The Misadventure of Shelrock Holmes (32 page)

the following Sunday at Noxmere with Bacon. I was glad indeed of the invitation, for my suspicions were becoming so great that all the powers of Hades could not now have diverted me from the mystery I had undertaken to solve. Entirely apart from the interest I was beginning to take in it, it would never do, even from a professional point of view, to give up now or let Bacon deceive me, as he appeared to be trying to do, and, as I looked back upon the luncheon and recalled several seemingly insignificant little details, I felt pretty certain that there was something very strange about Shakespeare. He preferred absinthe to ale, for one thing; he questioned the use of terms in one of his own phrases; had no good stories to tell and was very far from being the roistering companion his friends had cracked him up to be. A day in the country might reveal the true inwardness of certain things that just now baffled me, and I accepted with alacrity. Not so Shakespeare, who betrayed considerable reluctance to be one of the party, but partly by persuasion and partly, I could see, by intimidation he was won over.

The next day I called upon my friend Henry Jekyll, with whom I had been on intimate relations in London the year he and I sprang almost simultaneously into our enviable notoriety. I told him frankly the position in which I was placed, and what I suspected, and adjured him, if he were my friend, to give me the prescription by which he transformed himself into Hyde, and then from Hyde back to Jekyll again. At first he refused me point blank.

"You'll use it on yourself, Homes, and if you do it will ruin you,"

he said. "I swear to you that I will not, Jekyll," I replied. "You know the

value of my word."

"But — " he persisted.

"Do you want me to be made the laughing stock of all Hades?" I cried. "As I surely shall be if I fail in this enterprise."

"I know, Homes," said he. "But -

"It is the only favor I have ever asked of you, Henry Jekyll," said I. "And I beg to recall to your mind that I knew the truth of your double existence in London when Hyde murdered Sir Danvers Carew. Did I betray you when your betrayal would have made my fortune?"

"It is yours," he cried, as, seizing a prescription blank from the table, he wrote down the required formula.

I had the powder in my pocket the following Sunday, upon my arrival at Noxmere. The day passed pleasantly, and Shakespeare proved a charming companion — rather too much given to reciting lines from his own works, perhaps, but full of geniality and quite like the man I had expected to find him. Indeed, had his manner at the luncheon been the same as that which he displayed at Noxmere I should have pursued the Jekyll-and-Hyde theory no further. But now I refused to cast suspicion aside without the supremest test of trying Jekyll's powders on Bacon. All day long, I avoided allusion to my professional work, and by nightfall both Bacon and Shakespeare were so thoroughly convinced that they had thrown me off the scent that they became frankly and facetiously jocular. I bided my time until the nightcap hour came, and then, in order to put my plan into operation, suggested that I be allowed to mix a cocktail for the company.

"I learned the art from an American friend," I said, "and I assure you, my Lord, and you, too, William Shakespeare, when you have swallowed your first Martini you will say that you've never had a drink before."

"Wassail to the Martini!" cried Bacon, joyously.

"All hail the queue de coq!" roared Shakespeare, jovially —a remark which caused Bacon to frown and Shakespeare to turn pale. What had the "Bard of Avon" to do, indeed, with the French language ? I said nothing whatever, proceeding at once to the making of the mixture, and into Bacon's glass I slipped Jekyll's powder. We all drank, and then —

Do you remember Dr. Lanyon's narrative in Stevenson's stirring account of Jekyll's fall, in which he describes what happened to Mr. Hyde when he had swallowed the potion ? His words, as I remember them, ran as follows:

"He put the glass to his lips and drank at one gulp. A cry followed. He reeled, staggered, clutched at the table and held on, staring with injected eyes, gasping with open mouth, and as I looked there came, I thought, a change — he seemed to swell, his face became suddenly black and the features seemed to melt and alter, and the next moment

2i6 SHYLOCK HOMES: HIS POSTHUMOUS MEMOIRS

I had sprung to my feet and leaped back against the wall, my arm raised to shield me from that prodigy, my mind submerged in terror.

