|
ACD |
Arthur Conan Doyle |
|
AMA |
Arthur Montague Adams |
|
AT |
Amalie (Malchen) Leschziner Tau |
|
DC |
David Cook |
|
ES |
Ewing Speirs |
|
EL |
Euphemia (Phemie) Leschziner |
|
HL |
Helen Lambie |
|
HMPP |
His Majesty’s Prison Peterhead |
|
JTT |
Det. Lt. John Thompson Trench |
|
LF |
Leschziner family |
|
MB |
Margaret Birrell |
|
ML |
Mitchell Library, Glasgow |
|
MP |
Master of Polworth |
|
NRS |
National Records of Scotland, Edinburgh |
|
OS |
Oscar Slater |
|
PL |
Pauline Leschziner |
|
REP |
Reverend Eleazar Phillips |
|
WAG |
William A. Goodhart |
|
WG |
William Gordon |
|
WP |
William Park |
|
WR |
William Roughead |
“given the compound surname”: Russell Miller, The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle: A Biography (New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2008), 24.
The True Conan Doyle: Adrian Conan Doyle, The True Conan Doyle (New York: Coward-McCann, 1946).
“as brutal and callous a crime”: Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case of Oscar Slater (New York: Hodder & Stoughton/George H. Doran Company, 1912), 79–80.
“remain immortal in the classics”: ACD letter to the Spectator, July 25, 1914. In John Michael Gibson and Richard Lancelyn Green, eds., The Unknown Conan Doyle: Letters to the Press (London: Secker & Warburg, 1986), 205.
“See you Oscar”: Dictionary of the Scottish Language, www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/sndns2758. Though less well known than its Cockney counterpart, Glasgow rhyming slang likewise arose during the nineteenth century and has remained at least as robust as its London cousin. Contemporary examples include “the Tony Blairs” (“stairs”), “Andy Murray” (“curry”), “Gregory Pecks” (“specs”), and “Marilu Henner” (“tenner”—a ten-pound note). These examples are from Antonio Lillo, “Nae Barr’s Irn-Bru Whit Ye’re oan Aboot: Musings on Modern Scottish Rhyming Slang,” English World-Wide 33, no. 1 (2012): 69–102.
“disgraceful frame-up”: Arthur Conan Doyle, Memories and Adventures, 2nd ed. (London: John Murray, 1930), 445.
“Scotland’s gulag”: Quoted in Phil Scraton, Joe Sim, and Paula Skidmore, Prisons Under Protest (Milton Keynes, U.K.: Open University Press, 1991), 65.
Had he passed the twenty-year mark: WP to ACD, Dec. 1, 1927, ML.
“I was up against a ring of political lawyers”: Letter, marked “Private,” from ACD to unknown recipient, n.d., ML; also quoted in Miller (2008), 299.
“a cat would scarcely be whipped”: Andrew Lang letter to WR. Quoted in Peter Hunt, Oscar Slater: The Great Suspect (London: Carroll & Nicholson, 1951), 142.
“The Slater affair”: Pierre Nordon, Conan Doyle: A Biography, trans. John Murray (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1967), 115.
“that paladin of lost causes”: William Roughead, ed., Trial of Oscar Slater, 4th ed., Notable British Trials Series (Edinburgh and London: William Hodge & Company, 1950), xxviii.
very likely the most famous character: In 1987, the eminent science-fiction writer and impassioned rationalist Isaac Asimov went this appraisal one better, writing, “Indeed, it is quite possible to maintain that Sherlock Holmes is the most famous fictional creation of any sort and of all time.” Isaac Asimov, “Thoughts on Sherlock Holmes,” Baker Street Journal 37, no. 4 (1987): 201.
Arthur and George: Julian Barnes, Arthur and George (London: Jonathan Cape, 2005).
“a disreputable, rolling-stone of a man”: Conan Doyle (1912), 43.
“reason backward”: “A Study in Scarlet,” in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes (New York: Penguin Books, 1981), 83.
“I have a turn”: Ibid., 23–24.
the moving series of letters: In accordance with prison regulations, Slater was normally obliged to write to his family in English; their German-language replies, on reaching Scotland, had to be translated into English before they could be passed on to him. Slater’s English was not the best, and his writing in the language reflects as much. Correspondingly, the texts of the letters from his family that have been preserved in Scottish archives are rendered in the English of a series of translators of varying abilities. The situation is not ideal, but it is the best we have, and the letters in both directions are no less valuable for it, and no less moving. In the quotations from Slater’s letters that appear in this book, I have occasionally, for ease of reading, made minute changes to the unorthodox punctuation and paragraphing that he, and some of the translators, used throughout; I have also standardized the various English spellings of certain German names.
“the long nineteenth century”: Peter Gay, The Cultivation of Hatred: The Bourgeois Experience, Victoria to Freud (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993), 3: fn.
“a painful and sordid aftermath”: Conan Doyle (1930), 445.
“the racialization of crime”: Cf. Paul Knepper, “British Jews and the Racialisation of Crime in the Age of Empire,” British Journal of Criminology 47 (2007): 61–79.
On January 23, 1925: Gordon’s release date and prisoner number per HMPP internal memorandum, Feb. 17, 1925.
would culminate nearly three years later: OS was released in November 1927.
during a meeting: Hunt (1951), 187.
a regimen of enforced silence: John MacLean, “Life in Prison,” Red Dawn 1, no. 1 (March 1919): 8–9; republished at www.scottishrepublicansocialistmovement.org/Pages/SRSMJohnMacLeanLifeinPrison.aspx.
supervised round the clock by armed guards: Robert Jeffrey, Peterhead: The Inside Story of Scotland’s Toughest Prison (Edinburgh: Black & White Publishing, 2013), 19.
Slater had already been disciplined: HMPP disciplinary record, Sept. 1, 1912, NRS.
Gordon my boy: OS to WG, n.d., ML.
Just a few lines: Suppressed anonymous letter to OS, most likely from WG, Feb. 14, 1925. Attached to HMPP internal memorandum, Feb. 17, 1925, NRS.
“a case of murder”: Douglas Grant, The Thin Blue Line: The Story of the City of Glasgow Police (London: John Long, 1973), 54.
“Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing”: “The Boscombe Valley Mystery,” in Conan Doyle (1981), 204–5.
population of more than three-quarters of a million: www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks3/history/industrial_era/the_industrial_revolution/revision/3.
the second-largest city in Britain: Ibid.
“Now an alien breed”: Quoted in Ben Braber, “The Trial of Oscar Slater (1909) and Anti-Jewish Prejudices in Edwardian Glasgow,” History 88 (2003): 273–74.
“has cast a lurid light”: Quoted in ibid., 274.
She was born in Glasgow: County of Lanark, Register of Births and Baptisms, NRS.
“Miss Gilchrist was not on good terms”: MB to JTT, December 1908; document preserved by him for use in 1914 Slater case inquiry, ML.
On November 20, 1908: Marion Gilchrist, Trust Disposition and Deed of Settlement and Codicil, May 28 and Nov. 20, 1908. Books of Council and Sessions, NRS.
The previous version: Ibid.
valued at more than: Richard Whittington-Egan, The Oscar Slater Murder Story: New Light on a Classic Miscarriage of Justice (Glasgow: Neil Wilson Publishing, 2001), 71.
“a likeable, high-spirited, superficial”: Hunt (1951), 17.
“a very good domestic worker”: Agnes Guthrie letter to WP, quoted in Whittington-Egan (2001), 156.
the “maindoor house”: Ibid., 7.
she amassed an extensive collection: List adapted from Roughead (1950), 248–49.
At her death, the collection: William Park, The Truth About Oscar Slater [with the Prisoner’s Own Story] (London: Psychic Press, 1927), 46.
“She seldom wore her jewelry”: Conan Doyle (1912), 9.
forgoing the safe in her parlor: Hunt (1951), 17.
“a detachable pocket”: Ibid.
She pinned other pieces: Jack House, Square Mile of Murder (Edinburgh: Black & White Publishing, 2002), 143.
“Against…unwelcome intrusion”: Hunt (1951), 17.
“The back windows were kept locked”: Ibid.
If she were ever in distress: Ibid.
New York, London, Paris, and Brussels: Hunt (1951), 69–70.
he married a local woman: Register of marriages, Oscar Leschziner (Slater) and Mary Curtis Pryor, July 12, 1901, NRS.
an alcoholic who was constantly after him: Hunt (1951), 69.
He was known to have lived briefly again: Ibid., 73.
Slater arrived in Glasgow: Ibid., 75.
known professionally as Madame Junio: Ibid., 39.
