Sherlock Holmes- Internet Detective
Posted by Jeff on August 24, 2009 under Fiction, Humor | 
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I was on my way home after a lengthy session with a patient one afternoon and I happened to find myself walking down Baker Street and, indeed, past my old lodgings with Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Just as I passed my old quarters I looked up to see Holmes’s lengthy shadow upon the curtain. I don’t often drop in on Holmes unannounced as my old friend is prone to bouts of brooding melancholy. Seeing that Holmes was up and my wife was not expecting me home soon I decided that I would stop a while and talk with him.
Holmes was playing his violin when I entered. His skill on the instrument was second only to the skill as a consulting detective through which he made his living. He put down the violin and met me, offering me a seat and a glass of brandy. He was in a notably good humor which I commented upon.
“Am I? I suppose so. I am particularly pleased with the outcome of a few chemical experiments I have been working on over the last few days.” He said.
“I see. I was rather hoping you had a new and interesting case on your hands.” My companion shook his head.
“Only a few trifles recently, all easily dealt with. In fact they were barely worthy of my consideration. No doubt you were hoping for some new adventure to romanticize?”
“You know I am always intrigued by your mastery of deduction.”
“Ah, Watson, I did not mean to wound you with my remarks. Though you may sensationalize them somewhat, I feel it is important for these chronicles of yours to circulate. Perhaps they might teach the populace about sharpening one’s mind to a cutting edge. But you may be in luck! It so happens that I received a call earlier today by a young man who asks for my assistance. I do not know that it will come to much but you are welcome to sit in on our meeting. And I suspect this is our man now! Let him in will you, Watson?”
As Holmes had been speaking someone had rung the bell and been admitted by the landlady. I opened the door and a stout young man entered. He wore a dark shirt with a worn cartoon of a skull printed across the front. His blue jeans were frayed around the cuffs where they rubbed against his canvas sneakers. His round, pale face was topped with dark, curly hair and an uneven growth covered his cheeks and chin, twice as thick where it began to creep down his neck. He nodded to me and then shook Holmes’s hand.
“Mr. Sherlock Holmes?” The man asked.
“Indeed.”
“I am so glad to meet you, Mr. Holmes! My name is Ernest Parker and I fear that something has happened to the woman I love. I have been to the police but they say there is nothing they can do.” At this point the man looked at me and then turned back to Holmes.
“Ah, this is my associate, Dr. John Watson. You may speak freely in front of him, as you may trust him as much as you trust me.” With that he ushered the man into a chair. I took a seat of my own and Holmes sat down across from his guest. “It seems odd to me that a man so concerned about his love can still find it in himself to spend a late night at Keith’s Komix.”
“I did not know what else to do; in fact it is there that I heard of you so I am glad I went.” Suddenly the man sat straight in his chair. “But how could you know that? Have I been spied upon?”
Holmes shook his head slowly. “It is obvious to one who should care to observe details as I have trained myself to do. Pray, continue.”
“Well, you see, sirs, I have been dating a girl for six months now and quite suddenly she has vanished! I spoke to her just a few days ago and all seemed well but now I cannot track her down.”
“Have you gone to her home for some clue?” I asked him.
“Watson, the girl does not live in London. I daresay Mr. Parker’s beloved lives someplace outside England entirely.” Holmes told me.
“Now see here, Mr. Holmes! Where do you come by this information? One of the lads must have put you up to this.”
“Not at all, Mr. Parker. Not at all. What can you tell us about your lady?”
The man looked bemused and a bit annoyed but carried on. “Her name is Martha. Martha Tyler. You’re correct, sir, she lives outside England. In America. Phoenix, Arizona, specifically. She’s a student at Arizona State.”
“America!” I ejaculated. “How could you carry on a relationship over such great distance?”
“We wrote e-mails to one another daily, at least. We sent one another photos and poems and all manner of things to express our love for one another. She is very beautiful but what I love most is how much we are alike. We are a perfect match.”
Holmes steeped his fingers and regarded the man. “And do you speak on the phone? If you do I am sure it is not regularly.”
“Infrequently, I am sad to say. And when we did the conversation was not particularly long. The cost of calling across the ocean is immense. Add in the difficult time difference and, well, the messages just work better.”
“Very well,” Holmes sighed, “I will look into the matter. You have some of the messages and photos she sent you?”
“Yes, sir, thank you!” The young man pulled a small packet of many-folded papers from a pocket and handed them to Holmes. He then jumped to his feet and shook our hands happily.
“I shall begin my investigation straight-away. Mr. Parker, would you please return at five o’clock to-morrow evening?”
“Of course, sir! Thank you again!” And with that the man bound from the room, much happier than when he had entered.
“The internet! It is unbelievable.” I said to Holmes.
“Not so, Watson. I have remarked to you several times that there are so many people here in London alone that all manner of bizarre and seemingly inexplicable things happen every day. In cyberspace I assure you that these things happen far more regularly.”
“And you knew so much about the man and his case that surely you must have heard some of it someplace before.”
“My old friend, no, as always you see and do not observe. Did you notice how wrinkled and, frankly, pungent Mr. Parker’s shirt was?”
“I did, it was quite off putting.”
“Precisely. Tell me, Watson, what would happen if you bade your wife good bye on a morning and attempted to go off on your rounds so poorly attired?”
“I can’t imagine such a thing would happen! My wife is very careful about the laundry.”