'"Oh, God!' I screamed, and 'Oh, God!' again and again, for there, before my eyes, pale and shaken and half fainting, and groping before him with his hands, like a man restored from death, there stood Henry Jekyll!'"

The same scene was enacted in the study of Francis Bacon. He, too, like Hyde, drained the contents of the glass at a gulp. He, too, reeled, staggered and clutched and held onto the table, staring with injected eyes and gasping with open mouth. And over him, also, came a change in which his face turned suddenly black and the features melted and altered.

Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, faded in a mist of horror and out of it emerged, pale, palsied and shattered for the moment, no less a person than William Shakespeare himself, while seated opposite, gazing in horrified wonderment, sat another Shakespeare, who gasped and choked and gripped and groaned, staring the real in the eye and powerless for the instant to move. I stood back in the shadow of the mantel watching both, when suddenly the spurious Shakespeare, with a shriek, sprang madly to his feet and plunged toward the door. By a quick move I intercepted him. "We have solved the old mystery —now for the new!" I cried.

"Who are you?"

"I beg of you," he began, whereupon I seized him by the goatee, which, being false, came off in my hand and with it the rest of the disguise, wig, mustache and all.

It was M. Lecoq.

"I _I paid him for this, Mr. Homes!" gasped Bacon, or, rather, Shakespeare, as he now was. "Do not blame M. Lecoq for this -

"He may go," said I. "I have only to deal with you."

And Lecoq shrank from the room and disappeared into the night.

"Well, Lord Bacon," said I, addressing the poor creature before me. "I have discovered the secret of the centuries. It is you who are the author of Shakespeare's plays."

"In a sense — as Shakespeare I — I wrote them, yes."

"So that I may report -

"I do not know!" he moaned. "I am broken, Mr. Homes, absolutely broken, in spirit. To have this known -

"It never will be, Lord Bacon," said I, "at least not here. I shall publish my report only in the upper world, and the books of that sphere have no circulation in this."

"And you will conclude?"

"There is but one conclusion, Lord Bacon. William Shakespeare wrote his own works. You backed him. I shall so report to Sorosis and the ladies may take it as final or leave it."

And so I left him. True to my promise, this story has not been circulated in Hades, and I rejoice to say that, based upon my report to the committee, the Society of Sorosis of Cimmeria has voted by 369 to i that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare.

The negative vote was cast by Anne Hathaway, who observed that she did not wish to incriminate her husband until she had seen the stuff.

Detective: THE GREAT DETECTIVE

MADDENED BY MYSTERY or, The Defective Detective

by STEPHEN LEACOCK

"Maddened by Mystery" from Stephen LeacocT(s NONSENSE NOVELS (London, Lane, 1911; New Yorf^, Lane, 1911), is Canada's contribution to our Parade of Parodies. The author, a world-famous wit and political economist, goes all out in his satire of the Sacred Writings and the Great Man.

"Maddened by Mystery' (a maddening title) was the only parody chosen by E. C. Bentley, creator of Philip Trent, for his anthology, THE SECOND CENTURY OF DETECTIVE STORIES (London, Hutchinson, 1938). It is therefore safe to deduce that this hilarious burlesque is E. C. Bentley's favorite parody of Holmes — a recommendation not to be ignored, or cast aside lightly.

Don't be self-conscious: chuckle to your heart's content!

T

j-t

_ GREAT DETECTIVE sat in his office. He wore a long green gown and half a dozen secret badges pinned to the outside of it. Three or four pairs of false whiskers hung on a whisker stand

beside him.

Goggles, blue spectacles, and motor glasses lay within easy reach.

He could completely disguise himself at a second's notice.

Half a bucket of cocaine and a dipper stood on a chair at his elbow.

His face was absolutely impenetrable.

A pile of cryptograms lay on the desk. The Great Detective hastily tore them open one after the other, solved them, and threw them down the cryptogram chute at his side.

There was a rap at the door.

The Great Detective hurriedly wrapped himself in a pink domino, adjusted a pair of false black whiskers and cried:

MADDENED BY MYSTERY

"Come in."

His secretary entered. "Ha," said the detective, "it is you!"

