Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle

by Daniel Stashower

  It would seem that Pheneas had a hand in the decision to buy the property. Quite probably the New Forest was thought to offer a comparatively safe haven in the coming global apocalypse. Be that as it may, it also afforded a much needed sanctuary for Conan Doyle, who could pursue his writing projects in peaceful solitude. It is often reported that the local villagers avoided Bignell House, regarding it as a hotbed of spiritualist activity. At one stage, it is said, even the postman declined to approach. Conan Doyle’s younger daughter strenuously denied this notion. She recalled that the neighbors in Bignell Wood made the family feel welcome in the community, and that the cottage received many callers. Certainly the locals managed to overcome any inhibitions in August 1929, when sparks from the kitchen chimney ignited the thatched roof and set the entire house ablaze. While the family dashed into Conan Doyle’s study to rescue his papers, neighbors gathered to do what they could. Later, Conan Doyle sent a grateful letter to the local newspaper, expressing gratitude to the villagers who dragged their furniture onto the lawn—“One or two, I regret to say, showed a disposition to remove the goods even further, but the greater number gave me invaluable assistance.”

  Little of the property remained standing by the end of the night. Privately, Conan Doyle came to suspect that the fire had been psychic in origin. Jean received a message shortly afterward that claimed a “bad psychic cloud” had infected parts of the property, and since Bignell House was to be used for “high purposes amid or before coming events,” this negative force had to be purged. Psychic cloud or no, Conan Doyle hired builders to restore the property, but would not live to see it completed.

  Two months after the fire, Conan Doyle embarked on another round of travels. “I am off next week to do Holland, Denmark, Stockholm and Oslo,” he told Harry Price. “My ambition is to speak in each European non-Catholic capital before I pass.” Although the schedule was lighter and the reception more cordial than it had been in Africa, his health buckled under the strain. In Copenhagen, he suffered a bout of agonizing chest pains, but refused to curtail his speaking schedule. In near constant pain, he carried on with his slate of lectures, often clinging to the podium for balance. Returning to England on the Channel ferry in November, he had to be carried ashore.

  Doctors were summoned to confirm what Conan Doyle already knew. “I write this in bed,” he told a friend in America, “as I have broken down badly, and have developed Angina Pectoris. So there is just a chance that I may talk it all over with Houdini himself before very long. I view the prospect with perfect equanimity. That is one thing that psychic knowledge does. It removes all fear of the future.”

  Against his doctors’ orders, he struggled up to London to honor a speaking commitment at an Armistice Day spiritualist assembly. Riding to the Albert Hall in a cab, he suffered another attack. He leaned heavily on his sons as he staggered into the hall, and delivered his speech in a halting, weakened voice. Refusing to admit to his infirmity, he gave a second speech later in the day.

  His doctors now ordered complete bed rest. A sickroom was established on the ground floor at Windlesham, as Conan Doyle now had difficulty climbing the stairs. As 1929 drew to a close, he tried as best he could to keep up with correspondence and business matters, often dictating to Major Wood, his secretary. A jotting at the bottom of one typewritten letter offers a glimpse of his slow progress: “I am still tied down—can do 100 yards—not more. No pain now.” His diet was strictly monitored, and he had to content himself with a bunch of grapes at Christmas dinner.

  In January 1930, as he paged through the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, he roused himself for yet another letter-writing campaign. This time the target would be the Society itself, an organization he had come to regard with suspicion. The Journal had published a hostile review of a work called Modern Psychic Mysteries, by an investigator named Bozzano. This book described a series of séances held at Millesimo Castle, the home of the Marquis Scotto, an Italian nobleman of Conan Doyle’s acquaintance. The offending review, by the society’s librarian, Theodore Besterman, accused the marquis of failing to take any precautions against fraud and berated the author for having been duped by a series of routine deceptions.