On November 10: Roughead (1950), lxi.
an initial loan of £20: Ibid. Slater pawned the brooch on Nov. 18.
her Irish terrier: Hunt (1951), 18.
during the first three weeks of December: Ibid.
“The ‘watcher’ was seen”: Ibid., 19.
“I was informed by her”: AG to WP, 1927. Quoted in Whittington-Egan (2001), 157.
which Lambie implied in a later conversation: Ibid.
and confirmed outright: MB to JTT, December 1908.
returning at about four-thirty: HL, Slater trial testimony, May 3, 1909. In Roughead (1950), 51.
a rainy evening: Hunt (1951), xi.
“Before I reached the door”: Rowena Adams Liddell, Slater trial testimony, May 4, 1909. In Roughead (1950), 85–86.
At a minute or two before seven: Conan Doyle (1912), 10.
a penny for the newspaper: Ibid., 20.
“Lambie took the keys with her”: Ibid., 10.
a forty-year-old flutist: Hunt (1951), 17; House (2002), 140. Adams was born on April 21, 1868; www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk.
“I rang hard”: AMA, Slater trial testimony. Quoted in Roughead (1950), 78.
“breaking sticks in the kitchen”: Ibid.
“like to crack”: Quoted in Park (1927), 22.
she noticed a footprint: HL, Slater trial testimony. Quoted in Roughead (1950), 51.
“He was never a visitor”: Ibid.
“Oh, it would be the pulleys”: Ibid.
in her recollection, she remained: Hunt (1951), 21.
a well-dressed man come toward her: HL, Slater trial testimony. Quoted in Roughead (1950), 51.
the gaslight in that room: Ibid.
his clothing bore no visible traces: Hunt (1951), 24.
“I did not suspect anything wrong”: AMA, Slater trial testimony. Quoted in Roughead (1950), 79.
“Where is your mistress?”: Ibid.
“The spectacle in question”: Conan Doyle (1912), 13.
autopsy photographs depict: Thomas Toughill, Oscar Slater: The “Immortal” Case of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Stroud, U.K.: Sutton Publishing, 2006).
Adams rushed downstairs: Park (1927), 25.
“Dr. Adams surmised”: Hunt (1951), 24.
who arrived at 7:55: Ibid., 24.
who arrived later that night: Ibid., 25.
The half sovereign: Ibid., 24.
There was no sign of a struggle: Ibid., 27.
trade name Runaway: Ibid., 25.
Adams, who was nearsighted: Conan Doyle (1912), 14.
“well featured and clean-shaven”: Ibid., 15.
a three-quarter-length gray overcoat: Conan Doyle (1912), 15.
At 9:40 that night: Glasgow police internal report, Dec. 21, 1909, ML.
“An old lady was murdered”: Ibid.
In 1908, Glasgow: Braber (2003), 273.
a letter from an old American crony: Park (1927), 171.
told the barber of his travel plans: Hunt (1951), 94.
On Wednesday, December 23: Toughill (2006), 150; Roughead (1950), 88.
“not merely as an honest man”: Conan Doyle (1930), 445.
a local woman, Barbara Barrowman: Hunt (1951), 30; Toughill (2006), 250.
Encouraged by her mother: Hunt (1951), 31.
“He looked towards St. George’s Road”: Ibid., 31–32.
known as a Donegal cap: Mary Barrowman testimony, Slater extradition hearing transcript, Jan. 26, 1909, 36, NRS.
a second internal bulletin: Quoted in Hunt (1951), 32–33; italics in original.
That day, Superintendent Ord: Ibid., 33.
Glasgow soon blazed with rumor: Ibid.
“News of the dastardly outrage”: Park (1927), 36–37.
On the evening of December 25: Hunt (1951), 34.
answered to the name Anderson: Hunt (1951), 36.
It weighs barely an ounce: The wrapper, weighed by me on a postal scale at the National Records of Scotland in 2017, registers 0.7 ounce.
“marginal clubs, peopled by marginal characters”: Hunt (1951), 36.
a bookmaker’s clerk named Hugh Cameron: Ibid.
On the morning of December 26: Park (1927), 78.
Miss Gilchrist’s brooch was set: Ibid., 78–79.
Slater had left the brooch there: Hunt (1951), 78.
should have been a “fiasco”: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Memories and Adventures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1924), 223.
“Already the very bottom of the case”: Conan Doyle (1912), 22–23; italics added.
“The trouble…with all police prosecutions”: Ibid., 61.
One of four children: Hunt (1951), 131.
on January 8, 1872: A letter from LF to OS dated Jan. 7, 1912, NRS, refers to Jan. 8 of that year as Slater’s fortieth birthday.
“I was educated very inadequately”: “Oscar Slater’s Own Story: Specially Compiled from Private Documents,” Empire News, April 13, 1924.
Oskar lighted out for Berlin: Whittington-Egan (2001), 49–50.
“two or three well-kept rooms”: Hunt (1951), 130.
“decayed tenement house”: Ibid.
an invalid with spine disease: Ibid.
Pauline was partly blind: Ibid.
“I could not wish a better son”: Quoted in ibid., 131.
first visited England in about 1895: Whittington-Egan (2001), 30.
“underworld, peopled by strange denizens”: Ibid., 57.
two prior arrests: HMPP intake form, May 28, 1909, NRS.
“the marginal world”: Hunt (1951), 123.
“men who, without being criminals”: Ibid.
a world in which many Jewish immigrants: See, e.g., Ben Braber, Jews in Glasgow 1879–1939: Immigration and Integration (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2007), 29.
the act was widely understood: Ibid., 25.
In 1190, in the deadliest: Anthony Julius, Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 118ff.
“the first ejection”: Robert S. Wistrich, “Antisemitism Embedded in British Culture,” online interview by Manfred Gerstenfeld, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (2008), http://jcpa.org/article/antisemitism-embedded-in-british-culture.
Only in the mid-seventeenth century: Ibid.
“The lay Englishman”: Sir Frederick Pollock and Frederic William Maitland, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911), 1:407.
“and I make this Declaration”: Jews Relief Act (1858). Text at www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/21–22/49/contents/enacted.
the only person of Jewish birth: Born to a Jewish family in 1804, Disraeli was baptized in 1817, at his father’s insistence, in the interest of assimilation and social advancement. As an adult, he considered himself religiously intermediate, “the blank page between the Old Testament and the New,” as he famously said. Quoted in Adam Kirsch, Benjamin Disraeli (New York: Schocken Books, 2008), 32. As Kirsch points out, the imagery was not original to Disraeli, coming from the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
between the early 1880s: Braber (2007), 4.
In 1914, London had: Ibid., 184.
Glasgow’s the same year: Ibid., 4.
“Following the discovery”: Knepper (2007), 63.
first taken up formally in 1887: Ibid.
“Crime had become”: Ibid., 63–65; italics added.
“Scottish Protestants put great emphasis”: Braber (2007), 18.
The first Jews settled: Ibid., 8.
about four dozen strong: Ibid.
an optician, a quill merchant: Ibid.
“A small group of Jews”: Ibid., 21.
the supposed involvement: Ibid., 23.
“was of a Jewish type”: Ibid., 25.
one of his few early champions: Ibid., 29.
one of the first in Britain: Grant, (1973), 15.
“Poor devils”: Conan Doyle (1924), 296.
the “convenient Other”: Gay (1993), 35 and passim.
“Wanted for identification”: Quoted in Hunt (1951), 39.
“the individual’s traces”: Rosemary Jann, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Detecting Social Order (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995), 67.
“social pathology”: See, e.g., Robert Peckham, ed., Disease and Crime: A History of Social Pathologies and the New Politics of Health (New York: Routledge, 2014).
“Liberal Imperialist”: Laura Otis, Membranes: Metaphors of Invasion in Nineteenth-Century Literature, Science, and Politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 98.
“depicts British society”: Ibid., 6.
The First Citizen of Baker Street: See, e.g., Jack M. Siegel, “The First Citizen of Baker Street,” Chicago Review 2, no. 2 (1947): 49–55.
Beeton’s Christmas Annual: The annual’s founder, Samuel Orchart Beeton, was the husband of the tastemaker and author Isabella Beeton, whose instructional book on cooking and homemaking, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, first published in 1861, was a lodestar for generations of bourgeois Victorian women.
“Marshall McLuhan…once observed”: Frank D. McConnell, “Sherlock Holmes: Detecting Order amid Disorder,” Wilson Quarterly 11, no. 2 (1987): 181–82.
“It often annoyed me”: Quoted in J. K. Van Dover, You Know My Method: The Science of the Detective (Bowling Green, Ky.: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1994), 90.
