The Misadventure of Shelrock Holmes (3 page)

12 A rare instance in which book-appearance (New York, Doran, 1925) anticipated magazine-appearance ("The Bookman," January 1926).

13 THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES; London, Newnes, 1892; New York, Harper, 1892.

i* MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES; New York, Harper, 1894; London, Newnes, 1894. i 5 THE CASE-BOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES; London, Murray, 1927; New York, Doran, 1927.

The story opens in the office of Mr. Warm [sic], chief of police of London. Holmes has just returned from handling a delicate affair in Italy, and Warm brings him up to date on the latest development in London crime: Jack the Ripper. There have been 37 (!) victims so far — all women.

Holmes's ancient rival, detective Murphy, enters with news of the 38th — the singer Lilian Bell. After a crude exchange of insults, Holmes and Murphy agree to a wager as to who will catch the Ripper. The stakes are ^1000, to which Warm adds 25 bottles of champagne for the winner.

Next we see the bedroom of the fair Lilian, with her disembowelled corpse tastefully arranged amid flowers on the bed. Her maid, Har-riette Blunt, is disconsolate. Her brother, Grover Bell, is wondering about her will. Josias Wakefield, representative of the Requiescat in Pace Funeral Directors, calls to measure the body. His activities are curious, including the discovery of Lilian's false tooth and the deduction from it that she smoked opium. He drops his magnifying glass under the bed and there finds a disguised individual whom he recognizes as Murphy. Murphy clenches his fist and rages:

"Man, or rather devil, I know you! You are — you are — "

"Sherlock Holmes, detective, at your service," said the other laughing. And vanished.

Holmes next disguises himself as an opium addict, to the admiring amazement of his assistant, Harry Taxon (!), and slips out of his house to keep such a disreputable masquerade from his landlady, Mrs. Bonnet (!). He visits an opium den run by a half-caste Mrs. Ca-jana, secures opium from her, and then blackmails her for information on the threat of exposing her racket. He learns that Lilian Bell was a customer, and that Mrs. Cajana gets her drugs from a mysterious person known to her only as "The Indian Doctor." Suddenly a scream is heard from the next room. They dash in and find a beautiful damsel with her belly ripped open. Holmes spies the Ripper escaping, pursues him, but the Ripper makes good his flight by daringly jumping aboard a moving train.

Holmes identifies the latest (and 39th) victim by her custom-built shoes as Comtesse de Malmaison. He visits her father, the Marquis, a harsh old gentleman who thinks his daughter's death served her right if she spent her time in opium dens.

Holmes questions the Comtesse's maid. She tells him that the Comtesse used the opium den as a blind — to cover up assignations with her American riding instructor, Carlos Lake.

Holmes grills Lake and learns that the only other person who knew of this arrangement was Dr. Roberto Fitzgerald, a prominent and respectable West End physician of Indian antecedents, who had made an appointment to meet the Comtesse at Mrs. Cajana's. The Doctor was to examine the Comtesse for a contemplated abortion.

Holmes shadows the Doctor's wife —

"When you wish to learn a man's secrets, you must follow his wife,"

and witnesses a lover's tryst in Hyde Park between her and Captain Harry Thomson. He overhears Ruth Fitzgerald, the Doctor's wife, arrange to flee from her brutal, half-mad husband and take refuge with her lover's mother.

Holmes then disguises himself as a retired soap manufacturer named Patrick O'Connor, calls on Dr. Fitzgerald, and warns him of his wife's elopement. The Doctor has a fit, literally, and denounces all the tribe of Eve as serpents that must be destroyed. He has a terrible scene with Ruth, after which he quiets himself with a shot of morphine.

Holmes next disguises himself as Ruth Fitzgerald (!) —

"Englishwomen are usually slender rather than full-fleshed, and their stature is at times surprisingly tall."

He manoeuvers Ruth away from her rendezvous and saunters along "with that special gait with which public women stroll the street."

Dr. Fitzgerald comes along and recognizes "him."

"My wife — on the streets!"

And the Ripper emerges full blast. He attacks Holmes but is frustrated; the detective has wisely donned a steel cuirasse.

Meanwhile, back in Warm's office, the chief of police is listening to Murphy's report. Holmes, still looking like a loose woman (even more so), drags in Dr. Fitzgerald, and Murphy acknowledges that he has lost the bet.

Further comment, you'll agree, is unnecessary.

WE HAVE omitted too John Chapman's The Unmasking of Sher-loc\ Holmes, because this pastiche is devoted primarily to subtle literary criticism rather than to story. 16 In this article which appeared in "The Critic," issue of February 1905, Mr. Chapman reports an imaginary conversation between the two greatest detectives in print — C. Auguste Dupin and Sherlock Holmes.

Dupin, appearing suddenly in the rooms on Baker Street, strikes terror into the heart of Holmes, who looked "at the little Frenchman on the threshold as if M. Dupin had been a ghost." Dupin accuses Holmes of filching "the product of another's brain and palming it off as his own."

