thirty. This is, as you will readily recognise, a very serious matter, and we trust that you will not deny us your assistance. P.S. Please do not mention this to anyone outside the Captains’ Office as it would never do for the Camp to think that there was any problem, however difficult that we are not capable of solving without any outside help whatever.”
Sholmes smiled somewhat sarcastically as he saw me reading the post-script. “Rather like the appeals we used to get in the old days from Scotland Yard only not so well put, eh, Whyson?”
“Well, have you any ideas?” I enquired, knowing full well by the way he stroked his chin that my inimitable friend had already formed some theory which would lead to a speedy solution of the Captains’ woe.
“Yes, we have some ideas on the matter, and we will put them to the test to-night when I shall be glad of your company and maybe of your assistance, Whyson. Meet me by the flagstaff at ten-thirty, will you. By the way, don’t bring your service revolver as it might go off and so land us in trouble—that is, to say, in barrack eleven.”
At ten-thirty, I stole along to the appointed meeting place where I found my friend awaiting me. Thanks to my previous experiences of a like nature, I had taken the precaution to put my dark trousers over my pyjamas so that we should not be conspicuous, and Sholmes nodded approval when he noted this evidence of my having benefited from his lessons. “But, my dear Watson, why cover up your white trousers and leave your white jacket to give us away? Still, it won’t matter for this little trip. Now, come along and do walk lightly so as not to wake them.”
This, I thought, was a little exaggerated, believing that he referred to the people sleeping in the barracks.
Noiselessly, we crept down Bond Street and we were just opposite the Lobster’s stores when Sholmes gripped my arm.
“See them?” he whispered hoarsely.
Sure enough, I saw several figures leaning against the boiler-house.
“What are they making?” I asked, for like many others in this camp, I am in the throes of Otto-Sauer and this has a prejudicial effect on one’s English at times.
“Sleeping,” replied Sholmes simply. Then, after a pause, “Well, we’d better be going back to barracks.”
“But what about these people? Are these the missing men? What are you going to do about it?” And I put the querries in a heap.
“My dear Whyson,” drawled my friend, “Like the dramatic societies, I think my best course now is one of masterly inactivity. It is up to the captains now, as our friend Millington would say.”
“But my dear Sholmes, it is all so absurdly simple. How did it occur to you that these men were to be found there?”
“Observation, my dear Whyson, only observation. Tell me h
ow do you spend most of your time here?”
“Why, in lining-up, of course.”
“Just so. And about what do you swear most?”
“Why, about lining-up, of course.”
“Just so. And do you sleep well when you have been to the Casino?”
“Why, no, of course not.”
“Just so. Well, there you are.”
“Where?”
“Well, come now, my dear Whyson, you have been privileged to study my methods all these years. Surely it is quite obvious to you. Let us look at the facts. Firstly, all the men who disappear are casino-schein holders. Secondly, they are quite normal during the day but do this mysterious vanishing act at night. Trouble in the night, my dear Whyson, is usually attributable to stomache trouble. Then, the fact that these men’s subconsciousnesses must by this time be saturated with the idea of lining-up. There you are, my dear Whyson.”
And my extraordinary friend hastened away towards his box and his beloved concertina.
The Death of Sholmes
Charles Hamilton
The establishment of state-supported schools created a mass of boys and girls who knew how to read and wanted stories reflecting their lives. The first such magazine, The Boys’ and Girls’ Penny Magazine, appeared in 1832. Other popular story papers include The Boy’s Own Paper (1879-1967), The Gem (1907-1939), and The Magnet (1908-1940). They featured lively art and serial stories, some of which were set at fictional public schools.
Charles Hamilton (1876-1961) was not just a prolific writer; according to the Guinness Book of Records, he is the most prolific, writing hundreds of stories and an estimated 100 million words in his lifetime. One of his most notable series revolves around the Greyfriars School, and included in the magazine was extracts from “The Greyfriars Herald,” a school newspaper supposedly written by them. When “The Herald” was spun off into its own publication, Hamilton contributed “The Adventures of Herlock Sholmes” beginning in November 1915. While the magazine lasted only 18 issues, he continued chronicling Sholmes’ adventures for the next 35 years. The 95-story run was published in 1989 as The Complete Casebook of Herlock Sholmes. From it we picked this one, published Dec. 25 in the Herald, for its resemblance to Conan Doyle’s “The Final Problem.”