The Adventure of the Dying Detective
1913
The most heartbreaking con in Sherlock Holmes's career. When Dr. Watson arrives at his friend's lodgings, he finds Holmes wasted away, muttering in a fever, insisting he has contracted a fatal tropical disease from Chinese sailors in the East End. Watson's medical training screams at him to act, but Holmes refuses all treatment, refuses company, insists he is contagious and beyond saving. What follows is an agonizing twenty-four hours as Watson watches his best friend die, helpless to intervene. But Holmes isn't dying at all. He has orchestrated the most elaborate ruse of his career, baiting the murderer Culverton Smith into a confession by letting him believe his victim is truly gone. The genius lies in Holmes's absolute trust in Watson: only by letting his friend truly believe he was watching a man die could the deception hold. A masterpiece of misdirection that plays fair with the reader while breaking our hearts.
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“Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last.””
— Arthur Conan Doyle
“There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less and a cleaner, better stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.””
— Arthur Conan Doyle
“His incredible untidiness, his addiction to music at strange hours, his occasional revolver practice within doors, his weird and often malodorous scientific experiments, and the atmosphere of violence and danger which hung around him made him the very worst tenant in London.””
— Arthur Conan Doyle
“He seems to have declared war on the King’s English as well as on the English king.””
— Arthur Conan Doyle
“How do you know that?""I followed you.""I saw no one.""That is what you may expect to see when I follow you.””
— Arthur Conan Doyle
“(...) We are bound to go.”My answer was to rise from the table.“You are right, Holmes. We are bound to go.”He sprang up and shook me by the hand.“I knew you would not shrink at the last,” said he, and for a moment I saw something in his eyes which was nearer to tenderness than I had ever seen. The next instant he was his masterful, practical self once more.””
— Arthur Conan Doyle
“Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age.””
— Arthur Conan Doyle
“There have,” said I, “been numerous petty thefts.”Holmes snorted his contempt.“This great and sombre stage is set for something more worthy than that,” said he. “It is fortunate for this community that I am not a criminal.””
— Arthur Conan Doyle
“Sterndale sprang to his feet.“I believe that you are the devil himself!” he cried.Holmes smiled at the compliment.””
— Arthur Conan Doyle
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Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Adventure of the Dying Detective. Lex, lex-books.com/book/the-adventure-of-the-dying-detective-cdbb460f-0553-4c77-8af7-b3419a4c8a23.Doyle, A. C. (1913). The Adventure of the Dying Detective. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-adventure-of-the-dying-detective-cdbb460f-0553-4c77-8af7-b3419a4c8a23Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Adventure of the Dying Detective. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-adventure-of-the-dying-detective-cdbb460f-0553-4c77-8af7-b3419a4c8a23.
