A Study in Murder (45 page)

‘I am sure we can locate it and have it returned.’

When Peredue had taken his leave, to visit the grave of his brother and arrange, anonymously, for a headstone to be erected bearing his name, Holmes turned to me. ‘Watson, no doubt one day
you will wish to write of these events, of the time when Sherlock Holmes developed a theory so preposterous, it was only trumped by the truth. But have a care. Peredue did aid the escape of a
murderer, albeit an accidental one, and leave the law, and a certain Consulting Detective, scratching their heads. Strictly speaking, he should face the courts. Perhaps you should allow some time
to pass before putting pen to paper.’

Time has indeed passed and two of the principals are no longer with us. James Peredue perished in 1907 when the
Larchmont
, a paddle steamer, sank after a collision off the coast of Rhode
Island, en route from Providence (where Peredue owned a fine home) to New York. Sparrow MacCoy sharped one too many cards and was shot dead in a gunfight in San Francisco in 1906, just days before
the earthquake. Mr Sherlock Holmes is retired, tending his bees, his reputation secure and robust enough to survive a tale in which he played the part of the mistaken detective.

Although
A Study in Murder
is fiction, the details of the POW camps in Germany (including the sanctioned strolls in the countryside, providing a form was completed giving
the officer’s word they would return), the prisoner aid services in the UK and the exchanges for POWs to live on licence in Holland and Switzerland are all based on fact. Harzgrund is
inspired by the rather grim Holzminden, where the commandant really did run the camp for profit. No prisoners were dissolved in acid, although there was a largely successful mass escape through
tunnels in July 1918. See Jacqueline Cook’s
The Real Great Escape
and Neil Hanson’s
Escape from Germany
. There really were work camps in Germany like the one described for
the Russians, which presaged the conditions and brutality found in Nazi concentration camps twenty-five years later.
The War Behind the Wire
by John Lewis-Sempel is a sobering and thoughtful
overview of the life of POWs of all ranks and the harsh regimes they often endured.

Watson’s story about Sparrow MacCoy & Co. is based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Man With the Watches’. Like ‘The Lost Special’ this is one of his tales
that, while not part of the Sherlock Holmes canon, has the feel of a Holmes tale (in fact an unnamed ‘amateur detective’ and an ‘amateur reasoner’ pops up in both). I have
reworked it to put Sherlock at the centre of the puzzle, even if, as in
A Study in Scarlet
, the answer to the crime ultimately lies off-stage from Baker Street.

The Connaught in Mayfair was once called the Coburg and changed its name in 1917 (although a little later than here).

The Holland class of experimental submarines did exist, but Holland 6 never got off the drawing board, except within these pages. And if you happen to be in Venlo, don’t go looking for the
bridge at Knok. There isn’t one there. We novelists have to be allowed to make some things up.

As always, I would like to thank Clare Hey, Sue Stephens, James Horobin, Jamie Groves, Carla Josephson and all at Simon & Schuster, as well as Susan d’Arcy, David Miller, Christine
Walker and Deborah Ryan for their enthusiasm, help and support with this series.