| "The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter" | |
|---|---|
| by Arthur Conan Doyle | |
| Released | 1904 |
| Series | The Return of Sherlock Holmes |
| Client(s) | Cyril Overton |
| Set in | 1896 according to William S. Baring-Gould |
"The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as The Return of Sherlock Holmes. It was originally published in Strand Magazine in 1904 with illustrations by Sidney Paget.
Contents |
Three Quarter is Godfrey Staunton, "crack" young Varsity International football player, crucial to an upcoming game against Oxford, heir to "one of the richest men in England", who vanishes in the company of an older worried "rough" man. His captain, Cyril Overton, telegrams (incoherently) then begs (also incoherently at first) Holmes to see their hotel.
When the porter reveals he brought a telegram, then Staunton wrote a reply in ink on the nearby table, Holmes reads the final line "Stand by us for God's sake" through the thin blotting paper. While leafing through the desk papers, Holmes checks that Staunton's health is good, yet wonders about "a secret trouble". A "shabby" little old man commands him not to pocket any of the papers, and refuses to pay a penny, until Holmes warns that his nephew may have been taken for ransom, when he offers "even a tenner".
At the nearby telegraph station, Holmes asks if he forgot to sign his telegram, giving the last line to reinforce his urgency, glimpses the destination, Cambridge, and sets off by train with Watson. Dr Leslie Armstrong, however, turns them away when shown his bill and asked of the telegram, thinking they help the despised uncle and not his "intimate friend".
While Watson arranges meals and rooms at nearby inn, Holmes tries the doctor's coachman and tailing him by bicycle, but returns dejected by nine. Next day starts with a note from Dr Armstrong requesting their departure, ends with Holmes again dejected after inquiries at all the villages and pubs on the coach's direction. An encouraging telegram from Overton replies where to get a tracking dog, Pompey.
Next morning, Watson is horrified by Holmes with a syringe, fearing cocaine. Holmes laughs, assures him that the dose was aniseed oil on the back coach wheel for the dog to follow. Armstrong reverses direction, so Holmes previous day's enquiries were all the opposite way. Spying a cottage, hearing a distressed wail, they rush in to find Staunton mourning a young beautiful blue-eyed blonde. When Armstrong rushes up, Holmes leads them from the couple, down to the parlor, and explains. Armstrong apologizes. He helped Staunton keep the marriage secret, protect his inheritance, care for the girl's "consumption of the most virulent kind", told the father-in-law, who "injudiciously" brought the boy "who could do no good here". Promising discretion, Holmes and Watson pass "from that house of grief into the pale sunlight of the winter day." (February 7-8 years ago)
Mr. Cyril Overton of Trinity College, Cambridge comes to Holmes seeking his help in Godfrey Staunton’s disappearance. Staunton is the key man on Overton’s rugby team, and they will never win the important match tomorrow against Oxford if Staunton cannot be found.
Holmes has to admit that sport is a bit outside his ken, but he takes this case as seriously as any other. It proves not at all elementary.
Staunton had seemed a bit pale and bothered earlier in the day, but late in the evening, according to a hotel porter, a rough-looking, bearded man came to the hotel with a note for Staunton which, judging from Staunton’s reaction, contained rather devastating news. He then left the hotel with the bearded stranger, and the two of them were seen running in the direction of the Strand at about half past ten. No-one has seen them since.
Overton has wired to Cambridge to find out if Staunton has been seen there — he has not. He has also wired Lord Mount-James, Staunton’s very wealthy and thoroughly miserly uncle and nearest living kin, but has heard no answer. Staunton is the almost-eighty-year-old Lord Mount-James’s heir, but he must meanwhile live in relative poverty owing to his uncle’s tightfistedness.
At the hotel, Holmes questions the porter. This bearded man who brought the note was neither a gentleman nor a workman, and he seemed to be bothered by something, too, for his hand was trembling as he handed Staunton the note. The only word that the porter overheard of their short conversation was “time”.
At six o’clock, the porter had brought Staunton a telegram, and he saw Staunton write a reply. Staunton told the porter that he would send it himself. Holmes looks at the telegraph forms in Staunton’s room, and then at the blotter, finally finding a clue. The impression on the blotter yields a part of the message that Staunton sent: “Stand by us for God’s sake”. Obviously at least one other person is involved (“us”), and there is some kind of danger. Other papers left in the room yield clues.
Lord Mount-James also briefly visits, and can give Holmes no useful information as to his nephew’s whereabouts. The old miser seems utterly aghast at the possibility that it might be a kidnapping whose object would be to extort his wealth.
Holmes and Dr. Watson then go to the telegraph office where Holmes uses a ruse to get the woman there to show him the counterfoil of the message that Staunton sent. It was addressed to Dr. Leslie Armstrong, an academic at Cambridge. They go to see him.
Dr. Armstrong tells Holmes that Staunton is an intimate friend of his. He does not react when told that Staunton has disappeared, and claims not to know where he is, and not to have seen him recently. He also says that Staunton is very healthy, but Holmes then produces one of Staunton’s papers, a thirteen-guinea bill from Dr. Armstrong. Furious, Armstrong refuses to answer any more questions, and denies that he had the telegram from Staunton. He then has his butler show Holmes and Watson out. They lodge at an inn just across the street from Armstrong’s, where they can watch him.
Holmes conducts some inquiries. A man in the yard before the inn tells Holmes that Armstrong, although not in actual medical practice, regularly rides in his brougham out into the country somewhere. The roundtrip seems to take about three hours. Holmes tries following the brougham on one of its outings, hiring a bicycle for the purpose. He is thwarted by Dr. Armstrong, who makes it quite clear that he is aware that Holmes is following him. He gives Holmes the slip.
The next day, Holmes’s inquiries in all the local villages come to naught — no-one has seen the doctor’s brougham passing through their village. Where could it be going?
The mystery is at last unlocked by Pompey, a beagle-foxhound cross by appearance, who tracks the doctor’s brougham to a cottage in the countryside after Holmes has squirted aniseed all over its hind wheel. What Holmes finds is not pleasant. Staunton is there, but is grieving over his young wife, who has just died of consumption. Her existence was kept secret, because Lord Mount-James would not have approved of the marriage and would have disowned his nephew. Dr. Armstrong had told the woman’s father about her condition, and he — the bearded stranger — had unwisely told Staunton, who felt compelled to rush off forthwith.
In the opening of this story, Watson claims that for years he "had gradually weaned [Holmes] from that drug mania which had threatened once to check his remarkable career."
This is the second story in which Holmes uses a scenthound to track someone. The other time it happens is in the novel The Sign of Four.
Works related to The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter at Wikisource
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