The Misadventure of Shelrock Holmes (35 page)

Purlock Hone preserved a pregnant silence. He slowly rilled my pipe for the fourth time with strong Cavendish tobaco. I struck a match and handed it to him. It was my tacit tribute of admiration to the skill with which this mysterious scene, of evidently the highest diplomatic tension, had been played through without a hitch by the two great actors concerned. Words would have failed me — had I attempted to use them. My friend held my wrist while he lit his pipe at my match. His hand did not tremble more than mine — indeed not so much.

"Purlock Hone!" I cried with rising enthusiasm, "if I did not know that a great diing had passed and that Mr. Smidi was the emissary of some great European Power and the bearer of some deep international secret, and that you have conveyed a secret reply to some European potentate under the pretence of writing a cheque on your banker, I could have sworn that Mr. Smith was a dunning hatter's assistant, and that you had paid an overdue bill!"

"Jobson, you know I make a rule never to take you in — every one else, but not you. Mr. Smith was in point of fact an emissary, but only from Jones & Sons of Oxford Street, and I have paid their bill."

Purlock Hone is one of the few men who can afford to tell the plain truth when it is against him. He is great even in defeat!

Detective: SHERLOCK HOLMES

THE FOOTPRINTS ON THE CEILING ; ; ;

by JULES CAST1ER

On December 2, 1914 the author, then a French soldier, was captured by the Germans in Alsace and fax a prisoner of war until after the armistice was signed. M. Castier, to put it mildly, did not get along with his captors. He passed through "a series of imprisonments, court-martials, more imprisonments, reprisals, and the /%." He was even tried once (and sentenced)

for high treason.

His greatest solace, M. Castier tells us, lay in reading -whenever he was allowed boof^s. Chafing against his detention and other troubles, M. Castier hit on the idea of writing a sequence of parodies of the authors he had read, and it is one of these parodies we now bring you.

"The Footprints on the Ceiling" is a double-barreled burlesque of Doyle. It parodies not only Dr. Watson and Sherloc^ Holmes, but that other great Doyle character, Professor Challenger, as well; and it concerns a disappearance so strange, so unique, that it can be described only as "out of this world." If the reader is interested in M. Castier's other parodies —of Arnold Bennett, G. K. Chesterton, Joseph Conrad, John Galsworthy, E. W. Hornung, W. W. Jacobs, Rudyard Kipling, William Le Queux, George Bernard Shaw, Robert Louis Stevenson, H. G. Wells, Oscar Wilde, and others — he'll find them in a volume called RATHER LIKE . . . (London, Jenkins, 1920; Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1920).

W,

, VHEN, some years ago, I attempted to chronicle the stupendous adventure of our little group in the "Lost World" of South America,

and, some time later, its still more amazing episode while the earth was passing through the "Poison Belt" of ether, I little thought it might be my lot to relate another marvelous occurrence some of us were to go through; and I feel it my duty to set it down at once, while most of the details are still fresh in my memory.

It was a warm day in June — the fourteenth, as I make out by an entry in my notebook — that the adventure may be said to begin. I had just come out of Mr. MacArdle's office; die kindhearted old Scot was about to retire from die post he had occupied so long, that of news editor to the Daily Gazette, to which (I say it in all modesty) the proprietors had decided to promote me. Old MacArdle had given me a few parting words of sound advice, and I was still meditating his well-meant remarks while I sat down in my own little office, which I was to leave so soon. My brain was full of lingering thoughts of the past, mingling with vague plans for the future, when the office boy came thundering in, bearing a visiting-card between his none too clean fingers.

"A gentleman to see you, Mr. Malone," he cried, banging the door.

"Sure it's me he wants to see, and not Mr. MacArdle?" I cautiously demanded, not wishing to be disturbed uselessly.

"He said Mr. Malone, sir," the boy assured me.

"Well, show him in," I said, looking at the card, which bore the printed inscription: DR. WATSON, below which I read, in a barely legible handwriting: requests the favor of a few minutes' interview with Mr. Malone. Here were the tables turned, indeed! I was all the more puzzled, as I knew nothing of this Dr. Watson. I was revolving in my mind the several doctors, and the many Watsons, with whom I was more or less acquainted, when the door opened again, and a plain-faced man — evidently a physician — was ushered in by the irrepressible office boy.

