A Study in Sherlock

THE CASE THAT HOLMES LOST Charles Todd

John Whitman rose as the door to his office opened and an energetic man, his face lined with worry, walked in.

“Sir Arthur,” he said, offering his hand.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle took it in a firm grip, saying, “Thank you for seeing me so quickly, John. It’s rather urgent.” Taking the chair across from his solicitor’s desk, he went on, “Holmes has got himself into a great deal of trouble.”

Hiding a smile, Whitman said, “Indeed.”

“Yes,” Conan Doyle replied testily. “He’s being sued.”

“Sued! Are you quite serious?”

“I don’t joke about such matters, I assure you.”

“But Holmes—I beg your pardon for saying this—but he’s your creation. I can understand that someone might sue you. It’s not that unusual for an author to be sued. Plagiarism, for one thing; libel for another. Infringement of rights. But no one sues his chief character.”

“Yes, well, there’s a first time for everything. It’s a frivolous suit. I want it dismissed.”

Whitman reached for a sheaf of paper and his pen. “Let’s begin at the beginning. Why is Holmes being sued?”

“Smith—my editor—wanted a new story, and I wrote one for him. It was loosely based on something that happened while I was in Edinburgh, studying medicine. Of course I changed the setting from Scotland to London, and I changed names. The result was a very different case, and well suited to Holmes. There is absolutely no reason why anyone should have uncovered the source of the plot.”

“And what has become of this story? Have you turned it over to your editor?”

“As soon as it was finished. Three days later I was informed that someone intended to sue Holmes.”

“How did this someone come to know of the existence of your manuscript?”

“There is the crux of the problem, you see. He couldn’t have. Only two people had read the story. I was one, of course, and my editor was the other.”

“How did you send this manuscript to him?”

Conan Doyle smiled. “A question worthy of Holmes. By private messenger. But from the time the manuscript left my hands to the time it was delivered was no more than three quarters of an hour. Hardly time to read the story, much less make a copy of it for anyone.”

“Had you told anyone else you were writing this particular story?”

“No, no. That would have defeated my purpose in changing the details.”

“Will you tell me a little about this case?”

Conan Doyle hesitated, then said, “Yes, of course. You must know what it is about, if you are to shut down this ridiculous business before it becomes public knowledge.”

He got up and walked to the window, gazing down into the busy street below.

“You see, Scottish law isn’t quite the same as English law. In addition to the usual verdict of guilty or not guilty, there is a third possibility: not proven. It is sometimes a limbo, where one is neither exonerated nor convicted. There have been a few famous cases where this verdict became a millstone around the neck of the accused.”

“As a solicitor, I’m aware of this difference,” Whitman said dryly.

Conan Doyle glanced over his shoulder. “Yes, of course, how stupid of me.” He went back to his study of the street.

“A man was accused of murder. He was, in fact, a colleague of mine, although he was five years older and already in private practice. It was said that William—I shan’t give you his surname, unless you must have it—that William had become enamored of one of his patients. That much is quite true. According to later accounts she refused his advances, reminding him that she was in fact a happily married woman. Still, he was clearly obsessed with her, and in the end, he convinced himself—so it was claimed—that his chances would be improved if she found herself a widow. And so he set about devising the means by which to accomplish this.”

“He intended to murder her husband?” Whitman asked, shocked.

“Sadly, the police insist that he did just that. I should like to think that I’m a good enough judge of character to believe otherwise. The William I thought I knew could have wished with all his heart that this woman was free, but that’s vastly different from deciding to act on such a wish.”

Whitman could hear the ambivalence in Conan Doyle’s voice. As if duty compelled him to profess faith in a friend, but later events made him begin to doubt his own judgment.

“What means would he have employed? If he had decided to act?”

“In the medical profession there are a number of drugs that can be used for the good of a patient—but in the hands of an unscrupulous person, they can also be used to kill. All that is required, then, is an opportunity to employ one of these drugs. And in due course, the victim—the husband—was dispatched. Or simply died, depending on whether you believe William or the case against him. Oddly enough, the grieving widow found William a pillar of strength during the year that followed, and increasingly leaned on him during the long months of probate. This of course gave William hope, and he even began to think about proposing marriage as soon as a decent period of mourning ended. When he did declare himself, the lovely widow asked for twenty-four hours in which to consider her answer. The next morning, instead of learning his fate, he was taken up by the police on a charge of murder.”

“Upon what evidence?” Whitman asked. “After a year’s time?”

“The widow had been reminded that William had made advances while her husband was still alive.”

“Reminded by whom? Do you know?”

“By her maid,” Conan Doyle said. “She was in fact one of the witnesses against William.”

