Nonsense Novels by Stephen Leacock (ebook reader computer TXT) 📕

“Come in.”

His secretary entered. “Ha,” said the detective, “it is you!”

He laid aside his disguise.

“Sir,” said the young man in intense excitement, “a mystery has been committed!”

“Ha!” said the Great Detective, his eye kindling, “is it such as to completely baffle the police of the entire continent?”

“They are so completely baffled with it,” said the secretary, “that they are lying collapsed in heaps; many of them have committed suicide.”

“So,” said the detective, “and is the mystery one that is absolutely unparalleled in the whole recorded annals of the London police?”

“It is.”

“And I suppose,” said the detective, “that it involves names which you would scarcely dare to breathe, at least without first using some kind of atomiser or throat-gargle.”

“Exactly.”

“And it is connected, I presume, with the highest diplomatic consequences, so that if we fail to solve it England will be at war with the whole world in sixteen minutes?”

His secretary, still quivering with excitement, again answered yes.

“And finally,” said the Great Detective, “I presume that it was committed in broad daylight, in some such place as the entrance of the Bank of England, or in the cloak-room of the House of Commons, and under the very eyes of the police?”

“Those,” said the secretary, “are the very conditions of the mystery.”

“Good,” said the Great Detective, “now wrap yourself in this disguise, put on these brown whiskers and tell me what it is.”

The secretary wrapped himself in a blue domino with lace insertions, then, bending over, he whispered in the ear of the Great Detective:

“The Prince of Wurttemberg has been kidnapped.”

The Great Detective bounded from his chair as if he had been kicked from below.

A prince stolen! Evidently a Bourbon! The scion of one of the oldest families in Europe kidnapped. Here was a mystery indeed worthy of his analytical brain.

His mind began to move like lightning.

“Stop!” he said, “how do you know this?”

The secretary handed him a telegram. It was from the Prefect of Police of Paris. It read: “The Prince of Wurttemberg stolen. Probably forwarded to London. Must have him here for the opening day of Exhibition. £1,000 reward.”

So! The Prince had been kidnapped out of Paris at the very time when his appearance at the International Exposition would have been a political event of the first magnitude.

With the Great Detective to think was to act, and to act was to think. Frequently he could do both together.

“Wire to Paris for a description of the Prince.”

The secretary bowed and left.

At the same moment there was slight scratching at the door.

A visitor entered. He crawled stealthily on his hands and knees. A hearthrug thrown over his head and shoulders disguised his identity.

He crawled to the middle of the room.

Then he rose.

Great Heaven!

It was the Prime Minister of England.

“You!” said the detective.

“Me,” said the Prime Minister.

“You have come in regard the kidnapping of the Prince of Wurttemberg?”

The Prime Minister started.

“How do you know?” he said.

The Great Detective smiled his inscrutable smile.

“Yes,” said the Prime Minister. “I will use no concealment. I am interested, deeply interested. Find the Prince of Wurttemberg, get him safe back to Paris and I will add £500 to the reward already offered. But listen,” he said impressively as he left the room, “see to it that no attempt is made to alter the marking of the prince, or to clip his tail.”

So! To clip the Prince’s tail! The brain of the Great Detective reeled. So! a gang of miscreants had conspired to—but no! the thing was not possible.

There was another rap at the door.

A second visitor was seen. He wormed his way in, lying almost prone upon his stomach, and wriggling across the floor. He was enveloped in a long purple cloak. He stood up and peeped over the top of it.

Great Heaven!

It was the Archbishop of Canterbury!

“Your Grace!” exclaimed the detective in amazement—“pray do not stand, I beg you. Sit down, lie down, anything rather than stand.”

The Archbishop took off his mitre and laid it wearily on the whisker-stand.

“You are here in regard to the Prince of Wurttemberg.”

The Archbishop started and crossed himself. Was the man a magician?

“Yes,” he said, “much depends on getting him back. But I have only come to say this: my sister is desirous of seeing you. She is coming here. She has been extremely indiscreet and her fortune hangs upon the Prince. Get him back to Paris or I fear she will be ruined.”

The Archbishop regained his mitre, uncrossed himself, wrapped his cloak about him, and crawled stealthily out on his hands and knees, purring like a cat.

