I have read—and enjoyed—there is his excellent semi-historical novel, The White Company. I’ve also perused with great interest two of the doctor’s shorter works, The Lost Special and The Man with the Watches, but I never allude to either if Mr Holmes might hear, for he is anonymously involved in each case as a letter-writer to one or two (I forget) London newspapers. The problem is that in at least one of these adventures, his theory, though plausible, was … I hesitate to say it … wrong.
Mrs (Martha) Hudson
* * * *
Dear Mrs Hudson,
I am a plain and simple bar-keep in Soho, but I am totally devoted to reading about Mr Holmes. I enjoy your columns very much, and especially revel over the recipes that you usually share with we readers; I have prepared several and have always relished the results!
My question concerns the fact that you often share main course recipes, and sometimes one involving vegetables; desserts, too. But I have never seen any formulae for mixed drinks. Perhaps that is because Mr Holmes and Dr Watson prefer wine and beer?
A Whiskey Worshipper
* * * *
My Dear Whiskey Worshipper,
I am ever so glad that you asked this! It is true that both of my illustrious tenants favour various sorts of wine as well as ale, beer, bitters, lager, porter, stout, what-have-you. But I do confess that I like an occasional mixed drink. These were a bit uncommon in past years, but they became one of the best contributions that we were given by our neighbours, especially the Americans and the French.
In this issue of Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, and in the next two such numbers, I shall confine myself to stronger alcoholic concoctions.
Yr Fellow Whiskey (and Whisky) Worshipper,
Mrs (Martha) Hudson
* * * *
Dear Mrs Hudson
I am afraid my question is indelicate—but I have heard rumours that Mr Holmes may be the father of that stupendously over-weight New York investigator Nero Wolfe.
Professor Jason Rickman, a genealogist
* * * *
Dear Professor,
I have been asked this before, but I chose to ignore such queries. But at last I got up the courage to ask Mr Holmes. He was, I am relieved to report, not at all offended. He merely laughed and shook his head. However, the look on Dr Watson’s face showed deep disapproval. Therefore, when I could address him without his room-mate being aware of it, I tried to solicit an answer from him, but—albeit regretfully—he shook his head.
“Mrs H,” said he, “I should like to oblige you, but I am constrained not to discuss this—”
“By Mr Holmes?!”
“Oh, no! Not at all! The difficulty stems from a New York City attorney who represents Mr Wolfe.”
Well, my dear Professor Rickman, you see that I have no answer to give you. And I do regret it, if only for my own unjustifiable curiosity.
Mrs (Martha) Hudson
* * * *
Now, as promised, here are a few of the drink recipes that I personally like and sometimes serve to personal guests visiting me at Baker Street.
CONGRESSIONAL COCKTAIL
There are few mixed drinks that employ scotch, which generally does not mix well. But here is an exception to the rule.
2 jiggers of blended scotch (3 ounces)
1 ounce of dry vermouth
1 teaspoon of Absinthe (Pernod may be substituted)
1 lemon peel
1. Blend all three with ice and stir.
2. Place lemon peel into the drink.
* * * *
METALLIC TWIST
3 tablespoons of beef bouillon
1 ounce of Bombay gin
2 teaspoons of lemon juice
Worcestershire sauce, to taste
¼ teaspoon of salt
black pepper, to taste
2 droplets of Tabasco
1. Shake everything together.
2. Pour into a whisky glass.
* * * *
KILTED WONDER
1 teaspoon of Drambuie
1 teaspoon of vermouth
3 tablespoons of Polish vodka
1. Mix with ice.
2. Strain into a cocktail glass.
d
SCREEN OF THE CRIME
by Kim Newman
This month, I’m looking back at four films which share a title and highlighting several of the less-familiar screen incarnations of the Great Detective…
Sherlock Holmes Die Graue Dame (1937)
Though subtitled Die Graue Dame (The Grey Lady), this German film isn’t a remake of the 1909 Danish film Den Graa Dame (The Grey Lady). The earlier movie, one of a Holmes series starring Viggo Larsen, was an adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles which substituted a lady ghost for the spectral dog. This is quite another thing, and diverges far more from the Doyle template than other German Holmes films of the period like the 1929 and 1937 movies called Die Hund von Baskerville.
Set in an elaborate if stagebound cosmopolitan London somewhere between the British whodunits published in green Penguin books and telefono bianco haut bourgeois melodramas of contemporary Italian cinema, this Sherlock Holmes offers pudgy, cheerful, cigar-smoking detective Jimmy Ward (Hermann Speelmans), who doesn’t seem that much like Holmes, as a hero. Ward’s manservant John (Werner Finck), who sneezes in the dark while they’re waiting for a break-in and alarms the culprit, is even less like Watson. Then, late in the day, it turns out that Ward is Sherlock Holmes after all (as given away by the title), and he puts on a flat cap and takes up a pipe in a way which makes him resemble the sort of Holmes seen in German films (if not Paget illustrations).
A few neat moments (a rogue pretending to be dead in the street to distract a passing policeman and servants while a confederate slips in to rifle for those papers) are staged effectively, but it’s mostly drawing room or nightclub conversations without even the atmospherics of most of the Edgar Wallace-derived krimis. There is a song, belted out in a smoky dive by Ursula Hercking in a mode somewhere between Dietrich and Weill (fishnets, body-stocking with a heart-shape torn out, shoulder bow). The plot involves stolen plans, shady sisters (blonde Trude Marlen, a goodie; dark Elisabeth Wendt, a baddie), poisoned cigarettes, that bit from “A Scandal in Bohemia” where a cry of “fire fire” drives a culprit to reveal their secret safe, Inspektor Brown of Scotland Yard (Ernst Karchow), Mabuse-like spymaster Barnov (Edwin Jurgensen), and coded-as-gay poodle lover Archibald Pepperkorn (Harry Lorenzen). Written by Hans Heuer and Erich Engels, from the Müller-Puzika play Die Tat des Unbekannten; directed by Engels, who also made two Crippen movies, Dr Crippen en Bord (1942) and Dr Crippen Lebt (1958).
* * * *
Sherlock Holmes: The Strange Case of Miss Alice Faulkner (1981)
A live performance of William Gillette’s 1901 play, staged by the Williamstown Theatre Festival and recorded by HBO for broadcast in a series of taped music and theatre productions called Standing Room Only. Following Broadway success as Dracula, Frank Langella takes another Victorian leading role; Christopher Lee, Jeremy Brett (who took over from Langella on tour with Dracula), and Richard Roxburgh have also pulled off