Showing results by narrator "David Ian Davies" in All Categories

"A coppertop steam engine has disappeared," explains a train-boiler inspector as he visits Sherlock Holmes at 221B, "and not by the whim of drunken youths." Something sinister is afoot, and Holmes learns as he takes on the mystery that criminals have designs upon using the locomotive for purposes never imagined by its designers.

Sherlock Holmes is at it again. Mrs. Warren, a London lodging-house keeper, comes to Holmes with a curious story of a reclusive and eccentric tenant. Mrs. Warren's husband has been abducted and then quickly released again, perhaps a case of mistaken identity. Holmes decides the case is more important than it appears.

The Adventure of the Three Garridebs: A perplexing mystery involving the search for three men with the surname of Garrideb in order to claim an eccentric American's $15 million estate.

Holmes and Watson push the limits of the law when they confront the machinations of a blackmailer whose victims either pay dearly or suffer life-destroying humiliation. Holmes is hired by the debutante Lady Eva Blackwell to retrieve compromising letters from a blackmail artist named Charles Augustus Milverton, a man who causes Holmes more revulsion than any of the 50-odd murderers in his career.

A man touring Mammoth Cave separates from his guide and becomes lost. His torch expires and he is giving up hope of finding a way out in the pitch dark, when he hears strange non-human footsteps approaching him. Thinking it to be a lost mountain lion or other such beast, he picks up a stone and throws it toward the source of the sound. The beast is hit and crumples to the floor. The guide finds the protagonist back, and together they examine the fallen creature with the guide's torchlight.

Aristide Valentin, the chief of the Paris police, arrives from Holland by boat at the English port of Harwich. He is pursuing an infamous thief and con man named Flambeau, to whom Parisian reporters attribute numerous mysterious and unsolved crimes committed in the French capital.

In this brief yet eloquent story, the writer recounts his trip from Europe to California visit to an old friend, during which he hears a tapping on the wall to an adjoining apartment. With regret, his friend tells the story of his coldhearted, selfish denial of his love for a young lady.

When an Englishwoman receives mysterious gifts of pearls and a letter promising to right wrongs done to her, she calls upon Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to investigate. This classic work of detective fiction is the second of Conan Doyle's books to feature Holmes and Watson.

Holmes must recover a highly inflammatory stolen document, which may result in a world war if its contents become known to certain parties. Then a murder further complicates the desperate situation.

A call comes for Holmes' assistance from Inspector Hopkins. The facts behind the murder of Sir Eustace Brackenstall during an invasion robbery seem simple enough, until a possible lie by his wife, and inconsistencies in the evidence, suggest her accounts of the crime may be disguising the truth for personal reasons.

A visitor to Wisteria Lodge awakens one morning to discover everyone else has vanished.

To avoid a scandal at a prestigious school, Holmes must determine how and by whom the answers to an extremely difficult Greek exam, which will result in the award of a scholarship, have been copied.

Holmes and Watson arrive at Trinity college, summoned by an message that Cambridge Varsity rugby star Godfrey Staunton has disappeared after reading a note that has left him utterly stunned.

A crime with no apparent motive, the murder of Willoughby Smith, invalid Professor Coram’s secretary, puzzles the great detective.

Young John McFarland is accused of the violent murder of a man who has just left all his worldly goods to the accused in his will. The evidence against the great detective’s client mounts and Holmes candidly admits to Watson that, perhaps, the case Lestrade is building is as sound as Holmes believes it is untrue.

While still grieving over his great friend's death, Watson is stunned, relieved and joyful when Holmes suddenly appears and reveals that he has escaped an untimely end in that fatal struggle with his mortal enemy, Moriarty, at Reichenbach Falls. The criminal underworld suspects this, says Holmes, and Watson is drawn anew into Holmes's plot to deceive his enemies and foil a probable attempt upon his life.

Hydraulic engineer Victor Hatherley arrives at 221-B in a state of hysteria, his thumb grossly amputated from his left hand. The Baker Street duo's foray into the case leads to characters and machinations even stranger and more threatening than the case's grotesque genesis.

A banker accepts a priceless British artifact as collateral for a loan and it is promptly stolen from his home's safe. Circumstances point to the banker's son, who bitterly denies taking it. Holmes allows his investigation to follow the trail of evidence, come what may.

Whose is the face at the upstairs window, "livid, deadly yellow, and with something set and rigid about it, which was shockingly unnatural?"

The groom loses his bride 10 minutes after the wedding and Holmes must find her.