The Misadventure of Shelrock Holmes (26 page)

"I shall remind you of that again," he said lightly. "And now, to show you my confidence in your judgment, in spite of my determination to pursue this alone, I am willing to listen to any suggestions from you."

He drew a memorandum book from his pocket and, with a grave smile, took up his pencil.

I could scarcely believe my senses. He, the great Hemlock Jones, accepting suggestions from a humble individual like myself! I kissed his hand reverently, and began in a joyous tone:

"First, I should advertise, offering a reward; I should give the same intimation in handbills, distributed at the 'pubs' and the pastry cooks'. I should next visit the different pawnbrokers; I should give notice at the police station. I should examine the servants. I should thoroughly search the house and my own pockets. I speak relatively," I added, with a laugh. "Of course I mean your own."

He gravely made an entry of these details.

"Perhaps," I added, "you have already done this?"

"Perhaps," he returned enigmatically. "Now, my dear friend," he continued, putting the notebook in his pocket and rising, "would you excuse me for a few moments ? Make yourself perfectly at home until I return; there may be some things," he added with a sweep of his hand toward his heterogeneously filled shelves, "that may interest you and while away the time. There are pipes and tobacco in that corner."

Then nodding to me with the same inscrutable face he left the room. I was too well accustomed to his methods to think much of

THE STOLEN CIGAR CASE

his unceremonious withdrawal, and made no doubt he was off to investigate some clue which had suddenly occurred to his active intelligence.

Left to myself I cast a cursory glance over his shelves. There were a number of small glass jars containing earthy substances, labeled PAVEMENT AND ROAD SWEEPINGS, from the principal thoroughfares and suburbs of London, with the subdirections FOR IDENTIFYING FOOT TRACKS. There were several other jars, labeled FLUFF FROM OMNIBUS AND ROAD-CAR SEATS, COCONUT FIBER AND ROPE STRANDS FROM MATTINGS IN PUBLIC PLACES, CIGARETTE STUMPS AND MATCH ENDS FROM FLOOR OF PALACE THEATRE, Row A, i TO 50. Everywhere were evidences of this wonderful man's system and perspicacity.

I was thus engaged when I heard the slight creaking of a door, and I looked up as a stranger entered. He was a rough-looking man, with a shabby overcoat and a still more disreputable muffler around his throat and the lower part of his face. Considerably annoyed at his intrusion, I turned upon him rather sharply, when, with a mumbled, growling apology for mistaking the room, he shuffled out again and closed the door. I followed him quickly to the landing and saw that he disappeared down the stairs. With my mind full of the robbery, the incident made a singular impression upon me. I knew my friend's habit of hasty absences from his room in his moments of deep inspiration; it was only too probable that, with his powerful intellect and magnificent perceptive genius concentrated on one subject, he should be careless of his own belongings, and no doubt even forget to take the ordinary precaution of locking up his drawers. I tried one or two and found that I was right, although for some reason I was unable to open one to its fullest extent. The handles were sticky, as if someone had opened it with dirty fingers. Knowing Hemlock's fastidious cleanliness, I resolved to inform him of this circumstance, but I forgot it, alas! until —but I am anticipating my story.

His absence was strangely prolonged. I at last seated myself by the fire and, lulled by warmth and the patter of the rain, fell asleep. I may have dreamt, for during my sleep I had a vague semiconscious-ness as of hands being softly pressed on my pockets-no doubt induced by the story of the robbery. When I came fully to my senses, I found Hemlock Jones sitting on the other side of the hearth, his deeply concentrated gaze fixed on the fire.

THE STOLEN CIGAR CASE

-I found you so comfortably asleep that I could not bear to awaken y^^'^t news?" I asked. "How have you than I expected," he sa,d, "and I think," he added, tapping

'

hoe to the cuff w.th his deft fingers. "Come agam soon! he said,

ally; "I only ask ten

know."

