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Edition:	Sterling (Hardcover)
Author:	Arthur Conan Doyle
Published:	March 2005
Pages:	160
ISBN 10:	1402712170
New:	$1.99 (33)
Used:	$0.01 (55)
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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of twelve stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. These are the first of the Sherlock Holmes short stories, originally published as single stories in the Strand Magazine from July 1891 to June 1892. The book was published in England on October 14, 1892 by George Newnes Ltd and in a US Edition on October 15 by Harper. The initial combined print run was 14,500 copies.

The book was banned in the Soviet Union in 1929 for occultism, although the book shows few to no signs of such material. Later, the embargo was lifted.

Contents

The 12 stories in this collection are:

• "A Scandal in Bohemia"
• "The Red-Headed League"
• "A Case of Identity"
• "The Boscombe Valley Mystery"
• "The Five Orange Pips"
• "The Man with the Twisted Lip"
• "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle"
• "The Adventure of the Speckled Band"
• "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb"
• "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor"
• "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet"
• "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches"

Plot Summaries

A Scandal in Bohemia

Holmes is visited by a masked gentleman introducing himself as Count Von Kramm, an agent for a wealthy client, but Holmes quickly deduces that he is in fact Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein, the hereditary King of Bohemia. The King admits this, tearing off his mask. (Actually, the Habsburg Emperors were also Kings of Bohemia and there was no separate dynasty; Doyle chose to place an imaginary king at an existing country, rather than create a whole imaginary country such as Ruritania).

It transpires that the King is engaged to Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meningen, a young Scandinavian princess, but the King's in-laws-to-be would have a very low opinion of him if any evidence of his former liaison with an opera singer named Irene Adler, originally from New Jersey, were ever revealed to them. Unfortunately, that is what the lady herself is threatening to do, apparently not, though, for monetary gain, for the King's agents have already tried to buy the evidence. They have also broken into Miss Adler's house to try to find it.

It is a photograph described to Holmes as a cabinet (5 1/2 by 4 inches), and therefore too bulky for a lady to carry upon her person, showing both the King (then the Crown Prince), and Irene Adler. The King gives Holmes £1,000 to cover any expenses. Holmes asks Dr. Watson to join him at 221B Baker Street at 3 o'clock the following afternoon.

The next morning, Holmes goes out to Miss Adler's house dressed as an out-of-work groom and manages to elicit useful information from the other stable workers. Irene Adler has a gentleman friend Godfrey Norton, a lawyer, who calls at least once a day. On this particular day, Norton comes to visit Miss Adler, and soon afterwards, takes a cab to the Church of St. Monica in Edgware Road. Minutes later, the lady herself gets in her landau bound for the same place. Holmes follows in a cab and, arriving, finds himself dragged into the church to be a witness to Godfrey Norton's and Irene Adler's wedding. Curiously, they go their separate ways after the ceremony.

Holmes decides to make his move that evening, with Watson's help. Disguising himself as a simple-minded clergyman, he arrives at Irene Adler's house and, with his agents' help, causes a commotion in which he falls down with his face bloodied, just as Miss Adler, or Mrs. Norton, arrives home. She has the clergyman conveyed into the house where she tends to him. Watson, having been instructed to keep near the sitting room window, waits for Holmes to raise his hand. At this signal, Watson throws a plumber's rocket through the window and yells "Fire!", as do the assorted other characters in the street, all hired by Holmes with the money from the King. Holmes observes Mrs. Norton rushing to a panel in the sitting room, opening it, and beginning to take something out. Having thus discovered where the photograph is, Holmes calls out that it is a false alarm, and contrives to leave the house and meet Watson at the corner as prearranged.

Upon arriving back at Baker Street, however, something odd happens: they hear a voice say "Good-night, Mister Sherlock Holmes". Holmes recognizes the voice but cannot place it. If he could, he would deduce what the episode meant.

Holmes, Watson, and the King go to Irene Adler's house early the next morning to see about achieving what Holmes did not have the opportunity to do the night before, namely stealing the photograph. However, they find that she and her husband have left England, never to return. The picture is gone, and in its stead another has been left, showing only her.

