Dana Stabenow was born in Anchorage and raised on a seventy-five-foot fish tender in the Gulf of Alaska. She knew there was a warmer, drier job out there somewhere and found it in writing. Her first science fiction novel,
An eerily similar adventure is recounted by Dr. Watson in “The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter,” which was first published in
THE CASE THAT HOLMES LOST
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
