The Murder of Conan Doyle

The other day, a member of our staff slunk into the office smoking a calabash pipe, wearing a deerstalker cap and muttering in nasal tones faintly reminiscent of Basil Rathbone. Since this individual has frequently displayed a marked tendency toward eccentric behavior, we shrugged it all off as the latest manifestation of his twisted though talented mind and went about our usual editorial task of (continued on next page) separating paper clips without giving the matter a second thought.

That evening, however, relaxing in front of our television screen with a short beer and a tall blonde, it suddenly became clear as crystal. Our colleague had simply succumbed to the preponderance of ancient Sherlock Holmes films recently available via video and starring the aforementioned Mr. Rathbone. The following night, the situation became clearer still. Relaxing again (this time with a tall beer and a short blonde, for variety), we were privileged to watch Leslie Howard's boy Roland also portray the Baker Street sleuth. This may strike some sour malcontents as too much of a good thing, but we've always been avid admirers of the Holmes tales and have never been able to get enough of them. The more the merrier, we said, ruffling our sideburns, lighting our calabash, donning our deerstalker and blowing the eraser dust from our typewriter. The beer languished in our glass, the blonde languished on our davenport, and when the creative frenzy had spent itself, both had disappeared. But what cared we? Another urgently needed television script had been given the world! And here, you lucky readers, it is -- without the slightest apology to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:

Establishing Shot: The familiar Baker Street apartment. Dr. Squatson is discovered packing his portmanteau with a heavy heart and several extra collars. A tear falls and stains his tweed pajamas as a stray memory wafts across his mind. He sighs longly.

Squatson: Poor Foames! Never again will the world know a mind to match his!

With a last glance about his old room, he lifts his luggage and prepares to leave. But a sudden knock arrests him.

Squatson: Who can this be? Can it be Hemlock Foames? No -- impossible! Did I not personally witness his gruesome death by fire, rack, sword and vat at the hands of Professor Goryarty? Did I not see he and that vile maniac tumble together into a cauldron of boiling coffee? Of course I did!

He opens the door, disclosing only kind hearted Mother Mulrooney, the landlady. She is weeping.

Mother Mulrooney: Faith, and is it leavin' me now entirely ye are, Dr. Squatson, ye spalpeen, bedad?

Squatson: Alas. These premises are but a source of sorrow to me now, kind hearted Mother Mulrooney. Forgive me. I must go.

Mother Mulrooney (screaming): Squatson, you old barrel! Did you really miss me, then?

Squatson: I'm afraid I don't quite ..

Mother Mulrooney: You fool! You lovable, bungling, incompetent fool! Are you entirely witless?

Squatson: Great Scott! It isn't ...

Mother Mulrooney: It isn't what, you decrepit old quack?

Squatson: By George, if it is, I'll ... I'll ...

Mother Mulrooney: You'll what, you fumbling old abortionist?

Squatson: Foames!! Bless my soul, it's Foames!

Mother Mulrooney: Well, ra-ther!

Kind hearted Mother Mulrooney rips away her gray wig, false nose, padded dress and apron. There, naked as a savage, stands the lanky shape of Hemlock Foames.

Foames: Get me a robe, old boy. This London weather ...

Squatson (obeying): But see here, Foames, you can't possibly be here, you know. You're upsetting everything. Why, dash it all, the report has gone out that you are dead, and by Jove, you must be! Come now, old fellow, be reasonable ...

Foames: I am, Squatson, being perfectly reasonable. My appearance is founded upon cold and precise logic. You recall that night in Soho, when Goryarty had me swinging like a pendulum from the rafters?

Squatson: Indeed I do.

Foames: You remember Goryarty amused himself by putting me through a half-dozen hellish tortures, the last of which was to coat me in a thick layer of bubbling beeswax? You also remember, I'm sure, how I stifled a yawn, cried "This is the last straw!" and fell upon the Professor, tooth and nail. You surely can't forget how we struggled and fell into a cauldron of scalding coffee which was there to keep me awake for further torments.

Squatson: Yes, yes ...

Foames: Well, then. My body was saved from the deadly heat of the coffee by its coating of hardened wax! Fundamental, my dear Squatson.

Squatson gasps and stands speechless.

Foames: Don't stand there like a monkey with a stick up your nose! Get me some clothes! There's not a moment to be wasted, for London has been shocked by a series of wanton murders, all of which have been perpetrated upon theatrical gentlemen. Quick, Squatson! Cocaine! Opium! Clothes! Our destination is the Thespian Society in Fleet Street where, even now, a party is in progress!

Music and commercial, during which audience adjourns to kitchen for short beer and tall blonde or vice versa. When they return, they find Foames and Squatson living it up over the Thespian Society's punch bowl. Squatson is saying ...

Squatson: Another cup, Foames?

Foames: No thank you, Squatson. My brain must be without parallel tonight.

Squatson: I say, this place is a veritable gallery of dramatic notables. That's Laddie Badd, draining the punch bowl through a straw.

Foames: Who?

Squatson: The versatile Hollywood tragedian. His amazing range of portrayals has run the gamut through tough kid crooks, tough kid cops, tough kid priests and tough kid milkmen.