She has also left a letter for Holmes, making it plain that she knew who he was – her suspicions were aroused by the "fire" – and that he was likely to have been hired by the King. She declares that she loves and is loved by Godfrey Norton and no longer feels the need to mire her former lover in scandal, and also that the King need never worry now about the photograph – unless he is foolish enough to take any threatening action against her. She has, of course, kept it. She also reveals that she followed him home after the fire and she was the one that said "goodnight" to him.

The king is satisfied with this outcome, and offers a valuable ring to Holmes as his reward. Holmes, however, is impressed by the intelligence of Irene, and asks instead to keep her portrait. Later Holmes receives a gold snuff box from the King.

The Red-Headed League

Set in 1890, a London pawnbroker named Jabez Wilson comes to Holmes and Watson. He tells them that his young assistant Vincent Spaulding, some weeks ago had shown him and urged him to respond to a newspaper want-ad offering work to only red-headed male applicants. The next morning, Wilson had waited in a long line of fellow red-headed men, was interviewed and was the only applicant hired. He was well-paid for several weeks of doing obviously useless clerical busywork in a lonely office, but finally one morning a sign on the locked office door inexplicably announced: "THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE IS DISSOLVED." Wilson then went to the landlord, who said that he'd never heard of Duncan Ross, the person who formed the league. After Holmes' client Wilson leaves (having given the detective a description of Spaulding), Holmes decides to go and see Spaulding, whom Holmes notices has dirty trouser knees. Holmes then taps on the pavement in front of the pawnbroker's shop. With the case solved, he calls Inspector Jones and Mr. Merryweather. The four confront the thieves, John Clay and his helper Archie (they were Spaulding and Ross in disguise), who had contrived the Red-Headed League rigamarole just to keep Wilson out of his shop while they did digging in the basement in order to break into the bank vault next door. Back at Baker Street, Holmes explains to Watson how he solved the case.

A Case of Identity

Set in 1888, the story revolves around the case of Miss Mary Sutherland, a woman with a substantial income from the interest on a fund set up for her. She is engaged to a quiet Londoner who has recently disappeared. Sherlock Holmes's detective powers are barely challenged as this turns out to be quite an elementary case for him, much as it puzzles Watson.

The fiancé, Mr. Hosmer Angel, is a peculiar character, rather quiet, and rather secretive about his life. Miss Sutherland only knows that he works in an office in Leadenhall Street, but nothing more specific than that. All his letters to her are typewritten, even the signature, and he insists that she write back to him through the local Post Office.

The climax of the sad liaison comes when Mr. Angel abandons Miss Sutherland at the altar on their wedding day.

Holmes, noting all these things, Hosmer Angel's description, and the fact that he only seems to meet with Miss Sutherland while her disapproving youngish stepfather, James Windibank, is out of the country on business, reaches a conclusion quite quickly. A typewritten letter confirms his belief beyond doubt. Only one person could have gained by this: Mr. James Windibank. Holmes deduces "Angel" had "disappeared" by simply going out the other side of a hansom cab.

After solving the mystery, Holmes chooses not to tell his client the solution, since "she would not believe me... There is danger to him who snatches a delusion from a woman." In this, however, he can be accused of not fulfilling his professional duty for which he was paid - namely, to investigate the matter to which she set him, provide her with the results and let her decide what to do with them. Holmes does advise his client to forget "Mr. Angel"; Miss Sutherland refuses to take Holmes advice and vows to remain faithful to "Angel" until he reappears-for at least 10 years.

One may wonder whether Dr. Watson disagreed with Holmes' behaviour in this matter, since he published an account of the whole story a few years later. Holmes' conclusions would then surely find their way to Miss Sutherland as well, though she would hardly be glad to find that the whole story had been turned into entertainment for the masses. Watson's description of herself, including references to her "preposterous hat" and "vacuous face", would probably not be much appreciated either.

Holmes predicts Windibank will continue a career in crime and end up on the gallows.

The Boscombe Valley Mystery

Set in 1888, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are called down to Boscombe Valley (a fictitious place in Herefordshire) to investigate the death of Mr. Charles McCarthy. Lestrade, a detective from Scotland Yard whose meagre abilities are often upstaged by Holmes's brilliant deductions, has concluded without much ado that it is a murder, and that McCarthy's son James is the killer. James was seen by one witness following his father to the nearby pond, and another, a young girl, saw the two remonstrating with each other by the pond.