Holmes admits that "it looks like a bad case against me. I've drawn freely upon you, M. Dupin." And Dupin, with a last admonition to Holmes not to overwork the exaggerated reports of his death, vanishes, leaving Holmes as shamefaced as a schoolboy caught with stolen apples.

The debt Holmes owed to Dupin — rather, that Doyle owed to Poe — is not a moot point. The first person to admit it was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself. In his Preface to the Author's Edition of 1903 (comparatively unknown in the United States), Doyle frankly revealed this indebtedness when, like the great and true gentleman he was, he stated that "Edgar Allan Poe was the father of the detective tale, and covered its limits so completely that I fail to see how his followers can find any fresh ground they can confidently call their own. . . . The writer sees the footmarks of Poe always in front of him. ... I can only claim the very limited credit of doing it from a fresh model and from a new point of view."

But it is to Doyle's everlasting fame that while he took up where Poe left off, his "fresh model" of the immortal Dupin performed the impossible feat of achieving even greater immortality.

Further omissions, listed for the benefit of those who have a passion for completeness, include:

16 A. A. Milne's Dr. Watson Speaks Out is omitted for the same reason. This classic review of an omnibus edition of Sherlock Holmes short stories was written as if by Dr. Watson himself —- and at long last the good doctor defends himself and "exposes" Sherlock. First appearance in "Nation & Athenaeum," issue of November 17, 1928. Later included in the author's book of essays, BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION; London, Mediuen, 1929; New York, Dutton, 1929.

INTRODUCTION xvu

James L. Ford's The Story of Bishop Johnson, in "The Pocket Magazine," issue of November 1895

Allen Upward's The Adventure of the Stolen Doormat, a parody of a certain "criminal specialist in Baker Street" who stgned himself H-LM-S, in the author's book, THE WONDERFUL CAREER OF EBENEZER LOBE, London, Hurst and Blackett, 1900 Charlton Andrews's The Bound of the Astorbilts and The Resources of Mycroft Holmes, in "The Bookman," issues of 1902 and December 1903, respectively

J. Alston Cooper's Dr. Watson's Wedding Present, in "The Bookman," issue of February 1903

George F. Forrest's The Adventure of the Diamond Necklace, in MISFITS: A BOOK OF PARODIES, Oxford, Harvey, 1905, featuring detective Warlock Bones and narrator Goswell, the latter name obviously a "switch" on Boswell rather than on Watson Robin Dunbar's Sherlock Holmes Up-to-Date, a socialistic satire in THE DETECTIVE BUSINESS, Chicago, Kerr, 1909 Maurice Baring's From the Diary of Sherloc\ Holmes, which first appeared in "Eye-Witness" (London), November 23, 1911, then in "The Living Age" (U.S.), June 20, 1912, and finally in the author's book, LOST DIARIES, London, Duckworth, 1913 Cornelis Veth's DE ALLERLAATSTE AVONTUREN VAN SIR SHERLOCK HOLMES (THE VERY LAST ADVENTURES OF SIR SHERLOCK HOLMES), Leiden, 1912 —a book of parodies containing The Moving Picture Theatre, The Adventure of the Bloody Post Parcel, The Adventure of the Singular Advertisement, and The Adventure of the Mysterious Tom-Cat, the last a burlesque of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES changed to "The Tom-Cat of the Cooker-villes"

James Francis Thierry's THE ADVENTURE OF THE ELEVEN CUFF-BUTTONS, New York, Neale, 1918, a long novelette in which Hemlock Holmes triumphs over Inspector Letstrayed J. Storer Clouston's The Truthful Lady, a parody of Dr. Watson with Sherlock Holmes present only in spirit, in the authors book, CARRINGTON'S CASES, Edinburgh, Blackwood, 1920

H. F. Heard's A TASTE FOR HONEY, New York, Vanguard, 1941, and REPLY PAID, New York, Vanguard, 1942, in which the name Sherlock Holmes is never mentioned; but the detective, who calls himself Mr. Mycroft, is none other than The One and Only in beekeeping retirement

THE PUBLICATION of this anthology marks the first time the great parodies and pastiches of that "Extraordinary Man," as Mark Twain affectionately called him, have been collected in a single volume.

Why no one thought of doing it before, we shall never understand. But we are grateful the task has been left for us. Perhaps it was ordained that way from the beginning, by Someone who looks after twelve-year-old boys; perhaps this is a token-payment for the moment that, early or late, comes only once in a lifetime.

