To date, he’d published eight Holmes adventures: two short novels, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four, and six stories. All had appeared in the Chesbro Magazine, headquartered in London, although the novels had proven so popular they’d later been published separately in hard cover editions. The stories had appeared at intervals of approximately three months, but there’d been no new one for a year. The most recent one, “The Man with the Twisted Lip,” had been published last winter.
I took the train to London and, accompanied by a local officer, called on Chesbro’s editor, Marianne Cummings. She was a diminutive woman, barely five feet tall, well into her sixties. But she showed a no-nonsense attitude as she ushered us into her office. “I don’t often receive visits from the police,” she said. “I hope we haven’t done anything to attract your attention. How may I help you?”
I couldn’t help smiling because I knew how my question would affect her. “Ms. Cummings,” I said, “have you scheduled a new Sherlock Holmes story?”
She peered at me over her glasses. “I beg your pardon?”
“Sherlock Holmes? Is there another one in the pipeline?”
She broke into a wide skeptical smile. “Is Scotland Yard using Mr. Holmes for training purposes?”
“I’ve a good reason for asking, Ms. Cummings.”
That produced a standoff of almost a minute. “No,” she said finally. “We’ve not scheduled any.”
“Will there be any more?”
“I certainly hope so.”
“Why the delay?”
She sat down behind a desk and turned to stare out a window. A pigeon looked back at us. “Will my answer go any farther?”
“I can’t promise that, but I’ll be as discrete as I can.”
“Mr. McBride has submitted several stories since “The Twisted Lip.”
“And—?”
“I think he’s hired someone else to do the writing. That he’s just putting his name on the work.”
“They’re not as good as the ones you’ve published?”
“Not remotely.”
“You’ve told him that?”
“Of course.”
“What’s his explanation?”
“He says he’s been tired. Promises that he’ll get something to me shortly.”
Christopher McBride’s connection with the Doyles was through his cousin Emma Hasting, who’d married Doyle’s grandson, three generations removed. Emma Hasting lived in Southsea, just a few blocks from the site where Doyle had lived during the 1880s. She was widowed now. Her husband had been a software developer, and Emma had taught music.
She lived in a villa with a magnificent view of the sea. I arrived there on a cold, gray, rainswept morning. “I’ve been here all my life,” she said, as we settled onto a divan in the living room. There was a piano and a desk. And a photo of a young Conan Doyle. “It’s from his years here,” she said. “According to family tradition, it was taken while he was working on ‘The Man from Archangel.’ It was also the period during which he was trying to save Jack Hawkins.” She turned bright blue eyes on me. The gaze, somehow, of a young woman. “He was also a physician, you know.”
I knew. I had no idea who Jack Hawkins was, though, and I didn’t really care. But I wanted to keep her talking about Doyle. So I asked.
“Jack Hawkins was a patient,” she explained. “He had cerebral meningitis. But Conan refused to give up on him. He took him into his home and did everything he could. But that was 1885, and medicine had no way to deal with that sort of problem.” She used the first name casually, as if Doyle were an old friend. “In the end they lost him.”
“I see.”
“During the course of the struggle, Conan fell in love with his sister, Louise Hawkins, and married her that same year.”
I called her attention to the photo. “Has anything else of his survived and come down to you?”
She considered it. “A lamp,” she said. “Would you like to see it?”
It was an oil lamp, and she kept it, polished and sparkling, atop a shelf in the dining room. “He wrote The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard by its light,” she said. “And several of his medical stories.” She gave me a sly wink. There was really no way to be certain of the facts.
“And is there anything else of Doyle’s that you have? Or that Christopher might have received?”
“Oh. Do you know Christopher?”
“Somewhat,” I said. “It’s he who first got me interested in Doyle.”
“There’s a trunk that once belonged to the doctor,” she said. “It’s upstairs.”
“A trunk.”
“Yes. James had it. My husband.”
“May I ask what’s in it?”
“I use it for general storage. Mostly I pack off-season clothes in it.”
“Is there anything connected with Doyle?”
“Not anymore.”
“I see. But there was something at one time?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “My husband never bothered with it. When I first looked into it, it was packed with old clothes and a few books. And several folders filled with manuscripts. The books were not in good condition. I got rid of them, got rid of everything, except the manuscripts. I thought someone might be interested in them. A scholar, perhaps.”
“Where are they now?”
“The manuscripts? I gave them to Chris. He was an English teacher. I knew he’d find a use for them. He used to show them to his students.”
“You gave them away?”
“I wasn’t giving them away, Inspector. I knew they might be valuable. But Chris was a member of the family.”
“And he showed them to his students?”
“Oh, yes. He has all kinds of stories about their reactions.”
I was sure he did. “But you never read them?”
“Have you ever seen Conan’s handwriting?”
When I got to McBride’s place, he was waiting. “I expected you earlier,” he said.
“Emma called you.”
“Yes.”
We stood facing each other. “You didn’t write the Holmes stories, did you?”
“Doyle wrote them.”
“Why didn’t he publish them?”
He retreated inside and left the door open for me. “He considered them beneath him. Stevenson quotes him as saying he didn’t want to have his name associated with cheapjack thrillers. That was the way he thought of them.”
“But he created Holmes and Watson.”
McBride nodded. “As far as he was concerned, they were entertainments for him. What we would call guilty pleasures. Something he did in his spare time. God knows where he found spare time. Stevenson suggested he publish them under a pseudonym, but Doyle believed the truth would leak out. It always does, you know.”
“Yes, I suppose it does.” Finally, we sat. “That was what was in the two letters you removed from the library.”
“Stevenson had read two of the stories. ‘A Scandal in Bohemia.’ And ‘A Case of Identity.’ He pleaded with Doyle to publish. But Doyle’s career as a historical novelist was just taking off. And that was the way he wanted to be remembered.”
“The other letter? The one to Payn?”
“Payn had a chance to publish A Study in Scarlet. In 1886, I believe. He was editor of the Cornhill magazine then.” McBride shook his head slowly at the blindness of the world. “He rejected it. Rejected A Study in Scarlet. Imagine. So Stevenson wrote to him. He mentioned Holmes and Watson in his letter and told Payn he’d missed a golden opportunity. He suggested he reconsider his decision.”
“Did Payn ever respond?”