Sherlock Holmes Great War Parodies and Pastiches II Page 7

  That night the shell-fish merchant, having run out of vinegar, had despatched his fair daughter to Typers to procure a fresh supply, and all had gone well with her until reaching the Culvert, she, catching sight of the lifeless form of Bill Banks, gazing placidly at the sky, had given three heart-rending shrieks and fallen in the dark and silent waters of the Bellewarde Bec—the waters flowed on—but this was not to pass unnoticed—Holmes was in the district, and whipping out his vermoral sprayer with his right hand, he gave three rounds rapid into his forearm, while with his left he proceeded to tune up his violin. Dr. Flotsam, who had been walking in his shadow, hearing the haunting strains of the violin, rushed forward to his side, exclaiming “What is it, Shomes?”—Shomes with that grandiloquent gesture for which he is justly famed, said “You know my methods, Flotsam!” and fell into the Bec—Flotsom not to be outdone, seized the vermoral sprayer, and fell in also—the water of the Bec flowed on.—

  Chapter 3

  The Mystery of the Closed Gate

  We now return to our friend Intha Pink, who, having soliloquised for exactly 13 minutes without once pausing to take breath or repeating himself, decides to extricate himself from the crump-hole into which he had so inadvertently fallen. While thus engaged, the silvery chimes of the clock on the Cathedral spire burst forth into song announcing the magic hour of zero p.m.

  “Bother!” ejaculated Pink in true Pioneer fashion, “At a quarter past zero I promised to meet Lizzie at Fell Hire Corner. I must indeed get a move on, otherwise she will be wroth.” With that he picked up his hammer and his nail from out of the crump-hole, and proceeded at a rapid pace to the corner of the Square, where, after having his boots polished and some of the mud brushed from off his clothes by Bertie, the boss-eyed boot boy, he went off at the double along the road leading to the Denin Gate. He had not proceeded very far when perforce his pace had to slacken on account of the density of the merry crowd advancing in the opposite direction in close column of humps, all bent on spending a merry evening at the Cloth Hall.

  But Pink’s mission was not a gay one, neither was he in a merry mood; a deep plot was hatching in the Pioneer’s fertile brain, in which, let it be whispered, lovely Lizzie was to play a not unimportant part.

  On reaching Trueside Corner he entered the little shop kept by Sandy Sam, the suspected spy and sandbag merchant.

  “Evening, Sam,” said Pink.

  “What, you, Intha!”—replied the old man—“What’s in the air?”

  “Whizzbangs and air-crumps mostly, to-night,”—answered the other—“but I’m in a hurry, I want a good sand-bag.”

  This article having been produced, and approved of, Intha paid the bill with a worthless cheque on Fox’s, and placing his hammer and nail in the sand bag and slinging the latter over his shoulder again, took to the road; such was his hurry that, generally observant as he was, he did not notice the shadowy figure of old Sam following in his wake. When within fifty yards of the Denin Gate the suspected spy took his S.O.S. signal from out of his pocket, unwrapped same, and hurled it into the air, this being almost immediately answered by three piteous howls from the direction of the gatekeeper’s dug-out, where Tim Squealer, the sand-bag merchant’s foster-son resided. Intha, still intent on his night’s work, hurried on until he reached the Gate, where he fell over a cunningly concealed trip wire, at the same instant a soft, buzzing sound was heard, increasing in volume and ending in a loud crash!—The Pioneer was trapped!!—THE DENIN GATE HAD CLOSED!!!

  Chapter 4

  Returning to our friend Shomes who has, for some little time, been cooling his ardour in the Bec, during which period he has contrived to make the acquaintance of Honoria his fair companion in distress. Breathing undying love and vowing to save her, he hoists her on one shoulder, his vermoral sprayer on the other, and commences his itinerary towards Messrs. Crump, Hole and Co’s circular scoop warehouse abutting on Hordon Goose Farm. Bending low with his precious burden, Shomes’ mind begins to wander and so does his foot as he comes a terrific “purler” over a loose duckboard. Buzzing Bill, the Breezy Butcher of Bellewarde, witnessing the disaster, and being especially solicitous for the safety of his customers, shouts in stentorian terms “beat it for the tall timbers.”

