Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, Volume 15 Read online

  Contents

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  STAFF

  CARTOON, by Marc Bilgrey

  FROM WATSON’S SCRAPBOOK, by Dr John H. Watson

  DEAR DOCTOR WATSON, by Dr John H. Watson

  TUNING IN SHERLOCK, by John Longenbaugh

  CARTOON, by John Betancourt and Andrew Genn

  DR. WATSON: ACTION HERO? by Leigh Perry

  A STUDY IN CONSISTENCY, by Dan Andriacco

  SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE AUTUMN OF TERROR, by J.G. Grimmer

  CARTOON, by John Betancourt and Andrew Genn

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE OLD RUSSIAN WOMAN, by Jack Grochot

  LONDON 1890, by Mackenzie Clarkes

  JUGGLING WITH SHERLOCK’S FRIEND, by Mark Levy, BSI

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE WHITE PYTHON, by Adam McFarlane

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR HOLMES! by Gary Lovisi

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE ECCENTRIC INVENTOR, by Eugene D. Goodwin

  THE REVENGE OF THE FENIAN BROTHERHOOD, by Carole Buggé

  HOW WATSON LEARNED THE TRICK, by John H. Watson, M D

  THE THIRD SEQUENCE, by Sherlock Holmes (edited by Bruce Kilstein)

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #15 (Vol. 5, No. 5) is copyright © 2014 by Wildside Press LLC. All rights reserved. Visit us at wildsidemagazines.com.

  * * * *

  The Sherlock Holmes characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are used by permission of Conan Doyle Estate Ltd., www.conandoyleestate.co.uk.

  STAFF

  Publisher: John Betancourt

  Editor: Marvin Kaye

  Non-fiction Editor: Carla Coupe

  Assistant Editor: Steve Coupe

  Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine is published by Wildside Press, LLC. Single copies: $10.00 + $3.00 postage. U.S. subscriptions: $59.95 (postage paid) for the next 6 issues in the U.S.A., from: Wildside Press LLC, Subscription Dept. 9710 Traville Gateway Dr., #234; Rockville MD 20850. (International subscriptions: see our web site at

  www.wildsidemagazines.com.)

  Also available as an ebook through all major ebook etailers, or our web site, www.wildsidemagazines.com.

  CARTOON, by Marc Bilgrey

  FROM WATSON’S SCRAPBOOK, by Dr John H. Watson

  I do suspect that most of my readers are well aware that my dear friend Holmes is loath to display anything remotely like what other spirits might call “emotion”—but not only is this an exterior perspective, but those who know him as well as I do—oh, do let me amend that!—I am aware that he only does this to distance himself from anything that might, perhaps, interfere with that cold clear reason that he applies to his cases.

  And yet, I am pleased to report, this singularly “emotionless” gentleman displays considerable feeling whenever Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine reaches any of its 5 issues, for when it does, my colleague and co­editor Mr Kaye, devotes all of its contents to The Great Detective! This pleases my friend immensely, for though he may prefer for us to think that he is a calculating device that must never be contaminated with affairs of the heart, rather than the mind, he freely admits that he possesses quite an healthy ego—a fact seconded by his brother Mycroft, who does not exercise such a faculty because, in his own words, “It takes far too much effort, and, of course, my younger sibling has ever so much more energy than do I!”

  So here we are at our fifteenth issue, and, as Holmes’s old criminal acquaintance Raffles might say, “The man really kvells at any publicity, be it positive or negative.” (“Kvell,” I might add, is an expression employed by those of the Hebraic persuasion to denote great joy.)

  Thus, this issue features pieces concerning Holmes’s and my radio appearances (I thoroughly enjoyed narrating many of the latter), as well as what I found to be a fascinating article discussing the typical elements of a published case, and how they were present from the beginning.

  As for the fiction in this issue, let me remark that many times in this periodical, superb renditions of my nearly ­unreadable notes about cases I had not got around to writing have been both deciphered and written by nine excellent authors, only of whom (Ms Carla Coupe) is missing from this line­up. The others are (alphabetically) Ms Carole Buggé, Eugene D Goodwin, J D Grimmer, Jack Grochot, Dr Bruce Kilstein, Mark Levy, Gary Lovisi, and Adam McFarlane.

