The Misadventure of Shelrock Holmes (19 page)

"Exactly. However, it was a conversion hardly likely to appeal to his wife, with her Romany background. What is more likely than that the gypsy girl probed among the deeper, darker secrets of her race to secure revenge upon the husband who had cast her aside? I seem to remember a similar case in Prague some years ago, when a jilted Romany woman secured a most horrible revenge upon a rival

114 THE ADVENTURE OF THE REMARKABLE WORM

by feeding her the spores of a new species of mushroom, developed to thrive only upon human detritus. Myriads of tiny mushrooms burst from the victim's scalp, from beneath the fingernails — "

"Holmes!" I cried, shocked to the marrow. "This is too much!"

"All the same," said Sherlock Holmes quietly, "I believe that a visit to the Red Rose teashop is indicated."

"I refuse to believe that such things can exist in this civilized world!" I insisted.

Holmes shrugged. He took up the flask again, carefully removed the wax stopper, and poured out the liquid into a basin. The odor of raw spirits filled the room. He took a pair of forceps and lifted out the blind, lifeless worm, laying it on a bit of newspaper.

"No doubt we should burn this unholy object at once," he said thoughtfully. "But I intend first to take it widi me when we journey to Lambeth. Will you be good enough to go down to the corner and summon a hansom?"

"In this deluge?" I shook my head, sinking back comfortably into the velvet lining of die easy chair.

"Come, come, Watson! The game is afoot. It is not every day that we are confronted with a worm unknown to science."

I hesitated, savoring my expected triumph. "Forgive me, Holmes. If you wish to visit the lady fortune teller, my best wishes go with you. But I can see no reason for my accompanying you, nor for taking along that repulsive object on the table."

"Of course you do not see. You never do, until afterwards. But in

this case . . ."

"In this case, Holmes, you are well off the target." I smiled, having waited for diis moment ever since the day Holmes talked me into giving away Fusilier, my bull pup, on the grounds that the poor fellow snored. "As a matter of fact, it is perfectly clear that Mr. Persano was seized with a sudden intestinal attack while strolling down Oxford Street. Removed to Charing Cross Hospital, an emergency operation was found necessary, and the unhappy little man recovered consciousness alone and unattended, with the evidence of the operation exhibited beside his bed."

Holmes surveyed me coldly. "I fail to see what, if anything, you are driving at."

"Only this," I said. "The 'worm unknown to science' is unknown

THE ADVENTURE OF THE REMARKABLE WORM

only to Christian Science. That unpleasant object before you is nothing more than an infected vermiform appendix."

Sherlock Holmes hesitated, swallowed, and then a reluctant smile broke across his face. He extended a lean brown hand toward mine. "Apologies, Watson! I forgot for a moment that medicine and surgery are your chosen field, in which I have but dabbled. This is your triumph. What disposition do you care to make of the case?"

"I should suggest returning his appendix to Mr. Isadora Persano, together with a note explaining the truth of the situation."

Holmes nodded. "It shall be done. This matchbox should serve as an excellent container. And now, by the way, I think that a good dinner at Simpsons would not be out of place. A good dinner for you, I should say. For myself I intend to order a double serving of humble pie."

PART TWO:

BY FAMOUS LITERARY FIGURES

"Perhaps no fiction character ever created has become so charmingly real to his readers . . . Holmes is pure anesthesia."

— CHRISTOPHER MORLEY

"Heaven forbid that anyone, with a hundred happy hours to be grateful for since boyhood, should ever undervalue the legend of Sherlock Holmes ... the only real legend of our time."

— G. K. CHESTERTON

Detective: SHERLOCK HOLMES Narrator: WATSON

THE ADVENTURE OF THE TWO COLLABORATORS

by SIR JAMES M. BARRIE

Here is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's nomination for "the best of all the numerous parodies'" of Sherloc^ Holmes. It first appeared in print as part of Chapter XI, "Sidelights on Sherlocf( Holmes" in Doyle's autobiography, MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1924; Boston, Little, Brown, 1924).

