The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories (90 page)

AS I PUSHED
open the door, I was greeted by the strains of a ravishing melody. Warlock Bones was playing dreamily on the accordion, and his keen, clear-cut face was almost hidden from view by the dense smoke-wreaths, which curled upwards from an exceedingly filthy briar-wood pipe. As soon as he saw me, he drew a final choking sob from the instrument, and rose to his feet with a smile of welcome.

“Ah, good morning, Goswell,” he said cheerily. “But why do you press your trousers under the bed?”

It was true—quite true. This extraordinary observer, the terror of every cowering criminal, the greatest thinker that the world has ever known, had ruthlessly laid bare the secret of my life. Ah, it was true.

“But how did you know?” I asked in a stupor of amazement.

He smiled at my discomfiture.

“I have made a special study of trousers,” he answered, “and of beds. I am rarely deceived. But, setting that knowledge, for the moment, on one side, have you forgotten the few days I spent with you three months ago? I saw you do it then.”

He could never cease to astound me, this lynx-eyed sleuth of crime. I could never master the marvelous simplicity of his methods. I could only wonder and admire—a privilege, for which I can never be sufficiently grateful. I seated myself on the floor, and, embracing his left knee with both my arms in an ecstasy of passionate adoration, gazed up inquiringly into his intellectual countenance.

He rolled up his sleeve, and, exposing his thin nervous arm, injected half a pint of prussic acid with incredible rapidity. This operation finished, he glanced at the clock.

“In twenty-three or twenty-four minutes,” he observed, “a man will probably call to see me. He has a wife, two children, and three false teeth, one of which will very shortly have to be renewed. He is a successful stockbroker of about forty-seven, wears Jaegers, and is an enthusiastic patron of Missing Word Competitions.”

“How do you know all this?” I interrupted breathlessly, tapping his tibia with fond impatience.

Bones smiled his inscrutable smile.

“He will come,” he continued, “to ask my advice about some jewels which were stolen from his house at Richmond last Thursday week. Among them was a diamond necklace of quite exceptional value.”

“Explain,” I cried in rapturous admiration. “Please explain.”

“My dear Goswell,” he laughed, “you are really very dense. Will you never learn my methods? The man is a personal friend of mine. I met him yesterday in the City, and he asked to come and talk over his loss with me this morning.
Voilà tout
. Deduction, my good Goswell, mere deduction.”

“But the jewels? Are the police on the track?”

“Very much off it. Really our police are the veriest bunglers. They have already arrested twenty-seven perfectly harmless and unoffending persons, including a dowager duchess, who is still prostrate with the shock; and, unless I am
very much mistaken, they will arrest my friend's wife this afternoon. She was in Moscow at the time of the robbery, but that, of course, is of little consequence to these amiable dolts.”

“And have you any clue as to the whereabouts of the jewels?”

“A fairly good one,” he answered. “So good, in fact, that I can at this present moment lay my hands upon them. It is a very simple case, one of the simplest I have ever had to deal with, and yet in its way a strange one, presenting several difficulties to the average observer. The motive of the robbery is a little puzzling. The thief appears to have been actuated not by the ordinary greed of gain so much as by an intense love of self-advertisement.”

“I can hardly imagine,” I said with some surprise, “a burglar,
qua
burglar, wishing to advertise his exploits to the world.”

“True, Goswell. You show your usual common sense. But you have not the imagination, without which a detective can do nothing. Your position is that of those energetic, if somewhat beef-witted enthusiasts, the police. They are frankly puzzled by the whole affair. To me, personally, the case is as clear as daylight.”

“That I can understand,” I murmured with a reverent pat of his shin.

“The actual thief,” he continued, “for various reasons I am unwilling to produce. But upon the jewels, as I said just now, I can lay my hand at any moment. Look here!”

He disentangled himself from my embrace, and walked to a patent safe in a corner of the room. From this he extracted a large jewel case, and, opening it, disclosed a set of the most superb diamonds. In the midst a magnificent necklace winked and flashed in the wintry sunlight. The sight took my breath away, and for a time I groveled in speechless admiration before him.

“But—but how”—I stammered at last, and stopped, for he was regarding my confusion with evident amusement.

“
I
stole them,” said Warlock Bones.

ROBERT LLOYD FISH
(1912–1981) was a successful civil engineer working in Brazil when he faced a dull day with no immediate obligations. An aficionado of Sherlock Holmes, he decided to fill the empty hours by writing a parody of the great detective for his own amusement, never before having written anything of a creative nature.

