Seventeen Minutes to Baker Street
Doctor Watson is anxious to set the matter straight regarding the true facts of the solving of the recent murder of Maria Gibson on Thor Bridge. Neil Gibson, aka the “Gold King,” Maria’s husband, had had his eye on his children’s governess, Grace Dunbar, for quite a while. What seems quite simple is far from it. Gibson hires Sherlock Holmes to solve the murder and free Grace from the Assizes, where she is awaiting trial after being charged with killing Mrs. Gibson.
The reality of the situation actually involves several intertwining stories dealing with Holmes’s crime-solving skills as well as several writers: Samuel Clemens, Bret Harte, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. For this story, Samuel Clemens takes an active role as a detective, so much so that his skills, and his later account of the investigation, cast a shadow on Sherlock Holmes. In Clemens’ own “A Double-Barreled Detective Story,” a young pregnant woman is tied to a stake and brutally beaten in a gold camp near Jackass Hill. She dies, but the child she gave birth to is raised by a bunch of men who are panning for gold. A somewhat overcomplicated, dragged-out plot ensues, and the murderer’s obsession with “Rache” or “revenge” is eventually clarified.
The resolution of the rivalry between these mystery writers is an unusual addition to the set of mysteries about Sherlock Holmes. This reads like a standalone “whodunit,” but it would make even more sense if one had read the background mysteries as told by Doctor Watson. An intriguing historical mystery!