'iT'is indeed," he said, with his impenetrable smile, aTmbourTne. Of course to others the disguise was perfect, although

the disguise of a broken-down artisan, looking into the window of an adjacent pawnshop. I was delighted to see that he was evidendy following my suggestions, and in my joy I ventured to tip him a wink; it was abstractedly returned.

Two days later I received a note appointing a meeting at his lodgings that night. That meeting, alas! was the one memorable occurrence of my life, and the last meeting I ever had with Hemlock Jones! I will try to set it down calmly, though my pulses still throb with the recollection of it.

I found him standing before the fire, with that look upon his face which I had seen only once or twice — a look which I may call an absolute concatenation of inductive and deductive ratiocination — from which all that was human, tender, or sympathetic was absolutely discharged. He was simply an icy algebraic symbol!

After I had entered he locked the doors, fastened the window, and even placed a chair before the chimney. As I watched these significant precautions with absorbing interest, he suddenly drew a revolver and, presenting it to my temple, said in low, icy tones:

"Hand over that cigar case!"

Even in my bewilderment my reply was truthful, spontaneous, and involuntary. "I haven't got it," I said.

Pie smiled bitterly, and threw down his revolver. "I expected that reply! Then let me now confront you with something more awful, more deadly, more relentless and convincing than that mere lethal weapon — the damning inductive and deductive proofs of your guilt!" He drew from his pocket a roll of paper and a notebook.

"But surely," I gasped, "you are joking! You could not believe — "

"Silence! Sit down!"

I obeyed.

"You have condemned yourself," he went on pitilessly. "Condemned yourself on my processes — processes familiar to you, applauded by you, accepted by you for years! We will go back to the time when you first saw the cigar case. Your expressions," he said in cold, deliberate tones, consulting his paper, "were, 'How beautiful! I wish it were mine.' This was your first step in crime — and my ilrst indication. From 'I wish it were mine' to 'I will have it mine.' and the mere detail, 'How can I make it mine?' the advance was obvious. Silence! But as in my methods it was necessary that there

should be an overwhelming inducement to the crime, that unholy admiration o£ yours for the mere trinket itself was not enough. 1 are a smoker of cigars." .

"But," I burst out passionately, "I told you I had given up smoking

}3

C1 ^Fool!" he said coldly. "That is the second time you have committed yourself. Of course you told me! What more natural than for you to blazon forth that prepared and unsolicited statement to prevent accusation. Yet, as I said before, even that wretched attempt to cover up your tracks was not enough. I still had to find that over-whelming, impelling motive necessary to affect a man like you. That motive I found in the strongest of all impulses - love, I suppose you would call it-" he added bitterly- "that night you called! had brought the most conclusive proofs of it on your sleeve. "But — " I almost screamed.

"Silence!" he thundered. "I know what you would say. You woulc say that even if you had embraced some Young Person in a sealskin coat what had that to do with the robbery? Let me tell you then, that that sealskin coat represented the quality and character of your fatal entanglement! You bartered your honor for it-that stolen cigar case was the purchaser of the sealskin coat! ' ''Silence! Having thoroughly established your motive I now proceed to the commission of the crime itself. Ordinary people would have begun with that-with an attempt to discover the whereabouts of the missing object. These are not my methods "

So overpowering was his penetration that, although I knew mysel innocent, I licked my lips with avidity to hear the further details c this lucid exposition of my crime.

"You committed that theft the night I showed you the cigar case, and after I had carelessly thrown it in that drawer You were sitting in that chair, and I had arisen to take something from that shelf, that instant you secured your booty without rising. Silence! Do you remember when I helped you on with your overcoat the other mght^ I was particular about fitting your arm in. While doing so I measured your arm with a spring tape measure, from the shoulder to the cuff. A later visit to your tailor confirmed that measurement. It prove, to be the exact distance between your chair and that drawer! stunned.

