Game is afoot, p.37
Game Is Afoot, page 37
With rapid strides, they approach the sultry actress.
Foames (addressing her): Professor Goryarty, I place you under arrest! Sidonie:
I beg your pardon! My name is Sidonie Brassiere.
Foames: You lie in your teeth! But Hemlock Foames shall foil your dissembling!
With one bold gesture, he rips her gown and only garment from her body and
dashes it triumphantly to the floor.
Foames: Oops. Extremely sorry, old girl. But who, then, is Goryarty?
Squatson (with sudden knowledge): You are! !
Foames (blinking): I? You’re off your chump, Squatson.
Squatson: Not bloody likely! Oh, you look like Hemlock Foames you do, you walk
and talk like Hemlock Foames, but by St. George and Merrie England, you’re not
Hemlock Foames!
Foames: And why not, pray tell?
Squatson: That unpardonable error you just committed—would Hemlock Foames,
the greatest mind in all of London, have made such a mistake? Not on your tintype!
Crestfallen, “Foames” whisks off false nose, chin, eyebrows, and five o’clock shadow,
standing revealed as Professor Goryarty.
Goryarty (sighing): Ah, well, it was good while it lasted. You have me dead to rights,
Dr. Squatson. That dolt, Foames, is tied up in a closet in Soho. He’s unharmed.
Squatson: Come along, you fiend! And explain one thing, if you will. How did you
and Foames escape being parboiled in that steaming kettle of coffee?
Goryarty: Oh, that: it was really tea.
Squatson: Ah. And why all that nonsense about Sidonie Brassiere?
Ripping off her dress and all that?
Goryarty (regarding Squatson with a slow wink and a leer): It was worth it, wasn’t it, old bean?
Squatson: By Christopher, you’re right, you rascal!
On memorable evening in April, 1948, “The Adventure of the Conk-Singleton Papers” (named after one of Watson’s untold cases) was performed at the annual Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Allan Poe Awards Dinner. Clayton Rawson, author of the “Great Merline” mysteries and later editor of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, played Sherlock Holmes to Lawrence G. Blochman’s Watson. The role of the visitor was filled by John Dickson Carr (1905-1977), who himself twice won the “Edgar.” Author of a series of mind-boggling “impossible crime” novels featuring one of two detectives, Bencolin or Dr. Fell (including the ultimate “locked room” puzzle, The Three Coffins,), as “Carter Dickson” Carr penned a second (to my mind, even better) series starring Henry Merrivale, a comic sleuth loosely modeled on Mycroft Holmes.
The Adventure of the Conk-Singleton Papers
John Dickson Carr
Narrator: Crime marches on! … A long, thin silhouette emerges against the gaslight. Here is an unpublished record: “In turning over my notes of some twenty years I cannot find any startling event on New Year’s Eve except that which is forever associated with the Conk-Singleton Papers. On New Year’s Eve of 1887, it is perhaps unnecessary to state, Mr. Sherlock Holmes did not wear a paper hat and blow squeakers at the Hotel Metropole. Far into the night, while the wind howled round our sitting room in 22IB Baker Street, Holmes sat bending over a microscope” …
At Rise: (Sherlock Holmes at microscope, Watson immersed in a copy of H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines,)
Holmes: (After a moment looks up and stares glossily out at audience)
It is spinach, Watson. Unquestionably, it is spinach!
Watson: Holmes, you amaze me! What new wizardry is this?
Holmes: (Rising) It means a man’s life, Watson. The gardener was lying when
he said he found Riccoletti’s body in the gooseberry bushes. (He rubs his hands)
I think, perhaps, a note to our friend Lestrade …
Watson: (Jumps up) Holmes! Merciful Heaven. I had forgotten!
Holmes: Forgotten what?
Watson: A note for you was delivered by hand this morning. You must forgive me.
I was attending the funeral of my last patient.
Holmes: (Impatiently) The letter, Watson! The letter!
(Watson takes note from his pocket, hands it to Holmes, who examines postmark,
holds letter up to light, then opens with care and reads)
“There will call upon you tonight, at three o’clock in the morning precisely, a
gentleman who desires to consult you about a matter of the deepest moment.
Be in your chamber at that hour, and do not take it amiss if the visitor wears a mask.’’
Watson: This is indeed a mystery. What can it mean?
Holmes: These are deep waters, Watson. If Porlock had not warned me about the
Scarborough emeralds … (Thoughtfully) Three o’clock …
(Clock strikes three. Bong! Bong! Bong! Immediately followed by three
loud raps on door in same tempo)
Watson: And that, if I mistake not, is our client now.
(Enter visitor dressed in evening clothes but covered with medals
—decorations, stars, ribbons, etc.)
Visitor: Mr. Sherlock Holmes?
