Dear Uncle,

I’ve been worried about you. Not a word since your trip to Leeds. Please send me word of your progress. I pray all is well.

Your Concerned Nephew,
Patrick

Dear Nephew,

It’s been far too long since our last correspondence. For this, I sincerely apologize. I have been busy as of late; my old colleague has me running ragged as a recent series of murders has occupied our time. Needless to say, this has limited my ability to reply to your kind letters.

I must confess to a terrible thing, my dear nephew. It has been gnawing at me for some time now, and part of me feels as reluctant to tell you as though I had been guilty of murder. You see, while the world may know the exploits of my colleague through the stories I publish, I’m afraid I’ve been deceitful in my renditions of them. It would be more accurate to say that I have been defrauding the public this entire time regarding the abilities of the world’s most notorious detective.

It was all very innocent in the beginning. When I first met him, I was enraptured. He seemed capable of making the most astute observations with very little information. He was also a wonderful host and an even better storyteller, and I would always take him at his word. Many of my writings relied almost entirely on him describing the details of adventures he had experienced without me. In retrospect, I should have exercised more scrutiny. There is little doubt the man can weave an extraordinary tale. He certainly convinced my naive younger self that his supposed exploits were true. I should have known! How could anyone accomplish such amazing feats if not for the ability to believe one’s own insane fabrications?

Now the situation is unbearable! I have elevated the man to an exalted status, even though his true specialty is nothing more than a clever parlour trick. To punish me for my greed, God has cursed me with having to care for this invalid. Day and night I must watch on as this unbearable man slowly poisons himself with cocaine. He’s practically incontinent by now! If only police commissioner Lestat could see him as he soils the bed following a particularly hard night of consumption; perhaps then he would feel retribution for all the times “The Great Detective” has humiliated him.

Every skill I have attributed to him has been either a complete fabrication, or a generous exaggeration. In my very first story, you may recall me describing him as a master of disguise when he wore a priest’s garments to infiltrate the home of Ms. Adler to recover a stolen painting. In reality, it was not difficult for her to spot his little plan, since the cocaine vapours he is so fond of had made him unusually jubilant and silly. Only a lucky punch to the face from a thug allowed his plan to work, and again only partially. The painting was never recovered, as the sober mind of Ms. Adler had seen thru the deception. If you were to believe his version of the story, you would have sworn his foe a genius to see through it!

Perhaps you think I’m being unfair. It’s true that in many ways, my colleague has pioneered some of the new methods currently being employed by Scotland Yard, such as the use of fingerprints to identify criminals. This, I will credit him greatly for. But he continually criticizes my writing, no matter how generous it is of his talents, and insists I have done a poor job of explaining his ‘science’ of deductive reasoning. The problem is that the man has absolutely no idea what ‘deductive reasoning’ actually is.

A little clarification, first. You may not be trained in the sciences like me, my nephew, so allow me to explain some of the basics of reasoning. ‘Deductive reasoning’ occurs when a congruence of premises are ‘built up’ to support a conclusion. This can take the following form:

a) All women are mortal
b) Margaret is a woman
c) Therefore Margaret is mortal

‘Inductive reasoning,’ which is what my friend confuses with the former, takes a ‘top down’ approach to a conclusion, often based on limited or incomplete information. This type of thinking is useful in making hypotheses, but not in establishing the truth of a proposition. And while some of the premises may be true, it does not mean that the conclusion is therefore true. For example:

a) All the murderers in jail are male
b) Therefore, only males are murderers

While the last statement could be true, it’s highly doubtful. Our information is incomplete, and so drawing any conclusions from it is premature. That’s not to suggest that inductive reasoning doesn’t have its uses (many exciting scientific models have used this form of reasoning). But when trying to investigate a crime where many different facts can be substituted and provide as satisfying an explanation, ‘Inductive Reasoning’ becomes an investigative liability. For starters, it makes broad generalizations often with very little evidence. It is nothing but a form of guesswork, disguised with observation to give it a sense of credibility. Worse still, this form of reasoning can often make a person lose perspective on the facts, and lead to biased observations that serve only to prove the original premise. My colleague spends most of his time either coming up with elaborate theories, or running all over town trying to find evidence to support them. All of this seemed marvelously clever to me, until one day I realized that any number of alternative explanations would have sufficed.

The irony here is that if any person fails to make the same broad generalizations he does, they are quickly ridiculed as “seeing but not observing.” I believe this is but one of the many methods he employs in manipulating people: by making them feel inferior. This preserves the illusion that he knows something the rest of us do not. This is not unlike the technique religious gurus use to subdue their followers.

Over the years I’ve learned that true detective work is meticulous and boring. Most of one’s time is spent gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses; two activities he detests and shows outright contempt for. But without this vital part of policing, all we are left with are wild guesses.

You must wonder why I’ve put up with him all these years. My wife continually asks me this same question. It’s true that some of our adventures have been quite thrilling, and a welcome break from my routine. But this is not the reason. His methods may be terrible, and there were often serious breaches of ethics involved in his style of ‘detective work’. With all fairness to him, I have never met in my life a man so thoroughly capable of sniffing out the “bad guy”.

I suppose it’s because he himself has the same mischievous mind, and the only thing that prevented him from turning into a villain himself is the thrill of catching criminals in the act. How else can you explain the fact that he always seems to know who is guilty? When all the evidence and police work fail, he is still able to find the mastermind simply by looking for him. It is as though some invisible force guides him towards the culprit.

Still, I cannot fathom if all of this is the work of a higher power, or the machinations of some mad devil. Only time will tell.

All the Best,
Uncle Watson