Fact and Fiction

With the Boer War looming, Arthur vows to leave Sherlock behind for good and applies to the war office to fight for his country instead. Both Doyle and Holmes' futures are uncertain, but is this Arthur's chance to finally become the hero of his own story?

Arthur thought he had the makings of a great ghost story. There was this phantom hound, and there was the spooky setting of Dartmoor. It is of course Hound of the Baskervilles. At the heart of this gothic tale there was a mystery to be solved, and one man would be perfect for the job. But Arthur had spent the last 8 years trying to make a name for himself away from Sherlock Holmes.

If Sherlock Holmes had been about brains, this was about brawn. Arthur
became the judge of Britain’s very first body building competition at the Albert Hall. Can you image 80 men standing on pedestals, wearing leopard skin? But what was the aim of it?

The public had wanted Arthur to channel his inner Sherlock for years. In 1908, he received another letter from a fan, who’d read The Hound of the Baskervilles while in prison. His name was George Edalji. George believed he’d been wrongly accused of a crime and thought Arthur Conan Doyle was the man to help.