Readers requested his autograph: For all these things, see, e.g., Miller (2008), 158, 465; Jann (1995), 12; Michael Hardwick and Mollie Hardwick, The Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1964), 9.
“Occasionally,” a biographer has written: Daniel Stashower, Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle (New York: Owl/Henry Holt, 1999), 132.
“It was easy to get people into scrapes”: Conan Doyle (1924), 13.
suffered from epilepsy, alcoholism: E.g., ibid.
“We lived,” Conan Doyle later wrote: Conan Doyle (1924), 11.
“Charles possessed”: Miller (2008), 16–17.
the series of Scottish institutions: Ibid., 18–21.
To honor a childless great-uncle: Jann (1995), xv.
who had married Charles in 1855: Ibid., 15.
“Diminutive Mary Doyle”: Ibid., 24, and A. Conan Doyle, The Stark Munro Letters: Being a Series of Twelve Letters Written by J. Stark Munro, M.B., to His Friend and Former Fellow-Student, Herbert Swanborough, of Lowell, Massachusetts, During the Years 1881–1884 (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1895), 60.
“I will say for myself”: Conan Doyle (1924), 12.
“I can speak with feeling”: Ibid., 16–17.
“I was wild, full-blooded”: Ibid., 22.
He had already begun to part company: Ibid., 20.
“Judging…by all the new knowledge”: Ibid., 31.
“Bell was a very remarkable man”: Ibid., 25–26.
“my father’s health”: Ibid., 30.
a pastiche of Poe and Bret Harte: Miller (2008), 58.
with its crew of fifty: Conan Doyle (1924), 36.
he was thrown overboard: Ibid., 40.
“Its instinct urges it”: Ibid., 43.
“Who would swap that moment”: Ibid.
In 1881 , Conan Doyle: Ibid., 47.
helped subdue an out-of-control fire: Ibid., 56–57.
“The germ or the mosquito”: Ibid., 52.
“There were…some unpleasant”: Ibid., 49.
“more on affection and respect”: Jann (1995), xvi.
“I made £154”: Conan Doyle (1924), 70.
Though her legal name: Georgina Doyle, Out of the Shadows: The Untold Story of Arthur Conan Doyle’s First Family (Ashcroft, B.C.: Calabash Press, 2004), 55.
“Poe’s masterful detective”: Ibid., 74–75.
Sherrinford Holmes: Leslie S. Klinger, ed., The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2005–6), 3:847. (Some sources erroneously give the name as Sherringford.)
“Often, physicians who become”: Edmund D. Pellegrino, “To Look Feelingly: The Affinities of Medicine and Literature,” Literature and Medicine 1 (1982), 20; italics added.
Ormond Sacker: Andrew Lycett, The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (New York: Free Press, 2007), 121.
“Please grip this fact”: Quoted in Jann (1995), 15; accent mark added for scansion.
“I have often been asked”: Conan Doyle (1924), 100.
“I…have several times solved”: Ibid., 101.
“In travelling through”: Adrian Conan Doyle (1946), 19.
“I always regarded him”: Quoted in Ely Liebow, Dr. Joe Bell: Model for Sherlock Holmes (Madison, Wis.: Popular Press, 2007), 175.
“Undaunted,” his biographer Russell Miller wrote: Miller (2008), 125.
“Observing the patients”: Otis (1999), 109.
Koch’s remedy, he wrote: ACD to Daily Telegraph, Nov. 20, 1890. Quoted in Gibson and Lancelyn Green (1986), 36.
On December 21, 1908: Hunt (1951), 85.
Slater had already been planning: Ibid., 84ff.
Slater promptly gave Schmalz: Ibid., 85–86.
It was during his last days in Glasgow: Ibid., 86.
By 7:00 p.m. on December 21: Ibid.
their ten pieces of luggage: Ibid., 95.
Arriving at 3:40 a.m.: Roughead (1950), 294.
“the chambermaid had a conversation”: Quoted in ACD letter to the Spectator, July 25, 1914. In Gibson and Lancelyn Green (1986), 205.
two second-class tickets: Park (1927), 83.
Mr. and Mrs. Otto Sando: Ibid.
“The pawned brooch”: Conan Doyle, introduction to Park (1927), 7–8.
ARREST OTTO SANDO: Quoted in Park (1927), 83.
On January 2, 1909: Hunt (1951), 44ff.
“Dear Friend Cameron!”: OS to Hugh Cameron, Feb. 2, 1909, NRS. Also quoted in Toughill (2006), 53–54.
“It is a measure of Cameron’s friendship”: Toughill (2006), 54.
On January 13, 1909: Hunt (1951), 45.
“At the time of the arrest of Slater”: William A. Goodhart to Ewing Speirs, Slater’s Glasgow attorney, April 17, 1909, NRS.
Glasgow officials showed Slater’s photograph: Hunt (1951), 46.
One marshal: Ibid., 215 n. 1.
As Marshal Pinckley would testify: John W. M. Pinckley, testimony in the appeal of Oscar Slater, 1928. Quoted in ibid., 215.
“Do you see the man here”: HL testimony, Slater extradition hearing transcript, Jan. 26, 1909, 17, NRS.
she had not seen the intruder’s face: Hunt (1951), 26.
“he was sort of shaking himself”: Ibid., 19.
“Is that man in this room?”: Ibid., 19–20.
“That man here”: Barrowman testimony, ibid., 37.
“had a slight twist”: Barrowman testimony, ibid.
admitted having been shown: Barrowman testimony, ibid., 38.
“not at all unlike”: Arthur Adams testimony, ibid., 51.
“I never doubted his innocence”: William A. Goodhart to ACD, May 28, 1914, ML.
on February 6, 1909: Hunt (1951), 56.
Another was almost certainly a concern: Ibid., 55–56.
A trial, he felt certain: This position is confirmed by his lawyer Goodhart, who in 1909 wrote, “Slater’s willingness to go back is certainly indicative of innocence.” William A. Goodhart to Ewing Speirs, April 17, 1909, NRS.
“The foreteller asserts”: Thomas Henry Huxley, “On the Method of Zadig: Retrospective Prophecy as a Function of Science,” in Thomas Henry Huxley, Science and Culture: And Other Essays (New York: D. Appleton, 1882), 139–40.
“retrospective prophecy”: Ibid., 135.
“From a drop of water”: Arthur Conan Doyle, “A Study in Scarlet,” in Conan Doyle (1981), 23.
his fictional “scientific detective”: Conan Doyle (1924), 26.
therein lies a basic challenge: The literary critic Lawrence Frank, in Victorian Detective Fiction and the Nature of Evidence: The Scientific Investigations of Poe, Dickens, and Doyle (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 19, also makes this point.
“Throughout the 18th century”: Claudio Rapezzi, Roberto Ferrari, and Angelo Branzi, “White Coats and Fingerprints: Diagnostic Reasoning in Medicine and Investigative Methods of Fictional Detectives,” BMJ: British Medical Journal 331, no. 7531 (2005): 1493.
“look feelingly”: Pellegrino (1982), 19–23.
“It has long been an axiom”: Conan Doyle (1981), 194.
“The importance of the infinitely little”: Dr. Joseph Bell, “Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” introduction to Sir A. Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet (London: Ward, Lock & Company, 1892), 9–10; italics added.
an acknowledged influence on Conan Doyle: A[lma] E[lizabeth] Murch, The Development of the Detective Novel (New York: Philosophical Library, 1958), 177.
“One day, when he was walking”: M. de Voltaire, Zadig (New York: Rimington & Hooper, 1929), 16–19.
“ratiocination,” Poe calls it: E.g., Edgar Allan Poe, “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt,” in Edgar Allan Poe, Poetry and Tales (New York: Library of America, 1984), 521.
“You were remarking to yourself”: Edgar Allan Poe, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” in Poe (1984), 402–4.
“The scientific method”: Van Dover (1994), 10.
“The detective offered himself”: Ibid., 1.
“medico-legal practice”: R. Austin Freeman, “The Case of Oscar Brodski,” in The Best Dr. Thorndyke Stories, selected by E. F. Bleiler (New York: Dover Publications, 1973), 15.
“only a foot square”: Ibid., 16.
“rows of little re-agent bottles”: Ibid., 17.
“Dupin was a very inferior fellow”: Conan Doyle (1892), 49.
“The narrative of the detective story”: Van Dover (1994), 30; italics added.
His grandfather Sir Charles Bell: Michael Sims, Arthur and Sherlock: Conan Doyle and the Creation of Holmes (New York: Bloomsbury, 2017), 17.
“For some reason”: Conan Doyle (1924), 25.
