The Murder of Mary Russell (40 page)

T
he chronology of the Conan Doyle stories makes for a perpetually delightful conundrum, keeping generations of Sherlock Holmes scholars occupied. The story at the root of this current volume, “The Adventure of the
Gloria Scott,
” contains few internal dates, and those it does have are often contradictory: the sailing of the
Gloria Scott
is firmly stated as 1855; however, the following years of gold fields and settled life in England are more than a touch slippery. Conan Doyle furthermore failed to enlighten the reader as to the precise year when Holmes himself was introduced to the story. According to Mary Russell's memoirs, that took place in the summer of 1879, with Dr Watson being introduced to the young detective eighteen months later, in January, 1881. Many will disagree with her.

Similar problems occur with names: nowhere does Conan Doyle suggest that the sailor Hudson of the
Gloria Scott
case is related in any way to the Baker Street landlady (nor, indeed, the Hudson mentioned in “Five Orange Pips,” or even Morse Hudson of the “Six Napoleons”). Nor is there the merest hint that Billy the page might be the same person as Wiggins, the “dirty little lieutenant” of Holmes' Irregulars, much less that there were two separate boys named Billy in the life of Baker Street.

Some might take these problems as proof that Miss Russell's memoirs are fiction. Certainly, her stories can be problematic. However, the same may be said of the Conan Doyle canon itself: Dr Watson could be a remarkably unreliable chronicler of life in Baker Street.

For my sister, Lynn Difley, who devotes her life to encouraging white-haired folk to find their strength.

I
owe eternal gratitude to my editor, Kate Miciak, and her omni-competent and long-suffering right hand, Julia Maguire. And to the rest of my own personal team of Random House improvers—Libby McGuire, Jennifer Hershey, Lindsey Kennedy, Allison Schuster, Kim Hovey, Scott Shannon, Matt Schwartz, Kelly Chian, and Carlos Beltrán—you people are nothing short of amazing, time and again. If you, dear Reader, are looking at these words now, it's thanks to them.

Thanks also to the community that loves me, lends a hand, and urges me on with verbal whips even when I threaten their beloved characters with murder: my agents, Zoë Elkaim, Mary Alice Kier, and Anna Cottle; my conjuror of everyday magic, Robert Difley; and my Devoted Readers Alice Wright, Merrily Taylor, Vicki Van Valkenburgh, Erin Bright, and John Bychowski. The staff of the McHenry Library continue to work wonders, and Linda Allen continues to nurture my career. As for the details of Sherlockian life, Leslie S. Klinger and Lyndsay Faye caught some of my mistakes, and can't really be blamed for anything I've got wrong herein.

L
AURIE
R
.
K
ING
is the
New York Times
bestselling author of fourteen Mary Russell mysteries, the Stuyvesant & Grey historical mysteries, and five contemporary novels featuring Kate Martinelli, as well as the acclaimed novels
A Darker Place, Folly, Keeping Watch,
and
Califia's Daughters.
She lives in Northern California.

LaurieRKing.com

Facebook.com/​LaurieRKing

@mary_russell