  For Conan Doyle, this represented the culmination of an alarming trend. The Society, he believed, had become far too critical of the mediums it examined, fostering an antagonistic attitude that could only inhibit, rather than promote, the development of spiritualist talent. “In certain directions the work of the society has been excellent,” he had written in The History of Spiritualism, “but from the beginning it made the capital error of assuming a certain supercilious air towards spiritualism, which had the effect of alienating a number of men who could have been helpful in its councils, and, above all, of offending those mediums without whose willing cooperation the work of the society could not fail to be barren. At the present moment the society possesses an excellent séance room, but the difficulty is to persuade any medium to enter it.”

  Conan Doyle had never forgiven the Society’s officers for refusing to censure Harry Price, the investigator who had exposed the deceits of spirit photographer William Hope. This latest affront, he feared, demonstrated a dangerous and inflexible policy. He lodged a formal complaint, protesting that the “insolence” and “insulting innuendos” of the Besterman review had been intolerable. When this failed to bring satisfaction, he penned a letter of resignation and circulated it among the members of the Society, calling on them to do the same. He had been a member for thirty-six years, but now, it appeared, even the world’s foremost assembly of psychical researchers had grown too skeptical for his liking.

  The officers of the Society, mindful of Conan Doyle’s fragile health, sought a diplomatic resolution. When he rebuffed a private approach, an official response appeared. The purpose of the Society, it explained, had always been the critical and evenhanded investigation of psychic phenomena. The proof of this balanced policy could be seen in the membership roll, which included both skeptics and committed believers. If, the statement continued, the Millesimo Castle séances had conformed to a reasonable standard of scientific control, they would have received more serious attention: “It is, however, to be noted that sittings held in complete darkness, for the most part without control and without any searching of those present, sittings at which phenomena were produced which cannot be paralleled in the records of any sittings held under good conditions, are described by Sir Arthur as ‘on the very highest possible level of psychical research.’ Further comment is superfluous.”

  This left Conan Doyle no room to back down. In his resignation, he had stated that the affair “makes one ashamed that such stuff should be issued by an official of a Society which has any scientific standing.” It was a feeble thrust, since the Society’s insistence on scientific standards of proof appeared to be at the root of his protest. For years, Conan Doyle had presented his spirit convictions as a matter of religious faith, and declared them immune to any scientific proof or disproof. Now, in castigating the Society for falling short of scientific standards, he appeared to be playing both sides of the fence. All too often in those last years, he trotted out his own scientific credentials when it suited him, but retreated beneath the cloak of faith when it did not.

  This churlishness showed itself only when he felt provoked. For the most part, he was content to tread more softly, as he did in a widely circulated Movietone newsreel of the time. Unlike George Bernard Shaw, who appeared stiff and dogmatic in his Movietone appearance, Conan Doyle looked relaxed and happy in his rose garden at Windlesham, chatting amiably and fluidly for some twenty minutes. Whereas Shaw had plunged straight into world politics, Conan Doyle warmed up his audience with a topic he knew would hook their attention: Sherlock Holmes. “The curious thing is how many people there are in the world who are perfectly convinced that he is a living human being,” Conan Doyle told the camera. “I get letters addressed to him. I get letters asking for his autograph. I get letters addressed
to his rather stupid friend, Watson. I’ve even had ladies writing to say that they’d be very glad to act as his housekeeper. One of them, when she’d heard that he had turned to the occupation of keeping bees, wrote saying that she was an expert at segregating the queen, whatever that may mean, and that she was evidently predestined to be the housekeeper of Sherlock Holmes.”

  He continued in this vein for some time, winning over his audience with his candid observations and engaging tone. After a time, the seasoned lecturer turned smoothly to “the psychic matter.” Here, too, he kept his remarks light, trusting to his natural warmth and sincerity to carry the force of his message: “I suppose I’ve sat with more mediums, good and bad and indifferent, than perhaps any living being; anyhow a larger variety because I’ve traveled so much all over the world.… When I talk on this subject, I am not talking about what I believe, I’m not talking about what I think, I’m talking about what I know. There’s an enormous difference, believe me, between believing a thing and knowing a thing. I’m talking about things that I’ve handled, I’ve seen, that I’ve heard with my own ears, and always, mind you, in the presence of witnesses.”