“And who reminded her maid?” Whitman asked, curious.

“I don’t believe anyone did. It appeared that she’d never cared for William and persuaded her mistress that he’d not behaved properly while the victim was still alive. William denied that he had done any such thing or had spoken out of turn while the lady was still married. At any rate, the case came to trial. But the jury wasn’t satisfied that the police had discovered the method of killing the husband. Suspicion was one thing. However, the postmortem had shown no particular cause of death—a healthy man of thirty-seven seldom drops dead without some underlying condition, but there was nothing. And you must know there is no universal test for poison. Those that the coroner did make, given the unusual circumstances, were negative, and at the time of death, no suspicion fell on William or anyone else. Still, with the widow’s finger now pointing at him, the police were willing to reconsider the matter.”

“I can see why this case interested you.”

“Indeed. William’s counsel argued that William had not gained in any way from the man’s death, that his proposal was the result of propinquity, not premeditation. The eventual verdict was not proven, and William was set free. Meanwhile, the widow finally made her choice, and it wasn’t William. Even more painful was the fact that she chose a friend of his. Still, the damage to his reputation had been done, and William never practiced medicine again.”

“But of course, Holmes didn’t leave it there.”

Conan Doyle came back to his chair and sat down. “No, no, how could he? The fact is, he discovered that William—he’s called Hamilton in the story—had been the victim of a clever plot. This trial took place in an English courtroom, you understand, where of course poor William was found guilty. The truth was, the now-wealthy widow and the friend she later married had devised a plan to rid themselves of her husband. First she had let William believe that she could care for him. Second, she had used a poison, so as to point directly to William, the medical man. The only problem was that in their ignorance of such matters, the plotters chose a West African poison so obscure it couldn’t be traced. Rather than one that William might have selected from his medical bag, you see. But there was other evidence, manufactured but sound enough for conviction.”

“Why West Africa?”

“I was there for a time, you know. And in my story, so was the man the widow eventually marries. At any rate, this conniving widow had encouraged Holmes’s client, William, from the start, leading him to believe she cared for him. The poor man had no chance against such a devious pair. Yet it looked very dark for him, the date of execution having been set. Just the sort of hopeless case that would appeal to Holmes. There’s the matter of obscure poisons as well. Holmes has always prided himself on his knowledge of that subject. And William’s plea to Holmes to look into his plight interested Dr. Watson as well, of course, since there was a physician involved. ‘First do no harm,’ the oath admonishes. What’s more, Watson had served in India and had some little understanding of the unique properties of many plants that we in England aren’t acquainted with.”

Intrigued, John Whitman asked, “And how did Holmes solve this case?”

“The final clue comes when Holmes bluffs the widow by telling her that since she is wealthier than her new husband, she should beware. And he shows her an empty envelope that Mycroft has given him from Foreign Office correspondence, posted from Africa but with the address removed—Holmes knows something about inks, as you recall—and replaced with that of her husband’s place of business. And Holmes wonders aloud if the man has sent for more of the same poison. The letter here is missing, you understand, but she believes Holmes when he tells her that this envelope was found in the dustbin at her London house. She dissolves into tears and confesses—she thinks to save her own life—how her new husband came up with and carried out this wicked scheme.”

“Have you considered—there may be more truth in your work of fiction than someone could safely ignore? And not necessarily in Scotland.”

“Yes, that’s always possible. But the question remains: how did anyone come to know that I was writing such a story, and what’s more, that it was finished? This happened in Edinburgh more than a quarter of a century ago. And William is dead. Did I tell you that? He took his own life in a bout of severe depression some years after the trial. That’s why I felt safe in using the facts of the case in my story.”

“Then I find it interesting that someone has chosen to sue Sherlock Holmes and not Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”

“Well, I’m glad you find it interesting,” Conan Doyle snapped irritably. “How do they expect to bring Holmes into a courtroom, I ask you!”

“Perhaps it has nothing to do with Holmes or a suit against him. Perhaps someone wishes to see you settle this case out of court. For instance, with an offer of money.”

“I shall do no such thing. And what about this short story? Am I to allow my editor to publish it? Or am I to abandon it like an unwanted child? Smith will not be happy with me, I can tell you, if I withdraw it. He has already scheduled its publication, and is poised to announce a new Holmes to readers in the next issue of The Strand Magazine.”

“That will have to be dealt with. At the moment, I think we should have a conversation with the solicitor representing your adversary.”

“To call him an adversary is to give him status. Moriarty was an adversary. Irene Adler was an adversary. Whoever is plaguing me with this suit is nothing of the sort.”

