The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
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| "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" | |
|---|---|
| by Arthur Conan Doyle | |
| Released | 1892 |
| Series | The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes |
| Client(s) | None |
| Set in | December, Year unknown |
| Villain(s) | James Ryder |
"The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle", one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is the seventh story of twelve in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The story was first published in Strand Magazine in January 1892.
[edit] Synopsis
The plot revolves around a precious blue carbuncle (a garnet which can come in a variety of colours but never blue) 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 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.
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 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 gets rather angry at Holmes, complaining about all the people who have pestered him about geese lately. 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 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. James 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.
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