She tells Holmes she heard a noise during the night and went downstairs, where she saw the burglar exiting through a window and raised the alarm. Three stalwart members of society, including one lord, one doctor, and an evil albino police officer, converge on the shooting resulting in Holmes being arrested then remanded for a hearing. Unfortunately you do see the authors 21st century sensibilities coming out and there is the too obvious references to sex. Watson mentions that he has had two marriages, three children and seven grandchildren, yet it’s clear that the most important relationship of his life was that with Holmes. This is a violation of law in that common law sets out the principles of natural justice, which include being able to answer accusations.

Naturally, some of these non-Doylean adventures are better than others: Julian Symons's ingenious A Three Pipe Problem (1975) is unjustly forgotten, the BBC's recent Sherlock rightly praised.When the boy’s badly-beaten body turns up days later, Holmes and Watson find that things have taken a much more sinister turn, and that the mysterious House of Silk lies behind everything. The reader is informed of the particulars regarding the first meeting of Watson and Holmes, including the circumstances of the Afghan War and a mention of the case that was "too shocking to be revealed until now.

If pages are going to be spent discussing Watson’s solution and attempt to smuggle the book to Holmes, the author should have actually tried this himself – there is no way this would have worked, and Watson, being the intelligent man he was, would have known this.When Watson arrives at the prison, he discovers Holmes has escaped of his own accord, disguised as an aide to the prison doctor, whom he had once helped as a client.