He said to a civilian patient: Ibid.
“He greeted her politely”: Stashower (1999), 20.
“Use your eyes, sir!”: Dr. Harold Emery Jones, The Original of Sherlock Holmes (Windsor, U.K.: Gaby Goldscheider, 1980), iv–v.
a classmate of Conan Doyle’s: Ibid., i.
“Gentlemen, a fisherman!”: Ibid., v–vi.
“Cultivate absolute accuracy”: Quoted in Liebow (2007), 116.
“Nearly every handicraft”: Quoted in ibid., 177.
“Is there any system”: Quoted in Jessie M. E. Saxby, Joseph Bell: An Appreciation by an Old Friend (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1913), 23–24.
“For twenty years or more”: “The Original of ‘Sherlock Holmes’: An Interview with Dr. Joseph Bell,” Pall Mall Gazette, Dec. 28, 1893. Quoted in Saxby (1913), 19.
he married one of his pupils: Alexander Duncan Smith, ed., The Trial of Eugène Marie Chantrelle, Notable Scottish Trials Series (Glasgow: William Hodge & Company, 1906), 2.
“My dear Mama”: Quoted in Liebow (2007), 120.
Chantrelle insured his wife’s life: Ibid.
on the bedside table: Ibid.
Returning, she saw: Ibid.
“Bell and Littlejohn found evidence”: Ibid., 120–21.
An investigation by the gas company: Ibid., 121.
discovered a pipefitter: Ibid.
Chantrelle was hanged: Ibid.
Conan Doyle had long admired: See, e.g., Arthur Conan Doyle, Through the Magic Door (Pleasantville, N.Y.: Akadine Press, 1999), 259ff.
who suffered from tuberculosis: Sims (2017), 197.
“blended the praise”: Ibid.
“Dear Sir,” Stevenson wrote: Ibid.; italics added.
“To-day criminal investigation”: Sir Sydney Smith, Mostly Murder (New York: Dorset Press, 1988), 30.
Many of the methods invented: Illustrated London News, Feb. 27, 1932. Quoted in Nordon (1967), 211.
he left a written legacy: “Charles Sanders Peirce,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2001; revised 2014), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce.
“A given object”: Charles Sanders Peirce, unpublished manuscript. Quoted in Thomas A. Sebeok and Jean Umiker-Sebeok, “You Know My Method: A Juxtaposition of Charles S. Peirce and Sherlock Holmes,” in Umberto Eco and Thomas A. Sebeok, eds., The Sign of the Three: Dupin, Holmes, Peirce (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), 17.
“Abduction makes its start”: Peirce, unpublished manuscript. Quoted in ibid., 24–25; italics added.
Fact C is observed: N[ick] C. Boreham, G. E. Mawer, and R. W. Foster, “Medical Diagnosis from Circumstantial Evidence,” Le Travail Humain 59, no. 1 (1996): 73.
“In solving a problem”: A Study in Scarlet, in Conan Doyle (1981), 83.
All serious knife wounds: Adapted from Marcello Truzzi, “Sherlock Holmes: Applied Social Psychologist,” in Eco and Sebeok (1983), 69.
“We are coming now”: Conan Doyle (1981), 687; italics added.
“the scientific use of the imagination”: Holmes is quoting the physicist John Tyndall, author of the 1870 essay “Scientific Use of the Imagination,” whom Conan Doyle acknowledged as a deep influence.
“the whole thing is a chain”: A Study in Scarlet, in Conan Doyle (1981), 85.
“who had such a hatred”: Ibid., 583.
“considering,” Holmes points out: Ibid., 584.
“Holmes pointed”: Ibid., 587.
“by a connected chain”: Ibid., 594.
“Holmes…operates like a semiotician”: Jann (1995), 50; italics added.
On February 11, 1909: Hunt (1951), 60ff.
To avoid the throng: Park (1927), 37.
As he disembarked: Hunt (1951), 61.
neatly folded, carefully packed: Ibid., 62.
Nor did police find: Ibid., 61.
“In the fierce popular indignation”: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Strange Studies from Life and Other Narratives: The Complete True Crime Writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, selected and ed. Jack Tracy (Bloomington, Ind.: Gaslight Publications, 1988), 33.
the inherent unreliability of eyewitness testimony: See, e.g., Elizabeth Loftus and Katherine Ketcham, Witness for the Defense: The Accused, the Eyewitness, and the Expert Who Puts Memory on Trial (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991).
another wrongful conviction: E.g., Toughill (2006), 115–16.
“It is notorious”: Conan Doyle (1912), 27.
On February 21, 1909: Hunt (1951), 61ff.
those who made an identification chose Slater: Ibid., 63.
“To expect a row”: Park (1927), 116.
common practice at the time: WP to ACD, Feb. 2, 1927, ML.
“Slater impressed everyone”: Hunt (1951), 66.
“The more I see of Slater”: Quoted in ibid., 67.
On April 6: Ibid.
that would come to be called criminalistics: For an extended discussion of the ideological and methodological differences between criminalistics and criminology, see, e.g., Alison Adam, A History of Forensic Science: British Beginnings in the Twentieth Century (London: Routledge, 2016).
the Age of Identification: See, e.g., Anne M. Joseph, “Anthropometry, the Police Expert, and the Deptford Murders: The Contested Introduction of Fingerprinting for the Identification of Criminals in Late Victorian and Edwardian Britain,” in Jane Caplan and John Torpey, eds., Documenting Individual Identity: The Development of State Practices in the Modern World (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001), 164–83.
the very concept of a “crime scene”: Robert Peckham, “Pathological Properties: Scenes of Crime, Sites of Infection,” in Peckham, ed. (2014), 58.
did not begin to come into its own: Adam (2016), 3.
think of Hester Prynne: Although Cain was also marked after killing Abel, the purpose of that mark, as Genesis 4:13–15 makes clear, was not to protect other people from Cain but to protect Cain from reprisals at the hands of other people. God, who had condemned Cain to wander the earth, deemed that to be sufficient punishment.
“Branding and ear-boring”: Edward Higgs, Identifying the English: A History of Personal Identification, 1500 to the Present (London: Continuum, 2011), 89.
criminal suspects were routinely strip-searched: Ibid.
“Outlawry was the capital punishment”: Pollock and Maitland (1911), 2:450.
“To pursue the outlaw”: Pollock and Maitland (1911), 1:476.
“Who are you, with whom I have to deal?”: Jeremy Bentham, Principles of Penal Law (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016), 248. Quoted in Jane Caplan, “ ‘This or That Particular Person’: Protocols and Identification in Nineteenth-Century Europe,” in Caplan and Torpey (2001), 51.
a “waived” woman: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk.
In the 1870s, Alphonse Bertillon: See, e.g., Simon A. Cole, Suspect Identities: A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal Identification (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001), 33ff. Bertillon did his professional reputation considerable damage when he testified as a handwriting analyst—a field in which he had no expertise—in the 1894 trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Dreyfus was convicted of treason partly as a result of Bertillon’s testimony, later discredited, that he was the author of an anonymous memorandum disclosing French military secrets to the Germans.
“This was not merely an idea”: Gina Lombroso Ferrero, Criminal Man: According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso, Briefly Summarised by His Daughter Gina Lombroso Ferrero (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1911), xii.
the writings of Havelock Ellis: See, e.g., reprint of Havelock Ellis, The Criminal (Memphis, Tenn.: General Books, 2012).
the work of Francis Galton: See, e.g., Adam (2016), 52ff.; Cole (2001), 25ff.
“the racialization of crime”: Knepper (2007).
His handbook ranged over such subjects: Hans Gross, Criminal Investigation: A Practical Handbook for Magistrates, Police Officers and Lawyers, trans. and ed. John Adam and John Collyer Adam (New Delhi: Isha Books, 2013), ix–xix.
scarcely more than half a dozen references: S. Tupper Bigelow, “Fingerprints and Sherlock Holmes,” Baker Street Journal 17, no. 3 (1967): 133. As more than one student of literary forensics has pointed out, the sagacious Mark Twain (1835–1910) homed in early on the utility of fingerprints: in both Life on the Mississippi (1883) and Pudd’nhead Wilson, first published in book form in 1894, murderers are identified by means of them.
on the workbox: Hunt (1951), 26.
“Sentence first—verdict afterwards”: Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Alice’s Adventures Underground (Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1946), 147.
“available and disposable”: Eleanor Jackson Piel, “The Death Row Brothers,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 147, no. 1 (2003): 30.
“For some time before the murder”: WP to ACD, Nov. 25, 1927, ML; italics added.
“virtually hypnotized by class”: Gay (1993), 429.