Whitman smiled. “Yes, I take your point. Who is the solicitor?”

“A man called Baines. He has chambers in London on Ironmonger Lane. Rather an unprepossessing address. As you would expect of someone willing to be involved in such a frivolous business.”

“I’ll call on him tomorrow. Meanwhile, I advise you to think no more about it.”

But Conan Doyle wasn’t satisfied. “I should like to know how the manuscript fell into the hands of these people.”

“Have you had anyone in to work on drains? To look for dry rot or worm in the attics? Anyone who could have had access to your study?”

“By God. There was a chimney sweep last week.”

“The same one you have employed before this?”

“How should I know? Their faces are always black with soot. But there was no reason—until now, at any rate—to suspect he was anything other than what he claimed to be. I don’t deal with such matters, but I saw him walking to the service door as I left one morning.”

“Ah. Was the manuscript accessible? Could he have read it?”

“I suppose he could. But if he had no idea I was writing such a story—and no one did—how could he have known to look for it?”

“Perhaps any story would have done. You are a famous author, after all. It isn’t out of the realm of possibility that you’d be currently at work on a Holmes case.”

Conan Doyle hesitated. “I did inquire of a friend in Edinburgh to discover what had become of the principals in the real case. I was told the clever widow and her new husband left for Canada shortly after William’s suicide. But Fergus MacTaggart is utterly trustworthy. He and William and I were close at one time. MacTaggart remained William’s friend when everyone else turned his back.”

“Everyone appears to be trustworthy, until we’ve been shown otherwise.”

“Yes, well, it’s easier to write about devious people than it is to search for them in one’s own life.”

With that he left. Whitman looked down at his notes. Would Conan Doyle’s editor wish to publish a short story that was the center of controversy? If it increased circulation, probably. But if it led to questions about the story itself, would Herbert Smith shy away from it? And was that the reason behind this suit? Holmes had a brilliant track record as a consulting detective. Had he stumbled on a truth that someone wished to keep out of the public eye?

That seemed to be the crux of the case. A settlement that included an agreement to withdraw the story from publication would prove the point.

But the question was, who would benefit from withdrawing the story? That remained to be seen.

The next morning Whitman went to call on Ronald Baines.

His chambers were in the first floor of Number 12 Ironmonger Lane. The door was paneled mahogany, with a brass plate affixed to it. Whitman opened it to find a well-furnished waiting room. A clerk came in as soon as Whitman was about to take a seat.

“Do you have an appointment, sir?” the man asked, peering at Whitman over the top of his glasses.

Whitman identified himself and the reason for his visit.

The clerk said, “I’ll see if Mr. Baines is free.” He went away and Whitman took a chair by the window, watching clouds scuttle across the city, promising a change in the fine weather London had been enjoying.

The clerk finally reappeared and informed Whitman that Mr. Baines would see him, but only for ten minutes, as he was expecting another client at eleven o’clock. He led Whitman down a passage where gilt-framed hunting prints were hung. The room at the end of the passage was spacious and occupied a corner of the building. A French Empire desk took pride of place, and behind it a large, florid man rose to hold out his hand.

“Good morning,” he said affably. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of meeting before this.”

“Thank you for seeing me,” Whitman replied. “I’ve come about the suit pending against Sherlock Holmes.”

Baines indicated a chair. “Ah, yes. Indeed.”

“I’m astonished, to put it mildly, that you would take on such a frivolous matter.”

“Hardly frivolous. My client had considered suing Sir Arthur, but the problem isn’t the author, the problem is his character. Mr. Holmes has taken on an unusual case and solved it with his usual skill. It is that skill which is the problem. My client feels that in solving the mystery at hand, he has put my client in jeopardy of his livelihood.”

“I must say, I don’t see how that’s possible. Mr. Holmes is a fictional character. Do you tell me that your client is also fictional?”

There was a flash of anger in Ronald Baines’s eyes. “I can assure you that he is quite real. As it happens, his wife died recently, and he has been occupying himself in writing a book concerning a certain murder case in Scotland many years ago. It is currently under consideration by a publishing house. If Mr. Holmes solves it before the manuscript has been sold, who will be interested in it? When Mr. Holmes has taken the wind out of its sails, so to speak.”

“I don’t see that there’s a problem. One is nonfiction, and the other fiction. How do they overlap?”

Baines said, “Mr. Holmes is a name most everyone in Britain recognizes. Indeed, he’s considered the premier consulting detective in the world; his popularity is undeniable. And he is about to steal my client’s livelihood.”

“I should like to know how your client discovered that such a story was being written by Sir Arthur. As far as I’m aware, only two people knew the contents of that particular case.”

