The discovery of a Sherlock Holmes story in Scotland is the cause of excitement in literary circles, but it is as yet unconfirmed as to whether the author is Arthur Conan Doyle, author of all the Sherlock Holmes stories.
The unsigned, 1,300-word tale - entitled Sherlock Holmes: Discovering the Border Burghs and, By Deduction, the Brig Bazaar - is part of a pamphlet printed in 1903 to raise funds to restore a bridge in the Scottish border town of Selkirk. The story is part of collection of prose and poetry by local people, issued as part of a three-day fund-raising bazaar.
The Sherlock Holmes author, Conan Doyle was by then a celebrity, after notable success with The Hound of the Baskervilles. The writer was guest of honour at the bazaar, and his attendance is announced on the end page.
The pamphlet was discovered by the historian and poet Walter Elliot, who had kept it in his attic “for 40 or 50 years” along with a painting of the old wooden bridge, which was lost in a flood in 1902.
A year after the bazaar, Conan Doyle returned to play cricket against the local team, and in 1905 he gifted a football trophy, the Conan Doyle Cup, to the Border league.