At 10:00 a.m.: Roughead (1950), 1.
On his right: Toughill (2006), 71ff.
the Georgian courtroom: Whittington-Egan (2001), 79.
among them a warehouseman: Roughead (1950), 8.
known in Scottish law as “productions”: Whittington-Egan (2001), 79.
planned to introduce sixty-nine of them: Roughead (1950), 2–3.
We know the physical arrangement: Toughill (2006), 71.
“like a pantomime genie”: Whittington-Egan (2001), 79.
“Evidence of this kind”: Conan Doyle (1912), 40.
planned to present ninety-eight of them: Roughead (1950), 4–5.
just thirteen names: Ibid., 7–8.
“It is one of the new points”: Quoted in Park (1927), 184–85.
“Helen Lambie’s evidence”: Conan Doyle (1912), 31–32.
Was it only his walk and his height: Roughead (1950), 55–56.
The hat presented to her: Hunt (1951), 89.
“You were shown a photograph”: Quoted in ibid., 93.
she took pains to say: Ibid., 89–90.
a man “closely resembling”: Ibid., 80.
“It is too serious a charge”: Ibid., 81.
She testified that on the night: Ibid., 97–100.
Two months later: Ibid., 98.
she, too, had been shown: Ibid., 91.
weaving up and down: Park (1927), 147–48.
At the Crown’s request: Roughead (1910), 108ff.
“Over his 33 years”: M. Anne Crowther and Brenda White, On Soul and Conscience: The Medical Expert and Crime. 150 Years of Forensic Medicine in Glasgow (Aberdeen, U.K.: Aberdeen University Press, 1988), 42–44.
“The body was that”: Quoted in Roughead (1910), 110ff. Glaister conducted the autopsy with a colleague, Dr. Hugh Galt.
Glaister went on to state: Ibid., 108–21.
eight-ounce hammer: Hunt (1951), 99.
“I did not find in the dining-room”: Quoted in Roughead (1950), 112.
Glaister identified twenty-five stains: Ibid., 114ff.
“more of gravy than of grave”: Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol: And Other Christmas Books (New York: Vintage Classics, 2012), 21.
“In the absence”: Crowther and White (1988), 47.
“The case later provided”: Ibid.
Among them was McLean: Roughead (1950), 135–37.
“Did you find out”: Quoted in ibid., 104; italics added.
“McClure would have scored”: Hunt (1951), 124–25.
“When you first knew him”: Quoted in Roughead (1950), 156.
“The treasured and conspicuous emblems”: Gay (1993), 496.
At this point: Ben Braber, personal communication.
“Who engaged you?”: Quoted in Roughead (1950), 182–83.
“The public careers”: Jann (1995), 111.
Antoine, too, alibied Slater: Roughead (1950), 187.
“I have no questions to ask”: Quoted in ibid., 188.
“never heard of a case”: WP to ACD, Dec. 5, 1927, ML.
In February 1909: Roughead (1950), xlviii.
working his way stealthily home on foot: ACD to the Spectator, July 25, 1919. In Gibson and Lancelyn Green (1986), 206.
material that was never shared: Hunt (1951), 145–46.
“crushing the while”: Quoted in ibid., 103.
Speaking for nearly two hours: Ibid., 103.
“Up to yesterday”: Quoted in ibid., 198–99.
“a house situated”: Quoted in ibid., 199.
“We shall see”: Quoted in ibid., 199.
“I come now”: Quoted in ibid., 213–14.
“Gentlemen, I have done”: Quoted in ibid., 217.
“That, however”: Quoted in ibid., 220.
“Can you lay”: Quoted in ibid., 235.
“Clarence Darrow could have done it”: Hunt (1951), 109.
His father, the Rev. Thomas Guthrie: Braber (2007), 24.
the elder Mr. Guthrie had helped found: Ibid.
a temperance crusader: Ibid.
“You have heard a good deal”: Quoted in Roughead (1950), 329–38; italics added.
The jury retired at 4:55 p.m.: Ibid., 245.
“not guilty, and don’t do it again”: See, e.g., Dani Garavelli, “Insight: The Jury’s Still Out on ‘Not Proven’ Verdict,” Scotsman, Feb. 13, 2016.
to preempt hung juries: Peter Duff, “The Scottish Criminal Jury: A Very Peculiar Institution,” Law and Contemporary Problems 62, no. 2 (Spring 1999): 187.
At 6:05: Roughead (1950), 245.
the most painful utterance: Toughill (2006), 119.
“My lord”: Quoted in Roughead (1950), 245.
“The said Oscar Slater”: OS death sentence, May 6, 1909, NRS.
“whereby a prisoner”: Park (1927), 38.
On May 17: Roughead (1950), 264.
requesting the commutation: Reprinted in ibid., 257ff.
“The Memorialist thinks”: Reprinted in ibid., 264.
signed by more than twenty thousand: Ibid., 257.
Mary Barrowman received half: Hunt (1951), 140.
on loan to Inverness: Ibid., 132.
“somewhat to the astonishment”: Ibid.
he had just arranged: Ibid., 137.
“It was a curious compromise”: Philip Whitwell Wilson, “But Who Killed Miss Gilchrist?,” North American Review 226, no. 5 (1928): 536.
“Should you visit”: OS to REP, March 11, 1911 (letter suppressed by prison officials), NRS.
“Through my small window”: OS to LF, June 4, 1914, NRS.
“It was, I find by my log”: Conan Doyle (1924), 37–38.
opened in 1888: Jeffrey (2013), 5.
“We are always being told”: PL to OS, Dec. 27, 1910, NRS.
“I would rather be”: John MacLean, Accuser of Capitalism: John MacLean’s Speech from the Dock, May 9th 1918 (London: New Park Publications, 1986), 26.
“just a little box”: MacLean (1919).
The only furniture: Jeffrey (2013), 14.
“Each cell is heated”: MacLean (1919).
“The endless dreary days”: Gerald Newman, two-part handwritten ms., n.d., ML.
Convicts’ hair: MacLean (1919).
“kept clean and sanitary”: Ibid.
From the prison’s earliest days: Jeffrey (2013), 18–19.
“The blades were no ornamental”: Ibid., 18.
on July 8, 1909: Roughead (1950), lxi.
Prisoner 1992: LF to HMPP, March 27, 1913, NRS: “The old parents of the prisoner Oscar Slater Pr. No. 1992 long greatly for a sign of life from their son and beg you kindly to allow him to write to them.”
Slater’s prison intake sheet: Enquiry Form, completed by Detective Superintendent John Ord, May 28, 1909, NRS.
At five each morning: MacLean (1919).
“to break great granite blocks”: OS to MP, Dec. 17, 1912, NRS.
“He was a quiet, well-spoken man”: William Gordon newspaper clipping, n.d. [c. 1925], newspaper unknown, ML.
“a pint of broth”: MacLean (1919).
The sleeping hammock could be used: Ibid.
“My innocent Oscar”: PL to OS, postmarked Dec. 15, 1909, NRS.
“In your last letter”: OS to PL, April 11, 1914, NRS.
“You need not get anxious”: PL to OS, Dec. 30, 1913, NRS.
“You would hardly know Beuthen”: PL to OS, Dec. 30, 1913, NRS.
“Electric light is very convenient”: OS to LF, Dec. 13, 1913. NRS.
“Yes! It is quite correct”: PL to OS, April 28, 1914, NRS.
“You were always a good child”: PL to OS, Aug. 21, 1913, NRS.
“We were very much rejoiced”: PL to OS, Sept. 18, 1909, NRS.
“My beloved and good son”: PL to OS, March 14, 1910, NRS.
“I should like to give you”: OS to LF, Jan. 1, 1912, NRS.
“When I was sitting”: OS to LF, Sept. 13, 1913, NRS.
“This is a very deep business”: OS to Dr. Mandowsky [first name not recorded], May 27, 1910, NRS.
scant correspondence with their lawyers: An undated letter, written c. 1922, from an official of HMPP to a Dr. Mamroth, a German lawyer known to Slater’s family, reads, “As it is against the Commissioners’ practice to permit Law Agents to have access to convicted prisoners with a view to preparing petitions for their release, and there does not seem to be any reason for setting this practice aside in favour of Slater, I have to inform you that letters from you cannot be forwarded to him.”
“The question of visiting you”: PL to OS, July 17, 1910, NRS.
“Unfortunately I have to confess”: OS to LF, Oct. 24, 1912, NRS.
died in December 1909, at thirty-seven: Ewing Speirs death record, scotlandspeople.gov.uk.
