Books: The Prefabrication of Holmes

THE LIFE OF SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE (304 pp.)—John Dickson Carr—Harper ($3.50).

Bound and writhing, Prussian Agent von Bork glared at his disguised captor and snarled:

"Then who are you?"

"It is really immaterial . . . but . . . it was I who brought about the separation between Irene Adler and the late King of Bohemia . . . It was I also who saved from murder, by the Nihilist Klopman, Count von und zu Grafenstein . . . It was I. . ."

Von Bork sat up in amazement. "There is only...