Sherlock Holmes

[Vimto]

I have just finished reading "The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", a collection of short story pastiches collected and introduced by Richard Lancelyn Green and published by Penguin in 1985. In the last story entitled "The Adventure of Hillerman Hall" by Julian Symons, a young girl posing as a journalist tracks down a retired Sherlock Holmes who is living on the Sussex Downs rearing his bees and persuades him to solve a mystery that is troubling her and her family. After the denouement and the solving of the case Holmes is reflecting on it.
""A trivial little case, with some points of interest, but hardly one for Watson", Sherlock Holmes said to himself. He indexed the case under "M". He could not quite read the surname: was it perhaps Mantle or Maple......?"
This is a tease, if not exactly a twist, in the tail which I can't quite grasp the meaning of. It must refer to something, maybe in the Sherlock Holmes canon. Can anyone shine a light and solve this riddle within a conundrum for me please?

[Pooka1950]

I haven't read this myself but could the surname be "Marple" and the young lady one day become Agatha Christie's Miss Marple?

[Mozz71]

That's what I was thinking. The case was a bit below Sherlock's station. More something Miss Marple would deal with.

[Vimto]

It's possible of course but if so it's a mighty big tease, the chronology is all wrong. If Holmes was retired it would be 1920 onwards. Miss Marple first appears in The Murder at the Vicarage in !930 already at least a middle aged woman or older. Julian Symonds would hardly have hoped to get away with that one.

[Pooka1950]

I did a bit of online research and it implies that Sherlock Holmes retired in 1914 or 1915 though I realise that doesn't help much!

[dance2trance]

The authors were aware of Miss Marple in 1985 though. Why not ask them or the publisher? They are bound to be at home after all!

[johnny.5]

or maybe a simple swipe at Moriarty
holmes making out the case was a lot easier that it actually was