ELLERY QUEEN

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION v

PART ONE: BY DETECTIVE-STORY WRITERS

1892 THE GREAT PEGRAM MYSTERY

by Robert Barr 3

1907 HOLMLOCK SHEARS ARRIVES Too LATE

by Maurice Leblanc 14

1915 THE ADVENTURE OF THE CLOTHES-LINE

by Carolyn Wells 39

1920 THE UNIQUE HAMLET by Vincent Starrett 48

1925 HOLMES AND THE DASHER

by Anthony Berkeley 66

1929 THE CASE OF THE MISSING LADY

by Agatha Christie 70

1942 THE ADVENTURE OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS IMPOSTOR

by Anthony Boucher

1943 THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MR. JAMES PHILLIMORE

by Ellery Queen

1943 THE ADVENTURE OF THE REMARKABLE WORM

PART TWO: BY FAMOUS LITERARY FIGURES

1893 THE ADVENTURE OF THE Two COLLABORATORS

by Sir James M. Barrie 119

1902 A DOUBLE-BARRELLED DETECTIVE STORY

by Mar\ Twain 123

1902 THE STOLEN CIGAR CASE

by Bret Harte 164

1911 THE ADVENTURES OF SHAMROCK JOLNES

by O. Henry 175

PART THREE: BY HUMORISTS

1893 THE UMBROSA BURGLARY

by R. C. Lehmann 185

1897 THE STRANGER UNRAVELS A MYSTERY

by John K.endric\ Bangs 190

1903 SHYLOCK HOMES: His POSTHUMOUS MEMOIRS

by John KendricJ^ Bangs 208

1911 MADDENED BY MYSTERY : OR, THE DEFECTIVE DETECTIVE

by Stephen Leacoc]{ 218

1916 AN IRREDUCIBLE DETECTIVE STORY

by Stephen Leacocf^ 227

PART FOUR: BY DEVOTEES AND OTHERS

1894 THE ADVENTURE OF THE TABLE FOOT

by Zero (Allan Ramsay} 231

1894 THE SIGN OF THE "400"

by R. K. MunkittricJ^ 235

1907 OUR MR. SMITH by Oswald Crawjurd 238

1920 THE FOOTPRINTS ON THE CEILING

by Jules Castier 245

1927 THE END OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

by A. E. P. 256

1928 THE ADVENTURE OF THE NORCROSS RIDDLE

by August Derleth 261

1929 THE MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS JEWEL

by William O. Fuller

1932 THE RUBY OF KHITMANDU

by Hugh Kingsmill

1932 His LAST SCRAPE: OR, HOLMES, SWEET HOLMES!

by Rachel Ferguson

1933 THE ADVENTURE OF THE MURDERED ART EDITOR

by Frederic Dorr Steele

1933 THE CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL MURDER

by Frederic Arnold Kummer and Basil Mitchell

275

291

301

306

Ji I v I* \f f If t* 4 J-t It'\sfiA' •*•*- vtnit>ii»\*i

and Basil Mitchell 313

CONTENTS

1934 THE CASE OF THE MISSING PATRIARCHS

by Logan Clendening, M.D. 330

1935 THE CASE OF THE DIABOLICAL PLOT

by Richard Mallett 33 2

1936 CHRISTMAS EVE by S. C. Roberts 33 6

1941 THE MAN WHO WAS NOT DEAD

by Manly Wade Wellman 348

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 357

BIBLIOGRAPHY 359

HOLMES, Sherlock; b. circa 1854, grandson of sister of the French military fainter Vernet, younger brother of Mycroft Holmes. Unmarried. Educ. College graduate, irregular student in chemical and anatomical classes of London University at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London; while a student devised new test for bloodstains, replacing old guaiacum test, through reagent precipitated by hemoglobin and no other substance; private consultive practice begun circa 7^77 and continued 23 years; after disappearance and reported death, May i, 1891, explored Tibet and penetrated Lhassa as a Norwegian named Sigerson, visiting Persia, Mecca and Khartoum before returning to professional practice in London, April, 1894, to complete the destruction of Professor Monarty's criminal gang; retired circa 7903 to small farm upon Sussex Downs five miles from Eastbourne, devoting himself to bee-keeping and giving up professional wor\ except for a mysterious mission to Shantung, 1914, for the Admiralty, clearing up the death of Fitzroy McPherson, and a German espionage case, 1912-1914, which caused him to reside at various times in Chicago, Buffalo and Sfobbareen, Ireland, under the name Altamont; received Congressional Medal for services to U. S. Government in so-called "Adventure of the American Ambassador and the Thermite Bullet"; diamond sword from King Albert of Belgium, 1916; and Versailles Plaque (with palms}. Club: Diogenes. Author: Monographs, "Upon the Typewriter and Its Relation to Crime'; "Upon the Distinction Between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccos — 140 Forms of Cigar, Cigarette and Pipe Tobaccos," ill. with colored plates; "Upon the Influence of a Trade on the Form of a Hand," ill. with lithotypes; "Upon the Tracing of Footsteps"; "Upon the Dating of Documents"; "Upon Tattoo Mar^s"; "Upon the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus" and "Upon Variations in the Human Ear" (two issues of "The Anthropological Journal"); two short accounts of cases: "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier" and "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane"; "The Boo^ of Life" a magazine article on the theory of deduction, published anonymously, "Practical Handbook, of Bee Culture with Some Observations on the Segregation of the Queen." Assistant and narrator: Dr. John H. Watson. For celebrated cases see: A STUDY IN SCARLET