Foames (yawning): Ah, yes. Laddie Badd. Real name Homer Witherspoon; born 1922 in Akron, Ohio, of unwed parents. Hobbies: archery and lechery. Small freckle on left kneecap. A nonentity. Forget him.

Squatson: By Tophet, Foames, I'll outwit that card-index mind of yours yet! Who, for instance, is that bearded gentleman reciting Marlowe in the corner? Eh? Tell me that!

Foames: Quentin Drake-Chalmers, Shakespearean actor. Now too fat to play Hamlet, he is planning an abridged King Lear, reducing the cast to one. Remember his modern dress Romeo eight years ago, when he read all the' blank verse as prose and all the prose as blank verse? Exhilarating. In his youth, he appeared in a neo-Greek tragedy of his own concoction called Oedipus Meets Electra: in this fiasco the characters stood completely still throughout, while the scenery moved behind them. He burned incense during intermissions to contribute to the unrealistic illusion and succeeded in asphyxiating half the audience. Also, each character spoke in a different language; all wore costumes of different periods; all were made-up with luminous paint which glowed a dull blue in the blackouts between the thirty-seven scenes. The man is an obvious ham, and therefore an egomaniac. Since most murderers are egomaniacs -- rating themselves above the law -- this fellow will bear watching. Keep an eye on him.

Squatson: I will, by Jove! (He hiccoughs stoutly and adds ...) Foames --

Foames: Yes?

Squatson: Not to change the subject, and mind you I understand how you survived the blistering coffee, but, tell me, how in blazes did you withstand the lethal effects of that boiling, molten wax?

Foames (snorting): Good Lord, man, don't bother me with trivia now! That case is closed! Let us live in the present. (A pause. Then): Aha!

Squatson: What is it?

Foames: That lovely creature making so gracious an egress from the ladies' John: might I be mistaken or is that Emily Klodd, stage name Sidonie Brassiere, born 1929 in Wessex of itinerant acrobats?

Squatson: It is Miss Brassiere.

Foames: So. When was the date of my supposed demise, Squatson?

Squatson: You died March 10th, old chap.

Foames: Hum. As I recall, the London Catarrh of March 10th carried the following headline: "AMAZING DISAPPEARANCE OF PROMINENT ACTRESS. Sidonie Brassiere's Failure to Appear Causes Widespread Consternation." Squatson! Everything's clear now!

Squatson (drooling senselessly): Eh?

Foames: Suppose a certain arch-fiend, who shall remain nameless, wished to blackmail wealthy but profligate actors on grounds of, shall we say, indiscreet behavior. What would he do?

Squatson: Why, disguise himself as Sidonie Brassiere, I suppose, lure them (concluded on page 39) Conan Doyle (continued from page 16) to some boudoir or other ...

Foames: Exactly. But what would happen if these gentlemen went so far as to discover the true sex of their supposed paramour? What would the evil malefactor be forced to do then?

Squatson: Why, murder them, naturally!

Foames: Naturally. Squatson: it was not Sidonie Brassiere who vanished on March 10th, but a certain arch-fiend, who shall remain nameless, disguised as Sidonie Brassiere! And he disappeared from mortal ken to be present at the death of Hemlock Foames!

Squatson (gulping): You mean Sidonie Brassiere is none other than --

Foames: Yes! Professor Goryarty -- who shall remain nameless! Come, follow me and we shall unmask him.

With rapid strides, they approach the sultry actress.

Foames (addressing her): Professor Goryarty, I place you under arrest!

Sidonie: I beg your pardon! My name is Sidonie Brassiere.

Foames: You lie in your teeth! But Hemlock Foames shall foil your dissembling!

With one bold gesture, he rips her gown and only garment from her body and dashes it triumphantly to the floor.

Foames: Oops. Extremely sorry, old girl. But who, then, is Goryarty?

Squatson (with sudden knowledge): You are!

Foames (blinking): I? You're off your chump, Squatson.

Squatson: Not bloody likely! Oh, you look like Hemlock Foames you do, you walk and talk like Hemlock Foames, but by St. George and Merrie England, you're not Hemlock Foames!

Foames: And why not, pray tell?

Squatson: That unpardonable error you just committed -- would Hemlock Foames, the greatest mind in all of London, have made such a mistake? Not on your tintype!

Crestfallen, "Foames" whisks off false nose, chin, eyebrows, and five O'clock shadow, standing revealed as Professor Goryarty.

Goryarty (sighing): Ah, well, it was good while it lasted. You have me dead to rights, Dr. Squatson. That dolt, Foames, is tied up in a closet in Soho. He's unharmed.

Squatson: Come along, you fiend! And explain one thing, if you will. How did you and Foames escape being parboiled in that steaming kettle of coffee?

Goryarty: Oh, that: it was really tea.

Squatson: Ah. And why all that nonsense about Sidonie Brassiere? Ripping off her dress and all that?

Goryarty (regarding Squatson with a slow wink and a leer): It was worth it, wasn't it, old bean?

Squatson: By Christopher, you're right, you rascal!