Holmes: I am Mr. Sherlock Holmes. This is my friend and colleague, Dr. Watson.
Visitor: You will forgive me, Mr. Holmes, if I do not reveal my identity.
I also wear plain evening dress so as not to be conspicuous.
Holmes: (Coldly) You would be better served, my Lord, if Your Lordship removed the mask.
Visitor: (Staggering back) You know me then?
Holmes: Who could fail to know Lord Cosmo Conk-Singleton, third son of the
Duke of Folkstone and private secretary to the Prime Minister?
Watson You mean—Mr. Gladstone!
Visitor: (Finger at side of nose) Sssh!
Holmes: (Same) Ssssh!
Watson: (Same to audience) Sssssh!
Visitor: The matter upon which I have come to consult you, Mr. Holmes, is no ordinary one.
Holmes: It seldom is. Pray be seated.
Visitor: (Sits) It will be not unknown to you, Mr. Holmes, that for some time
there has been—shall we say—disagreement between Mr. Gladstone and
Her Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria. I have here a diplomatic communication
in Her Majesty’s own hand, sent to Mr. Gladstone on December 15, 1886.
You are empowered to read it. (Hands important-looking document to Holmes)
Watson: These are deep waters, Holmes.
Holmes: Her Majesty, I perceive, was not amused.
Visitor: She was indeed (hesitates) somewhat vexed. (Then suddenly amazed)
But how could you possibly know—
Holmes: Her Majesty has twice underlined the word “bastard.” And she has placed
three exclamation points following her instructions as to what Mr. Gladstone
should do with the Naval Treaty involving a certain foreign power. Surely our inference
is obvious.
Watson: Excellent!
Holmes: But very superficial. (Reading again) “Even that German sausage, my late husband,
could have done better.” Hmm! Yes! But how do these diplomatic matters concern me?
Visitor: Mr. Holmes, the Prime Minister has been poisoned!
Watson: What?
Visitor: On December 24th Mr. Gladstone received—apparently as a Christmas present
from Queen Victoria—a case of Scotch whiskey.
Holmes: I see. And did the case indeed contain whiskey?
Visitor: Whiskey, yes. But each bottle was most unhappily charged with two
ounces of prussic acid!
Watson: Merciful heaven! The man is dead!
Visitor: No, Dr. Watson, no! Dei gratia, he still lives! The strength of the whiskey
neutralized the poison.
Holmes: (Blandly) Come, come, this is most disappoi—most interesting.
Have you any proof, my Lord, that the Prime Minister drank this particular whiskey?
Visitor: (Producing document) Here is a letter of thanks, in Mr. Gladstone’s own hand,
written on Christmas Eve. Pray read it aloud.
Holmes: Will you oblige, Watson?
Watson: (Very dignified, clears throat gravely, and reads)
December 24th, 1886. Illustrious Madam: How extremely kind of you to send me
this case of whiskey for Christmas! I have never tasted such superb whiskey in my life.
The whiskey you have sent me for Christmas is superb. I keep tasting it and how kind
of you to sen me thish wondrous whichkey which I keep tasting for Xmas.
It really is mosh kind of you to keep sending me this whiskey in cases which I kep
tashing for whichmas. Hie! Dock, dickory dock, and kissmus.
Visitor: Can there be any doubt, Mr. Holmes?
Holmes: None whatever. Then it is your belief, my Lord, that Queen Victoria herself is
the poisoner?
Visitor: No, Mr. Holmes! (Horrified) A thousand times, no!
But think of the scandal! It bids fair to rend asunder the fabric of the Empire!
You must come down to Sussex and investigate. Will you come?
Holmes: No, my Lord. I will not.
Watson: (Amazed) Holmes, this is unworthy of you! Why won’t you go?
Holmes: Because this man is not Lord Cosmo Conk-Singleton!
(Sensation. Holmes produces revolver)
Let me present you, Watson, to none other than Professor Moriarty.
Watson: Professor Moriarty!
Holmes: Your double disguise as a younger man, my dear Professor, deceived me
for perhaps ten seconds. The note from Mr. Gladstone seems quite genuine.
But the letter from Her Majesty is a manifest forgery.
Watson: Forgery, Holmes?
Holmes: Her language, Watson! Her language!
Watson: You mean—
Holmes: Queen Victoria, Watson, would never have written in so slighting a fashion
of her late husband, Prince Albert. They intended the letter to lure me to Sussex
while the Scarborough emeralds were stolen from Yorkshire, not knowing—
(Holmes produces emeralds from his pocket)
— that Lord Scarborough had already given them to me for safekeeping!
Visitor: (In a grating voice) One day, Mr. Holmes, you will try my patience too far!
