Sherlock Holmes and the Engineer's Thumb 1 | Page 7

Amelia Russell
It was a sunny summer’s day on July the 17th. The sun shone through the old,
shattered windows of 221b Baker Street as my good friend Sherlock Holmes lay on
the raggy sofa with a pipe in hand. The walls of the house were falling apart like a
swarm of flies. Under my feet, I could see splatters of week old food and the ashes
of last nights pipe. The raggy old sofa Sherlock was resting on was well loved, just
like a pair of new shoes. All was calm until the door swung open and a panicked man
ran in with rosy red cheeks, a battered hat and… I thought I was imagining things but
Sherlock gave me a confused look so he must of seen it to. No thumb? How could
this be? I could tell that the missing thumb had a dark secret behind it…
The man (who’s name we were yet to know) began telling me and Sherlock about
what happened. He was an engineer who found life some what challenging. He was
poor or not very wealthy and was married to who he said was a magnificent women.
It was a warm day at work and the man said he began to get tired so began to close
his eyes. Bearing in mind he was probably also sweating, he said that his hand
slipped and he felt the worst pain he had ever experienced. He then said that he saw
his thumb pouring with blood and lying on the floor.
“What is your name sorry?”interrupted Sherlock.
“Oh sorry, it's Martin. Martin Guinness.’ replied the man.
Sherlock gave me a look of surprise and me and him were both thinking the same
thing.
“What is so special about your thumb that you have to interrupt my relaxation
time?!”said Sherlock angrily.
Martin carried on his story and told us that the thumb had gone missing but it had a
ring on it. The ring was worth a lot of money and was Martin’s prized possession so
to lose it, you could tell he was heartbroken.
“So it would be great if you solved this case Holmes.” he said politely.
“Oh, I’m sure I can solve this in no time. We can call it the adventure of the
engineer’s thumb!” yelled Sherlock in excitement.
“Fantastic!” replied Martin.
And with that the man without a thumb left out the door. As the door closed it began
scraping against the outside cobbles.
“So Sherlock where we going to start this one?” I asked to confused.
“The background. Friends, family. Everything. We need to know everything about
Martin Guinness's life.” Sherlock said informatively.