"How do you do, Mr. Malone?" he said in a singularly oppressed-sounding voice, anxiety seeming to pierce through his open lips and sallow cheeks.

"Good afternoon, Dr. Watson," I rejoined. "What may I do for you ? I am afraid you must have made a mistake, as — "

"I think not," he hastily interrupted. "I must ask you to excuse me, but you are the Mr. Malone, Professor Challenger's friend?"

"Indeed, I have the honor of his acquaintance," said I, "although

friendship is, I fear, too presumptuous a word, on my part at least." "Well, Mr. Malone," he continued, in gulping torrents of words, "I must intrude upon your time to the extent of asking you for an introduction to Professor Challenger. It is a matter of life and death. I know the eminent scientist and his wife do not care to be interviewed by strangers, and that is why I appeal to you."

"Indeed, Dr. Watson," I replied, "I doubt whether Professor Challenger would consent to see you at all, even if I were to introduce

you to him."

"He is your friend — and what I ask is on behalf of a friend ot mine, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, of whom you have doubtless heard." "I must apologize for my ignorance," I replied. "However, I am quite willing to answer your urgent appeal to friendship — although I have very little confidence in my power to help. The best I can do would be, I suppose, to accompany you myself to Professor Challenger's: you might explain the matter to me on the way."

"Mr. Malone," he answered, heaving a deep sigh of relief/'! shall indeed be greatly indebted to you, if you can spare the time." "Let me see," I mused, "there is a train from Victoria at-But he interrupted me at once.

"I have a forty-horsepower Humber waiting outside, which will take us to Rotherfield before we could get there by train."

"Very well," I replied. "Pray excuse me a moment while I see my assistant, and I shall be quite ready for you."

I found Harper, my assistant, smoking his pipe in the passage, and hurriedly told him of my unexpected mission. After which, putting on my cap and coat, and throwing a couple of rugs over my arm, I rejoined Dr. Watson and was conducted to his car, which a smart chauffeur set in motion at once, without even waiting for any direction from his master.

We had hardly set off, however, when I heard my name shouted by a voice I could not fail to recognize instantly, while I turned to gaze at a tall, thin figure, clad in a gray tweed shooting suit, that emerged from a motorcar just a few yards behind ours.

"Hullo, young fellah!" cried Lord John Roxton. Beside him was sitting another tall man, though he had nothing in common with his companion: silent and absorbed, he looked more like a human mummy than a living being, and the slow beating of the temples

was the only sign of life he seemed to give. I was waving my hand in reply to Lord John when my companion suddenly sprang up in his turn, and, pointing towards the second car, cried out excitedly: "What, Holmes! You don't mean to say you — " "My dear Watson," calmly replied my friend's fellow passenger, "since we are obviously bound for the same destination, I think we could no better than use the same car. Lord John," he continued, turning to his companion, "shall we join our friends? I am sure Dr. Watson's car will be more comfortable, and faster than our taxi." "Right you are," said Lord John, "besides, the more, the merrier." Accordingly both vehicles were stopped, Lord John paid his chauffeur, and the little party of four were soon seated in the capacious 40-H.-P., smoothly running southwards.

After a few exuberant remarks from Lord John Roxton in his most characteristic manner, his companion, looking keenly at me, began speaking in a marvelously even and passionless voice. "Good day, Mr. Malone."

"Indeed, Holmes," interrupted his friend, "I am afraid I should have introduced you: pray excuse my carelessness . . . Though how you immediately hit on Mr. Malone's name — seeing you don't know him, and absolutely ignored what I was about to do — I really fail to see."

"Marvelous!" exclaimed Lord John. "Most astonishin', I call it." "It is the simplest thing imaginable," Holmes calmly proceeded, turning to me. "It is obvious you are a journalist: your pockets are crammed with notebooks, and I see a Waterman peeping out of your waistcoat pocket; the second finger of your right hand is somewhat horny on the left side — an evident sign of active use of pen and pencil; there are a few ink-stains on your coat sleeves — where occasionally you dab your pen to rid it of any small encumbrance it may have caught; you are somewhat shortsighted — a sign of much reading or writing. Moreover, I see copies of the Daily Gazette protruding not only from your coat, but also between the rugs over your arm — which makes it quite evident that you are on the staff of that paper. Now I see you with my friend Watson, who is greatly concerned with the fate of Professor Challenger . . . Challenger has very few journalist friends; in fact, the only one is Mr. Malone: a child would deduce your identity."