“Let us say that a friend felt he should be made aware of Conan Doyle’s intentions.”

“And all your client wishes is to see the story withdrawn from publication? No monetary damages? No other requirements to be satisfied before the suit is withdrawn?”

“My client is not a mercenary man. He merely wishes to have the story withdrawn, so as to protect his own work. And a promise, of course, from your client, that he will never speak of this story again. Surely this is not a difficult decision. Sir Arthur is a very clever writer; he can easily invent another case in place of this one.”

“I should like to know the name of your client.”

“Ah. I’m afraid I can’t answer that. He has asked for anonymity. Adverse publicity will also do him considerable harm, you see. He has a right to see his work in print and successful. And judged on its own merit. How can that be, if there are comparisons with Holmes at every turn? That will be brought up, do you see, in every review, and speculation will grow over the way Holmes solved the murder. Sir Arthur is an author; he will surely appreciate the problem.”

“Sir Arthur has changed the facts in the case.”

“But not sufficiently, sad to say.”

It was clear that Baines had given all the information that he was willing to divulge.

Still, Whitman persisted. “Will he step out of the shadows, your client, if Sir Arthur agrees to the withdrawal of the story? After all, you have the advantage of us. We don’t know who we’re dealing with.”

“I think he will not.”

“Then I shall have to consult my client to see how he feels about your demands.”

“Not demands. A request, merely. From one author to another.”

Whitman left shortly thereafter, unsatisfied. He sent word to his own client, and that afternoon Conan Doyle arrived at his chambers. After telling him what had transpired at Baines’s office, Whitman asked, “How do you feel about withdrawing your story?”

“This client forgets that Holmes is also my own livelihood. If someone else is writing a book on the events I used for Holmes’s case, then he should have contacted me personally and asked that I withdraw it until such time as his book is published. I’d have taken his request under consideration—even if I don’t feel I have stepped on his toes in any way. Call it professional courtesy.”

“But not knowing you personally, he couldn’t have counted on your good will. Or professional courtesy.”

“True.” Conan Doyle sighed. “I can see his dilemma. But I’m still angry over this suit.”

“Do you know of anyone who could have a reason either to write his own version of events or to question yours?”

“No one. In fact, yesterday afternoon I went to speak to a friend of mine. I asked if she could identify the forces set against me. She said the dead are no threat to me.”

“You visited a seer?” Whitman was taken aback.

“I thought it wise,” Conan Doyle replied defensively. “After all, if this person lives in the shadows, I have a right to seek him out in any way I can.”

“I must remind you that the seer’s advice is all very well and good—but a dead man cannot bring suit in an English courtroom. My suggestion, as your legal adviser, is to let this suit proceed and see then who comes out of those shadows.”

“At what expense to my story?”

“I don’t know. You must answer that. Is the story so important?”

“I think Holmes was particularly clever in this one. I should hate to lose it. And it isn’t the story of William—well, of that William. It was a starting point only. The rest is Holmes. I’ve had a very uneasy relationship with him, my creation or not, as you well know. But I cannot spite him.”

“What about the widow and her new husband? Your story isn’t complimentary toward them. After all, they were never tried—if your conclusions are correct, they may be at some risk, if the police see fit to reopen the case. And Canada is not that far away.”

“How would they have discovered what I was doing? And they would be foolish to raise objections. To do so would only draw attention to them.”

“Baines told me that his client had recently lost his wife. That could very well mean that this is the widow’s husband, returned to England or Scotland to live.”

“I can believe in a jealous author before—” Conan Doyle stopped in midsentence, and then asked, “His client’s wife died recently, you say?”

“Yes. It was the reason his client turned to writing—a way of managing his grief.”

Conan Doyle frowned. “MacTaggart.” He got up and began to pace the floor. “He has just lost his own wife. Confound it, I thought he was reliable. I hadn’t counted on grief turning his mind. It’s the only explanation for his behavior.”

Whitman answered carefully. “Where does his loyalty lie, I wonder? Either he betrayed you to someone—”

“It’s the only solution. Not the sweep. MacTaggart.”

“—or he himself has something to fear from your story. How would Holmes see this?”

Conan Doyle stopped his pacing, sat down, and stared at his solicitor. “In my story,” he said slowly, “Holmes faults the man who conducted the postmortem. He believed that he’d muddled the case.”

Whitman said nothing.

As he examined the past, Conan Doyle’s eyes went to the framed photograph of the king above Whitman’s head.