“For them the bullets”: Conan Doyle (1924), 175.
an account of the conflict: A. Conan Doyle, The War in South Africa: Its Cause and Conduct (New York: McClure, Phillips & Company, 1902).
“At a time in history”: Steven Womack, introduction to Stephen Hines, The True Crime Files of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (New York: Berkley Prime Crime, 2001), 13; italics in original.
“I lunched that day”: Conan Doyle (1924), 386–87.
“from the embraces of drunkards”: Quoted in Miller (2008), 279–81.
“When I shot a crocodile”: Adrian Conan Doyle to Pierre Nordon, Dec. 7, 1959. Quoted in Nordon (1967), 192; italics in original.
“Two white lies”: Conan Doyle (1924), 153.
“Mr. Adrian Conan Doyle”: Nordon (1967), 174 n. 4.
“There was a breadth of mind”: Adrian Conan Doyle (1946), 15.
“This is the very individual”: Ibid., 16.
some fifteen years his junior: Leckie was born on March 14, 1874.
“Even among writers”: Womack (2001), 15.
Among the titles in his collection: Walter Klinefelter, The Case of the Conan Doyle Crime Library (La Crosse, Wis.: Sumac Press, 1968).
Though Conan Doyle acquired most: Ibid., 6–7.
three were published posthumously: Conan Doyle (1988).
Strange Studies from Life: Conan Doyle (1988).
In 1904, he became: Stephen Wade, Conan Doyle and the Crimes Club: The Creator of Sherlock Holmes and His Criminological Friends (Oxford: Fonthill Media, 2013), 9.
Other members included: Ibid., 10.
The cases they analyzed: Peter Costello, The Real World of Sherlock Holmes: The True Crimes Investigated by Arthur Conan Doyle (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1991), 52; Wade (2013), 41ff.
“We have the epitome”: Adrian Conan Doyle (1946), 16.
Camille Cecile Holland: Costello (1991), 46ff.
“What about the moat?”: Ibid., 48.
He confessed his guilt: Ibid., 49.
from the Langham Hotel: Ibid., 104.
“A few of the problems”: Conan Doyle (1924), 110–12.
George Ernest Thompson Edalji: Richard and Molly Whittington-Egan, introduction to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Story of Mr. George Edalji, ed. Richard and Molly Whittington-Egan (London: Grey House Books, 1985), 11.
Charlotte Elizabeth Stuart Stoneham: Ibid., 12.
“Placed in the exceedingly difficult”: Conan Doyle (1985), 36.
In 1888, when George: Ibid., 37.
Then, in 1892: Ibid.
“Before the end of this year”: Quoted in ibid., 41.
objects stolen from around the village: Ibid., 42ff.
bogus advertisements: Miller (2008), 259.
Some of the letters identified: Nordon (1967), 118.
He was arrested in August 1903: Ibid.
an expert witness identified: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case of Mr. George Edalji (London: T. Harrison Roberts, 1907), in Conan Doyle (1985), 58.
“He is 28 years of age”: Quoted in Miller (2008), 261–62.
“Many and wonderful”: Quoted in ibid., 262.
Tried in October 1903: Costello (1991), 77.
garnered ten thousand signatures: Miller (2008), 262.
In October 1906: Ibid.
He had read the Sherlock Holmes stories: Ibid., 263.
“As I read”: Conan Doyle (1924), 216–18.
his 1907 pamphlet: Conan Doyle (1907), reprinted in Conan Doyle (1985), 34–78.
“The first sight”: Conan Doyle (1985), 35; italics added.
“So bad was this defence”: Conan Doyle (1924), 218.
“My own sight”: ACD to the Daily Telegraph, Jan. 15, 1907, in Gibson and Lancelyn Green (1986), 125.
“Now the police try”: Conan Doyle (1985), 57–58.
“England soon rang”: Conan Doyle (1924), 217.
Conan Doyle, too, began receiving: Ibid., 220.
“a fact,” he wrote: Ibid.
published fully only in 1985: Womack (2001), 19.
the Home Secretary, Herbert Gladstone: Herbert Gladstone was the youngest son of William Ewart Gladstone, a prime minister under Queen Victoria.
In May 1907: Nordon (1967), 123.
“The conclusions it came to”: Ibid.
“It was a wretched decision”: Conan Doyle (1924), 219.
Edalji was reinstated: Nordon (1966), 126.
Edalji was a guest: Miller (2008), 273.
“Conan Doyle claimed”: Stashower (1999), 260.
helped spur the establishment: Womack (2001), 20.
“The convict is somewhat excited”: Report from HMPP governor to prison commissioners, April 8, 1910, NRS.
“Conduct somewhat indifferent”: Ibid., Sept. 2, 1910.
“Conduct very indifferent”: E.g., ibid., May 4, 1911.
Entries during his first years: HMPP disciplinary record, NRS.
“As regards Georg”: PL to OS, April 16, 1913, NRS.
“Fanny’s girls”: PL to OS, Sept. 22, 1913, NRS.
“My beloved innocent Oscar”: PL to OS, July 18, 1911, NRS.
“I am most unhappy”: OS to PL, April 3, 1913, NRS.
“I have appealed”: OS to LF, April 19, 1913, NRS.
“Dear parents, do not grieve”: OS to LF, Nov. 13, 1913, NRS.
“I don’t likely satisfy”: OS to MP, Dec. 17, 1912, NRS.
“I did not consider him”: Unsigned memorandum, HMPP, Dec. 19, 1912, NRS.
“I hope to get my liberty”: Suppressed letter from OS to REP, March 11, 1911, NRS.
“Master of Polworth”: OS to MP, March 24, 1911, NRS.
“On Saturday last”: OS to MP, March 25, 1911, NRS.
“an intractable hell”: MacLean (1919).
“When I was in Peterhead”: MacLean (1986), 25–26.
“What is not in question”: Ibid., 25 n. 29.
“With respect to prisoner’s”: HMPP internal memorandum, June 4, 1911, NRS.
“Since I was generally”: Conan Doyle (1924), 222.
“It is impossible to read”: Conan Doyle (1912), 7–8.
“It is an atrocious story”: Conan Doyle (1924), 225.
“I have been in touch”: Arthur Conan Doyle, introduction to Park (1927), 14.
Peterhead’s correspondence log: The log is in the archives of the NRS.
it offered a welcome distraction: Conan Doyle (1924), 215.
“Some of us still retain”: ACD to Spectator, Oct. 12, 1912. In Gibson and Lancelyn Green (1986), 176.
without leaving his rooms: “The Mystery of Marie Rôget,” in Poe (1984).
“Insurance companies are”: Pasquale Accardo, M.D., Diagnosis and Detection: The Medical Iconography of Sherlock Holmes (Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1987), 109.
“Data! data! data!”: Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches,” in Conan Doyle (1981), 322.
“That his opinion”: Hunt (1951), 141.
“The Iserbach”: PL to OS, March 5, 1914, NRS.
“On working with my granite-stones”: OS to LF, Dec. 13, 1913, NRS.
“No doubt you would realise”: OS to LF, April 11, 1914, NRS.
“Your letter has been handed”: OS to LF, June 4, 1914, NRS.
“My most beloved good son”: PL to OS, June 15, 1914, NRS.
“You know my method”: E.g., Conan Doyle, “The Boscombe Valley Mystery,” in Conan Doyle (1981), 214.
“Never trust to general impressions”: Conan Doyle, “A Case of Identity,” in Conan Doyle (1981), 197.
“Is there any point”: Conan Doyle, “Silver Blaze,” in Conan Doyle (1981), 347.
“The actions of Helen Lambie”: Conan Doyle (1912), 16–17; italics added.
“In Edinburgh Barrowman”: Ibid., 34.
“The Lord Advocate made”: ACD to Spectator, July 15, 1914. In Gibson and Lancelyn Green (1986), 205–6; italics added.
“Consider the monstrous”: Conan Doyle (1912), 59.
“What the police never”: Ibid., 27.
“No further reference”: Ibid., 50.
“How did the murderer”: Ibid., 64–66; italics added.
He has planned out: Ibid., 66–67; italics added.
“Presuming that the assassin”: Ibid., 62–63; italics added.
“It will be observed”: Ibid., 44; italics added.
“the three important points”: Ibid., 26.
“The Lord-Advocate spoke”: Ibid., 45–48.
“Some of the Lord-Advocate’s”: Ibid., 48–49.
“that answers to the prisoner”: Quoted in ibid., 51.
“ ‘That answers to the prisoner’ ”: Ibid., 51.
“The Lord-Advocate said”: Ibid., 52–53.
“Where so many points”: Ibid., 55–56.
“What clue could you have”: Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle,” in Conan Doyle (1981), 246–47.