He laid aside his disguise.

"Sir," said the young man in intense excitement, "a mystery has been committed!"

"Ha!" said the Great Detective, his eye kindling, "is it such as to completely baffle the police of the entire continent?"

"They are so completely baffled with it," said the secretary, "that they are lying collapsed in heaps; many of them have committed suicide."

"So," said the detective, "and is the mystery one that is absolutely unparalleled in the whole recorded annals of the London police?"

"It is."

"And I suppose," said the detective, "that it involves names which you would scarcely dare to breathe, at least without first using some kind of atomizer or throat gargle."

"Exactly."

"And it is connected, I presume, with the highest diplomatic consequences, so that if we fail to solve it England will be at war with the whole world in sixteen minutes?"

His secretary, still quivering with excitement, again answered yes.

"And finally," said the Great Detective, "I presume that it was committed in broad daylight, in some such place as the entrance of the Bank of England, or in the cloakroom of the House of Commons, and under the very eyes of the police?"

"Those," said the secretary, "are the very conditions of the mystery."

"Good," said the Great Detective. "Now wrap yourself in this disguise, put on these brown whiskers and tell me what it is."

The secretary wrapped himself in a blue domino with lace insertions, then, bending over, he whispered in the ear of the Great Detective:

"The Prince of Wiirttemberg has been kidnaped."

The Great Detective bounded from his chair as if he had been kicked from below.

A prince stolen! Evidently a Bourbon! The scion of one of the oldest families in Europe kidnaped. Here was a mystery indeed worthy of his analytical brain.

His mind began to move like lightning.

"Stop!" he said. "How do you know this?"

The secretary handed him a telegram. It was from the Prefect of Police of Paris. It read:

THE PRINCE OF WURTTEMBERG STOLEN. PROBABLY FORWARDED TO LONDON. MUST HAVE HIM HERE FOR THE OPENING DAY OF EXHIBITION. £,1000 REWARD.

So! The Prince had been kidnaped out of Paris at the very time when his appearance at the International Exposition would have been a political event of the first magnitude.

With the Great Detective to think was to act, and to act was to think. Frequently he could do both together.

"Wire to Paris for a description of the Prince."

The secretary bowed and left.

At the same moment there was a slight scratching at the door.

A visitor entered. He crawled stealthily on his hands and knees. A hearthrug thrown over his head and shoulders disguised his

identity.

He crawled to the middle of the room.

Then he rose.

Great Heaven!

It was the Prime Minister of England.

"You!" said the detective.

"Me," said the Prime Minister.

"You have come in regard to the kidnaping of the Prince o£ Wiirt-temberg?"

The Prime Minister started.

"How do you know?" he said.

The Great Detective smiled his inscrutable smile.

"Yes," said the Prime Minister. "I will use no concealment. I am interested, deeply interested. Find the Prince of Wiirttemberg, get him safe back to Paris and I will add £500 to the reward already offered. But listen," he said impressively as he left the room, "see to it that no attempt is made to alter the marking of the Prince, or

to clip his tail."

So! To clip the Prince's tail! The brain of the Great Detective reeled. So! A gang of miscreants had conspired to— But no! The thing was not possible.

There was another rap at the door.

A second visitor was seen. He wormed his way in, lying almost prone upon his stomach, and wriggling across the floor. He was enveloped in a long purple cloak. He stood up and peeped over the top of it.

Great Heaven!

It was the Archbishop of Canterbury!

"Your Grace!" exclaimed the detective in amazement. "Pray do not stand, I beg you. Sit down, lie down, anything rather than stand."

The Archbishop took off his miter and laid it wearily on the whisker stand.

"You are here in regard to the Prince of Wiirttemberg."

The Archbishop started and crossed himself. Was the man a magician ?

"Yes," he said, "much depends on getting him back. But I have only come to say this: my sister is desirous of seeing you. She is coming here. She has been extremely indiscreet and her fortune hangs upon the Prince. Get him back to Paris or I fear she will be ruined."

