"Lot No. 249" synthesizes some popular forms of fiction that Doyle tried his hand at various times. At the time he wrote the story, he had just achieved tremendous success with the Sherlock Holmes short stories and novels. Abercrombie Smith is certainly trying to be a detective and the structure of the story certainly follows the model of the classic detective story, in which a narrator recounts the experience of a detective attempting to solve a crime.

With this story, however, Doyle integrates other popular forms, for example the Gothic tale of terror. One of his best efforts in this genre is "The Captain of the Polestar," (1883) a story about the captain of a ship lured to its destruction by the specter of the woman the captain loves. Another such tale, which adopts the masquerade of a nonfiction first-person narrator is "J.

Habakuk Jephson's Statement" (1884). It attempts...