MISTER MYSTERY RESPONDS

Xavier Perez-Pons is the author of an academic essay entitled “Love Letters from a Widower: the Mystery of Soul Mates in Light of Ancient Wisdom". But he has made a living writing witticisms for television. Somehow he has managed to alternate both hobbies, Philosophy and Humor, without getting himself into a hopeless muddle. There is nothing mysterious in his fondness of humor ( absurd humor, to be precise). Simply, since he was a child he has that skill (like someone who is good at playing basketball, let's say). And, while studying Law at the University, he won a tender called by a television channel to write a situation comedy. That was the beginning of his career as a TV screenwriter specialized in witticism and silly humor. As for his fondness of Philosophy (and specifically, of the Soulmates’ theory), it does have a mysterious starting point. He narrates it this way: “I was thirteen years old. My sister two years younger than I used to bring home some of her

Scotland Yard suspected that a London druggist dispensed tonics and other remedies adulterated with deadly doses of arsenic to any patron whose hair was slicked with pomade. Eighteen individuals with this profile had died after ingesting a medicine prepared by this druggist named Peter Poisoner. Scotland Yard needed someone to infiltrate as an attendant in Poisoner's shop, and Inspector Lestrade had mentioned my friend’s name as a detective knowledgeable about the ingredients of druggist’s trade and as someone stupid enough to accept such a dangerous mission. Effectively, Holmes was quick to accept since that position would give him free access to laudanum, to which my friend was addicted. I was not present during Lestrade's visit to 221B Baker Street, and I was not informed of anything either (of which I complained bitterly once the whole thing was over). Only two days later, during dinner, Holmes begged me to write a prescription for a laxative. “Are you constipated?” I as

There has been much talk about the alleged scam starring Sherlock Holmes when he charged tickets for the exhibition of a stone. Here I will demonstrate not only the falsehood of such accusation but its meanness and its contaminating potential in the environment! (No, this last is false and I will also prove it!) In fact, Holmes was especially disgusted with the crime of scam, especially if he was the scammed. I would dare to say that the crime of scam horrified him even more than that of murder. Although it is very possible that he confused both crimes because, once, he went into the apartment in a rage proclaiming that he had been the victim of a homicide. But what had actually happened is that he had been sold a telescope that turned out to be a simple metal tube with a drawing of a starry sky stuck at one end. Be that as it may, in that case the scammer played with advantage, as the stars exerted a great fascination on Holmes. It was especially when the sky was clear when he wa

One evening Holmes was reading The Times while I was distracted looking out the window when I saw a gentleman in a top hat who was about to knock on our door. «Holmes. Why don't you test your deductive skills?» «About what?» «We have a new client. A gentleman in a top hat» «The killer is the butler.» I laughed at my friend's witty remark. But suddenly a liveried butler appeared from behind a carriage brandishing a knife.  My laughter froze in my face while I watched the butler stabbing our ill-fated client and running away. I stayed petrified. I would say: in a catatonic state, for a few minutes. «Well, Watson? Where is our supposed client?» «He has just been killed by a butler.» «You're very funny, Watson. But your facetiousness won't be able to divert my attention from your lack of insight. What made you suspect that that man was going to knock on our door?» «He-he had grabbed the knocker.» «So how is it that we have not heard his knock?» Just then I came

On one of our night walks through London, Holmes and I witnessed a scene that sent a red flag up Holmes. Two stocky men of bad appearances were moving a wardrobe from an old Soho house to a wagon parked in front of the main door. “Look at that Watson. Each of these men must weigh at least 300 pounds. And yet they have difficulty moving an old wardrobe. I wonder what its content is. And why move it so late at night?” Once the wardrobe was loaded with difficulty in the wagon, the two men climbed into the coachman's seat. “Hurry up, Watson! We've got to follow them!” The wagon started and Holmes jumped on my back. It was not the first time that Holmes used me as a means of transport when there was no cab in sight. After twenty minutes running, I watched with relief that the wagon stopped. Holmes dismounted and I collapsed exhausted. When I had recovered enough strength to get up, I looked for my friend but I didn't see anyone in the vicinity. Then I heard the Alpine yode