“Damn it. There’s no book being written, is there? Holmes saw it from the beginning! I took his remarks to Watson to mean that the man didn’t know enough about poisons. But it wasn’t that, was it? In the Scottish case, MacTaggart did the postmortem. And he shouldn’t have, don’t you see? At the time, I believed he was just the man to find out how Moira’s husband had died. Good God, we all knew that MacTaggart had been one of Moira MacGregor’s suitors before she was married. We never dreamed he still cared for her. I’d suspected William Scott had been infatuated with her. I wasn’t surprised when he was in and out of her house after her husband’s death, helping her with the funeral arrangements and the will. The family doctor and all that. MacTaggart was there nearly as often, and we put it down to kindness.”

“And no one wondered at this?”

“We never gave it a thought. He must have been the first to realize that Moira was favoring William. He was there to see it for himself. If he’d killed the husband only to watch another man usurp his place, it would explain everything. What’s more, it could very well have been MacTaggart who put a word in the maid’s ear after William proposed. Who better?”

“Who, indeed,” Whitman agreed. “He could hardly speak against William Scott himself. The widow wouldn’t have listened. Was he a persuasive man? Could he have managed that?”

“MacTaggart? Not persuasive, precisely. But his reputation for rectitude and honesty was well known. The maid would have taken to heart any such concern on his part. And he could have thought himself safe in blaming William, because he’d already declared that no poison had been found in the victim’s body. Well, of course it hadn’t—he himself had seen to that. Fortunately for William, that was also what led to the verdict of not proven. MacTaggart was jealous of William. The man he claimed was his dearest friend.” Conan Doyle surged to his feet. “And now he wants Holmes silenced. Because Holmes could raise questions about the case.”

“Legally it makes sense. If he had brought suit against you, we would have had to know his name. By attacking your creation, he could remain anonymous.”

“By God, I’ll have his liver for this.”

He was already on his way to the door. Turning, he said to his solicitor, “My fame counts for something. Thanks to Holmes, although sometimes it galls me to say it. I’m about to ask the Home Office to exhume William Scott’s body. He hanged himself in the stairwell of his home. But did he? Was this suicide MacTaggart’s final act of revenge against William?”

“The Home Office—” John Whitman began.

“I know. They have no authority in Scotland. But you see, William Scott went to live in Northumberland after the trial. Driven out of Edinburgh by the verdict of not proven. And so he died in England. I’ll give you any odds you like that it was murder. The trial was not punishment enough. MacTaggart wanted poor William hounded to his grave. And I call myself a writer of detective fiction. It happened under my nose, and I didn’t see it.”

“You did,” Whitman pointed out. “You let Holmes solve it for you. Still, if MacTaggart is convicted in England for William Scott’s murder, that won’t clear Scott’s name.”

“Indeed it will. I’ll see to that. Perhaps not in a Scottish court, but in the court of public opinion.”

“What will you do about the story now?”

“Destroy it. Write something else. If I’m to be involved in William’s redemption, I want Holmes out of it. I don’t want that case clouding what I’m about to do.”

“Is that fair to Holmes?” Whitman asked. “I’ve yet to read the story, but I can see it was brilliant detection. As well as true.”

“You will never read it,” Conan Doyle replied grimly. “As you said, I created Holmes. I tried once to destroy him and failed. But I can take this case away from him. I can do that.”

And he was gone, slamming the door behind him.

“Charles Todd” is the mother and son team of Charles and Caroline Todd. They are the authors of thirteen Ian Rutledge novels, two Bess Crawford novels, The Murder Stone, and many short stories. Their latest Rutledge is A Lonely Death (Morrow, January 2011) and the new Bess Crawford title is A Bitter Truth (Morrow, August 2011). “Charles Todd” is a New York Times bestselling author, and they have received nominations for the Edgar, Anthony, John Creasey, and Indie Awards, and won the Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine–Barry Award. They live on the East Coast of the United States.

Caroline’s fourth-grade teacher promised to read to her class the last twenty minutes of each day if they were good and worked hard. Fortunately, the teacher loved Sherlock Holmes and didn’t think him too mature for nine-year-olds. Caroline admits to owing her not only for the multiplication tables and long division but for opening a new world of adventure and mystery that was just as valuable. As an “innocent young lad,” Charles met Sherlock Holmes through Dr. Watson as read to him before bedtime by his mother. He went off to sleep dreaming of redheaded speckled-banded stick figures from Bohemia.

Although the events recorded in this story are not dated, it clearly takes place after 1905, when King Edward was on the throne and Sir Arthur had accepted a knighthood. From 1903 to 1927, tales of Holmes continued to appear sporadically in The Strand Magazine, under the steady editorial hand of Herbert Greenhough Smith.