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.
