by Bill Peschel
“Bones! Bones!” I whispered hoarsely, “someone has rung the front door bell!”
But Bones had risen easily from his arm-chair, calm, collected, and debonair as ever.
“Come, Whatson” he said, “let me introduce you to Prof. Moratorium!”
I turned on my heel, and for one ghastly second believed myself to be gazing into the eyes of Field-Marshall von Hindenburg. But I realised it was my mistake, and hastily got out of the way as Moratorium advanced with sinister steps towards the table, on which was placed a beautiful chess-board and men, which I had not noticed before.
The Professor was the first to rupture the silence.
“You remember the terms?” he asked in a voice of subdued thunder.
Bones smiled and waved his hand pleasantly towards the board, as he drew up a chair and sat down. “You will do me an honour, Prof. Moratorium, if you will make the first move.”
“I had intended to,” he said, “My first move is
he continued as he pulled off his heavy overcoat, still plastered with Swiss mud. Bones gracefully made the move for him on the board until he was ready to sit opposite, and replied himself with a very similar variation—
I hastily searched the wastepaper basket for a scrap, and prepared to record the progress of the game. Without hesitation the Professor made his second move.
For a brief second Bones looked puzzled. He could see nothing defending that Pawn, and was about to take it off when he suddenly realised that his own Pawn was attacked, and so, by brilliant maneuver played
Moratorium answered with—
and Bones immediately countered with a powerful developing tactic—
The game continued—
“You flatter me,” murmured the Professor through his fingers.
“You have an attacking style, Mr. Shercock Bones; I perceive no sacrificial bias, but you have forced my Bishop where it wanted to go.”
(“L’attaque, toujours l’attaque!” muttered Bones.)
“Now your Bishop’s blocked,” said Moratorium, rather viciously. But not a blockhead,” said Bones, sweetly.
Prof. Moratorium made the move triumphantly, as though there was something in it, but he failed to observe the green light that began to glint in his opponent’s eyes; nor had he yet grasped the unfathomable depths to which Bone’s genius was capable of rising. At this moment I distinctly saw my friend’s brain pulsating through his skull. “He is going to make his first sacrifice!” I nervously apprehended to myself.
The blow had fallen! Sparks swam before my eyes. Moratorium looked disconcerted for one iota in the space of time, and then said “Pschaw!” and whipped off the dignified column of imitation ebony with a flourish.
I gasped. The sacrifices were beautiful, in truth, but I began to have qualms lest they should endanger the security of his game.
“That’s a fianchetto,” said Bones. Moratorium started at the word, and carefully examined the barrel of his revolver.
“What is?” he asked.
“That,” said Bones.
“I see,” said Moratorium, as he laid the weapon on the table for greater security
“H’m,” said Moratorium, in silence, “a trap, I have not the slightest doubt, but if I can attack two pieces at once ’tis enough, and so—
“Curious,” thought Moratorium, by inadvertence aloud, “but development is the secret of success, so—”
“Bones, Bones,” I cried, “this is folly!”
“Tut, Whatson,” he replied, airily, “tut, tut.”
I looked round to find Moratorium’s revolver, that I might seize it, preparatory to Bones’s inevitable dissolution, but only found myself looking down its barrel.
“Shrimp!” Prof. Moratorium exclaimed to me witheringly.
“Swish!” I replied, endeavouring to pass the matter off as a joke.
How I gloated at this! And how Moratorium glowered when I reminded him that more attention to the game and less to the gun would avoid such pleasant accidents!
“I shall get my Queen back,” he hissed, as he thought, to himself. I hoped Bones would hear and he prepared.
Perspiration, born of terror, spouted from my forehead. Bones cannot have seen! The chamber vibrated with excitement. Moratorium’s lips twitched and his fingers itched. He scarcely even looked at Bones’s next move—
—as he jumped up, brandished the revolver, lifted up the Pawn and planked it with a resounding thwack upon the last rank of all. Ah!