  Meanwhile Intha Pink having extricated himself from the disaster which overtook him at the Denin Gate, reappeared safely with his sandbag, hammer and nail intent on reaching the trysting place where Lizzie is awaiting him.

  “What of the night?” is his kindly remark to Vera, one of the “Cinema” girls, who has surreptitiously, tentatively, and furtively, dodged the managerial eye, and had slipped out for a breath of fresh air.

  “How you startled me, Intha!” she said, “Are you going to meet that woman again?”

  “Ah! Vera, to what lengths will your jealousy lead you?” said Intha chidingly.

  At that moment Silent Percy arrived unheralded on the scene. “Poor Vera,” said Intha, as he crawled out of the ditch and once more gathered up his hammer and nail, “she never would have been happy anyhow.”

  While this tender scene is being enacted, Chumley Marchbanks, the knut of Bond Street, having strolled down Grafton Street to pay a visit to the new night club “des Ramparts,” which had sprung into fame very recently, inadvertently, and owing to the inadequate lighting took the yellow ’bus at Fell Hire Corner, and found himself in Bellewarde. All might yet have gone well with him had he not fallen over Crook, the Cambridge Cracksman, who after emptying his pockets pushed him into the Bec.—The waters flowed on.

  Chapter 5

  Snowflakes were tailing heavily around Hordon Goose Farm, where we left Herlock with the fair Honoria. Breezy Bill, the Bouncing Butcher of Bellewarde, had just been hit in the neck by a whizz-bang when the chug-chug of a motorcycle was heard. “Can it be Intha?” cried Honoria, while Shomes proceeded to tune his violin.

  “No!”—roared he, as a motor despatch rider came round Fell Hire Corner—“News at last from my Baker Street Squad.”

  Hurriedly tearing open and reading the despatch, the true Shomes stood revealed in all his strength and method. Seizing his vermoral sprayer, he rapidly squirted an enormous dose into his forearm.

  Just then the voice of the faithful Hotsam was heard calling “Where are you, Shomes?”

  “Here,” replied the great detective, rapidly emptying his revolver at the approaching figure.

  “Thank goodness I’ve found you at last, but you nearly got me that time,” said Hotsam admiringly.

  “Never mind, better luck next time,” said Shomes, sotto voce, to Honoria. Aloud, “To work, there’s mischief afoot. Thank heaven I attended that two days’ course at the Technical School. I shall now be up to all their dodges.”

  Drawing a searchlight from his pocket, he read the fateful message:—

  “Division moves tomorrow at dawn AAA You will assemble all characters at zero fifteen outside Cloth Hall, Typers, P 13 D 1-1 in time to catch the underground for— — — * at zero twenty AAA On arrival there steal any rations you can find, and carry on with serial AAA—Editor.”

  (* Censored—ED)

  “At last!” shouted the great sleuth.

  “At last!” shouted the others, as they busily collected the usual paraphernalia of the great man.

  “Hotsam,” cried Shomes, “send off the orderly sergeant at once to warn all Characters. Then meet me at the Denin Gate.”

  With these words he disappeared into the gloom and a crump-hole. All these arrangements having been made, Hotsam and Honoria continued their journey down the Denin Road, arriving in Typers just in time to meet Intha Pink before he left for his nightly work. Having rapidly given him a summary of all that had happened, they went into a neighbouring estaminet to await the fateful hour of zero.