The Archbishop regained his miter, uncrossed himself, wrapped his cloak about him, and crawled stealthily out on his hands and knees, purring like a cat.

The face of the Great Detective showed the most profound sympathy. It ran up and down in furrows. "So," he muttered, "the sister of the Archbishop, the Countess of Dashleigh!" Accustomed as he was to the life of the aristocracy, even the Great Detective felt that here was intrigue of more than customary complexity.

There was a loud rapping at the door.

There entered the Countess of Dashleigh. She was all in furs.

She was the most beautiful woman in England. She strode imperiously into the room. She seized a chair imperiously and seated herself on it, imperial side up.

She took of! her tiara of diamonds and put it on the tiara holder beside her and uncoiled her boa of pearls and put it on the pearl stand.

"You have come," said the Great Detective, "about the Prince of Wiirttemberg."

"Wretched little pup!" said the Countess of Dashleigh in disgust.

So! A further complication! Far from being in love with the Prince, the Countess denounced the young Bourbon as a pup! "You are interested in him, I believe." "Interested!" said the Countess. "I should rather say so. Why, I

bred him!" "You which?" gasped the Great Detective, his usually impassive

features suffused with a carmine blush.

"I bred him," said the Countess, "and I've got £10,000 upon his chances, so no wonder I want him back in Paris. Only listen," she said, "if they've got hold of the Prince and cut his tail or spoiled the markings of his stomach it would be far better to have him quietly put out of the way here."

The Great Detective reeled and leaned up against the side of the room. So! The cold-blooded admission of the beautiful woman for the moment took away his breath! Herself the mother of the young Bourbon, misallied with one of the greatest families of Europe, staking her fortune on a Royalist plot, and yet with so instinctive a knowledge of European politics as to know that any removal of the hereditary birthmarks of the Prince would forfeit for him the sympathy of the French populace.

The Countess resumed her tiara.

She left.

The secretary re-entered.

"I have three telegrams from Paris," he said. "They are completely

baffling."

He handed over the first telegram. It read:

THE PRINCE OF WURTTEMBERG HAS A LONG, WET SNOUT, BROAD EARS, VERY LONG BODY, AND SHORT HIND LEGS.

The Great Detective looked puzzled. He read the second telegram.

THE PRINCE OF WURTTEMBERG IS EASILY RECOGNIZED BY HIS DEEP BARK.

And then the third.

THE PRINCE OF WURTTEMBERG CAN BE RECOGNIZED BY THE PATCH OF WHITE HAIR ACROSS THE CENTER OF HIS BACK.

The two men looked at one another. The mystery was maddening, impenetrable.

The Great Detective spoke.

"Give me my domino," he said. "These clues must be followed up." Then pausing, while his quick brain analyzed and summed up the evidence before him —"A young man," he muttered, "evidently young since described as a 'pup,' with a long, wet snout (ha! addicted obviously to drinking), a streak of white hair across his back (a first sign of the results of his abandoned life) — yes, yes," he continued, "with this clue I shall find him easily." The Great Detective rose.

He wrapped himself in a long black cloak with white whiskers and blue spectacles attached.

Completely disguised, he issued forth. He began the search.

For four days he visited every corner of London. He entered every saloon in the city. In each of them he drank a glass of rum. In some of them he assumed the disguise of a sailor. In others he entered as a soldier. Into others he penetrated as a clergyman. His disguise was perfect. Nobody paid any attention to him as long as he had the price of a drink. The search proved fruitless.

Two young men were arrested under suspicion of being the Prince, only to be released.

The identification was incomplete in each case. One had a long wet snout but no hair on his back. The other had hair on his back but couldn't bark. Neither of them was the young Bourbon. The Great Detective continued his search. He stopped at nothing.

Secretly, after nightfall, he visited the home of the Prime Minister. He examined it from top to bottom. He measured all the doors and windows. He took up the flooring. He inspected the plumbing. He examined the furniture. He found nothing.

With equal secrecy he penetrated into the palace of the-Archbishop. He examined it from top to bottom. Disguised as a choirboy he took part in the offices of the Church. He found nothing. Still undismayed, the Great Detective made his way into the home

of the Countess of Dashleigh. Disguised as a housemaid, he entered the service of the Countess.

