The Doctor's Case

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"The Doctor's Case" is a short story by Stephen King, originally published in "The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", a 1987 centennial collection, and reprinted in his collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes. An audio-book of stories from Nightmares & Dreamscapes was read by Tim Curry.

This story is King's foray into Sherlockiana, a non-canonical Sherlock Holmes story, using Arthur Conan Doyle's characters. Like his story, "Crouch End", inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, "The Doctor's Case" is a rare example of King working in literary pastiche.

Dr. Watson narrates a heretofore unreleased case in which he and Holmes are called by Inspector Lestrade to investigate a locked room mystery. On an unexpectedly rainy day, a nasty, sadistic British lord named Hull has been murdered in his study; there's no place for anyone to hide without being seen, and all the doors and windows were locked by the lord himself.

Furthermore, each of the people in the house--his wife and three sons--have effectively given each other alibis. Each one had more than enough reason to murder Lord Hull on their own. The wife had been hounded with constant abuse for the duration of their marriage. One son, an artistically-skilled (and bowlegged) youth, was the target of constant ire from his father for his unattractive appearance. Another, the youngest, was the most intellectual and the most capable of maintaining his father's affairs, but was doomed to never receive more than a pittance, due to his placement in the family line.

In spite of his treatment of them, his family stayed with him, in the hopes that Hull would die and leave them with his considerable wealth. All of them found out, not long before the murder took place, that Hull had rewritten his will so that none of them received a thing, and that all his wealth would go to a boarding-house for stray cats.

Holmes is eager to solve this mystery. Unfortunately, as indicated above, Lord Hull was a cat lover. Holmes has a rather severe allergy to cats, so he is not at his best. Watson, however, has an insight that blows the case wide open.

As the three discuss the case, Watson notices that a certain table in the locked room is casting odd shadows on the rug. He realizes that these shadows were catching his attention because no other structure in the study is casting shadows so strongly. When he goes to check the table, he discovers the illusion, and with the clever use of one of the many cats in the home, demonstrates that the table has been rigged. The bookshelf's lowest shelf is, in fact, a photorealistic painting. The murderer--the artist, Jory Hull--had perfectly rendered the bottom shelf, then pasted the results against the back table-legs. When his father announced the new will, Jory made into the study, crouched behind the table (assisted by his own dwarfed body in this case), and rushed out to stab his father when the moment was right.

A cursory glance would not betray the illusion on a dark day, but on a sunny one, the lack of shadows being cast by the table-legs would have been noticeable. To help make the illusion perfect, Jory had prepared shadows out of black felt, and laid them down at roughly the place where shadows should be. Unfortunately, his barometer was a liar; as was observed in the story, he was "caught by shadows on a day when there should be none". Furthermore, Lord Hull had time to scream before he died, arousing the attention of his servants and making it impossible for Jory to either collect his paintings or frame the murder as a break-in gone wrong. Instead, Jory stole and burnt the new will, guaranteeing that he and his family would receive their inheritance.

As Watson explains his insights, he slowly comes to the realization that Jory Hull could not have executed the murder on his own--that, at the very least, everyone in the family knew of it and was lying for him. Holmes, who had already determined that while listening to Watson's narrative, gently chides him for his inability to understand the depths of human depravity. Rather than resenting his thunder being stolen, Holmes was honestly impressed with the "deductive light" Watson showed. Watson also realizes that Holmes had understood everything not long from the beginning of Watson's story, yet Holmes deliberately kept his silence, letting Watson have his moment in the sun.

Holmes and Lestrade discuss the various sentences that the Hulls will have to have--Jory was guaranteed an execution; the other two sons would be jailed for life; the wife would be jailed for some time in a women's prison. They eventually decide that the world was, perhaps, better off without Lord Hull in it. Holmes and Watson collect the painting and the shadows, while Lestrade unlocks one of the windows in the room; they leave, and inform the police that Hull was murdered in an attempted break-in.