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wrestle—wrestle, of all things!—and both go over the falls. It sounds more like a suicide pact than a duel.” He paused. “And there is the long note Holmes leaves for Watson. Did that not trouble you?”
    â€œI must confess that it had not,” Kate said with a little smile. “But now that you bring it up—”
    â€œIndeed,” Charles said, sounding rather disgusted. “Can you picture the archfiend Moriarty permitting Holmes to take out his notebook and write a three-page letter giving explicit directions to locate the evidence he has assembled against Moriarty’s henchmen?”
    â€œI don’t suppose I read the scene quite that critically,” Kate said. “I only—”
    But again Charles interrupted her. “If you want to know what I think, I believe that Moriarty was armed, and that he gulled Holmes into believing that when his note to Watson was finished, they would settle matters in a chivalrous contest. At that point, he simply shot Holmes and pushed his body over the falls, leaving the letter as proof of their mutually fatal altercation and some telltale scuffle marks to satisfy Watson’s so-called ‘experts.’ In so doing, the evil genius sacrificed his henchmen, whom he no doubt considered expendable, in order to reinforce a belief in their dual demise. So Holmes is dead and Moriarty alive, after all,” he concluded triumphantly. With a pitying laugh, he added, “Poor Watson. Without Holmes, he simply couldn’t get it right. ”
    â€œPoor Holmes,” Kate replied dryly. “Dead, by the hand of his own creator—and if you are correct, without having taken Moriarty with him.”
    â€œWhen you have eliminated the impossible,” Charles said in a lofty tone, “whatever is left, no matter how improbable it may appear, must be the truth.”
    Kate pulled her dressing gown around her. “My dear, I’m afraid you really shouldn’t read fiction—or if you do, you must learn to suspend all your disbelief. Most stories simply don’t lend themselves to rigorous standards of analysis. Sherlock Holmes has many devotees, and none of them raise such questions.”
    Charles gave her a stern look. “Well, perhaps they should. Or perhaps fiction writers should be held to a higher standard of realism. Have you ever read a detective story in which the murderer actually goes to trial or to prison? Of course not. The story is designed solely to display the detective’s cerebral prowess, as if murder were nothing more than an intellectual puzzle.” He sighed. “And in real life, detectives make mistakes quite often, and the wrong man can be convicted as easily as not.”
    Kate thought about that for a moment. “I agree with all you say,” she replied, rising from her chair, “but I fear that readers would not find a courtroom or a prison to be an appealing setting. Not nearly so appealing or cozy as Number Two twenty-one B Baker Street.” She came around the back of Charles’s chair and put her arms around his neck, burying her face in his hair.
    â€œI suppose,” Charles said. He took her hand and kissed it. “Of course, there is another explanation.”
    Kate straightened. “Another explanation for what?”
    â€œFor the fact that there are no bodies,” Charles replied darkly. “The theory works if one is willing to focus on the author’s motives and may even explain his lack of attention to details. Perhaps Doyle has merely been biding his time. Perhaps he never intended to kill Sherlock Holmes but only wanted to give himself a rest from those stories. Perhaps he intends to resurrect the fellow after all. Retrieve him from the brink of the abyss, as it were.”
    Kate smiled to herself as she went into the bedroom to change. And perhaps Charles was not so easily able to suspend his disbelief, after all.

CHAPTER EIGHT

    The