The face of the Great Detective showed the most profound sympathy. It ran up and down in furrows. “So,” he muttered, “the sister of the Archbishop, the Countess of Dashleigh!” Accustomed as he was to the life of the aristocracy, even the Great Detective felt that there was here intrigue of more than customary complexity.

There was a loud rapping at the door.

There entered the Countess of Dashleigh. She was all in furs.

She was the most beautiful woman in England. She strode imperiously into the room. She seized a chair imperiously and seated herself on it, imperial side up.

She took off her tiara of diamonds and put it on the tiara-holder beside her and uncoiled her boa of pearls and put it on the pearl-stand.

“You have come,” said the Great Detective, “about the Prince of Wurttemberg.”

“Wretched little pup!” said the Countess of Dashleigh in disgust.

So! A further complication! Far from being in love with the Prince, the Countess denounced the young Bourbon as a pup!

“You are interested in him, I believe.”

“Interested!” said the Countess. “I should rather say so. Why, I bred him!”

“You which?” gasped the Great Detective, his usually impassive features suffused with a carmine blush.

“I bred him,” said the Countess, “and I’ve got £10,000 upon his chances, so no wonder I want him back in Paris. Only listen,” she said, “if they’ve got hold of the Prince and cut his tail or spoiled the markings of his stomach it would be far better to have him quietly put out of the way here.”

The Great Detective reeled and leaned up against the side of the room. So! The cold-blooded admission of the beautiful woman for the moment took away his breath! Herself the mother of the young Bourbon, misallied with one of the greatest families of Europe, staking her fortune on a Royalist plot, and yet with so instinctive a knowledge of European politics as to know that any removal of the hereditary birth-marks of the Prince would forfeit for him the sympathy of the French populace.

The Countess resumed her tiara.

She left.

The secretary re-entered.

“I have three telegrams from Paris,” he said, “they are completely baffling.”

He handed over the first telegram.

It read:

“The Prince of Wurttemberg has a long, wet snout, broad ears, very long body, and short hind legs.”

The Great Detective looked puzzled.

He read the second telegram.

“The Prince of Wurttemberg is easily recognised by his deep bark.”

And then the third.

“The Prince of Wurttemberg can be recognised by a patch of white hair across the centre of his back.”

The two men looked at one another. The mystery was maddening, impenetrable.

The Great Detective spoke.

“Give me my domino,” he said. “These clues must be followed up,” then pausing, while his quick brain analysed and summed up the evidence before him—“a young man,” he muttered, “evidently young since described as a ‘pup,’ with a long, wet snout (ha! addicted obviously to drinking), a streak of white hair across his back (a first sign of the results of his abandoned life)—yes, yes,” he continued, “with this clue I shall find him easily.”

The Great Detective rose.

He wrapped himself in a long black cloak with white whiskers and blue spectacles attached.

Completely disguised, he issued forth.

He began the search.

For four days he visited every corner of London.

He entered every saloon in the city. In each of them he drank a glass of rum. In some of them he assumed the disguise of a sailor. In others he entered as a solider. Into others he penetrated as a clergyman. His disguise was perfect. Nobody paid any attention to him as long as he had the price of a drink.

The search proved fruitless.

Two young men were arrested under suspicion of being the Prince, only to be released.

The identification was incomplete in each case.

One had a long wet snout but no hair on his back.

The other had hair on his back but couldn’t bark.

Neither of them was the young Bourbon.

The Great Detective continued his search.

He stopped at nothing.

Secretly, after nightfall, he visited the home of the Prime Minister. He examined it from top to bottom. He measured all the doors and windows. He took up the flooring. He inspected the plumbing. He examined the furniture. He found nothing.

With equal secrecy he penetrated into the palace of the Archbishop. He examined it from top to bottom. Disguised as a choir-boy he took part in the offices of the church. He found nothing.

Still undismayed, the Great Detective made his way into the home of the Countess of Dashleigh. Disguised as a housemaid, he entered the service of the Countess.

Then at last a clue came which gave him a solution of the mystery.

On the wall of the Countess’s boudoir was a large framed engraving.

It was a portrait.

Under it was a printed legend:

THE PRINCE OF WURTTEMBERG

The portrait was that of a Dachshund.

The long body, the broad ears, the unclipped tail, the short hind legs—all was there.

In a fraction of a second the lightning mind of the Great Detective had penetrated the whole mystery.

THE PRINCE