We can thinly of no better way of introducing this burlesque than to quote Doyle's own prefatory remarks: "Sir James Bar-rie paid his respects to Sherloc^ Holmes in a rollicking parody. It was really a gay gesture of resignation over the failure which we had encountered with a comic opera for which he undertook^ to write the libretto. I collaborated with him on this, but in spite of our joint efforts, the piece 1 fell flat. Whereupon Barrie sent me a parody on Holmes, written on the flyleaves of one of his booths."

As boo\ collectors of the species Fanaticus Americanus, your Editors have always read those lines with infinite longing, with a surge of uncontrollable cupidity. Our collective heads have never failed to reel dizzily at the very thought of that boof^ by Barrie, inscribed by the author, with a holograph manuscript of "The Adventure of the Two Collaborators' 1 '' penned on the flyleaves.

What a boo\ to stand on our hungry shelves! What a price it would fetch at auction! What a first edition to gloat over, caress, boast about! We \now at least six persons who would

1 JANE ANNIE, or THE GOOD CONDUCT PRIZE (music by Ernest Ford, book by J. M. Barrie and Conan Doyle) opened at the Savoy Theatre in London on May 13, 1893; although kept going for seven weeks, it was considered one of D'Oyly Carte's worst

failures.

120 THE ADVENTURE OF THE TWO COLLABORATORS

cheerfully commit anything up to and including murder to gain possession of that unique volume. But alas . . . here is truly "such stuff as dreams are made on . . ."

I

_N BRINGING to a close the adventures of my friend Sherlock Holmes I am perforce reminded that he never, save on the occasion whkh, as you will now hear, brought his singular career to an end, consented to act in any mystery which was concerned with persons who made a livelihood by their pen. "I am not particular about the people I mix among for business purposes," he would say, "but at literary characters I draw the line."

We were in our rooms in Baker Street one evening. I was (I remember) by the centre table writing out The Adventure of the Man without a Cor^ Leg (which had so puzzled the Royal Society and all the other scientific bodies of Europe), and Holmes was amusing himself with a little revolver practice. It was his custom of a summer evening to fire round my head, just shaving my face, until he had made a photograph of me on the opposite wall, and it is a slight proof of his skill that many of these portraits in pistol shots are considered admirable likenesses.

I happened to look out of the window, and perceiving two gentlemen advancing rapidly along Baker Street asked him who they were. He immediately lit his pipe, and, twisting himself on a chair into the figure 8, replied:

"They are two collaborators in comic opera, and their play has

not been a triumph." I sprang from my chair to the ceiling in amazement, and he then

explained:

"My dear Watson, they are obviously men who follow some low calling. That much even you should be able to read in their faces. Those little pieces of blue paper which they fling angrily from them are Durrani's Press Notices. Of these they have obviously hundreds about their person (see how their pockets bulge). They would not dance on them if they were pleasant reading."

I again sprang to the ceiling (which is much dented), and shouted: "Amazing! But they may be mere authors."

THE ADVENTURE OF THE TWO COLLABORATORS 121

"No," said Holmes, "for mere authors only get one press notice a week. Only criminals, dramatists and actors get them by the hundred."

"Then they may be actors."

"No, actors would come in a carriage."

"Can you tell me anything else about them?"

"A great deal. From the mud on the boots of the tall one I perceive that he comes from South Norwood. The other is as obviously a Scotch author."

"How can you tell that?"

"He is carrying in his pocket a book called (I clearly see) Auld Licht Something. Would anyone but the author be likely to carry about a book with such a title?"

I had to confess that this was improbable.

It was now evident that the two men (if such they can be called) were seeking our, lodgings. I have said (often) that my friend Holmes seldom gave way to emotion of any kind, but he now turned livid with passion. Presently this gave place to a strange look of triumph.

