The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume II - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [446]
The inspector laughed.
“We must forgive you your ‘even,’ Mr. Holmes,” said he, “it’s as workmanlike a job as I can remember.”
A couple of days later my friend tossed across to me a copy of the biweekly North Surrey Observer. Under a series of flaming headlines, which began with “The Haven Horror” and ended with “Brilliant Police Investigation,” there was a packed column of print which gave the first consecutive account of the affair. The concluding paragraph is typical of the whole. It ran thus:
The remarkable acumen by which Inspector MacKinnon deduced from the smell of paint that some other smell, that of gas, for example, might be concealed; the bold deduction that the strong-room might also be the death-chamber, and the subsequent inquiry which led to the discovery of the bodies in a disused well, cleverly concealed by a dog-kennel, should live in the history of crime as a standing example of the intelligence of our professional detectives.
“Well, well, MacKinnon is a good fellow,” said Holmes with a tolerant smile. “You can file it in our archives, Watson. Some day the true story may be told.”
TWO PARODIES BY SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
AN INTRODUCTION TO DOYLE’S PARODIES
From nearly the very beginning of his existence, Sherlock Holmes has been the subject of parodies and spoofs. Arthur Conan Doyle himself took comic aim at his best-known creation in two of the better mock adventures. He contributed the first, “The Field Bazaar: A Short Travesty,” in 1896 to The Student, a publication at his alma mater, the University of Edinburgh, as a good-humored gift from a famed alumnus. The story was written between the time Holmes apparently had met his end in “The Final Problem” in 1893 and his “resurrection” in “The Empty House” in 1903. Can you detect any clue to the author’s feelings about reviving Holmes in this delightful little mind-reading caper?
The second, “How Watson Learned the Trick,” was published in 1924, near the end of the Holmes cycle. It seems to counter an implied belief that the methods Holmes used to solve his crimes were not so hard to fathom, once you saw the predictable pattern at work in most of the stories: “Oh, yeah? Let’s see if you can do it!”
TWO PARODIES BY SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
THE FIELD BAZAAR
“I should certainly do it,” said Sherlock Holmes.
I started at the interruption, for my companion had been eating his breakfast with his attention entirely centred upon the paper which was propped up by the coffee pot. Now I looked across at him to find his eyes fastened upon me with the half-amused, half-questioning expression which he usually assumed when he felt that he had made an intellectual point.
“Do what?” I asked.
He smiled as he took his slipper from the mantelpiece and drew from it enough shag tobacco to fill the old clay pipe with which he invariably rounded off his breakfast.
“A most characteristic question of yours, Watson,” said he. “You will not, I am sure, be offended if I say that any reputation for sharpness which I may possess has been entirely gained by the admirable foil which you have made for me. Have I not heard of debutantes who have insisted upon plainness in their chaperones? There is a certain analogy.”
Our long companionship in the Baker Street rooms had left us on those easy terms of intimacy when much may be said without offence. And yet I acknowledge that I was nettled at his remark.
“I may be very obtuse,” said I, “but I confess that I am unable to see how you have managed to know that I was... I was...”
“Asked to help in the Edinburgh University Bazaar.”
“Precisely. The letter has only just come to hand, and I have not spoken to you since.”
“In spite of that,” said Holmes, leaning back in his chair and putting his finger tips together, “I would even venture to suggest that the object of the bazaar is to enlarge the University cricket field.”
I looked at him in such bewilderment that he vibrated with silent laughter.
“The fact is, my dear Watson, that you are an excellent subject,” said he.