Sherlock Holmes and the Titanic Tragedy by William Seil is one of a number of murder mysteries set on the Titanic. Other novels of this genre are for example Jim Walker's Murder on the Titanic and Max Allen Collins' The Titanic Murders.
The main difference is of course that Seil's novel does not only bank on the marketability of the scenario but also includes a famous, fictional character, Sherlock Holmes (to be precise obviously, two famous fictional characters, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson).
This is of course not the first (and undoubtedly won't be the last) novel in which Arthur Conan Doyle's creation has been appropriated by another author, who invented new adventures for the famous detective. - Indeed, another novel places Sherlock Holmes on another doomed liner, the Lusitania [which I haven't read yet].
In Sherlock Holmes and the Titanic Tragedy, instead of enjoying his retirement, spending quality time with his bees, Sherlock Holmes finds himself travelling to America protecting a young lady who in turn transports top secret information to the States. But not only does the famous detective have to retrieve the plans (who, naturally, are stolen), he also has to foil an anarchistic plot to sink the Titanic and deal with a man out for personal revenge, Professor Moriarty's brother Colonel Moriarty. - Convoluted plot? If there ever was one!
As the story unfolds, the author also includes a number of scenes tying the fictional events to the actual occurrences of the journey. Captain Smith has to be kept informed about both the missing documents and the attempt to blow a hole in his ship. Several of the officers are ordered to help Holmes and his associates with the solving of the different cases. (In reality, one would not find the First or Second Officer escorting a passenger round the ship duringtheir watch - even if he were Sherlock Holmes!)
Already during the first meeting between Holmes and Captain Smith, an additional officer is mentioned: Fred Bishop, who aroused the Captain's suspicion when he found the officer in his cabin. Not only that, he has a German accent to boot!
Fred Bishop remains one of the main suspects in the case of the missing documents - until his body is discovered in one of the cars in the cargo hold. (According to Seil, the Renault made famous by Jack and Rose in Cameron's film was only one of a number of automobiles being exported to the USA.) Bishop, perhaps this can be interpreted as a sign of his good taste, is killed in a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost.
The existence of this fictional officer is therefore easy to explain: he is only introduced to be killed at the convenient moment.
Due to the multiple plots of the novel, and its relative shortness, fictional officer Bishop does never achieve any substance or character. Not only does his exact rank remain a mystery - Captain Smith refers to him as "one of my lower-ranking officers" as if he didn't know better - his only role in the novel is to be a suspect and a body. In fact, his role is so insignificant that he never says a word. The reader only gets a few glimpses of him before his (un)timely demise on the third day of the voyage.
Much later in the novel, we learn that Fred Bishop was indeed one of the hired henchmen of Colonel Moriarty, who then killed him to prevent himself being exposed - a fate all too common for minor villains of his ilk.
As Seil has Bishop killed, he had to use a fictional character, as - obviously - the real officers were all very much present when the ship sank.
Additionally, one suspects that even if the corrupt officer had not been killed at this early stage, Seil would have had problems depicting one of the real officers in such a bad light. He could have hardly chosen one of the surviving officers, as this would have created awkward complications to his already complicated plot, and depicting one of the officers who died in the tragedy would be in decidedly bad taste. - (That not all authors have qualms to malign the good name of innocent travellers is shown by the appalling treatment of J.B. Crafton by Max Allen Collins.)
In the end, Fake Officer Fred Bishop in the end is what in Star Trek terms would be called a "red shirt", a minor character whose only reason for existence is to get killed.
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