He had one scene in mind when he began to write, of the frequently recorded moment when Holmes makes a series of deductions about a client that invariably stupefies Watson, as well as the client, for its inspired brilliance. In Fish's parody, Schlock Homes is entirely wrong and, when corrected on his absurd statements, retorts, “Ah, yes. Well, it was certain to have been one or the other.”

“The Adventure of the Ascot Tie” immediately sold to
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
, marking the beginning of a career that led to more than thirty novels, two Edgar Awards (for
The Fugitive
, the best first novel of 1961, and for “The Moonlight Gardener,” the best short story of 1970), a position as president of the Mystery Writers of America, and the legacy of the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award, sponsored by the author's estate, which has been awarded annually since 1984 by MWA for the best first short story by an American author.

In addition to Schlock Homes, Fish's best-known characters are José da Silva, a police detective in Rio de Janeiro, and Kek Huuygens, a brilliant smuggler.
Kek Huuygens, Smuggler
(1976) was the first book ever published by the Mysterious Press. Fish also wrote under the pseudonym Robert L. Pike, under which name he produced
Mute Witness
(1963), the novel that was the basis for the popular motion picture
Bullitt
(1968). It starred Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, and Jacqueline Bisset, and remains memorable for the thrilling car chase scene through the streets of San Francisco; the film won an Edgar Award.

“The Adventure of the Ascot Tie” was first published in the February 1960 issue of
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
; it was first collected in
The Incredible Schlock Homes
(New York, Simon & Schuster, 1966).

IN GOING OVER
my notes for the year '59, I find many cases in which the particular talents of my friend Mr. Schlock Homes either sharply reduced the labours of Scotland Yard or eliminated the necessity of their efforts altogether. There was, for example, the case of the Dissembling Musician who, before Homes brought him to justice, managed to take apart half of the instruments of the London Symphony Orchestra and cleverly hide them in various postal boxes throughout the city where they remained undiscovered until the dénouement of the case. Another example that comes readily to mind is the famous Mayfair Trunk Murder, which Homes laid at the door of Mr. Claude Mayfair, the zookeeper who had goaded one of his elephants into strangling a rival for Mrs. Mayfair's affection. And, of course, there was the well-publicized matter involving Miss Millicent Only, to whom Homes refers, even to this day, as the “Only Woman.” But of all the cases which I find noted for this particular year, none demonstrates the devious nature of my friend's analytical reasoning powers so much as the case I find I have listed under the heading of
The Adventure of the Ascot Tie
.

It was a rather warm morning in the month of June in '59 when I appeared for breakfast in the dining room of our quarters at 221
B
Bagel Street. Mr. Schlock Homes had finished his meal and was fingering a telegram which he handed me as I seated myself at the table.

“Our ennui is about to end, Watney,” said he, his excitement at the thought of a new case breaking through the normal calm of his voice.

“I am very happy to hear that, Homes,” I replied in all sincerity, for the truth was I had begun to dread the long stretches of inactivity that often led my friend to needle both himself and me. Taking the proffered telegram from his outstretched hand, I read it carefully. “The lady seems terribly upset,” I remarked, watching Homes all the while for his reaction.

“You noticed that also, Watney?” said Homes, smiling faintly.

“But, of course,” I replied. “Her message reads, ‘Dear Mr. Homes, I urgently request an audience with you this morning at 9 o'clock. I am terribly upset.' And it is signed Miss E. Wimpole.”

He took the telegram from me and studied it with great care. “Typed on a standard post-office form,” he said thoughtfully, “by a standard post-office typewriter. In all probability by a post-office employee. Extremely interesting. However, I fear there is little more to be learned until our client presents herself.”

At that moment a loud noise in the street below our open window claimed my attention, and as I glanced out I cried in great alarm, “Homes! It's a trap!”

“Rather a four-wheeler I should have judged,” replied Homes languidly. “These various vehicles are readily identified by the tonal pitch of the hub-squeal. A trap, for example, is normally pitched in the key of F; a four-wheeler usually in B-flat. A hansom, of course, is always in G. However, I fear we must rest this discussion, for here, if I am not mistaken, is our client.”

At that moment the page ushered into our rooms a young lady of normal beauty and of about twenty-five years of age. She was carefully dressed in the fashion of the day, and appeared quite distraught.

“Well, Miss Wimpole,” said Homes, after she had been comfortably seated and had politely refused a kipper, “I am anxious to hear your story. Other than the fact that you are an addict of sidesaddle riding; have recently written a love letter; and stopped on your way here to visit a coal mine, I am afraid that I know little of your problem.”

Miss Wimpole took this information with mouth agape. Even I, who am more or less familiar with his methods, was astonished.