  Also included is one of my least­ familiar efforts, a brief piece I wrote for the Queen’s Doll’s House (details appear at the top of the story). It has been attributed to my agent Conan Doyle, but I wish to correct the record and claim it as my own, though it is hardly my most sterling of moments.

  Now let me render the rest of this epistle to Mr Kaye.

  —John H Watson, M D

  * * * *

  Well, really, the good doctor has said it all for this issue. All that I am able to add here as this post scriptum is what our readers may expect in our upcoming sixteenth issue. In addition to two Holmesian adventures, one by Watson himself and one written from his notes by Jack Grochot, there will be a generous supply of new articles and stories, including works by “recidivists” Marc Bilgrey, Dianne Neral Ell, Steve Liskow, R. J. Lewis, and Laird Long.

  —Canonically Yours,

  Marvin Kaye

  DEAR DOCTOR WATSON, by Dr John H. Watson

  As the reading public is no doubt aware, I devote much of my time to chronicling the cases of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the world’s first consulting detective. Because of the sheer number of cases which Holmes has been involved in, recounting his adventures has become a full time endeavor for me. What my dear readers may not be aware of, is that in addition to being Holmes’ biographer and often assisting him on his cases, it is also my task to respond to the many letters from the public that arrive at our Baker Street rooms daily.

  Much of the mail received contains questions about Holmes and his cases and I make my best efforts to answer as many of these as time allows. What follows are some recent missives that have found their way to my desk. I publish these with the hope that they will give some insight into Sherlock Holmes both the man and the detective.

  * * * *

  Dear Dr Watson,

  What is Sherlock Holmes like between cases?

  —Delving in Dover

  * * * *

  Dear Delving,

  The answer to your question is in a word, impossible. I have written about Holmes’ violin playing, what I have not mentioned till now is, that he often plays “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” so often that one is inclined to never again want to set foot into another seagoing vessel, or simply throttle him where he stands, or perhaps both. I have at various times touched upon Holmes’ pipe smoking. However, I am fairly certain I have not previously stated that there are certain days where the air at 221B is so thick with smoke that one cannot see one’s own hand in front of one’s face. As a result, while attempting to walk from one room to the next, I have frequently had collisions with all manner of furniture, causing innumerable bumps, bruises, skinned knees, sprained toes, sore shins and on at least one occasion, I narrowly averted severe trauma to my medulla oblongata.

  I know that I have written that Holmes has a hobby of shooting Her Royal Majesty’s initials into our walls with his revolver. This in itself might be tolerable occasionally, but what I have failed to report is that he has also fired the initials of most of the rest of the Royal Family into the walls as well. As most people are aware, the Royals are a very large family filled with Dukes, Earls, Counts, Barons and numerous other lesser relations. If Holmes cannot think of a family member, he has also been known to shoot a royal servant’s initials instead. Our w
alls now contain more lead than a mining operation in County Durham.

  And then there are the scientific experiments, wherein Holmes turns our rooms into a defacto laboratory. These experiments sometimes result in explosions, and frankly, I for one, am tired of having to scrape foul-smelling toxic chemicals off my night clothes or for that matter, the ceiling. A man’s home should be his castle, not a repository for the odiferous burnt and melted remains of the periodic table of elements.

  And speaking of elements, I have not even touched upon Sherlock Holmes’ cocaine habit. The less written about this the better. Suffice it to say that if I never again inadvertently sit down on a hypodermic needle that he’s absentmindedly placed on a chair or a sofa, I believe I shall die a very happy man.

  * * * *

  Dear Dr Watson,

  In your accounts of Sherlock Holmes you have upon occasion alluded to a number of untold cases. Are there others that you have not recounted?