Holmes will not accept Lestrade's conclusions, however, as there are some facts that simply do not seem to fit. Whom was McCarthy going to the pond to meet? He had told his serving-man that he had to keep an appointment there, from which he never came back alive. How could the meeting have been with James when McCarthy believed that his son was in Bristol? Why did McCarthy use the call "Cooee!", which his son is used to using? Why did he get angry with James? Why won't James reveal the exact nature of the conversation when his silence might well put his neck in a noose? How did a piece of clothing a few yards from James and his dying father vanish without a trace while James was right there? What did McCarthy's dying words about "a rat" mean? Who could have wanted McCarthy dead, if not James, and why? Is Miss Turner, who wants to marry James, somehow tied into all this?

Holmes employs his usual keen powers to unravel this tangle of questions, and once again, he puts Lestrade to shame. Young James is left in gaol by the time the story ends, and may not even be spared a referral to the next assizes, but Sherlock Holmes has arranged for Her Majesty's case against the young man to fall apart if it seems likely that a court will send him to the gallows. This arrangement comes with the true killer's compliments.

The Five Orange Pips

A young Sussex gentleman named John Openshaw has a strange story: in 1869 his uncle Elias Openshaw had suddenly come back to England to settle on an estate at Horsham, West Sussex after living for years in the United States as a Planter in Florida and serving as a Colonel in the Confederate Army.

Not being married, Elias had allowed his nephew to stay at his estate. One strangeness is that although John could go anywhere in the house he could never enter a locked room with his Uncle's trunks. A second strangeness was in March 1883 a letter postmarked from Pondicherry, India arrived for the Colonel inscribed only "K.K.K." with 5 orange pips (seeds) enclosed.

More strange things happened: papers from the locked room were burnt and a will was drawn up leaving the estate to John Openshaw. The Colonel's behaviour became bizarre-he would either lock himself in his room and drink or he would go shouting forth in a drunken sally with a pistol in his hand. On May 2, 1883 he was found dead in a garden pool.

On January 4, 1885 Elias's brother Joseph receives a letter postmarked Dundee with the initials "K.K.K" and instructions to leave papers on the sundial. Despite his son's urging, Joseph Openshaw refuses to call the police. Three days later, Joseph Openshaw is found dead in a chalk-pit. The only clue John Openshaw can furnish Holmes is a page from his Uncle's diary marked March 1869 in which pips have been sent to three men, of whom two flee and the third has been "visted".

Holmes advises Openshaw to leave the diary page with a note telling of the destruction of the Colonel's papers on the garden sundial. After Openshaw leaves, Holmes deduces that from the time between the letter mailings and the deaths of Elias and his brother that the writer is on a sailing ship.

Holmes also recognizes the "K.K.K" as Ku Klux Klan, an anti-Reconstruction group in the South until its sudden collapse in March 1869 -- and theorizes that this collapse was the result of the Colonel's maliciously taking their papers away to England.

The next day there is a newspaper account that the body of Openshaw has been found in the Thames River and believed to be an accident. Holmes checks sailing records of ships who were at both - Pondicherry in January/February 1883 and at Dundee in January 1885 and recognizes a Georgia bark named The Lone Star. Furthermore Holmes confirms tha The Lone Star had docked in London a week before.

Holmes then sends five orange pips to the captain of The Lone Star and has the police send a cable to Savannah that the Captain and two mates are wanted for murder.The Lone Star never arrives in Savannah; there are severe gales that year and the only trace of the bark is a signpost marked "L.S." sighted in the waves.

The Man with the Twisted Lip

After rescuing a friend's husband from an East End opium den, the 'Bar of Gold', Dr. Watson rather improbably finds his friend Sherlock Holmes there, disguised as an old man apparently trying to extract information from the addicts in the den.

Mr. Neville St. Clair, a respectable and punctual country businessman, has disappeared. Making the matter even more mysterious is that Mrs. St. Clair is quite sure that she saw her husband at a second-floor window in Upper Swandam Lane, a rather rough part of town near the docks. He withdrew into the window immediately, and Mrs. St. Clair is quite sure that there was something very wrong.