“Quite so. Mr. Parker left his house in filthy clothes that he, I suspect, slept in. This was my first clue that his friend did not live nearby and that, in fact, they rarely saw one another.”
“And how did you know his business last night, if you have never heard of him?”
“Mr. Parker’s fingertips had small smudges of paint upon them. When he shook my hand I came away with the faint, though sharp, scent of acetone. These are the obvious mark of anyone who spends his time painting the small figures used in tabletop games. Mr. Parker also appeared rather ill-rested. It seemed as if he’d risen only a few hours ago. I know that Keith’s Komix has late night sessions of Warhammer, where those who do not play talk to one another and paint their own figures. It was most probable, then, that our man had stayed there until the small hours and then fell asleep straight away upon returning home, and so he had.”
“Again, Holmes, I am astounded.”
“But now, Watson, you must excuse me. I have a small amount of research to do before this case is solved. Will you return to-morrow as well?”
“Absolutely!”
“Then I shall see you then and we will finish what I fear will be a dull case.”
—
The next day I attended to a few manners of personal business and made my way to Baker Street. I happened to approach the door just as Ernest Parker rounded the corner and so the two of us entered Holmes’s quarters together. Holmes greeted us and offered us each a drink. Mr. Parker gripped his nervously and sat in the seat Holmes gestured to.
Holmes sat and lit his pipe. He regarded Ernest Parker through a light haze of blue smoke. “Mr. Parker, I have found Miss Tyler.”
The man sat up, a grin spreading across his face. “Oh thank you, Mr. Holmes!”
“It is not good news, I’m afraid. She has fallen for another man. I understand this is hard news to take but do not be too upset.”
Mr. Parker slumped back in his chair. “How could I not be upset?”
“She is obviously a fickle woman. I suspect she would have left you this way eventually but it is better to have it happen now instead of years in the future. You’re still young, I suggest you go out into the city and find a woman who will make a better class of wife.” Mr. Parker offered a muttered agreement and dejected farewells before leaving the apartment.
“What a shame,” I said, “that you are the bearer of such terrible news. Congratulations on finding her, though I am not surprised.”
“I did not find her, exactly. Martha Tyler does not exist. Rather, she is not a real person but instead a forgery.”
“What!”
“Yes. I suspected from the very outset that that was the case.”
“But all those things Mr. Parker told us- the messages, the photos!”
“Hearing Mr. Parker’s story only convinced me further. I really had very little research at all to do. I went on several social networking sites. I created an account as a student transferring to Arizona State and began to friend as many people as possible.”
“You are truly a master of disguise, but why would they accept an invitation like that from a total stranger?”
“Not all of them did, but a large motivation of these people is to gather as many friends as possible. What is one more in a sea of a thousand? I started sending messages to these new ‘friends’ and introducing myself. I then asked if they knew a friend of mine who didn’t have an account of her own and shared one of the photos Mr. Parker gave me. Not one person knew the name Martha Tyler. No one could even remember seeing the girl in the photo on campus. She is a very pretty girl, I’m sure at least one fellow would remember her face. So I knew the girl was fictional. An assumed name and some photos found online and even you could pretend, Watson. Just as I did to get the information.”
“I would never!”
“Nor I, except to investigate a case such as this one. So I had to figure out what kind of a person would, and I could think of only three. It could be a ruse to defraud Mr. Parker of his money. However, since she vanished without any such exchange I ruled the possibility out. The second option was that Martha Tyler was a woman who was desperate for love and provided Ernest Parker with a false photo so he would fall in love with her personality and then she could confess the trick. Since no one recognized the name Martha Tyler it’s obvious that this was not the case either, since a woman would not lie any more than she deemed necessary. A fake face would be hard enough for a suitor to overcome; a fake name would ruin any hope. No, I decided that ‘Martha Tyler’ was simply a man playing a tasteless joke to amuse himself and his friends. Her disappearance coincided, then, with his loss of interest in the whole affair. The messages Mr. Parker gave me have a slight air of masculinity to them that you would notice if you studied them closely enough. Not to mention a sense of passive deference that sounded more like a parody of a woman’s manner of speech instead of the genuine article.”
“But Mr. Parker said he spoke to her on the phone! How could that be, if it was a man?”
“I thought at first that the man had a confederate, a woman who could pretend to be the fake Miss Tyler. But what kind of man spends six months on a pointless joke? Furthermore, what kind of man would tell a woman he was pretending to be a woman on the internet? Further still, why were the conversations so brief? No, I realized that the culprit could only be a high school student whose voice had not yet deepened to the tones of manhood. It made sense at once. The awkward frustrations of youth are a perfect motivation for such a cruel type of fraud. To be certain, I sent an e-mail to the address Mr. Parker gave me. I said I was a consultant to the London police and if her persisted in his behavior I would notify the Phoenix authorities as well as, and here was the real threat, his parents. Almost at once I received a reply begging for forgiveness.”
“But if you knew all that then why wouldn’t you tell Mr. Parker?”
“I didn’t see the point. The crime here is poor judgment. This way, hopefully our American female pretender will learn a valuable lesson and find a healthier outlet for his youthful idiocy. Meanwhile, Mr. Parker will learn the importance of dating women he can take out at night. He may even improve his appearance in a bid to become more desirable. Telling him he was being fooled by a prepubescent boy would simply ruin him. As Shakespeare once said, ‘Love is the most beautiful of dreams and the worst of nightmares.’ Now come, there is an opera this evening that I think you will enjoy.”