Then at last the clue came which gave him a solution of the mystery.

On the wall of the Countess's boudoir was. a large framed engraving.

It was a portrait.

Under it was a printed legend:

THE PRINCE OF WURTTEMBERG

The portrait was that of a dachshund.

The long body, the broad ears, the undipped tail, the short hind legs — all were there.

In the fraction of a second the lightning mind of the Great Detective had penetrated the whole mystery.

THE PRINCE WAS A DOG ! ! ! !

Hastily throwing a domino over his housemaid's dress, he rushed to the street. He summoned a passing hansom, and in a few minutes was at his house.

"I have it," he gasped to his secretary, "the mystery is solved. I have pieced it together. By sheer analysis I have reasoned it out. Listen —hind legs, hair on back, wet snout, pup —eh, what? Does that suggest nothing to you?"

"Nothing," said the secretary; "it seems perfectly hopeless."

The Great Detective, now recovered from his excitement, smiled

faintly.

"It means simply this, my dear fellow. The Prince of Wiirttemberg is a dog, a prize dachshund. The Countess of Dashleigh bred him, and he is worth some ,£25,000 in addition to the prize of ,£10,000 offered at the Paris dog show. Can you wonder that —'

At that moment the Great Detective was interrupted by the scream of a woman.

"Great Heaven!"

The Countess of Dashleigh dashed into the room.

Her face was wild.

Her tiara was in disorder.

Her pearls were dripping all over the place.

She wrung her hands and moaned.

"They have cut his tail," she gasped, "and taken all the hair off his back. What can I do? I am undone!"

"Madame," said the Great Detective, calm as bronze, "do yourself up. I can save you yet."

"You!"

"Me!"

"How?"

"Listen. This is how. The Prince was to have been shown at Paris."

The Countess nodded.

"Your fortune was staked on him?"

The Countess nodded again.

"The dog was stolen, carried to London, his tail cut and his marks disfigured."

Amazed at the quiet penetration of the Great Detective, the Countess kept on nodding and nodding.

"And you are ruined?"

"I am," she gasped, and sank down on the floor in a heap of pearls.

"Madame," said the Great Detective, "all is not lost."

He straightened himself up to his full height. A look of inflinchable unflexibility flickered over his features.

The honor of England, the fortune of the most beautiful woman in England were at stake.

"I will do it," he murmured.

"Rise, dear lady," he continued. "Fear nothing. I WILL IMPERSONATE THE DOG ! ! !"

That night the Great Detective might have been seen on the deck of the Calais packet-boat with his secretary. He was on his hands and knees in a long black cloak, and his secretary had him on a short chain.

He barked at the waves exultingly and licked the secretary's hand.

"What a beautiful dog," said the passengers.

The disguise was absolutely complete.

The Great Detective had been coated over with mucilage to which dog hairs had been applied. The markings on his back were perfect. His tail, adjusted with an automatic coupler, moved up and down responsive to every thought. His deep eyes were full of intelligence. Next day he was exhibited in the dachshund class at the International show.

He won all hearts.

"Quel beau chien!" cried the French people.

"Ach! Was ein Dog!" cried the Spanish.

The Great Detective took the first prize!

The fortune of the Countess was saved.

Unfortunately as the Great Detective had neglected to pay the dog tax, he was caught and destroyed by the dogcatchers. But that is, of course, quite outside of the present narrative, and is only mentioned as an odd fact in conclusion.

Detective: the great detective

AN IRREDUCIBLE DETECTIVE

STORY

by STEPHEN LEACOCK

In the preceding parody Mr. Leacocf^ calls his protagonist "the Great Detective" — with two capital letters. In "An Irreducible Detective Story"nhe author calls his chief character "the great detective" — with no capitals.

This spelling clue suggests that Mr. LeacocJ^ did not intend his second parody to be a sequel to the first — mores the pity. But your Editors could not bring themselves to deprive you of a "hair-raising" burlesque merely because of the absence of two capital letters.