When Conan Doyle’s Manuscript were found in a Sussex Bank

by BELFAST NEWS-LETTER, SATURDAY, JULY 12, 1947-

SHERLOCK HOLMES

Conan Doyle MSS. found in bank vaults

Manuscripts, untouched since 1922, when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stowed them away in an old cardboard hat-box, have been discovered in the vaults of a Crowborough (Sussex) Bank, and are now available to Mr. John Dickson Carr, the London novelist, who is writing a new biography of the creator of Sherlock Holmes!

In the hat-box were found many unpublished writings by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, including a one-act play entitled, "The Crown Diamond," "Some personalia about Mr. Sherlock Holmes' and several youthful essays and lecturers.

There were lectures on Carlyle, Gibbon and hypnotism delivered at Southsea in the 1880's and an essay on a schoolboy's opinion on drink.
Mr. Carr said to a Press Association reporter last night that: " The interesting thing for Sherlock Holmes fans in The Crown Diamond' is that one of the characters in this unpubished play is Colonel Sebastian Moran. Moran was the protege and assistant of the arch-criminal, Professor Moriarty, and appeared in The Return of Sherlock Holmes written in the early 1900's."
The newly discovered documents are now lodged in a safe at a London hotel.
Mr. Adrian Conan Doyle, who. with his brother and sister, collected the manuscripts from Crowboough, told Mr. Carr that the " Personalia" was a unique document containing facts which would explode certain erroneous speculations about his father and his fictional creation, Sherlock Holmes