“What so often leads”: Sebeok and Sebeok (1983), 23.
“One question which has to be asked”: Conan Doyle (1912), 61–63; italics added.
Diamonds were objects: See, e.g., Stefanie Markovits, “Form Things: Looking at Genre Through Victorian Diamonds,” Victorian Studies 52, no. 4 (2010): 591–619.
“It might be said”: Conan Doyle (1912), 63; italics added.
published on August 21, 1912: Roughead (1950), lxii.
went on sale for sixpence: Miller (2008), 295.
“Since the publication”: Sept. 2, 1912; quoted in Gibson and Lancelyn Green (1986), 175.
“I may seem to have stated”: Conan Doyle (1912), 45; italics added.
“When you have eliminated”: Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four, in Conan Doyle (1981), 111; italics in original.
“I do not see”: Conan Doyle (1912), 58.
“each clue against Slater”: Conan Doyle, introduction to Park (1927), 8.
“As to my case”: OS to LF, Aug. 21, 1912.
“I am happy to say”: OS to LF, Aug. 9, 1913.
In November 1912: House (2002), 164.
all five identified Warner: Ibid., 164.
“One of them wept”: Hunt (1951), 167.
There, twelve more witnesses: Ibid.
she had been killed several weeks earlier: House (2002), 164–65.
“Warner found that”: Hunt (1951), 167.
The son of a Scottish plowman: Whittington-Egan (2001), 101.
he had joined the force: Hunt (1951), 158.
“conspicuous for gallantry”: Whittington-Egan (2001), 113.
“His manners were easy”: Hunt (1951), 159.
the father of six: Ibid.
“If the constable mentioned”: Quoted in ibid., 168.
Trench appeared to interpret this: Hunt (1951), 168.
“You will be good enough”: DC to ACD, March 26, 1914, ML; italics added.
Before the end of March 1914: Hunt (1951), 168.
the following five points: Quoted in ibid., 168.
“The convict named”: H. Ferguson Watson to HMPP officials, Feb. 2, 1914, NRS.
“Sheriff Gardner Millar is”: DC to ACD, April 24, 1914, ML; italics added.
not with the conduct of the trial: Toughill (2006), 149.
“suggest to me that the Enquiry”: DC to ACD, April 17, 1914, ML.
“I had particular instructions”: JTT, statement to 1914 inquiry, quoted in Toughill (2006), 150.
“This is the first real clue”: Hunt (1951), 161.
“I am niece”: Glasgow police internal report, Dec. 23, 1908, ML.
“I have been ringing up”: Hunt (1951), 161.
“Although I had not”: Quoted in Roughead (1950), 271.
named Elizabeth Greer: Toughill (2006), 154.
James died in 1870: Ibid., 213, 154.
The couple had three sons: Ibid., 154.
their forebears included: Ibid., 153.
Francis Charteris further cemented: Whittington-Egan (2001), 19.
whose wedding Miss Gilchrist attended: Ibid., 20.
it was from him: Ibid., 19.
“Miss Gilchrist stated to me”: Glasgow police internal report, Dec. 23, 1908, ML.
Conan Doyle privately believed: Costello (1991), 117.
“I intend to deal delicately”: DC to ACD, May 9, 1914, ML.
from April 23 to 25, 1914: Roughead (1950), lxii.
some twenty witnesses: Hunt (1951), 171.
who now held the rank: Ibid.
now chief detective inspector: Ibid., 172.
denied having mentioned: HL, testimony before 1914 inquiry. Quoted in Roughead (1950), 282–83.
MacBrayne testified: Ibid., 289.
MacCallum testified: Ibid., 285.
Last to testify: DC to ACD, April 24, 1914, ML.
“The Inquiry as you are aware”: DC to ACD, April 24, 1914, ML.
“With regard to the manner”: Quoted in Toughill (2006), 175.
“I am satisfied”: Quoted in Hunt (1951), 180; italics added.
“This inquiry was held in camera”: ACD to Spectator, July 25, 1914, in Gibson and Lancelyn Green (1986), 204–6; italics in original.
“we could do no more”: Conan Doyle (1924), 226.
On July 14, 1914: Hunt (1951), 182.
the Royal Scots Fusiliers: Toughill (2006), 178.
In May 1915: Ibid.
Cook was arrested: Ibid.
The trial of Cook and Trench: Toughill (2006), 179.
The jury complied: Ibid.
Trench went on to serve with distinction: Roughead (1950), xxxi.
discharged from the military in October 1918: Toughill (2006), 180.
Trench in 1919: Death record, scotlandspeople.gov.uk. The cause was heart trouble and pernicious anemia.
Cook in 1921: Death record, scotlandspeople.gov.uk. The cause was bronchitis and heart failure.
“I got weary”: ACD to unnamed recipient, n.d., marked “Private,” ML. The letter clearly postdates the prosecution of Trench and Cook: in a postscript, Conan Doyle writes, “The faked police prosecution of their own honest Inspector…was a shocking business.”
“It is a curious circumstance”: Conan Doyle (1924), 226.
“It is a recognised thing”: William Gordon newspaper clipping, n.d. [c. 1925], newspaper unknown, ML.
“Dearest Parents”: OS to LF, July 24, 1919, NRS.
“I need not hide from you”: AT to OS, April 16, 1919, NRS.
“I can imagine, dear Oskar”: AT to OS, Feb. 24, 1920, NRS. The earlier letter, informing Slater of the deaths of his parents, has not survived.
“It is a pity”: AT to OS, Oct. 7, 1920, NRS.
“Good Malchen”: OS to AT, n.d., NRS.
“Certainly I will write you”: AT to OS, March 20, 1922, NRS.
“We often think of you”: EL to OS, Aug. 15, 1922, NRS.
“My beloved Oscar”: PL to OS, Aug. 3, 1914, NRS.
from the lining of his coat: Hunt (1951), 187.
Years later, Adrian Conan Doyle: Hardwick and Hardwick (1964), 75.
An expansive Victorian villa: Miller (2008), 272.
“a butler…a cook”: Ibid., 381.
“The importance of the infinitely little”: Bell (1892), 10.
where he came under fire: Miller (2008), 331ff.
“From time to time”: Conan Doyle (1927), 13–14.
“It was not very difficult”: Conan Doyle (1924), 337–38.
“A dear friend”: Ibid., 338.
The authorities declined: Miller (2008), 322.
a nationwide network of two hundred thousand: Conan Doyle (1924), 331.
“Our drill and discipline”: Ibid., 331–33.
In 1914, after: Miller (2008), 323.
“Those who, in later years”: Ibid., 356.
“How thorough and long”: Conan Doyle (1924), 396–401.
By the 1920s, he had come to believe: E.g., Arthur Conan Doyle, The Coming of the Fairies (New York: George H. Doran, 1922). The evocative telegraph address of the Psychic Bookshop and Museum, an enterprise Conan Doyle established to disseminate spiritualist beliefs, was ECTOPLASM, SOWEST, LONDON. ACD to unknown recipient, n.d., 1929, on letterhead of the Psychic Book Shop, Library & Museum, ML.
At Windlesham, Conan Doyle: Miller (2008), 381.
But even in the opinion: Whittington-Egan (2001), 161.
“In vain I have waited”: AT to OS, Nov. 28, 1923, NRS.
“You write me in your letters”: OS to AT, Jan. 12, 1926, NRS.
“Max speaks often”: EL to OS, March 12, 1924, NRS.
“I have just come from the grave”: EL to OS, Sept. 8, 1924, NRS.
now worked in the prison carpentry shop: In a letter to his sister Malchen in early 1926, Slater wrote that he had been working as a joiner at Peterhead “for the last eighteen months.” OS to AT, Jan. 12, 1926, NRS.
“I don’t know if there is a Being”: OS to Samuel Reid, July 5, 1924, NRS.
“After a careful analysis”: Quoted in Hunt (1951), 188.
“The big atmosphere”: Adrian Conan Doyle (1946), 29–30.
Conan Doyle got no answer: Hunt (1951), 188.
with whom he had been corresponding: Correspondence between Conan Doyle and Park is in the collection of the ML. The first known letter between them, from WP to ACD, is dated Sept. 25, 1914.
“You may take it”: Quoted in Hunt (1951), 188; italics in original.
On February 28, 1925: Ibid.
“I am directed”: Quoted in ibid., 188–89.
“I need not say”: Quoted in ibid., 189.
“You will be astonished”: Erna Meyer to OS, Sept. 15, 1925, NRS.
“I was astonished”: OS to Erna Meyer, Dec. 5, 1925, NRS.