“A Queen! a Queen!” he shrieked, “and checkmate! Your King can’t move—it’s ballikinkarcerated in the deeps of that hole! Checkmate!! Hahaaaa-aa! Don’t move, Bones, I have you covered!”
“But I must make my move, Professor!” said Bones, mildly.
“You can’t move—you are checkmated.”
“A thousand pardons—you may have overlooked my Castle—see, Prof. Moratorium, I play
“Now it’s your turn. And when you have found a good move, write to the Times about it. I’m off to the Empire with my dear friend Whatson. Good-byeeeeee!”
“Bones! Bones!” I sobbed as soon as we were out in the street. “Why didn’t he shoot you—you said you would make more than sixteen sacrifices!”
“Ah! my dear Whatson,” he said, “really, really! I made seventeen sacrifices! Is a sacrifice any the less of a sacrifice because it is not accepted; any more than a rose would be less of a rose if you called it a lollipop? No, no, Prof. Moratorium is too much of a sportsman to shoot after losing a bet.”
“But you said you would win the game—and you have not, Bones, you had a dead lost game!”
“I said I wouldn’t lose, quite a different thing, Whatson, and besides, it’s his move. It’s his move!”
“Well?”
“Well!”
The Adventure of the Shattered Boudoir Glass
“Dr. John H. Watson, M.D.” (Oliver Wells)
Subtitled “The Last Adventure of Sherlock Holmes,” this is another story from the files of The Grotonian, the elite New England boarding school for the children of upper-class families. Oliver Wells (1902-1974) seems to have been a precocious student. He contributed several pieces to The Grotonian, including an essay on the difference between wit and humor, a short story with an O. Henry-like twist ending, and several poems. He was listed as one of a dozen editors on The Grotonian masthead, and contributed to St. Nicholas magazine. Like many of his class, he went on to Harvard, where he worked for The Advocate newspaper, and seems to have attended Columbia and Cambridge as well.
His writing talents indicated a career in the arts, and for awhile, he succeeded. He placed a poem in transition, a notable literary digest that promoted Modernism and Surrealism, and edited a poetry anthology that included several poems by William Faulkner. He was even singled out for praise by the editor of transition, Eugene Jolas alongside James Agee and Muriel Rukeyser. That seems to be the sum total of his accomplishments. He married, raised a family, and traveled to Europe several times before dying there in 1974.
Outside a battle of the elements was raging with impotent fury, but within the precincts of a suite of rooms at the Biltmore was absolute quiet. At times the lightning would illuminate the whole room in one vivid glare but the figure on the couch minded it not.
As I entered I was at once struck with the uncanny stillness of it all. I walked over to the lounge and looked down at the long gaunt figure stretched out there. The impressive features and firm-set scrutinizing eyes at once betrayed the hunter of crime, Sherlock Holmes. For it was none other than the great detective. No, he had not passed away. Far from it. To the unfamiliar eye he was as dead to the world as a man in slumber, but in reality, beneath that masque of seeming inactivity, his marvelous brain was calculating, estimating, and planning with marvelous rapidity. In fact he was thinking.
About a week before this, we had reached New York from England to start on a lecturing tour, but the day after we arrived Holmes received this note, scribbled on the back of an old g
rocer’s bill:
Mr. S. Holmes:
A murder will be committed Thursday night about 6:30 at No.—Fifth Avenue. The house is empty. Be sure to be there. I know.
A Friend.
It was then Tuesday. Holmes had at once cancelled all his engagements, even his dinner with the Mayor. Without the slightest hesitation he had engaged rooms at the Biltmore and lain down on the couch just as I had found him, absolutely cut off from the world in order to concentrate the whole of his attention upon solving this problem. Meanwhile, I had left him completely alone, and upon his strict injunction was not to disturb him unless absolutely necessary. But now it was Thursday and time for him to prevent the murder, so I tapped him lightly on the shoulder and he jumped up. He was in an awful rage and cursed at me in several different languages for interrupting his sequence of thought, but I had expected it, and paid no attention.