Naturally, she tries to enter the building, but her way was blocked by the owner of the opium den, a Lascar. She fetches the police, but they cannot find Mr. St. Clair. The window in which she saw her husband yields only a dirty, ugly beggar, well known to the police, by the name of Hugh Boone. The police are about to put this report down to madness of some kind when Mrs. St. Clair spots and identifies a box of wooden bricks that her husband said he would buy for their son. A further search turns up some of her husband's clothes. Later, his coat, with the pockets full of several pounds' worth of pennies and halfpennies, is found in the Thames just below the building.

The beggar is arrested and locked up at the police station, and Holmes initially is quite convinced that Mr. St. Clair has been the unfortunate victim of murder. However, several days after Mr. St. Clair's disappearance, his wife receives a letter in his own writing. The arrival of this letter forces Holmes to reconsider his conclusions, leading him eventually to an extraordinary solution. Taking a bath sponge to the police station, Holmes washes Boone's still-dirty face, causing the mess to fall away and his face to be revealed — the face of Neville St. Clair! Upon Mr. St. Clair's immediate confession, this solves the mystery, and also creates a few problems. The Man with the Twisted Lip

It seems that Mr. St. Clair has been leading a double life, one of respectability, and the other as a beggar. In his youth, he had been an actor before becoming a newspaper reporter. In order to research an article, he had disguised himself as a beggar for a short time, during which he was given a very large amount of money. Later in his life, he returned to the street to beg for several days in order to pay a large debt. Given a choice between his newspaper salary and his high beggar earnings, he eventually became a professional beggar. His takings were large enough that he was able to establish himself as a country gentleman, marry well, and begin a respectable family. His wife never knew what he did for a living, and Holmes agrees to preserve Mr. St. Clair's secret as long as no more is heard of Hugh Boone.

The story is unique among Holmes stories in two ways: when the mystery is resolved, it turns out that no crime has been committed and there is no villain; and unlike other stories, Holmes (or in fact, Doyle) does not explain how he solved the mystery, and leaves it to the intelligent reader to work out (the clue is fairly enough given in the story).

The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle

The plot revolves around a precious blue carbuncle (a garnet which can come in a variety of colours, none of which is blue, so it seems to be even more precious than the plot implies) going missing. Suspicion falls on a plumber, John Horner, who was seemingly the only person in the suite occupied by the Countess of Morcar when her precious gem was stolen. Moreover, Horner has a previous conviction for robbery. He is arrested and seems destined for seven years of penal servitude.

Watson visits his friend Holmes at Christmas time and finds him contemplating a battered old hat, brought to him by the commissionaire Peterson after it and a Christmas goose had been dropped by a man in a scuffle with some street ruffians. Peterson takes the goose home to eat it, but comes back later with the carbuncle. His wife has found it in the bird's crop (throat).

Holmes cannot resist a good mystery, and he and Watson set out across the city to determine exactly how the stolen jewel wound up in a goose's crop. The man who dropped the goose, Mr. Henry Baker, clearly has no knowledge of the crime, but he gives Holmes valuable information, eventually leading him to the conclusive stage of his investigation, at Covent Garden. There, a salesman named Breckenridge gets rather angry at Holmes, complaining about all the people who have pestered him about geese sold to the Alpha Inn (a tavern) recently. Clearly, someone else knows that the carbuncle is in a goose and is looking for the bird. Holmes expects that he will have to visit the goose supplier in Brixton, but it will not be necessary: The other "pesterer" that the salesman mentioned shows up right then, a cringing little man named James Ryder whom Holmes prevails upon to tell the whole sordid story. Of course, Holmes has already deduced most of it.

The thief fed the carbuncle to a goose to hide it, so paranoid was he that everyone was out to lay bare his crime. He was to have one of the geese as a gift, but after feeding one goose the jewel, he apparently lost track of which one it was. He and a confederate also contrived to frame John Horner for the theft.

Holmes, however, does not take the standard action against the man, it being Christmas. Ryder flees to the continent and Horner will be freed as the case against him will collapse without Ryder's perjured testimony. Holmes remarks that he is not retained by the police to remedy their deficiencies.

The Granada TV version with Jeremy Brett is faithful to the original, except that it has — after Ryder flees to the Continent — Holmes and Watson making their way to the authorities, which leads to Horner being freed in time for Christmas with his wife and children.