On a certain occasion, I was sound asleep in the dead of night, dreaming that a beautiful woman named Veronika was tickling the soles of my feet, when suddenly I couldn't resist the tickling anymore and I bunny hopped. At the foot of my bed, someone was tickling my feet. But it wasn't Veronika: it was Sherlock Holmes. I naturally got angry. If there is something that rile me up, it is to find a man hovering around my bed while I sleep (let alone inside my bed). “Holmes! May I ask what you are doing in my bedroom?!” "We've got work, Watson.” "And that work can't wait until dawn?" "I'm afraid not. The future of the British Empire is at stake. ” "The future of the British Empire? What has happened? The Queen has been kidnapped? The Crown Jewels have been stolen? ” "It's a more delicate matter than that." "More delicate than the kidnapping of the Queen or the theft of the Crown Jewels?" I exclaimed confused and al

Although the newspapers talked about the amazing spiritualistic manifestation at P. P. Pittingball's mansion, they said nothing about the theft of the diamond. That made Squattedman suspicious. He rushed to examine the jewel more closely, discovering that if it was thrown against the floor or the wall it bounced across the room like a rubber ball. He was unaware of the characteristics of diamonds, but he knew that bouncing was not one of them. Then he realized that he had screwed up. Already at the time of the robbery, the fact that the safe was a shoebox had struck him as odd. What to do? The substantial donation to the Children's Aids Society was at stake, so he could not afford to fail in this case. After all, he told himself, it was not right to yield to blackmail, nor to steal even if the victim was himself a thief. He had to recover the Four Hundred’s List in any other way than by yielding to the ambition of the blackmailers. If one of them was a pervert who was in love

Percy Philip Pittingball is a wealthy businessman who made his fortune thanks to the “three cup trick”, and is now dedicated to the most lucrative “green goods scam”, in which people are duped into paying for worthless counterfeit money and they cannot report the crime because purchasing counterfeit money is punished by law. He is what is called a self-made man. He belongs to the select group of “The Four Hundred” and to the despicable gang of “The Old Tom Gin”. He is married to three women but they do not know each other even though they live in the same house. So huge the Fifth Avenue Pittingball Mansion is! François de La Rochefoucauld (aka Squattedman) has managed to be invited to attend a séance at Pittingball Mansion. The protagonist is one of the most famous mediums of the time, Etta Wriedt, who communicates with the dead through brass instruments that sound in the darkness of the séance room. Participants are blindfolded before entering the séance room. Each one is accompanie

By the year 1911, Squattedman has already become very popular among New Yorkers. However, he maintains anonymity. Therefore this situation is abused by too many unscrupulous guys who show themselves walking across New York avenues in a crouch and in his birthday suit, so that people would look at them with admiration in the belief that it is Squattedman in person who they are seeing. Until an emergency arises or an alarm voice is heard like “Help! Stop the thief!” and the false Squattedman stands erect and runs away in the opposite direction or even sides with the thief. When the authentic Squattedman goes for a walk, he is dressed like a dandy. Almost always his transformation occurs within the privacy of his apartment: off come garments, his figure squats and, after a characteristic thud behind him, he shoots off out the window. (That very window that had to be expanded several times because too often he didn't succeed in going through it and he ended up stamped against the wall

As happens to people with extreme sensitivity, Sherlock Holmes suffered periodic accesses of melancholy. This morbid state could last several weeks. My friend then locked himself in his room completely in the dark and refused to receive anyone other than Queen Victoria or someone who looked like Her. I had to talk to him through the closed door of his room and Mrs. Hudson was forced to pass his meal under the door, which meant reducing his food to very thin slices of ham and cheese. As for the intake of liquids, the only thing we could do was spill buckets of water in the hope that it formed puddles on the other side of the door so Holmes could slurp them through a straw. However, this diet seemed to me insufficient, so one day I showed myself up at home with a fruit capable of providing both solid and liquid food. "How do you plan to pass a coconut under the door?" objected Mrs. Hudson, who was a very nit-picking woman. In my youth I had played rugby and had an enviable a

When Marie Lloyd, the so called “Queen of the Music Hall", unexpectedly showed up at 221B, Baker Street, Sherlock Holmes already knew what was the case that she was going to place in his hands. The “Thames” of the previous day had echoed the news under the title "The floating singer." So the first thing Holmes did when Mrs. Hudson announced her visit, was to close the windows to prevent Mrs Lloyd from floating out of the apartment. However, Mrs Lloyd’s account of the facts showed us that it had been an unnecessary precaution. Mrs Lloyd's spontaneous buoyancy was limited to the “Canterbury Music Hall" located in Lambeth and only while she was on stage. It had all started three days before, when during her performance she began to float aimlessly in the air. She did not want to interrupt her performance but, upon completion, she complained angrily to Mr Villiers, Canterbury Hall's manager, claiming that she had a reputation as a singer and could not afford to