  Chapter 6

  Shomes and Co having arrived at their new sphere of action speedily got going again. Intha Pink seized his hammer and nail and fell off the bus when near Hyde Park Corner. Meanwhile Flotsam had disappeared i
nto the darkness on a mysterious errand, taking the fair Honoria with him. Lizzie, as she saw his stalwart form disappearing from her sight, cried, “Do not leave me Herbert,” but a curse was her only answer. In despair she threw herself in the way of a passing whizz-bang and disappeared from our tale. Intha crept rapidly towards his objective, and had almost succeeded in attaining his end, when a machine gun spat in his direction. Completely perforated: yet he smiled happily, and murmured “it’s a blightie;” Here we leave him, and turn to a series of eventful happenings on the banks of the Douve where Hotsam, still dragging Honoria and perspiring freely, had managed to reach the lifeless form of Bill Banks, when a 17in. shell detonated between them. Hissing out “We are discovered” he hurriedly grabbed Honoria and made off. But not far. Alas! His foot slipped, and with his burden he fell into the turbid waters below. The waters flowed on. Shomes, appearing on the scene some hours after, rapidly began looking for clues. Having found some, the great detective started off, but too late, the gas was on him, and he had left his vermoral sprayer in the bus, And so ends this remarkable history of persistence and sagacity. The great enemy of the criminal is now only a name, but his methods must always remain one of the marvels of the criminal history of our nation.

  The End

  [N.B.—Should there be a few characters not dealt with in this Chapter the reader must understand that they all met their deaths in the liquid fire attack.—The Author.]

  To Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  “Edward Moore” (Edwin Muir)

  Edwin Muir (1887-1959), by his own admission, was a man uncomfortable with his era. His family’s move from the bleak Orkney Islands to industrial Glasgow when he was 14 was followed by the death of his parents and two brothers within a few years. The tragedies impelled him to find meaning in life, a journey which led him to become a poet, novelist, and translator of Modernist works, including those by Franz Kafka, Sholem Asch, and Heinrich Mann.

  Muir questioning spirit appears as early as his first book, We Moderns: Enigmas and Guesses (1918), written as Edward Moore. The quatrain below appears among 15 others in the appendix. His addresses to notable writers were a mix of praise and snark. Considering he called The English Review a “shameless rag” and observed to author Harold Begbie (1871-1929) that God “saved your soul (just that!) and damned your style!” it appears Conan Doyle got off lightly.

  Great were the toils of Holmes! He, many a time,

  Found the solution of some abstruse crime.

  Yet oft I feel my task must greater be,

  To find (consummate Doyle!) the mystery!

  In Baker Street

  Bert Leston Taylor

  Relations between the United States and Mexico during this period fluctuated between support for the Mexican government when it pleased Uncle Sam and intervention when it didn’t. When President Woodrow Wilson gave a speech outlining his policy toward the neighbor to the south, Sherlock Holmes was called in to investigate it. The result appeared in the May 27 issue of The Literary Digest.

  After appearing in the 1900-1904 volume, Bert Leston Taylor (1866-1921) makes a return appearance to the series. The Massachusetts-born Taylor worked as a newspaper reporter and printer in New England and Minnesota before moving to Chicago, where he created the modern newspaper column for the Tribune.

  Sherlock Holmes has perhaps disappeared for the last time in short-story form, but, we learn with pleasure, there is still a chance to see that great hero of the inexplicable now and again, if we take the pains. Creep quietly to the old lodgings in Baker Street in the goose-flesh hour of midnight, and wait. If you are fortunate, he will appear. Thus “Bert Taylor,” of the Chicago Tribune, spied on him and on Dr. Watson not long ago, as we read:

  “Have a look at that, Watson, and tell me what you think of it,” remarked Sherlock Holmes, reaching for the tobacco. I took up Exhibit A, and read:

  “When I see the crust even so much as slightly broken over the heads of a population which has always been living under a board of trustees, I make up my mind that I will thrust not only my arm but my heart in the aperture, and that only by crushing every ounce of power that I can use shall any man ever close that opening up again.”

  “I can make nothing of it whatever, Holmes,” was my conclusion. “But it sounds like Woodrow Wilson.”