"Absolutely rippin'!" exclaimed Lord John; while I was too much

amazed for words.

"By the way," continued this remarkable man, turning to i companion, "let me congratulate you on your movements, my dear Watson. It was indeed most thoughtful of you to enlist the service of Mr Malone, who is one of the two only men now in England with the power of securing an introduction to Professor Challenger. J was about to look him up myself at his office, when, by a lucky chance I met Lord John Roxton, whom, of course, I instantly recognize from the description given in Mr. Malone's narratives."

"Yes," put in my friend, "extraordinary it was, too, seem yo never even set eyes on me before."

"A simple instance of deduction, aided by memory,

Sherlock Holmes. Now, however, I turned to him and his friend, with questioning

f*\t £*Q

"Perhaps," said I, "you could now explain the object of your mission- for I cannot conceal my astonishment."

"Right you are, young fellah," echoed Lord John. ' Come now, gentlemen, will you kindly explain?"

' "You have a perfect right to know everything," answered Watson, "and as we have some time before us, I think there is no reason whatever for withholding the explanation any longer. You must know, then, that Professor Challenger has disappeared." The effect of this revelation was startling on both of us. "What!" exclaimed Lord John, "a man of his size, disappearin' in the middle of a civilized country!" "It is indeed incredible," I cried out.

"I received the news from his old chauffeur, Austin," Holmes said, "and immediately started on my investigation. At the present moment I happen to know a few data concerning the case: for instance, the person whom I suspect of having absconded with the professor is a small man, with blond hair and long fingernails; he must be in some great distress, and was formerly a creature of higher standard, now evidently fallen somewhat in the social and moral scale. I hope lay my hands on him at no very future date, but in order to do so, I must examine Professor Challenger's abode with some care is why I set out to find you, Mr. Malone, little dreaming that I shoi

first meet Lord John Roxton, and still less that my friend Dr. Watson would be simultaneously — and successfully — engaged on the same quest."

"Holmes," excitedly exclaimed Dr. Watson, "accustomed to your deductive methods as I am, I am quite overwhelmed by all this information about the unknown blackguard on whose track we all of us are now set! How on earth has it been possible for you to get at it? Have you discovered some new clue since I left you?"

"None whatever," calmly rejoined this remarkable man. "I know nothing more than you — we were together when the chauffeur rushed into my rooms in Baker Street, and related his master's strange disappearance."

"Why, dash it all," Lord John cried out, "it's clean marvelous!"

"Indeed," I hastily added, "you might do us the favor of explaining something of your process, Mr. Holmes."

"It is the simplest thing imaginable," he answered. "All the data were inferred from Austin's visit. You may recollect the man: of middle height, none too strong, though indubitably tough, and eminently impassive. From these characteristics, it is evident that the kidnaper is a small man — "

"My dear Holmes!" ejaculated the doctor.

"Of course, my dear fellow," continued his friend. "If he had been tall and strong, or only of medium height and strength, he would certainly have seen to it that Austin be removed, and put out of the possibility of telling tales. Austin was left free: ergo the kidnaper is physically his inferior. The color of his hair, and the abnormal length of his fingernails, were immediately deduced by a casual glance at the cap Austin wore — it was not his own, as I at once remarked; you may recollect he said, in reply to one of my questions, it was one of his master's; well, the cap was strewn with long, fair, reddish hairs, and bore marks of tearing, which could only have been accomplished by fingernails: I have studied the question in some detail; the technicalities may, of course, be found in my pamphlet on the subject — and I am perfectly sure of my conclusion."

"Rippin'!" exclaimed Lord John Roxton.

"But how could you deduce the moral and social part of your inference?" I asked, admiration for this deductive genius not yet quenching my thirst for his secrets.

"Equally simple, Mr. Malone," he answered, smiling. "First of all, it is quite clear no one would dream of. absconding with a man like Professor Challenger if he could possibly do otherwise; hence the great distress. Moreover, the fact of kidnaping a man of such acknowledged genius points to a certain intellectual and moral standard: the common criminal would kidnap a millionaire, and hold him for ransom —but not a scientist: and last of all, our man has certainly fallen rather low in the moral and social scale, else he would visibly not have reverted to such extreme measures . . . You see, it is all perfectly simple."