The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb

The story, set in the summer of 1889, mainly consists of a young London consultant hydraulic engineer, Mr. Victor Hatherley, recounting strange happenings of the night before, first to Dr. Watson. Hatherley had been visited in his office by a man who identified himself as Colonel Lysander Stark. He offered Hatherley a commission at a country house, in Eyford, Berkshire to examine a hydraulic press used, as Stark explains, to compress fuller’s earth into bricks. Stark warned Hatherley to keep the job confidential, offering him 50 guineas (£52.50, equivalent to £6,173 in 2021[1]). Hatherley felt compelled to take this work, despite his misgivings, as his business was newly established and he had very little work.

The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor

The story entails the disappearance of Hatty, Lord St. Simon’s bride on the day of their marriage. She participates in the wedding, but disappears from the reception. The events of the wedding day are most perplexing to Lord St. Simon as it seemed to him that his bride, Miss Hatty Doran of San Francisco, was full of enthusiasm about their impending marriage. St. Simon tells Holmes that he noticed a change in the young lady’s mood just after the wedding ceremony. She was uncharacteristically sharp with him. The only thing out of the ordinary at the church where the wedding took place was Hatty’s little accident: she dropped her wedding bouquet and a gentleman in the front pew picked it up and handed it back to her.