The deductive reasoning of Sherlock Holmes was very complex. (As complex as the way he clothed himself: suffice it to say that he put on his trousers over his head, in a display of flexibility that many contortionists only dream of.) I will give just one example: One day we received a letter addressed to "Charlotte Holmes, the famous detective." Analyzing that unique line of writing, Sherlock was able to determine a whole range of facts that later, when we opened the letter, proved to be true. Holmes deduced firstly that the author was a top-notch asshole. Secondly, that this was the first letter he sent in his life, and thirdly that the matter that had led him to take such trouble was a stupidity of such caliber that the letter he would get in reply would take away from him the desire to send any other letter anymore. Examining the progressive downward inclination of the line, he guessed in addition that, although the author presumably began to write it while awake, as he w

In my view, the deductive capacity of Sherlock Holmes has no paragon in the history of Criminology. Sometimes it would be said that he possessed psychic powers, and that it was through such powers that he guessed things. And now that I've brought psychic powers up, let me tell you an episode that personally made me put my hair on end. From time to time, Holmes and I used to go for a walk late at night. The streets were calmer and lent themselves more to reflection and relaxed conversation. Well, there was an itinerary we frequented. We left Baker Street, took Marylebone Road, then along Kilburn High Road, to finally reach the Thames as it passed through Chelsea. In the course of this itinerary a curious phenomenon happened every time. When we passed a house that overlooked Paddington Basin, it fell at our feet a roasted hazelnut. Obviously, after experiencing this phenomenon a certain number of times, we were already forewarned and looked up trying to determine where "the gi

When autumn came, a vociferous individual dressed in a long black cape and wearing a wide-brimmed hat used to stay stuck near 221B, Baker Street. To Holmes it seemed insufferable. Not only because of the hollering, but because of the content of his preaching. Holmes had read the Bible several times since his youth, which in his case amounted to saying that he knew the Bible by heart. And that's why he could not stand the falseness of the biblical quotations that the preacher voiced. Those quotes were not only inaccurate but totally invented. For example, one of his favorites was: "Saint Matthew says: Keep your sheep in a spacious place and do not pile them up, for the piles are an abomination and the one who piles up will be piled up and he will be called wicked blockhead and his gums will bleed." Holmes knew that nothing was said in the Bible about piling up sheep. As nothing was said about Chinese laundries, another favorite topic of that faker: “Saint John says: W

Margaret Stanford Burton had been accused of killing her husband, John Burton, the famous fish-skeleton collector, a crime she pleaded not guilty to. Mr Burton was found pierced by the sword of a swordfish on the steps of the entrance to his house in London, where he lived with his wife until his death. (Thereafter they did not speak again, which was interpreted by the police as a clear sign that the couple was not as close as their neighbors thought.) Sherlock Holmes had met John Burton at a collectibles fair. (Holmes collected sunflower seed shells and chewing gum.) When the day after his death he went to offer his condolences to his widow, he found that she was behind bars accused of murder. After a brief interview in prison, my friend came out convinced of Mrs. Burton's innocence, and set out to find the real killer. First of all, he prepared to follow all of Burton's steps the hours before his death. He found out that in the afternoon he went to Brighton's fish marke

One day Mrs. Hudson announced the visit of a woman named Boris, from whose name Holmes deduced that he was a Russian disguised as a woman. And indeed it was. He had come expressly from Saint Petersburg to hire the services of Sherlock Holmes, so my friend could not refuse to accept his case even if it meant moving for a time to the Russian capital. Language would not be an obstacle: Holmes spoke fifteen languages (although he dispensed with pronouns, prepositions, adverbs and words of more than one syllable). In St. Petersburg we stayed with our client in what he called "my hideout", which was accessed through a sewer cover. It turned out that our client belonged to the Russian nobility, which was subject to the dictates of a guy called "the Tsar," who had arranged for our client to spend a long vacation at a site called Siberia. However, our client did not want to take a vacation because he was dealing with a certain plot to overthrow the regime and couldn't l