  “It is Wilson,” said my friend. “You are getting on, Doctor. Now listen to this. It purports to be from a Chicago attorney, but I will swear—you know my methods, Watson—that it was written by the same hand:

  “That a rapid improvement of the hitherto undeveloped lots in this subdivision indicates by the character thereof that the inherent values are intrinsically enhanced by each new building constructed, thereby eliminating any chance of diminution of values by means of deteriorating effect of contiguous properties.”

  “Holmes, you are simply marvelous!” I cried.

  “Tut! tut!” he replied, and plunged into a reverie which lasted a full week.

  The Mystery of the Leaping Fish

  Tod Browning and Anita Loos

  The 223B Casebook series is supposed to reprint stories, but we’ll make an exception for this one. It probably holds the record as the weirdest Holmes parody ever: a silent film starring leading man Douglas Fairbanks (1883-1939), co-written by Tod Browning (1880-1962), the future creator of the cult classic Freaks (1932), and Anita Loos (1889-1981), later to write Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. On top of that, it contains as much drug humor as a Cheech and Chong movie.

  Coming out the same year as William Gillette’s Sherlock Holmes, The Mystery of the Leaping Fish stars Fairbanks as private detective Coke Ennyday, who investigates a dope-smuggling millionaire who wants to marry by force the beautiful girl who rents floats at the beach. Fairbanks downs drugs with abandon, wears outrageous disguises, dances like a fool, battles villainous Chinamen, and gets the girl, but not before she rescues herself. There’s even an epilogue that makes fun of the movie business. The recap below, with the title cards, gives just a hint of the strangeness. Fortunately, the movie is freely available online.

  “Home of the world’s greatest scientific detective, Coke Ennyday.”

  “Coke Ennyday took no chances on admitting a visitor without consulting his scientific periscope.”

  “You must consent to marry Fishy Joe within the week.”

  “Have no fear. Coke Ennyday the scientific detective will protect you.”

  “Japs on the leaping fish! Get the cans! At last a clue!”

  “Smuggling! The secret is mine!”

  “Coke Ennyday is on our trail!”

  “Opium!”

  “In Chinatown, the laundry where the gang does its dirty works.”

  “Girl, you are in my power.”

  [Not for long—Editor]

  [The end—Editor] “But not the end of this story …”

  [Epilogue: Douglas Fairbanks reads to a studio boss the Leaping Fish script he wrote.—Editor]

  “No, Douglas, you had better give up scenario writing and stick to acting.”

  [The living end—Editor]

  The Model T Mystery

  E. H. Soans

  In 1908, Henry Ford introduced the Model T, the first automobile that sold in the millions. As part of its marketing campaign, Ford launched that same year The Ford Times. Its articles promoted traveling by auto by highlighting places to go and things to see and passed along information about new Ford models. It also found room for more humorous articles, such as this one that appeared in the August issue. No information could be found about E.H. Soans.

  Rain was falling steadily as I emerged from the bowels of the earth, and there, outside the tube station stood Sheerluck Jones.

  Buttoning up my coat I fell into step with the great detective, wondering what surprise he had in store for me.

  It was not long before I was enlightened. “My dear What’s On, disaster has overtaken us. I will not tax your brain with deductions but simply state fact. In a few words: Alice Nosegay has d
isappeared.”

  This was indeed disaster, because, as all the world knows, Alice was the only woman that Sheerluck had ever betrayed the slightest affection for.

  “No clue?” I ventured.

  “None whatsoever,” he vouchsafed, “she has disappeared as completely as if she had never existed.”

  He walked moodily on, never speaking a word until, turning into Piccadilly, he surprised me by singing at the top of his voice:

  “Of all the gir—ir—ir—iris that are so sweet,

  There’s none so sweet as Al-lus;

  She is the dar-ar-ar-aling of my heart,

  And lives by the Crystal Pal-his.”

  I looked at him, wondering if the shock had turned his brain.

  A policeman attracted by the singing, came up prepared to remonstrate, but when he saw who the singer was he became subservient in a moment, and remarked with a smile, “Ha, Mr. Jones, working out another tick-lish case, I observe.”