The Adventure of the Norwood Builder

A builder fakes his own murder to frame a young lawyer.

The Adventure of the Norwood Builder is a Sherlock Holmes short story by Arthur Conan Doyle, the second tale in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, first published in Collier's on 31 October 1903 and in The Strand Magazine in November 1903.

Quick Facts

Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
Series: The Return of Sherlock Holmes
Genre: Detective fiction short stories
Published in: Strand Magazine
Published: November 1903
Preceded by: The Adventure of the Empty House

Facts from the source article.

Background

John Hector McFarlane, a young lawyer from Blackheath, comes to Holmes and Watson accused of murdering his client, the builder Jonas Oldacre, who had just made him sole beneficiary of his will. The evidence is damning: McFarlane's bloodstained stick was found in Oldacre's study, and a pile of timber behind the house has burned to ashes smelling of burnt flesh.

Inspector Lestrade is sure he has his man, but Holmes goes to Blackheath, where he learns that McFarlane's mother was once engaged to Oldacre and broke it off over his cruel nature, and he finds large payments from Oldacre to a Mr Cornelius. When a bloody thumbprint matching McFarlane's turns up at the house, Holmes is sure it was not there during his earlier inspection.

Holmes starts a small, smoky fire in the upper hall and has the constables shout "Fire!", and Oldacre emerges alive from a hidden chamber whose existence Holmes had deduced by measuring the halls. Oldacre had staged his murder to take revenge on McFarlane's mother, and Mr Cornelius was an alias to evade his creditors.

Holmes tells Lestrade that the plot was nearly perfect until Oldacre planted the thumbprint, taken from a wax seal McFarlane had pressed: "He wished to improve what was already perfect, and so he ruined everything." Conan Doyle lived in South Norwood from 1891 to 1894 and knew the area well.