  He spoke for a few more minutes about his long study of the subject, and about all the “splendid young fellows” who had perished in the war, then concluded on a heartfelt note. “Certainly the results have justified me,” he said. “I’m quite sure I could fill a room of my house with the letters that I have received from people telling me of the consolation which my writings on this subject—and my lectures on this subject—have given to them. How they have once more heard the sound of a vanished voice, and felt the touch of a vanished hand.”

  That said, he smiled warmly and stood up to take his leave. “Well, good-bye,” he told his newsreel audience. Calling to the family dog, he strolled out of view. These few moments of film footage give some idea of the impact he must have had as a platform speaker. He radiated goodwill and decency; it seemed impossible that his views could be anything but plainspoken common sense. His detractors have occasionally cast him as a deluded and rancorous figure, cackling at the prospect of an imagined global cataclysm. If so, he managed to conceal it with uncommon skill. Seeing him on the screen, the spirits and fairies and nonsense fall away. One sees only good intentions.

  Through the early months of 1930, he showed brief periods of improved health. He took advantage of his renewed energy to revise his autobiography, adding a chapter entitled “Up to Date,” and to write a modest paragraph of introduction for The Edge of the Unknown, a collection of spiritualist essays.

  On July 1, he went to the battlements for the last time. For some months he had been lobbying against an ancient piece of legislation called the Witchcraft Act, dating to the reign of James I, which had been revived as a means of prosecuting mediums. A steady flow of letters brought about a meeting with the home secretary, Mr. J. R. Clynes. Jean accompanied him to the Home Office and watched anxiously, clutching a vial of smelling salts, as her husband rose unsteadily to plead his case. Mr. Clynes appeared more concerned with his visitor’s health than with the merits of his argument. “Pray sit down, Sir Arthur,” he said, offering a glass of water. His voice faltering, Conan Doyle went ahead with his prepared statement, drumming his fingers against his chest as though to keep his heart beating.

  He returned home badly weakened, but even now, there were some duties he could not entrust to others. One cold spring morning, his son later recalled, he rose from his sickroom and stole out into the garden, unseen by anyone in the house. A few moments later, the butler heard a crash in the hallway. He found Conan Doyle lying on the floor, gasping for breath.

  One hand clutched his heart. The other held a single white snowdrop.

  He told his family that he did not wish to die in bed. As the crisis neared, they helped him to a chair where he could look out at the Sussex countryside. He died there, surrounded by his family, on the morning of Monday, July 7, 1930. He was seventy-one years old. His last words were addressed to his wife. “You are wonderful,” he said.

  ‘The reader will judge that I have had many adventures,” he had written a few days earlier. “The greatest and most glorious of all awaits me now.”

  Epilogue: A Well-Remembered Voice

  “My dear Watson,” said the well-remembered voice, “I owe you a thousand apologies. I had no idea that you would be so affected.”

  —SHERLOCK HOLMES IN “THE ADVENTURE OF THE EMPTY HOUSE”

  Conan Doyle was laid to rest in the rose garden at Windlesham on July 11, 1930. “The funeral,” reported the Daily News Chronicle, “was unlike any other; there were no tears, no anguish, and hardly anything that savoured of death.” As Adrian told the reporters who flocked to Crowborough, “There is no mourning at Windlesham.”

  The mood at the graveside, while hardly festive, showed a notable moderation of feeling. Members of the spiritualist community arrived in bright colors and summery frocks. A few top hats and somber frock coats could also be seen, signaling that not everyone shared the family’s convictions.

  Brilliant floral displays lined the grave, many of which carried banner-messages from friends and admirers. Each member of the family was represented by a lavish wreath—even the family’s Irish terrier, Paddy, whose offering bore a heartfelt sentiment: “To Master from the Dog who worshipped you.”

