Sherlock Holmes Edwardian Parodies and Pastiches I Read online

  The plague had passed by June, and Conan Doyle wrapped up his work with the hospital. Working hard on his history, he visited Pretoria, the captured capital of the Transvaal, toured the battlefields, and interviewed British commander Lord Roberts. The next month, he returned to England by boat with most of his history completed. During the journey, he befriended a reporter, Bertram Fletcher Robinson, who would later inspire The Hound of the Baskervilles.

  At Hindhead, as the war moved into a guerrilla conflict that would end in mid-1902, he worked on his history, renewed his social friendships, and played sports. At Crystal Palace Park, debuting in a first class match for the Marylebone Cricket Club against London County, he took the wicket of the legendary W.G. Grace. Grace later would have his revenge by clean-bowling Conan Doyle.

  It was at another cricket match that an incident caused a temporary breach in the family. Conan Doyle was squiring Jean at Lord’s when they unexpectedly met two people he hadn’t told about his affair: his sister, Connie, and her husband, E.W. Hornung. Although they accepted his explanation at the time, they later shunned Conan Doyle, which left him livid at his sister: “If it is good enough for those who are intimately affected by it why on earth should it not be good enough for her.”

  In September, he entered politics, agreeing to run as the Liberal Unionist candidate in Edinburgh Central. He fought a hard battle, giving several speeches a day, sometimes with his old mentor Joseph Bell on the platform. Hopes were high for victory, but on the day of the vote, disaster struck. A religious crank placarded the district with signs claiming that Conan Doyle was a secret Catholic. He had explained to the voters that his family was Roman Catholic, but he was not, but the damage was done. He lost by 569 votes. He considered suing that “wretched fanatic,” and to overturn the vote, but the former would be fruitless and the latter, he thought, could hurt his reputation.

  In October, The Great Boer War was published, and Conan Doyle used his book as a platform to advocate for army reforms. Seeing the Boer farmers holding off trained British soldiers, he proposed forming civilian gun clubs to encourage target shooting. In times of war, these semi-trained reserves could be called upon to fight. Army experts rebelled at being lectured by a civilian. In response, Conan Doyle organized the Undershaw Rifle Club, and soon the sounds of rifle volleys echoed across the fields of Hindhead.

  To promote his scheme, he urged Strand editor Greenhough Smith to publish an article about the club. At the end, he added an emphatic answer to the question he suspected was on Smith’s mind: “when I have anything on the stocks I’ll let you know. Poor Sherlock R.I.P.”

  Publications: The Green Flag and Other Stories of War and Sport (March); The Great Boer War (Oct.).

  Conan Doyle cigarette card, 1901.

  The Red Mark

  “Dodo”

  “The Red Mark” was published on Feb. 3 in Pick-me-up, a Punch competitor. The identity of “Dodo” is tantalizing elusive. In his general parody collection At the Mountains of Murkiness, from which this was taken, bookseller / publisher George Locke concluded from “Dodo’s” weekly appearance in the magazine that he was a staff member. He may or may not be the same “Dodo” who wrote the humorous book, A Trip to Mars in 1901, illustrated by an artist with the wonderful English name of S.H. Hebblethwaite. An even longer shot would be Irish journalist and radical politician William Marcus Thompson (1857-1907), who also wrote under the “Dodo” pseudonym.

  I found my friend Don Uncoyle poring over a small piece of rag.

  “I’ve called to see you about the disappearance of Dan O’Brien,” I said. He nodded, but made no answer.

  “The police, as usual, have to rely upon an amateur; our only hope is in you. Is it murder?”

  He blew his nose violently upon the rag, and rose hurriedly and lit his briar with a red-hot coal. He took me to the wall—there was a red mark upon it. He measured it. It was one inch by three-eighths of an inch, height two feet nine and a half from the ground.

  “Is it murder?” I whispered.

  He shook his head, nodded violently, and shook his head again. I had never seen him so grim and mysterious before. Evidently the public was to be kept in ignorance until the closing chapter. Dan O’Brien had been a journalist and was known in every pub in Fleet Street and its surroundings. He had not been seen for a week and foul play was feared. He was known to have had three ha’pence upon him, for he had gone round to friends trying to borrow another ha’penny in order that he might buy two pennorth of rum. As the police said, many a man had been murdered for less.

