Stephen Thorne
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"A Scandal in Bohemia" is the first short story, third overall work featuring Doyle's fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. Dr. Watson recounts that a masked visitor to Baker Street is quickly deduced to be the hereditary King of Bohemia. The King is to become engaged to a young Scandinavian princess. However, five years before, he had a liaison with American opera singer, Irene Adler. Fearful that the marriage would be called off, he had sought to...
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It has been three years since Sherlock Holmes fell to his death after a showdown with his brilliant enemy Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls. Believing his friend to be dead, Doctor John Watson has moved on with his life. That is, until he discovers Sherlock Holmes alive and in disguise one afternoon in a London shop. A whole new series of adventures awaits Holmes and Watson, and the consulting detective must use the science of deduction to solve new mysteries,...
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"The Red-Headed League" is the second of the twelve stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which was published in 1892. In it, Jabez Wilson, a flame-haired London pawnbroker, comes to consult Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. Some weeks before, Wilson responded to a newspaper want-ad offering highly-paid work to only red-headed male applicants. Wilson is hired on the basis of the precise hue of his hair color and performs menial work at a...
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In "The Adventure of Black Peter", a ship captain is found dead, stabbed through with a harpoon. Police inspector Stanley Hopkins, who is being mentored by Sherlock Holmes brings the case to Holmes and Dr. Watson. An abusive man, the captain had many enemies, widening the suspect list. The investigation finds Holmes & company on a stakeout, on a case that involves a chance meetings on the high seas, and stolen securities.
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In "The Adventure of the Three Students", Holmes and Watson, on a research trip in a university town, are approached by a professor. The professor believes someone has entered his office and seen, and perhaps copied, the examination papers he is to administer the next day. Holmes begins by narrowing down the suspects to three students who live nearby. After studying several innocuous pieces of evidence, he believes he has identified the culprit. All...
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In "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons", someone is destroying small busts of Napoleon Bonaparte. At first merely a nuisance, vandalism quickly turns to murder after one of the statue owners finds a dead man on his doorstep beside a smashed statue. Reasoning his way back to the source of the statues, Holmes determines that there is more to this case than just antipathy towards the great French leader. Can Holmes and Watson solve the mystery before...
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In "The Adventure of the Second Stain", Watson and Holmes are engaged by the Prime Minister and the European Secretary to help recover a sensitive stolen political document. Tracking the document to a recently murdered spy, Holmes realizes that the European Secretary's wife actually has the letter. The questions immediately pile up in this tale of international intrigue, blackmail and double-dealing.
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In "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches", Violet Hunter asks Holmes, whether she should accept a job with very strange conditions. She has been offered £120 per year as a governess, but only if she will cut her long hair short. This is only one of many peculiar conditions to which she must agree. The employer, Jephro Rucastle, seems pleasant enough, yet Miss Hunter obviously has her suspicions. After a fortnight, Miss Hunter beseeches Holmes to come...
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In "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder", a young lawyer asks Holmes to clear him of the charge murdering a rich man soon after preparing the man's will. Inspector Lestrade is convinced of the young attorney's guilt and believes he has finally bested Holmes, but by the use of forensic science and a bogus house fire, Holmes is able to exonerate the young lawyer while proving he was set-up.
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In "The Five Orange Pips", a young Sussex gentleman named John Openshaw tells the strange story of his uncle Elias Openshaw, who came back to England after living in the United States as a planter in Florida and serving as a colonel in the Confederate Army. His uncle begins receiving threatening letters inscribed "KKK" and including five orange pips. He is killed shortly thereafter. The job of unraveling this sordid transatlantic mystery falls to...
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In "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor", Miss Hatty Doran, after several strange episodes on the day of her marriage to Lord St. Simon, disappears from the reception. St. Simon tells Holmes that he noticed a change in the young lady's mood just after the wedding ceremony, having been uncharacteristically sharp with him. Also unusual: she dropped her wedding bouquet and a gentleman in the front pew handed it back to her. For Holmes, it proves rather...
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"The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb", is the ninth of the twelve stories collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. A young London engineer, contracted to service a hydraulic press at a country house, discovers that the owner is using the machine for illegal purposes. After confronting the owner, the engineer narrowly escapes death and loses a thumb when the owner turns on him. Holmes deduces the actual use of the machine and sets off to bring...
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In "The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez", a young man working as the assistant to a Professor has been murdered. While it appears that anyone could have entered the house and committed the murder, a clue in the form of a pair of gold glasses is found near the body. Working on the assumption that the killer wore the glasses as well as several other clues, Holmes comes to the chilling realization that the murderer is still in the house.
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In "The Adventure of the Abbey Grange", Holmes and Watson are asked to assist on a home invasion and murder case. A woman reports that a gang of men broke into her home, killed her husband, tied her up, and stole the family silver. Though it seems like a clear-cut case of robbery gone wrong, Holmes's gut tells him otherwise. But what motive lies behind this erstwhile victim's story?
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In "The Adventure of the Empty House", Sherlock Holmes reappears in London after a 3-year absence, shocking Dr. Watson who believed his good friend had been killed in a confrontation with Professor Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls. Holmes is compelled to outwit the "second most dangerous man in London" who has a good reason to hope for Holmes' demise. From the 1905 collection "The Return of Sherlock Holmes".
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In "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton", Holmes is hired by a lady who is being harassed by Milverton, a notorious blackmailer who has ruined many people and caused many more grief. Though he is determined to stop him, Milverton is very crafty and Holmes is unable to find the evidence necessary to put him away. Finally, Holmes and Watson decide on a daring plan to retrieve their client's incriminating letters. While there, they witness a...
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"In ""The Adventure of the Speckled Band"", Sherlock Holmes and Watson come to the aid of Helen Stoner, who has reason to fear her life is being threatened by her abusive stepfather, Dr. Grimesby Roylott. Her sister, who died two years before, spoke of a "speckled band" right before she died in mysterious circumstances. To solve the mystery of the "speckled band", Holmes and Watson stake out Miss Stoner's room and make a momentous discovery. The eighth...
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In "The Adventure of the Dancing Men", a Norfolk country squire from a reputable family hires Holmes to help him learn who has been sending him weird encoded messages, in the form of dancing stick figures, that are disturbing his wife. Upon collecting enough of the messages Holmes cracks the code. He returns to Norfolk to present his findings only to find that his client has met with tragedy. Using forensic science and his inimitable powers of deduction,...
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In "The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist", a young woman explains to Holmes that an unknown man has been following her by bicycle on her weekly trips from the house where she works to the railroad station. Having met two friends of her recently-deceased uncle, one of the men, Carruthers, hires her as a governess and later proposes to her. The young woman being already engaged, declines. The other man, Woodley, disturbs her with rude behavior and...
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In "The Adventure of the Priory School", the distraught head of an elite boarding school hires Holmes and Watson to investigate the sensitive disappearance of the young heir of a local nobleman. Searching the fields surrounding the school they make a grisly discovery-the dead body of one of the boy's teachers. Sensing the growing danger to the young boy and suspecting the interference of the Duke's secretary, Holmes and Watson question the Duke himself,...