“Really, Homes,” I exclaimed. “This is too much! Pray explain.”

“Quite simple, Watney,” he replied, smiling. “There is a shiny spot on the outside of Miss Wimpole's skirt a bit over the exterior central part of the thigh, which is in the shape of a cut of pie with curved sides. This is the exact shape of the new type African saddle horn which is now so popular among enthusiasts of equestrianism. The third finger of her right hand has a stain of strawberry-coloured ink which is certainly not the type one would use for business or formal correspondence. And lastly, there is a smudge beneath her left eye which could only be coal dust. Since this is the month of June, we can eliminate the handling of coal for such seasonal purposes as storage or heating, and must therefore deduce her visit to a place where coal would reasonably be in evidence the year around—namely, a coal mine.”

Miss Wimpole appeared quite confused by this exchange. “I was forced to leave the house in quite a hurry,” she explained apologetically, “and I am afraid that I was not properly careful in applying my mascara. As for the jam on my finger, it is indeed strawberry,” and she quickly licked it clean before we could remonstrate with her manners. She then contemplated her skirt ruefully. “These new maids,” she said sadly, with a shake of her head. “They are so absentminded! The one we now have continues to leave the flatiron connected when she goes to answer the door!”

“Ah, yes,” said Homes, after a moment of introspection. “Well; it was certain to have been one or the other. And now, young lady, if you should care to reveal to us the nature of your problem?” He noticed her glance in my direction and added reassuringly, “You may speak quite freely in Dr. Watney's presence. He is quite hard of hearing.”

“Well, then, Mr. Homes,” said she, leaning forward anxiously, “as you undoubtedly deduced from my telegram, my name is Elizabeth Wimpole, and I live with my uncle Jno. Wimpole in a small flat in Barrett Street. My uncle is an itinerant Egyptologist by trade, and for some time we have managed a fairly comfortable living through the itineraries he has supplied to people contemplating visits to Egypt. However, since the recent troubles there, his business has been very slow, and as a result he has become extremely moody, keeping to his own company during the day, and consorting with a very rough-looking group at the local in the evening.

“In order to understand the complete change in the man, it is necessary to understand the type of life we enjoyed when itinerant Egyptologists were in greater demand. Our home, while always modest, nonetheless was the meeting place for the intelligentsia. No less than three curators, an odd politician or two, and several writers on serious subjects counted themselves as friends of my uncle; and the head mummy-unwrapper at the British Museum often dropped by for tea and a friendly chat on common subjects.

“Today this has all changed. The type of person with whom my uncle is now consorting is extremely crude both in appearance and language, and while I hesitate to make accusations which may be solely based upon my imagination, I fear that several of these ruffians have even been considering making advances against my person, which I am certain my uncle would never have countenanced at an earlier day.

“While this situation has naturally worried
me a bit, I should have passed it off without too much thought, except that yesterday a rather odd thing occurred. In the course of casually arranging my uncle's room, I chanced upon a telegram in a sealed envelope sewn to the inner surface of one of his shirts in a locked drawer. The nature of the message was so puzzling that I felt I needed outside assistance, and therefore made bold to call upon you.” With this, she handed Homes a telegram form which she had drawn from her purse during her discourse.

Homes laid it upon the table and I stood over his shoulder as we both studied it. It read as follows: “
WIMPY
—
WE HEIST THE ORIENTAL ICE SATURDAY. AMECHE OTHERS. HARDWARE NEEDLESS
—
THE FIX IS IN. WE RIG THE SPLIT FOR TUESDAY. JOE
.”

A curious change had come over Homes's face as he read this cryptic message. Without a word he turned to a shelf at his side and selected a heavy book bound in calfskin. Opening it, he silently studied several headings in the index and then, closing it, spoke quietly to our visitor.

“I wish to thank you for having brought me what promises to be a most interesting problem,” he said, tilting his head forward politely. “I shall devote my entire time to the solution. However, I fear there is little I can tell you without further cogitation. If you will be so kind as to leave your address with Dr. Watney here, I am sure that we shall soon be in touch with you with good news.”

When the young woman had been shown out, Homes turned to me in great excitement. “An extremely ingenious code, Watney,” he chuckled, rubbing his hands together in glee. “As you know, I have written some sixteen monographs on cryptography, covering all phases of hidden and secret writings, from the Rosetta stone to my latest on the interpretation of instructions for assembling Yule toys. I believe I can honestly state, without false modesty, that there are few in the world who could hope to baffle me with a cipher or code. I shall be very much surprised, therefore, if I do not quickly arrive at the solution to this one. The difficulty, of course, lies in the fact that there are very few words employed, but as you know the only problems which interest me are the difficult ones. I fear this is going to be a five-pipe problem, so if you do not mind, Watney, handing down my smoking equipment before you leave, I shall get right to it!”

