The riddle of the Thor Bridge
The Thor Bridge Enigma is a case of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that appears in the collection of Sherlock Holmes' Book of Cases . The story was originally published in Strand Magazine and Hearst's International Magazine in 1922 .
Synopsis
Neil Gibson, the gold king and former senator in one of the western states of the USA, assigns Holmes to find the murderer of his wife Maria. He only wants that to relieve his children's governess , Grace Dunbar. Holmes forces Gibson to openly state his interest in Dunbar and his displeasure with his wife.
Maria Gibson was found in her own blood at the Thor Bridge with a bullet in her head and a message from the nanny in her hand. The message indicated Dunbar's consent to meet Mrs. Gibson at the Thor Bridge. A recently unloaded pistol with one shot fired is found in Dunbar's cloakroom . Holmes agrees to investigate the situation despite the fact that the evidence is so strong.
Right at the start, Holmes examines some rather strange facts about the case. How could Miss Dunbar have so calmly and rationally planned and carried out the murder and then carelessly disposed of the murder weapon in her dressing room? What about the strange damage to the underside of the stone balustrade of Thor Bridge? Why was Mrs. Gibson holding the note from Miss Dunbar so tightly when she died? If the murder weapon was one of two identical weapons, why couldn't the second be found in Mr. Gibson's collection?
Holmes uses his ordinary, yet brilliant, power of deduction to solve this case, and he even demonstrates the sequence of events using Watson's Webley revolver in an ingenious manner .
expenditure
- Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes Book of Cases (translation: Hans Wolf), Haffmans Zurich 1987, ISBN 3-251-201085
- same translation (new edition): No and But, 2005, ISBN 978-3-0369-5151-5
- Same translation (paperback): island paperback no.3321, 2007, ISBN 978-3-458-35021-7
- Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes Collected Works , Hardcover (Translator: Adolf Gleiner, Margarete Jacobi, Louis Ottmann, Rudolf Lautenbach), Anaconda-Verlag 2012, ISBN 978-3866478503
- Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes and the riddle of the Thor Bridge , audio book, reader Christoph Jablonka, audio archive, 2006
- Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes 39 - The Thor Bridge , audio book, speakers Christian Rode, Peter Gröger u. a., maritim, 2009, ISBN 978-3867141956
filming
The short story was implemented in 1991 as the 2nd episode of the 5th season ( Sherlock Holmes' Book of Cases ) of the television series Sherlock Holmes with Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes under the title The Problem of the Thor Bridge .
Pastiches
In the story, Watson mentions several unresolved cases of Holmes whose records are in a safe deposit box at the Cox Bank. Such references, which were repeatedly interspersed, are also one of the reasons for the numerous pastiches by other authors. The pastiche related to the history of the Thor Bridge is the story The Problem of the Sore Bridge - Among Others by Philip José Farmer (German title: The Problem of the Sore Bridge - among others ). It can be found in the science fiction collection "With Sherlock Holmes through space and time (Part 1)", edited by Isaak Asimov, and is included here under the list of Sherlock Holmes pastiches . In this story, the master thief AJ Raffles and his companion Bunny Manders discover unusual star sapphires a few months after the events described in the novel "Raffles as Judge" , which are sold by a mysterious man named James Phillimore . This turns out to be an extraterrestrial shape shifter, the star sapphires as the eggs of the species, whose first victim is the mad journalist Isadora Persano , also described by Sherlock Holmes . On the run with the cutter Alicia, who has disappeared (according to Dr. Watson, 3rd unsolved case), a showdown takes place, with which AJ Raffles and Bunny Manders manage to save all of humanity from ruin and the Sherlock, who is also on their heels Always one step ahead of Holmes and Inspector Mackenzie.