(Curtain)
The following never-before-published lunacy comes from the fertile word processor of one of America’s most vital humorists (he’s definitely alive), Daniel Pinkwater, who, because he trained dogs professionally, claims it is proper to address him as “Captain” (so what does it hurt?). Author of such inimitable farcical books as Blue Moose, Fat Men from Space, The Frankenbagel Monster, The Hoboken Chicken Emergency, Lizard Music, The Worms of Kukumlima and the sort-of Holmesian “Snarkout” books (see Appendix II), Capt. Pinkwater is also a familiar national “talk radio” personality. “Journal of a Ghurka Physician” is both a witty wrong-end-of-the-telescope view of that famous Norwegian explorer, Sigerson, and a sly parody of the opening of the first Sherlock Holmes book, A Study in Scarlet.
Journal of a Ghurka Physician
Captain Daniel M. Pinkwater
I travelled for two years, therefore, and amused myself by visiting
Lhasa and spending some days with the head Lama. You may have
read of the remarkable explorations of a Norwegian named Sigerson,
but I am sure that it never occurred to you that you were receiving news
of your friend …
—Sherlock Holmes
(“The Adventure of the Empty House”)
Preface by the Editor
The narrative which follows is reprinted from the Journal of a Ghurka Physician, by Pangdatsang Gompa, B. Sc., privately printed at Kalimpong, West Bengal in 1926. Gompa, a Nepalese, treated a wide range of subjects, ranging from Tibetan medicine to bee culture in the Himalayas, but the outstanding feature of his work is the sharp characterization of the people he met during the turbulent period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries along the Indo-Tibetan frontier.
Unfortunately, almost none of the persons characterized in Gompa’s diaries are of the slightest historical interest, with the exception of Holmbjorn Sigerson, a Norwegian explorer whose activities were recounted in the European press for a time before he dropped back into the obscurity common to all of Gompa’s other subjects. Yet there are some features of the man Sigerson which bear scrutiny; research has not resulted in any trace of this explorer before 1891, and in 1894, no trace was left of him. This period is roughly the same as that during which a prominent Englishman was presumed dead.
Whether Sherlock Holmes was a character of fiction or history is the subject of a debate which continues to this day. The editor of these passages takes no part in this dispute, but simply presents the details of an encounter between two remarkable men in a remote part of the world.
Fishkill, New York, 1984
One
Being a reprint from the reminiscences of
Pangdatsang Gompa, B. Sc., late medical officer of
the Royal Ghurka Regiment.
In the year 1890 I took my degree of Bachelor of Science from the Royal Medical College at Delhi. This was not the commencement of my professional status, as I had already qualified in Tibetan medicine, having studied at the Chagpori school of medicine in Lhasa. A native of Nepal, my studies in Tibet were made possible through the good offices of Surkhang Rampa, a high Tibetan official who had dealings with my father.
After completing my studies at Chagpori, I returned to Kathmandu with the intention of opening a dispensary, and was approached by another associate of my father, Singh Nain, a travelling merchant and British correspondent, who offered to arrange for me to study Western medicine in exchange for accepting a commission and serving for only twenty years in the army. Eager to progress in my profession, I accepted the offer, and after three years of study, received my diploma and was commissioned straightaway into a Ghurka regiment.
My army life was characterized by misery and ill-luck. The British officers were the lowest type of men. They addressed me as “Doctor Dinge,” and were forever jibing at me and mistreating the brave soldiers. Through the slack and unsoldierly conduct of our officers, our first encounter with hostile forces, a small band of poorly armed brigands, turned into a bloody rout. I myself was wounded in the hip and shoulder, and should not have escaped becoming a captive but for my Sherpa orderly, Lopseng, who threw me over a pack mule and led me to safety.
So it was that I was mustered out of the army, an invalid, with nothing to live upon but the pitiful pension doled out to native soldiers. My father had suffered a reversal of fortune, and an ensuing illness from which he did not recover. I was without family, too unwell to earn my living, and forced to subsist on a beggarly allotment.
I made my way to Darjeeling, where I hoped my knowledge of the languages of bordering Nepal and Tibet would be of some use to me. Darjeeling was, at that time, a teeming crossroads. Traders from India and China, English tea planters and government officials, religious pilgrims, and spies hoping to penetrate the closed border of Tibet made the little city a cosmopolis.
My days of study in Delhi had made me unaccustomed to the native quarter, and my most pressing problem in Darjeeling was that I was residing in rooms I could ill afford. For some days I wandered from place to place, viewing an endless succession of strangers, and wondering why I had ever come to this unfriendly place. I was entertaining such thoughts as I sipped my tea on the veranda of the Queen’s Hotel, when I cried out with delight at the sight of a familiar face in the thronging crowd below me. It was Dzasa, a Tibetan monk of low intelligence, whose duty it had been to provide cadavers for dissection to the students at the Chagpori. Dzasa recognized me at the same moment, and a glow illuminated his idiot free.
