And the author is....

"This story owes its inception to my friend Mr. Fletcher Robinson, who has helped me both with the general plot and in the local details. ACD."

Robinson received £30 per 1000 words for 'Hound of the Baskervilles' as Doyle collected £100. But the mystery really begins when Robinson suddenly dies at the age of 36, apparently of typhoid. One theory being bandied about: Robinson was poisoned by laudanum administered by Doyle, a qualified doctor.

Bertram Fletcher-Robinson, a journalist Doyle met as the two returned from South Africa, was the man who came up with the central plot idea and the setting for The Hound. It has been suggested that Robinson had penned a tome with the same story entitled 'An Adventure on Dartmoor'. Rodger Garrick-Steele alleges Doyle is in his book, House of the Baskervilles.

Garrick-Steele asks:

"Why did Fletcher Robinson never see a doctor until the day his death certificate was signed?

"Given that typhoid is highly contagious, why did not one relative, friend, colleague, or member of his staff contract the disease?

"Why was his body taken from London's Belgravia, where he died, to his home in Devon for burial on a packed public train when typhoid victims were almost always cremated?"

The whys in the story are paralleled by the definites.

In early March, 1901, Doyle wrote to the editor of The Strand, offering the magazine a "real creeper" of a story, with one stipulation: "I must do it with my friend Fletcher Robinson [who] gave me the central idea and the local colour."


Doyle wanted fifty pounds per thousand words for this joint effort, and when The Strand said yes, he and Robinson went off to Dartmoor together. They toured the moors, soaked up some of that "local color," and were set to write the story that revitalized Doyle's career.

Except Doyle later wrote it alone and Robinson became a mere footnote.

Sherlock Holmes fans aren't quit up in arms about Phillip Weller's book 'The Hound of the Baskerville: Hunting the Dartmoor Legend' . The book was rejected by 90 publishers before Devon Books took the plunge with a lush book filled with history, legend and beautiful photographs.

Robinson may or may not be exhumed at which time this mystery of mysteries may or may not be solved.