  —Literary Lady in Lancaster

  * * * *

  Dear Literary Lady,

  There are many cases that I have not released to the public because they are of a sensational nature, or contain delicate matters that may pose a danger to Crown or Country. As to the others, here is a partial listing:

  • Dame Prunella Bindenford’s exploding tea crumpets of doom, a case much too silly to convey without giggling hysterically like a ticklish schoolgirl.

  • The case of the Polite Frenchman, which the world is not yet ready to believe.

  • The Horrible Haunted Haggis of Hereford Hedge, a case too filled with alliteration to easily remember, let alone repeat.

  • The Odd Disappearance of the Meek File Clerk from The Department Of Weights And Measures; a case so uninteresting that the mere retelling of it has been known to induce a deep coma in all who have heard it.

  * * * *

  Dear Dr Watson,

  Was there ever a meeting between Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty that you did not document?

  —Chester Mann in Manchester

  Dear Chester,

  Yes. Holmes and Moriarty once met by chance in a local pub called The Hair of the Goat. At first they exchanged heated barbs, but eventually settled down to a pint of Guinness, a friendly game of darts, and some nice mince pie. By mutual consent, they both agreed to never speak of the incident again. As I recall, through a series of intricate and elaborate ruses, Moriarty was able to stick Holmes with the bill. This may account for why Holmes has denied that this curious evening ever occurred.

  * * * *

  Dear Dr Watson,

  What case did Sherlock Holmes take the least amount of time to solve?

  —Surly in Surrey

  * * * *

  Dear Surly,

  The case that Holmes solved in the least amount of time was the The Mysterious Mystery of Our Missing House Keys. He found them behind an end table in under thirty seconds.

  * * * *

  Dear Dr Watson,

  Has Sherlock Holmes ever been romantically interested in any women?

  —Nosy in Nottingham

  * * * *

  Dear Nosy,

  Yes. Holmes once had a brief fling with a hatcheck girl named Hilda at a German ratskeller near Piccadilly Square. Within a short time she left him for an overweight Zeppelin commander called Otto. Otto had a very long waxed mustache that was so sharp it punctured his aircraft and sent it crashing into a peat bog in Hampshire where the crew of fifty immediately resorted to cannibalism to stay alive; this despite the fact that the nearest town was in plain sight and well within walking distance. The whole chain of events was so disturbing to Holmes that for years afterward he would become visibly shaken at the mere mention of liverwurst or sauerbraten.

  * * * *

  Dear Dr Watson,

  You have often quoted words and expressions that Sherlock Holmes uses such as “Elementary” and “The game is afoot.” Are there any others that you have omitted from your writings?

  —Wanting to know in Warrington

  * * * *

  Dear Wanting,

  Yes. I have neglected to record for posterity Holmes’ repeated use of the phrases, “Pip pip,” “Talley ho,” “Ta-ta, old bean,” and of late, “Hubba Hubba.”

  * * * *

  Dear Dr Watson,

  Why did Sherlock Homes fight Professor Moriarty on the Reichenbach Falls?

  —Ignorant in Inverness

  Dear Ignorant,

  Because Niagara Falls was too far away.

  TUNING IN SHERLOCK, by John Longenbaugh

  An Overview of Sherlock Holmes’s Long History on Radio

  Sherlock Holmes, the world’s most celebrated Consulting Detective, is older than radio itself by a few years—he first appeared in print in 1887, six years before Nikolai Tesla made the first tentative experiments in wireless communication.But Holmes was also at the very beginnings of radio drama, and he’s still being heard on the air and on the internet, via both amateur and professional companies, who continue to produce their own original stories featuring the world’s most celebrated sleuth.

  (So for the record, that means Holmes has the longest run of any fictional character in radio—Take that, Lone Ranger!)

  What is it about Holmes that fits the medium of radio so well?

  Part of the appeal for radio is that when it comes to Holmes, the listener’s imagination is already primed to meet the story more than halfway. The hawk-like visage and deerstalker cap, the gaslight eerily haloed above the fog-enshrouded streets, the cozy if eccentric accoutrements of 221B Baker Street—each person has a perfect picture of this late-Victorian world, and it takes little more than the recorded sound of a jingling hansom cab or a snatch of violin music to evoke it.