"The rest are mere corroborative details! You were again tampering with the drawer when I discovered you doing so! Do not start! The stranger that blundered into the room with a muffler on — was myself! More, I had placed a little soap on the drawer handles when I purposely left you alone. The soap was on your hand when I shook it at parting. I softly felt your pockets, when you were asleep, for further developments. I embraced you when you left — that I might feel if you had the cigar case or any other articles hidden on your body. This confirmed me in the belief that you had already disposed of it in the manner and for the purpose I have shown you. As I still believed you capable of remorse and confession, I twice allowed you to see I was on your track: once in the garb of an itinerant Negro minstrel, and the second time as a workman looking in the window of the pawnshop where you pledged your booty.

"But," I burst out, "if you had asked the pawnbroker, you would have seen how unjust — "

"Fool!" he hissed. "Do you suppose I followed any of your suggestions, the suggestions of the thief ? On the contrary, they told me what to avoid."

"And I suppose," I said bitterly, "you have not even searched your drawer."

"No," he said calmly.

I was for the first time really vexed. I went to the nearest drawer and pulled it out sharply. It stuck as it had before, leaving a section of the drawer unopened. By working it, however, I discovered that it was impeded by some obstacle that had slipped to the upper part of the drawer, and held it firmly fast. Inserting my hand, I pulled out the impeding object. It was the missing cigar case! I turned to him with a cry of joy.

But I was appalled at his expression. A look of contempt was now added to his acute, penetrating gaze. "I have been mistaken," he said slowly. "I had not allowed for your weakness and cowardice! I thought too highly of you even in your guilt! But I see now why you tampered with that drawer the other night. By some inexplicable means — possibly another theft — you took the cigar case out of pawn and, liked a whipped hound, restored it to me in this feeble, clumsy fashion. You thought to deceive me, Hemlock Jones! More, you thought to destroy my infallibility. Go! I give you your liberty. I

shall not summon the three policemen who wait in the adjoining room — but out of my sight forever!"

As I stood once more dazed and petrified, he took me firmly by the ear and led me into the hall, closing the door behind him. This reopened presently, wide enough to permit him to thrust out my hat, overcoat, umbrella, and overshoes, and then closed against me forever!

I never saw him again. I am bound to say, however, that thereafter my business increased, I recovered much of my old practice, and a few of my patients recovered also. I became rich. I had a brougham and a house in the West End. But I often wondered, if, in some lapse of consciousness, I had not really stolen his cigar case!

Detective: SHAMROCK JOLNES Narrator: WHATSUP

THE ADVENTURES OF > SHAMROCK JOLNES --'

by O. HENRY

O. Henry wrote two waggish parodies of SherlocJ^ Holmes — "The Sleuths" and "The Adventures of ShamrocJ^ Jolnes" both to be found in SIXES AND SEVENS (Garden City, Doubleday, Page, /p//). The great ShamrocJ^ appeared briefly in a third story, "The Detective Detector" in WAIFS AND STRAYS (Garden City, Doubleday, Page, 1917), but this tale was a parody of The Master Criminal rather than of The Master Detective.

Your Editors have chosen "The Adventures of ShamrocJ^ Jolnes" because it presents Shamroc\ at his deductive best. In "The Sleuths" Jolnes shares the spotlight with — worse, actually yields it to — another detective named Juggins; and in "The Detective Detector" Jolnes plays second fiddle to a one-man Murder, Inc. named Avery Knight. Since this anthology is dedicated to the One and Only, with rivalry of any sort firmly excommunicated, we cannot permit so nondescript a pair of interlopers as Juggins and Knight to trespass upon the sacred precincts.

O. Henry's invention of the name Shamrocf^ is surely an appealing conceit. The more you thinly of it, the more it grows on you. But delicious as it is, it does not represent the author's major effort in the field of parody names. O. Henry wrote two other detective-story burlesques, caricaturing the famous Vidocq. They are included in ROLLING STONES (Garden City, Doubleday, Page, 1912) and the parody name for Vidocq is positively inspired. It is le nom juste, the paragon of paronomasia, the ne plus ultra of neology — in a word, Tictocq.