  Don Uncoyle led the way to the river. Looking carefully along the brickwork on the side of Waterloo Bridge, we saw the fatal red mark. Uncoyle measured it. It was two feet nine and a half from the ground. Up the steps we saw it at intervals on both sides, each mark at the same height.

  “Is it his life’s blood?” I asked.

  Still the great detective did not reply. He winked first one eye, and then the other, and then closed both. I knew that I must put full trust in him.

  We visited the Lamb and Lark tavern near Blackfriars.

  “Have you seen Dan O’Brien?” I asked the landlord.

  “Don’t know him by name,” was the reply.

  “Rather rosy in the face, deepening to purple about the nose. Writes church notes for several papers.”

  “I have several customers answering to that description,” said the landlord, “he might be here, and he might not.”

  A tug at my trouser leg, which broke my braces to my intense inconvenience, startled me. I looked round. The long form of Don Uncoyle was bent, and he was measuring a mark on the wainscotting.

  It was the red mark.

  My marvellous friend did not wait for long, but rushed into Ludgate Hill and into the Bodega, opposite the King Lud. I saw him fruitlessly searching the walls, but here he was thwarted. He looked at each marble-topped table, at each chair, but he was evidently non-plussed.

  He sat down and called mutely for wine—red wine—and looked anxiously into it. Still no signs of the missing man. I was getting uncomfortable and so were the attendants.

  Suddenly Uncoyle brought out his measure and measured the height of the table—two feet nine and three-quarters. I saw a look of intelligence steal over his usually phlegmatic countenance, and then, heedless of the glasses on the table, he turned it upside down.

  Underneath was the red mark, and I never saw a more triumphant, almost diabolic, smile on any man’s face than I saw on his then.

  He hurried across to Fleet Street and into the Portugal, and there he eagerly examined the walls, but here again he was disappointed.

  Suddenly I noticed on the swing doors a faint red mark. I looked closely—it was on both. Uncoyle measured; two feet nine and a half from the ground.

  “Good,” he said.

  “You think you will find him.”

  “Oui, non, jah, nein,” he answered in his quick, idiomatic way.

  He hurried to the Punch tavern and, instead of examining the walls, sat down on a stool and called for the time of the day. I wondered why he had suddenly ceased to look for the red mark, but I was soon to know.

  “Half-past eleven,” the barmaid answered him, “and what will you take, sir?”

  “You have a dustbin?” he asked abruptly—nay, almost fiercely.

  “Well, what if we have? It isn’t on tap,” she answered.

  “It is in the drawing room,” he ejaculated.

  “It isn’t; it’s in the yard, but there’s no dust allowed in it now, because we have to put our dust out.”

  “I knew it,” he said almost gleefully. “That is what they keep a chucker-out for. Come quickly,” and he grasped my arm and led me to the back of the premises. On the wall leading there he pointed out to me a streak of red. The height was two feet nine and a half from the ground. On the back door also.

  The fatal red mark!

  He stopped on the threshold and borrowed my ear.

  “That red mark
,” he said, “was made by O’Brien.”

  “Finger?” I said.

  “Nose,” he answered.

  “But surely his nose is more than two feet nine and a half from the ground.”

  “Not when he crawls,” said Don Uncoyle. “Listen—he had intended to paint the town red. He must have succeeded in getting that two of rum. He couldn’t stand, he crawled, and the bloom came off his nose.”

  At last I understood. I grasped my friend’s hand, and the tears were in my eyes.

  “We shall find him in the disused dustbin sleeping it off,” he said simply.

  And we did.

  The Book of 1900

  Edgar Turner

  This chapter from The Girl with Feet of Clay reveals the humorous side of Edgar Turner (1857-1942), who was known for his adventure novels such as The Purloined Prince, The Armada Gold, and The Submarine Girl. Starting with the title—a reference to Richard Le Gallienne’s best-selling Quest for the Golden Girl—Turner lampooned popular authors such as Marie Corelli, Jerome K. Jerome, and Conan Doyle.

