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The Adventure of the Three Garridebs
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
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The Complete Sherlock Holmes - The Adventure of the Three Garridebs
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The Adventure of the Three Garriders (The Case-book of Sherlock Holmes)
Discussion Questions
1) What do you find most intriguing about the story? Why does it stand out among other Sherlock Holmes stories?
2) How does the story's focus on identity and deception contribute to its overall narrative?
3) What role does observation play in solving the mystery, and how does it highlight Sherlock Holmes's unique abilities?
Another story which I enjoyed. Although I shouldn’t, I laughed at the nickname ‘Killer Evans’ and wondered who else besides Sherlock and the police ever used it. We have see the ‘get someone out of the way’ rountine a number of times, but this was a novel way to do it. And yet so easy. Find someone with an unusual name who is gullible enough and wants loads of money. Sad to say that so many people are still being conned in similar ways today due to society’s overwhelming materialism.
https://gazetteer.sherlock-holmes.org...
Well, I am enjoying the Case-Book much more than the previous two collections, for the moment at least.This story isn't the most original, though I did like the odd name twist.
The real feature of interest here is probably the crescendo of affection of the Holmes-Watson relationship, when Watson is shot in the leg:
It was worth a wound—it was worth many wounds—to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation. “It’s nothing, Holmes. It’s a mere scratch.”
The affection of this relationship is what keeps these stories read, all these years later, but it is seldom explicitly stated, and nowhere like this (from recollection, the only bits that come close are Holmes apologizing for hurting Watson's feeling in Hound of the Baskervilles and Watson saving Holmes from the Devil's Foot root.
It also strikes me how alien the idea of "years of humble but single-minded service" is in the world of today.
The Adventure of the Three Garriders (The Case-book of Sherlock Holmes)
Availability The Case-book of Sherlock Holmes: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69700
Background Information
"The Adventure of the Three Garridebs" is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. One of the 12 stories in the cycle collected as The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, it was first published in Collier's in the United States on October 25, 1924, and in The Strand Magazine in the United Kingdom in January 1925.
According to Dr. Watson's opening narration, this story is set at "the latter end of June, 1902 ... the same month that Holmes refused a knighthood for services which may perhaps someday be described." This is a parallel to the knighthood of Arthur Conan Doyle around the same time.
Publication History
"The Adventure of the Three Garridebs" was published in the US in Collier's on October 25, 1924, and in the UK in The Strand Magazine in January 1925. The story was published with three illustrations by John Richard Flanagan in Collier's, and with five illustrations by Howard K. Elcock in the Strand. It was included in the short story collection The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, which was published in the UK and the US in June 1927.
As noted by Wilma Morgan:
"The Three Garridebs" takes up many plot elements used in the much earlier story 'The Red-Headed League.' Both stories feature a rather naive, sedentary, middle-aged bachelor who happens to sit on a location of great interest to cunning criminals. And in both stories, a very elaborate hoax is cooked up, involving a fake bequest by a fictional rich American, in order to make the bachelor go away and leave the criminals a clear field—which would have worked fine but for Sherlock Holmes seeing through the hoax. One difference between the two stories—and I am not sure that it is an improvement—is that in the second case, unlike the first, the innocent bachelor is deeply hurt and damaged by the hoax worked on him."
A Short Review
"The Adventure of the Three Garridebs" is a Sherlock Holmes short story where a seemingly innocent situation involving a potential inheritance leads Holmes and Watson into a complex web of deception. The story, first published in 1924, is one of the later adventures of the detective, yet it retains the classic Holmesian elements of sharp deduction and unraveling complex plots.