  Jean attended her husband’s coffin in a subdued dress of gray chiffon, a compromise between her beliefs and her transparent sorrow. She listened with obvious approval as the Reverend C. Drayton Thomas, a spiritualist minister, described her husband as a visionary leader. “Sir Arthur will continue his work for the spreading of the great cause which soothes the anguished heart,” Reverend Thomas declared, “and which is destined to change the whole outlook of human affairs.” As the service concluded, Jean raised a red rose to her lips and threw it onto the coffin.

  Messages of condolence flooded in. “A very great man has left us,” wrote William Gillette, who had recently completed a farewell tour in the role of Sherlock Holmes, “but he has left us with the admirable and delightful literary work of his earlier years, and in later life had shown a tireless devotion to a cause that he considered of vital importance to humanity.”

  “I have always thought him one of the best men I have ever known,” wrote James Barrie, “there can never have been a straighter nor a more honourable.”

  George Bernard Shaw, in a statement to the press, injected a characteristic note of pessimism. “I am very sorry to lose him,” Shaw remarked, “but, after all, he has made good his escape from this miserable world.”

  Perhaps the most elegant tribute would come from Greenhough Smith in the pages of The Strand. “Doyle’s work is done,” the editor wrote, “and, in whatever sphere, it was well done.” As a final testimonial, Smith arranged to reprint “A Scandal in Bohemia,” the first and perhaps best of the Sherlock Holmes short stories. This done, he retired quietly later in the year.

  Almost without exception, the press obituaries were headlined with the words “Creator of Sherlock Holmes.” As the Times of London noted: “Conan Doyle, who became a teacher with a mission in later years, might not particularly desire, but had certainly earned, the grateful salute of the world to a teller of tales who gave, and continues to give, as much pleasure to his fellows as any writer of the age.” The Daily Herald took much the same tone: “One might well express his passing in the phrase: ‘Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is dead! Long live Sherlock Holmes!’” One New York paper, delivering the news on its front page, achieved an unintentionally comic effect: “Conan Doyle Dies of Sherlock Holmes Fame.”

  Within hours of the announcement, mediums reported the presence of a “brilliant new light” in the spirit world. Soon, spirit messages were pouring in at a fantastic rate. “Well,” one psychic was told, “I have arrived in paradise.” Another received a rebuke to church officials: “What do your bishops have to say now?” In New York, the itinerant spirit was reported to have exchanged pleasantries with a
psychically oriented scrub woman. Matters soon reached a stage where a Bristol newspaper felt constrained to report: “No Message From Conan Doyle.”

  Faced with this torrent of alleged contacts, Jean issued a statement urging restraint. Her husband’s spirit, she insisted, had not yet had time to summon the reserves of energy necessary to break through the veil. “When he has got anything for the world he will communicate with us first,” she told the press. “These messages purporting to come from him already cannot be accepted.”

  Soon after the Albert Hall memorial service, where Estelle Roberts claimed to have contacted Conan Doyle’s spirit, Jean began to receive regular messages through her own automatic writing. Within months, she and her children believed themselves to be in daily contact with his spirit, and these communications would continue for years to come. The messages offered advice and guidance in nearly every aspect of the family’s affairs, from business matters to the purchase of automobiles. Some years hence, the spirit would advise Jean to seek medical attention. Ironically, though the living Conan Doyle had failed to detect his first wife’s tuberculosis, the family credited him with diagnosing Jean’s incipient cancer from beyond the grave.

  Conan Doyle also began to appear regularly in spirit photographs, and showed himself to be a singularly obliging subject. As the Reverend Charles Tweedale developed one image, he noticed that a “cloudy band of ectoplasm” threatened to obscure his own self-portrait. Speaking aloud, he made a direct appeal to the spirit: “Will the manifesting personality please take care not to show up on my face?” The form migrated upward, and soon Tweedale had produced a ghostly image of Conan Doyle looming above his own head.