The Adventure of the Speckled Band

A young woman named Helen Stoner consults the detective Sherlock Holmes about the suspicious death of her sister, Julia. One night, after conversing with her twin sister about her big day, Julia suddenly reappeared in Helen's room, struggling to breathe, and died soon afterwards. Julia had been engaged to be married and, had she lived, would have received an annual 250 GBP annuity from her late mother's income. Now Helen is engaged to be married. Holmes' investigation of the mother's estate reveals that its value has decreased significantly, and if both daughters had married, Dr. Roylott, Helen's ill-tempered and violent stepfather, would be left with very little, while the marriage of even one would be crippling. Therefore, the main suspicion falls on him.

Dr. Roylott has required Helen to move into a particular room of his heavily mortgaged ancestral home, Stoke Moran. A number of details about the place are mysterious and disturbing. A low whistling sound is heard late at night, as well as a metallic clank. There is a strange bell cord over the bed, and it does not seem to work any bell. There are also Julia's dying words about a "speckled band." Stoner surmises that Julia might have been murdered by the gypsies, whom Dr. Roylott permits to live on the grounds—they wear speckled handkerchiefs around their necks. A cheetah and a baboon also have the run of the property, for Dr. Roylott keeps exotic pets. Helen feels reluctant to sleep in the room.

After Helen leaves, Dr. Roylott comes to visit Holmes, having traced his stepdaughter. He demands to know what Helen has said to Holmes, but Holmes refuses to say. Dr. Roylott bends an iron poker into a curve in an attempt to intimidate Holmes, but Holmes is unaffected as he maintains a rather jovial demeanor during the encounter. After Roylott leaves, Holmes straightens the poker out again, thus showing that he is just as strong as the doctor.

Having arranged for Helen to spend the night somewhere else, Holmes and Watson sneak into her bedroom without Dr. Roylott's knowledge. Holmes says that he has already deduced the solution to the mystery, and that this test of his theory turns out to be successful. They hear the whistle, and Holmes also sees what the bell cord is really for, although Watson does not. Julia's last words about a "speckled band" were in fact describing a "swamp adder, the deadliest snake in India." The venomous snake had been sent to Julia's room by Dr. Roylott to murder her. After the swamp adder bit Julia he called off the snake with the whistling, which made the snake climb up through the bell cord, disappearing from the scene.

Now the swamp adder is sent again to kill Julia's sister Helen. Holmes attacks the snake, sending it back through an air ventilator connected to the next room. The angry snake bites Dr. Roylott instead, and, within seconds, he is dead. Grimly noting that he is indirectly responsible for Dr. Roylott's death, Holmes remarks that he is unlikely to feel much remorse because of it.

The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb

In his narration, Dr. Watson notes that this is only one of two cases which he personally brought to the attention of Sherlock Holmes. The story, set in 1889, mainly consists of a young London hydraulic engineer, Mr. Victor Hatherley, recounting strange happenings of the night before, first to Dr. Watson who dresses the stump where Mr. Hatherley's thumb has been cut off, and then to Sherlock Holmes himself. Hatherley had been visited in his office by an old, suspicious man who identified himself as Colonel Lysander Stark. He offered Hatherley a job at a country house to examine a hydraulic press used, as Stark explains, to compress fuller's earth into bricks, but Stark warned Hatherley to hold his tongue about the lucrative job, which will apparently pay 50 guineas (£52 10s, or £52.50 by today's decimalised system). Hatherley felt compelled to take this work, despite his misgivings, as his business was newly established and he had had very little work.

Upon arriving late at night at the appointed train station, Hatherley is met by Colonel Stark, is blindfolded and driven a considerable distance in a carriage to the house where he is to examine the machine. (A minor detail is that the house was actually quite near the station, and the carriage drove around in circles to disguise the house's location from Hatherley). Hatherley is still under the spell of the 50 guineas and does not become afraid even when a woman at the house warns him to flee. He is presently shown the press, and makes his recommendations as to needed repairs. Then, he rashly decides to inspect the press a bit more closely, discovering that it is certainly not used for pressing fuller's earth. Hatherley narrowly escapes getting crushed to death when the machine is turned on, and is forced to jump from a window and run for his life, in the process getting his thumb severed. Holmes then makes sense of the happenings, recognizing Stark and his allies as counterfeiters, but he, Watson, and the police arrive too late: the house is on fire, and the perpetrators have fled. Ironically, the press was destroyed when Hatherley's lamp was crushed inside it, setting the machine on fire and ruining the criminals' operation. This case is one of the few where Holmes fails to bring the villains to justice.

