셜록 홈즈 전집 9권인 셜록 홈즈의 사건집을 다시 펼치는 느낌이다. 소재가 다 떨어진 이후에 만들어진 작품이 9권이어서인지, 아니면 어느 정도 홈즈의 추리에 내가 적응이 된 것인지 사건집보다는 훨씬 재미있게 읽었다.
또다른 사건집을 마주하면서 든 새로운 생각인즉, 셜록 홈즈를 출판함으로써 아서 코난 도일이 엄청난 인기를 끌었겠지만 동시에 영국 경찰들의 위상은 어떻게 되었을지 무척 궁금해졌다. 거의 경찰이란 열심히 하지만 결정적인 일 해결은 거의 못하는, 그래서 홈즈를 찾아온 손님들이었기에 굉장히 영국 경찰은 무능한 존재로 내비쳤을 듯 싶다. 어떤 논란도 없었다면 아마 거짓말이었으리라.
<내 영혼이 따뜻했던 날들>의 저자에 대해 검색하고선 끔찍하게 후회했음에도 궁금한 건 궁금한거다. 아서 코난 도일에 대해, 그리고 당시 영국 상황에 대해 알아보았으나 짧은 검색 능력으로 알아낼 수 있는 건 별로 안됐다. 다만 루머처럼 떠돌아다니는 것이 있는데(왜냐면 확정됐다는 기사를 본 적이 없으니까) 아서 코난 도일이 사후 70년 후에 살인자로 지목이 된 사건이다. 아래는 2000년 9월 12일 CNN기사를 인용한 것이다.
Master of intrigue Conan Doyle accused of murder
September 12, 2000
Web posted at: 11:44 AM EDT (1544 GMT)
By Joe Clancy, CNN.com writer
It could be a plot straight from the pages of a novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle a murder mystery intriguing enough for the great Sherlock Holmes detective hero he created to solve.
A world famous author steals a story idea from his best friend and the resulting book becomes a best seller. To avoid being exposed as a fraud, he has his friend killed by persuading the wife, with whom he is having an affair, to poison him. Proving that fact is often stranger than fiction, this scenario is now an allegation being made against Conan Doyle himself some 70 years after his death.
A team of detectives from Scotland Yard has been assigned to investigate the claim that he had his friend and fellow author, Bertram Fletcher Robinson, poisoned by laudanum. The allegation is made by former psychologist and writer Rodger Garrick-Steele, who has spent 11 years researching Conan Doyle’s relationship with Robinson. Garrick-Steele claims Conan Doyle stole the plot for his most celebrated detective novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles, from Fletcher Robinson.
Fletcher Robinson died in 1907, aged 36, and the cause of death was given as typhoid. But Garrick-Steele says Conan Doyle poisoned him with laudanum, which displays similar symptoms. He claims Robinson’s wife Gladys was coerced into administering the deadly drug, with Conan Doyle using his medical knowledge as a qualified doctor. Garrick-Steele has put forward his theories in a book titled House of the Baskervilles, in which he poses three questions.
"Why did Fletcher Robinson never see a doctor until the day his death certificate was signed?
"Given that typhoid is highly contagious, why did not one relative, friend, colleague, or member of his staff contract the disease?
"Why was his body taken from London’s Belgravia, where he died, to his home in Devon for burial on a packed public train when typhoid victims were almost always cremated?"
Garrick-Steel says Conan Doyle visited Robinson’s home on the edge of Dartmoor, the setting for the Hound of the Baskervilles, in 1900, where his host regaled him with Dartmoor’s legends, including the tale of the ghostly hound. Robinson had a coachman, named Harry Baskerville, who years later in a radio interview said the two men discussed a manuscript written by Robinson called An Adventure on Dartmoor. The Hound of the Baskervilles was published in 1902.
Garrick-Steele began his interest in the mystery after he moved into Fletcher Robinson’s home, Park Hill House, in the early 1980’s. Scotland Yard, often scorned by Conan Doyle in his Sherlock Holmes novels, has instructed a team of detectives to investigate the claims. A spokeswoman said they had received "sketchy details" of the circumstances surrounding Robinson’s death, and would be looking at any further evidence available. "It will depend on the strength of the evidence as to how far we take the inquiry," she added.
실버 블레이즈/ 노란 얼굴/ 증권 거래소 직원/ 글로리아 스콧 호/ 머즈그레이브 전례문/ 라이기트의 수수께끼/ 꼽추 사내/ 장기 입원 환자/ 그리스 어 통역관/ 해군 조약문/ 마지막 사건