  For “The Book of 1900” chapter, Turner anticipated superstar team-ups such as Marvel’s Avengers. To write a sure-fire best-seller, he proposed combining six popular heroes: Sherlock Holmes; C.J. Cutcliffe Hyne’s unscrupulous Captain Kettle; Guy Boothby’s occultist criminal mastermind Dr. Nikola; Rudyard Kipling’s rambunctious schoolboys from Stalky and Co.; Anthony Hope’s Rudolf Rassendyll from The Prisoner of Zenda; and the Skipper, a creation of W.W. Jacobs who is best known for his horror story “The Monkey’s Paw.”

  Blanco Watson looked at me benevolently and said:

  “Would you like to write the book of 1900?”

  “Who would not?” said I, with a smile.

  “I, for one. But you would?”

  I estimated the market value of the book of 1900 and replied:

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” he said, “I will tell you how to. Take the heroes of six recent popular romances and write a romance round them. You will thus appeal to the six sets of people interested in the respective heroes. The popularity of your romance will equal the total popularity of the six romances. You will have written the book of 1900.”

  “I do not quite understand.”

  “The argument is simple. Many people regard Captain Kettle as a personal friend, and would read your romance if it contained information about him. So also with Doctor Nikola and other notable gentlemen. Of course the information would have to be reasonable. Of course, too, the individuality of the heroes would have to be maintained.”

  “That,” I said, “would be difficult.”

  “On the contrary, it would be easy. You would only need to tabulate the eccentricities of each in matters of speech, appearance, weapons, and morality, and to work by the tables.”

  “But,” I said, “a popular romance must have a plot.”

  “Your plot would be created by your heroes.”

  “How?”

  “Let us,” he replied, “choose your heroes. Six will be, I think, the best number. We will choose Captain Kettle, Doctor Nikola, Sherlock Holmes, Rudolf Rassendyll, Stalky & Co., and, for low comedy relief, Mr. Jacobs’s Skipper. Sherlock Holmes and Rudolf Rassendyll are supposed to be dead, but you can easily say they are not.

  “It is necessary that the six should be brought together. Doctor Nikola shall arrange this. He learns that the philosopher’s stone is buried on a certain Pacific island and resolves to seek it. Early in 189—he charters the steamboat The Naughty Mermaid and engages Captain Kettle and a crew.

  “The stone was buried by one of Rudolf Rassendyll’s ancestors, into whose possession it had come. Being a pious man, he thought that it should not be used. But, being a pious man, he thought that it should not be utterly lost. Accordingly, in his will he described the burial-place and charged his descendants to see that it was not disturbed.

  “Rudolf Rassendyll guesses Doctor Nikola’s purpose and applies to Sherlock Holmes for advice. He listens, injects cocaine, plays his violin, and thinks. Then he proposes that they should disguise themselves and join the expedition. They do so. They are, in fact, two of the crew who sign on under Captain Kettle.

  “Thus you have four of the six on board The Naughty Mermaid. If Stalky & Co. leave school and become stowaways, you will have five. And if The Naughty Mermaid runs down Mr. Jacobs’s Skipper off Gravesend and afterwards picks him up, you will have the six.

  “It is now necessary that the heroes should show their fighting powers. Doctor Nikola shall arrange this also. As The Naughty Mermaid is passing the Nore, he comments on her rate of speed. ‘By James, sir!’ says Captain Kettle, ‘attend to your own contract. This is mine.’ Doctor Nikola draws his revolver. Captain Kettle sends it flying over the funnel. They close and wrestle up and down the deck.

  “At this moment Mr. Jacobs’s Skipper comes up the hatchway, followed by Stalky & Co., whom he has discovered in the hold. ‘Avast there!’ he shouts and endeavours to separate the combatants. ‘Here’s a giddy lark,’ cry Stalky & Co. and endeavour to prevent him doing so.

  “‘Shall we join in?’ whispers Sherlock Holmes. ‘Yes,’ replies Rudolf Rassendyll, ‘I long to have the Doctor by the throat.’ They join in. For a minute or two the struggle between the six is terrible. Then Mr. Jacobs’s Skipper breaks away, seizes a hose, and plays a stream of water on the others. Peace follows.”

  “You are right,” I remarked. “The heroes would create the plot. There are a hundred possibilities.”