"Watson," he said, "that big fellow has for years taken the credit for my most remarkable doings, but at last I have him —at last!"

Up I went to the ceiling, and when I returned the strangers were in the room.

"I perceive, gentlemen," said Mr. Sherlock Holmes, "that you are at present afflicted by an extraordinary novelty."

The handsomer of our visitors asked in amazement how he knew this, but the big one only scowled.

"You forget that you wear a ring on your fourth finger," replied Mr. Holmes calmly.

I was about to jump to the ceiling when the big brute interposed.

"That tommy-rot is all very well for the public, Holmes," said he, "but you can drop it before me. And, Watson, if you go up to the ceiling again I shall make you stay there."

Here I observed a curious phenomenon. My friend Sherlock Holmes shranf(. He became small before my eyes. I looked longingly at the ceiling, but dared not.

"Let us cut the first four pages," said the big man, "and proceed to business. I want to know why — "

122 THE ADVENTURE OF THE" TWO COLLABORATORS

"Allow me," said Mr. Holmes, with some of his old courage. "You want to know why the public does not go to your opera."

"Exactly," said the other ironically, "as you perceive by my shirt stud." He added more gravely, "And as you can only find out in one way I must insist on your witnessing an entire performance of the piece."

It was an anxious moment for me. I shuddered, for I knew that if Holmes went I should have to go with him. But my friend had a heart of gold.

"Never," he cried fiercely, "I will do anything for you save that."

"Your continued existence depends on it," said the big man menacingly.

"I would rather melt into air," replied Holmes, proudly taking another chair. "But I can tell you why the public don't go to your piece without sitting the thing out myself."

"Why?"

"Because," replied Holmes calmly, "they prefer to stay away."

A dead silence followed that extraordinary remark. For a moment the two intruders gazed with awe upon the man who had unravelled their mystery so wonderfully. Then drawing their knives —

Holmes grew less and less, until nothing was left save a ring of smoke which slowly circled to the ceiling.

The last words of great men are often noteworthy. These were the last words of Sherlock Holmes: "Fool, fool! I have kept you in luxury for years. By my help you have ridden extensively in cabs, where no author was ever seen before. Henceforth you mil ride in buses!"

The brute sunk into a chair aghast.

The other author did not turn a hair.

To A. Conan Doyle,

from his friend J. M. Barrie

Detective: SHERLOCK HOLMES

A DOUBLE-BARRELLED DETECTIVE STORY

by MARK TWAIN

It's amazing how often stories by Mar\ Twain, despite his Brobdingnagian reputation as a humorist, have been ta^en seriously. Mar\ Twain was responsible for some of the funniest literary hoaxes ever foisted on an unsuspecting public.

Consider his story of the Petrified Man of Gravelly Ford. In the original journalistic squib he started out by describing the scene in "patient belief-compelling detail" — the impressive solitude, the majesty of the figure, and so on. Quite casually he mentioned that the thumb of the Petrified Man's right hand rested "against the side of his nose" Then after more serious description, he observed that "the fingers of the right hand were spread apart." More dignified exposition, then the incidental remart^ that "the thumb of the left hand was hooked into the little finger of the right." Still more rambling about something else and by and by MarJ^ Twain drifted bacJ^ and commented that "the fingers of the left hand were spread out lit(e those of the right."

It was so cleverly written that the great majority of readers completely missed the point (no pun intended); in fact, many people believed the hoax with such credulity that they actually looked for the Petrified Man in the region where Mart^ Twain, as a Nevada newspaper editor, claimed to have located it. Eventually it was "exalted to the grand chief place in the list of genuine marvels Nevada had produced"

In the same way Mar\ Twain's "A Double-Ear relied Detective Story" has been judged from much too serious a critical viewpoint. The simple truth is that this story was intended as an elaborate burlesque of detective fiction — that and no more. Of course some of the melodramatic passages are written so