At last he calmed down and then spoke. “This reminds very much of a little murder which happened about six years ago,” he said. “The Crown Prince of Austria’s pet lapdog had been ruthlessly man-handled and killed during the night; they found him dead on the road with a broken back the very next morning. The police could find absolutely no clue and they were just losing all hope, when I came along and of course cleared up the whole affair in a very short time. For this I was awarded the Red Cross and given a subscription to its magazine by the Crown Prince himself. Ever since then I have been his most intimate friend though I don’t think I’ve heard from him for about six years.”
It is funny how some people would have made a lot out of little thing like this, praised themselves and all that, but not so Holmes. He is always so modest that it is difficulty itself to drag anything out of him.
We reached our destination that night about 5:30 and had no difficulty in entering as the side door was unlocked. The house was absolutely empty as far as we could find out, and if Holmes had not been so curious, a terrible disaster might have been avoided. But as soon as we got upstairs, he turned around and began to make investigations concerning the whereabouts of our would-be murderer. He crawled downstairs on his hands and knees, crept around corners with the quietness of a giraffe and finally came back with his hair full of dust and dirt which was a sure sign that he had done a lot of thinking and wished to give me some information. I saw at once that it would be impossible to stop him, so I let him go right ahead. “First,” he said, “I must inform you that our worthy blackguard is in this house!”
“Impossible!” I yelled, “Did he tell you so?”
“No,” he cried, “I heard his footprints.”
I did not quite see how he could have done this, but he went right on, “Our felonious black-jack thrower came in the same way we did, and if I am not mistaken,” he continued, as calm as a Palm Beach princess killing a toad, “the low down nickel-retriever is creeping right around that corner now.”
Holmes grabbed four automatics. “You sneaking varlet!” he screamed in five or six different voices, “I have you covered. Hands up! Quick! or I’ll fire.”
Handing me ten or twelve 45’s, he pointed three of his pistols at the corner, but I could see no one there.
Speaking entirely from supposition, I guess the awful criminal wouldn’t put up his hands, because Holmes fired a steady stream of shots right after that for nearly five minutes by my new stop-watch. When he had finished, broken glass was scattered all over the floor and the whole room was filled with smoke. We both rushed for the corner in great excitement, but all we could see was just a broken boudoir glass which had been shattered by the murderous fire.
Holmes was quite upset about the whole affair, but just the same he was awfully nice to me. He patted me on the back and told me that I had done finely. He also explained that if the pistols had not been faulty, we would have gotten our man without a doubt.
* * * * *
If for any reason I think less of Holmes now than formerly, let me at least say this for him. A man with a better head for emergencies it is impossible to find. With that divine intuition which comes only to the few, he looked into the future and by reason far beyond the powers of mortal mind, he foresaw that upon hearing all those shots, the police would waste no time in coming to the spot.
He was right. Hardly had he had time to hide in a closet and I had had a chance to conceal myself behind a curtain, than the police were upon us. There were lots of them; great, big, husky New York “cops.” The whole house was filled with them. A bunch of them came into the bedroom where we were hidden, and began searching everywhere. One of them took a peep under the bed and dragged out a body covered with blood. Some people might have been surprised. I was not. One of the first things I learned when I became Holmes’s accomplice was never to be surprised at finding bodies covered with blood. You find them everywhere: hanging out of windows, inside pianos, under piles of wood, all tangled up in the refrigerator, in fact it is possible to find them anywhere you don’t expect them.
When I first caught a glimpse of this body, some kind of divine inspiration flashed across my mind. I looked at my watch. It was 6:45. While Holmes had been running down clues in other parts of the house, 6:30 had passed, and I quickly grasped the fact that this was the man who was to have been murdered then.