The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor

The story entails the bride of the fictional Lord St. Simon disappearing on the day of their marriage.

The events of the wedding day are most perplexing to Lord St. Simon, as it seemed to him that his bride, Miss Hatty Doran of San Francisco, was full of enthusiasm about their impending marriage. Lord St. Simon tells Holmes that he noticed a change in the young lady's mood just after the wedding ceremony. She was uncharacteristically sharp with him. The only obvious happening at the church where the wedding took place that was out of the ordinary was Hatty's little accident: She dropped her wedding bouquet and a gentleman in the front pew picked it up and handed it back to her.

A short time later, at the wedding breakfast, before the newlyweds arrived, a former companion of St. Simon, Flora Millar, caused a disturbance at the house, and was ejected. After Lord St. Simon's and Hatty's arrival, Hatty was seen talking to her maid, and a short time later, it was realized that she had left.

There are many questions that Holmes must sift through. Who was that woman at the wedding breakfast? Who was that man in the front pew? Who was that man seen going into Hyde Park with Hatty? Why were Hatty's wedding dress and ring found washed up on the shore of the Serpentine? What had become of her?

For Holmes, however, it proves rather an elementary case, for he has dealt with other, similar cases, and this one is not so complex to unravel, much as it confuses Dr. Watson, and Inspector Lestrade. Holmes finds Hatty and the strange man from the front pew, and the dénouement takes the form of Holmes having Hatty explain herself to Lord St. Simon. Hatty and the man, Francis H. Moulton, were husband and wife. Her husband saw very little of her while he was busy trying to amass a fortune by prospecting. He was reported killed in an Apache raid on a mining camp where he was working. Hatty had given him up for dead, met Lord St. Simon, and decided to marry him, even though her heart still belonged to Frank. Frank had not been killed by the Apache raid, it turns out, but taken prisoner, and he escaped and tracked Hatty to London, where she was to be married. He was the strange man in the pew, and she recognized him instantly. Rather than have her make a scene at the church, he gestured her to be silent, and wrote a note which he slipped to her as he recovered her bouquet. She had wanted to abscond without ever telling anybody, but Holmes had tracked them down and convinced them that it would be better to have the full truth. Lord St. Simon is unmoved by Hatty's apologies and feels that he has been very ill used.

This is one of a number of stories in which Holmes bests Lestrade of Scotland Yard. Lestrade even goes as far as to imply that Holmes is mad as this case unfolds, but it is, as always, Holmes who solves the case. Lestrade had been convinced that Flora Millar, a jilted admirer of St. Simon, had had something to do with the disappearance, since he had recovered a note to Hatty signed with the initials "F.H.M.", but this was before anyone concerned with the case knew of Francis H. Moulton, and thus Ms. Millar is the classic example of a red herring.

The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet

A banker, Mr. Alexander Holder of Streatham makes a loan of £50,000 to a socially prominent client, who leaves the Beryl Coronet — one of the most valuable public possessions in existence — as security. Holder feels that he must not leave this rare and precious piece of jewellery in his personal safe at the bank, and so he takes it home with him to lock it up there. He is awoken in the night by a noise, enters his dressing room, and is horrified to see his son Arthur with the coronet in his hands, apparently trying to bend it. Holder's niece Mary comes at the sound of all the shouting and, seeing the damaged coronet, faints dead away. Three beryls are missing from it. In a panic, he travels to see Holmes, who agrees to take the case.

The case against Arthur seems rather damning, yet Holmes is not convinced of his guilt. Why has Arthur clammed up? Why is he refusing to give a statement of any kind? How could Arthur have broken the coronet (even Holmes, who has exceptionally strong hands, can't do it) and without making any noise? Could any other people in the household be involved, such as the staff, or Mary? Could some visitor, such as the maid's wooden-legged boyfriend, or Arthur's rakish friend Sir George Burnwell, have something to do with what happened to the coronet? The failure to resolve the case will result in Mr. Holder's dishonour, and a national scandal.

Holmes sets about not only cogitating the details that he learns from Holder, but also examining tracks and traces in the snow outside. Eventually, Holmes solves the mystery, and Holder is flabbergasted to find that his niece was in league with a notorious criminal, although apparently she is unaware of his character. The two of them escape justice; however, Holmes is convinced that they will receive their punishment in due time. Arthur's motive in allowing his father to think he was the thief was because he was in love with his cousin Mary and suspected she was in on the theft.

