The achievements of Saville-Kent never entirely shook a scandal which had followed him since he was fifteen. In 1860, his infant half-brother, Savill, was found murdered. His 16-year-old sister Constance was arrested but released without trial — public opinion distrusted the case of a working-class detective against a lady of breeding. Five years later, Constance confessed to the murder (though the Australian Dictionary of Biography calls it a "doubtful confession") . Wilkie Collins put details of the case in The Moonstone (1868), the founding text of English detective fiction. As for William, there were suspicions that he had been an accomplice to his sister though he was never charged. His sister Constance escaped the gallows and died in 1944, at the age of one hundred, in Australia.