“We have received”: Käthe Tau to OS, Jan. 24, 1926, NRS.
“Among other things”: OS to Käthe Tau, June 21, 1926, NRS.
As a series of government memorandums: E.g., British government memorandums, May 27, 1924; May 28, 1924; July 8, 1924; July 14, 1924, NRS.
“Apparently we cannot”: Ibid., July 14, 1924.
“Poor Slater told us”: WP to ACD, Dec. 1, 1927, ML. Park had met with Slater shortly after his release.
exchange of letters with Conan Doyle: The WR-ACD correspondence has been preserved at ML.
“This strange, self-tortured fanatic”: Hunt (1951), 190.
“Park was a remarkable man”: Ibid., 166.
he sent Park money: E.g., WP to ACD, Nov. 25, 1927, ML. Park’s letter reads in part: “I have your cheque for £25. You personally cannot be bled in this fashion. What you have done is incalculable; one of the finest things in British history. Personally, my chief trouble is the collapse of shares held by me in the best Mexican mines which have gone down….I shall not desert you, come what may, although I am struggling for existence now. The public, I hope, will come to the rescue & do its belated duty to you & Slater.”
appeared in July 1927: Roughead (1950), lxii.
As Park pointed out: Park (1927), 90ff.
“Now that the whole world”: Ibid., 90.
The answer, he explained: Though Park did not quote directly from this document in his book, he did so in his correspondence with Conan Doyle.
Before he died: Toughill (2006), 189–90.
As originally worded: Ibid., 190–91; italics added.
“It is certain”: Conan Doyle (1927), 5.
“There is not one point”: Ibid., 6.
“Who is to blame”: Ibid., 10.
“Finally, we may ask”: Ibid., 14–15; italics in original.
“It is indeed”: Ibid., 18.
had begun to attach themselves: See, e.g., Jann (1995), 125.
In September 1927: Hunt (1951), 193.
“I have been going further”: Quoted in ibid., 193.
“Each day Palmer attacked”: Ibid., 193–94.
On October 23: Ibid., 195.
“one of the most dramatic”: Quoted in ibid., 195.
was widely presumed dead: In Conan Doyle (1927), 13, ACD erroneously includes Lambie’s name in a list of principals in the Slater case who had since died.
“It has been said and denied”: Quoted in Hunt (1951), 195–96.
“What a story!”: ACD postcard to the writer J. Cuming Walters, n.d., ML.
“She is in the streets”: WP to ACD, Oct. 31, 1927, ML.
Assisted by Palmer: Hunt (1951), 196.
“I, Mary Barrowman”: Quoted in ibid., 197–98.
“Oscar Slater has now”: Quoted in ibid., 199.
summoned in secret to Peterhead: Ibid., 199.
at 3:00 p.m.: Ibid.
“The best plan”: Quoted in ibid., 199.
“I am tired”: Quoted in ibid., 200.
At headquarters, he asked: Ibid., 201.
“Dear Mr. Oscar Slater”: Quoted in ibid., 200.
“Sir Conan Doyle”: OS to ACD, n.d. [autumn 1927], ML.
It was empowered to hear: Hunt (1951), 202.
On November 16, 1927: Ibid., 203.
It passed into law: Ibid.
supporters hired Craigie Aitchison: In 1929, Aitchison (1882–1941) became the first socialist to be appointed Lord Advocate for Scotland, the post held during Slater’s original trial by Alexander Ure. Aitchison’s son and namesake (1926–2009) was a distinguished painter.
“Many lawyers rated”: Michael McNay, “Craigie Aitchison Obituary,” Guardian, Dec. 22, 2009. (The subject of the obituary from which the quotation is drawn was Aitchison’s son and namesake.)
The appeal of Oscar Slater: Ibid., 208–9.
in the same courtroom: Ibid., 208.
a five-judge panel: Ibid.
the Sunday Pictorial newspaper: Ibid., 217.
“In these circumstances”: Quoted in Hunt (1951), 212.
wiring the participants: Ibid., 213.
“I think his brain”: Quoted in ibid., 213.
“I was in a mood”: Quoted in ibid., 213.
“I am very anxious”: WP to ACD, Jan. 27, 1928, ML. Italics added.
“This woman will die”: WP to ACD, n.d., ML.
“This woman”: Quoted in WP to ACD, Dec. 5, 1927, ML.
“Wiping her suds-covered hands”: Quoted in Whittington-Egan (2001), 176.
“I wish to put a denial”: HL open letter, Dec. 18, 1927, NRS.
“Lambie will go down”: WP to ACD, Dec. 19, 1927, ML.
Slater’s appeal resumed: Hunt (1951), 213.
Dr. Adams had died: Roughead (1950), 312.
“He expressed a very strong”: Ibid., 315.
John W. M. Pinckley: Ibid., 319–22.
“Was it possible”: Quoted in ibid., 320–22.
“For three days”: Quoted in Hunt (1951), 216–17.
rulings on four points of law: Ibid., 220–26.
Slater was seen: Ibid., 220.
“It cannot be affirmed”: Ibid., 226; italics added.
“It was some moments”: Ibid.
“I Oscar Slater”: Quoted in ibid., 226.
“Dear Sir Arthur”: Quoted in ibid., 226–27; italics in original.
Conan Doyle, who was grateful: Ibid., 227.
“My own connection”: Quoted in ibid., 227.
“I can quite understand”: Quoted in Hunt (1951), 231–32.
On August 4: Ibid., 232.
“a disreputable, rolling-stone of a man”: Conan Doyle (1912), 43.
“A Liberal Imperialist”: Otis (1999), 98.
“eating out his heart”: Conan Doyle (1924), 226.
“the easy reading”: Van Dover (1994), 30.
“Lest I do you”: ACD to OS, Aug. 9, 1928, ML.
“You seem to have taken leave”: ACD to OS, Aug. 14, 1928, quoted in Hunt (1951), 233.
“Early in the proceedings”: ACD to the Empire News, May 5, 1929, quoted in Hunt (1951), 235–36.
In September 1928: Telegraph, Sept. 14, 1929, ML.
“Let him call me”: Daily Mail, autumn 1929 [precise date illegible], ML. Also quoted in part in Hunt (1951), 236–37.
“Making money[!]”: Daily Mail, autumn 1929 [precise date illegible], ML. Also quoted in Hunt (1951), 237.
“Oscar Slater shook hands”: Daily Mail, autumn 1929 [precise date illegible], ML.
Conan Doyle responded: Evening News, Sept. 13, 1929.
In October 1929: Hunt (1951), 238.
“At the time”: Conan Doyle (1930), 445.
“Big-Hearted, Big-Bodied”: Quoted in Martin Booth, The Doctor and the Detective: A Biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Minotaur, 1997), 170.
“I have had many adventures”: Quoted in Adrian Conan Doyle (1946), 7.
On July 7, 1930: Miller (2008), 476.
a view shared by some later writers: E.g., Costello (1991).
Other observers have pointed: E.g., Toughill (2006).
a ring of professional thieves: E.g., Whittington-Egan (2001).
a murderous collaboration: E.g., Ted Ramsey, Stranger in the Hall (Glasgow: Ramshorn Publications, 1988).
“Miss Gilchrist must have been killed”: Roughead (1929), lix; italics added.
“I see no prospect”: Conan Doyle (1930), 446.
She returned to Scotland: Whittington-Egan (2001), 179.
She died in Leeds: Ibid.
Mary Barrowman, who: Ibid., 316–17.
“Many years after the trial”: House (2002), 180.
Barrowman died in 1934: Whittington-Egan (2001), 316.
Arthur Adams, seventy-three: Ibid., 314. Adams was found dead, of natural causes, in his home on Jan. 3, 1942. He had last been seen alive on Dec. 31.
In a noteworthy turn of fate: Ibid., 315.
In 1969, a Glasgow magistrate: Grant (1973), 58.
In 1999, however: Whittington-Egan (2001), 266.
“Scotland’s gulag”: Quoted in Scraton et al. (1991), 65.
“Will Wed a Kaffir”: “Will Wed a Kaffir, Says Oscar Slater,” New York Times, Nov. 28, 1929, 21; reprint of Associated Press article datelined London, Nov. 27, 1929.
after his estranged first wife died: Whittington-Egan (2001), 195.
he was briefly interned: Ibid., 197.
Unable to abide the name: Ibid., 198.
“With the war over”: Ibid., 197.
on July 27, 1942: www.ushmm.org/online/hsv/source_view.php?SourceId=7133.
Slater’s sister Phemie: Database of Holocaust victims, www.holocaust.cz.
his beloved sister Malchen: Ibid.