The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

Violet Hunter asks Holmes whether to accept a job as governess, with very strange conditions. She is enticed by the phenomenal salary which, as originally offered, is £100 a year, later increased to £120 when Miss Hunter balks at having to cut her long hair off, which is one of many peculiar provisos to which she must agree. The employer, Jephro Rucastle, seems pleasant enough, yet Miss Hunter obviously has her suspicions.

She announces to Holmes, after the raised salary offer, that she will take the job, and Holmes suggests that if he is needed, a telegram will bring him to Hampshire, where Mr Rucastle's country estate, the Copper Beeches, is situated.

In about a fortnight, Holmes receives such a message, beseeching him to come and see her in Winchester. Once Holmes and Watson arrive, Miss Hunter tells them one of the most singular stories that they have ever heard. Mr Rucastle would sometimes have Miss Hunter wear an electric blue dress and sit in the front room reading, with her back to the front window. She began to suspect that she was not supposed to see something outside the window, and a small mirror shard hidden in her handkerchief showed her that she was right: there was a man standing there on the road looking towards the house.

At another such session, Mr Rucastle told a series of funny stories that made Miss Hunter laugh until she was quite weary. The one astonishing thing about this was that Mrs Rucastle not only didn't laugh, but didn't even smile.

There were other unsavoury things about the household. The six-year-old child that she was supposed to look after was astonishingly cruel to small animals. The servants, Mr and Mrs Toller, were quite a sour pair. A great mastiff was kept on the property, and always kept hungry. It was let out to prowl the grounds at night and Miss Hunter was warned not to cross the threshold after dark. Also, Toller, who was quite often drunk, was the only one who had any influence over this brute.

There was also the odd discovery by Miss Hunter of her own tresses in a locked drawer. Upon checking her own luggage, however, they turned out to be another woman's, but identical in every way to Miss Hunter's, even to the unusual colour.

However, the most unsavoury thing of all about the household was the mystery wing. Miss Hunter had observed that there was a part of the house that did not seem to be used. The windows were either dirty or shuttered, and once she saw Mr Rucastle coming out of the door leading into the wing looking most perturbed. Later, he explained that he used the rooms for his photography hobby, but Miss Hunter was not convinced.

She sneaked into the wing one evening, and had a truly frightening experience there. She thought she saw someone. Running out of the room, she found herself right in Mr Rucastle's clutches. He seemed convinced that she had seen nothing of the prisoner in the forbidden wing. He also threatened to throw her to the mastiff if she ever went into the wing again.

It seems clear to Holmes that Miss Hunter has been hired to impersonate someone who looks very much like her, and he surmises quite reasonably that it is probably Mr Rucastle's daughter by his first marriage, Alice. The story has been that she moved to Philadelphia. Holmes further surmises that the man watching the house is likely Alice's lover, or perhaps even her fiancé. The purpose of hiring Miss Hunter seems clear: she is to convince the man watching from the road that Alice is no longer interested in seeing him. The mastiff attacking Rucastle.

Holmes, Watson and Miss Hunter find Miss Alice's room empty; Rucastle thinks the trio has helped his daughter escape and goes to fetch the mastiff. Unfortunately for Rucastle, the great dog has been accidentally starved for longer than usual and attacks Rucastle instead. Watson shoots the dog with his revolver. Later, Mrs Toller confirms Holmes theory about Rucastle's daughter and reveals that when Alice came of age she was to receive an annuity from her late mother's will; Rucastle tried to force his daughter to sign over control of the inheritance over to him which only resulted in Alice becoming ill with brain fever, hence, the cut hair. Rucastle then tried to keep Alice away from her fiancé by locking her up in the mystery wing and hiring Miss Hunter to unknowingly impersonate Alice.

Rucastle's daughter escapes with her fiancé, and they marry soon after. Watson notes, at the end of the story, that Holmes appears to have been drawn to Miss Hunter. However, to his disappointment, Holmes does not show any interest in Miss Hunter after the mystery has been solved, which was the real force behind his feelings. Rucastle becomes an invalid, kept solely alive by his second wife. Miss Hunter keeps a girls school.

References

Wikipedia The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes