The Secret of the Flame Tree - S6-E2
Stupidity: Sylvie Baptiste is a successful writer, and she published novels after her masterpiece. The idea that she'd lose all her fame and fortune if someone published an academic paper making a completely unsubstantiated claim (if Sylvie does not have an original manuscript of the novel, neither does Lizzie) about her novel being the work of her crazy sister, is simply absurd. A good copyright lawyer or even any decent PR agency would put the appropriate spin to the accusations easily, and since her sister is certainly not gonna sue her and Sylvie is her only possible tutor, all those people supposedly very well connected with the academia and industry and shrewd in marketing their work, overreact for nothing. Even better; Humphrey has not even exposed the killer (or that it is a murder at all), and the university announces already that they plan to give a posthumous PhD to the deceased, for the paper she hasn't finished, based on an accusation with no evidence.
Suggested correction: A rumor can ruin a career, even if it is eventually proven to be false, which would be difficult here. And in this case, there is at least the supporting evidence that the writing style of 'The Flame Tree' is different from that of Sylvie's other works, but consistent with that of her sister's poems (some of which have been published).