After a short examination, they saw that there was absolutely no hope for the murdered man, as the vaso-motor center in the medulla had been badly injured, so they laid him on the bed and started right in with their search for the murderer. They had hardly begun, when one of them opened the closet in which Holmes was concealed. Unfortunately, they found him with two still-smoking pistols in each hand, and this proved him guilty without a doubt in their eyes. All the protests he could think of had absolutely no effect on them, so they finally dragged him off, handcuffed. I adopted the safety-first method and remained hidden until they were well on their way to the police-station. Then I crept out and sneaked home.
The next morning I read with great interest the bloody accounts of the murder in the paper and was awfully sorry that Holmes was not there to read them with me as we had so often done before, but it couldn’t be helped.
For some reason or other, I was not allowed to see Holmes while he was in custody and unfortunately I happened to be back in England when his trial came, but I found out through a friend that someone had recognized him as a detective during the trial, and that he had finally been acquitted with the verdict of “not guilty” on the ground of partial insanity.
Now if all this had happened a year ago, I would have been overwhelmed with anger and mortification, but somehow ever since “The Adventure of the Shattered Boudoir Glass,” I have been somewhat disappointed in Holmes. Of course, I haven’t lost the least bit of faith in his powers as a detective or his wonderful way of extricating himself from a tight place, but somehow he hasn’t quite come up to my expectations. I don’t say this just because he made a slight error in our last case. Far from it. In fact, no one has a higher place in my regard than my friend Sherlock Holmes, but the other day when I was making out my notes for “The Adventure of the Shattered Boudoir Glass,” an extraordinary thing happened. Some kind of immortal perception whispered in my ear that there must have been something queer about that time when Holmes shot into the mirror. Of course, I have absolutely no wish to say anything against him or criticize him in any way, but after putting any number of facts together and by the help of that divine intuition which comes only to the few of us like Holmes, I reasoned it all out that when he began his hunt for the murderer, he must have gone down stairs and then traced his own footprints (it was a rainy night) all the way back to the bedroom and finally shot at his own image in the boudoir glass.
I know I must be wrong, because I distinctly remember Holmes giving me dozens of explanations right after it happened, and I am quite sure most people will believe me to be absolutely insane for having arrived at this solution, but I am naturally stubborn and cannot be convinced.
I will have to admit now that I have lost som
e of my great faith in Holmes. Yesterday a very naughty thought whispered a very evil something about him in my ear. Of course, I couldn’t believe it if I tried, but I will just tell it to you as a kind of an illustration to show you that I am somewhat disappointed in him.
You know how at the very start, after we had come to New York and right after Holmes had received the note, he left me and said that he was going to plan out his case. Well, this naughty thought whispered in my ear that he might have gone off on a debauch to one of those awful places on Broadway. He might even have gone to the Winter Garden, and then he came back and was just sleeping it off when I found him. This is too terrible to thin about, so I will leave it at that, but I wanted you to realize that gave me an awful jar at first.
The other day I went out to see him in his little country place where he retired after his trial and acquittal. I perceived at once that he had sunk deep in the quicksands of insanity and was raising chickens. I went up to what appeared to be the front door and knocked steadily for ten minutes without reply. Then I went and peeped in the nearest window. There, right under the window, lying on a couch, was the great Sherlock Holmes. He was lying in exactly the same position as I had found him at the Biltmore, but his head was shaking violently and his arms were waving around in a wild manner.
This was the first time I had seen him since our parting during “The Adventure of the Shattered Boudoir Glass,” and as I looked upon his face once more, vague memories flitted across my mind. The times he had dragged me out in the rain and snow to hunt for old criminal clues loomed large in my perspective. The times that he had called me suddenly to help him on a case when I had wanted to go out in my Ford or do something really decent assumed vast proportions in my brain. All my past dislikes and grudges swelled to enormous dimensions. So when one of those naughty little thoughts whispered in my ear, “He’s got barkeeper’s palsy from shaking cocktails,” or words with the same general meaning, I answered without the slightest hesitation, “He has.”