Ten days later, he learned that his father had died in a Dumfries lunatic asylum. Epilepsy was given as the cause. Arthur had not visited him in years, and did not attend the funeral; none of the family did. Charles Doyle had let down the Mam and condemned his children to genteel poverty. He had been weak and unmanly, incapable of winning his fight against liquor. Fight? He had barely raised his gloves at the demon. Excuses were occasionally made for him, but Arthur did not find the claim of an artistic temperament persuasive. That was just self-indulgence and self-exculpation. It was perfectly possible to be an artist, yet also to be robust and responsible.

Touie developed a persistent autumn cough, and complained of pains in her side. Arthur judged the symptoms insignificant, but eventually called in Dalton, the local practitioner. It was strange to find himself transformed from doctor to mere patient's husband; strange to wait downstairs while somewhere above his head his fate was being decided. The bedroom door was closed for a long time, and Dalton emerged with a face as dismal as it was familiar: Arthur had worn it himself all too many times.

'Her lungs are gravely affected. There is every sign of rapid consumption. Given her condition and family history…' Dr Dalton did not need to continue, except to add, 'You will want a second opinion.'

Not just a second, but the best. Douglas Powell, consulting physician at the Brompton Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest, came down to South Norwood the following Saturday. A pale, ascetic man, clean-shaved and correct, Powell regretfully confirmed the diagnosis.

'You are, I believe, a medical man, Mr Doyle?'

'I rebuke myself for my inattention.'

'The pulmonary system was not your speciality?'

'The eye.'

'Then you should not rebuke yourself.'

'No, the more so. I had eyes, and did not see. I did not spot the accursed microbe. I did not pay her enough attention. I was too busy with my own… success.'

'But you were an eye doctor.'

'Three years ago I went to Berlin to report on Koch's findings – supposed findings – about this very disease. I wrote about it for Stead, in the Review of Reviews.'

'I see.'

'And yet I did not recognize a case of galloping consumption in my own wife. Worse, I let her join me in activities which will have made it worse. We tricycled in every weather, we travelled to cold climates, she followed me in outdoor sports…'

'On the other hand,' said Powell, and the words briefly lifted Arthur's spirits, 'in my view there are promising signs of fibroid growth around the seat of the disease. And the other lung has enlarged somewhat to compensate. But that is the best I can say.'

'I do not accept it!' Arthur whispered the words because he could not bellow them at the top of his voice.

Powell took no offence. He was accustomed to pronouncing the gentlest, courtliest sentence of death, and familiar with the ways it took those affected. 'Of course. If you would like the name-'

'No. I accept what you have told me. But I do not accept what you have not told me. You would give her a matter of months.'

'You know as well as I do, Mr Doyle, how impossible it is to predict-'

'I know as well as you do, Dr Powell, the words we use to give hope to our patients and those near to them. I also know the words we hear within ourselves as we seek to raise their spirits. About three months.'

'Yes, in my view.'

'Then again, I say, I do not accept it. When I see the Devil, I fight him. Wherever we need to go, whatever I need to spend, he shall not have her.'

'I wish you every good fortune,' replied Powell, 'and remain at your service. There are, however, two things I am obliged to say. They may be unnecessary, but I am duty-bound. I trust you will not take offence.'

Arthur stiffened his back, a soldier ready for orders.

'You have, I believe, children?'

'Two, a boy and a girl. Aged one and four.'

'There is, you must understand, no possibility-'

'I understand.'

'I am not talking of her ability to conceive-'

'Mr Powell, I am not a fool. And neither am I a brute.'

'These things have to be made crystal clear, you must understand. The second matter is perhaps less obvious. It is the effect – the likely effect – on the patient. On Mrs Doyle.'

'Yes?'

'In our experience, consumption is different from other wasting diseases. On the whole, the patient suffers very little pain. Often the disease will proceed with less inconvenience than a toothache or an indigestion. But what sets it apart is the effect upon the mental processes. The patient is often very optimistic.'

'You mean light-headed? Delirious?'

'No, I mean optimistic. Tranquil and cheerful, I would say.'

'On account of the drugs you prescribe?'

'Not at all. It is in the nature of the disease. Regardless of how aware the patient is of the seriousness of her case.'

'Well, that is a great relief to me.'

'Yes, it may be so at first, Mr Doyle.'

'What do you mean by that?'

'I mean that when a patient does not suffer and does not complain and remains cheerful in the face of grave illness, then the suffering and the complaining has to be done by someone.'

'You do not know me, sir.'

'That is true. But I wish you the necessary courage nonetheless.'

For better, for worse; for richer, for poorer. He had forgotten: in sickness and in health.

The lunatic asylum sent Arthur his father's sketchbooks. Charles Doyle's last years had been miserable, as he lay unvisited at his grim final address; but he did not die mad. That much was clear: he had continued to paint watercolours and to draw; also to keep a diary. It now struck Arthur that his father had been a considerable artist, undervalued by his peers, worthy indeed of a posthumous exhibition in Edinburgh – perhaps even in London. Arthur could not help reflecting on the contrast in their fates: while the son was enjoying the embrace of fame and society, his abandoned father knew only the occasional embrace of the straitjacket. Arthur felt no guilt – just the beginnings of filial compassion. And there was one sentence in his father's diary which would drag at any son's heart. 'I believe,' he had written, 'I am branded as mad solely from the Scotch Misconception of Jokes.'

In December of that year, Holmes fell to his death in the arms of Moriarty; both of them propelled downwards by an impatient authorial hand. The London newspapers had contained no obituaries of Charles Doyle, but were full of protest and dismay at the death of a non-existent consulting detective whose popularity had begun to embarrass and even disgust his creator. It seemed to Arthur that the world was running mad: his father was fresh in the ground, and his wife condemned, but young City men were apparently tying crepe bands to their hats in mourning for Mr Sherlock Holmes.

Another event took place during this morbid year's end. A month after his father's death, Arthur applied to join the Society for Psychical Research.