  “A hundred!” he exclaimed. “No, a thousand! Rudolf Rassendyll might touch Captain Kettle on his poetic side. Stalky & Co. might become detectives and discover who Sherlock Holmes is. As a practical joke, Mr. Jacobs’s Skipper might attempt to scuttle The Naughty Mermaid. Captain Kettle might tell Doctor Nikola what his mother was. Yes, there are a thousand possibilities.”

  “The heroes would all reach the Pacific island?”

  “They arrive,” he replied, “late one evening, cast anchor, and sleep. Early the next morning the islanders board The Naughty Mermaid and surprise them. After a brief conflict, during which Mr. Jacobs’s Skipper has his wooden leg pierced by a poisoned arrow, the heroes are captured.

  “The queen of the island, before whom they are brought, is a girl of extraordinary beauty. Rudolf Rassendyll and Mr. Jacobs’s Skipper fall in love with her. She herself falls in love with Captain Kettle. Alas! She does not know it is in vain. She does not know that he has a wife and children at North Shields.

  “For the sake of Captain Kettle she treats the heroes kindly. She lodges them in huts near her own and sends them more bananas and baked monkeys than they can possibly eat. Occasionally, she organises a ‘tom-tom’ serenade and is wildly happy when Captain Kettle replies with his concertina.

  “Although far from the old schoolhouse, Stalky & Co. maintain the old traditions. They do not forget that it is the duty of boys to be boys. At least once every day they cry, ‘I gloat.’ At least once every day a cocoanut drops on the head of a native, or some other amusing incident happens.

  “But the chief interests are, of course, the loves of Doctor Nikola and Sherlock Holmes for the philosopher’s stone, of the queen for Captain Kettle, and of Rudolf Rassendyll for the queen.

  “Doctor Nikola and Sherlock Holmes search for the burial-place described in the will of Rudolf Rassendyll’s ancestor. The great temptation has drawn Sherlock Holmes from the paths of analytical virtue. Like Doctor Nikola, he is determined to obtain the stone for himself by foul means or fair.

  “For a long time they fail to discover the burial-place. The reason is curious. Since the visit of Rudolf Rassendyll’s ancestor, the principal village of the island has been rebuilt on a new site. The part occupied by the royal hut is the burial-place.

  “At last a remark of the oldest inhabitant puts them on the scent. Simultaneously they discover that the stone lies ten feet below the floor of the royal hut. They are in despair. One of the island laws is that no one save the queen
for the time being and her husband may enter the royal hut.

  “Presently, however, Doctor Nikola ceases to despair. Why should he not become the husband of the queen for the time being, enter the royal hut, and dig up the stone? He decides that he will. The fact that the queen is in love with Captain Kettle shall help him.”

  Blanco Watson paused. I waited impatiently. The situation interested me.

  “Blood, Iago, blood!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Let loose the dogs of war! Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest! Up, guards and at ’em!

  “Yes, the public shall have its sensations. One evening, Captain Kettle receives a proposal of marriage from the queen. He tells the villager who brings it to wait and walks to the beach. There, facing the sea, he considers what reply he shall send.

  “The queen is very beautiful, and the temptation to accept the proposal is great. But memories of his wife and the meeting house at North Shields gather about him, and their voices seem to call to him across the sea. Long he strives against the temptation, and finally, with a great effort, he prevails.

  “The next moment he is conscious that someone is approaching him stealthily. He turns, but too late. Doctor Nikola, who is the someone, leaps forward, raises on high a knife, and strikes. Captain Kettle groans, clutches at the knife, and sinks to the beach insensible. The stars pale, and the winds moan in terror.

  “The stars and the winds are not the only witnesses of the attack. Sherlock Holmes and Mr. Jacobs’s Skipper also see. Each is hidden behind a rock and does not know of the presence of the other. Each now watches Doctor Nikola, the former with anxiety and the latter with horror.

  “First, he takes a wig and a beard from his pocket and puts them on. Then he strips Captain Kettle of his clothes and dresses himself in them. Sherlock Holmes swears softly. He sees that the wig, the beard, and the clothes have given Doctor Nikola the appearance of Captain Kettle.