MISTER MYSTERY RESPONDS

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...

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...

Sherlock Holmes was a master of disguise. This was very convenient when he was following a suspect. Particularly if the suspect was also disguised and following him at the same time. It was equally convenient when he purposely followed someone who was not the suspect so that the suspect felt jealous of the false suspect and thus took off his disguise staying in underwear, which directed Holmes’ attention to the true suspect. (On such occasions, it was necessary to prevent the false suspect from disguising himself as the true suspect as a result of feeling excluded from the suspicions, which could tear up the entire operation.) A case related to disguises was that of the “necklace killer”. In it, the suspect was a barrister of Lincoln's Inn who used to disguise himself as a Dragoon of the British Army and strutted around the Strand to attract a certain lady who was in love with a Dragoon of the British Army who in turn was posing as a barrister of Lincoln's Inn. Holmes knew tha...

One day we received a visit from an elegant woman whose name I will not reveal for the sake of gentlemanliness. Her husband was missing. According to her version of events, one afternoon they were both sitting by the fireplace planning their daughter's wedding, taking advantage of the fact that she was absent spending a few days with her aunt in Devonshire, when the husband got up to fan the fire. She had not seen him since. The case had a sufficient dose of mystery so that Holmes would not hesitate to accept it. The first thing we did was visit the scene: the living room of an elegant house in Piccadilly Circus. Holmes insisted on trying to discover a secret passage in the fireplace and, as a consequence, suffered several first-degree burns. It was clear to him that the husband had had to disappear through the fireplace. The problem is that, according to our client, at the time of the events the fire burned in the fireplace. Now Holmes put out the fire and began to climb the chim...

Sherlock Holmes kept up-to-day an archive with the full names and postal addresses of all the Archibalds of Great Britain. He had the firm conviction that behind much of the crimes that occurred in Britain, there was an Archibald. Such conviction was not the result of a whim but of a complicated mathematical calculation that he had been perfecting since, at school, a classmate named Archibald hid his breakfast sandwich. (Forty years after that incident, he still retained the hope of finding his sandwich one day.) Therefore, it should not be surprising that when a bachelor called Archibald Newcombe moved to No. 231A, Baker Street, my friend's instincts kicked in. Holmes put aside all the cases he had going on and concentrated all his efforts on unmasking that criminal brain that lived on the opposite sidewalk. He intended to take advantage of an absence of Archibald Newcombe to surreptitiously enter his home and search it thoroughly for some incriminating evidence. But it turned ou...

Sometimes Holmes got things without even trying. For example, he got all the dogs in the neighborhood to howl. That invariably happened when he started playing the violin. I also wanted to howl, but at that time it did not look good that a man howled. So I was content to lock myself in my bedroom and whimper. Is that Holmes only played the violin when he felt sad. A sad man in possession of a violin without having the most basic knowledge of how to play it, has got in his hands a tremendous power over others. So much so that hearing Holmes play the violin inspired Lestrade a revolutionary procedure to extract confessions from criminals. And since I have brought up the topic of blackmail, I am going to refer to a case that has not reached public opinion but had been driving Scotland Yard nuts until Lestrade put it in the hands of Sherlock Holmes. It turns out that His Royal Highness Duke of Cambridge began to receive anonymous letters where he was threatened to divulge a certain secre...

One night I was going back home to Baker Street after visiting a patient when I heard a death rattle behind me. I feared it was my patient, so I turned quickly. Then I faced myself with a dockworker-looking man. Not just any dockworker but one who is familiar with his trade from a theoretical point of view: a dockworker who has learned everything he knows about cargo stowage in Oxford or Cambridge and who has not set foot in a dock in his entire life. (Such insight I achieved working with Holmes.) He looked sick and I immediately realized what caused his unhealthy appearance: the man had a harpoon stabbed into his body. (Such insight I achieved at the University of Edinburgh Medical School.) The guy collapsed in my arms. But before breathing out his soul, he handed me a piece of paper and said: "My dying wish". I took the paper: it was a leaflet advertising a corner shop next to Covent Garden. Commenting on the incident with my friend at dinner, I noticed that Holmes was mov...

Sherlock Holmes provided numerous services to Queen Victoria. On one occasion he held her handbag while she knocked out a tribal chief from one of the virgin territories of her vast empire. On another occasion, Holmes had the honor of being knocked out by the Queen while the tribal chief held her handbag. On another occasion it was the tribal chief who knocked out the Queen while Holmes held his spear. During this unfortunate episode, the Queen's handbag disappeared and Holmes was entrusted with the task of recovering it. With Australia being an entire continent, the task of finding the handbag could have been titanic. However, Holmes' canine sense of smell greatly facilitated things. Indeed, Queen Victoria gave off a very characteristic smell, the effect of a perfume that a Birmingham perfumer made exclusively for her. Holmes rightly deduced that her handbag would emit the same smell, so he requested that he be allowed to sniff the Queen. An urgent meeting of the Ministers of...