The Adventure of the Engineers Thumb
A hydraulic engineer recounts the nightmarish job that cost him his thumb, and Holmes pieces together a counterfeiting operation hidden in the countryside.
One of only two cases Watson brings to Holmes rather than the other way round, and the most nightmarish in tone. A young hydraulic engineer sits in a consulting room with his hand bandaged and describes a night that reads like a bad dream: a silent house, a German colonel, a machine closing on him, and a woman whispering at him to run. The story is his account almost end to end, so the recording lives or dies on whether Victor Hatherley sounds like a man who has just survived something rather than a witness reciting.
The voices that carry it
Colonel Lysander Stark is cast quiet and precise. He barely raises his voice in the whole story, which is why the moment the press starts moving is as bad as it is.
Chapter one plays without an account. Start listening to The Adventure of the Engineers Thumb.
Voice cast
6 characters plus the narrator, each with their own voice. All the voices of The Adventure of the Engineers Thumb.
- Sherlock Holmes — The world's only consulting detective. Razor-sharp analytical mind, cold precision, theatrical wit.
- Dr. Watson — Holmes's loyal friend and biographer. A former army surgeon, warm, practical, earnest.
- Inspector Lestrade — Scotland Yard inspector. Competent but conventional, treats Holmes with mixed scepticism.
- Victor Hatherley — A young hydraulic engineer who arrives with his thumb severed in The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb. Earnest, traumatised, and grateful.
- Colonel Lysander Stark — The cold, German-accented villain of The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb. Thin, intense, and ruthless. Lures Hatherley to a remote house under false pretences.
- Elise — A frightened German woman in The Engineer's Thumb who risks her life to warn Hatherley to flee. Brief but pivotal role.
Chapters
- Chapter IX: The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb
About this recording
Is The Engineer's Thumb frightening?
It is the closest the Holmes stories come to horror. There is no gore beyond the injury in the title, but the long middle section — a trapped man in a house of strangers — is genuinely tense.
Does Holmes solve it?
He works out where the house was and what was happening there, but the culprits escape. Like The Five Orange Pips, it is a case where the detection is sound and the outcome is not a victory.