  But the stories of Sherlock Holmes also fit themselves to radio because The Great Detective was always at his most effective in the form of the short story. With the brilliant exception of The Hound of the Baskervilles, Conan Doyle’s hero was always happiest solving a crime in 30 pages or so, or the equivalent of a half-hour of radio listening. That’s not to say that the novels haven’t been successfully adapted to radio—there have been several versions over the years, including fairly recent adaptations of The Sign of Four and The Valley of Fear. But despite their quality and fidelity to Doyle’s books, it is hard to imagine it taking longer than a half hour’s narrative for Holmes to solve any particular crime before returning to his violin, his newspapers, and the noxious shag tobacco stored in the toe of his Persian slipper.

  The first radio play featuring Sherlock Holmes aired on NBC in 1930, an adaptation of The Speckled Band starring the most famous stage actor to ever play Holmes, William Gillette, who came out of retirement to play the role aged 77. (He returned to play Sherlock for a Lux Radio Theatre abridged production of his famous stage version five years later.) Neither the 1930 nor 1935 recordings of Gillette still exist, but a bit of dialogue from the actor recorded to test out some sound equipment from 1936 still survives, a short exchange with Watson discussing Professor Moriarty and one with an actress playing Alice Faulkner, his love interest created by Gillette for his acclaimed stage adaptation. (Gillette, who wrote the dramatization with the blessing of Conan Doyle himself, asked if he could marry Holmes off at the end of the play. “You may marry him, murder him, do anything you like,” said his creator.) Although the surviving recording is only a few minutes long, Gillette is exuberant in the role, and it’s thrilling to hear the performance of one of the most critically acclaimed Holmes ever.

  Immediately following this inaugural radio performance, actor Richard Gordon took over and played Holmes until 1933, when tired of the role, he left and Louis Hector took over the role of Holmes. (Hector occasionally played the role of arch-villain Professor Moriarty through the 1930s.) Leigh Lovell played Watson to Gordon’s Holmes from 1930 till his death in 1935, and Gordon returned to play Sherlock for several months in 1936 with a new Watson, Henry West.

  As to the few number of shows
that still exist featuring Gordon and Hector, these shows aren’t the best, and not just because of the poor quality of the recordings. While Lovell’s Watson is an engaging performance, he’s also a bit of an old duffer. And Gordon’s interpretation is of a caustic and cold Holmes who’s also teetering on being elderly. Hector’s Holmes is in the vein of his predecessor, if not more so; at times he makes the Great Detective sound downright crotchety.

  One important feature of these early shows, however, is that several of the episodes were original stories, not adaptations of Conan Doyle originals. The writer of these new adventures for Holmes was a woman, Edith Meiser, a strikingly attractive actress/playwright who was also an avid Sherlockian. Meiser started searching for a sponsor for her proposed Sherlock Holmes series in 1927, and it took her three years to find a sponsor, G. Washington Coffee. (As a result, Watson is drinking a cup of the very un-English beverage at the start of each episode.) Meiser began writing new tales when she ran low on adaptable material in the first season, originally adapting from other Conan Doyle stories like The Jew’s Breastplate which didn’t originally feature the Great Detective. Though she wrote these adaptations without any initial permission from the Conan Doyle estate, her work was praised by Conan Doyle’s children as first-rate. Meiser continued to work as the prime author on several different Sherlock Holmes series throughout the ’30s and mid-’40s, including one featuring the premiere duo of the era, Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson.

  After their premiere in 1939’s film version of The Hound of the Baskervilles, Rathbone and Bruce were convinced to not only produce a series of follow-up films, but to take their performances to radio too. For many older people Rathbone remains the definitive Holmes, and radio highlights his gifts of quick intelligence and classically-clipped diction. Bruce’s Watson, on the other hand, is the same blustering nincompoop of the films, if not more so—his repeated failure to grasp the obvious is at best a triumph of comedy over subtlety. (Still, the radio productions often trump the films the actors made, in large part because the movies soon moved their detective to modern times for budgetary reasons.)