Frank Marshall White
Frank Marshall White (1861-1919), like many journalists of his time, was a prolific writer of fiction and non-fiction. His work appeared in publications large and small, such as The New York Times, Pearson’s Magazine, All-Story, Adventure, and The Scrap Book. As European correspondent of the New York Journal, he reported Mark Twain’s response to a rumor of his demise with “the report of my death was an exaggeration” (amended by the culture to “greatly exaggerated”). This story appeared in the October 18 issue of Life.
Do what I would on the day of my arrival in America, I could not drive the thought of Sherlock Holmes out of my mind. Perhaps it was because every one of the reporters who came to interview me about my lecturing tour made enquiries about the great detective, and perhaps it was because I could not help thinking what a good thing it would be to have him with me to illustrate my personal recollections.
The more I thought it over, the less likely it seemed that a man of Holmes’ intellectual resources should injure himself—much less allow himself to be killed—by falling a few hundred feet over a cliff into the ocean. I remembered that he had once told me that he had made a special study of falling from high places, and that it was largely owing to his facility in this direction that he had made the celebrated capture, in 1879, of O’Rourke Hassan, who for centuries had been stealing the lead pipe from the northeast minaret of the Mosque of Vazir Khan, and for whose apprehension the municipality of Lahore had had a reward standing since the time of Akbar.
I was just dressing for dinner—a practice it seems that the Americans have imitated us in—at the club which I was making my residence in New York when a servant knocked at the door and informed me that a gentleman who gave the name of the senior member of one of the leading firms of American publishers was waiting for me in the visitors’ room. I was somewhat annoyed by the inopportune moment of his call, and perhaps I was a trifle brusque in my greeting when, after keeping him waiting half-an-hour or so, I strode into the visitors’ room, where sat a man wearing that expression of obsequious deference that is common to a publisher in the presence of an author.
“Ah, ‘Doctor’ Watson,” said this person in a tone that was strangely familiar. “How did you enjoy your walk down Broadway this morning? And what do you think of the Stock Exchange? And how does the city look from the top of a 29-story building?”
I staggered and almost fainted. Indeed, I was compelled to lean upon the mantel for support, for my visitor was none other than Sherlock Holmes! He had sent up the name of the publisher in order to give me an all the more agreeable surprise. I will spare my readers the sentimental details of the proceedings immediately following this revelation. After I had again and again embraced the friend I had mourned as dead, and had made him repeat for the hundredth time the story of his marvelous rescue by a ship bound for China, whence he had reached New York that day, via San Francisco, I said, “I suppose it was my manager who directed you to me here. And he told you of our stroll about the city this morning, did he?”
“On the contrary,” replied Sherlock Holmes, “I haven’t spoken to another soul, except to give my cabman your address and the servant here a wrong name, since I arrived in town, just about an hour ago.”
“How on earth, then,” I exclaimed, “did you know that I had visited the Stock Exchange and gone up on the top of a building? But, of course, that is only clever conjecture, since this is the usual route for a stranger in New York on his first day. However, that does not explain how you came by my address!”
“Not exactly conjecture,” said Holmes carelessly. “You were driven to this club from the steamship pier. And, after remaining here for about an hour, you went out with two other men, walked down Broadway to Wall Street, spent half-an-hour in the gallery of the Stock Exchange, walked back to the World building and went up in the lift to the roof, came to the club to luncheon, and then went to your manager’s office, where you were interviewed by a dozen newspaper reporters.”
This had been exactly the programme of the day. And, accustomed as I was to Sherlock Holmes’ miraculous power of drawing conclusions where apparently no premises exist, I was startled more than I care to admit.
“Tell me,” I blurted, “by what course of reasoning you have acquired these facts.”
“What have I told you,” asked Holmes somewhat impatiently, “about deduction and analysis?”
“But you have had no data to go on,” I protested. “I am not even wearing the clothing I had on this morning.”
“When I tell you how I became aware of your movements today,” observed my friend with a laugh, “you will be astounded at your stupidity. Just think over what means there are of reaching the conclusion I have arrived at. Remember what I have told you before—that when every possible theory is proved false, the impossible one, if it is the only one remaining, is the right one.”
After fruitlessly racking my brains until it was too late to keep my dinner engagement I said, “Since you tell me that you have had no conversation about my itinerary with anyone since your arrival in town an hour ago, I confess that I can find no possible explanation for your knowledge of my movements during the day. For Heaven’s sake do not keep me in suspense any longer. Tell me by what course of deduction and analysis you have drawn so accurate conclusions in this instance.”
“I read it all in the afternoon papers,” said Sherlock Holmes, yawning.
This contemptible trick I can never forgive. Sherlock Holmes is again dead to me.