I reached behind me and furnished to him the set of five saffron pipes which had been the gift of a famous tobacconist to whom Homes had been of service: a case which I have already related in
The Adventure of the Five Orange Pipes
. By the time I left the room to get my medical bag he had already filled one and was sending clouds of smoke ceilingward, as he hunched over the telegram in fierce concentration.

I had a very busy day, and did not return to our rooms until late afternoon. Homes was pacing up and down the room in satisfaction. The five pipes were still smoking in various ashtrays about the room, but the frown of concentration had been replaced by the peaceful look Homes invariably employed when he saw daylight in a particularly complex problem.

“You have solved the code,” I remarked, setting my bag upon the sideboard.

“You are getting to be quite a detective yourself, Watney,” replied Schlock Homes with a smile. “Yes. It was devilishly clever, but in the end I solved it as I felt sure I would.”

“I was never in doubt, Homes,” I said warmly.

“Watney, you are good for me,” answered my friend, clasping my hand gratefully. “Well, the solution is here. You will note the message carefully. It says: ‘
WIMPY—WE HEIST THE ORIENTAL ICE SATURDAY. AMECHE OTHERS. HARDWARE NEEDLESS—THE FIX IS IN. WE RIG THE SPLIT FOR TUESDAY. JOE
.' Now, disregarding the punctuation that separates this gibberish, I applied the various mathematical formulae which are standard in codifying, as well as several which have not been known to be in use for many years, but all to no avail.

“For some hours I confess to having been completely baffled. I even tested the telegram
form for hidden writing, applying benzedrine hypochloric colloid solution to both surfaces, but other than an old shopping list which some post-office clerk had apparently written and then erased, there was nothing to be discovered.

“It was then that I recalled that Mr. Jno. Wimpole was acquainted with a mummy-unwrapper, and the possibility occurred to me that in the course of their many conversations, it was possible that the secret of ancient Egyptian secret writing had entered their discussions. Beginning again on this basis, I applied the system originally developed by Tutankhamen for the marking of palace laundry, and at once the thing began to make sense. Here, Watney; look at this!”

Bending over triumphantly he underlined the letter
W
in the word
Wimpy
, and then proceeded to underline the first letter of each alternate word, glancing at my startled face in satisfaction as he did so. The message now read:
WHOS ON FIRST
.

“Remarkable, Homes,” I said dubiously; “but if you will forgive me, I find I am as much in the dark as before.”

“Ah, Watney,” said my friend, now laughing aloud. “When I first read this message, I also found myself baffled. But that was some hours ago, and I have not spent this time idly. I am now in possession of the major outline of the plot, and while it does not involve any serious crime, still it has been quite ingenious and clever. But there is nothing more to be done tonight. Pray send a telegram to our client advising her that we shall stop by and pick her up in a cab tomorrow morning at ten, and that we shall then proceed to the locale where the entire mystery shall be resolved.”

“But, Homes!” I protested. “I do not understand this thing at all!”

“You shall, Watney; the first thing tomorrow,” said Homes, still smiling broadly. “But no more for tonight. The Wreckers are at Albert Hall, I believe, and we just have time to change and get there if we are to enjoy the performance.”

The following morning at ten o'clock sharp our hansom pulled up before a small building of flats in Barrett Street, and Miss Wimpole joined us. Both the young lady and myself looked askance at Homes, but he leaned forward imperturbably and said to the driver, “Ascot Park, if you please, cabby,” and then leaned back smiling.

“Ascot Park?” I asked in astonishment. “The solution to our problem lies at a racing meet?”

“It does indeed, Watney,” said Homes, obviously enjoying my mystification. Then he clapped me on the shoulder and said, “Pray forgive my very poor sense of humour, Watney; and you also, Miss Wimpole. I have practically solved the problem, and the solution does indeed lie at Ascot Park. Watney here knows how I love to mystify, but I shall satisfy your curiosity at once.”

He leaned forward in thought, selecting his words. “When I first decoded the message and found myself with another message almost as curious as the first, namely,
WHOS ON FIRST
, I considered it quite carefully for some time. It could have been, of course, some reference to a person or commercial establishment named ‘Whos' which was located on a First Avenue or Street. While I did not believe this to be true, it is in my nature to be thorough, and since New York is the only city to my knowledge with a First Avenue, I cabled my old friend Inspector LeStride, asking him to take steps. His reply in the negative eliminated this possibility, and I returned to my original thesis.