A Study in Sherlock

“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.