Dear sir –
The enclosed documents were left by our late client, John H. Watson M.D. Though my colleague Mr Swynge has arranged them to allow for greater readability, each is presented verbatim.
We would appreciate your urgent advice regarding their veracity and import. It is our professional duty to advise Dr Watson’s literary executors on how far these, along with the other unpublished manuscripts in his possession at the time of his death, may legally be publishable, but in this instance we are unable to judge between us how best to fulfil this obligation. Any opinion you are able to give us on this matter will be most welcome.
The sensitivity of the overall account, relating as it does to scandal and culpability at high levels of the British government, will be apparent from the first, but it is not from this alone that our reservations arise. The manner in which this narrative differs from Dr Watson’s other memoirs of his time in Baker Street became clear to us only gradually in reading, but caused us considerable disquiet, for reasons that will become apparent to you also.
We leave the material to speak for itself, and are confident that you will draw your own conclusions. Meanwhile, we shall await your advice.
J.M. Bodley, Esq.,
Swynge, Bodley & Sons, Solicitors